Sabbath Devotional :: She Will Find That Which is Lost

“She Will Find What is Lost,” by Brian Kershisnik

“I have a choice: / To put aside this seed,

Leaving the planting / To the proven growers,

Pretending not to care / For gardening,

And knowing, / If I do not try,

I cannot fail.

Or plant,

And risk again / The well-known pain

Of watching / For the first brave green

And seeing only / Barren ground.

The seed is in my hand, / The trowel is in the other.

I am going to the garden, / And to the Gardener,

Once more.”

(“Mother’s Day,” So Far: Poems by Margaret Rampton Munk)

The poems of Margaret Rampton Munk (a distant cousin of mine) are full of loss. Meg faced infertility, the loss of the privilege of growing and bearing the fruit of her own body. She faced cancer, the loss of health and hair and cells and strength and, eventually, her life.

I, like each of you, have known loss. Some losses, like the infertility that knit my heart to Meg’s, is now forgotten, the emptiness filled by my two adoption miracles. Some, like the death of my youngest sister when I was 12 and she was not yet two, are a dull ache softened by time and the promises of eternity. These two losses have carved me out and filled me with more love and commitment to honoring my temple covenants. But other losses are very present and current and raw: losing more and more of my already marginal hearing still discourages and darkens my heart. Fourteen months ago, when I feared I would lose all remaining natural hearing and become completely deaf, my sister Anna Rampton Fowler shared Brian Kershisnik’s painting, “She Will Find What Is Lost,” with me, reminding me of all those on both sides of the veil supporting my efforts through fasting and prayer and love. Knowing that family and friends—including many of you, my MWEG sisters—were pleading for me to find ways to cope with what I was losing strengthened me and carried me beyond the darkest of those days of loss and grief.

It was loss that brought me to MWEG. I woke up the morning of November 9, 2016, with a horrible deep pit in my stomach, something I had only experienced before during times of great loss and heartache. I felt a deep loss to find as my president a man who had mocked the disabled, slandered the Muslim, derogated the minority, violated women, and inflamed the worst in human nature. I felt at a loss about what I could do to rectify, even in the smallest way, the wound this election was hammering into so many hearts. Finding MWEG a few months later gave me much-needed hope: hope that our political leaders could be influenced to choose well, hope that prejudice could be combatted, hope in the power present when women — my sisters — raised their voices to demand integrity and compassion and love. As Meg wrote, “Survival of our inner selves / Requires belief, / For life is better lived in faith / Than bitterness” (“Childless Woman to a Black Brother,” So Far: Poems by Margaret Rampton Munk).

Yes sometimes loss and bitterness overwhelm. When I see families torn apart at the border, I am angry, I am bitter than our great country won’t do better than this. The recent Kavanaugh hearing debacle was, for too many, a period of uncovering old losses and wounds and discovering new ones, as the loss of civility and due process paraded shamelessly before us. Similarly, in the past few years, many of us have, in terms of our views of and knowledge about politics, lost “the innocence / Swaddled in which [we] entered tainted earth” (“Sonnet in a Moment of Truth,” So Far: Poems by Margaret Rampton Munk).

But we cannot return to a state of unawareness. We must stand for truth and honor against the forces that create — even revel in — that tainting. We must fight for the marginalized, those who have always known loss. We will fight for our children, that they may not live in a coarser and scarcer world of lost beauty and civility and compassion. To do so, we must find healing for the losses we face so that we can move onward, ever onward, as we wage this good war.

Over and over again the scriptures tell of those dealing with loss. When the Savior looks for His lost sheep, He says: “I both search my sheep, and seek them out” (Ezekiel 34:11). There isn’t redundancy in the “searching” and the “seeking.” The first term, which comes from “to tread” and “to frequent’ is also used to describe Rebekah enquiring of the Lord about the two warring nations in her womb. Like the Good Shepherd, we can search and enquire and tread frequently upon the Lord as we look for what is lost and determine how to find it. The second term, “seek,” derives from the words for “to plough” or “to break forth,” and implies deep consideration and reflection. Like the Savior, our seeking can plough up old ways and break forth into new as we thoughtfully and prayerfully reflect on new solutions and actions.

The scriptures offer even more guidelines. Like Hannah, we will importune the Lord (and, gosh darnit, those members of Congress) again and again, even with the same stumbling plea that sometimes seems unheeded (and may be painfully mocked by those we trust). Like the woman with the lost coin and the shepherd with a lost sheep, we will look up and down, roam far and wide, inviting others to help our cause. Like the father of the prodigal son, we will eagerly succor (literally, run after) those in need, even those who may have squandered their own best gifts. Like Eve, we will understand that we embraced mortality with its losses and brokenness, and some losses open the doors to greater joys and greater powers. As Meg Munk reminded us:

“Joy lies ahead, / And pain does, too.

If I could smooth the way for you, / I would.

And that’s the reason why

The foreman on this road is He, / Not I.

He did not level out / The rough terrain; instead

The Architect designed you / For what lay ahead.

That first day in my arms, / I could be sure —

God made you / Gold and steel / To shine

And to endure.”

(“Laura,” So Far: Poems by Margaret Rampton Munk)

The Architect designed each of us for this day. We are made of gold and steel, my sisters. If we reflect the Savior’s light, we will shine. And if we rely upon Him, we will endure. Onward!