Rather than post six paragraphs directly to the Westwind Home School group page, I chose to use my blog, simply because I knew that was one means of posting a quick link to LONG information. Please forgive me if that looks like self-promotion, and please forgive my verbosity. (Still working on it!)
Subject to final approval, the 2014 Halloween Party will take place on Halloween afternoon, Friday, October 31, from 1:00 until 3:00 PM (with clean-up from 3:00 until 4:00). I will post regarding that final approval as soon as we receive it!
I invite families to access my Google spreadsheet in order to sign-up to share a pot-luck snack and to volunteer for the party assignment of their choice.
In order to access the Google doc, click the attached link.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ccf1TXzVu640njOtCH3rxX1wkTJ3SD9S2Z_z7QKrA_k/edit?usp=sharing
You should be able to find your preferred assignment and insert your name and information in the corresponding fields. (Ex: If you want to volunteer to clean-up, sign your name and your pot-luck food info in the fields adjacent to a "clean-up" cell.) My darling husband points out that you will have the capability to replace other people's names with your own, enabling you to take over any assignment you choose :-). I trust you're people of integrity who will show more respect than that :-).
This is a work in progress, so feel free to add, delete, or otherwise alter anything I've thrown together, here. So far, in my inexperienced head, the party itinerary looks something like this:
1. Upon arrival, each child will receive a sticker designating which of four rotation groups he or she will participate with. Before we split into groups, however, we'll enjoy a whole-group ice-breaker game that can commence as soon as guests begin arriving.
2. Snacks will be made available throughout the event.
3. Following the ice-breaker activity, children will divide into groups and rotate through four stations, a mix of craft activities and Halloween games. Each rotation will last fifteen minutes, so if you volunteer to run a station, plan accordingly.
4. At the conclusion of the station rotation, we'll turn on some music and conduct a costume parade, followed by an informal dance.
5. We don't have to judge costumes, but it might be fun to award creative, categorical prizes. (This is one of the suggested volunteer assignment fields, if you want it.)
6. We'll wrap things up at 3:00 and have everything cleaned up by 4 PM. Only those who volunteer for a clean-up assignment need stay to assist in that effort.
Feel free to make any additions, suggestions, criticisms, etc via comments to this post on the FB page or using the Google spreadsheet. I'm new at this, and as you're all about to figure out (if you haven't already), I make lots of mistakes!
Thanks so much for your insights and participation! I can't wait to party with all of you!
Monday, 20 October 2014
Friday, 4 April 2014
Make Lemonade
I was embarrassed last night to be counted among the ranks of parents at the school board's parent meeting.
Granted, my sons have not come home crying after school because of pushing in the hallways or un-monitored encounters at recess. My kindergartner has never run home by himself across Highway 52 or any other major thoroughfare and begged me in tears to home school him. Last night, I felt compassion for parents and children in those challenging circumstances. Logically, I acknowledge that there is certainly potential for improved student outcomes given a smaller student-to-teacher ratio and possibly even greater square footage per student in which to learn each day.
Nevertheless, I was embarrassed to hear parents accuse with such animosity those very public servants who have devoted so much effort to fighting our fights and securing solutions to our problems---solutions, I realised from the truly informative portion of last night's meeting, over which they have limited control. Alberta Education, overseeing the needs of an entire province, allocates the tax dollars that build, modernise, and enlarge Alberta schools. The school board may study, propose, and petition, and it appears evident that they have. As a result, our school will likely receive the best Alberta Education offers any growing community: two additional modular units, a boon we might do better to acknowledge than to resent.
We didn't treat our own administrators any better than we treated our school board. Admittedly, it appeared that parents' justifiably sensitive feelings had been hurt by administrative responses, real or perceived. But as parent after parent railed against our authorities, we rightly remembered to thank our tireless, talented teachers but failed to extend that gratitude to our administration. They are perceptive and capable individuals who dedicate their years of education, experience, and understanding not to griping about our school's growth but to capitalising on it. If our administrators failed to consult us in their problem-solving, perhaps it was because they feared we would respond just as many of us did, magnifying the problems rather than synergising solutions.
I was reminded of my three-year-old, tantrum-ing Wednesday morning that when I cut his waffle, I overturned a few pieces. He didn't thank me for making the waffle or whipping the cream that bedecked it. He zoomed-in on three over-turned pieces and cried so long and so frantically that by the time he settled down, the whipped cream had melted, the waffle was soggy, and he'd traded his breakfast for a breakdown. Last night I had to wonder if the parents of Raymond Elementary School students weren't making the same exchange.
The concerns parents expressed last night are real and valid: no one wants her child to be shoved under the coat hooks in a hallway gone to bedlam. No one wants his child's needs lost in the chaos of over-stuffed classrooms. No one wants his child to lose educational opportunities because limited resources can't stretch sufficiently to sustain a school's burgeoning population. But as real as these problems are, we must ask, "What more can reasonably be done?" and even more importantly, "What can I do to help solve the problem, and what is the most useful manner in which to approach it?" Parents might well ask themselves, "If my child were at last night's meeting, witnessing me, what would my actions have taught him or her about solving problems?" There will always be problems. If we go no further than making demands, we will never make a positive difference.
So much is right in our school and our community! I am so grateful that my kindergarten student has come home every day this week, bursting his buttons to tell me, "Guess what I learned today!" He told me fact after fact about owls and detailed how he had stroked a taxidermied one, demonstrating the proper and improper direction for stroking owls' feathers and explaining why direction even matters. He is one of forty-seven students in the morning kindergarten, and he is a shy one at that; but even (or especially!) in a collaborative classroom with forty-six other pupils and three top-notch, phenomenal teachers---not to mention the attentive, supportive EAs---he has learned about owls and obedience.
He is my fourth kindergartner to attend Raymond Elementary School, and though I sent him to school with greater trepidation that I sent any of my other sons (he is shyer, younger, and less prepared academically than they), he has attached to three marvellous teachers, he has made friends of students he didn't know outside of class, he has faced and worked through adversity, and he has begun to read. When he wet his pants at school, his teachers called me: not to chastise me, but to ask if there were anything they could do to protect his dignity and increase his sense of safety, success, and self-worth. He was not my first son to wet his pants in kindergarten, but his teachers were the first to notice and take action, even with forty-six other students in their care. When I spent the day in the kindergarten classroom, as I have done each time I had a kindergartner, I actually saw greater order, better time-use, more carefully-monitored and individualised learning, and less-frazzled teachers than I had ever seen in kindergarten before. "Satisfied" would understate my respect. I have been overwhelmed with gratitude for the Phoenix our school has engendered from its space-crunch ashes.
My gratitude extends beyond the kindergarten. My sixth-grader shares at dinner each night his enthusiasm for the simulations his teachers have created of governments from Ancient Greece to modern Iroquois. He demonstrates science experiments, teaches us art techniques, initiates family discussion of current events, and looks up You-Tube videos about the James Webb telescope. My third-grader poses the logic challenge his teacher posed to him in a three-person learning group composed of students who needed that extra challenge. He demonstrates the strategies he has learned to solve multiplication equations. His problem-solving rivals mine, and not because I've taught him, but because his teachers have reached him at school. My first-grader participates in a school-sponsored Book Club to enrich the experience of students his age with particular needs. All of my children are eager to start logging their miles for the school's marathon club and the annual Cardston Kids' Marathon. And every one of my four children taught me the "Make Lemonade" song their music teacher taught them for One School, One Book --- an initiative that has brought our family together every afternoon in delightful shared reading, problem-solving, and discussion. These are the parental versions of those moments Mrs. Sue Heggie referenced last night: the moments when you stand back, beam, and exult, "They're learning! They're growing! They're becoming!" For all of these moments, from the depths of my heart, I thank the school board, the administration, the teachers, and the parent council, working in concert not to complain, but to create.
I think it's time to take a page from One School, One Book and Jacqueline Davies's Lemonade Wars. Our school board, administrators, teachers, and parent council have made a lot of lemonade, lately. I will do more good in my family, our school, and our community by joining forces and partnering with them, rather than waging war.
It is time for me to accept responsibility for the education of my children. It is time for me to determine what growth and goodness I can create from challenges my children may encounter at school. It is time for me to change those things over which I have power, beginning with my attitude. My personal response to the challenges (and opportunities!) inherent in our community's growth will have a greater effect for good (or ill) on my children than any other element in this equation.
Granted, my sons have not come home crying after school because of pushing in the hallways or un-monitored encounters at recess. My kindergartner has never run home by himself across Highway 52 or any other major thoroughfare and begged me in tears to home school him. Last night, I felt compassion for parents and children in those challenging circumstances. Logically, I acknowledge that there is certainly potential for improved student outcomes given a smaller student-to-teacher ratio and possibly even greater square footage per student in which to learn each day.
Nevertheless, I was embarrassed to hear parents accuse with such animosity those very public servants who have devoted so much effort to fighting our fights and securing solutions to our problems---solutions, I realised from the truly informative portion of last night's meeting, over which they have limited control. Alberta Education, overseeing the needs of an entire province, allocates the tax dollars that build, modernise, and enlarge Alberta schools. The school board may study, propose, and petition, and it appears evident that they have. As a result, our school will likely receive the best Alberta Education offers any growing community: two additional modular units, a boon we might do better to acknowledge than to resent.
We didn't treat our own administrators any better than we treated our school board. Admittedly, it appeared that parents' justifiably sensitive feelings had been hurt by administrative responses, real or perceived. But as parent after parent railed against our authorities, we rightly remembered to thank our tireless, talented teachers but failed to extend that gratitude to our administration. They are perceptive and capable individuals who dedicate their years of education, experience, and understanding not to griping about our school's growth but to capitalising on it. If our administrators failed to consult us in their problem-solving, perhaps it was because they feared we would respond just as many of us did, magnifying the problems rather than synergising solutions.
I was reminded of my three-year-old, tantrum-ing Wednesday morning that when I cut his waffle, I overturned a few pieces. He didn't thank me for making the waffle or whipping the cream that bedecked it. He zoomed-in on three over-turned pieces and cried so long and so frantically that by the time he settled down, the whipped cream had melted, the waffle was soggy, and he'd traded his breakfast for a breakdown. Last night I had to wonder if the parents of Raymond Elementary School students weren't making the same exchange.
The concerns parents expressed last night are real and valid: no one wants her child to be shoved under the coat hooks in a hallway gone to bedlam. No one wants his child's needs lost in the chaos of over-stuffed classrooms. No one wants his child to lose educational opportunities because limited resources can't stretch sufficiently to sustain a school's burgeoning population. But as real as these problems are, we must ask, "What more can reasonably be done?" and even more importantly, "What can I do to help solve the problem, and what is the most useful manner in which to approach it?" Parents might well ask themselves, "If my child were at last night's meeting, witnessing me, what would my actions have taught him or her about solving problems?" There will always be problems. If we go no further than making demands, we will never make a positive difference.
So much is right in our school and our community! I am so grateful that my kindergarten student has come home every day this week, bursting his buttons to tell me, "Guess what I learned today!" He told me fact after fact about owls and detailed how he had stroked a taxidermied one, demonstrating the proper and improper direction for stroking owls' feathers and explaining why direction even matters. He is one of forty-seven students in the morning kindergarten, and he is a shy one at that; but even (or especially!) in a collaborative classroom with forty-six other pupils and three top-notch, phenomenal teachers---not to mention the attentive, supportive EAs---he has learned about owls and obedience.
He is my fourth kindergartner to attend Raymond Elementary School, and though I sent him to school with greater trepidation that I sent any of my other sons (he is shyer, younger, and less prepared academically than they), he has attached to three marvellous teachers, he has made friends of students he didn't know outside of class, he has faced and worked through adversity, and he has begun to read. When he wet his pants at school, his teachers called me: not to chastise me, but to ask if there were anything they could do to protect his dignity and increase his sense of safety, success, and self-worth. He was not my first son to wet his pants in kindergarten, but his teachers were the first to notice and take action, even with forty-six other students in their care. When I spent the day in the kindergarten classroom, as I have done each time I had a kindergartner, I actually saw greater order, better time-use, more carefully-monitored and individualised learning, and less-frazzled teachers than I had ever seen in kindergarten before. "Satisfied" would understate my respect. I have been overwhelmed with gratitude for the Phoenix our school has engendered from its space-crunch ashes.
My gratitude extends beyond the kindergarten. My sixth-grader shares at dinner each night his enthusiasm for the simulations his teachers have created of governments from Ancient Greece to modern Iroquois. He demonstrates science experiments, teaches us art techniques, initiates family discussion of current events, and looks up You-Tube videos about the James Webb telescope. My third-grader poses the logic challenge his teacher posed to him in a three-person learning group composed of students who needed that extra challenge. He demonstrates the strategies he has learned to solve multiplication equations. His problem-solving rivals mine, and not because I've taught him, but because his teachers have reached him at school. My first-grader participates in a school-sponsored Book Club to enrich the experience of students his age with particular needs. All of my children are eager to start logging their miles for the school's marathon club and the annual Cardston Kids' Marathon. And every one of my four children taught me the "Make Lemonade" song their music teacher taught them for One School, One Book --- an initiative that has brought our family together every afternoon in delightful shared reading, problem-solving, and discussion. These are the parental versions of those moments Mrs. Sue Heggie referenced last night: the moments when you stand back, beam, and exult, "They're learning! They're growing! They're becoming!" For all of these moments, from the depths of my heart, I thank the school board, the administration, the teachers, and the parent council, working in concert not to complain, but to create.
I think it's time to take a page from One School, One Book and Jacqueline Davies's Lemonade Wars. Our school board, administrators, teachers, and parent council have made a lot of lemonade, lately. I will do more good in my family, our school, and our community by joining forces and partnering with them, rather than waging war.
It is time for me to accept responsibility for the education of my children. It is time for me to determine what growth and goodness I can create from challenges my children may encounter at school. It is time for me to change those things over which I have power, beginning with my attitude. My personal response to the challenges (and opportunities!) inherent in our community's growth will have a greater effect for good (or ill) on my children than any other element in this equation.
Thursday, 30 January 2014
Resolution 2014: Be Meek
At first glance, you might think this post's an excuse. But it's not. It's a resolution.
I'm a month late, you say. Perhaps. Some things take time to percolate.
I guess that's what my goals have been doing all month. I've been reading like Seth does: ravenously. Somewhere between Rich Dad, Poor Dad and the BYU Studies' personal essay contest instructions, I formulated enough aspirations to run a half-marathon and head a corporation, not to mention spend time outdoors daily (Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods), read all twelve titles on Oliver DeMille's book club list, and finish those five un-sewn jean quilts I never could squeeze into Christmas.
And be meek. Almost as an afterthought.
I listed some of these dreams in Sunday School, pondered others at weeknight Relief Society, then bagged all but one in the bedroom at 2:30 last Saturday morning.
"It's going to be a big week for me at work," Jared mused. Neither of us was sleeping. "The double-blind study comes out on the 30th, and we'll have to work hard to capitalize."
I nodded, but it was dark, so Jared probably lost my affirmation. Especially when I followed it with musings of my own: "I was really hoping for some time this week to work on an essay for a contest. The deadline is Friday, and I haven't begun . . . unless you count outlines for three different essays I can't really write, after all."
Both of us knew what I meant: "Which night this week could I count on your taking the kitchen clean-up and the kids?"
He didn't respond, and I understood his silence. He wanted to be supportive, but he really couldn't spare any evening. In fact, he was asking an evening of me.
I sighed. It was tempting to throw a conniption fit, but I might have awakened Benson. Besides, I was working on that afterthought goal---the only goal, from all that I'd drafted, that I'd been able to clear with my Manager, and conniption fits were in express violation.
So instead, I took the matter up with Him.
At 2:30 Saturday morning, I flopped beside my bed, folded my hands, and lowered my forehead. "Father in Heaven," I whispered, "I want to enter this essay contest. But Jared needs me to support him at home. I think I should give up the contest. Am I getting this right? Is this Thy will?"
I didn't hear a voice or a see a vision. I still knew His answer was, "Yes."
"I feel like I should give up the essay contest," I mumbled, crawling back into bed.
"I will truly appreciate that," Jared breathed in relief.
"I'm just frustrated," I confided. "There are so many goals I want to accomplish. I've been studying. I've been reading. I was so inspired at our Relief Society goal night. I want to achieve, to learn, to create---yet I run it by the Lord, and the only thing He sanctions, the only goal that comes back to me with His seal of approval is this one---just one: be meek."
I lay there for a minute to let the silence underline my disappointment. "Be meek," I repeated, while Jared nodded into the darkness. "That's it. What will I ever accomplish on that?"
Jared proceeded to extol all things worthy about being meek. He congratulated. He philosophized. He even quoted scripture. But my heart wasn't right, so even Mosiah 3 and Moroni 7 didn't soothe me.
"I'll sleep on it," I finally concluded---a wise enough goal itself, at three o' clock Saturday morning.
Turns out, sleep held the answer.
I dreamt we'd arrived with six stir-crazy sons at what we'd thought would be a five-star hotel. We'd driven all day. Anticipation mounted as we lugged boys and baggage to our room. Visions of spacious surroundings, luxurious furnishings, and an in-room jacuzzi lifted the strain of both baby and hockey bag slung across opposite shoulders.
But shock socked the sugarplum daydreams the instant we opened our door. Sea-green walls---a dull, doctor's-office shade of lily-pond---all but swallowed a shabby, rumpled bed. Little more than a body's width cleared the bed's perimeter. The room's only other feature was one more door in the opposite wall.
I held back another conniption fit; we had a vacation to rescue. I refused to let my reaction distress my family.
"We're tired," I reminded them cheerfully, dumping the hockey bag on to the bed. "Let's just go to sleep, and tomorrow, we'll sort everything out."
Everyone grumbled consent.
Our bladders begged for a bathroom. Holding out hope for the jacuzzi, we unlatched the opposite door, thinking washroom---only to find a larger space crammed with multiple families and beds just like ours.
"Where's the washroom?" we asked a lounging dad when at last we'd organized our outrage into intelligible speech.
"It's just a community toilet. You'll have to get in line."
I gawked at Jared and hissed through my teeth, "How much did we pay for this place?"
"Three hundred sixty dollars."
"What?!" my disbelief sputtered, unrestrained. "Well, can't we get it back?! It would be one thing if it were just us, but our children can't live this way. I'm going to speak with the manager."
I did. In a made-over kitchen-office, painted the same sickly green as our room, I confronted a humble manager with simple, dark, shoulder-length hair. She wore nondescript sweater and blue jeans and looked at me softly as I spoke. She may have been thirty. She may have been me.
"I apologize," I insisted unapologetically, surprised by my unprecedented boldness, "but I cannot afford $360 for this kind of service. We don't even have a private bathroom. I cannot keep my family here. I demand a refund."
She didn't reason, refute, or reprimand. She broke down sobbing and made out a check. She reimbursed me ten extra dollars for my trouble. I concealed the compassion tying knots in my gut.
When I woke, it was seven. Benson was crying, refusing my offer to nurse. It took just a moment to come to my senses and realize I no longer felt incensed but subdued.
My heart heard the Manager's message: "Your plans will cost more than they're worth."
Jared helped the boys with my Saturday chores before he took Ammon and his other eleven-year-old Scouts to the Ridge. I hosted a nephew and took the resulting six boys to the library. After claiming our holds, we tromped two blocks to Phillip's Playground. The sun felt more like March than January, and we climbed up the slides and sailed to Hawaii and ate bananas and granola bars until my nephew had to go.
I never once missed the essay contest.
A few days later, I read President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's January 2014 First Presidency Message. "The best time to plant a tree," he quoted the old proverb, "is twenty years ago. The second best time is now."
I could plant trees in my assets column, saving for acres of raw, rugged nature. I could plant trees entering essay contests and maybe whole forests investing my winnings. But what will I say to the Manager when I feel dissatisfied with all my trees' fruit? How much will so many trees matter if I fail to first plant, "Be meek"?
Jared's words came back to me from Saturday morning's heart-to-heart, and this time my heart was meek enough to embrace Mosiah 3, Moroni 7, and God's other word in between:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19).
". . . he will beautify the meek with salvation" (Psalm 149:4).
"Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness" (Zephaniah 2:3).
"The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way" Psalm 25:9.
". . . the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit . . . is in the sight of God of great price" (1 Peter 3:4).
" And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant . . . thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness" (D&C 25:5).
". . . if they will do this in all lowliness of heart, in meekness and humility, and long-suffering, I, the Lord, give unto them a promise that I will provide for their families" (D&C 118:3).
"And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love" (Moroni 8:26).
" . . . walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me" (D&C 19:23).
" . . . learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (Matt. 11:29).
". . . blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (3 Nephi 12:5, Matt. 5:5)
"For none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart" (Moroni 7:44).
Someday, I'll sew those unfinished jean quilts, join a book club, and run a marathon. Someday I may run a corporation. Someday, with revenue raised by my assets, I'll purchase a farm house and plant enough trees for my whole family to climb and sail to Hawaii. Today, I dig a foundation---acceptable to God, if not man. A month late? Perhaps, or maybe twenty years. But the second best time to be meek is now. Twenty years from now when I face myself, may the return on today's investment inspire gratitude rather than anguish.
I'm a month late, you say. Perhaps. Some things take time to percolate.
I guess that's what my goals have been doing all month. I've been reading like Seth does: ravenously. Somewhere between Rich Dad, Poor Dad and the BYU Studies' personal essay contest instructions, I formulated enough aspirations to run a half-marathon and head a corporation, not to mention spend time outdoors daily (Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods), read all twelve titles on Oliver DeMille's book club list, and finish those five un-sewn jean quilts I never could squeeze into Christmas.
And be meek. Almost as an afterthought.
I listed some of these dreams in Sunday School, pondered others at weeknight Relief Society, then bagged all but one in the bedroom at 2:30 last Saturday morning.
"It's going to be a big week for me at work," Jared mused. Neither of us was sleeping. "The double-blind study comes out on the 30th, and we'll have to work hard to capitalize."
I nodded, but it was dark, so Jared probably lost my affirmation. Especially when I followed it with musings of my own: "I was really hoping for some time this week to work on an essay for a contest. The deadline is Friday, and I haven't begun . . . unless you count outlines for three different essays I can't really write, after all."
Both of us knew what I meant: "Which night this week could I count on your taking the kitchen clean-up and the kids?"
He didn't respond, and I understood his silence. He wanted to be supportive, but he really couldn't spare any evening. In fact, he was asking an evening of me.
I sighed. It was tempting to throw a conniption fit, but I might have awakened Benson. Besides, I was working on that afterthought goal---the only goal, from all that I'd drafted, that I'd been able to clear with my Manager, and conniption fits were in express violation.
So instead, I took the matter up with Him.
At 2:30 Saturday morning, I flopped beside my bed, folded my hands, and lowered my forehead. "Father in Heaven," I whispered, "I want to enter this essay contest. But Jared needs me to support him at home. I think I should give up the contest. Am I getting this right? Is this Thy will?"
I didn't hear a voice or a see a vision. I still knew His answer was, "Yes."
"I feel like I should give up the essay contest," I mumbled, crawling back into bed.
"I will truly appreciate that," Jared breathed in relief.
"I'm just frustrated," I confided. "There are so many goals I want to accomplish. I've been studying. I've been reading. I was so inspired at our Relief Society goal night. I want to achieve, to learn, to create---yet I run it by the Lord, and the only thing He sanctions, the only goal that comes back to me with His seal of approval is this one---just one: be meek."
I lay there for a minute to let the silence underline my disappointment. "Be meek," I repeated, while Jared nodded into the darkness. "That's it. What will I ever accomplish on that?"
Jared proceeded to extol all things worthy about being meek. He congratulated. He philosophized. He even quoted scripture. But my heart wasn't right, so even Mosiah 3 and Moroni 7 didn't soothe me.
"I'll sleep on it," I finally concluded---a wise enough goal itself, at three o' clock Saturday morning.
Turns out, sleep held the answer.
I dreamt we'd arrived with six stir-crazy sons at what we'd thought would be a five-star hotel. We'd driven all day. Anticipation mounted as we lugged boys and baggage to our room. Visions of spacious surroundings, luxurious furnishings, and an in-room jacuzzi lifted the strain of both baby and hockey bag slung across opposite shoulders.
But shock socked the sugarplum daydreams the instant we opened our door. Sea-green walls---a dull, doctor's-office shade of lily-pond---all but swallowed a shabby, rumpled bed. Little more than a body's width cleared the bed's perimeter. The room's only other feature was one more door in the opposite wall.
I held back another conniption fit; we had a vacation to rescue. I refused to let my reaction distress my family.
"We're tired," I reminded them cheerfully, dumping the hockey bag on to the bed. "Let's just go to sleep, and tomorrow, we'll sort everything out."
Everyone grumbled consent.
Our bladders begged for a bathroom. Holding out hope for the jacuzzi, we unlatched the opposite door, thinking washroom---only to find a larger space crammed with multiple families and beds just like ours.
"Where's the washroom?" we asked a lounging dad when at last we'd organized our outrage into intelligible speech.
"It's just a community toilet. You'll have to get in line."
I gawked at Jared and hissed through my teeth, "How much did we pay for this place?"
"Three hundred sixty dollars."
"What?!" my disbelief sputtered, unrestrained. "Well, can't we get it back?! It would be one thing if it were just us, but our children can't live this way. I'm going to speak with the manager."
I did. In a made-over kitchen-office, painted the same sickly green as our room, I confronted a humble manager with simple, dark, shoulder-length hair. She wore nondescript sweater and blue jeans and looked at me softly as I spoke. She may have been thirty. She may have been me.
"I apologize," I insisted unapologetically, surprised by my unprecedented boldness, "but I cannot afford $360 for this kind of service. We don't even have a private bathroom. I cannot keep my family here. I demand a refund."
She didn't reason, refute, or reprimand. She broke down sobbing and made out a check. She reimbursed me ten extra dollars for my trouble. I concealed the compassion tying knots in my gut.
When I woke, it was seven. Benson was crying, refusing my offer to nurse. It took just a moment to come to my senses and realize I no longer felt incensed but subdued.
My heart heard the Manager's message: "Your plans will cost more than they're worth."
Jared helped the boys with my Saturday chores before he took Ammon and his other eleven-year-old Scouts to the Ridge. I hosted a nephew and took the resulting six boys to the library. After claiming our holds, we tromped two blocks to Phillip's Playground. The sun felt more like March than January, and we climbed up the slides and sailed to Hawaii and ate bananas and granola bars until my nephew had to go.
I never once missed the essay contest.
A few days later, I read President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's January 2014 First Presidency Message. "The best time to plant a tree," he quoted the old proverb, "is twenty years ago. The second best time is now."
I could plant trees in my assets column, saving for acres of raw, rugged nature. I could plant trees entering essay contests and maybe whole forests investing my winnings. But what will I say to the Manager when I feel dissatisfied with all my trees' fruit? How much will so many trees matter if I fail to first plant, "Be meek"?
Jared's words came back to me from Saturday morning's heart-to-heart, and this time my heart was meek enough to embrace Mosiah 3, Moroni 7, and God's other word in between:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19).
". . . he will beautify the meek with salvation" (Psalm 149:4).
"Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness" (Zephaniah 2:3).
"The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way" Psalm 25:9.
". . . the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit . . . is in the sight of God of great price" (1 Peter 3:4).
" And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant . . . thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness" (D&C 25:5).
". . . if they will do this in all lowliness of heart, in meekness and humility, and long-suffering, I, the Lord, give unto them a promise that I will provide for their families" (D&C 118:3).
"And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love" (Moroni 8:26).
" . . . walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me" (D&C 19:23).
" . . . learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (Matt. 11:29).
". . . blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (3 Nephi 12:5, Matt. 5:5)
"For none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart" (Moroni 7:44).
Someday, I'll sew those unfinished jean quilts, join a book club, and run a marathon. Someday I may run a corporation. Someday, with revenue raised by my assets, I'll purchase a farm house and plant enough trees for my whole family to climb and sail to Hawaii. Today, I dig a foundation---acceptable to God, if not man. A month late? Perhaps, or maybe twenty years. But the second best time to be meek is now. Twenty years from now when I face myself, may the return on today's investment inspire gratitude rather than anguish.
Wednesday, 25 December 2013
Heaven's Windows
"Does Heaven have windows?"
Three-year-old Dalen poked his head out from under the pew. He'd burrowed beneath it with his bottle and blanket, and despite his brother's ten dangling feet in his face, I'd figured he'd fallen asleep. What else would silence him five full minutes?
As a matter of fact, the Sacrament Meeting talk.
"Does heaven really have windows, Mom?" he repeated. "Really?"
I stared at him, somewhat stupefied --- first, that he'd processed Sister Bevan's reference at all, second that he'd quoted it in just such a way as to wake my own stultified heart. My attention spilt between Spencer's "I need to go to the bathroom!" and Seth's stabbing Lorrin with a pencil, I'd all but tuned Malachi out, myself. But from his toddler tongue, Dalen's query struck me as the Mormon nursery boy's equivalent of Virginia's request of The Sun: "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?" (Frances Pharcellus Church, "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus").
Circumstances barring an extemporaneous editorial, I nodded mutely. But I wanted to weep, "Does Heaven have windows? Ah, Dalen, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding" (ibid).
This year we've been living Exhibit A for Elder David A. Bednar's "Significant But Subtle Blessings":
But this Christmas, there hasn't been anything subtle about it: we've been deluged in a heavenly downpour. My parents brought me a sewing machine one month before I even dreamt the ridiculous plan to sew jean quilts for my boys for Christmas. Jared eventually revived my senses, and I downscaled from five quilts to one. When my parents found out, they phoned from Utah. "We left you a Christmas present at Halloween that you ought to open now," they recommended. The gift replaced the machine they'd given me for Christmas twenty years ago and enabled one quilt's completion the day before Christmas Eve.
The windows didn't close there. A lovely friend stashed gifts for each of my boys in our van. My brother and his new bride made a generous deposit in our U.S. savings account. For twelve days, an anonymous pixie left presents from popcorn to tablecloths to Christmas socks. One night, we found five colouring books and ninety-six crayons: a direct fulfilment of Dalen's wish weeks ago at preschool. "What would you like for Christmas?" Sister Roach had asked. He told her, "Crayons up to the ceiling!" and to a three-year-old, ninety-six is just that. Sunday night, a knock at our door revealed the High Priest Group leadership, singing Christmas carols. They brought turkey and fixings for a full Christmas dinner, plus a gift bag for Jared, me, and each boy. I just stood and squeezed Jared and cried. No sooner had they left than we heard another knock and found another box of turkey dinner on our doorstep. Jared had to phone his brothers to take some turkey off our hands, for we literally hadn't room enough to receive it.
As if all that weren't enough, Monday night Seth discovered a $100 bill on our bookshelf, rolled up and tagged, "Merry Christmas to you." We cannot figure out how it got there. Christmas Eve morning, we discovered another anonymous envelope taped to our door. That afternoon, we found two bags full of gifts on the porch, and then my dear friend brought a basket of specially-selected, symbolic ornaments to decorate our Christmas tree . . . along with a card stuffed with sacrifice. We had prepared our children for a simple Christmas, such that five-year-old Spencer would answer innocent inquirers, "I don't want any presents for Christmas. I just want a book." He got more books than will fit on our shelf and more presents than he's ever received. It's like living It's a Wonderful Life.
Does Heaven have windows? Oh Dalen, does it ever!
As touching as all of this generosity has been, I'm grateful it hasn't been God's only window. Kindness is humbling, but sometimes it leaves guilt: I want to give, not just receive. Throughout this year's financial ordeal, I've often remembered an experience I had as a teenager with my aunt and uncle and their several children. My uncle had just lost his job and was looking for another when they invited us over to make sack lunches for a homeless shelter. Slapping Kraft Singles on bologna, their example emblazoned an unforgettable impression on my heart: In the midst of their own crisis my uncle and aunt still acknowledged their blessings and sacrificed to give. When I learnt in my later teens of instance after instance of their generosity to me, I had a private conversation with my Father in Heaven. "Someday," I asked Him, "please bless me to be like them---to be able and willing to give."
In that spirit, we rallied our children this Christmas and tried to scrape together a little something to bless another. Our widow's mite seems rather meagre when we look at the cornucopia engulfing us, but Jared often reminds us of President Monson's advice: "It is well to remember that he who gives money gives much, he who gives time gives more, but he who gives of himself gives all" ("The Gifts of Christmas," Ensign, Dec. 2003). We gave carols, cookies, and what we could of ourselves. I cannot help but wonder how much other families gave up in order to give of themselves and share their family's mite with us. The thought humbles me to tears. We pray our loving friends will experience as we have for ourselves that President Marion G. Romney's words are true: "You cannot give yourself poor in this work. A person cannot give a crust to the Lord without receiving a loaf in return" (quoted by President Henry B. Eyring, "Opportunities To Do Good," General Conference April 2011). We feel like we've thrown God our crusts upon the water and He has sent back sufficient to feed five thousand (see Brad Wilcox, "Getting Over Feeling Under Appreciated," Ensign, March 2004).
Three-year-old Dalen poked his head out from under the pew. He'd burrowed beneath it with his bottle and blanket, and despite his brother's ten dangling feet in his face, I'd figured he'd fallen asleep. What else would silence him five full minutes?
As a matter of fact, the Sacrament Meeting talk.
"Does heaven really have windows, Mom?" he repeated. "Really?"
I stared at him, somewhat stupefied --- first, that he'd processed Sister Bevan's reference at all, second that he'd quoted it in just such a way as to wake my own stultified heart. My attention spilt between Spencer's "I need to go to the bathroom!" and Seth's stabbing Lorrin with a pencil, I'd all but tuned Malachi out, myself. But from his toddler tongue, Dalen's query struck me as the Mormon nursery boy's equivalent of Virginia's request of The Sun: "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?" (Frances Pharcellus Church, "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus").
Circumstances barring an extemporaneous editorial, I nodded mutely. But I wanted to weep, "Does Heaven have windows? Ah, Dalen, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding" (ibid).
This year we've been living Exhibit A for Elder David A. Bednar's "Significant But Subtle Blessings":
Sometimes we may ask God for success, and He gives us physical and mental stamina. We might plead for prosperity, and we receive enlarged perspective and increased patience, or we petition for growth and are blessed with the gift of grace. He may bestow upon us conviction and confidence as we strive to achieve worthy goals. And when we plead for relief from physical, mental, and spiritual difficulties, He may increase our resolve and resilience.
I promise that as you and I observe and keep the law of tithing, indeed the windows of heaven will be opened and spiritual and temporal blessings will be poured out such that there shall not be room enough to receive them (see Malachi 3:10). We also will remember the Lord’s declaration:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). ("The Windows of Heaven," General Conference October 2013. )We prayed for deliverance and received endurance. We prayed for rescue and received revelation. And almost imperceptibly, we received other blessings, too. Our resources, like the widow's oil, failed not --- though we could not replenish them. Healthy boys here, healthy vans there, we were subtly blessed by difficulties that didn't happen and mercies that did.
But this Christmas, there hasn't been anything subtle about it: we've been deluged in a heavenly downpour. My parents brought me a sewing machine one month before I even dreamt the ridiculous plan to sew jean quilts for my boys for Christmas. Jared eventually revived my senses, and I downscaled from five quilts to one. When my parents found out, they phoned from Utah. "We left you a Christmas present at Halloween that you ought to open now," they recommended. The gift replaced the machine they'd given me for Christmas twenty years ago and enabled one quilt's completion the day before Christmas Eve.
The windows didn't close there. A lovely friend stashed gifts for each of my boys in our van. My brother and his new bride made a generous deposit in our U.S. savings account. For twelve days, an anonymous pixie left presents from popcorn to tablecloths to Christmas socks. One night, we found five colouring books and ninety-six crayons: a direct fulfilment of Dalen's wish weeks ago at preschool. "What would you like for Christmas?" Sister Roach had asked. He told her, "Crayons up to the ceiling!" and to a three-year-old, ninety-six is just that. Sunday night, a knock at our door revealed the High Priest Group leadership, singing Christmas carols. They brought turkey and fixings for a full Christmas dinner, plus a gift bag for Jared, me, and each boy. I just stood and squeezed Jared and cried. No sooner had they left than we heard another knock and found another box of turkey dinner on our doorstep. Jared had to phone his brothers to take some turkey off our hands, for we literally hadn't room enough to receive it.
As if all that weren't enough, Monday night Seth discovered a $100 bill on our bookshelf, rolled up and tagged, "Merry Christmas to you." We cannot figure out how it got there. Christmas Eve morning, we discovered another anonymous envelope taped to our door. That afternoon, we found two bags full of gifts on the porch, and then my dear friend brought a basket of specially-selected, symbolic ornaments to decorate our Christmas tree . . . along with a card stuffed with sacrifice. We had prepared our children for a simple Christmas, such that five-year-old Spencer would answer innocent inquirers, "I don't want any presents for Christmas. I just want a book." He got more books than will fit on our shelf and more presents than he's ever received. It's like living It's a Wonderful Life.
Does Heaven have windows? Oh Dalen, does it ever!
As touching as all of this generosity has been, I'm grateful it hasn't been God's only window. Kindness is humbling, but sometimes it leaves guilt: I want to give, not just receive. Throughout this year's financial ordeal, I've often remembered an experience I had as a teenager with my aunt and uncle and their several children. My uncle had just lost his job and was looking for another when they invited us over to make sack lunches for a homeless shelter. Slapping Kraft Singles on bologna, their example emblazoned an unforgettable impression on my heart: In the midst of their own crisis my uncle and aunt still acknowledged their blessings and sacrificed to give. When I learnt in my later teens of instance after instance of their generosity to me, I had a private conversation with my Father in Heaven. "Someday," I asked Him, "please bless me to be like them---to be able and willing to give."
In that spirit, we rallied our children this Christmas and tried to scrape together a little something to bless another. Our widow's mite seems rather meagre when we look at the cornucopia engulfing us, but Jared often reminds us of President Monson's advice: "It is well to remember that he who gives money gives much, he who gives time gives more, but he who gives of himself gives all" ("The Gifts of Christmas," Ensign, Dec. 2003). We gave carols, cookies, and what we could of ourselves. I cannot help but wonder how much other families gave up in order to give of themselves and share their family's mite with us. The thought humbles me to tears. We pray our loving friends will experience as we have for ourselves that President Marion G. Romney's words are true: "You cannot give yourself poor in this work. A person cannot give a crust to the Lord without receiving a loaf in return" (quoted by President Henry B. Eyring, "Opportunities To Do Good," General Conference April 2011). We feel like we've thrown God our crusts upon the water and He has sent back sufficient to feed five thousand (see Brad Wilcox, "Getting Over Feeling Under Appreciated," Ensign, March 2004).
And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers . . . to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not,
And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full;
Then beware lest thou forget the Lord. . . (Deuteronomy 6:10-12)May I never forget, nor my children. And one day, may God make us His window to another, as Julie de Azevedo expressed:
I want to be a window to His love,
So you can look through me and you'll see Him.
And someday shining through my face you'll see His loving countenance
'cause I will have become like He is. ("A Window to His Love," Julie de Azevedo)Merry Christmas and all our gratitude. Thank you for becoming Heaven's Windows to us.
Thursday, 21 November 2013
Left Behind
My aunt Sue wore my grandma's dress to my brother's wedding in July. "I thought she'd want me to," she whispered to my dad as we waited for the wedding.
My aunt Kathleen brought the quilt---"The last Grandma pieced," she confided while we stood outside the temple after the ceremony.
I wore Grandma's shoes.
I wear them whenever I'm in the temple. I wore them again last night, tugged them on in the ten-minute pre-session frenzy wrought by my feeding the missionaries the moment we should have embarked for Cardston. To exacerbate my stress, I'd spent the thirty-five minute drive with Jared concocting Christmas. "Four jean quilts," I'd tried to convince him. "I've got scraps. Maybe Sheila could coach me." Short of stamping my forehead, "CRAZY," he shook his head. "It's not worth it," he moved; and I knew he meant my strain, not the project's expense. The last word as we dashed from the van to the temple was Jared's resolute, "It's just stuff. You can't take it with you."
No. But you can leave it behind.
Almost every Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa gave us books. Just books, but they were one way Grandma and Grandpa made thinkers, leaders, producers, entrepreneurs, and educators out of so many of their thirty-three grandchildren. Christmas after Christmas, those books instilled in us Grandma and Grandpa's value of great education. And they didn't just give books; they received and they read books, too---often several at a time.
After their death, they left their books behind. One of them came to me: Go Forward with Faith, Sheri Dew's biography of Gordon B. Hinckley. A Post-It marked one page quoting President Hinckley's philosophy on reading:
Grandma gave books; but sometimes, for Christmas, she gave gifts she created herself. One year she cross-stitched mugs in intricate floral patterns for each of her grandchildren. Another year she cross-stitched Christmas tree ornaments: not simple-stitch initials, like she'd helped me construct as a ten-year-old, but vintage circuitous Santa scenes, shaded and nuanced, every tiny square within the ornament frame etched in floss. Just stuff. We can't take it with us. But whenever I touch it, she touches me back, and she teaches me with the excellence of her work.
Then there were the quilts---not for Christmas, but for weddings. She let us choose any pattern. When I was engaged, she pulled out her books. But one was missing. I knew because I'd picked my pattern from it when I was twelve: the double wedding ring, in pastel pink and forest green. I was bold enough to ask for it, and Grandma produced it . . . with slight hesitation. Only after she'd finished the masterpiece did a cousin confess Grandma's resolution, sworn years before my marriage: "Never again," she'd vowed, after the serpentine production of an older cousin's double wedding ring. Why she reneged for me, I couldn't guess.
As a child, I felt sure she disliked me. She loved me, of course; but somewhere between Rule 23: Clean-Socks-On-The-White-Plush-Carpet and Rule 439: No-Unaccompanied-Children-In-The-Formal-Living-And-Dining-Rooms, I formed the vague impression of myself and my kind as a nuisance. I was a twenty-four-year-old mother of two, tip-toeing into the mortuary where Grandma awaited Grandpa's viewing, when I first knew beyond a doubt that Grandma loved me. I threw one arm around her---the one not holding my baby. "Oh, Sheralee. Bless your heart," Grandma wept. We cried together. That's when I knew.
What I didn't know---what I never knew until Grandma's funeral---was that Grandma lived most of her life in chronic pain. Doubtless her silent suffering must have amplified my childhood misdemeanours. She nursed her health with work, her personal panacea, and she expected us to follow suit. As an elementary principal or a senior Swedish missionary, a vegetable gardener, a pianist, or an Idaho Falls Temple worker, she lived by the maxim, "Work will win when wishy-washy wishing won't." Her work baked bread, froze jam, bottled peaches, sewed dresses, crocheted blankets, molded lives. Her work built readers, writers, teachers, artists, musicians, moms, and dads. Even in her final years, after Grandpa left her widowed, dying in his sleep two nights after Christmas 2005, Grandma worked. "I still have quilts to make," she resolved as we left Grandpa's funeral. Just stuff, those quilts, and all that work. She didn't take it with her. But she left it behind.
My uncle Conrad said her death was peaceful, like passing through the temple's veil. He was consoling me as I wept over Grandma's casket in 2009. "Roseanne was there," he reassured me---she was my Uncle Jim's wife, long deceased---"and Grandpa, and Grandma's parents." He didn't say it, but I imagined Uncle Conrad's son Joseph there, too. "This is good for Grandma," he attested.
I didn't get to say good-bye. I'd phoned her one week earlier, to wish her a happy birthday. She was too sick to talk on the phone. I left a message, but I forgot to say, "I love you." I never even wrote her a thank-you card for the double wedding ring quilt.
She left her pristine living room. After her funeral, the white plush carpet still squished beneath my clean-stockinged feet. She left her books and her sewing machine and her cross-stitch. She left her bread pans and her freezer jam recipe. She left unfinished quilt tops for my devoted aunts to complete, and she left Aunt Sue her temple dress. She took with her God's promise that binds us beyond death; she'll always be my grandma, and my cousins', and our children's.
The rest she left behind.
To me, she left a turkey roaster, an amethyst necklace, a couple of jewelry pins, and books. She left me a queen-size double wedding ring quilt and a lifetime to live my gratitude. She left me her shoes, and she left me behind to continue the work she commenced in them.
My aunt Kathleen brought the quilt---"The last Grandma pieced," she confided while we stood outside the temple after the ceremony.
I wore Grandma's shoes.
I wear them whenever I'm in the temple. I wore them again last night, tugged them on in the ten-minute pre-session frenzy wrought by my feeding the missionaries the moment we should have embarked for Cardston. To exacerbate my stress, I'd spent the thirty-five minute drive with Jared concocting Christmas. "Four jean quilts," I'd tried to convince him. "I've got scraps. Maybe Sheila could coach me." Short of stamping my forehead, "CRAZY," he shook his head. "It's not worth it," he moved; and I knew he meant my strain, not the project's expense. The last word as we dashed from the van to the temple was Jared's resolute, "It's just stuff. You can't take it with you."
No. But you can leave it behind.
Almost every Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa gave us books. Just books, but they were one way Grandma and Grandpa made thinkers, leaders, producers, entrepreneurs, and educators out of so many of their thirty-three grandchildren. Christmas after Christmas, those books instilled in us Grandma and Grandpa's value of great education. And they didn't just give books; they received and they read books, too---often several at a time.
After their death, they left their books behind. One of them came to me: Go Forward with Faith, Sheri Dew's biography of Gordon B. Hinckley. A Post-It marked one page quoting President Hinckley's philosophy on reading:
From the reading of 'good books' there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way. It is not enough to read newspapers. . . . But to become acquainted with real nobility as it walks the pages of history and science and literature is to strengthen character and develop life in its finer meanings. (72-73)Beneath this assertion, which could have been Grandma's own, Grandma had underlined Robert Browning's aphorism: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp." She had scrawled her own version on the page-marking Post-It: "Reach further than before." And she left it behind for me.
Grandma gave books; but sometimes, for Christmas, she gave gifts she created herself. One year she cross-stitched mugs in intricate floral patterns for each of her grandchildren. Another year she cross-stitched Christmas tree ornaments: not simple-stitch initials, like she'd helped me construct as a ten-year-old, but vintage circuitous Santa scenes, shaded and nuanced, every tiny square within the ornament frame etched in floss. Just stuff. We can't take it with us. But whenever I touch it, she touches me back, and she teaches me with the excellence of her work.
Then there were the quilts---not for Christmas, but for weddings. She let us choose any pattern. When I was engaged, she pulled out her books. But one was missing. I knew because I'd picked my pattern from it when I was twelve: the double wedding ring, in pastel pink and forest green. I was bold enough to ask for it, and Grandma produced it . . . with slight hesitation. Only after she'd finished the masterpiece did a cousin confess Grandma's resolution, sworn years before my marriage: "Never again," she'd vowed, after the serpentine production of an older cousin's double wedding ring. Why she reneged for me, I couldn't guess.
As a child, I felt sure she disliked me. She loved me, of course; but somewhere between Rule 23: Clean-Socks-On-The-White-Plush-Carpet and Rule 439: No-Unaccompanied-Children-In-The-Formal-Living-And-Dining-Rooms, I formed the vague impression of myself and my kind as a nuisance. I was a twenty-four-year-old mother of two, tip-toeing into the mortuary where Grandma awaited Grandpa's viewing, when I first knew beyond a doubt that Grandma loved me. I threw one arm around her---the one not holding my baby. "Oh, Sheralee. Bless your heart," Grandma wept. We cried together. That's when I knew.
What I didn't know---what I never knew until Grandma's funeral---was that Grandma lived most of her life in chronic pain. Doubtless her silent suffering must have amplified my childhood misdemeanours. She nursed her health with work, her personal panacea, and she expected us to follow suit. As an elementary principal or a senior Swedish missionary, a vegetable gardener, a pianist, or an Idaho Falls Temple worker, she lived by the maxim, "Work will win when wishy-washy wishing won't." Her work baked bread, froze jam, bottled peaches, sewed dresses, crocheted blankets, molded lives. Her work built readers, writers, teachers, artists, musicians, moms, and dads. Even in her final years, after Grandpa left her widowed, dying in his sleep two nights after Christmas 2005, Grandma worked. "I still have quilts to make," she resolved as we left Grandpa's funeral. Just stuff, those quilts, and all that work. She didn't take it with her. But she left it behind.
My uncle Conrad said her death was peaceful, like passing through the temple's veil. He was consoling me as I wept over Grandma's casket in 2009. "Roseanne was there," he reassured me---she was my Uncle Jim's wife, long deceased---"and Grandpa, and Grandma's parents." He didn't say it, but I imagined Uncle Conrad's son Joseph there, too. "This is good for Grandma," he attested.
I didn't get to say good-bye. I'd phoned her one week earlier, to wish her a happy birthday. She was too sick to talk on the phone. I left a message, but I forgot to say, "I love you." I never even wrote her a thank-you card for the double wedding ring quilt.
She left her pristine living room. After her funeral, the white plush carpet still squished beneath my clean-stockinged feet. She left her books and her sewing machine and her cross-stitch. She left her bread pans and her freezer jam recipe. She left unfinished quilt tops for my devoted aunts to complete, and she left Aunt Sue her temple dress. She took with her God's promise that binds us beyond death; she'll always be my grandma, and my cousins', and our children's.
The rest she left behind.
To me, she left a turkey roaster, an amethyst necklace, a couple of jewelry pins, and books. She left me a queen-size double wedding ring quilt and a lifetime to live my gratitude. She left me her shoes, and she left me behind to continue the work she commenced in them.
Saturday, 9 November 2013
The Change The World Needs Most
Wednesday night. Seven o'clock and all's well. The troops have devoured the chicken and rice and fast re-manned their rubber-band catapult: hundreds of elastics tied together in a ten-foot chain, each end secured to a piano bench leg. Belting Johnny Horton's, "Sink the Bismarck," Seth pulls the catapult's centre taut and on Ammon's command launches the missile: a flannel beanbag that grazes Baby Benson, oblivious of danger, absorbed in his blocks. Cheers erupt. Spencer and Lorrin unsheathe their cardboard daggers from duct tape scabbards and brandish them, hurrahing. Only little Dalen objects. He glares from beneath his red plastic fire hat, his hands groping out from the blue plastic fire coat that droops to his boot-tops. He aims a threatening fire hose (two interlocked toy train tracks) at Major General Ammon and Lieutenant General Seth. "You guys!" he demands, in Benson's defence. "Go to school!" His brothers just laugh.
I should be putting them to bed. Instead I'm chewing a pen, drumming a notebook (the old paper kind), and fumbling for inspiration for my most audacious essay ever: "The Change the World Needs Most and How to Achieve It," the culminating assignment of my current events course. What business a stay-at-home mother of six has with a current events course still eludes me. I can't quite defend the difference it makes to my six boys in Raymond who governs Egypt or which weapons belong to Syria or why I even care to grasp the cycles of history.
"If we're worried about the world, let's look to the upbringing of our children," my husband suggests---and he's right. I know he's right.
That's why I'm taking the course.
That's why I'm devouring Oliver DeMille, Strauss and Howe, Orrin Woodward, and John Naisbitt like my six little boys scarf down chicken and rice---all simultaneously, six books at once, with audios while I wash dishes and the next-to-read list ever-growing. I rarely scan more than a page or two between diaper changes, Mother Goose readings, Band-Aid-ing, and bottomless pit control; yet every glance I steal harasses my heart's conflict: is this worth it?
It is, insist my insides.
The boys waging beanbag warfare today may tomorrow man weapons more deadly---unless I bring them up to change the world some other way.
Intermingled with "The Bismarck," a counter-melody ensues: Spencer is singing his school song. His kindergarten teacher, Sue Olsen, composed it:
The world needs me to nurture sons into statesmen and saints so it won't need so many soldiers.
The world needs me to build what opposition strives to break: families, friendships, future, faith.
The world needs me to produce, not simply to consume.
The world needs me to transform my home from a hermitage into a hospice---for the living as well as the dying; for foreigners as well as for family; for the body, the mind, and the spirit of every soul I can possibly reach.
The world needs me to forget myself, remember my Maker, and do as He directs---not just in the moments when the world is watching, but in every invisible choice and interaction in between. This is the change that changes the world---one heart at a time.
On Monday, I'll bustle my boy troop to the Cenotaph down our street. My husband will bugle "Last Post," and we'll struggle for two minutes of silence. We'll listen to orators recite Rudyard Kipling's "Recessional" refrain, "Lest we forget." My boys will remember the fighter jet flying 500 feet overhead, but I will remember the Recessional's more forgotten second stanza:
I am the change the world needs most.
I should be putting them to bed. Instead I'm chewing a pen, drumming a notebook (the old paper kind), and fumbling for inspiration for my most audacious essay ever: "The Change the World Needs Most and How to Achieve It," the culminating assignment of my current events course. What business a stay-at-home mother of six has with a current events course still eludes me. I can't quite defend the difference it makes to my six boys in Raymond who governs Egypt or which weapons belong to Syria or why I even care to grasp the cycles of history.
"If we're worried about the world, let's look to the upbringing of our children," my husband suggests---and he's right. I know he's right.
That's why I'm taking the course.
That's why I'm devouring Oliver DeMille, Strauss and Howe, Orrin Woodward, and John Naisbitt like my six little boys scarf down chicken and rice---all simultaneously, six books at once, with audios while I wash dishes and the next-to-read list ever-growing. I rarely scan more than a page or two between diaper changes, Mother Goose readings, Band-Aid-ing, and bottomless pit control; yet every glance I steal harasses my heart's conflict: is this worth it?
It is, insist my insides.
The boys waging beanbag warfare today may tomorrow man weapons more deadly---unless I bring them up to change the world some other way.
Intermingled with "The Bismarck," a counter-melody ensues: Spencer is singing his school song. His kindergarten teacher, Sue Olsen, composed it:
We are the rising generation, we're the future of our world.
We are children making life a little better on this earth. . . .
We are the future, with help from you . . .And in his sweet soprano, I've struck the answer to my question. My quest to grasp world issues, to distill cycles and events to their essence, to write audacious essays is not only worth it, it's essential. Because, as egocentric as it sounds, the change the world needs most is me.
The world needs me to nurture sons into statesmen and saints so it won't need so many soldiers.
The world needs me to build what opposition strives to break: families, friendships, future, faith.
The world needs me to produce, not simply to consume.
The world needs me to transform my home from a hermitage into a hospice---for the living as well as the dying; for foreigners as well as for family; for the body, the mind, and the spirit of every soul I can possibly reach.
The world needs me to forget myself, remember my Maker, and do as He directs---not just in the moments when the world is watching, but in every invisible choice and interaction in between. This is the change that changes the world---one heart at a time.
On Monday, I'll bustle my boy troop to the Cenotaph down our street. My husband will bugle "Last Post," and we'll struggle for two minutes of silence. We'll listen to orators recite Rudyard Kipling's "Recessional" refrain, "Lest we forget." My boys will remember the fighter jet flying 500 feet overhead, but I will remember the Recessional's more forgotten second stanza:
The tumult and the shouting dies---
The Captains and the Kings depart---
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.At the going down of the sun and in the morning, may I remember:
I am the change the world needs most.
Saturday, 2 November 2013
Serious Trouble, Simple Outreach
“When you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble, and you will be right more than half the time.”- Quoted by Henry B. Eyring *
Last week my friend was diagnosed with cancer. She’s only fifteen.
Last summer I learned two loved ones were battling addictions. They both served missions. They rarely miss church.
Last year I watched a family suffer debt, depression, and unemployment. Their kids ride bikes, play sports, attend Scouts. They wear clean clothes, eat fresh food, and live in a comfortable house.
What looks hunky-dory outside sometimes proves hideous underneath.
Like my next-door neighbors’ porch. They purchased a can of paint to repair what looked like weathering. As they scraped off the peeling exterior, they exposed the entire structure—rotted.
I was thirteen weeks pregnant and my only living son was sixteen months old when I noticed during his bedtime stories one Saturday night that I was bleeding. I phoned my midwife. She said I was miscarrying. “You’ll have a lot of bleeding,” she explained briefly, “and then it will subside.”
A lot of bleeding. Okay. I put on a maxi pad, asked my husband for a priesthood blessing, and went to bed.
The next day was Sunday. My bleeding seemed to have slowed. “I guess that was that,” I assumed naively; and, childlike, I went to church.
I survived Sacrament Meeting but spent most of Sunday School locked in the bathroom. I nursed my living son to sleep and swapped my saturated maxi. I might as well have stretched forth my puny arm to stop the Missouri River (D&C 121:33). By the time Relief Society dismissed, I was in serious trouble. I stood in the hall, my backside to the wall because that backside was covered in blood.
People passed—virtual strangers; we’d only lived in the ward for a month. Acquaintances stopped to chit-chat. “Cute sweater.” “Great lesson.” “Your baby’s peaceful when he’s sleeping.” “Nice hair.” “Full hands.” “Looks like snow.”
I need my husband, I wanted to whisper. I need help. But I didn’t know how.
Within a few minutes, he came. He shielded me with his coat, shuffled me out to the car, and drove me home. Within twenty-four hours, everything was over; my body seemed to think it had never been pregnant. Within ten months, we had another son, and four have followed him—no long-term anything to sniff for. But I’ll never forget those five or ten minutes of serious, unseen trouble.
I wonder how many false fronts conceal blood-stained backsides. I wonder how many sorrows masquerade in plastered grins. I wonder. Sometimes serious trouble sports a slick facade.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t fault the friendly by-passers. I don’t propose intuiting perfect strangers’ shrouded needs. Ultimately, I needed my husband, not the nice ladies leaving Relief Society—which is maybe why the unseen service inside homes is most sufficient.
But not all homes are healing.
Not all women in crisis have husbands.
Not all sorrows last twenty-four hours, ten minutes, ten months, or ten years.
I can’t reverse miscarriage, cure cancer, heal addictions, erase depression, offer employment, or even repair a front porch. Still, I mustn’t forget what I can do. Like the Old Testament’s Naaman, I’m usually looking for some great thing: ten-hour projects, twelve days of Christmas, casserole, cake, and the complete home make-over. Sometimes I'm so stressed trying to execute the elaborate, I neglect the essential small, silent, and simple. Sometimes I'm so busy cooking or cleaning or composing that I fail to smile, hug, listen, or ask. I too frequently forget that by small and simple means, great things are brought to pass (Alma 37:6-7). Christ fed five thousand not with casseroles and cakes, but with a few loaves and fishes. He opened deaf ears and blind eyes with His spit; He cleansed the leper and raised the dead with His words; He healed the woman's twelve year's issue of blood with her touch on the hem of His clothes. And while my words and my touch can't eliminate ills, they may lend the needed courage to bear the on-going struggle.
Another Sunday, ten years after my miscarriage, I stood in the hall of another church building, cradling another sleeping baby. I should have been in Ward Council, but my son's squalls drove me out. Locked in the bathroom, I'd nursed him to sleep. Now I wanted to go back to my meeting, but I couldn't bring myself to interrupt it one more time. So I stood outside the Bishop's office, superficially serene but stormy within. It wasn't just one meeting. This was the third such Ward Council in a row. Who thought to call you as Young Women's president? my thoughts seethed. You can't even quiet your baby. Serious trouble? Maybe not. But in the moment, it felt serious to me.
Another ward's Sacrament Meeting dismissed—my sister-in-law's Sacrament Meeting. People passed. "Hi there." "Hello!" "How are you?" My brave front fooled friendly acquaintances; but my sister-in-law wasn't deceived. She stopped and put her arm around my shoulder. Our familiar, familial relationship and that simple gesture invited my tears. She took her daughter to the nursery and then returned to my side. We talked until Ward Council adjourned; then she hugged me and left for her meetings. She didn't change my circumstance. She did change my heart.
“I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,” wrote contemporary Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye (80).
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.**References
* Eyring, Henry B. “In the Strength of the Lord.” Conference Report April 2004. Web. 2 Nov. 2013.
** Nye, Naomi Shihab. “Famous.” Words Under the Words. Portland: The Eighth Mountain Press, 1995. Print.
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