Chances Lost Are Hope's Torn-Out Pages

                “It takes a lot to ruin a life,” says my co-worker. Her voice was so casual. She could just as easily have said, “It takes a lot to ruin a pot of coffee.” At first, I was comforted. There is comfort in believing you can’t really mess something up, particularly when you’re a perfectionist like I am. My second thought was that it couldn’t possibly be that easy. Just do what you want and it’ll all be okay? Seriously? I like to believe that my life is slightly more important than a pot of coffee. So, it’s worth asking. What does it take to ruin a life? Or save a life? Or simply change a life? Maybe not even yours but someone else’s. What does it take? The answer is The Seventeen Second Miracle by Jason F. Wright.

                When Rex Conner turns his back as a lifeguard, he learns exactly how long it takes to change a life. Only seventeen seconds and little eight-year-old Flick is fighting for her life. Despite Rex racing to save her and a few CPR attempts, she loses that fight. And Rex is left to live with four words that even I don’t need the book to remember: “You killed my angel.”  Seventeen seconds and more than one life changed forever.

                But the question wasn’t “How long does it take to change a life?” it was “What does it take to change a life?” The story at the beginning of the book seems a little abstract because so many lives were changed in so many different ways. So, shall we turn to a simpler example? Years after the first story…a young teenage Miles tells his girlfriend Kendra why he likes her. When he finishes, a wise mentor asks “Kendra, how long did it take for Miles to change your feelings from insecure to warm and happy?” Pause. Don’t focus on how long. What changed her feelings…? Miles did.

                What changes people? People change people. Maybe not in earth-shattering ways like the first example but often in little ways that can make a big difference. The real trick is allowing ourselves to be changed and learning to perform and see seventeen second miracles instead of seventeen second mistakes. When the seventeen second mistakes seem to abound, we can’t stop looking for the seventeen second miracles. I hope you look a little harder at the next person you get on the elevator with or the friend who looks a little gloomier than usual. I hope you see an opportunity to be a miracle to them, to change their day, to change their attitude…to change their life and to change your own.

Writing Music: “Home" by Phillip Phillips and "Chances" by Five for Fighting

“We would do well to slow down a little, focus on the significant, lift up our eyes, and truly see the things that matter most” – Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The Cure to Homelessness

     Don’t be alarmed. I have food, clothes, shelter, and a bed (though be it a shared bed). I’m not actually homeless---at least not by the common definition. But moving back “home” after four years of school, I don't feel at home. If anything, my home is in all of my boxes of things sitting in the basement (see picture). Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love my family, but this house isn’t my home anymore…and neither is SVU. For those four years, it was my home and I probably have never been more attached to a home (as evidenced by the pool of tears that appeared when I left). Unfortunately, as Carrie Underwood would say (or sing), these were only temporary homes. So, here I am searching for my next temporary home and praying that this feeling of homelessness is not permanent. Here lies the perfect opportunity to prove to that lit therapy works. My cure for homelessness? Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

     Anyone who has read this novel either knows exactly where I’m going or is questioning my sanity. Are there characters more homeless than these? Each of the 9 sections in the novel is the name of a different place. Talk about temporary. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the main characters Oliver and Susan Burling Ward were the free-spirited, adventurous, traveling types. But it’s painfully obvious that Susan is the rooting type. As her grandson/the narrator says, “There was a real nester in that woman,” and her husband’s big dreams and constant job-chasing simply aren’t conducive to that. At the very least, I understand Susan’s frustration. Our hearts are homeless together. Sometimes, it’s therapeutic just knowing you aren’t alone.

     When I first read Angle of Repose, I thought that all of the cities Susan lived in were just stops on the way to her real home --- which I wrongly assumed would be the last “stop” in the novel. But as I was re-skimming, it dawned on me that there were moments when she was “home” even when she was in the throes of a strange city. Exhibit A: Boise Canyon. “Abandoned in its gulch, its garden gone to weeds, its fences down, its ditches drifted full, its windows out, [etc., etc., etc.] it would look like failure and lost cause. But while they were there it was a hopeful struggle, not lost cause, and for a while it was a little corner of Eden” (371). Exhibit B: Michoacán. I couldn’t find a good passage to prove it, but she was totally ready to be a Mexican mama. My point is this, if Susan could find that feeling of home in a run-down house in the middle of Boise or on a Mexican veranda, just maybe “home” has nothing to do where you’re at or even how stable/permanent the place is. Home is a feeling, an attitude. Here's the real kicker: we're in control of that feeling. Why else would one city be so homey to Susan and another so the opposite? Even when they are equally strange to her. I have to blame how open-minded or bitter she was at that point in time.

     Some of the last words in the novel are: “Wisdom is knowing what you have to accept.” What I, what we, have to accept is that life is full of temporary homes. Changing homes will always hurt. I think Susan would say (in much more eloquent language, if she could speak from a fictitious grave): “It’s like breaking a bone. When it’s time to leave, accept the pain. Think of me and know that you (thee) aren’t alone. Learn from my bad example and never forget that ‘a broken bone thickens in healing’ if you let it” (381). Well said, Susan, well said. But break it must...break it must.

Writing Song*: “Coming Home” by Gwenyth Paltrow and “Temporary Home” by Carrie Underwood

*I write to music. It’s usually one particular song each time, and I wouldn’t be a good music missionary if I didn’t share with all of you.