How I deal

There's a print of a painting of Christ hanging on the wall in my Relief Society room at church. It's framed and hangs above the little shelf where all of the hymn books are stacked just above the piano. The shelf has become a collection for all other random items left in the room — children's books, scriptures, objects used in lessons — and an unusual quantity of Kleenex boxes. Behind all of the stuff you can still see Christ, facing left, with a sort of garment/blanket/scarf draping his head. His eyes are squinting, and he's looking out across the room.

The piano sits in the front right corner of the room. Since I play prelude, postlude and the opening and closing hymn each week, I sit near the piano and often by myself. When the room is more full than usual, there are some women who will venture over into my little corner, but sometimes I'm all alone with my thoughts, the piano and the squinting Christ.

The painting is called "Gentle Healer," so I'm sure that's the emotion the artist was going for, but I choose to interpret the squint a little differently each week.

During some weeks, when the teacher or those in the class tend to stray from doctrine in their comments, those eyes are the most comforting. I struggle enough with actual doctrine; I don't need to hear ad-libbed questionable "doctrine" from random people. So, in my head, I see those eyes looking at the teacher or across the room and giving away His merciful, but confused, thoughts: "What are you saying? Where are you getting this? This isn't what I taught. This isn't what I meant." The eyes are still gentle, but troubled. But on those Sundays, when my ear perk up and my eyebrows go down after someone says something questionable, I look up and see that I'm not alone in my confusion. And I usually feel a lot better.