Commune with me…

I wrote this years ago, while serving as a missionary at the LDS Temple Visitors Center outside of Washington D.C.  Periodically, there were wonderful musical performances held at the Visitors Center, and the invited artists were amazing!  But, usually, I saw them beforehand, looking like anyone who had just come in off of the street–setting up their equipment, getting ready.  Later, at the performance, it was if they were unveiled–and that woman I’d seen earlier in baggy pants and birkenstocks with socks became the most divine creature!  And it happened EVERY TIME–as they used their gifts.  I tried to put what I felt into words:

Simple they seem at first glance

just like ordinary human beings:

in casual clothes

with casual hair

even lacking that ‘I’m Important’ air

–just normal,

even at second glance.

But OH! I’m amazed

when their gifts they share–

all those glorious songs in their souls!

With the change in their stance

and the glow in their eyes

something within me begins to rise

and glorify God.

No more are they simple,

never again, in my eyes.

I no longer see just

their earthly disguise.

Like a ‘brown paper package

tied up with strings’

I can’t wait to discover

what the opening brings!

And now every time

a new person I meet,

I no longer just see what they show.

For inside each ‘brown package’

lies at least one great gift

that will turn my heart heavenward

to the giver, I know.