Running to Stand Still

Several people have asked me for a concert report. While Rolling Stone did a great job with their review, I wanted to tell you about my Mother's Day.

My concert buddy Allison and I flew to Seattle on Saturday May 13th, and we stayed with my dear friend Jason.

Airplane Selfie!

I love the window seat. 

Me & Jason on his roof. Words cannot tell you how amazing this man is.

We stayed at Jason's lovely home on Saturday night, and we got up early on Sunday for a Mother's Day brunch and ate lots of pastries.

Allison & I with the troll (and a random dude playing the ukelele)

Allison, Justin & Jason outside the "Silence-Heart-Nest" hippie restaurant

A delightful pain-au-chocolat

I had received an email from Century Link field a few days before I left, in which they told me they do not allow regular purses. They have to be clear. I debated on just stuffing my pockets, but luckily Jason had some leftover plastic bags from buying curtains. So I did a little arts-and-crafts project and made myself this super-classy crossbody bag. I literally braided some twine to make a strap and just kept everything else in the bag.

Amazing, right?! (Preview of young Barack on the right)

After my little project, we thought about going to Pike Place, but got caught in traffic and couldn't find anywhere to park. So we just went to Century Link,

As close as we got

After having paid $50 to park (gah!!!), we tried to find the General Admission (GA) line around 2pm. It was already around the building, so I'm glad we got there when we did. Allison had to go find a restroom, so I just started chatting with the guy in line in front of me. I noticed he was wearing a Joshua Tree hat, which he could only have gotten at the opening night of the tour in Vancouver. We started talking, and he has been to 50 concerts over the last 30 years (his first U2 show being during the original Joshua Tree tour). 

Simon (a.k.a., @BadAcrobat, a.k.a. Dad)

As we kept talking, the people around us started listening and joining in on the conversation, and we all realized that we needed to stick with Simon. He knew exactly where to stand and what he was doing, despite never having been to this venue. So we all started talking to each other and getting to know each other a little, sharing our cheesy popcorn and chatting. And I kinda started calling Simon Dad, because he kept looking back to make sure we were all with him. Simon is originally British, but lives in Alaska. The couple ahead of us were a French girl (Lisa) and her latino boyfriend; I don't remember his name, but he looked exactly like a young Barack Obama. Seriously. The couple behind us were Chaveli and Bryan, who were from the Philippines. How cool is it that people from all over the world met each other at a concert and became fast friends?! I love it. 

When the line started moving, we had to make our way into a Disneyland-type line, when we found out that it was Chaveli's birthday!

Moo.

At this point, I got to skip out of the line to use the restroom for a minute. It was pretty nice to wash my cheesy fingers, and my little group remembered me so I could get back in line.

We finally made our way onto the field around 5:45pm, and I decided I needed a group picture. I have no idea who the guy on the left is, but whatever.

L-R: Some random dude, Young Barack, Lisa, Simon, Bryan, Chaveli, Me & Allison

I also had to sneak a better picture of Barack.

It was throwing me off a little bit.

Lisa and Young Barack

So we waited for another hour or so, until Mumford & Sons came out onto the stage. they stayed on the main stage, so I was a little doubtful as to our positioning, and a little sad I didn't get a better view. But they still sounded fantastic.

This is what the stage looked like in the light. It was probably 30-40 feet tall,
judging by the very small, very talented Brits on stage.

 I was a little disappointed that the people around me weren't as excited as I was for Mumford & Sons; I'm also sad they didn't play more than they did. But I'm a total fangirl, and I know that people usually don't go to concerts fo the opening act. Even so--WHAT AN OPENING ACT. Here's their setlist:

Snake Eyes

Little Lion Man

Below My Feet

Lover of the Light

Tompkins Square Park

Believe

The Wolf

They played for about 45 minutes, and I knew I wasn't going to make it until the end of the concert, so I made my way out of the pit and up to the restroom. It wasn't bad going out, but coming back in was another story. I picked up some Fish & Chips (mediocre) and a beer (I bought a beer!) and trying to get back into our fabulous spot right by the stage with food in hand was, uh, not pretty. I have a whole diatribe on concert ettiquette, and I knew I was that annoying person, but I really was there earlier! I kept apoligizing and admitting what an a**hole I was for trying to get in front of people. But I did what I had to do, and I had to get back to my friends! 

I finally made it, and delivered the beer to Simon as a thank you for getting us to where he did. (Chaveli asked him how he got a beer, and he said that it magically appeared over his shoulder!). I'm not sure if buying a beer on a Sunday is considered a good deed, but I'll leave that up to you to judge. I probably should have bought Bryan a beer, considering that he bought me a lemonade earlier, but I barely made it through the crowd with one!

Anyway, after Mumford & Sons was done, we had to wait for another hour or so for the sun to set. And when the boys walked out onto that stage, literally 15 feet in front of me, I was jumping up and down! Simon really came through for us.

The Edge is so freaking adorable.

Seriously?! How amazing is this lineup?!

Bono . . . still sounding fantastic

Adam . . . who only looks better and better with age

I wish I had a better camera, but my curtain-bag crossbody would only hold so much. And I try to not take too many pictures, because I want to BE THERE and enjoy it. But the views were so incredible I had to take a ton! Plus, Allison's phone had died, so I had to get pictures for her too.

They stayed on the B-stage (right in front of us) for a few songs:

Sunday Bloody Sunday

New Year's Day

A Sort of Homecoming

Bad

Pride (In The Name of Love)

 Then the screen turned on and they made their way back to the main stage to play though the entire Joshua Tree album (in order):

Where the Streets Have No Name

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

With or Without You

Bullet the Blue Sky

Running to Stand Still

Red Hill Mining Town

In God's Country

Trip Through Your Wires

One Tree Hill

Exit

Mothers of the Disappeared

Each song was accompanied by an original mini-film (with a very American flair) on the giant screen. Some were really cool; some were a little weird, like the one of Edge's wife, Miss Mysterious Ways herself,  wearing a stars-and-stripes bikini top and jeans while throwing a lasso . . . but the screen was incredible. Apparently it's 8K (top-of-the-line TVs these days are 4K, so I'm just saying). I can't remember which images went with which songs, but I'll do my best.

Where the Streets have No Name

In God's Country

Red Hill Mining Town, featuring a Salvation Army brass band

This shows you the scale of the screen

I think this was Trip Through Your Wires 

One Tree Hill

Not sure which song, but a cool visual of the screen

On Mothers of the Disappeared, they had Eddie Vedder and Mumford & Sons come out to join them. Now that's a supergroup I could get behind! (Who am I kidding? I love supergroups.)

That was the end of the main set, but (of course) they came back for an encore. They played a few more songs on the main stage, accompanied again by amazing (if political) videos:

Beautiful Day

Elevation

Ultraviolet (Light My Way)

One

Miss Sarajevo

I love how Ultraviolet became a girl-power moment, changing HIStory into HERstory, and they showed faces of amazing women, like Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, Patti Smith, Angela Merkel, and Lena Dunham. (I'm sorry--I can't even type that with a straight face, but she was one of the chosen few).

Bono has always been political, so you have to expect that at a U2 concert. What I did not expect was to be close enough to see the whites of his eyes. They came back out to the B-stage to finish out the show.

 They played a new song (the only song less than 15 years old) from the upcoming "Songs of Experience" album, called The Little Things That Give You Away. I really liked it, and apparently that's where they ended the show in Vancouver. But they gave us one more to send us out on a serious high: I Will Follow.

(Side note: Simon posted in the atU2 forum on Twitter after the Vancouver show that they should end the concert with I Will Follow. Coincidence? Maybe. But he was unbelievably stoked about it!)

Here's my favorite picture of the night:

Bono and Adam stuck in a moment, with the Edge (larger than life) looking on

I love this picture, because it really encapsulates what I love about this band. They are brothers. They know how lucky they are to make so much money doing what they love. They use their celebrity for good causes. They have fun and live every day to the fullest. These guys are well into their fifties, and have literally been doing this exact same thing since they were teenagers in the 70's, still going strong after 40+ years. 

Are they the greatest band in the world? Probably not. Are they the most amazing musicians? Not really. But I adore them. Their lyrics mean something and the music is heartwrenching, and they just figured it all out together, becoming unbelievably successful through hard work and perserverance. It's so cool to see. And their music speaks to people all over the world--even to just a few people who would have otherwise never met. 

*sigh*

That's about it. We drove Simon back to the bay to catch the Bainbridge Ferry, and went back to Jason's for the night. We slept for a few hours, then got up early to catch our flight home (and there were plenty of people in the airport, and even on the parking shuttle at SLC also wearing their JT30 gear). It was an amazing couple of days, and I'll never forget it. Some say I'm crazy, but this was definitely money and time well spent. I hope you have something you are as passionate about, and that it brings you as much joy as this did for me.

Neither Lost Nor Found

If you haven't noticed, all of my blog posts for the past several months have been quotes from Mumford and Sons.  I have been listening to Babel over and over again in my car, because it's just so good.  I'll write more about them later, but I will say that one of many reasons I love their music is because the lyrics really make me think (and feel).  I have a few mild obsessions of late, mostly Mumford and Sons and Doctor Who.  It's not super-duper healthy, but there are worse things, right?

Speaking of Doctor Who, I have been thinking about an episode from the 5th season, called Vincent and The Doctor.  The Doctor takes Amy Pond to the Musée d'Orsay, where they visit the gallery dedicated to Van Gogh.  The Doctor notices something amiss in one of the paintings, and with the help of a Professor Black (the lovely Bill Nighy as a Van Gogh expert), he takes Amy back in time to meet Van Gogh in Provence and (of course) fix the problem.  They do, and as they are leaving, the Doctor decides to take Vincent back to 2010 to the Musée d'Orsay so he can see how his work is appreciated.  Because Van Gogh was ridiculed and very poor at the time of his death, it is very sweet to see how he is affected by Dr. Black's declaration of how Van Gogh was one of the greatest painters who ever lived by transforming pain into beauty.  It made me cry a little bit.

Image from "Vincent and the Doctor," from: http://culturemass.com/2013/05/03/cm-picks-doctor-who-memorable-moments/

At the end of the episode, after the Doctor and Amy Pond take Vincent back to Provence, they go back to the Musée d'Orsay, where Amy thinks that this experience will cause time to be rewritten, and Van Gogh will have created many more paintings.  Upon their return, they find that not much had changed; Vincent still committed suicide only a few months after they left him, and Amy says that they didn't make a difference at all.  Then, the Doctor says something that has stuck with me (this is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who quotes):

"The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things."

I know many people wouldn't, but I put Facebook in my pile of good things.  There are a lot of reasons to dislike FB, but I am so grateful for the chance to reconnect with so many people whom I haven't seen in years, as well as get insights into the lives of people I see frequently.  I love reading what people have to say (for the most part), though sometimes it gets a little heated (yet another reason to dislike election season).

An important discussion started last Sunday, just after General Conference finished.  I was reading a summary of some of the talks, and somehow I ended up posting this article to my Facebook page, with the title: "Leaders say Mormons cannot condone same-sex marriage."  Truthfully, I didn't do it on purpose, and when I realized I did, I hoped I hadn't offended any of my friends who are homosexual.  So I posted this:

Mary Nolan Cox

October 6 near Kearns via mobile

I struggle with the issue of same-sex marriage because of my religion. I believe we all deserve the same rights, and I believe that God loves everyone equally. I have dear friends and relatives who are gay, and I hope you are not offended by the article I posted. We all deserve love and respect. We are all brothers and sisters.

I don't know that I've ever had so many passionate comments on a post, which tells me that people feel very strongly about the subject.  Most of the comments (and some were quite lengthy) were very respectful and kind, and many valid points were made.  I wanted to respond to them all, but I didn't want to do it on FB.  So here I'm doing it here.  I hope I can give some insight into the conflict many of us feel.

First: I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I am a Mormon.  I was born into an active, church-going family, and I have been attending church regularly for my entire life.  I served a mission for my church, and I will continue to be a member for as long as I live.  One of the most beautiful things about my religion is how we are urged to question.  We are instructed to seek out the answers for ourselves, to find out if what the leaders say is true.  I have personally read the Book of Mormon, listened to the Prophet, been baptized, and made covenants in the temple.  I have not done these things because I am brainwashed or because they were expected of me; I did them because I knew they were right.  I have a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ because I asked.  I prayed and received an answer that this church is the true church of God.  I know this independently, because the Spirit of the Lord has confirmed it in my heart and mind over and over again (D&C 8:2).

That being said, the LDS Church is not perfect.  As was said in General Conference, "I suppose the Church would be perfect only if it were run by perfect beings. God is perfect, and His doctrine is pure. But He works through us—His imperfect children—and imperfect people make mistakes" (President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Come Join With Us," October 2013).  There are some things I don't love about being an active member (like the time commitment), and there are other things I really don't like (such as the handling of Proposition 8, though things are changing with that too--read here).  And as much as I love living in Utah, I believe the LDS Church has too much influence on our state government.  Very little is done without the church's approbation, and many laws are based on LDS values.  That is not always a bad thing, but I feel it takes away from the freedom of choice.  The liquor laws in Utah are ridiculous, and while I'm not an advocate of drinking, I do know that restricting the licenses of businesses is not good for the economy.  I don't think you can legislate morality; for example, making a law that you cannot buy alcohol on Sundays will not stop people from drinking alcohol on Sundays.  Making gambling illegal in the state will not stop people from driving across the border to buy tickets for the Powerball Lottery.  I say that if people are going to do something anyway, let us benefit from it.  As Joseph Smith said:  "I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves."  Church and state are supposed to be separate, and for good reason.

Even though the pile of good things about the LDS Church greatly outnumbers the pile of bad things, when it comes to sustaining the leaders of the Church, the thing that weighs most heavily on my mind is the issue of same-sex marriage.  The brethren are very consistent, saying that the church cannot condone same-sex marriage.  "While we are to emulate our Savior’s kindness and compassion, while we are to value the rights and feelings of all of God’s children, we cannot change His doctrine. It is not ours to change. His doctrine is ours to study, understand, and uphold" (Elder Russell M. Nelson, "Decisions For Eternity," October 2013).

I sustain the leadership of my church.  I believe that they are doing what they feel to be right.  Part of me knows that I should agree with them 100%.  But I don't.

I do not see what is wrong with loving someone, regardless of gender.  I don't see how legalizing a relationship between two men or two women threatens marriage between one man and one woman.  I don't see why I should have rights that others do not, because the person I married happens to be of the opposite gender.  Personally, I think that when two people want to commit to each other, there shouldn't be laws against it.  I think gay marriage is beautiful, and that the fight for equality is worth supporting.

Where I'm coming from, I can see both sides of the equation.  I hear both arguments and find them both valid.  I read stories of how families are torn apart by this issue and wonder at how this could possibly be better than acceptance.  In all honesty, I just cannot lean one way or the other--saying one side is right and the other is wrong.  I have always tried to be a peacemaker and to avoid confrontation.  I hate feeling such conflict.  It tears me up inside.

So what is my role in all of this?  I may have helped spark a conversation, one which (I hope) has helped some people think about this a bit more.  I have personally done more research and prayed about this subject than I ever have.  In doing so, I found this website: http://www.mormonsandgays.org/.  It really helps me see that attitudes are changing, even though the law of God does not.  And it reminds me that we are all sinners; we are all beggars before the Lord, and we are all in need of His atonement.

In all of the contemplation and heartache of the past few days, one thought has been my mantra: It is not my place to judge.  It is my job to love. (I'm pretty sure I got it from this blog post, which I first read over a year ago).  I can't say what is right and what is wrong for everyone, because each person has his or her own definition.  I cannot walk in the shoes of those who have been on the receiving end of this kind of discrimination and judgement, nor can I condone the self-righteous attitudes of lawmakers, whether or not I agree with them.  I believe that God is kind, and He will judge us according to many things--not just our sexual orientation.  

This is an excellent Q&A about the stance of the church, and in it, Elder Dallin H. Oaks makes a powerful statement:

" . . . Some people consider feelings of same-gender attraction to be the defining fact of their existence. There are also people who consider the defining fact of their existence that they are from Texas or that they were in the United States Marines. Or they are red-headed, or they are the best basketball player that ever played for such-and-such a high school. People can adopt a characteristic as the defining example of their existence and often those characteristics are physical.

"We have the agency to choose which characteristics will define us; those choices are not thrust upon us.

"The ultimate defining fact for all of us is that we are children of Heavenly Parents, born on this earth for a purpose, and born with a divine destiny. Whenever any of those other notions, whatever they may be, gets in the way of that ultimate defining fact, then it is destructive and it leads us down the wrong path."

I don't want to judge anyone.  I don't want to offend anyone (though I'm sure I have and will), and I have been working on this post for several days, making sure that this is what I really want to say.  What it all boils down to is that I don't want to change the world; I just want to help others feel the love of our Savior.

While driving in to work last week, I was contemplating my response to all of these comments and arguments.  I was listening to "Holland Road" by Mumford and Sons, and it reminded me of the episode of Doctor Who I wrote about earlier.  The realization of the simplicity of my answer took my breath away.

I want to be a person who adds to your pile of good things.  There's not a lot I can do to ease the burdens of those who have to live with these difficult circumstances.  There is some service I can give, some beauty I can contribute to this world to help people get through their hard times.  I usually can't take burdens away, but maybe I can help make them a little lighter.

It's not the revelation I was looking for, but this is an answer for me.  I don't have all of the answers right now; I don't have the ability to understand all the mysteries of God.  There are a lot of things I struggle with, and I have a very long way to go until I can see as perfectly as our Father in Heaven, but I do have a big heart.  I have so much love for you, my friends and family, and I know that's just a tiny portion of the love Jesus has for each of us.  It's hard to feel sometimes, especially when I let the adversary tell me I am unworthy, but it's always there.  Although we ALL have piles of bad things, God has given us so much for our piles of good things.  He has given us gifts and talents we can share and use to bless the lives of others.  

Please know that you are loved.  You are cherished.  Our Father in Heaven created you, and He loves you, whether or not you believe in Him.  I love Him, and I love you, truly.  Please let me know how I can add to your pile of good things.

from: http://godisawhale.tumblr.com/post/34011344555