Delivered at the Sunstone Symposium on August 9th, 2008.  A portion of this appeared in an earlier post.

I believe in the power of storytelling. Specifically, I believe that I have the ability to shape my relationship to the universe and insert beauty into my world through the life narrative I co-opt and create.

Once upon a time, on a lovely spring morning, a young farm boy went into the woods to pray. He fought off the devil and spoke with shining heavenly personages. He returned a prophet.

When I heard this story as a teen investigator, I was thrilled to insert myself into Joseph Smith’s grand vision. My life had a beginning in God’s presence as the child of a Heavenly Mother and Father, a middle in the struggle of this mortal existence, and with every good choice—receiving baptism and the priesthood, serving a mission, getting married in the temple, bringing up children in the Gospel, I was writing my way to a glorious conclusion.

Then came a series of crises. Five little girls suffocated in the trunk of a car as a mother drove it through the neighborhood, praying desperately to find them. Tsunamis drowned and earthquakes crushed hundreds of thousands more. Random nature reigned, and God retreated, tearing the pages of his story out of my hands.

This story of an absent, deadbeat heavenly dad dominated my life for several years.

I can’t remember whose death was involved–it might have been a relative, or the body of an animal we discovered outside. All I know is that my little son and daughter had met death in one of its dark forms, and as their father I had to shield them from the full force of that encounter.

I was tempted to fall back on old Mormon tale that we can live forever in God’s presence with those who are dear to us, but it wasn’t mine to tell anymore. Did I have anything to offer?

Then it came pouring out from me. I explained that when we die, our bodies return to the earth. All the bits decompose, feeding other life, which in turn feed other life. We are part of an ancient cycle of nourishment that sustained countless generations of species upon this unique life-rich planet. I continued, telling them that the elements which make up our bodies—carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and more—were formed in the furnaces of stellar forges and that mighty supernova scatter this life-bearing seed throughout the universe. Drawing inspiration from Carl Sagan, I told them that we were made of star stuff, and that long after we died our material might return to the stars to burn brightly in someone’s night sky.

When I was done, my children sat with eyes wide and began peppering me with questions. Sometimes, when my own sense of mortality strikes, I remember this telling and feel that I am still part of a grand story full of wonder and glory–a tiny, insignificant part, to be sure, and the ending is perhaps messier and bleaker than some would like, but it’s my story—and as I weave it into other narratives, it fills my life with beauty and purpose.