Crying for Mom Part 2: Summer (second Iteration thanks to a technical glitch on a good Sunday morning)
Five years pass and there are losses and gains. In my case, from the Spring of 1990 to the Summer of 1995, mostly gains that I can think of. Five years had gone by since those halcyon days of Mulchen as a young foreigner in a friendly land; I had become a bit older and hopefully wiser. Of course with every gain and advance there are factors that cause some heartache or regret, but this is part of how we grow and become wiser. Life is full of lessons, some of which can seem painful. Looking back now in 2016, I am not sure how much wiser I was. Perhaps merely writing this post will create a bit more wisdom. Perhaps I can glean a bit more understanding of the nature of life, and perhaps a distant lector may do the same.
We are supposed to become wiser with age, yes? And in our life goals, somehow grow closer to the Divine, the font of all wisdom. And stay in touch with mom. I did, I think, and time marched on with some distances involved.
I had become more academically accomplished by 1995, in the ways of the world, making it to my last summer term in order to graduate from Brigham Young University in pretty good time and fashion. In those five years I had successfully completed my two year mission in Chile, which if I really think about was not as easy as some people might think. One major hurdle in my mission was contracting a mystery illness that set me back most of a month, and it was somewhat painful before I was able to escape its clutches. Illnesses and diseases are a bit like real life monsters, and whether you know the source of the infirmity or not they can be quite scary. My poor mother was wondering what it was that had laid me out in the hospital for two weeks, adding up to many days of fever and chills, some days of little or no eating; as the doctors had little clue we were all left in the dark. I survived, thanks to all that is merciful, the grace of God. The last 14 months of my mission thereafter, while there were stresses and challenges posed, were blissfully sickness free. My mom, on the other hand, probably suffered in few ways that I thought about, because she would experience depressive periods since her middle ages, starting when I was a teenager. She had one while I was away in Chile; this pattern followed her more or less every five years for the rest of her life. This affected me somewhat, as much as a son can feel for her while going on about his own affairs. Perhaps times of darkness such as those made me think of my mother in even a nobler way: she suffered in a way that was hard to describe or explain, much as martyrs of all times have done. Why the pain and sacrifice, and for what?
After returning from Chile at the end of 1991 I was able to re-adjust to my Indiana home, which had changed in houses but reconnecting with my four parents was really nice, as well as re-connecting to life and social circles in the United States. I transferred to Brigham Young University in Provo in 1993, did a return to Chile in 1994 for a semester, and then qualified to travel to the Middle East in the summer of '95 as I was graduating with a Spanish degree. I had been able to take enough classes to leave Brigham Young with a Bachelors of Arts.
Like millions of today's generations, I had my equivalent of the Diploma of yesteryear. In my last weeks of acquiring that degree, I had the distinct privilege of being accepted to the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies in Israel/Palestine Summer Term, which covered about nine weeks in the Holy Land, with two side trips to Egypt. I also had spent two years learning Arabic in college, accompanied by living in a campus Arabic language house where I lived with Palestinians and would attend Friday prayers, learning more of their culture, religion, food, and thoughts.
Going to the Middle East was a powerful and enlightening experience in many ways. There were a few times when my emotions caught up with me; this summer of ending my undergrad degree, I will recount what I consider one particular sacred place and moment that occurred. In some ways like in Mulchen, Chile, of five years prior, the spirit of mother came back to me perhaps as strong as ever.
[This is where the Sunday morning 31 July 2016 writings got zapped: I thought I saved it but the computer had other ideas. I still have a lot of it bouncing around my head, hopefully.]
Going to Jerusalem and the Holy Lands for me as a soon-to-be 25 year-old was a supreme honor and joy. Much of my life had been dedicated to the principles and movements revealed and derived from these holiest of places of Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Religiously and socially, this was a dream come true. On the historical and political, or secular side, I was also very intrigued and fascinated with what the world of the 1990s had become. Israel had been attacked while US troops bombed Iraq; the Lebanese Civil War had mercifully ended after 15 years, images of Beirut and destruction mutually ubiquitous on the nightly news. The intifada of the late 80s had made its impact, the Oslo Accords of 1993 were being moved forward, Yitzak Rabin, an Israeli Prime Minister of determined peace process was still months from being shockingly assassinated, the world seemed to be progressing towards goodness, despite the atrocities of Rwanda and Bosnia in other nearby continents.
I was part of a "temple going people", which means decisions and actions on a daily and weekly and yearly basis are based on principles and doctrines of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, holy scriptures that bring a power to bear that guides us away from God or graciously closer to His throne, or at least very nearby in spirit. That is how we become worthy of entering the holy temple. It is not a simple entrance to any abode: it requires faith and sacrifice. We had learned and practiced the songs and prayers of the Lord since we were 2, 3, 4 years-old. I had attended Sabbath day services faithfully with my family for my entire life and had kept it up as an adult, attending early morning scripture seminary, going on my mission, frequenting temples where and when we could, putting the Lord first in so many situations, that influence choices of movies, entertainment, social engagements, and friends.
To go to the Holy Land was like arriving at a huge temple, a sacred monument, like a mountain, or holy river, set apart that only chosen witnesses could observe. None of my family had been there; I am pretty sure that none of my known ancestors had ever made it to this heralded place. I was the family pioneer making a trek to the place of our dreams and teachings, the aspirations of the millennia. We small number of Clinches were the only Latter-day Saints among all our aunts, uncles, and cousins. Perhaps this goal of seeing such holy places somehow meant more to me than most? I think so, without trying to judge unfairly or be too self-aggrandizing. I felt like much of my soul and trajectory, sweat and tears, were meant to go to the holy locations of where our classes would soak in.
Some people spend their entire lives so that they may reach the holy mount of Tai Shan in China, or maybe Mount Fuji in Japan; other millions (or now billions) seek the River Ganges in India. Much of the monotheistic world has aspired to traverse the lands between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, the Biblical land of "milk and honey", paying homage to the holy lands recounted in the Bible, to be a pilgrim of the source of Books. Could answers be found there? Could anything be discovered among all the thousands of years of records and human travails? Did God, the ancient Jehovah, still lead His people and was He still to be found, felt, and learned of?
The BYU Center for Near Eastern Studies had a very well programmed and executed tour of Israel, Egpyt, and parts of Palestine. Depending on the shorter summer term or the lengthier fall and winter semesters, we would visit many choice sites of Biblical and historical significance. Our teachers were excellently versed in the scriptures, both Old and New Testaments; we also had academic powerhouse professors that knew the human history of this small strip of earth between continents, the impact of which was felt for unknown generations. 2,000 BC was conceivable in areas as much as the year before (1994). For example, ascending Mount Sinai, or the mountain popularly as known as the place of the Law, was a humbling experience for me.
For others, (again, not to be too high and mighty), a place like the zenith of Mount Sinai seemed to be a nice picturesque place to have a walk in the desert, surrounded by the barren environs of this vast peninsula. I noted that many people, who appeared to be Europeans, were dressed casually in short-shorts and perhaps less than modest dress, perhaps it was like visiting a notable locale like the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben in London for them, while for me here we were in the place where Moses was commanded to remove his shoes, the holy ground where the Bush burnt and the Lord God spoke to him, delivering up the Law of the Divine, a code that still made life fundamentally what it was to me and millions of devotees thousands of years later: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me!", For LDS, this Law given included influence on all sorts of aspects of life, that would be considered fine or considerably optional for most modern day Christians and Jews, not to mention many Muslims. But us Mormons? We were different, we were peculiar by choice. And the guilt of a life at times coming short of the mark had me look introspectively at my strengths and weaknesses as I pushed up this rock. Climbing Mount Sinai in a spiritual sense was like ascending a height beyond Mount Everest, farther than the moon, even approaching the immensely intense sun. We watched the gaseous orb rise above the horizon on that memorable morning. I could only pray that I really belonged, that I was really worthy of such presence. To be near ... God's chosen places. This was one of many preludes of what was to come, what moved me in emotions and time and space in psychological redress. Hebron, Gibeah, Bethany, Jericho, so many places that evoked the memories and dreams of my youth. We sang and prayed and were regaled in the telling of Bible stories, from Noah to Abraham, Joseph and Daniel, Jesus and Paul ... and Mary.
After visiting so many world famous spots, sometimes the next one can almost become cliche or banal. There was so much to squeeze in to our minds and hearts! We also were taking college credits, some of which for me were my final credits to affect my GPA. While our class program schedule was tightly packed, during regular class days we were given afternoons to explore the city of Jerusalem, to self-direct on our ways to the ancient streets, valleys, tombs, ruins, and museums, as well as synagogues, churches, and mosques that filled this incredible confluence of history and humanity. We would go through an Ethiopian Church at the gate of the Old City and find ourselves in the watery underground cave system of magnificent acoustics; there a small group of us would harmonize to powerful church hymns that we knew from our collective past; thousands of hours past prayer and fervor in our respective home wards.
We finally made it to Bethlehem, a Palestinian town outside of Jerusalem in an easy bus ride from the east side, also Palestinian, from Mount Scopus- our new home. We surrounded the well renowned town in the rocky pastures outside, sitting apart from each other to contemplate the scene some two thousand years prior; while shepherds watched their flocks by night. The site where Jesus was allegedly born was on a rather normal modern street, albeit Middle Eastern, dominated by the large cathedral church that rested upon the key grotto or stable of Matthew and Luke. Perhaps more than one faith owned this sanctuary; the vaulted ceilings rose above us as we entered and passed old, dark pews of the faithful. Sunlight invaded parts of the surroundings illuminating large pillars that sustained such a massive edifice. But the real destined location was below, in the basement. We took the steps down to the smooth marble floors, lined with velvet rope railings that led to the place, demarcated by a silver star engraved in the stone on the floor. There were relics and statues and candles and incense about on side walls, for that is what ancient Christianity is about, many symbols that trace back hard to count centuries, smoke and smells that linger in the nostrils. Evoking feeling and emotion in the faithful. Not so much in me, this was foreign to my sense of the holy.
We then went to a place that was unexpected but incredibly significant to me, somewhat surprisingly. There in the basement of this massive church, we sat in the side room of Saint Jerome, where we reviewed where he, a few centuries, hundreds of years after Christ he was able to translate the ancient languages of the scriptures, from Greek and Hebrew to the more modern midieval Latin Vulgate, thus bridging the scriptures and opening up their knowledge to the current and future masses, in effect, to me where I quietly sat today. With my annotated, foot-note replete scriptures in the King James English, a set I had had for four years of seminary in high school, a two year mission, and 4 years of college, including the 18 religious credits I had by then accrued.
The holiest place of the Bible! The room mere walking distance from the birth of the One, the Great Messiah of the Old and New Testaments! I believe we sang a hymn, familiar and appropriate for the time and place. The Bible, the Bible, we had a Bible! Jesus was a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothing, and Mary and Joseph were here ...
And here it hit me: my mother should be here. After all her sacrifice, all her giving to me and others, all her devotions and penances across the decades. I was here and she was back in the United States, as well as the rest of my family, in Indiana, New York, and Florida. Of all of them, my mom deserved to be there, among the holiness and the reverence and the sweet unspeakable Holy Spirit of such a place!
Mom, I am here and you could be here with me in Spirit.
I wept. It was good. It was sweet, it was cathartic. It connected me back to nights watching African slides on a bed sheet in the kitchen, wintry days of warm water swimming at the neighborhood pool, being dunked underneath as my mom assured me I would live rather than perish, memories of prayer with my mother at my bedside. My mom, the one who wrote to me every week of my two year mission when I was maybe able to muster one every three weeks.
Mom. The place of Mary, sacred Virgin. A holy secret chamber in its own universe, the center of the world, entombed in the ground, steeled away from the clamber and noise of the outside world, suicide bombings and religious zealots, the poor and the hungry, where the Word of God came alight to unborn millions.
Saint Jerome is one of many, and somehow I came here.
Mom, I wish I could bring you here. You are here. God is here. How blessed am I? Do I deserve this? My heart continues beating, my cheeks are moistened-- Christ saved my heart and soul from my mind, our wicked selfish thoughts, saved us from ourselves. Cradled us, me, like a mother to his breast. He loved John, He loved His father, He loved His mother, He loved all of us, He loved me.
The Word made flesh, He gave it to His apostles, they passed it on to saints and martyrs. We all count as one. The One has made us one. Out of many, one. The Buddhists seek peace in it, too.
Somehow all came together in crystal clear unity to my blurry vision that morning; the spirit of my mom was present across seas and oceans, rivers and valleys. Jesus needed her, I needed her, we all needed her.
We need mom. Mom is love. God is love.
I am warm and at peace. I will emerge into the bright burning light of the Israeli-Palestinian sun. I will go beyond to other lands and tongues, other currencies and tastes, music and celebrations.
I am reborn in the water and the Spirit.
God gave me all, and I accept it.
I thank so many for making this world possible. From the womb to the grave, my tears of joy and amazement breach the unfathomable depths, interminable recesses of unending love. I found it there, connected to you. I don't understand the full impact of the cosmos, I simply try to bask in its glory, thanks to all the senses. Thanks to loving parents, goodly parents.
I smile and rejoice eternally. "Behold, thy mother!" ... It is done.
