A Letter from the Highlands, Late March 2001
by Anne Perry
What an incredible month for weather – dazzling sun most of the time, with intermittent snow. Today is Mother’s Day here and I am sitting in my study – my mother with me while I write – and some really great Verdi opera on the player – ‘Simon Boccanegra’. What sublime voices. The room is full of sunlight from windows on three sides. We have just been for a drive because the day is too glorious to stay inside. In spite of being after March 21st, it isn’t really spring. We have had bitter winds, feeling as if they came straight off the snow which is still glittering white on the far mountains of Sutherland to the north, and Wester Ross inland to the heart of Scotland and the west coast beyond.
But the garden is full of crocuses and snowdrops and the sea is sapphire blue. It would be possible to look out and think all is well – but tragically our country is ravaged by foot and mouth disease, and as of today there is no end in sight. I can’t think why no one has called for a national day of prayer – or even many days. But of course there is no point in praying for what you will not work for.
I wonder if Book of Mormon lands were as heartbreakingly beautiful, and as filled with a people who would not turn to God in their affliction, not only with their mouths, but with their hearts also.
What is it that stops us? Are we too proud to admit we cannot solve our own problems? Are we afraid other people will laugh at us? Or have we simply forgotten that God is there?
There are times when it is an national failing, but how often is it also a personal one? We should pray often, over all manner of things, honestly, not in long-winded language as if to a public meeting, but simply, letting our Father in Heaven know what troubles us, what we are grateful for, acknowledging His hand in all things, those that bring us happiness and those that are our daily bread, and those which hurt and confuse, or which frighten.
And then, of course, listen to the answers – perhaps straight away, perhaps slowly for weeks, or even years. I need to remind myself it all comes back to faith, in the end to trust.
Two Sundays ago one of our young missionary sisters gave a talk in which she began with the question which lies at the heart of it all – ‘What price are you prepared to pay to know God? Not just know of Him – but know Him?”
The answer should be ‘Everything’. That is what I want to say instantly. But I know that the honest answer is too often, ‘Everything – except . . . . . the time and energy to study, the will to drive forward when I am exhausted or discouraged, the faith to keep going when I can see only darkness, the humility to admit when I have made a mistake, to apologise and undo all I can, the compassion to forgive when I feel hurt, belittled or offended, the courage of spirit to accept truths I may not like, especially about myself, those I love, the world in general, or even that those I don’t particularly like may actually have been right when I was wrong. Those are the sort of things it is going to cost.
There are lines of hymns that are sublime, that comfort and uplift, inspire and enlighten. There are some that infuriate me, and I want to find whoever wrote them and argue the point until they admit that I am right! One is ‘Do you envy others with their lands and gold?’ Of course wealth and prosperity are nice things to have. Who was it who said ‘I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor – and rich is better’?
But the things that are really sweet in life, and even which we may have to give up, or forfeit having altogether, our friends and family who are close and dear, good health, sight, hearing, energy of mind and heart, a task in life which is rewarding and which you believe the Lord would have you do, the respect and regard of those around you, safety from persecution, war, injustice, and endemic disease. To have sufficient to eat to maintain your strength, not to be cold, lost and homeless, or a fugitive. These things are true wealth. But how many people have sacrificed the really precious things, rather than give up their faith and deny the Lord? Could I?
To whom much is given – much is required.
When I count up how much I have been given as I sit here in the March sun with the icy wind outside, and look at all the glory around me, I want the world, in one form or another, to last forever. And I want to last with it!
As with everyone – it is up to me! Can a greater gift be given than that? My choice!
Another note taken during the month is that from a Sunday School class discussing Adam’s decision to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and take mortality. (I was very restrained in not interrupting the class to point out that it was actually Eve!!). The point was put so well in a way I have not heard precisely before – that too much was at stake to introduce man into mortality by force. It all comes back to agency again. It really is at the core of everything.
God cannot perform miracles UNLESS we have the faith. He cannot give us the blessings that are there for us unless we ask Him, obey Him, and then acknowledge Him. Why do we so often find that too difficult?
I think it is partly a matter of time. We have far too little understanding of eternity. I, more than most, keep getting caught up in the fear of time passing too quickly and leaving me behind. I want everything soon – and it seems as if I wait for ever. A young sister pointed out the other day how the Lord tutored Joseph Smith for more than seven years before he was ready for the work of translation. How long did he tutor Moses? He was eighty when he led the children of Israel out of Egypt.
How long will the world need to be taught before it is ready for the Lord’s plans?
I also noted down: Repent, do your best from now on – the past is gone and cannot be changed, it can only be learned from. Don’t drag it with you to corrupt the present. Live for now and treasure it. Do your best – faith – faith – faith – and the future is yours.
One of the other speakers told us about fleas in a jar. He was shown an experiment where a large number of fleas were placed in a glass jar and a lid put on firmly. If you hold the jar up to your ear you can hear them banging against the lid. Then after a while they stop. They have learned the height of it!
Then you can take the lid off and they won’t jump out – they are limited by the place where the lid used to be. It is now an imaginary boundary, but it still imprisons them. How many imaginary boundaries imprison our vision, our will, our dreams? Jump as high as you can! A few thumps on the head will only bruise, better than staying on the ground when you could have gone to the stars.
It is coming up to Easter, the time in all the year when we should be most filled with gratitude. On a glorious day like today when the world is surpassingly beautiful, I want to live for ever. There could perhaps be a day when I have had enough of this – when I feel well and have faith that ultimately the Lord will bring all the threads together and the picture will be perfect. Before the first Easter morning that could not have happened. There was an end to everything, an end to patience, to hope, to the very light of the sky.
Now because of it, life eternal awaits us, any darkness is temporary, pain is temporary, loneliness, grief, guilt can be done away in repentance, it is not too late to go back and change, rebuild, do better. Because of the Atonement there is life in everlasting abundance.
One of the best sermons I ever heard was given in the Church of St. Martin in the Fields, in Trafalgar Square, London, long before I heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I have never forgotten the burden of it.
Picture the crowds on Palm Sunday shouting ‘Hosanna!’ and waving palm fronds in the air, strewing the ground before Jesus’ feet as He rode into Jerusalem. Everyone wanted to welcome him, to be there and part of the rejoicing.
One week later we all want to be there at the Resurrection to welcome the joy of the victory, light over darkness, life over death, hope and love and laughter over despair.
Now picture Gethsemane, and the agony of all the world, of every creature who ever lived on this earth, and who knows what others beyond? And think then of Good Friday, the trial, the scourging, the walk to Golgotha, the crucifixion.
And remember that there is no way in the universe that you can pass from Sunday to Sunday – without going through Friday. It could not be.
We were all there on the first Sunday of the pre-existence – don’t let’s get lost somewhere through the week, especially the Thursday nights and Fridays of life. Let us be there on the second Sunday also, having passed through whatever our own Calvaries were. There is not one of us anywhere who has to do it alone! All the help we need is there, if we will ask for it – and accept it. I am going to try to remember that.
Now I am sitting in my study with the light softening in every window, and blazing sunset over the sea and the mountains faded on the horizon to exactly the same shade of purplish grey as the clouds.
And two little kittens have just gone hurtling after each other across the grass playing together. Not only man is that he might have joy – I think all the earth is, and everything in it . . . if we do this right!
HAPPY EASTER.
2001 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
