Sine Qua Non

Happy Post-Thanksgiving! It’s been too long since I wrote down some of the things in my head and my heart…. and there have been many recently!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the chance to nanny for a family with 5 amazing kids, make holiday memories with dear families and friends, run as much as I can….(could! ..my foot is overreacting to my sudden spike in mileage), and spend time serving in the St. Paul Temple.



All in all… it’s been great! However, if you're anything like bizarre Lauren Barden and prefer speed walking to leisurely strolling…. or if you enjoy juggling three to-do lists at once… you may understand something about what life-pace is comfortable to me. Needless to say…. my current phase feels like one of those temporary slow-motion scenes in the blockbuster movies. Why do the directors temporarily put a frame in slow-motion? This question has occurred to me lately….

Slow-motion frames have their purpose. For a moment, while real time is suspended, the viewer is allowed to recognize-and focus on-a few key details. Some thing, or things, become clearer. What was noticed in the slow-motion view is remembered even when time speeds back up….because the director gave us TIME to think about it.

Well…. in His wisdom, the Director of my life has placed me in a slow motion frame. There are things God wants me to learn right now.

He wants to remind me of life’s Sine Qua Non…. Latin for ‘what is indispensable or essential’.

Temporarily without college courses, consistent job or missionary purpose… I’m learning a lot about what is…. essential in life and happiness.

Life is full of slower phases, phases where it is not about me -not only about how much fun I can have or how glamorous my day to day routine seems. Family relationships/parenthood, friendship, Church service….they are all our constant Sine Qua Non. I felt that truth as I tucked in sweet little girls at their bed time, while I worked for hours in the rooms of the St. Paul temple and felt my smile grow wider and wider, while Michael -my dear friend with down syndrome- hugged me at Thanksgiving and kept not letting me go.
These beautiful moments felt like little warm candle flames that I want to cup my hand around and protect from life’s colder and darker realities. It’s amazing how -not only bearable, but -beautiful mortality can be when illuminated by the hot, brilliant, striking rays of those essential joys of humanity…. or our Sine Qua Non.



I know after this time working in the temple, I’ll always view and hear it’s beautiful blessings differently. Those little girls may never know how the sparkle in their smiles left magic in my heart. Michael will never know how much I needed his hugs… and how I didn’t want him to let go either.

When this slow-frame ends, and my life picture speeds up again, I’ll be grateful my Director gave me time to remember what I simply and absolutely can never do without.

Home

Home

Tonight, I’m sitting alone in a big, dark kitchen. My family is asleep. They are in the same house but somehow they feel far away. Streets in Taiwan keep coming back to my memory. The smell of damp cement, the flash of Chinese neon lights. But I am here now. Home. What is home? I think it’s a feeling. It’s a feeling of being understood and accepted. A sensation of understanding, belonging and love…..a sense of wholeness. I believe it is a state where the heart can be itself without being afraid or false. Home is what we all yearn for from the depths of our souls.



Where do we find home? That is a question I have been asking myself for the past few weeks. I landed in my native country, drove to a new house, unpacked my suitcases in a fresh, blue room. I spoke English. It didn’t feel like home. The large family rooms, tree-lined highways and brisk fall weather didn’t create any emotional stir in my heart. Why? What was lacking? My family began talking about Halloween parties and state policy affairs. I listened with care yet had no true interest in what they discussed. Could home feel so foreign? How could it become mine again?

What has most surprised me about my end-of-mission experience has been what small pockets of time and circumstance have given me the rich warmth of “home”. People bring the soft glow back to me. People who seem to awaken a sense of who I am and who I will become. A place doesn’t make a home; it is the connections we share.

I felt home when I cooked breakfast with my 88 yr old hero of a grandpa. I felt home when my old mission companion Sister Chao tackled me from behind at a missionary reunion. I felt home laughing in the car with T.J. and Julia as we picked up Thai take-out. I felt it while standing in a mountain canyon, feeling the sun, hearing the crunch of the fall leaves beneath my shoes. These experiences help me feel “home”. They seem to reintroduce me to the better qualities of who I was before my Asian adventures began…. and help me continue to accept what changes will forever be a part of me.

Home is still in my heart… and always will be.

There’s no place like home…. There’s no place but ‘THEM’.