By Charlotte Johnson Willian

Charlotte Johnson Willian is a child/family advocate who resides in the southern hills of Indiana, where she is surrounded by the trees she loves. This essay received first place in the 2017 Eugene England Memorial Personal Essay Contest.

 

 

 

 

A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, could explain the universe to us.

—Lucy Larcom

 

Each week, I listen intently as my son or fellow priests articulate prescribed prayers over bread and water—a moment of simple reverence overcoming teenage defiance.

Fingers that work a keyboard, thumbs that relay text messages, hands that save Earth from planetary aliens by video game now solemnly tear bread—break the body of the Savior—and pour tap water, splashing the freely-offered life blood.

Some of the most familiar words of scripture for Mormons, the invocation begins as one of the family of faith—“we ask thee”—then veers away from the body of saints. “That they may eat . . . and witness . . . and are willing . . .” The mouthpiece must capture God’s attention and plead the cause of those gathered—they will eat and remember and obey if they may always have his Spirit; words on behalf of the congregation that my daughters will never voice. Grant the mouthpiece a portion of Spirit too, despite him drinking orange juice straight from the jug, belching at dinner, and—on the drive to church—beseeching others in the car to Walk this way / Walk this way along with Aerosmith.

Upon the arrival of a gleaming tray, I bypass the bits of rice cake and lift a morsel of bread, pledging faith and obedience for renewal. I bring a portion of clear liquid to my mouth and picture Christ on the path to Golgotha, catch the last drop of the tiny offering on my tongue, close my lips to doubt and replace the empty cup. The priests receive the final trays and serve the token bearers, then solemnly smooth the table covering free of wrinkles. At a signal, the young men turn from the place of offering and find spots with their families, sitting near the ends of pews or politely squeezing past sets of knees; these same boys who play hard on activity night—driving to the basket with legs askew, springing wildly from the path of the dodgeball, or leaping to grab a flying disc. Bless and sanctify our fibrils of connection.

 

The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.

—Isak Dinesen

 

In a small coastal town of Denmark, my mother, Grete, and her five siblings grew up in a series of tiny apartments, occasionally with an additional attic sleeping room. Understandably, the children spent much of their time outdoors playing, biking, or swimming in Horsens Fjord, a small inlet off the Baltic Sea. This was not the swimming of my childhood, nor that of my children, in monitored public pools surrounded by brightly colored beach towels on adjustable lounge chairs. My mother and her siblings biked to narrow, grassy beaches and raced down roped wooden piers. They swam and reveled in often-frigid water. My adventurous mother, a “tomboy,” was the apple of her father’s eye and the first in her family to own a bike with gears, a 3-speed beauty.

My mother discovered an American religion, Mormonism, and, several years later, romance with a former missionary farm boy from Utah. She crossed an overwhelmingly wide Atlantic Ocean to the United States in 1954—long before text messaging, the Internet, or even cheap international telephone calls. My grandfather, unable to face a shipside farewell, refused to accompany his favorite daughter for her embarkation from Copenhagen aboard the ship Stavangerfjord. She and my grandmother faced that moment alone.

Despite her Viking ancestry and hardy constitution, my mother endured the crossing seasick, contemplating her immeasurable losses and only promised gains. Seven years later,