As The Sparks Fly Upward

I am sitting in the “Chapel Annex,” a small square building behind the main on-post chapel. This is an appropriately humble setting, with floors made out of sheets of terminally-dusty plywood. There is a brown upright piano in the corner (untouched on this day), a CD player with European plugs, a small wooden stand before which stands our speaker. A larger pulpit with a prominent cross has been moved to the other side of the room, where it now stands unused. I count four windows and four blessed air-conditioning units pumping in air which is probably not any cleaner or less dusty than the air outside, but it is cooler, and thus carries at least the illusion of purity.

A Navy 0-4 (Lt Commander, I believe) and a Marine E-8 preside over the meeting, and a thin man in civvies with an Orson Pratt beard is delivering an Easter sermon. Previously, we sang an opening and then a sacrament hymn, mostly remaining in-sync with the pre-recorded accompaniment. Sacrament was brief (small congregation) and almost eerily quiet, lacking the wiggling, grunting, moaning, and occasionally screaming kid noises which are part of the aural landscape at home. Though I am not watching, it is apparent that not everyone takes the sacrament. I think we have some non-members here.
The audience, on our folding chairs, consists of enlisted Marines, a few Army folk, including a CPT, and a Navy chaplain LTC, Brother Vance, who is also the representative from the stake. There are nearly 20 of us here in total. Weapons are in hip holsters, or on the chairs next to church-goers. The atmosphere is quiet, and cordial. Everyone looks a little tired.

In the field, the LDS (Mormon) church services are only an hour long. Throughout my career, this has been perfectly consistent. Not sure if this is a DoD regulation, a standard Church rule, or if we can only reserve our little meeting spaces for an hour. I do know that it would be hard to manage the normal three hours here, and that Relief Society would be a fairly small group, in most cases. There are three women here today; one appears to be a Iraqi national, one a marine, and one an Army SGT with a Combat Surgical Hospital patch (likely an LPN). The hour meeting sems enough on this day, and we have a “Family Home Evening” during the week.

I am far from the first to say it, but there is something very reassuring about going to church in a deployed environment like this, and finding that it gives me that same spiritual renewal that I receive in church back home. President Kimball once spoke of the reservoirs that each of us needs to have, and pointed out that there is one reservoir that is of particular importance:

There are in our lives reservoirs of many kinds. Some reservoirs are to store water. Some are to store food, as we do in our family welfare program and as Joseph did in the land of Egypt during the seven years of plenty. There should also be reservoirs of knowledge to meet the future needs; reservoirs of courage to overcome the floods of fear that put uncertainty in lives; reservoirs of physical strength to help us meet the frequent burdens of work and illness; reservoirs of goodness; reservoirs of stamina; reservoirs of faith. Yes, especially reservoirs of faith so that when the world presses in upon us, we stand firm and strong; when the temptations of a decaying world about us draw on our energies, sap our spiritual vitality, and seek to pull us down, we need a storage of faith that can carry youth and later adults over the dull, the difficult, the terrifying moments, disappointments, disillusionments, and years of adversity, want, confusion, and frustration.

Dr. Archibald Brugger of my mission presidency once told us how we need to have our “buckets filled” every so often. I have found that to be true in my case, and things like prayer, scripture study, meditation on sacred things, all of these fill that bucket a bit. But there is something important and necessary about the company of other individuals, who are, like me, striving to be good with varying success. These brief, quiet moments never fail to renew my reservoirs, and to firm my grip on the iron rod. Perspective re-established, I walk back out into the blinding sun, the small/taste of dust and diesel, and I am ready for it.