Holy, without spot

In seminary this whole week we've continued talking about ways to behave. Similar to when Gordon B Hinckley gave his six B's (BE's), Paul in the New Testament through Colossians, Thessalonians and Timothy gives out good behavior ideas! Some to the saints in the churches in those areas and a few to his good friend and young "son," Timothy, as Timothy has Priesthood responsibilities and he is very young. Some of the members are disdaining him, so Paul lets him know to not let any man despise his youth, but to BE an example of the believers in: word, conversation, charity, spirit, faith and purity.

A tall order and good advice.

Like I said, we've spent days and days on this in class and the list of good things to BE has grown to fill the chalk board. The kids have read, written and given reports on all that Paul has counseled. The last two days have been the reports (using scripture heroes who were or were not examples of the believers) and, finally, in answer to a personal statement I can be an example of the believers in my youth by, there has been a final list go on the chalkboard. Well, mind you, I had to go get the children's easel from the spare bedroom closet to hold this list this morning. Saleah sat on a little stool in the middle of the room on a level with the easel white board with a bowl of fat markers to write with as the reports were given and an answer to the statement was made by the student in front. Not being selfish was one answer, given by Tania who reported on Lucifer. (Gee! I guess!)

I'm looking at the board as I write.

Increasing my faith was another (story of David and Goliath, by Kathryn). Being optimistic (Job) by Sarah; live FOR the gospel says Becky, telling us about Eve's faithful decisions. Jason explained about Mormon caring for the records of his fathers and the prophets when he was just 10 years old. Having a lot of faith, he says. Brandi taught about Joseph Smith being prayerful about what church was true at just fourteen and being told by God that He had a work for him to do. Doing missionary work! Nicole taught about Isaac being willing to be sacrificed by Abraham, and Abraham's faith as a believer in Christ against the odds. Of course her answer was by being obedient. Alex picked Cain, teaching us he couldn't avoid the temptation to murder his brother. Her answer was about running from temptation. Saleah ended with a report on Satan also, and her answer used the words power thirsty. I think she means I will be humble.

I asked the kids to give a title to the list on the little easel. Saleah stayed busy doodling around the words with her markers while the class thought. I gave them a hint: First letter G. Saleah doodled it. I had the kids go back to Timothy to read in verse 8 of chapter 4 that "bodily exercise profiteth a little while; but godliness is profitable unto all things, having a promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." What is the perfect word for all these lists of good behavior, being examples of the believers? Godliness!

We ended by reading from Moroni in the Book of Mormon where it says to deny yourself of ungodliness. Verse 33 says at the end, "that ye become holy, without spot."

Saleah had left the white board and sat down at the back of the livingroom, and I said, "Saleah, we need Holy Without Spot! She laughed and came back to the easel and doodled it on down the side of the board: Holy without . . . then she drew a dog and labeled it SPOT. I stood during those minutes and gave my testimony of the power of the scriptures and believing in Christ, and the goodness of Paul's testimony; everyone seemed attentive and satisfied and smiley and the spirit was strong. It's a flash, a moment in a class that comes rarely and it takes everyone's participation to bring such a strong finish to a subject. I'm grateful for this blessing today.

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Yesterday I saw a redbird fly swoop, swoop, swoop from under the rose bush to the fence. I could almost feel it pushing up from the ground in three pulses of its wings. I waited to walk to the mailbox. On the way then, I found weeds with purple flowers on them and pulled them. I always do. And throw them under the crape myrtle by the mailbox. It's theraputic.

Blooming things

It's spring around here. Last year I posted pictures of things blooming in my yard. I love to see our blueberry plants budding, and the Yoshino cherry trees. We have one iris open which, when I saw it at sunset Saturday night, took my breath away. I didn't go around the yard this weekend like I did last year photographing all the opening flowers - the spritely verbena and sedum and Mexican heather for instance, and shamrock and astilbe, each in their stage peeping (or popping!) out of the ground. No flower pictures to post today, I just wandered around and looked and touched. You have to prod away leaves with your finger or a stick to find some of the starts - the plumbago is coming back and lantana and crape myrtle. Lorapetalum is on fire - it's a startling purple - and forsythia, bright yellow, and tea olive fills the air with it's heady scent. I'm always amazed at March here in Georgia.
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Too sick to scribble

Last Monday was a regular day except I began wheezing a little and feeling tight-chested. Late in the day I talked with Joe our neighbor a while, standing in the 85 degree sunshine, and when I came in I had sunburn, laryngitis and difficulty breathing. By Tuesday I was fully sick with a chest cold and cough and fever. Wednesday I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with bronchitis.

I had cancelled Seminary, and I cancelled it for Thursday morning, too. Could hardly lift a finger to e-mail the students. Can't remember being as sick as I felt on Tuesday and Wednesday for a long, long time - haven't run a fever since about 1994. My eyeballs burned in their sockets. I didn't care about one thing. Not one. Tuesday was Mom's birthday and I wanted to wish her a happy birthday - that I DID care about - but when I heard her voice I started to cry. She had to mother me a little, and I'd wanted to sing for her or just be happy about all the fun she was having. It was hard.

The meds I got helped, though the doc thinks it is viral and didn't hold out chances an antibiotic would touch this. He wrote me a prescription for antibiotic though just in case I wasn't better after seven days, which I shelved. Knew I didn't need it. But late Wednesday my left ear started hurting, and it was worse on Thursday. Brother! I called the doctor's office and asked for approval to use the antibiotic prescription and started taking that immediately. The whole weekend's been a blur really - the chest congestion has calmed down, coughing has been less and I've had no more fever, but my ear and the glands on my left side and my throat have all been sore and I've been on Tylenol straight for four days. I went to the doctor again this morning.

In the last hour, wow, I feel like a new person! Most of my symptoms from a week ago are under control, and just like that I don't feel any pain in my ear. Just all of a sudden. Did the antibiotic finally kick in and start doing it's work after four days? What happened? I don't know, but I feel SO much better and it feels SO nice to feel good. Even last night I was like something the cat dragged in mostly, so it's unpredictable to feel good right now. 3:30 Monday, hm. The doctor has even called in an oral steriod for me to take for the pain in my left side, but no. So far I think it's all going away, like a bad dream. Hopefully!

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Speaking of dream, how fun is Disney World! I finally got around to scrapping multiple pictures of Jen's and my trip there two years ago in February. With all the sunshine in the pictures you can't tell it was bitterly cold. But SO fun!

Pry it out

New layouts

Botanical garden finds


Beetsta


Shay and Sam


Shayla


Nothing new. Seminary was deadsville this morning - most've the kids SO don't want to be here. (Just the facts.) A few minutes before class was done we got out plain newsprint paper and markers and I sent them all over the house to floors and the dining room table and the kitchen bar - anywhere to get their muscles moving and smiles on their faces - uh, in groups - to draw. Draw answers to questions I pulled from the reading in Galations 1. Paul is exuberant in his epistles, and wordy, so reading in class can be generally laced with visits to the footnotes and additional scripture for clarity. All this exuberance of Paul and clarity I sent them out with; they went out loaded, and with a question to answer and illustrate, each sleepy and probably grumpy and hardly moving; it is charitable to assume they were awake behind their eyes while we read earlier, and I'll be interested to see what comes from the drawing board as they finish up tomorrow and present.

Laundry is spinning. I would vaccum in a minute but first I have to dust. I got Rummikub at a yard sale Saturday- we'll play it at Family Home Evening tonight. Maybe. Either that or dig weeds out of the front yard. They're onions (really) and won't, won't die. Kent has to pry them out with a dandelion digger.

Onlooker

Layouts I finished a while ago, didn't post til now . . .

yes, this is us


me


This week is steadily getting by. Every day I go out, wrapped in my hoodie and wearing socks, I see flowers, tiny whites, in the Bradford Pears and almost, barely, shoots that in ten days will be full-on leaves. I love that!



And dare I say it's warm. I'll be wishing it were cooler by the weekend - we'll have 80 degrees on Sunday and I'll probably run the air conditioning in the car going and coming from church. Last Sunday it snowed, first time in seven years.

I watched a remarkable program for an hour this morning about Helmuth Hubener, a German lad, LDS, who in 1942 I think along with two other boys secretly and actively resisted Hitler. He was of course discovered with his pals, interrogated, "assiduously urged" to tell the truth (the wording on the Gestapo records) before being imprisoned, tried and executed. Seventeen years old. I'm kind of in a post-war daze here, looking out my window at the world I always view and my mind seeing Nazi Germany. A letter he was allowed to write hours before his death has been preserved and was narrated. His conscience was calm; he bore testimony of Heavenly Father's love and the truth of Christ's gospel, and stated that Christ will be the judge of "this matter."

You think of lots of kinds of things as an onlooker - how that's all been so many years ago; you're safe, removed by years and a whole continent and nationality, and it doesn't have anything to do with you. Except your heart pounds - you're a mother of boys and you suffer with them; you wish you had courage; and you deplore the horrible insanity and chaos of unrighteous dominion.

You live in a little bubble.

I'm going to my friend's now to care (this last day) for her aunt. My friend's husband had heart surgery Monday, so she's been at the hospital each day and I come over to her house and sit with Aunt. A few hours only: mealtime during soap operas and later, Wheel of Fortune. I go in the other room and read A Pilgrim's Progress. Aunt doesn't need much tending, just a friend. It's a good week.

Equal time

I mull over how to be happy. In my fifties and long an empty-nester, I think what now? How do I best use my time . . . there’s housework, errands, service, things in a day. Hobbies. It can all feel compelling, essential in the moment. Good books for instance. Love them! I can take hours at a stretch with one book. I’m reading History of the Church now besides titles each by Mark Twain, John Bunyan and Booker T. Washington. I could volunteer; I should, I know it. Or learn new stuff like how to grow garlic or speak Spanish. I'm compelled to write, and there's always talking on the phone, visiting teaching, extracting names for Family History, seeing the neighbors, exercising. Looking for good recipes, dusting the baseboards, cleaning out left overs . . . I could use a nap most days. All good, so good.

I decided however, first things first. Things I do have to be sorted by importance, and I’ll be happier with last on the list being selfish things (read self-ish) and first, spiritual. I’ve been practicing. I sit down and read scriptures or History of the Church immediately after Kent leaves for work. This is at 7:39. And my goal is for an hour. Within 25 minutes my eyes are closing though, and my head is going down. Not compelling enough, History of the Church, you say? Naw. It’s the early hour after whirlwind Seminary and breakfast and husband-kisses, the quiet solemnity of the whole house. Cold days, the fire is on and it makes me way comfy.

So the goal’s been cheated almost every day since I started – I’ve read only half an hour then gotten off the couch bugged at myself. I was ecstatic when last week I turned on the BYU channel at five after eight, bothered that I couldn’t keep my word to give one hour first to the Lord, and discovered Gordon B. Hinckley! Good! I sat on the floor stretching, listening while he consumed forty minutes of the hour teaching the Savior and gospel principles. I’ve found a way! Read - then at 8:00 listen to the Prophet’s or Apostles’ talks. It’s well over an hour I will be able to give first to spiritual things. To the Lord.

This morning (my eyes dragging on the book) I turned on BYU and heard Elder M. Russell Ballard addressing a devotional. Magical! Astounding how I hear from the President of the church or one of the Brethren in a short 40 minutes exactly what I need for the day. It’s being hungry and sitting to the table for pot roast and potatoes and gravy; or meatball sandwiches, halibut and chips or stuffed manicotti – you name it – wordlessly joyful. It’s Coldstone or Maggie Moo’s for dessert then, chocolate-raspberry, or a giant Rice Krispie treat. Okay, we're talking real first things first, so actually, breakfast: oatmeal with blueberries. Elder Ballard spoke to me. I listened, stretching, fed, working to get the blood flowing.

He said: Give the Lord equal time.

See what I mean about meat and potatoes and oatmeal? Good stuff! This answers (for me) why I’m trying to put first things first. Choosing that in any day, a “first” thing is time and activity given to God.

Elder Ballard said,

“May we engrave that thought on our minds and carry it with us as we walk through this process of mortality. Let us give the Lord equal time. Let us give Him His due share of our thoughts, our time, our talents, and our attention. I know that we are all very busy. There are many demands for our attention, and our time is limited by a wide variety of constraints. But as we learn to manage our time, let us be sure that we give the Lord His portion. Establish a time and place to study the scriptures on a daily basis, even if it is only for a few minutes at a time. Pray regularly. Serve faithfully in whatever capacity you are called to serve in, including home and visiting teaching, which is the very essence of gospel service. Hold weekly, meaningful family home evenings in which gospel lessons are taught and pleasant family activities are shared. In the great scheme of things, these things take so little time. But the long-term benefits to us and our families are infinite and eternal, and they will do much to prepare us and our children for the steadily increasing challenges of the future."

This clangs in me like an old-timey fire bell. I’m awake 16 hours a day and I think I am self-ish with a portion of it. (You’re not – you’re under 50 or 45 most likely and have school to teach or children to raise and places to be and bills to pay. You give yourself up to the last gritty hour, then collapse in your bed and do it tomorrow. I used to, but not now.) Nothing but teaching Seminary presses on me. Well, visiting teaching on a schedule, which I love, and making dinner. Otherwise, I often decide how the day goes.

Maybe I need to put a magnifying glass to it, but I think I give more time to me and less to the Lord.

It’s a commitment I can make: Ultimately I see myself doing better than that: giving most or all my time to Christ.

Do I need to be old to do that, no distractions? Maybe.

But I hope not - I hope it can come at any age. It's gotta start with first things first.

Snow day and Friday Letters Question 69

Yup. It started at 9:00 exactly as Sacrament meeting started, so we didn't know until after, standing in the church foyer. I thought the kids'd go nuts, but the adults were way lit up! By 12:15 it stopped, then started again just now! LOTS!

(In the minutes it's taken me to shoot and upload these it's doubled, so will you really ooooh and aaaah a lot here. Oh, me like! )



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What makes a home? This is Friday Letters' question for Week 69, and I have three quick answers.

Safety, a feeling of refuge.

Also, laughter.

And order.

Also a good meal doesn't hurt.