Defying Gravity

“As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit.”
-- Emmanuel Teney

Just over a month ago I got a call from one of the councilors in the Bishopric. He wanted to meet with me to give me a new calling. My heart sunk. Since the divorce I had been left to either teach primary or was left in a silent and non traditional calling like Single Adult Rep. Wow, it was a leisure cruise but left me unchallenged accepting that I was coming to terms with my feelings about the church and putting the chaos of my life back into order. I needed the break and it was a good thing. It gave me a reprieve during a time I most needed it.

My new calling – RS teacher. UGH!!!! I shuddered because the last thing I wanted to do was teach a room full of women who I had felt so judged by. I didn’t have any desire to speak to topics I still didn’t think I fully understood or could testify to. I struggled for so many other reasons but felt that if this was what they wanted me to do, if this was what the Lord felt I needed to do, then I would do it. Some circumstances happened where I questioned the calling and the RS presidency came to my home and orientated me. WOW, did I ever say how much I love the RS president. She is not only a friend but a mentor and her heart is so pure and open and yet her emotions have been guarded as her struggles may be a greater burden than you or I can even imagine.

A.H. left a little poster that she felt best described her feelings of the need for my teaching in Relief Society. It’s picture of a little devil with the whole pitch fork and everything, tail and all. Below the image reads the caption. “BE THE KIND OF WOMAN THAT WHEN YOUR WAKE AND YOUR FEET HIT THE FLOOR IN THE MORING, SATAN SHUDDERS AND SAYS, **** SHE’S AWAKE. I laughed so hard and then A and T told me to speak up, say how I feel, and by all means, add my two cents worth. She explained of all those suffering in silence, feeling so alone and so few women are willing to see their mistakes realistically through the cloud of perfection so infused by our culture. Women need to acknowledge mistakes correctly and then spend the time addressing them to create a better life. I never felt I had ever done that. I never felt that what I would have to say would be important to anyone. I mean, I’ve been blogging for almost two years and though I know I have followers and have had many messages of hope and understanding I never felt my words would matter to very many in any kind of life span.

I began preparing the lesson soon after and my first assignment was on the Holy Ghost. Wow, perfect topic for my entrance into teaching again. I have such a profound testimony of the HG’s involvement into bettering our lives and feel with all my heart that by abiding in the promptings of the HG we can find such great ways to avoid unnecessary pitfalls. I prayed often to have the ability to teach what was needed for the women in the room. I read and reread the lesson, searched through the lds.org website and pulled a number of talks off the BYU devotional website. I studied what the intention of a lesson was and devoted myself to unseen needs and hoped I would feel promptings to dig a bit deeper and find something that would be exactly needed and that the HG could make life better for the women in the room, the women of my ward.

I have always felt that by trying to understand exactly what the teacher’s manual says and by truly taking time you can find answers mostly for yourself and maybe that’s the intention of being in a teacher’s calling. Maybe it’s always been about what you take out of it for yourself and then by sharing what you have learned you can touch others because change is so self-driven. You can only have people pause for thought; the rest is up to them. I learn so much by just preparing. It’s a win-win for me. I only hope and pray that I can then, with the lord’s help, impart what I know to help others. That’s the dream of every successful teacher and is something I wish for myself.

The following tangent is with your understanding, there is method to my madness here, hang on.

There’s a Broadway musical; “Wicked” that I absolutely love. It began as a book written to address the witches from the Wizard of Oz. Glinda, the pink Good witch and Elphaba, the Wicked witch. They meet at college and as in all ways; the book best describes the complexities of their lives and their relationships as they develop much better than the stage play. You learn of Elphaba’s dysfunctional upbringing and of the way she is misunderstood. Glinda is best described as shallow but heartfelt. The characters interact through a journey to meet the Wizard and find him corrupt and evil. You interpret the story from your own vantage point and even in reading the reviews there is considerable argument as to which witch is evil and which is good. You understand motivations from personal perspective and because of that your understanding of intent rolls into play.

In the end, Elphaba’s world is turned upside down and she is faced with choice. What will this tragic set of circumstances do to her intent and to her heart? Here, at this moment, comes the most moving song in the musical. “Defying Gravity”.

Defying Gravity Lyrics


Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!


It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I am defying gravity
And you won’t bring me down!


I'm through accepting limits
‘‘Because someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know!
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost!


I'd sooner buy
Defying gravity


Kiss me goodbye
I'm defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you won’t bring me down!

Perspective matters here, is Elphaba giving up or growing. Well, if you follow through to the end of the story and the beginning of the next you know that she is crushed under the house that Dorothy was in when she arrived in the Land of Oz.

As much as I see tragedy in this, it is filled with misunderstanding and a lack of understanding intent. Elphaba understands this and chooses to defy the expectation. She let’s go of the pain and heartache and chooses to be disheartened and angry and it shows in everything she does. It’s the stage that follows enlightenment for some. When they realize that being understood might never happen and anger and frustration sets. But there is another choice here and many do take it and for that reason, this song means much more to me.

Limits are set on us, whether we like it or not by the expectations of the people and culture around us. It’s an invisible line or ceiling that holds us in place to “fit in”. When something happens to us that changes us to our very core we lay at the precipices of change. Which direction you choose can seal a happy or unhappy existence. I chose, after much angst and confusion, to be happy in spite of it all, and even though, many times I doubt my abilities. Overcoming those abilities gives wings to all the hope I have in my life and it changes the “I can’t’s” to the absolute “cans”.

Now; to get back on track.

I never thought for one minute that my story or for that matter, my life could make a difference to anyone other than me. I have blogged and written and tried in everyway to leave a legacy of survival for my family. I want, someday, for my children and grandchildren to speak of me with the same reverence and respect that they speak of my mother, my grandmothers, my aunts. In everyway, this desire arises from the great legacies of woman that have come before me. I am so proud of my heritage.

This lesson, the RS lesson scared the begebees out of me. I was so nervous, so intimidated and as I began, the spirit rested on my shoulders and words came out that I didn’t even know were there. The flow was amazing and the intent was clear and in the end as I looked around the room I felt free of all the judgment that really, I doubt, was ever there in the first place. A silent limitation that I placed on myself. Maybe I do have something to add. If the pain and suffering I went through can in anyway be a benefit in the path it took and the resolution I have so as to be shared as an example, so be it, but what I would hope most is that by looking at the mistakes I made and goodness knows there were many, that others can be adverted of some of the pain I have felt as I went through them.

The Relief Society lesson went well. There were many women who came up after filled with tears and joy. They had missed my voice. Some, I know, will never understand. That’s okay, because in the end, it won’t really matter. I will be met by a kind and loving Heavenly Father who will know the intents of my heart and he will lay his judgment there. This I know, because the HG has left that testament on my heart.

An after thought, a wonderful poem by one of my favorite poets.

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox


There are songs enough for the hero
Who dwells on the heights of fame;
I sing of the disappointed--
For those who have missed their aim.


I sing with a tearful cadence
For one who stands in the dark,
And knows that his last, best arrow
Has bounded back from the mark.


I sing for the breathless runner,
The eager, anxious soul,
Who falls with his strength exhausted.
Almost in sight of the goal;


For the hearts that break in silence,
With a sorrow all unknown,
For those who need companions,
Yet walk their ways alone.


There are songs enough for the lovers
Who share love's tender pain,
I sing for the one whose passion
Is given all in vain.


For those whose spirit comrades
Have missed them on their way,
I sing, with a heart o'erflowing,
This minor strain to-day.


And I know the Solar system
Must somewhere keep in space
A prize for that spent runner
Who barely lost the race.


For the plan would be imperfect
Unless it held some sphere
That paid for the toil and talent
And love that are wasted here.