A Grain of Salt

Disclaimer: I wrote this for my English class and edited it a bit for blogging purposes. Also, the transitions are choppy and/or nonexistent.

The Provo Tabernacle burned down last month- but only on the inside. Since the outer facade was made of brick, both it and the turrets of the building were preserved. On the morning it burned down, friends of mine posted pictures, taken at some ungodly hour, on facebook and blogs. The tabernacle was in flames in the tell-tale pinkish grey of early morning. It looked and seemed surreal at first. There were people at the time who said that the destruction of the Tabernacle was a blow to their testimonies. Others noted the preservation of a painting of Christ and thought that was a sign from Heavenly Father. It’s easy to make metaphors out of life events, and to take the connections one makes in a few seconds seriously.

“I’d have taken it as a sign from the man upstairs,” said Scott, “if it didn’t have swears in it.” He saw a train scarred with graffiti last week and the first legible line he noticed was, “F--- fake hos,” followed by the name of his most recent ex-girlfriend. Would God cuss at us to get a message across? What if it worked? Would he burn down a beloved, albeit old, building?

Or would he send us revelation via fortune cookie? “Change is in your future.” “You will soon happen upon a great deal of money.” Book on Tape Worm went out for Chinese last weekend and we got four fortune cookies each, opening all of them together. Our eyes widened and squinted as we read and pretended to believe each pseudo-sage message. We saved them in our wallets. Maybe we'll refer back to them someday, connecting their prophecies to then-past events.

I smashed my finger in the door in late September, and then Skyler asked me out. For the brief time we dated, my middle right finger was purple and swollen. When we broke up, my fingernail fell off. I pretended it was a sign. I also pretended that the jack-o-lantern I threw away in November was his head. I pretended that when the glass jar and candle I hung outside fell down and shattered, it was a metaphor for letting him go.

I’ve lost the bracelet he gave me. That might actually mean something.

My dad came to visit me back in December and he and I drove down University Avenue, just past Center Street, and parked next to the City Hall. He snapped some pictures of the Tabernacle, flanked with firetrucks. We walked to the top of the parking garage next door to get a better view, talking about philosophy because that’s how my dad is. I realized later that even the Tabernacle could be a metaphor- but for clearing out old things and building new ones. I used that metaphor to build me. I thought, “Sometimes we have to be burned down inside in order to be remodeled into something better. Everything will be okay in the end.” The Tabernacle is being remodeled, from the looks of my last drive-by.

Most people’s astrological signs changed a week or two ago, right? Consulting the newest star charts, I discovered that I was no longer a Gemini, but a Taurus. I felt vague disappointment, even a loss of identity. Then the astrologers told us this change only applied to those born after 1999 or some arbitrary date. We breathed a sigh of relief- as if our futures would be any different if we kept the same star signs.

How much clout can a sign hold? What makes something a sign to which people? Even though I hope God sometimes sends signs to people, I think it’s important to use discernment in naming a heavenly message. If I create a sign that saves or ruins me, grant God the credit for letting me make the connection, or give me the blame for taking it too far.

I like pretending that I live in a book and that some author (like Emma Thompson in Stranger than Fiction, although hopefully less morbid) is making allusions and writing beautiful imagery into my life, but I think I know better than to take her too seriously. I am the only narrator I know of, and my awareness of the metaphors around me may even be irrelevant. I believe that regardless of the author, I am the text. I’ll take my metaphors with a grain of salt.

The Parable of the Bicycle Thief

This is my second This I Believe essay, and I think I've done a slightly better job this time around. Enjoy!

I named my bicycle Alex, after the artist, Alexander Girard. It was a vintage-style beach cruiser, candy-apple red, with Mr. Girard’s “Madonna” painted on both sides of the skirt guard. It had a chrome lamp on the front, powered by the wheels, and a silvery-sounding bell, which friends, acquaintances, and even strangers would ask to ring.

Most days when I go to ride my bike to school, I scan the rack for a minute or so, trying to remember where I parked the day before. Last Thursday, I did this, weaving through the rows and glancing around for that familiar flash of red.

It was several seconds before I realized that my bike simply wasn’t there.

Later that morning, I told my friends that our beloved Alex had been kidnapped. Some told me furiously that they would knock over anyone riding my bike. More than one of my good friends has scoured Craigslist and the rest of the internet, hunting for my bike. That night, my roommates walked with me in the freezing cold to every single bike rack in our apartment complex to look for Alex, and at last, to the one I used to park at.

“I feel like we’re standing around a grave,” said Chelsee.

“Alex was a good bike,” I said, jokingly.

“Whenever I saw him on campus, it made me smile!” said Charne.

I have wondered about the kind of mean-hearted person who stole my bike. My thoughts, originally, were full of prejudices and resentment, but mostly pain that any feeling person could do that to me. I will probably never meet the bicycle thief, but that person hurt me without any reason to. Conversely, since I'm a freshman in college, the friends of which I speak are people whose trust and love I have gained over mere months, weeks, or even days.

Lying on the grass with one of my new friends, I listened to her tell me about how maybe the bicycle thief was a kind of Aladdin character. She said maybe he’d stolen the bike to pay for a dying child’s operation, and once he had a magic lamp, he’d give me my bike back.

Obviously, this is extremely unlikely, but despite the fact that there are bicycle thieves in the world, there are friends who make up ridiculous stories to comfort you. There are roommates who will walk in the freezing cold with you for a nearly lost cause. There are people who will search all over the internet for something formerly irrelevant to them, just because they care about you.

All people have the power to be bicycle thieves, but every human being also has the power to share happiness . My encounter with the bicycle thief taught me that bicycle thieves are, fortunately, a minority, and that there are people who will wrap you in love whenever you even vaguely need it. Thankfully, those are the people I find around myself now.