Conspiring to Illuminate

On the first day of my high school AP Chemistry class, the teacher gave us a test to see what we already knew and understood. It was a difficult test—it was meant to be—but as the class hour was winding down, I found myself stuck on one question in particular. While many of the problems on the test had been entirely foreign to me, this seemed like one I should have been able to answer. The question asked me to use the measurements provided to calculate the salinity of a sample of ocean water. I worked through the calculations, moving numbers around until I got the answer of 35, but still I sat staring at the page, unsure if I had chosen the correct formula.

Chairs scraped on the linoleum floor as other students stood to turn in their tests. I knew time was running out, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this one question. I should know this one, I thought, though I didn’t know why.

And then, suddenly, I saw it. 35. I could almost feel the neurons connecting in my brain, the flashes of electricity illuminating a memory from the previous year, when I had taken a marine biology class. I signed up for the class to be with a friend, but it turned out to be one of my more enjoyable classes that year. We learned about wave functions and memorized pictures of different kinds of sea life. I can still tell the difference between a seal and a sea lion (look for the ear flaps). One of the facts that we had memorized in that class was the salinity of seawater. 35 parts salt per every 1000 parts saltwater. 35 ppt.

My answer was right.

Let’s be clear; the test was still half-empty when I turned it in. But the spark that I felt when I realized that I knew the correct answer to that one problem—that I was using knowledge I had learned in a different class to help me on this test—felt exhilarating. Almost conspiratorial.

It was the moment I first experienced the delight of unexpected connections; not just as a conjoining of disparate pieces, but as a glimpse into the hidden, connected nature of all things. Literature can be read with an eye on history. Philosophy has been heavily influenced by scientific exploration and mathematical thinking. Every genre of knowledge provides a spotlight that can illuminate understanding from a different angle. And with each new beam I shine on a topic, I see new shadows and shapes that weren’t apparent from my previous perspective.

So, in the spirit of illumination, we would like to share with you a few pairings of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our Wayfare archives. We hope that these collections will help you approach a particular topic from different directions, to sneak up on it and perhaps capture a new understanding of old things. —Jeanine Bee

Fiction: The Gift by R. de la Lanza

Nonfiction: A Grief Shared by Samuel Brown

Poetry: Poem to be Left Behind by Darlene Young

Large crowds gathered in nineteenth-century European public squares to hear the new messages of thermodynamics. The first principle (the conservation of energy) offered a gospel of sustenance and preservation but the second principle (entropy) issued forth a more sinister message: the collapse of all ordered things. The ineluctable movement of life toward death. The eventual heat death of the universe. Since then, local order has been recovered and new questions have been introduced (do neutrons decay), but the story largely stuck: the current status of our universe as full of starlight and probable life now appears as an almost instantaneous flash before the long deep sleep of the blackhole universe to come. How should one manage the uneasy inheritance of entropy?

The bold cosmology of the restored gospel took root at almost the exact same time as this wild revolution of scientific and social thought. Born out of both the conditions of religious freedom and of scientific revolution, the gospel restored continues to this day to issue forth various piecemeal lessons in coming to terms with loss and grief, death and finitude. The three pieces that follow—R. de la Lanza’s short story, “the Gift,” the reflections of Samuel Brown on “A Grief Shared” in his own life, and Darlene Young’s poem “To be Left Behind”—witness such an ongoing restoration that neither pedestals nor eliminates death in our lives. Rather this cluster grants shared purpose and peace to welcoming—without fear or preoccupation—the sure ends of our mortal wayfaring here on earth. May these pieces inspire us to stand ready, in Darlene Young’s words, to one day “sleep soundly and well.”—Benjamin Peters

Fiction: No Two People are Not on Fire by Chanel Earl

Nonfiction: Slings by Ben Inouye

Poetry: Tonglen at En-gedi by Robbie Taggart

Sometimes it seems like we're the only one harboring secret pain. It is a necessary first step, this processing of our own hurt, triaging potential root causes, creating our personal pain taxonomy. Why does it hurt, and where? The chest, the brain, the soul? Don't touch, we want to say to others. Stay far away.

Processing our own hurt might be the work of a lifetime. That's okay. But soon we might realize we're not the only ones nursing secret wounds. It can be jarring to discover that others have stories as complex as ours. That the fibers of humanity are woven with such stories of hurt feels overwhelming, to say the very least. With time, we might feel ready to hear these stories. We are ready to see that within the unveiling of the pain of others, and unveiling our own in turn, lies connection, understanding, even liberation. To see the bruised, pumping heart of others is to realize we aren't alone, and never were, and that God has never left our side.

For those ready for the unveiling, this collection of Wayfare writing is for you. —Shayla Frandsen

Fiction: The Bishop’s Chapbook by Theric Jepson

Nonfiction: An Insider’s View of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Thomas Griffith

One of the most beautiful and difficult things about the Church is the relationships within it. Thanks to geographic congregational boundaries, we are all called to worship alongside our neighbors. Even more than that, we are given assignments within those boundaries to serve and care for those neighbors, to do the never-ending work of charity. We need to know and understand the minutiae of their lives, and to love them through it all. 

The miracle of this collection lies in that minutiae. In the exhaustion of a new mother, the boredom of a waiting husband, the texts from a young woman to her leader. The characters in Theric Jepson’s short story struggle and challenge themselves and their relationships within their worship congregation. And all of these vignettes come together to illustrate Thomas Griffith’s beautiful assertion, “heaven is … an eternal society of people existing, striving, and creatively engaging in loving relation.” —Jeanine Bee

Fiction: The Boy Comes Home by Jack Harrell

Nonfiction: The Bonds of Love by Gideon Burton

Poetry: School-Play by Isaac Richards

If American psychologist Barry Schwartz is correct in his assertion that the secret to happiness is low expectations, then it should come as no surprise that many among us are in a world of hurt. For generations we’ve been taught to long for but also expect a future that features an unbroken chain of loving family members, each making and keeping the same sacred covenants. When such an image, which we’ve understood to be non-negotiable, turns out to be irreconcilable with our lived reality, we face choices. Will we hold fast to the image (just one letter away from “mirage,” after all), and in doing so let go of our children? 

In “The Boy Comes Home,” Jack Harrell’s protagonist is a mother trying to keep her balance amid actual and metaphorical dizziness, trying not to lose the son that has built a firm distance between them. Gideon Burton’s hymn offers comfort that “The bonds of love will outlast life’s little day,” resonating with language from Isaac Richards’ poetic images of change from one season to the next, flowers coming up through decay and snow cover. Can promises of eternal connections help us to make sense of our morphing relationships, or will they tempt us to betray those very bonds? As you read this short story, essay, and poem, see if you agree with me: I’m not certain that the only way to find happiness is for our expectations to be low, but perhaps they will need to be different.—Lori Forsyth

Jeanine Bee is a writer of short fiction and creative non-fiction, and the fiction editor for Wayfare Magazine. Her works have been featured in Irreantum, Dialogue, the Mormon Lit Blitz, and Exponent II.

Benjamin Peters is a Wayfare Associate Editor. A media scholar, author, and editor interested in Soviet century causes and consequences of the Information Age. See more work here: Benjaminpeters.org

Shayla Frandsen is a Wayfare contributing editor. MFA in fiction, MA in English literature from the City College of New York. Her writing can be found in New England Review, Under the Sun, Exponent ii, Dialogue, Iron Horse Literary Review, and more.

Lori Forsyth is the Wayfare Managing Editor. Lori is happiest when connecting ideas and discussing them with friends. She edits in several places and writes in a few (often LoriNotes.wordpress.com).