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.