June 2025, Week 2

 *Today we had church at Aspen Grove--outdoors in the mountains!  We had such a lovely Sacrament Meeting in the amphitheater, and it was nice to see lots of our family represented (including Scott and Benson) in helping with the blessing and passing of the Sacrament.  I couldn't help but think of the hymns "I Stand All Amazed" and "How Great Thou Art" while looking around at our surroundings during the meeting.  One of the speakers said that God wants us to feel joy, even as we go through trials.  Another told a poem called "The Lanyard," by Billy Collins (which I'll add to the end of this post).  He compared it to Jesus Christ and His Atonement for us.  He reminded us that rather than thinking of "paying back" Jesus, we should spend our efforts thanking Him--and that can be enough.  We closed the meeting with singing "I Believe in Christ."  It was so good.

It was a delight!

The Lanyard

By Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly

off the blue walls of this room,

moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one into the past more suddenly—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.