Willing

Kent's mom's birthday is today. Happy Birthday, Mom! It's week two for you and Pa at Legacy House now... you're beyond brave to leave your home after 58 years on the farm. Today you're 91 and always, always, you're my hero! I love you! Kent loves you.
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I mentioned Sunday I'd printed talks by Elder(s) Holland and Maxwell to read. The one by Elder Neal A. Maxwell is called "Willing to Submit" and I'm on page 2 as of last night at bedtime.

Here's paragraphs right to the point I have to post:

"Spiritual submissiveness is so much more than bended knee or bowed head. Alas, insofar as we “mind the things of the flesh” (Rom. 8:5), we simply cannot have the “mind of Christ.” (1 Cor. 2:16.)"

"The descriptive simplicity of this quality is matched by its developmental difficulty. It is so easy to be

but this only produces half the growth, half the blessings, and just half a life, really, with more bud than blossom."

"A superficial view of this life, therefore, will not do, lest we mistakenly speak of this mortal experience only as coming here to get a body, as if we were merely picking up a suit at the cleaners. Or, lest we casually recite how we have come here to be proved, as if a few brisk push-ups and deep knee bends would do."

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"While events often induce submissiveness, one’s development need not be dramatic or tied to a single moment; it can occur steadily in seemingly ordinary, daily settings. If we are meek, a rich and needed insight can be contained in reproof. A new calling can beckon us away from comfortable routine and from competencies already acquired. One may be stripped of accustomed luxury in order that the malignant mole of materialism be removed. One may feel humiliated in order that pride be chipped away.

The shaping goes on, and it is anything but merely cosmetic."

Stirring the pot

I left a kitchen cupboard door open when I was getting breakfast and turned and almost hit it with my head. Or, hit my head with IT!

Kent sighed, You almost bonked yo'self on the head, mama! with his southern twang. He was so right.

I said to him while I stirred a pan of milk and quick oats coming to a boil,



er, quickly...



I said, I'm careless: Less-careful. I'm just that way Kent, I said. I'm comfortable making a mess, dropping stuff, banging into things, oh well. I took a breath. (Stir, stir, stir as the milk rises... oh my gosh the last thing I need here is the oatmeal to boil over. I just have to look away once and it will! Murphy's Law. And My Life.)

Kent listened.

I winked and said, You don't need to be, like, tidy and careful to live in the celestial Kingdom, right...? You think? 

A snort. Kent knows what pot I'm really stirring.

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One "stirs the pot" when one sees the opponent has all but won already and may be hoping further action will force them to do something one can then take advantage of to unbalance the situation.

Steadier devotion

Today is Sunday. I've rested actually, a relief after intense days and weeks, and I'm headed to church in a while with Kent. Today I sing in a Sacrament meeting different than ours which begins at 1:00, so I attend our meetings then head for that meeting too.

Sundays can be busy.

But I don't want this day anymore to feel overly busy, or even too boring, like can happen for me. Maybe for lots of us. I've struggled – and do still – with how to spend my time on Sundays to let this day be a sign from me to the Lord of my covenant-keeping and willingness to follow Him. Be obedient. Grateful. Let this day be a gift I do receive as one set apart from others in the week. I've struggled because I don't know how to set "apart" or "aside" regular things I do in the week and even long to do. I'm continuing to learn.

Practicing, lately, steadier devotion to studying the gospel (reading Conference talks published in the Ensign, and marking these, and re-reading them) has helped my Sabbath observance. I now DO crave these talks more than I have in my life. CRAVE is the word I choose to use – here's what I've been trying to do as a member of the church: WANT to follow the Savior. I've enough written and taught and spoken about the scriptures, Christ and His attributes human and godly, and virtues of being a Christian (being His disciple) that I feel ashamed now to do or be anything less.

That's a good thing.

Sabbath observance is a good place to practice steadier devotion. I've rested this morning. Part of that has been being at the computer looking at talks by Elder Maxwell and Elder Holland on the atonement and true discipleship and printing these to bring to my chair to read. Though first I turned in the Ensign to Elder Holland's talk from last Conference "Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet" and re-read it.



I get tears in my eyes reading his strong words. This talk in particular with its story of the brothers scaling a canyon wall and the oldest knowing he was going to fall... the parallel being we, the children of God, "the entire human race," Elder Holland says, "in free-fall – every man, woman, and child... physically tumbling toward permanent death, spiritually plunging toward eternal anguish..." has helped prepare me for the Sacrament later. I love his words toward the end... "the most generous gift, the most excruciating pain, and the most majestic manifestation of pure love ever to be demonstrated in the history of this world. Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, suffered, died, and rose from death in order that He could grasp us as we fall, hold us with His might, and through our obedience to His commandments, lift us to eternal life."

Reminded

For my birthday in April Shana my niece gave me a gift she made herself.

She broke a plain bowl then glued it back together (except for the smallish or shattered pieces that wouldn't fit) and hand-painted the glued section with shiny gold.

She told me as she brought it she'd done this before...



... with a bowl that broke accidentally which she also glued, at that point feeling really sad she couldn't get the thing completely together. Like with mine, there were – are, she said – chinks and holes. Watching me open my gift she shared what she learned from the experience with her broken-glued-together-then-hand-painted bowl:

"My life is the bowl. I'm broken... and healed as parts of me are patched together. I'm being made more beautiful. I love the gold!" she confided. "The parts that don't fit anymore aren't important. I've chosen to not mourn them. When I look at my bowl I'm reminded I'm not perfect but worth saving."

I was touched Shana would break make a bowl for me and come with her personal story. The other day I texted her to say thanks! Again. To tell her I keep it on my dresser on a little quilt I patched together years ago, and that I see this gift every day and am reminded.

"Not My Will, But Thine"

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

"How powerful a role our true desires play in our lives! Desire both initiates our actions and sustains us—for good or evil. If we desire wealth or power, these will tend to be the moving causes of our actions.

If instead we desire spiritual things and are obedient, the promised blessings will come to us. Just as it is not possible to save an individual against his will, so blessings do not come against our wills.

True discipleship is for volunteers only. Only volunteers will trust the Guide sufficiently to follow Him in the dangerous ascent which only He can lead."
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The lingering question should not be, How many imperfections do I have? but rather, Is my discipleship sufficiently serious that I am working patiently and steadily to overcome my weaknesses, perhaps even changing some of them into strengths?

Wherever you go

Picking a day in May that dodged the thunder-boomers and heavy rains in what has been the stormiest spring here in years, Kent and I hiked the Bonneville Shoreline trail.



Like we've done a bunch of times – straight up to the radio towers. (See these ahead of Kent on the trail?) Up, and up...↑In high winds, too. Man was it blowing as we arrived finally at the towers.



But I said let's go higher, and we rounded a hill and came up a pitted gravelly path toward these... ↓ um, way up.↑Here I turned and looked back the way we'd come, SLC sprawling away from us.


To the next highest radio towers!



And the next!



Yeah, can you believe how high up! Nosebleed section of the world!

To top it off I looked east to another set of towers in these mountains, see the path under the one arrow on the left, and the towers themselves barely showing under the other one?



Kent said no.

He's a sport to clamber up this high with me and, well, there's a limit (and we'd hit it) and anyway we had to get home to fix dinner and anyway the wind was beating us up pretty bad and spooking me. And ANYWAY, it would've been too far. (Maybe.) (But someday.) (Bucket list.) (Me far out in the hills but I think I'm too scared...)

I set my eyes on my own two feet and we hiked down. Part way down I snapped this pic of where we'd just been. Cuh-rraazzyy!



Wherever you go...



there you are.

Covenant

I'm getting my Gospel Doctrine lesson ready to teach in two weeks, Lesson 25:

“Not My Will But Thine, Be Done”

Last week we studied in class the occasion Jesus took with the twelve at the Last Supper to institute the sacramental covenant and there wash the feet of his disciples. I loved a shortlist of answers Jeffrey R. Holland gave to the question: What might we think about when the emblems of the sacrament are passed to us? (included in this lesson from his Conference talk "This Do in Remembrance of Me," 1995, of which I counted nine paragraphs that begin "We could remember...")...

a. His love and strength in the Grand Council of Heaven.
b. He is the Creator of heaven and earth.
c. All that he did in his premortal life as Jehovah.
d. The simple grandeur of his birth.
e. His teachings.
f. His miracles and healings.
g. That “all things which are good cometh of Christ” (Moroni 7:24).
h. The unkind treatment, rejection, and injustice he endured.
i. That he descended below all things in order to rise above them.
j. That he made his sacrifices and endured his sorrows for each of us.

I made a note Sunday in class, listening, to look this list up and the talk from which it has come... and am thinking about it as now I'm reading and re-reading and preparing to teach in Lesson 25 incidents of Christ's atonement in Gethsemane. As His best, covenant, friends "slept." In a conference talk in April, 2009, "None Were With Him," much after his talk on the sacrament in 1995, Elder Holland plead:

Brothers and sisters, one of the great consolations... is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends. All of these and more have been given as companions for our mortal journey because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel. Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said: “I will not leave you comfortless: [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you].”

These scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us. He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He have to confront sin without our aid and assistance, that never again will He find only unresponsive onlookers when He sees you and me along His Via Dolorosa in our present day. May we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. May we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,” for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.

Salad for a crowd

I made a spinach-strawberry salad for thirty-plus people for the luncheon for my brother's wedding Saturday. That was at Marcia's house, whoa! Lots of people, lots of food! Lots of work! Silly me, I forgot to take pictures after we plated but there we were at that point inviting the guests to be seated. The four tables were gorgeous with a summery chicken salad croissant, carrot-and-celery sticks and black olives, strawberry salad with vinaigrette, and salty kettle chips atop each plate.

I wrote the recipe for the salad today to keep in my binder as at the time I just "winged" it, light-weight cellophane gloves upon my hands as I mixed ingredients, virtually elbow deep in the big bowl... these good suggestions from Sarah who's in Hawaii, her contribution to the luncheon we sisters hosted!



1 big pack baby spinach, Costco
3 heads red leaf lettuce
1 big pack strawberries, Costco, cored and sliced
2 pkg. (8 oz.) baby bella sliced mushrooms cut in half
2 pkg. (8 oz.) Athenos Feta cheese crumbles, or salty cheese of your choice
Bacon bits to taste – I chopped real bacon strips, around a dozen
Half a small red onion, sliced

Mix in one HUMONGOUS bowl with your hands, keeping everything light as you can. No mashing! Dress with this good vinaigrette. Perfect! Thanks Sarah!

Nostalgic

It's my parents' 60th anniversary today. I've just gone back through blog posts to see what I've posted about other anniversaries and found their 58th, here. Pictures! I love mom and dad and constantly wish them the best... they're struggling along. Mom needs round-the-clock care and Dad has his dilemmas which Kent and I try to help with. I do wish them the best and think they're troopers and I probably cannot, do not, know what they're enduring. I so little know their lives though we live together.

Dad loves mom very much, and she him. He sang to her at lunch today. He does that.

This day is ordinary in a way... one of the longest of the year to my delight, hot and sunny as I sit here by the window to write (and I kind of wish I was out in the heat and sun biking or hiking or something but it's too hot to be any fun in the end. Ugh, I'd sweat!)... ordinary, though Kent is gone to help his own parents move from Burley to Logan to Legacy House, an assisted living center there. He's with them right now and with his brother and sisters and other helpers getting their things moved. I constantly wish them the best too. They're themselves ancient of days, and lately depend heavily on others, their kids and loved ones. There'll be visits.

Today is ordinary. I have cherry tomatoes lining two baking sheets roasting in the oven on low, slow heat. They'll stay there all afternoon – I'll rescue them before I go to bed after they're shrunken and pungent. They've been sprinkled with olive oil and kosher salt and, wrinkled, will taste amazing in pasta salad or veggie salad soon. It's laundry day. I'm into my third load, have folded towels and whites and am into sheets and mom's and dad's towels and clothing. I'll get dinner in an hour. I'm trying to decide between Ramen noodles with shrimp bits in it for mom and dad which dad enjoys eating from a Chinese bowl with chopsticks, or fried eggs on buttered bread and fruit cups. Something light. I'm not hungry. (I noshed on bits of a Trader Joe's bittersweet chocolate bar with almonds – that good chocolate feeds the brain; which is getting me past the three o'clock hum-drums, has elevated my feelings and satisfied my tummy.)


This is so (speaking of) hum-drum for a blog post. Though it's my life – I have kind of nothing to say I guess. I've not posted for a long time. Everything, every thing, has a life and my blogging has probably enjoyed its. Like our mom, mostly it's getting away from me. Hard to say. Hard. To. Say.

So I won't say. I don't know the end of anything! My tomatoes are roasting, I can smell them, and the laundry is done (off to fold) and my chocolate bits with nuts has propped my brain up so that I came here to read a little, goodness, after a long, long time gone... and I feel nostalgic.