Rest Unto Your Souls

I’ve had trouble sleeping for years. Even when I’m exhausted it can take me upwards of an hour to finally slip away into rest. Other times, I don’t sleep at all because my mind is anxious or my body can’t hold still and relax. A great deal of that has to do with having Tourette Syndrome, and the rest is probably from the obsessive compulsive disorder that couples it. Even as a baby, though, my mother says I was the worst sleeper of all her four boys, and that I have been ever since.

"The Road to Bethlehem" by Joseph Brickey
Copyright © 2010 Joseph Brickey

Like my mother, when nighttime comes and I crawl into bed, my mind so often races as I retrace my day’s events unnecessarily or mentally prepare for or plan the events of the day to come. Finding a comfortable, healthy balance between sleeping too little and sleeping too much (when I am finally able) has been perhaps the most difficult trial of the past five or more years, even more so than my disorders and my same-sex attraction.

I’ve had to come up with several tactics for combating my nervous mind and body, and when one doesn’t work, I keep trying others until my eyelids start to feel heavy and I know I’m passing into a dream world. My most usual and effective plan of attack for insomnia is to recite memorized texts, consisting mainly of scriptures, hymn texts, and the sacred, familiar ordinances of the holy temple. I do it as a way to focus my mind on something else until the repetitions and strain of my active jaw finally wills me to be silent and slide out of consciousness.

"Jesus as a Youth in the Carpenter's Shop" 
by Del Parson
Copyright © 2002 Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

I will start at the beginning of the Bible and quote every scripture aloud that I know by heart, from Old Testament to New Testament, then going on to the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, and the Doctrine and Covenants. If I’m still awake then, I jump to the always-verbatim prayers that Latter-day Saints offer in the blessing of the bread and water of the sacrament, through which we remember and worship the Lord Jesus Christ; then I go on to the saving ordinances of the House of the Lord, which I have long had memorized, beginning with baptism for the dead, then confirmation to receive the Holy Ghost, then on through proper sequence, ending with the sealing ceremony, which binds husbands and wives and their families together for all time and eternity.

"John the Baptist Baptizing Jesus" 
by Harry Anderson
Copyright © Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

If none of these things works in putting me out of it, my last resort (if I don’t end up starting over at the beginning with the scriptures again) is to quietly sing or recite my favorite hymns. There are many hymns that I have memorized—both words and tunes. But as for the rest of my favorites, I only have their melodies committed to memory. In the case of those, I will usually remember a few lines from perhaps the first verse of the hymn, and for the rest I will simply make something up that fits the rhyming pattern.

Earlier this year, and for many months, I would often come back to one particular hymn tune that I really liked—“My Redeemer Lives,” with words written by Gordon B. Hinckley, the fifteenth Prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). This particular hymn’s tune is shorter than most, and only has three verses; but the melody is soaring and triumphant, like the regal fanfare that might be played for a noble and royal ruler. How fitting it is, then, that the text of the hymn provides worship in words to the Ruler of all things in heaven and earth, the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Jesus Healing the Blind Man"
by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834 - 1890)

The first, powerful verse of this hymn would always stick in my mind:

“I know that my Redeemer lives,

Triumphant Savior, Son of God;

Victorious over pain and death,

My King, my Leader, and my Lord.”

The trouble was that I didn’t know the rest of the verses (short as they are) by heart. So as I typically do, I started forming words in my mind that matched the established rhyming scheme, and fit in with the theme of the characteristics of Jesus Christ. Night after sleepless night, this hymn was the first to enter my head, and many times I successfully fell asleep humming the tune and wracking my brain still for a few more lines that fit with it. 

Soon I had a few verses that I had created myself and memorized, and I always sung them to myself when I sang that hymn. I didn’t even care what the real lyrics were, I liked mine more! So one day I sat down at my computer and typed out the verses that I had written myself, just for fun. But I felt that they were too good to leave alone by themselves, and determined to add more verses until I had a finished, new hymn text of my own.

"Gethsemane"
by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834 - 1890)

I tried several times over the coming months to force some of the original creativity that had given birth to those random lines, but as it so often happens with me, I cannot force a creative flame from the ashes of past inspiration; and I never know when the ashes might stir into embers and suddenly catch fire, like they finally did in September. 

I intentionally sat at my computer with a desire to write something—anything. I get this craving a lot. I opened files for several unfinished pieces and skimmed their familiar words, but didn’t feel any warmth from them. Then I opened the file titled “Unfinished Hymn Text” and read through the verses I had churned out so far—some solid, others needing a little tweaking. Just then my mind was enlightened, and the words began to flow. Not only that, but I discovered my own theme for the text, which mirrored key events from the life of the Savior, from His miraculous birth, to His fateful death and glorious resurrection.

Within minutes I had adjusted a few verses, and written several new ones, and arranged them chronologically with Jesus’ miraculous life. I had eight verses total, which seemed like enough at first; but my obsessive-compulsive side whispered that I would be much more mentally satisfied with ten verses when, after all, I loved to count most things in intervals of five. Not only that, but I realized that I needed to highlight a couple more events from the ministry of Jesus, and two verses would be just enough to do so.

"Ecce Homo (Behold the Man)"
by Antonio Ciseri (1821 - 1891)

I was surprised how quickly the additional two verses came, and the text was finished! I changed a few words over the next week or so, as I shared the poem with a few friends and tested the flow of the rhyming pattern. But the changes were minor ones, and I was very proud to have a new poem under my belt; even though I love to write, I don’t write rhyming poems very often, and it’s always a pleasure to finish one.

However, as I hummed through the poem all the way using the tune of “My Redeemer Lives” as I had intended, I found that the contemplative, reverent theme of the text I wrote no longer matched the energy of the tune. I needed something calmer, sweeter. Even though that hymn tune was my inspiration for the text, I knew I would need to pick a different tune to put with my completed words to better complement it. 

"The Crucifixion" 
by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834 - 1890)

That was as simple as looking up the tune meter in the back of my hymnal, and comparing it to others with the same meter; I listened to a few familiar melodies until I settled on the one that best matched a serene and grateful reflection on the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ—“Know This, That Every Soul Is Free.”

With everything falling into place, I still didn’t have the most important part of the poem—a title. It was still listed in my files as “Unfinished Hymn Text.” In my mind I kept coming back to “King of Kings,” a title for Jesus Christ that I use in the poem. I had almost decided that that would be the title, until I remembered that there was already a hymn in the LDS hymnal with a similar name: “Come, O Though King of Kings.” My title needed to be decidedly different, so I changed my mind.

As I shared the poem with a few others, I had an epiphany one day shortly after making some punctuation changes to the text. I have recently been reading the Book of Mormon, and a common scripture from that volume came to me suddenly one day. The verse from the Second Book of Nephi reads as follows:

"The Resurrection"
by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834 - 1890)

          “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophecy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”


It was perfect. “We Talk of Christ.” It fit so comfortably at the head of my poem, and matched just what I had written the text about in the first place—the life and ministry of the Savior Jesus Christ. It is my new favorite poem that I’ve ever written, and my second hymn text. The first one I wrote is discussed in my post “Thy Faith Hath Made Thee Whole,” which I was inspired to write about my rocky, but triumphant journey of faith in the Latter-day Saint Church.

I realize that this poem is likely too long to ever really be sung. But with music as my inspiration to write the words, I had to keep music incorporated into the feel of the piece. Really, it’s just one way that I enjoy expressing my faith in God and His beloved and Only Begotten Son; and it’s a way for me to share that testimony with others.

When I think of the parallels between the poem I wrote and how that it came to be—from restless nights of prayers and wishes that I could simply rest—I came to discover that my text was a reminder that my true peace and comfort, my real rest, comes by and through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and through His Father and mine; through faith and action on their precepts and saving ordinances, and through enduring to whatever end, even unto death, as the Lord did. 

I hope you and enjoy my poem, and that it helps you reflect and ponder upon the life of our Master and Redeemer Jesus Christ, and how you can become closer to Him.

❧

‒ We Talk of Christ ‒

Sung to the tune of

“Know This, That Every Soul Is Free”

~

While all the world was hushed and still,

A babe was born as Mary’s Son;

Divinely chosen to fulfill

His Father’s plan, God’s will be done.

A simple boy, a Nazarene,

No beauty that we should desire;

A sinless man, perfect and clean,

Baptized by water and by fire.

His miracles did never cease;

He healed the lame, the sick, the blind.

While in His yoke He offers peace—

Take up your cross and be refined.

Within a grove of olive trees,

The blood of Jesus stained the ground;

“Remove this cup,” His only plea,

Then suffered He without a sound.

He held His tongue ‘mid scoffs and scorn,

Beneath the whip He did not yield;

The Son of Man was crowned with thorns,

Condemned to die, and none appealed.

The Cross of Calvary He bore,

His flesh was pierced for all mankind;

That sinners should not suffer more,

If their Redeemer they will find.

In Jesus’ death one hope remained:

His promise, “I shall rise again.”

Immortal life to clean and stained—

The resurrection of all men.

The morning came—how bright the day!

Behold the empty garden tomb!

The chains of death do not hold sway,

The pow’r of Christ doth all consume.

The Son of God, the risen Lord

Ascendeth to His throne above!

Salvation doth His life afford,

The sweet gift of His perfect love.

When Jesus Christ shall come again

To reign on earth as King of kings,

An age of peace shall there begin,

And praises to His name we’ll sing.

~

- Wade A. Walker -

September 20, 2013

~

** NOTE: I share my writing on this site trusting that visitors are scrupulous enough not to plagiarize. If you'd like to share this poem or other content with others, please share the URL to the entire blog post. Please DO NOT copy and paste any text for personal use without written permission. As the original writer of the content herein, I’d like the credit for these pieces to remain mine. **

The Great Plateau

I wrote this creative reflection on my life in October 2009. I had just moved in with one of my best friends and started college again at a local university after dropping out four years earlier. I had been active once again in my religion for over two years, and I was finally beginning to see new light, hope, and courage in living the gospel of Jesus Christ every day. I was finally experiencing real joy and satisfaction in my life for the first time in many years. I sat down at my computer to write a simple journal entry describing my unique feelings, and I ended up with these brief, yet poetic three verses of sincere and sobering emotion. 

What I am most thankful for when I read this today is that my resolve to put off the natural man and live my life as a disciple of Jesus Christ have only deepened and solidified since then; and my feelings of gratitude for this life-changing journey I’ve taken only grow stronger every day, through every occasion when I choose in even the smallest way to be more like my perfect and loving Savior.

‒ The Great Plateau ‒

~

          I feel as though I am standing on a great plateau, gazing out over my trials of the past, which now lay before me in ruin—diminished and destroyed by my powerful testimony of truth, and washed away by a flood of sacred blood, shed by the Master with His infinite atonement. I see the height at which I stand, and look upon my past and say to myself, “I was once down there, and now I am up here; look how far I’ve come!” 

          And with courage, I turn and look ahead toward a great mountain. I see the paths that are winding and long; I see the rocky cliffs that are steep and treacherous. But with my resolve, which comes from knowing where I have once tread and yet still overcome, I journey ahead wearing the armor of God, and holding fast to the rod of iron which no longer eludes me; and there on the horizon, at the top of the great mountain, though far as it may seem, I behold the Celestial glory of God shining brightly before me, lighting my way along every path that I shall traverse in order to return to Him. 

          And though long may be my journey, and heavy the load which I may at times carry, I press forward with an unshakeable faith in a loving Father in Heaven and His divine Son, relying on Their promises of everlasting life, glory, and exaltation.

~

- Wade A. Walker –

October 5, 2009

"I was once down there, and now I'm up here.  Look how far I've come!"

~

** NOTE:  I share my writing on this site trusting that visitors are scrupulous enough not to plagiarize.  If you'd like to share this poem or other content with others, please share the URL to the entire blog post.  Please DO NOT copy and paste any text for personal use without written permission.  As the original writer of the content herein, I’d like the credit for these pieces to remain mine. **

Death Shall Not Destroy My Comfort

Halloween 1991, age 5.  I dressed
up as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

I’ve mentioned recently that fall has always been my favorite season; and as far as holidays go, Halloween has always been the highlight of fall for me. Trick-or-treating was always fun growing up. My mother is a highly-skilled seamstress and she always made my costumes. From a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, to the green Power Ranger, a wizard, a scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and more, my costumes were always believable and never store-bought. We always used pillow cases to hold our candy spoils, which had plenty of room for a night of success.

Halloween 1999, age 13.  My school
put on a production of "The Wizard
of Oz," and I reused my Cowardly
Lion costume later that year.

I’ve long had a strange fascination with the paranormal, but as a child it was mingled with a tremendous fear of the same—death and dying, the living dead, ghosts and spirits, poltergeists, demons, haunted houses, and the “unknown” in general. It all terrified me, really, after each time I was exposed to it, and it would keep me awake at night fearing for my life if I were to shut my eyes for even a second. And nightmares—I had the most terrible nightmares sometimes, and I would wake up screaming for my mother. But my trouble was that I would often seek out such things because of my obsessive and stubborn curiosity about that which to me was unexplainable. 

In retrospect I think my interest in fictitious horror and fright was perpetuated by the fact that I had no real knowledge of anything religious to convince me otherwise of the existence of such things. There was no basis of faith or belief to breathe truth into my fears of the supernatural and relieve me of the stress of fear or the curiosity for what I didn’t understand. I grasped simple things like heaven and hell, God and the devil, but I didn’t know, as I do now, what happened after death, or what the rules of a then-unknown God (or devil) allowed for the actuality of creatures of terror.

I indulged all the time in the “Goosebumps” novellas written by R.L. Stine, and the “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” books of Alvin Schwartz, with their incredibly creepy illustrations by artist Stephen Gammell. Just seeing those pictures sometimes caused many sleepless nights as a child. But reading the stories was such a strong temptation that I had to give in to, and I would usually regret it.

Stephen Gammell's illustrations from the "Scary Stories" books by
author Alvin Schwartz are unmistakably creepy; the macabre
drawings kept me from sleeping many nights as a child.

In November 1996 my father’s brother passed away unexpectedly while I was in the fifth grade. I could be mistaken, but attending his funeral as an ten year-old boy was the first time I had ever seen a corpse. It absolutely terrified me to be in the viewing room. Aside from the fact that I barely knew my uncle and hadn’t seen him in many years, death changed everything that I remembered about the man. He was not himself; he was just a body now, caked in makeup, and dressed in his best for the final time.

Seeing my uncle lying at rest in his casket
as a child was terrifying to me.

One of my parents encouraged me to approach the casket where his body lay, probably knowing I was highly curious and frightened, too. After all, even at ten years-old children sometimes don’t understand death properly—why it has to happen, what causes it, where the essence of the person goes after dying—and I was no different. As far as I was concerned (with whatever concept of a “soul” I had then), my uncle’s spirit still remained in his body, though dormant, and it would be trapped forever there, within his coffin and buried six feet below a stone that memorialized his name and years of life.

Maybe Halloween still lingered in my mind a bit at that time, since it had recently come and gone. But my fascination with the eerie unknown was piqued even more after my uncle’s funeral. Staring just barely over the lip of the casket at the face of my father’s brother, I wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t suddenly open his eyes and rise stiffly from the coffin to the sheer horror of all present. In fact, I almost expected it, and had a hard time averting my eyes from his (just in case); but eventually I realized that those eyes were forever closed.

One day I jotted down some
short poems with scary themes.

Whatever the reasons (and this event was probably it), death was on my mind for a while after that. I focused sincere, curious, and creative thoughts on morbid horror fiction, and had meaningful questions about dying in general.  The recent highlight of my fifth grade school year was winning a city-wide Halloween poetry contest, to my own delight and that of my family. It was a simple, childlike work about iconic Halloween characters and occurrences. I am pretty certain that it was the first rhyming poem I had ever written (the first poem I ever wrote was a freestyle assignment I had in fourth grade), but with such a triumphantly successful outcome, I couldn’t help but develop a love for the art of creative verse and rhyming.

Time passed, and I entered middle school, still curious but yet still vaguely informed about death in general.  Sitting one day in my sixth grade English class, with free time to write or read what I wanted, I began to jot down short lines of rhyme that popped into my head. I used different patterns that I had heard in class readings or songs. The theme was all-things scary, all that was frightening—everything I could think of that reflected the scary stories I had read since I was young. After I had several of them jotted down, I shared them with my teacher, who commended me for my talent and creativity, and encouraged me to save them.

When I got out of school that day, I took the poems home to my mom and proudly shared them with her. She was taken aback by some of the macabre themes and suggestions of my ghost-story poems. She asked me immediately if everything was all right, and what I was trying to imply by writing the poems. I was shocked and saddened by her suggestion that I my creative outlet was some supposed cry for help. It took a lot of insisting to convince her that I wrote the short poems for fun, not to deliver a message of secret mental instability.

This was the poem that triggered her maternal instincts:

Death! Death!

When will ours be?

There’s no use in asking,

Because someday we’ll see.

Originally I wrote “Because soon we will see,” which was simply a reflection of my juvenile comprehension of the shortness of mortality. Stories of child suicide weren’t nearly as prevalent in the news then as they are now, and stories of parricide were limited in my knowledge to the playground rhyme of Lizzy Borden and her infamous bloody ax. I don’t know how my mother could think that her eleven year-old son might be suggesting his own or anyone else’s death with these four short lines; but I suppose that in light of difficulties and challenges that were arising at the time—namely, my soon-to-come diagnosis of Tourette syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder—that stress was an apparent companion in my life in those days, and she knew that.

Thinking about it now, it makes me laugh that my mom jumped to such conclusions. But life growing up was wrought with stresses in a home where my parents didn’t always get along, and she likely sensed that it could be damaging to us. My mother and father were raised in homes where the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were taught—to what extent for my father I don’t know, but for my mother religion was not a choice or an option, at least not until she married my father and moved away from home.

Whatever the circumstances of their religious learning, my parents knew more than I did about life, death, and how the world worked. In our home when I was a child, there was no faith in anything divine taught or discussed, except perhaps at Christmastime, which even then I didn’t quite get. I wasn’t trying to touch upon terribly deep things with my little poems; I was just having fun and exercising my new love for poetry. Some of the poems were harmless childlike musings, like these:

Skeletons, Oh, skeletons,
Tall, skinny skeletons,
How white and bony are they!
All of my wondering
Ends up in blundering
On how skeletons get that way.

They haunt you, they taunt you,

They look like white sheets;

Trust me, a ghost,

You don’t want to meet.

The shutters bang,
The gate goes “clang!”
The old fence creaks and rattles;
These are the sounds of a haunted house,
When fierce winds have their battles.

So tall,

So cold,

Standing under a tree,

Engraved with the letters “R.I.P.”

The more grisly poems were representative of some of my favorite spooky tales, or ideas for ghoulish media that I would love to hate, like these:

Beyond the gates and soft green grass,

Stand tall, marked blocks of stone.

You see your grandfather a distance away,

Then you remember he died years ago.

My dearest friend is dead as can be,

Because he fell from aloft.

I want him back, alive and well,

So let’s hope the ground is soft.

Take the shortcut, my dear friend,

Through the cemetery around the bend.

But be alert from the beginning.

Because the dead don’t take mercy on the living.

The rest of the poems, I think, were truthful, honest reflections of my limited knowledge and opinion of the fate that every person ever born shares—that sooner or later, in one way or another, they will die. Though uniquely formed in my naïve and ignorant mind, I think there are messages that can be discerned from my poems that might not be as disconcerting as my mother assumed, but poignant and sincere nonetheless, especially for a child to ponder.

This one reflects my confusion about why people, myself included, fear death and dying, as well as hinting (like a few of the other poems) at my longstanding discomfort with cemeteries:

The death of folks is a terrible fate,

But for the Grim Reaper a death is great!

Death puts folks in a miserable state,

To wonder what lies beyond the graveyard gate.

The next poem was my conclusion that the reasons for and purposes of death were not within my ability to comprehend, and also that my first funeral attendance was an experience that I couldn’t remove from my mind.

Why? Why? That’s all I ask, why?

Why must our loved ones always die?

And why do they have that big ceremony,

For the dead, pale white, un-bleeding, and bony?

Finally, the last poem I wrote for my short series shows clearly my inadequate knowledge of the afterlife, as I wondered what became of the wisps of spirit that escape the bodies of the dead. Are heaven and hell the only options? What about ghosts who remain on earth and cause a ruckus with the living? In my mind, the final destination of those whom I loved was consignment to an expensive shell of wood and metal, never again to have purpose or feeling, as we who are left alive have nothing remaining of them but slow-fading memories.

They close the lid eternally,

And cover it so sound.

And it shall remain there, forever more,

Deep, deep underground.

When I found these short poems recently, a seventeen year-old original series which I titled “Poems from the Grave,” they brought back to life (in an ironic sort of way) many thoughts and memories from the past and present, mostly about the vast changes in my understanding of the purpose of life, the purpose of death, and the existence of a hereafter. My fear of death and dying still plagues me to some extent today. I try to ignore the intolerable fear of the hopefully-far-off day when I have to say goodbye to the most important and loved people in my life. But I know now that it will not be the last time I will see them. 

As pertaining to myself, I have high hopes and expectations now for where I’m going when I die. I’m grateful beyond measure to know and testify of the truth of my faith in a loving God, our Heavenly Father, and His perfect Son, Jesus Christ the Savior; and also of the promise that life not only continues after death, but that there is great opportunity for glory and increase in the divine realm of heaven.

As a child I didn't know that my divine
heritage made me stand out among all
other creations.

I remember as a very young child being in the backyard of our home, looking at a rock in my mother’s flower bed and an earthworm wriggling near it, and thinking to myself, “I’m so happy I wasn’t born as a rock or an earthworm! I’m glad that God made me a human and gave me the family I have.” That ignorance was very distressing to me at the time, to think of how close I must have come to being something so small and insignificant, but I didn’t know any better; I couldn’t figure out how out of all the things in the universe I could’ve been, some Being somewhere liked me enough to make me a person, a boy, a son, a brother, and grandson.

The most important thing I have ever taken into my heart and mind is the knowledge and understanding that all creatures are God’s creations, and that among them all, I am one of His most prized and loved because I am a part of Him, His literal offspring; I am an individual child of the Divine Creator, and He is my Father. We all are—every member of the human race that has ever existed in all the world.  The plan of salvation which God set forth is one which will maximize, not minimize the number of His children who will return again to live in His glorious presence.  This was His desire and purpose all along.  With that in mind, death doesn’t seem quite so grievous, so detrimental.  

Not only that, but through Jesus Christ I am promised that the grave is not the final resting place, as all will be raised from the dead, returning to our then-immortal and perfected bodies to live again, forever! In that light, I have actually learned to see cemeteries in a different way, with the potential to be some of the most glorious places on earth when the morning of the resurrection finally arrives.

Death has no sting in light of the glorious reality of the
resurrection of the dead, which Christ gifted to us that we may
conquer the grave.

I marvel sometimes at what I learn from reflecting upon my past and combining it with my awareness of the present, especially as things change, as they always do. Naturally, Halloween isn’t like it used to be when I was a kid, but it’s still one of my favorite holidays. I still love the gruesome, the frightening, and the spooky, though I don’t lose sleep over that indulgence anymore. Really, I am at peace with the concept of death, and I know that passing on will not destroy my comfort in my Lord and my God. And this year I think I have found a new reason to love October as I reflect upon how my faith continues to dispel all my fears of what might be lurking around the corner.

~

NOTE: My inspiration for the title of this post is taken from the American folk song of the same name. My favorite version of this beautifully contemplative piece, arranged by Mack Wilberg, can be found on the 2009 Mormon Tabernacle Choir album “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”  Click HERE to hear the song as performed by the BYU Men's Chorus.

Halloween 1996, age 10; I dressed up as a wizard.  Also pictured
are my older brother (far left) and his childhood friend (middle).

Halloween 2007, age 21; I dressed up
as King Henry VIII.  I won the costume
contest at the Halloween party I attended.