Sitting Still

I am not stupid. But my brain often hears slowly, especially in times of bustle and stress. I need to sit still, to be still, to hear the answer. If I listen well and long enough, I will know the thing to say, the thing to do. Trouble is, with all the noise and the lists and the expectations, stillness is at a premium and my spirit to brain connection is definitely not 4G/LTE. I often find myself in a bad cell, so to speak. And the download of answers I require comes slowly, like the slowest computer update imaginable. My temptation is to run around searching for better reception, when instead I need to realize that the better reception is within me but I must stop moving, stop rushing and wait, just wait, to have the answers distilled into my mind. 2% 3% . . . incrementally so very slow to reach download complete.

When the answer comes, whatever the answer is, the stillness is worth it and I wonder every time why I waste my energy running around searching when I know that I must quiet myself in order to have the answer. I rarely search successfully. Most often, my successful searches come when I sit still and allow the answer to find me. Maybe that's why I require such wide margins in order to work effectively in life. Maybe one of these days I will get better at protecting my margins instead of constantly opening too many windows, too many apps until my operating system freezes and I am forced to sit and wait--what I should learn to do in the first place. Sitting still. Still sitting still. One day the lesson will stick. Until then, I am grateful for Psalms like this.

"Be Still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

Magic v. Power

At this time of year the Pinterest fairies and beasties are out in full force. It becomes really easy to question every element of my holiday observance and come up wanting. By nature, I am not the fun mom. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a world where there are elves on shelves. All motherhood self doubt aside, I have deep philosophical qualms with the concept of the elf on the shelf. I love what the author Hannah Stone said about elves. It sums up my qualms beautifully:

What does this teach kids?

It teaches them that there is an authority outside of parents and the Lord over the home.
It teaches them that we behave for extrinsic reasons.
It teaches them that good behavior is a commodity to bargain with.
Kids learn that the Elf may be naughty but expects goodness. . . .
It teaches children that some unseen bad behavior has no negative impact.
It teaches them that there must be ever-escalating entertainment and novelty.
And scariest of all, it teaches children that parents are so unsure of themselves that they must employ a little leverage.

Nauvoo Times - Hannah Bird - Why There is No Elf on My Shelf

I love magic. We are a Harry Potter family. The inventive way fantasy fiction can tell a story, when done well, is delightful to me. The Tooth Fairy comes to our house. Santa still visits our house in an albeit nominal way. But, I hesitate to supplant real power with fanciful beings, especially at Christmas time. Because there is real power. I want my children to know, without hesitation, that God is the source of real power. That His Son brought real hope, real salvation, real peace and real joy to the world. That priesthood power is real in a way no elf, no fairy, no reindeer or men with sleighs can ever be. I worry that if I let elves in our house or focus too much on Santa and other magical tales of the season, the quiet power of the real Christmas story will be overshadowed. That my children will miss the point.

A long time ago, my mom decided that the Easter Bunny would not come to our house. She didn't want the holiest of all holidays with its powerful message of resurrection and atonement to be obscured by a bunny bringing treats and toys. I never felt like I missed out. We still had a lot of easter candy--jelly beans always were my mother's favorites. I never remember feeling left out that the Easter Bunny never stopped at my house as a child. I have continued that tradition into my home and family today. My kids have an Easter egg hunt at their grandparents', the day before Easter. Sometimes they express puzzlement that the Easter Bunny brings stuff to their friends, but they never seem upset. They aren't missing out on any magic and wonder in any real way.

Christmas is a wonderful, magic filled season. The opportunities to make and keep traditions are plentiful. The season is also packed with office parties, ward parties, family parties, choir and band concerts, Messiah sing-ins, caroling, service and on and on and on. The Spirit of Christmas is felt best in the quiet moments though, in the stillness we cultivate, that we carve out of the hubbub of festivity. I want to make sure the traditions I foster, the things I give attention to at all times, but especially at holiday times, are worth the energy they require. I want as much as possible about our holiday celebrations to lead my children to the Savior, so they know where the true source of real power is and how much more important than magic this power is.

Pictures and Personalities

Today was the day that I finally had all the school pictures to update. School pictures aren't always the most flattering or fashionable. I know a lot of people who refuse to buy them, but I love the quirks they reveal in my children, the real glimpse into who they are at that moment, that fleeting moment. And I love the sameness, from year to year: the pose and the background are the same, so it is an easy timeline at which to marvel.

My children are no longer at the age where I can have much, if any, say in what they wear or how (or sometimes even if) they groom themselves. They know what they want, how they want to present themselves to the world and while my influence may be heard, it is not the dealmaker in any situation. How did we get here so quickly? Since I try to pick my battles wisely and I am not willing to die on the hill of school picture outfits (and, even when I am, I lose. Case in point: Last year, I begged Z to wear a button up shirt on picture day. I pleaded, I cajoled, I wheedled. At long last, he compromised by wearing his favorite Star Wars t-shirt under the button up and he left for school. I should have smelled a rat, for in the car, he shed the button up and his school picture featured him in only the grey t-shirt. The grey Star Wars t-shirt of which the only part visible in the picture is the neckline, where the 'galaxy' looks like cotton pilling. So, it appeared for all of this past year that Z wore a ratty, aged t-shirt for school pictures. He presented himself as he wished.)

The rest of my children are no less particular about their appearance. Z, at least, voluntarily wore a button up shirt this year. I guess he's growing up. CW, who is as different from Z as possible, wore a button up and a bow tie. He has long been more particular about his appearance than his brothers. Bam wore exactly the same thing this year as last: a red plaid shirt unbuttoned over a navy t-shirt. He has been a red plaid shirt guy forever. In years past, I could talk him into changing up the shirt (still red, still plaid, just a little different), or he grew and was forced to change. This year, he hadn't grown and I didn't have the fight in me to make him wear a new shirt. His glasses are a different frame, he is slightly older looking, but otherwise it's as if he didn't age at all. Bam is my young soul, the one most resistant to change, to maturing. He is also the slowest to grow, so he seems a forever suspended little dude, unless I compare pictures carefully. M is so tall and thin and so sure in her self-knowledge. I hope that never changes and I try to nudge her only as much as is necessary so that she doesn't lose sight of that self-knowledge. I never want her to doubt. Her hair is finally long enough to sport somewhat of a side braid this year. That, and a dress (as always) were her chosen look for picture day.

This year, CE is a senior, so her picture is the obligatory black velvet drape that 'looks' like a formal in the way that no formal looked, ever, but we all wore them. My parents' wall has all our senior pictures lined up, as if we reached the end of high school and froze. As I was placing all the current pictures in their frames on my wall, I thought about not changing hers next year. Again, how did we get to this place so quickly?

This motherhood thing never sits still. I have never been the sort to cry as new milestones are reached and old ones are left behind. The milestones keep getting bigger. It seems like yesterday that I took CE to kindergarten for the first time and yet, she finalized her college applications this weekend. She was a 12 year old who loved to wear large flowers in her hair just a minute ago and now she prefers loose curls and a dramatic winged eyeliner. This time next year she will not live here any more.

I love who my children are. They are only mildly influenced by me and DH; they are so much their own people with their own lightning fast minds and strong spirits. I love watching them grow into their stewardships, into their talents. But, really, how did we get to this place so quickly?

Dancing and Baby Steps

Baby M, who turned nine yesterday, so she is not really anybody's baby except mine, got roller skates for her birthday. She is Over The Moon. They are pinkish purplish and fabulous. She and her brother had a great plan for the morning, this first day of Thanksgiving break: skate to the park. Except for one glaring oversight. Baby girl doesn't know how to skate. She sees her brother, Bam, who has been skating for a while now, skate up and down our death defying hill with ease. She thought that skating would come easily to her. She fell. And fell and fell in the kitchen. After a bad tumble where she cracked her head on the tile, she sobbed and sobbed and said it was too hard and she was too scared. I suggested she put on her bike helmet and stay in the kitchen for a while, that maybe the path to the park, with its glaring absence of walls, was too advanced just yet. Eventually M agreed and is now happily spider walking her skates from wall to table to wall in the kitchen. But every so often she goes onto the family room carpet to do her 'routine:' a wonderful bit of spins and dancing that the higher friction carpet allows her to execute safely.

She really likes to dance. Her soul has always soared with a wicked beat. Her skirts must always be spinny; she can barely abide pants, preferring leggings and avoiding the constrictions of jeans at almost all costs. I rarely even buy pants for her, as a result. When she was little, she would screech and scream until she could peel off the offending pants. Anything that diminishes her movement is to be avoided. So, of course she was drawn to skates and their increased capacity for soaring. She just didn't account for the learning curve. We rarely do. Baby steps are aggravatingly slow. Our spirits know how to soar. It's our bodies that have to learn the muscle movements at a protracted pace. But the blessing here is that our muscles have their own memories. If we teach our bodies well, even at the aggravatingly slow pace they require, our bodies develop muscle memories, our brains carve neural pathways so that the soaring dancing and skating, once learned, become hard wired and easy, even when not practiced consistently. Like riding a bike, you only need to learn once and then your muscles will take over, reminding you of old lessons learned.

Suffering great stress and trauma can often seem like an actual brain injury. Tasks that 'should' be easy, suddenly seem insurmountable. In such times, when the floors of life are too slippery and there are not enough walls to hold us up on the open road, we would do well to go back to the carpet with its higher friction, if only for a rejuvenating moment. We need to go back to the baby steps, take things in increasingly small chunks--smaller and smaller until we can breathe again.

It's hard to stay in the kitchen when we want to go to the park. It's hard to crawl when we long to dance. But baby stepping leads to dancing. Patience wins the day. Every time.

Sight

When I was in college, one of my roommates was a stunningly beautiful, blonde 6 foot tall woman. She was kind, fun, good AND beautiful. Time after time, men would come up to her, remember having met her (how could they forget?) and then turn to me with "and what was your name?" It didn't matter how many times previously they had met me, if I was standing near my friend, their reaction was proximal amnesia: She was the powerful magnet to the hard drive, erasing any memory of my existence in their brain. It mattered not a bit if I was glitteringly witty, fun, intelligent or downright strange. In her presence, I was, above all, invisible. I found during that same time, that I could go entire days without saying a single word. My classes didn't require comment and there were enough volunteers that my silence was not glaring. I would realize at the end of such a day that I had not opened my mouth at all. I was invisible; I was mute. One evening, my roommates had convinced me to find a date for a girls' choice dance and we were having a reasonably enjoyable time. My date was cordial and he could see me, though we were not a match made in heaven. At some point during the evening, I made a sly pun quietly to myself--for my own amusement--since I neither expected anyone to hear nor to notice me. My roommate's date, who had been looking absently at the floor, lifted his head up suddenly and looked straight at me. And laughed. He heard me. He saw me. He saw me even though my stunning roommate was right there. That electric feeling of being seen when I had become accustomed to invisibility, being heard when I had been seemingly mute. I will never forget it.

Sometimes we say we wish the earth could swallow us whole, that we wish no one would see us. But I don't think that is actually true. We want to be seen; we need to be seen in order to be loved. It is a deeply vulnerable place--allowing ourselves to be seen. But it is a devastating place--to ask to be seen and still to be invisible. Horton could hear the Whos--'a person's a person, no matter how small' or so Dr. Seuss told us. What do we do with the people we see? The thing is, we can't see all the people all the time. Our brains are just too mortal, too finite. But God sees. We can be certain that we are visible to Him. He made us after all. He promises throughout the scriptures, throughout all time, that He will never forget us, we are graven upon His side, upon His hands, the chastisement of our peace is upon Him. Since God sees us all, we can ask Him to help see better those who most need to be seen. It's as if the Lord, in His role as Great Healer adjusts the prescription on our glasses, our perspecticles as it were, so that we can see each other as He does.

Being invisible during that time some twenty-ish years ago did something to me that I am only now and only sometimes able to move beyond. I don't want to forget though, that invisible, mute feeling entirely, because hopefully it helps me to pray better, to seek better to adjust my vision. To see who the Lord needs me to see, to see what needs to be seen.

Church

Why do I go to church? Some days it's just habit, or knowing it's easier to go than to stay home with the crazies. Some days it is exhausting and downright draining to go. I have gone and felt subjected to a multi-hour guilt trip--all the ways I am screwing up paraded before my eyes. But then there are other days, when a talk speaks to my spirit, lifting me, teaching me and I receive courage to continue on. Some days, it's social. Some days, it's the loneliest place to be. Some days, I am blessed to be there for a friend. Some days I'm only going because I have a job to do or an assignment to fill.

The choice to go to church is infrequently about what I get out of it, though. Church in this time of my life is about building patterns for my children, as my parents built the same patterns for me. We all need patterns, especially in times of chaos and trial. I want church to be the default for my children. A long time ago, my mom got an invitation to a church event. I was probably 8 or 9 at the time. The invite was a dixie cup with no bottom. It said on the attached note, 'how can your cup runneth over if your bottom's not in the right place?' Bad grammar aside, the connection has stuck with me for more than thirty years--that a big part of being spiritually fed is putting myself where the food is. I'm trying to make sure my children understand the concept. A woman in a former ward talked about a time in her family's youth where her children were young and her husband was the bishop and she was tapped OUT. (I can definitely understand those feelings). She said she went to the Stake President asking for permission to take a break from church (she actually thought he would understand and let her off the hook!). She was not pleased when he corrected her, saying that church, for now, wasn't about her, it was about teaching her children that church is what we do.

Merely going to church isn't enough, of course. And if that's the only worship that happens of a Sunday, or during the week for that matter, then the pattern won't be built. But the scriptures teach us that the Sabbath is a covenant that the Lord can (and will if we let Him) sanctify His people. How we worship is a sign of the status of our end of that covenant. If I don't help my children build their pattern of worship to include church, then I have failed them. There are many Sundays when I focus on this pattern, especially if none of the other reasons are particularly engaging in the moment.

But, on all days, I go because I promised to be a part of this crazy broken blessed and sanctifying community of good people. I'm an introvert, becoming more introverted with each passing year and it takes a lot of energy to go and be with so many people, with so many opportunities to say and do the wrong thing. But my prayers have been answered too many times. I have felt peace and courage and friendship and enlightenment. Wherever in the world I go, it's home. When I go, I'm a better person.

Love

Charity is the pure love of Christ. Unpacking that preposition teaches us that charity is actually 3 things: love for Christ, love from Christ and love like Christ. Charity is what we're about--all of it. The love from Christ is a given. He came, He loved, He loves. We just have to believe it to feel it. Loving Christ and loving like Christ are somewhat more of a process and pathway. From the scriptures we know that we love Christ by keeping His commandments. That involves constant recommitment, repentance, study and persistence--covenants, ordinances, and enduring to the end. Loving like Christ is part of our covenants, part of our enduring and yet, something grander, bigger and both far more complicated and yet simpler than any other part of charity. Sometimes, a lot of times, we confuse charity with alms, with writing checks and providing handouts. That can be a part of charity, but it isn't enough on its own and it can actually drive us away from charity if it fuels our pride.

Love. I've talked about trying to accept the gifts that people are giving, to realize that no one can skip steps, that I definitely can't make them skip steps, that my admonition is to love them where they are, who they are now. That is definitely an element of Christlike love and while that should definitely be an element of how people love me, I can't focus on their obligation to love me where I am. I can't do what I want to do, love as I want to love and insist that people accept the gift I am giving. That is failing the first bit about loving people where they are and that also means trying to learn to love them how they need to be loved. That is so complex and in some ways unknowable. In fact, the only way we can even begin to know, is to ask God. He knows.

Frequently, we hear stories of people who were inactive, unresponsive to gospel invitations who were loved back into participation in the church and in the gospel by people who didn't focus on church, on pushing them to come, on making any part of their love conditional on attendance. In fact, that was the story I heard today in my Relief Society lesson--gratitude for someone who was just her friend, loved her despite her lengthy inactivity, befriending her regardless of her unchurchiness and in so doing, loved her back into church. The subtext I heard was inviting and encouraging someone to reactivate themselves is judgey and fake--checking boxes and such. I probed that concept in my mind (after church, of course). Why do I encourage people to come back to church? Am I being judgey and box checkey? Probably sometimes. I am a rule follower. An obliger of outer expectations. And yet, I invite and encourage because of love on two levels. I want them to feel love and strength from fellowship, from service in a unified goal. I want for them what I have found on the best days at church. But also, I know that I am not so good at friendships outside the patterns of my life. If you are not where I am already, I frequently lose touch, not because I don't genuinely want to cultivate a friendship, foster love, but because there is only so much peopley stuff I can do and my large family takes up a lot of that allotment and my own activity in church takes up almost all of the rest. If I don't care for my margins, my empty calendar blocks, my solitude, I begin to not do very well. I am an introvert, not shy really, but I definitely draw strength and energy from solitude and exhaust myself in more peopled pursuits. So, if I'm inviting you to church, to activities, it's because I want to see you, have you with me in my full life.

But. That may not be what you need. That invitation may be illegible to you as intended, you may only be able to hear the box checking and impersonalness not intended. And so, I am not loving you as you need to be loved, so it doesn't much matter that I am trying to love you as I am able. I need to learn how you need to be loved. I need to ask. I am often afraid to ask these questions of God, certain that He will want me to abandon my margins, extend myself completely outside my comfort zone. But, doesn't He love me too? Don't I need to trust Him that He will give me something I can do, a stretch, but not a strain? I need to ask how to love people and be willing to listen for the answers and act on the guidance. It has happened before. When I am trying, He gives me hints--go now, call now. Try this. And it is always something I can do, if somewhat uncomfortable, not entirely loathsome. Why can't I trust that more?

Wherever I am on the knowing how to love people better, I know I have been blessed to feel God's love for people, when I ask. That was the other remembered lesson from Relief Society, that to better love individually, as God loves us individually, I need only to ask, to feel it, to see it, to know who to listen for, who to watch for, who I am to love. What a blessing.

Doing Better

This came from Jen Hatmaker's shop. I have ordered mine and will hang it proudly in my home. This is my new mantra.

I can't say no one should ever judge anyone, because we all must make judgments all the time, but I am saying that most of the time we judge more than we ought and we give those we are judging too little grace, too little love. I was, painfully, discussing political things with my dad last week and a particular person that neither of us likes very much (but for different reasons) came up. He expressed great frustration about this elected official, lamenting: he could do so much better. My reply was, yeah, but he could do so much worse.

We are all embodied in that exchange--we could do so much better, but we could ALSO do so much worse. And the thing is, focusing our energies on holding people accountable for unattainably lofty expectations blinds us to progress made, to how really far they (and we, for this concept works to treat ourselves gently as well) have come.

On the subject of judgments, I try to remind myself and to teach my children what our actual stewardships are. I have responsibility for my children. I am entitled to heavenly help, divine discernment, in judging how best to parent and care for them. I may, from time to time, have an additional stewardship in the church or with a job, but barring that, I have no entitlement to revelation, to eternal perspective over any one else. Where I am not entitled to heavenly help, my responsibility is to be gentle, to love first.

And truthfully, while we must all make judgments, the best judgment we can make on most days is to love first, love best, and leave the judgments to God, who has the full perspective.

Urgency

A while back, my son's friend told his parents that he felt no urgency to do his homework. This lack of urgency, of course, frustrated his parents and earned him less than stellar grades. Since then, any time someone, especially our children, does something inexplicably under or unmotivated, we note the obvious lack of urgency.

But urgency is a rather tricky concept. We know from the Parable of the Ten Virgins that we have to be prepared in all things spiritual. We know from latter day prophets that this preparation is non-transferable, that in the coming of the Bridegroom, if we are not prepared, we can't turn to our neighbor for help, like asking for a cup of sugar or an egg we lack for a recipe. Not because those who love us wouldn't share their proverbial oil, if they could, it just can't be shared. The oil in the parable transformed the virgins into the women who would be ready to welcome the Bridegroom; the act of preparing transforms us into who we need to be to meed the Lord.

So, prepare how? Prepare where and when? Any attention to any gospel subject can offer us a laundry list of things we should be doing. Any attendance at any sacrament meeting, any General Conference, any perusal of the scriptures can leave us with enough urgency to overwhelm and lead us to give up. It's ALL urgent and we can't possibly do it all now.

There are, of course, the basic necessities: covenants and ordinances that get us on the path of preparation. It is when we meet up with the 'press forward enduring to the end' part that things become daunting. Wise leaders have given us rulers and guidance. But all of this can still leave us frantic for some assurance that we are choosing the right order, the right priority of urgencies. It is human nature to look around ourselves, to check with the Joneses, as it were, for validation that we are choosing aright, placing our urgencies in correct order. As we compare our choices to those of others, we can theoretically see if we have chosen well, if we are preparing appropriately. But what if they're doing things differently? Which of us is wrong? What if our priorities have nothing whatsoever to do with the Joneses and only to do with our own revelation and inspiration over our own stewardships. Our answers do not cover those not within our stewardships. Our agency does not negate any one else's. How do we cultivate both deference to the agency of others as well as confidence in our own ability to heed and honor Divine voices?

Sometimes, though, it isn't a question of measuring ourselves against someone else's way of preparing for the wedding. Sometimes those we love clearly are not preparing at all, either for failure to understand the message of the Lord or for unwillingness to make and keep those commitments.

When I was in the MTC, there was an elder in my group who didn't really want to be there. He was there because it was expected of him, but he wasn't really prepared in any way for a mission. Entering the MTC is rough. You are learning and studying all day long nearly every day, with strangers, trying to prepare yourself for this wholly daunting task of being a real missionary once you walk out the door and onto the plane. The pressure cooker atmosphere affects each of us differently. For Elder O, he just wanted to go home. He called his parents and asked them to come get him. First they said no. Then they said okay, but you will have to get a job, you won't get your car back, your scholarship is deferred--they did everything they could to make coming home very unattractive. So Elder O decided to stay, but he wasn't happy about it. He was there under protest. I remember vividly him sitting in the corner of our classroom, arms folded in defiance, legs stretched to their full 6'5" extension, in such a way that I was effectively penned in by his legs, because his seat was next to mine. His anger was palpable; his displeasure hung over our class, making learning even more difficult than it had been. We all became angry with him, frustrated and impatient. Our branch president asked us to pray for him, for him to soften his heart so that he would want to be there. I tried, but I was praying to change him (which you shouldn't do, because it doesn't work). I was praying for him to want to be there so we would want to be with him and the thought clearly entered my mind "you can't make people skip steps. You have to love him where he is." Oh. I had to love him where he was, blocking me into my chair, defying every act of learning and growth? Ugh. It was difficult. But we were all trying. We were all praying and eventually, Elder O just softened. It was a good thing we had two months in that classroom together. He needed it. We needed it. By the time we left for Brasil, he wanted to be on a mission and by the time he came home, he glowed as someone who had found purpose, who had truly lost himself in service.

That story has a good ending. They don't always. But my heavenly admonition remains. I still have to love people where they are. I still can't make them skip steps, even if they never soften, even if they never, ever get where they need to be, where I need them, where I want them to be.

Loving people where they are may be the most difficult, the most Godlike thing we do. For God loves us perfectly in our myriad imperfections and it is only armed with that perfect love that we have any chance of preparing, of becoming transformed into that perfection He wants for us. Do we mourn and grieve those who falter and fall? Certainly. The Savior lamented and in those wrenching laments, we feel His endless love. This gives us a template for how to love people where they are, without losing sight of our own urgency. Unconditional love is complicated; it is difficult and wrenching. It requires suspended judgment, abandoned measuring. It requires that we try to be like Jesus. But we are not the Savior. We have our own steps to walk, our own urgencies to find, to order and to cultivate, our own oil to gather.

I wonder about the virgins; those that were ready for the Bridegroom must have been so sad to leave their sisters. Somehow, they prepared and loved simultaneously. They focused on their individual preparation plans, waiting and loving those with them while never losing sight of the pending wedding, the arriving Lord. The parable fails to tell us how they did it, how they maintained their focus and their love, how they followed the voice of the Bridegroom in order to be ready on His arrival. I have a guess that loving people where they are is part of it, because that includes loving ourselves where we are, taking our steps of preparation in order and with requisite urgency, filling our lamps, loving, learning waiting.

Fine

Fine looks like a day when I feel like I'm checking most of the boxes in a semi balanced way. When I can have empty days as margins around the full days to talk to no one and avoid the peoply world but not fall down a people free rabbit hole where I am unable to help anyone else or myself. Fine is a tenuous attempt, never ending never exactly right balancing act.

One of my college roommates always said that fine was what you said when you were about to or had just thrown up. It was code for not so good. I try not to be that opaque. Fine is okay. It isn't perfect, but nothing is. Fine is changing the definition of success and realizing that some days success is having the same number of kids at the end of the day as at the beginning and not actually killing any of them. A friend's granddaughter likes to swim/float with only her nose and mouth above the water line. Very unnerving, to say the least. Another friend, whose husband is bishop now, when I asked how she was doing a while back, described that image of floating with only your mouth and nose above the water line. I get that. I have been in exactly her place. And it is unnerving. But to realize that despite the drowning feelings, you are, actually, getting air, is a tender mercy in itself, because it usually means Someone is holding you up to the water line. And realizing that it is okay that everyone see you there just on the edge, that it is showing God's grace in your life, that it might even help someone else treading water a little less successfully. That is probably the sweetest gift I received when DH was the bishop.

Adulting Lessons

1) Don't do stupid stuff.

2) Own the stuff you do, even if it is stupid.

3) After doing stupid stuff and initially failing to own it, go back and make amends for stupid stuff done (which includes not just the original stupidity, but the failed ownership which is stupid too).

4) Repeat as needed.

Venting and outrage are easy enough, but rarely are they productive exercises. I wonder at the things that set my outrage meter awhir. I am trying to tamp down the outrage that wells up as a way, seemingly, to inoculate the ones I love against accidents and tragedy. You know, the outrage that attacks mothers who lose toddlers in gorilla enclosures and reptile infested waters. I try to remind myself that even the most diligent parents encounter a hot mess, an accident from time to time.

Perhaps I need to wonder more at the things that fail to set off my outrage. How do I better light a fire under my inaction when I am slumped? How can I learn to combat despair at coming up empty in the face of someone else's need? I am very bad at walking a good balance between self care and self flagellation. I need to more finely tune the meter inside my head that measures the difference between I can't even and I really don't want to. Because without that meter, I fall deeply into the land of should--I should have been able. I should have been more prepared. I should have been more receptive to promptings.

A long time ago, I had an epiphany of sorts while watching Oprah. It was one of those shows that seemed to promise answers, even though the answers weren't really the ones they advertised. The show was peopled with seemingly overtaxed women; women who could not even. But niggling in the back of my mind, pricking at my spirit was the thought: but they must at least watch Oprah, otherwise they would not be appearing on this show. And the epiphany that came to me was this: everyone takes down time. Whether we have it available or we truly can't even, we take it, because otherwise we collapse (and I suppose collapse is our body's way of forcing the down time, if we let it get that far), either physically, mentally or emotionally. The trick is to make my down time restorative. Oprah never was restorative for me. Service can often be restorative, if counter intuitive--the giving when we are lacking. But sometimes even service becomes akin to nursing an infant our life blood because we have no more milk.

I need to own the outrage meter inside me, the one that says you could have done more. 'If you had followed promptings, you could have helped, you could have been able to help.'

So, I have been lazy lately, it has cost me and those I love opportunities to feel love, care and growth. I am trying to make amends. This is the beginning, owning my stupid stuff.

Am I all in?

A million years ago, when I had a new baby and was filled with hormones, we attended a Christmas party where the cultural hall was transformed into Bethlehem. There were stalls of food and treats, a 'well' in the middle of the room with water and we sat on blankets on the floor. Towards the end of the evening, a visibly pregnant woman and her husband made their way painstakingly through the throngs of people and up onto the stage where it became apparent that they were the Holy Family. Hark! the herald angels sang, Jesus was born into our world. And then, the children were invited on stage to 'meet' the baby Jesus. Two year old B, now a man child of 13, ran, calling out the words that have lived in my mind ever since "Coming Baby Jesus, I'm coming!!!" I have long wanted to be that enthusiastic, that single-minded in my devotion and locomotion to my Savior. I want to be that open in my adoration. But life, stupid life, all those thin things I am ever in the thick of, keep me from truly coming, and definitely from shouting to the world that I am coming to my Lord.

Last week was Stake Conference. It was a very rare set of meetings where very real trials were discussed, painful troubles were shared and where the Spirit was palpable. The Stake President, who always has much to say, said very little, but his final talk, focused on Alma 34:32--preparing to meet God, preparing for eternity. He asked a couple of times, "are you all in?" Are you fully committed to this work, to all that is involved in 'preparing to meet God.' A few days later, I attended institute as taught by the Stake President's wife, and she mentioned that a young member of our stake had stopped her husband to tell him 'President, I am all in', that he was deeply touched at the commitment of this young member and his willingness to voice it. And my thoughts turned to young B and coming to the baby Jesus.

I want to be all in. I want to do all that is necessary, except when I don't. Sometimes the world is too peoply. Sometimes I am just too grumpy, too tired to do what I know is required of me.

Bam and I had it out this morning. I was trying to help him and M practice for the Primary program. They each have excerpts of the song "I'll Follow Him in Faith" to sing as a little solo as well as directed testimonies to give. Bam is supposed to bear his testimony about God speaking to prophets. Now Bam is reticent about many things and downright fearful of many others: the dark, Gollum, strange noises, vegetables, to name a few. But he has never been afraid to speak in public, to sing in public. He signed himself up to sing for a talent show last year, learning his own routine and performing it flawlessly. He loves to bear his testimony. But somehow, these two small things were NOT happening today. He swore he had no idea about prophets or revelation, that he had never testified of such a thing. I asked him what he does know: That Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, that families are forever, that the Church is true. I stopped him at each point, tying the need for revelation and prophets to each of the things he does know. But he would only concede that maybe prophets were a small part of his testimony, at which point CE lost it--"Revelation, prophets, are THE WHOLE thing!! You can't have any of the things you know without Heavenly Father giving them to His prophets!!" (well, at least she has made the connection!) He moaned his lack of knowing all over the floor of my closet. But then, in a momentary concession, said, 'I know, but I don't want to know.'--because admitting he knew meant he was bound to share that knowledge in the dreaded Primary Program. We talked about Amulek and his Book of Mormon admission that he knew, but he would not know. We're still working on the rest.

And then I turned to M's song, and was flooded with a memory. Eight years ago, almost to the day, I stood at our pulpit and recited the very words she is to sing as I bore my testimony as DH was sustained the bishop of our ward.

The Lord has blessed me with simple faith. When I pray for help, He will give me strength. I will do His work. I will gladly serve. I'l follow Him in faith.

Those years as the bishop's family were difficult, the tasks and trials since then are no easier but my faith remains the same. I know that when I ask for help, the Lord gives me strength. I KNOW that doing His work brings blessings. Sometimes, though, being all in seems easier when the all is large and daunting and I have no means to survive without asking for help. Sometimes, being all in is hardest when the callings are doable, maybe even easy, when the trials are the niggling every day stuff I should be able to manage. Like Bam, I know, but I don't seem able to admit knowing how to be all in in the face of only pedestrian trials.

So maybe all those scriptures, like Alma 37:37, about praying over everything, about counseling with the Lord in all things are for me, especially in these days of not insurmountable troubles. Maybe the only way to be all in is to let the Lord all in, to counsel with Him even about picky eaters and cub scouts. I'm still coming, baby Jesus. I'm not all in yet, but I am still coming.

Perfection

Someone died this week. She was one of those perfectly coiffed, melodious voiced Relief Society women, nearly always in a skirt suit, always with the perfect thing to say and do, or so it would seem. I know her life wasn't actually perfect. She was a normal, good woman with the regular set of disappointments that life brings. She was near my mother's age and I suppose her death could warn me of my own mother's potential frailty, her looming mortality. And it does, vaguely, in a mathematical way. But she was so very unlike my mother, that it is very difficult to draw connections in a meaningful way. I always felt like my mother wanted to be exactly that sort of perfectly coiffed Relief Society woman, ever attempting, but unable to manage it for sheer humanity's sake. Perhaps I bristle at the apparent perfection in weird defense of my mother's self esteem, taken down too many pegs in her failed attempts at perfection. Perhaps I just have a different, more stubborn reaction to the concept, having found myself so completely and frequently unable to mask my own imperfections.

I spent my own formative, self-conscious youth years in a ward and stake unusually populated with perfect Relief Society women. We attended church in a rambling old building built in the 1950s with a large, fully appointed kitchen. The proper Virginia women, wives of statesmen and businessmen--the very oldest of the good old boys--stocked the kitchen with silver serving pieces and all the necessary accoutrements of entertaining and hosting in the South. They did so, legend has it, by saving those Betty Crocker points found on cereal boxes and cake mixes, amassing enough to acquire the necessary items without spending personal money or ward and stake budget funds. Being surrounded with what was decorous and appropriate, having a fully developed sense of what was and was not done, has been helpful in gauging socially appropriate behavior for myself, but it has also seemingly inured me to the allure of such supposed perfection, falling outside it as we did, as I do.

So perfection rubs me raw. I don't trust it. But we're supposed to seek after it, commanded in the scriptures to "be ye therefore perfect." And in contemplating the scriptural admonition to be perfect against the rankling silver service, Relief Society, perfection, I have come to the following conclusion: Perfectionism says I have to make everything perfect. And in failing that, I am unworthy. Perfectionism is turning inward and failing. God says to be perfect, but what He means is to be perfected. Accept His gift, the Atonement, in all its unknowable completeness, for ourselves, for others. Being perfected is turning heavenward and living. Sufficiency is tied to trust. God constantly tells us He has enough. We are enough. His grace is enough. What does it take for me to believe Him? To stop hearing old voices tied to seemingly perfect biddies pointing out imperfections and instead get better at listening to the voice that will allow me refinement, bring me to God's perfection?

I am sad for the loss of Sister Relief Society. She was beloved. Her husband was one of the most real and genuinely lovely men I know and I know he loves her. But maybe her departure can help me to think better on perfection and on my own stubbornness and work toward that trust in sufficiency and trust in the Atonement and worry less, much less, about apparent perfection and far more about being genuine and lovely. Hopefully.

Choosing not to be fed

I sat alone in Sunday School, so alone that when someone finally sat down next to me instead of looking at me and sitting elsewhere, I was still unable to keep myself from running. Since I know better and should have done better, I excused myself by deciding I had to check on my sick teen at home--that was my reason to go home, to leave DH to bring the remaining littles home after the third hour of church. I could not bear another hour of such open, conspicuous aloneness.

Of course, going home changed nothing. I sat in my pity party. Thought of all the ways people and places have disappointed, all while seeing, in the back of my mind, the people I should have sat next to in Sunday School. How is it that we can get so alone that we can't reach out to anyone, even if that would help both of us?

And then, I find that the RS lesson I ran away from was on 'reaching out to those who feel alone.' Of course. If I had stayed, perhaps I could have been fed, healed, even just a little bit. But I chose to run away.

Having a Sunday calling helps me to stick at church. The words of the Sunday School teacher have echoed in my heart a lot this week. He expressed gratitude for the scripture study into which his calling forced him, and then lamented that he shouldn't need a calling to study the scriptures. I shouldn't need a calling to go to church, all of church. But some times I do.

Second guessing parenting

I tend to be a hands off parent with regard to my children's navigation of their social circles. I will make suggestions and encouragements, but rarely will I be 'that' parent who intervenes with teachers, leaders, and peers' parents. I want my children to learn how to advocate for themselves.

For the most part, I think this policy has served my children well. But there is one instance, which regularly haunts me, where I wonder if I did the right thing.

CE had a friend who quickly turned suffocating, demanding all her time and attention, almost the very air she breathed. I watched as this 'friend' overtook every social occasion, demanding all the attention, executive control, over all interactions. CE seemed far more tolerant than I would have been. CE's teacher seemed far more tolerant of what seemed outright plagiarism and even cheating by this little girl in classroom situations. I stayed out of it. Then things turned sour, where if CE wasn't compliant, the little girl turned vindictive and mean, saying hurtful, cruel and untrue things whenever CE would deign to open her mouth. In the midst of this, we had been searching for a new school environment for our kids, the public school for which we were zoned was, to put it mildly, NOT a good fit. We found a new charter school that would fit out needs. It was farther than I wanted to drive the children, but we knew a new school would be opening in a year around the corner for us, so the commute was a temporary one. The decision was completely educational, but a pleasant side benefit was that CE's demanding, controlling and mean 'friend' would not be making the move to the new school. Relief was in sight.

The mother began to say angry things about me, that I was purposefully taking her daughter's best friend away from her. The daughter accelerated her campaign of mean, gossipy behavior in every situation in which the two girls found themselves. CE could avoid the situations, to a certain extent, at school, but at church, at Activity Days, there was nowhere for her to go. I repeated my mantra of 'you need to be friendly to everyone, but not everyone is your friend.' I advised CE that if everything she said elicited mean, spiteful and untrue comments from the other little girl, that she needed to be quiet. She cried and begged me to be allowed not to go to Activity Days, even to her primary class. I taught that church may not always be a comfortable place, a place replete with friends, but that we don't go to church for purely social reasons. I persisted. I did not let the teachers or leaders know what was up. I didn't want to stir up anything, especially since DH was the bishop.

Time passed. The new school environment was a blessed breath of fresh air for all of the kids. CE was able to forge better, healthier relationships with other girls and I thought we had safely weathered the nastiness that had become all interactions with this family. But what I didn't know was that my policy of silence, of forbearance, had left a vacuum which the other mother filled with her version of the facts where CE was mean, selfish, hurtful and that I was a horror on earth. The primary teacher, seeing only CE's largely silent behavior in church (in order not to provoke the meanness that seemed always to accompany her words), assumed that CE was giving the other girl the silent treatment, that she really was all that the girl and her mother said she was. I didn't know any of this for several years, not until the primary teacher turned YW president shared a story of how mean she had perceived CE to be. How that was the perception of my daughter she had carried into YW, how that perception had led her to attribute other unkindnesses to CE that made no sense, but for her skewed vision of my daughter, because of my hands off approach.

Maybe I did the right thing, in saying nothing. Maybe it would only have been worse, had I entered the fray. I will never know, not really. But I mourn for the hurts that my daughter endured. Not just for the difficulties with this one little friend turned frenemy, but for the years of distance and disapproval from a leader who was supposed to see the whole picture but didn't, perhaps couldn't, because I didn't give her the full story.

CE is a strong young woman now, poised to take on adulthood and all the new challenges and opportunities that will afford her. This frustrating experience is in the past; it is a wry lesson to have learned for both of us. She still loved her time in YW, felt very fondly toward the rest of her leaders who could see her with clearer eyes.

My general position is still the same. I really do think hands off is best most of the time. There have been other times, where I have given counsel and stayed out of the fray, where hard lessons have been learned and, sadly, where my counsel has made its way to unforgiving ears. Life seems a continual test in which we learn who our friends are, who is trustworthy, and how, in the face of painful lessons, to be friendly anyway. And where, regardless of the parenting choices I make, I will second guess them.