tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343982938822276462024-03-12T21:06:13.101-06:00confessions of a former miss-know-it-allUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger446125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-79821550237520886022020-04-03T10:40:00.000-06:002020-04-03T10:40:38.351-06:00New Normal<br />
Yesterday I got to do a Zoom meeting with some of my friends from my book group. It was so nice to see their faces and hear their voices! 👏 I miss them. When the session timed out at 40 minutes, I felt this sadness- back to isolation. 😪<br />
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I did get to go on a walk with my friend Stacey, down to Liberty Park and back, yesterday. I know we stayed a couple feet apart, but I doubt it was six feet. Man it's tough to adhere to that rule. 😷 But holy cow did it feel good to breathe in the crisp air, and hear the birds and see the blue sky. The cold wind on my ears as we walked was even wonderful. 🙏<br />
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Oh touch. How I miss you. I haven't been in a relationship for over a year and I realize that I compensate for it by pawing my friends and family. Sorry all. So to not have either now is killing me softly...but I will survive. Kids are with their Dad until Sunday. I guess I can snuggle with the cats. Meh. 😹<br />
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Stacey and I joked about how a great commune would be nice right about now. Where you know and trust all 50 people and you have a big garden. Would that solve this? We talked about how it would be tough to be battling an addiction during this pandemic. I thought the liquor stores were closed, but I guess in Utah they aren't. Funny that in Vegas they are. If I were still using cannabis I'd be scared of running out, for sure. A couple friends of mine joked that they are hoarding alcohol. I think my drug of choice for the past couple weeks has been food; buying it and consuming it. 🙈🙊🙉<br /><br />I wish I were an artist. This would be a good time to be painting. And for no reason other than I found these random pictures again on this computer, I am publishing them. I think they are from 2011. Because I blinked and they doubled in size...how dare they.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-24384760640754404562020-04-01T19:57:00.006-06:002020-04-01T20:10:41.151-06:00Inside Out and Back Again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img alt="Ellie Kemper plays doomsday cult survivor in trailer for Tina ..." height="179" src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/01/22/24F5540500000578-0-image-a-17_1421965526810.jpg" width="320" /></div>
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I think we are all more undone than we let on. But we have people counting on us so we can't completely come unglued. The coronavirus continues throughout the world and so we have purposefully shut down the economy, shut down the community, and gone in to an alternate state of living that most of us have never known. I start to breathe a bit heavy when I picture myself like Anne Frank because that is not ideal. Especially when there's no cute dude trapped inside the house to flirt with.<br />
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Also, I might have survivors guilt. Not for surviving the virus, as it really hasn't hit Utah yet, but for surviving in "style." That being said, I've had this type of guilt for my whole life, even when I was a pretty poor kid during my parents divorce and my dad's unemployment. Why should I have just about anything that others don't have? I would make a really good socialist...not that I am a communist...regardless of what my parents may suspect. Ha.<br />
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I just want everyone to have enough TP, and a Netflix subscription, and a second freezer, and baking ingredients, and all the other things that make coronavirus bearable. I want everyone to have three darling kids who are self sufficient, who you can laugh with and play board games with and who will empty the dishwasher and do their online homework without being asked. Because they are making this bearable. Hell, they are making it almost fun.<br />
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And I've got some weird feelings there. Because a worldwide pandemic is not supposed to be fun, right? You're not supposed to be happy that you can sleep in until 9 or 10 or noon if your heart desires. You are not supposed to be able to have brunch every day. You aren't supposed to be happy that there are no meetings, no homework, no expectations. But I am pretty happy about most of it. Maybe I'm not the extrovert I thought I was. Gasp.<br />
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My life is not what I thought it would be. But that is a train of thought for another day. So I guess the coronavirus has brought me back to blogging. I've been all over the map in terms of how my beliefs and thoughts and dreams line up. And today they have me on team let's all survive this worldwide bug and the Utah earthquakes and at the end of it let's either have Jesus taking over the reigns from Donald Trump (dare to dream) or let's all be stronger, and more grateful for the people in our lives. Ay Men.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-16388532170130091672015-08-30T22:16:00.002-06:002015-08-30T22:16:39.546-06:00I can't feel better Gosh, it has been so flipping long since I have blogged. I honestly forgot I had this thing for a while. It's been two years I think. And life has basically done about ten 180's since then. It's turned out good, which is good. And I'm too lazy to get in to all of that now. Maybe I will later. But for now I have to write. I have never written on this blog for anyone but myself. I write to stay sane...or some version of sane. But the published and unpublished posts were causing some issues for me, both in my marriage and in my extended family, so I stopped using it. Thankfully it is now a safe space again. So I can talk. And while most people don't get it, I honestly think that words are the most valuable thing on the planet. Without them, it is a boring place. Okay, so on to why I need to write. I need to write because I feel a lot and think a lot, and some times it is just about to cause me to burst. Tonight I am writing what I felt today.<br />
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I volunteered at the shelter today. I do this most Sundays. And today I just felt sad afterwards. I told Pat, my boyfriend, that it often feels like I've failed the kids when I am leaving. I've given them two hours of playtime, but it should be three times that. I have given them a small snack of cheese slices and milk and fruit, but it should have been a breakfast and a lunch. I have given them toys to play with, but I wish there were more pretend play items, and dress up. The kids have fun but it would be better if they had better spaces, and more room to run. It would be better if the adorable six year olds, who really want to play make believe where they are dressed up as heroes and villains, didn't have to worry about trampling the toddlers that are in the playroom too.<br />
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One of my volunteers tells me we should limit the numbers. She is right. We should. But it is almost impossible for me to do that. Because I remember. I remember having little ones of my own. And the only thing that saved me was having a break. Even if was tiny. So when a mother, who is at her wit's end, comes knocking on the playroom door, an hour in to it, with a look that tells me she is at the edge of a cliff. Her child may or may not have shoes on. This mother may or may not have eaten in the last 24 hours, or slept, or cried hard tears of despair. And I am supposed to turn her child away? Turn him away from the one chance he has that day to play with toys, since all of his were put in storage when he moved in to the shelter? Turn him away, when this may be the one opportunity to eat for the day, because it's the end of the month and the money has run out, and his mom can't get a job because she has no child care for this child?<br />
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The child may be a pain in the neck. And those are the ones that need it the most. I am not a child psychologist. I am a social worker. I do not know all the tricks. I know a couple. And for some of the kids they work. But for other kids, they could use a team of specialists, to peer in to their little heads and see what is going on. One sweet girl struggles. And it makes sense. Her dad is in jail, and he's there for beating her. She can not see a child and not hit him or her. And then immediately feels horrible about it. She needs to be retrained. Her brain needs to be rewired. Yet her mother, who has been in the shelter for a year, or more, has never been referred to the Children's Center. She had no idea what it was. I don't blame the case workers. There are three of them for 115 families. I don't know who to blame. But I want to blame someone or something, because it eases my guilt.<br />
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It eases my guilt because I can't give these kids what they need. Nutrition, safety, stimulation, enrichment, peace. I can't do it. Instead I give them this tiny slice of time, filled with a million kids, where the goal is to have children interacting in a positive way, playing and creating, learning. But one child is yelling, and as soon as we remedy that, someone else is crying and as soon as that is attended to, someone else is struggling with the inability to share. With 38 high needs kids, the majority of whom are experiencing trauma, it is bound to happen. They are fragile. They appear tough, but they are not. And the tweens and the teens, with their special needs. And the parents. I mean, I have to compartmentalize because the lack of support is just unbelievable. It feels cruel.<br />
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I was wrong, this didn't make me feel better. But maybe I will never feel better about this. Maybe I shouldn't. It's horrid. No amount of journaling about it is going to make it better.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-50479239672449354942013-01-01T13:02:00.004-07:002013-01-01T13:02:57.772-07:00Life in 2013This year I would love to tie up loose ends. This year I would love to be more calm. This year I would love to wake up earlier. This year I would love to be more strong. This year I would love to connect to nature. This year I would love to read with my kids more. This year I would love to loose my fear. This year I would love to let go and move forward. This year I would love to entertain friends and family in my home. This year I would love to write. This year I would love to accept my limits. This year I would love to be happy, content, forgiving, and accepting of myself and others.<br />
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I am grateful for my three children. I am grateful for my health and the health of my family. I am grateful for my quality of life. I am thankful for Gavin and how hard he works to provide for us. I am grateful for lessons that I've learned that have altered my path in life and opened my eyes. I am grateful for friendships, both old and new. I am grateful that I can finally let go of relationships that no longer fulfilled me.<br />
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2012 feels like a bit of a kick in the pants. Tragedies across the globe seemed to hit closer to home than ever. The suffering of someone across the world nicked my heart if only for a moment. As soon as I'd recovered from the first sting, news of more suffering would tear back open the wound, so that it felt that there was never a reprieve from the assault on humanity. Just as wrenching as the victim's grief, was the knowledge that other humans were the ones oppressing and afflicting. Hope was lost in humanity, and that was devastating.<br />
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Personally, I had to let go of the notion that once a friend, always a friend. I had to re-examine what the word "friend" even meant. I was forced to accept that some people don't like me. And that's okay. I shouldn't try to change myself to try to win them over. Some people like who I used to be. And that is fine. I can't force them to accept me, and how I will adapt and change over my life. Quality over quantity is what I've come to accept. And once I let go of old ties that no longer served me, I opened myself up to sweet, and very fulfilling friendships that have mended old wounds and lifted me up. I've had my faith renewed in humanity because of these dear friendships.<br />
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I would love to return to school this year. I would love to learn and constantly be rubbing shoulders with other people who love learning as much as I do. <br />
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There is a constant sadness that exists in the far reaches of my soul. One day I would like to address it, but until I have the emotional energy, I just leave it out of reach, on that high, dusty shelf, acknowledging that it exists but recognizing that with every rainbow comes a cloud. Maybe it's the price I pay for my reality. Maybe it's always been there, it's just that I am finally conscious.<br />
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The joy still outweighs the sadness. Or at least it does in most moments of most days. And a large part of it comes from my children and the humans that they are becoming. Their personalities, accomplishments, journeys, and relationship with me are the single greatest joy in my life. I had no idea they could cause me such happiness. <br />
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Life is a lot of things. But it is also very good. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-70978425167591299502012-10-21T22:59:00.002-06:002012-10-21T22:59:39.061-06:00Terryl Givens recent talk
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Letter to a Doubter:
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I understand that some doubts have arisen in your mind. I don’t know for sure what they are, but I
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">imagine they are ones I have heard before. Probably some of them I have entertained in my own mind.
And perhaps some of them I still harbor myself. I am not going to respond to them in the ways that you
may have anticipated. Oh, I will say a few things about why many doubts felt by the previously faithful
and faith-filled are ill-founded and misplaced. The result of poor teaching, naïve assumptions, cultural
pressures and outright false doctrines. But my main purpose in writing this letter is not to resolve the
uncertainties and perplexities in your mind. I want rather to endow them with the dignity and seriousness
they deserve. And even to celebrate them. That may sound perverse, but I hope to show you it is not.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">So, first a few words about doubts that are predicated on misbegotten premises. I will illustrate an
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">example of this from the life of Mormonism’s greatest intellectual, and then address </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">five other kinds in
particular: So: the example comes from B. H. Roberts.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">From his first experience debating a Campbellite minister on the Book of Mormon in 1881, Roberts was
devoted to defending the Mormon scripture. While in England as a church Mission President in 1887 and
1888, he studied in the Picton Library, collecting notes on American archeology that could serve as
external evidence in support of the Book of Mormon. The three volumes of the work that resulted, New
Witnesses for God, appeared in 1895, 1909 and 1911. Then on August 22, 1921, a young member wrote a
letter to church apostle James E. Talmage that would shake up the world of Mormon apologetics, and
dramatically refocus Roberts' own intellectual engagement with Mormonism . The brief letter sounded
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">routine enough. “Dear Dr. Talmage,” wrote W. E. Riter</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">, one </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“Mr. Couch [a friend of Riter’s] </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">of
Washington, D.C., has been studying the Book of Mormon and submits the enclosed questions
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">concerning his studies. Would you kindly answer them and send them to me.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">1 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Talmage forwarded the
five questions </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">to the church’s Book of Mormon expert: B. H. Roberts, expecting a quick and routine
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">reply. Four of the questions dealt with anachronisms that were fairly easily dismissed by anyone who
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">understands a little about translation theory. But one had Roberts stumped. It was this question: How [are
we] to explain the immense diversity of Indian languages, if all are supposed to be relatively recent
descendents of Lamanite origin?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">” To put the problem in simple terms, how, in the space of a mere
thousand years or so, could the Hebrew of Lehi’s tribe have fragmented and morphed into every one o</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">f
the hundreds of Indian languages of the Western Hemisphere, from Inuit to Iroquois to Shoshone to
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Patagonian. Languages just don’t mutate and multiply that quickly.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Several weeks after Talmage’s request, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Roberts still had not responded. In late December, he wrote the
President of the Church, explaining the delay and asking for more time: </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">While knowing that some parts
of my [previous] treatment of Book of Mormon problems . . . had not been altogether as convincing as I
would like to have seen them, I still believed that reasonable explanations could be made that would keep
us in advantageous possession of the field. As I proceeded with my recent investigations, however, and
more especially in the, to me, new field of language problems, I found the difficulties more serious than I
had thought for; and the more I investigated the more difficult I found the formulation of an answer to Mr.
Couch's inquiries to be.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">2
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Roberts never found an answer to that question, and it troubled him the rest of his life. Some scholars
think he lost his testimony of the truthfulness and antiquity of the Book of Mormon as a result of this and
other doubts-</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">though I don’t see that in the record. But here is the lesson we should learn from this story.
Roberts’ whole dilemma was born </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">of a faulty assumption he imbibed wholesale, never questioning, never
critically analyzing, i.e., that Lehi arrived on an empty continent, and his descendants and his descendants
alone eventually overran the hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to the Straits of Magellan.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Nothing in the Book of Mormon suggests that Lehi’s colony expanded to fill the hemisphere. In fact, as
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">John Sorenson has conclusively demonstrated, the entire history of the Book of Mormon takes place
within an area of Nephite and Lamanite habitation some 500 miles long and perhaps 200 miles wide (or a
little smaller than Idaho). And though as late as 1981 the Book of Mormon introduction written by Bruce
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">R. McConkie </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">referred to Lamanites as “the principal an</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">cestors of the American Indians,</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">” </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">absolutely
nothing in that book of scripture gave warrant for such an extravagant claim. That is why, as of 2007, the
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">church changed the wording to “the Lamanites are </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Italic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">among </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">the ancestors.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">No, the most likely scenario that
unfolded in ancient America is that </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Lehi’s colony was one of dozens of migrations, by sea and by land
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">bridge. His descendants occupied a small geographical area, and intermingled and intermarried with other
peoples and cultures. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Roberts couldn’t figure out how Inuit and Patagonian languages </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">derived from
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Hebrew because they didn’t. And there was absolutely no reason to try and make that square peg fit into
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">that round hole. You see, even brilliant individuals and ordained Seventies can buy into careless
assumptions that lead them astray.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">So what are some of the assumptions we might be making that create intellectual tension and spiritual
turmoil? I will mention five: the prophetic mantle, the nature of restoration, Mormon exclusivity, the
efficacy of institutional religion, and the satisfactions of the gospel</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">including personal revelation. I can
only say a few words about each, enough I hope to provoke you to consider if these</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">or kindred
misplaced foundations</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">apply to you.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">1. The prophetic mantle:
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Abraham lied about Sariah being his sister. Isaac deceives Esau and steals both his birthright and his
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">blessing (but maybe that’s ok because he is a patriarch, not a prophet strictly speaking). </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Moses took glory
unto himself at the waters of Meribah, and was punished severely as a consequence. He was also guilty of
manslaughter and covered up his crime. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Jonah ignored the Lord’s call, then later whined and complained
because God didn’t burn Ninevah to the ground as he had threatened. It doesn’t get a lot better in the New
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Testament. Paul rebuked Peter sharply for what he called cowardice and hypocrisy in his refusal to
embrace the gentiles as equals. Then Paul got into a sharp argument with fellow apostle Barnabas and
they parted company. So where on earth do we get the notion that modern day prophets are infallible
specimens of virtue and perfection? Joseph said emphatically, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“I don’t want you to think I am very
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">righteous, for I am not very righteous.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">3 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">To remove any possibility of doubts, he canonized those
scriptures in which he is rebuked for his inconstancy and weakness. Most telling of all, is section 124:1,
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">in which this pervasive pattern is acknowledged and explained: “for unto this end have I raised you up,
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">that I might show forth my wisdom through the </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">weak </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">things of the earth” (D&C 124:1). Air </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">brushing our
prophets, past or present, is a wrenching of the scriptural record and a form of idolatry. God specifically
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">said he called weak vessels, so we wouldn’t place our faith in </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Italic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">their </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">strength or power, but in God’s. Most
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">cripplingly, however, is the false expectations this paradigm sets up; when Pres. Woodruff said the Lord
would never suffer his servants to lead the people astray, we can only reasonably interpret that to mean
the prophet will not teach us any soul destroying doctrine</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">not that they will never err. President Kimball
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">himself both condemned Brigham Young’s Adam</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">-God teachings as heresy, and an apostle referred as
early as 1963 to the priesthood ban </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">as a “possible error” </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">for which he asked forgiveness.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">4 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">The mantle
represents priesthood keys, not a level of holiness or infallibility. God would not have enjoined us to hear
what prophets, seers, and revelators have </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">to say “in all patience and faith” if </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">their words were always sage
and inspired (D&C 21:5).
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">2. The nature of restoration
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Recently a Mormon scholar announced his departure from Mormonism and baptism into another faith
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">tradition. “</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Mormons believe that the church</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant visions alike</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">completely died,</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">” </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">he said of his principal reason for leaving. Then he quoted another dissident as saying,
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“The idea that God was sort of snoozing until 1820 now seems to me absurd.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Well guess what. That
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">sounds absurd to Mormons as well. President of the church John Taylor said, “There were men in those
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">dark ages who could commune with God, and who, by the power of faith, could draw aside the curtain of
eternity and gaze upon the invisible world. . . There were men who could gaze upon the face of God,
have the ministering of angels, and unfold the future destinies of the world. If those were dark ages I pray
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">God to give me a little darkness.”
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Joseph didn’t believe the church died either. He was very particular about his wording, when he recast his
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">first revelation about restoration to state specifically, that God was bringing the church back out of the
wilderness, where it had been nurtured of the Lord during a period when priesthood ordinances were no
longer performed to bind on earth and in heaven. Precious morsels of truth had lain scattered throughout
time, place, religion, and culture, and Joseph saw his mission as that or brining it all into one coherent
whole, not reintroducing the gospel ex nihilo.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">3. Mormon exclusivity
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">In a related way, some come to doubt Mormonism’s monopoly on salvation, as they call it. It grows
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">increasingly difficult to imagine that a body of a few million, in a world of seven billion, can really be
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">God’s only chosen </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">people, heirs of salvation. I think the most unfortunate misperception about
Mormonism is in this tragic irony: that the most generous, liberal, and universalist conception of salvation
in all Christendom </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">is Joseph Smith’s view. We would do well to note what the Lord said to Joseph in
section 49, when he referred to “holy men,” that Joseph knew nothing about, and whom the Lord had
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">reserved unto himself. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Clearly, Mormons don’t have a monopoly on righteousness, truth, or God’s
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">approbation. Here and hereafter, a multitude of non-Mormons will constitute the Church of the Firstborn.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">As a mighty God, our Heavenly Father has the capacity to save us all. As a fond father, He has the desire
to do so. That is why, as Joseph taught, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“God hath made a provision that </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,BoldItalic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">every </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">spirit can be ferretted out
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">in that world” that has not deliberately and definitively chosen to </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">resist a grace that is stronger than the
cords of death. The idea is certainly a generous one, and it seems suited to the weeping God of Enoch, the
God who has set His heart upon us. If some inconceivable few will persist in rejecting the course of
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">eternal progress, they are “the only ones” who will be damned, taught Joseph Smith. “All the rest” of us
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">will be rescued from the hell of our private torments and subsequent alienation from God.
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">4. Inefficacy of institutional religion
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote perhaps his greatest sermon on the fallacy of cheap grace. I think the plague of
our day is the fallacy of cheap spirituality. I find among college freshmen I teach a near universal disdain
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">for “organized religion,” and at the same time an energetic affirmation of personal spirituality.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">The new sensibility began innocently enough with the lyrical expression of William Blake, who
suggested that God might be better found in the solitary contemplation of nature than in the crowded
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">pews of churches. He urged readers “to see the world in a </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower / hold
infinity in the palm </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” It took a Marxist critic, Terry </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Eagleton, to
point out that the gospel of Matthew teaches us that </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“Eternity lies not in a grain of sand but in a glass </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">of
water. The cosmos revolves on comforting the sick. When you act in this way, you are sharing in the love
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">which built the stars.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Holiness is found in how we treat others, not in how we contemplate the cosmos.
As our experiences in marriages, families, and friendship teach us, it takes relationships to provide the
friction that wears down our rough edges and sanctifies us. And then, and only then, those relationships
become the environment in which those perfected virtues are best enjoyed. We need those virtues not just
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">here, but eternally because “the same sociality that exists here, will exist there, only it will be coupled
with celestial glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.”
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">The project of perfection, or purification and sanctification, is in this light not a scheme for personal
advancement, but a process of better filling</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">and rejoicing in</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">our role in what Paul called the body of
Christ, and what others have referred to as the New Jerusalem, the General Assembly and Church of the
Firstborn, or, as in the prophecy of Enoch, Zion. There are no Zion individuals. There is only a Zion
community.
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">5. Satisfactions of the Gospel / Personal revelation
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Brigham </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Young said, “</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">To profess to be a Saint, and not enjoy the spirit of it, tries every fiber of the heart,
and is one of the most painful e</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">xperiences that man can suffer.” We expect the gospel to make us happy.
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">We are taught that God answers prayers, that all blessings can be anticipated as a direct and predictable
result of a corresponding commandment. I love that quote, because I think Young was being truly
empathic. He realized that then, as now, thousands of Saints were paying the high price of discipleship,
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">and asking, “where is the joy?” And he knew the question was born in agony and bewilderment.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I have no glib solace to offer. I will not bore you or insult your spiritual maturity with injunctions to pray
harder, to fast more, to read your scriptures. I know you have been traveling that route across a parched
desert. But do let me repeat here three simple ideas; Be patient; remember; and take solace in the
fellowship of the desolate. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">In Lehi’s vision, he recorded, he “traveled for the space of many hours in
darkness” (1 Ne. 8:8).
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Patience does not mean to wait apathetically and dejectedly, but to anticipate actively on the basis of what
we know; and what we know, we must remember. I believe remembering can be the highest form of
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">devotion. To remember is to rescue the sacred from the vacuum of oblivion. To remember Christ’s
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">sacrifice every Sunday at the sacrament table</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">, is to say “no” to the ravages of time; to refuse to allow his
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">supernal sacrifice to be just another datum in the catalogue of what is past. To remember past blessings is
to give continuing recognition of the gift, and re-confirm the relationship to the Giver as one that persists
in the here and now. Few-very few-are entirely bereft of at least one solace giving-memory. A childhood
prayer answered, a testimony borne long ago, a fleeting moment of perfect peace. And for those few who
despairingly insist they have never heard so much as a whisper, then know this: </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">We don’t need to look for
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">a burning bush, when all we need is to be still and remember that we have known the goodness of love,
the rightness of virtue, the nobility of kindness and faithfulness. And ask if we see in such beauties the
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">random effects of Darwinian products, or can we not perceive in them the handwriting of God on our
hearts?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">At the same time, remembering rather than experiencing moves us toward greater independence, and
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">insulates us from the vicissitudes of the moment. Brigham said God’s intention was to make us as
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">independent in our sphere, as he is in his.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">5 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">That is why the heavens close from time to time, to give us
room for self-</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">direction. That is why the saints rejoiced in a Pentecostal day in Kirtland’s temple, but were
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">met with silence in Nauvoo. Silence</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">and their memories of Kirtland. One can see the Lord gently
tutoring us to replace immediacy with memory, in section 6</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">, when he says to Oliver, “if you desire a
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know
concerning the truth of these things. Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What
greater witness can you have than from God? (D&C 6:22-23). C. S. Lewis wrote that </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">God allows
spiritual peaks to subside into (often e</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">xtensive) troughs in order for ‘</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">servants to finally become So</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">ns,’
‘</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">stand[ing] up on [their] own legs</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish...
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">growing into the sort of creature He wants [them] to be.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">’”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">6
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Finally, find solace in what I have called the fellowship of the desolate. With Mother </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Teresa, who said, “</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I
am told God lives in me and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">nothing touches my soul.” ... “</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Heaven </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">from every side is closed.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">7
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Or with the magnificent Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who poured out his soul in achingly
beautiful lament:
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.<br />
What hours, O what black hours we have spent<br />
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">8
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Or with my favorite poet, George Herbert, who expressed frustration with his own ministry, barren as it
felt of joyful fruit, and described his </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">– </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">almost</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">– </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">defection from life lived in silent patience.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I Struck the board, and cry’d, No more.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I will abroad.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the rode,
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Loose as the winde, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Have I no harvest but a thorn
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">To let me bloud, and not restore
What I have lost with cordiall fruit?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did drie it: there was corn
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Have I no bayes to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">All wasted?
9
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">...
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Away; take heed:
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I will abroad.<br />
Call in thy deaths head there: tie up thy fears.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">He that forbears
To suit and serve his [own] need,
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Deserves his load.
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">At every word,
Me thought I heard one calling, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Italic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Childe</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">:
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">And I reply’d, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Italic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">My Lord</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">(“The Collar”)
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Finally, listen to Fyodor Dostoevsky who, like Herbert, found only the slim anchor of one memory
ensconced in an overwhelming silence to hold on to- but hold on he did.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I will tell you that I am a child of this century, a child of disbelief and doubt. I am that today and will
remain so until the grave. How much terrible torture this thirst for faith has cost me and costs me even
now, which is all the stronger in my soul the more arguments I can find against it. And yet, God sends me
sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and feel loved by others, and it is
at those instances that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This
Credo is very simple, here it is: to believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic,
reasonable, manly and more powerful than Christ."</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">8
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Now to my conclusion:
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Maybe none of these issues apply to you. Maybe you have a whole different set of doubts. Or maybe none
of my words are persuasive in allaying those doubts. In that case, I turn to my last but most important
point. Be grateful for your doubts.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">William Wordsworth was. Mormons know the early stanzas from his intimations ode, the
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“trailing clouds of glory” lines. But more magnificent in my opinion are the later stanzas, where he tell</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">s
us what he is most grateful for, where he finds the source of his joy. After struggling with the indelible
sadness of adulthood, trying in vain to recapture the innocence and joy of childhood delight and
spontaneity, he realizes it is the tension, the irresolution, the ambiguity and perplexity of his predicament,
that is the spur to his growth. That is why, as he tells us, in the final analysis he appreciates the very
things that plague the questing mind. He is grateful </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Italic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">not </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">for the blithe certainties and freedom of a past
childhood. He is thankful </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Italic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">not </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">for what we would expect him to appreciate,
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">not indeed<br />
For that which is most worthy to be blest--
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Delight and liberty, the simple creed<br />
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,<br />
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Not for these I raise
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">The song of thanks and praise;<br />
But for those </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">obstinate questionings
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Of sense and outward things,
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Fallings from us</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">vanishings</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">;
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Blank misgivings </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">...
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Those </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Bold'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">shadowy recollections</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">,<br />
Which, be they what they may,
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Are yet the fountain light of all our day.
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">(“Ode: Intimations of Immortality”)
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">You see, it was in the midst of his perplexity, of his obstinate questions, uncertainties, misgivings, and
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">shadowy recollections that almost but don’t quite pierce the veil, that he found the prompt, the agitation,
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">the catalyst, that spurred him from complacency to insight, from generic pleasures, to revelatory
illumination, from being a thing acted upon to being an actor in the quest for his spiritual identity.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">I know I am grateful for a propensity to doubt, because it gives me the capacity to freely believe. I hope
you can find your way to feel the same. The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to
resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Italic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">and which we
have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">There must be grounds for doubt as well
as belief, in order to render the choice more truly a choice, and therefore the more deliberate, and laden
with personal vulnerability and investment. An overwhelming preponderance of evidence on either side
would make our choice as meaningless as would a loaded gun pointed at our heads. The option to believe
must appear on </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">one’s personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">between sets of
demands held in dynamic tension. Fortunately, in this world, one is always provided with sufficient
materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial. We are acted upon, in
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">other words, by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings, our fears, our appetites, and our egos. What
we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That
is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral
significance.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">The call to faith, in this light, is not some test of a coy god, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">waiting to see if we “get it right.” It is the only
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">summons, issued under the only conditions, which can allow us fully to reveal who we are, what we most
love, and what we most devoutly desire. Without constraint, without any form of mental compulsion, the
act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Like the poet’s image of
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">a church bell that only reveals its latent music when struck, or a dragonfly that only flames forth its
beauty in flight, so does the content of a human heart lie buried until action calls it forth. The greatest act
of self-revelation occurs when we </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman,Italic'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">choose </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists
between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">This is the realm where faith operates, and when faith is a freely chosen gesture, it expresses something
essential about the self.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Modern revelation, speaking of spiritual gifts, notes that while to some it is given to know the core truth
of Christ and His mission, to others is given the means to persevere in the absence of certainty. The New
Testament makes the point that those mortals who operate in the grey area between conviction and
incredulity are in a position to choose most meaningfully, and with most meaningful consequences.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Peter’s tentative steps across the water capture the rhythm familiar </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">to most seekers. He walks in faith, he
stumbles, he sinks, but is embraced by the Christ before the waves swallow him. Many of us will live out
our lives in doubt, like the unnamed father in the gospel of Mark. Coming to Jesus, distraught over the
pain of his afflicted </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">son, he said simply, “I believe, help my unbelief.” Though </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">he walked through mists
of doubt, caught between belief and unbelief, he made a choice, and the consequence was the healing of
his child.
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">“The highest of all is not to understand the highest but to act upon it,” wrote Kierkegaard.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">9 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Miracles do
not depend on flawless faith. They come to those who question as well as to those who know. There is
profit to be found, and advantage to be gained, even</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">perhaps especially</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">—</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">in the absence of certainty.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Terryl Givens
University of Richmond
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">(A Fireside Presentation to the Single Adult Stake, Palo Alto, CA on 14 October 2012)
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">1 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">W. E. Riter to James E. Talmage, 22 August 1921, in B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, ed. Brigham
D. Madsen (Salt Lake City: Signature, 1992), 35.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">2 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">B. H. Roberts to Heber J. Grant et al., 29 December 1921, in Roberts, Studies, 46.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 6.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">3 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Manuscript History of the Church D-1, p. 1555-57.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 6.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">4 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Edward L. Kimball, ed., Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1995), 448-49.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 6.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">5 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, 3 December 1854.
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 6.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">6 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Cited in Rachael Givens, “Mormonism and the Dark Night of the Soul,” Peculiar People</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">, Patheos, 21 September
2012. </span><span style="color: rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peculiarpeople/2012/09/mormonisms-dark-night-of-the-soul/<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 6.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">7 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light (New York: Random House Digital, 2009), 202.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 6.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">8 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 160.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 6.000000pt; vertical-align: 5.000000pt;">9 </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Soren Kierkegaard, The Soul of Kierkegaard: Selections from his Journals, ed. Alexander Dru (New York: Dover,
2003), 213. </span><br />
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<br />
http://terrylgivens.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Letter-to-a-Doubter.pdfUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-864058017044465922012-10-09T22:51:00.000-06:002012-10-10T13:26:15.601-06:00For my friends from the Boston 2nd wardAfter my youngest, Garrett, was born I needed a wonderful babysitter. There were a couple classes that I was going to be taking and I needed to know that he was safe. I needed someone that I could trust. Someone that would be like a mother to him for the couple hours a week that I needed to be away.<br />
<br />
We hired a fantastic sitter. I felt a lot of peace knowing that my baby (and two older kids) were in good hands while I was away. I told her that the most important thing, when it came to the kids, was that they were loved. <br />
<br />
One day I came home to find that the kids had not eaten hardly any dinner. When I inquired as to why they were full, they told me that they had eaten cookies, and bagels, and yogurt pops, and goldfish crackers, and juice. These were all snacks and treats that I allowed them to have after dinner, in moderation. But certainly not all together, before dinner.<br />
<br />
After they went to bed, I spoke with the sitter. I told her that I needed her to enforce my rules. I then explained my policy on junk food before dinner, along with some other family rules that I'd failed to mention before. When she saw the kids the next time she said, "Hey sorry kids. I thought that it was okay to say yes to you whenever you asked for treats. But now I know the rules, so we have to follow them."<br />
<br />
A couple of days later, I came home after dinner, and saw that one of the big kids was obviously sad. When I asked what the matter was, they reported that they weren't allowed to have any desert because they didn't finish their vegetables. I looked over at their plate and saw a few straggling peas, but everything else had been eaten. I gave the kids some ice cream and sent them to bed.<br />
<br />
After they were asleep I spoke with the sitter. I told her that she had interpreted the rules a little too literally. I told her that while I wanted the kids to eat their food before desert, they didn't need to eat every morsel on their plates. They just needed to eat most of it. When she saw the kids next she said,<br />
"Kids, I am sorry about not giving you your desert last time. I overdid it when it came to the rules and punishment. But now I understand so we're good."<br />
<br />
Did my kids and I hold a grudge over these miscommunications and mess ups? No. Because we are human, and even though someone is an adult, we know that they can mess up, and often do, and that they can apologize and make things right.<br />
<br />
Luckily, this babysitter was patient with me and my kids, as we figured out the groove, and got a handle on what all the rules and expectations were. I told her and the kids that while I was gone, she was going to be the authority. She was like "Mom" because I trusted her to do the things that I would do. The kids felt safe because they knew that the sitter would be checking in with me while I was away.<br />
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Last weekend the LDS church held it's semi-annual General Conference. They broadcast this message to the world. I should know because A) I grew up watching it my entire life and B) I convinced the cable station in Boston to have it broadcast for the first time in Massachusetts while I was living there. The last General Conference I only caught two talks, they were Elder Oaks and Elder Cook's talks. And while the rest of the speakers may have been completely different, I was shocked by what I heard from these two Apostles.<br />
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They said that those with "same sex attraction" should be consoled with being celibate until after they die because in their next life they will be fixed to be attracted to females in the Celestial Kingdom. And they said that two-parent families were ideal, where in kids who were brought up by single-parent families were at a disadvantage. There were studies to back up these claims. Though we didn't hear what they were. But at the end of each talk, I felt sick to my stomach. Like I'd swallowed a giant rock. <br />
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I had been raised by a single mother, who gave so much of her time and energy to the Church, only to have her efforts put down in this way. Would it have been better to have had her and my Dad stay together in an unhealthy marriage? Kids marinating in the sewage of anger and resentment? Our childhood was not perfect, but my siblings and I felt that we had it good. My Grandmother, who was an LDS Family Therapist, often counseled couples to call it quits, when it was apparent that they would be healthier apart than together. <br />
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I often felt shame as an LDS child, for coming from a single-parent home. My neighbors had to take my siblings and I to the father-son or father-daughter activities. I was constantly reminded that mine was not an "eternal family". I had panic attacks thinking about the empty lot in the Celestial Kingdom where my dad's house was supposed to be, but where instead would grow holy weeds, as he cried his eyes out for eternity down in the Telestial kingdom, wishing that he would have just stayed married to my Mom. Later on, in Boston and then Salt Lake City, I would meet single parents with whom I would develop deep friendships, and see the strength and the excellence in their parenting, combined with their unwavering dedication and love for their family. I would realize that what I had growing up was every bit as valuable as what non-divorced families had, and that the strength of a family has nothing to do with the genders or numbers of adults in the home, but from the love that is within the walls.<br />
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And then there is my gay brother. Growing up, his "gayness" was the 500 pound elephant in the corner that no one wanted to address. So we just covered our ears and closed our eyes as he grew up. We could sense that his childhood wasn't fun. He wanted to draw the comic book Characters, The X Men, while other boys his age were playing basketball. He was not interested in scouting, or athletics, and found it hard to make friends with other boys in the neighborhood. But he put on a happy face. His best childhood friends were his female twin cousins and neighborhood girls. He didn't have a negative bone in his body, and had the biggest heart of anyone I knew. So in High School when he struggled with depression...dangerously so...we still never talked about it. Everyone knew what was going on. He was horribly sad. He felt incredible self-loathing and isolation. But we all just smiled harder, hoping that our false cheer would somehow rub off on him, never really inquiring as to what he needed because in our hearts we already knew but we didn't want to name it.<br />
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I had been taught that it was a sin to be gay. There was the whole Adam and Eve thing. I read the Miracle of Forgiveness, where you basically read a story where a bunch of cities were destroyed because all the men succumbed to the temptation of being gay. Their populations died out and their city burned. I did not want our city to see that wrath. So I judged him. Righteously. I mean, I was entitled to see him as wicked. He didn't seem any different than the eight year old that I would play Ghost in The Graveyard with, but I had been taught that he was sinning, so I believed it. If he prayed hard enough it would go away. Somehow he'd be transformed. So I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed. I didn't know how, but somehow God could fix him. <br />
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I moved to Boston with my husband and baby, and marched against gay marriage in Massachusetts. On the Capitol steps, shouting to my Governor Mitt Romney inside, about how God only approved of love between a man and a woman. Eventually I would have a complete change of heart, and decide that gay people were perfect and should have every right that I do as a heterosexual.<br />
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There is my history with single moms and gay people. Obviously these issues hit close to home for me. And these journeys that I went on in regards to these topics happened over a decade. It did not happen over night.<br />
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So when I think of those two talks last weekend, and my desire to stand up and say that there were very harmful parts of those talks that were wrong, I wasn't acting out of malice. I was acting out of love. I feel that the church is like the sitter while our Heavenly Parents are out. We are entrusted in the sitter's care, but the sitter is not the parent. And while the church leaders try their best, sometimes they misinterpret. Whether it be Brigham Young teaching us that Adam was our Heavenly Father, or another prophet teaching that evolution did not happen. They just had a human moment. IT HAPPENS. <br />
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It doesn't mean that you are awful. Just like my sitter was wonderful, she just needed to have some things cleared up that she was a little confused about. What is not okay is when one can not admit that they have erred. We teach children, at the youngest of ages, that when they do or say something unkind or untrue, even if it was not with the intention to hurt, that they need to apologize for it. It is what my sitter did so effortlessly. And it made the kids immediately trust her again. <br />
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When Shelby was a young child, I disciplined her the way that I had always disciplined her brother. I don't remember the infraction. But I remember her reaction. Her eyes welled up with tears. And in an instant her face turned blue. The grief in her little heart was so great that it had caused her to lose her breath as she gasped with choked crying. I did not know if she was having a seizure or was just crying. It turns out that it was both. When she cries too hard, sometimes she forgets to breathe, and then she does have some seizures as her eyes roll back in to her head and she goes lifeless. NOT the funnest thing.<br />
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When she came to, and my heart rate returned to non-hummingbird status, I asked her what she was so sad about. She told me that it was the way that I yelled at her. That I had made her feel so sad. I couldn't believe that my parenting, what I had been doing for years with no complaint from Dalton, was so overly critical.<br />
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I asked her older brother how he'd felt when he'd been similarly chastised. He told me that he felt the same way his sister did. It was at that point that my heart broke in two. WHY didn't you ever tell me? I asked him. He said he didn't know how, and that he thought it would only make me more mad. I told him that he should have told me. That if I would have known how much it hurt him, I wouldn't have been so hard on him. (We aren't talking beating here, but just yelling that when you're little feels just as scary). In typing this, I am having a hard time, because I am reliving this, and it is still one of the things that pierces my heart to the core. I will never forgive myself for not being a more calm mother when Dalton was little. Did I apologize to Dalton (and Shelby)? You bet I did. Over and over and over. I revisit it. I rehash it. I want him to know that I screwed up. And if I would have known better, I would have done better. <br />
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And so it is with General Conference. How can I stand by and not cry out in agony over the pain that those parts of those two talks inflicted on me, the child? If I stay silent, and scared, like Dalton, that sends a message that the talks are appropriate, when they are not. I must be brave, and honest, like Shelby was with her feelings, to send a message to the sitter that this is not right. I don't have false allusions that anyone is perfect. But I do have the self respect to know when someone messes up they should own it and apologize. This way there continues to be a loving, respected, relationship of trust. This is the way our Heavenly Parents would want it.<br />
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From one child, to another, this is why I must cry out.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/ejDywd9GOCg" target="_blank">Elder Oaks's Talk- Protecting Children</a><br />
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<a href="http://youtu.be/ejDywd9GOCg" target="_blank">Elder Cook's Talk- Can Ye Feel So Now</a><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-68635522597953029102012-10-02T19:32:00.002-06:002012-10-02T19:32:30.357-06:00My friend Stephanie's blog postIt's not like I don't have stuff to write about. It's just that I only seem to have about three spare seconds in my days as of late. Here is a great post by a good friend:<br />
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Stephanie's <a href="http://mormonchildbride.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">post</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-89109209172242003432012-09-04T23:22:00.000-06:002012-09-04T23:22:58.085-06:00A Day in the Life of Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I won a photo shoot at my elementary school's fundraiser, and I am SO happy that I did, because the photos turned out beautifully. <a href="http://www.redbeanphotography.com/">http://www.redbeanphotography.com/</a> is who did them and she was so great to work with. She was fun with the kiddos...super natural. She captured my family's personalities perfectly. Dalton on his cell phone, wanting so badly to be the teenager he feels he is inside his 11 year old body. Shelby with her collection of stray cats. Garrett, keeping up with the big kids, the life of the party. Gavin and I with our weary love for one another and our fierce commitment to our family. </div>
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I wanted the photos shot at our house, before things changed. Before school started for the kids and they changed. Before we began our home renovation project and the house changed. Before the season turned cool and the weather changed. I wanted to capture what our life was like for our little gang, in the summer of 2012.</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-92105168424945613762012-09-01T14:33:00.001-06:002012-09-01T14:42:19.259-06:00Romney V. Obama<br />
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About a month ago I was with my in-laws in California, and one of my darling nieces was with my daughter in our hotel room. They were watching cartoons, and scanning through the channels, when a political advertisement came on the TV. I can't remember who the commercial was for, but my niece asked my daughter, "Do you <i>like</i> Obama?" It was kind of the same way that you ask someone if they like brussel sprouts or kissing someone of their same gender. Like, you can't imagine that they would, and if they do, you don't really want to know.<br />
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But Shelby, quickly and without hesitation, answered in the affirmative, "I LOVE Obama!" Her cousin looked crestfallen. Knowing that this cousin's family members were big fans of Romney, I could see that she was trying to reconcile her unconditional love of my daughter, her best-cousin, with the stuff that she'd overheard on the TV news channel her parents watched regarding those who would support Obama. How could her favorite cousin be one of <i>those</i> people?<br />
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My heart broke a little for this cousin, as I knew the turmoil that she was currently processing. She could not <i>not</i> love Mitt Romney. He was practically her Uncle. In most LDS families, when it comes to Mitt Romney, the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game turns out to be more like two degrees, thanks to polygamy. An Aunt in the family shared the same great, great grandfather with Mitt Romney, which is not all that unique when you understand that this man had 12 wives. And so was the reason that Mitt's name was spoken with reverence amongst her family. Even if they are not perfect, you don't diss your own family members.<br />
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Yet here was her favorite cousin, who was like the mirror image of herself. Someone who she thought she knew everything about and with whom she felt completely safe around. Someone who she would always be completely loyal to. But how could she stand by someone who loved the enemy? And more importantly, how could her cousin <i>not</i> love Romney? He was so nice and good. He loved serving people in his religion. He was honest and hard working. Plus he was so handsome. It just didn't make sense.<br />
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Shelby was equally shocked to find out that her cousin supported Romney. Her wheels were turning in her little head trying to reconcile the same issues. The things that she'd heard on her parents news channel about that man were awful. How could her best cousin like someone like <i>that</i>? And more importantly, how could she <i>not</i> love Obama? Obama was kind of like an adopted uncle in her family. Her mom had a shirt with his name on it. His logo was on her car bumper. The family talked often of all the good that he did to help the poor, make people of other races feel included, give help to college students and people who fought in the wars. Plus his wife was so beautiful. It just didn't make sense.<br />
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And it was at that point that the truth of what most people in the United States honestly feel, came out of this 8 year-old cousin's mouth. <br />
Spoken with tears in her eyes, she dejectedly said, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>"I just wish it was over."</b></span> What this little love was saying was that for the past 3 years of this election season everyone was divided up in to two camps. There were people who were supposedly safe because they were like her family. And then there were those who sided with the other camp and were supposedly different and bad. For her little eight year old self, it was stressful (and probably a bit scary) trying to figure out who was safe and who was not. <br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>She just wanted everyone to be on the same team.</b></span><br />
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It's kind of like in grade school, when you are playing red rover for recess, and everyone in your class is divided up in to two teams. It's fun for a while, out there in the sun, shouting and daring the other team to try to break your invincible bond. But as your classmates come barreling towards you, one after another, from across the field, charging at you to infiltrate your team and win someone away to their side, you grow tired of trying to withstand that force.<br />
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It stings to have friends who have been won over by the other side. They seem happy over there, and it's hard to understand why they wouldn't be just miserable on the enemies side. You have to chant louder and cheer harder to convince yourself and others that yours is the right team to be on.<br />
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After a while you secretly wish for that recess bell to ring so that the two teams can dissolve back in to one united group. And when that bell rings, the tally of who'd conquered more team mates, and whose team was winning instantly vanishes. <b> </b>The promise of the rest of the day is what is most important as classmates who once stood on opposing sides, walk shoulder to shoulder back in to the school building.<br />
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I tried to comfort her. "I know" I said, "It's almost over." She and Shelby both quickly spouted off diplomatic ramblings about how <i>really</i> both men were good people, and were doing the best they could. How either way, things were going to be fine in the end. It was enough to put these two besties at ease, so they could go on watching Adventure Time without the slightest bit of contention. <br />
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My thought, after I was humbled by these two wise eight year olds, was that rather than sitting out the game, because of the stress of choosing sides, we should be engaged, learn the rules, and play with our best effort. The team you're on does not have to be concrete. People change sides all the time. The point isn't whose team you are on. It's that you played the game with integrity. A little rabble rousing makes the game fun, but at the end of the day, we're all on the same team.<br />
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Thank you darling girls.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-50016958012916793322012-08-29T16:45:00.002-06:002012-08-29T16:45:36.898-06:00Love HateI love/hate my son's school, Challenger. I had a very positive experience there when I was a child. My memories include school programs where I shined on stage (early on I had an affinity for affirmation), the school director dancing in to our room showgirl style as we sang an alphabet song, and feeling like a million bucks for learning every day.<br />
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It pains me to admit that transferring in to my local public elementary school when I was in the second grade felt somewhat like going from sixty to zero. It was as if i'd hit a brick wall. I believe that the reason that my parents transferred me out of Challenger and in to public school was cost. It was the 80's, my dad did real estate...'nough said. <br />
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So when it was time for kiddos to go to pre-school Challenger seemed like the perfect choice. There was one close to my house, the kids would get the stimulation that I loved when I was their age, and I could sit back and relax knowing that my kids would learn to read and write like no one's business.<br />
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But then Dalton was in the first grade and he looked like he wanted to kill himself when I observed him in class. It's like the life blood was being sucked out of him. Contrast that with our local elementary school where the walls are covered in colorful art, and the sounds of Virginia Tanner dance are wafting through the halls, and I knew I needed to pull him out.<br />
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With Shelby I put her in our local elementary school for Kindergarten and regretted the decision from day one as she withered on the vine with the squeaky wheel (the kid who does not yet know A from B) getting the grease, and her just sitting there waiting for stimulation. Thankfully her 1st and 2nd experiences have been completely different and she is thriving in a kind, nurturing, and stimulating environment.<br />
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Now we are to my final child, the apple of my eye, the love of my life. Just kidding...kind of. ;)<br />
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I walk through the white sterile halls of the old bank building that Challenger is housed in and wonder when the fun loving, creative school that I went to, changed so much. It seems like now it is a numbers game. Challenger must prove to the parents that we are getting our money's worth so they test the children and point out how much smarter our kids are than those poor children who are being loved to death at the neighborhood school. <br />
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I believe that the testing starts in Kindergarten, and that is when things really start to ramp up in intensity. In preschool the kids are still doing rug time, snack time, and multiple recesses. There are toys in the classroom, and music playing. However, the music sounds like it has been given a dose of roids since I was in the classroom 25 years ago, and the familiar songs that I know by heart are all a beat faster with the words sounding as though they are being sung by a group of hummingbirds.<br />
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Winter Festival is now called Christmas Festival because according to the founder, that was the original Christian holiday of our nation. Really?...don't remember Santa and Christmas trees in the history books. <br />
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There are things that have definitely changed. The school has become much more political. When I was there it was important that we learned about the founding fathers and the constitution, but now they have fetishized that document and those men to the point of absurdity.<br />
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During election season there are lawn signs on the campus, for the conservative tea party candidate. The older kids are tasked with writing assignments and book reports for Atlas Shrugged, the capitalist manifesto that basically espouses that we should return to Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest where are industries and people who can not thrive on their own should be taken out behind the barn and put out of their misery.<br />
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Our campus seems like one filled with Tiger Mothers, hoping that by placing their children in the care (or the mercy) of this conservative and rigorous school, that they will be on the first rung of the ladder to the Ivy League. <br />
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If I had to do it over again, I would think about keeping Shelby there. But for Garrett it will probably just be until the 1st grade. I drive to the pick up lane, with my 99% and my Obama sticker and get death glares as if I've just chained myself to a tree to protest it's death. I bristle when they insist on school uniforms for pre-schoolers. It's just not natural. It's like a factory...churning out children who know a lot, and who can spout a lot of facts, but are not well-versed in the reality of the diversity that is the real world outside of libertarian philosophies. <br />
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The idea that the American Dream exists is the biggest fallacy in my mind, and the myth that they package and push to every parent. Sure, if you can afford to keep your kid at Challenger until they are in the 8th grade, then maybe they will have access to the American Dream. But if you can't afford their school tuition, then you are hosed if you are a minority, and/or poor. <br />
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I just wish that they would stick to what they do best- teaching the basics. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-58048798146263849722012-08-28T23:26:00.003-06:002012-08-29T00:10:58.523-06:00GrandmaThe other day I was talking to a woman that I am close to. She was telling me about her children and her despair over her relationship with her daughter. Her daughter is cold to her and wants nothing to do with her. This woman continues to reach out, calls once a week, invites her daughter and grand kids over, but there is something not right.<br />
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For years and years (the daughter is in her early 40's) this woman has been asking her daughter, "What did I do to deserve this treatment? I don't know what I did and I can't change what I don't know." It's been eating this woman alive.<br />
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When I asked if the daughter had possibly been abused as a child, the woman said that her daughter had in fact been sexually assaulted by a male family member when she was 12. The woman was unaware of any abuse after that.<br />
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We continued on in our conversation and I assured this woman that she had no responsibility in that situation and that her daughter needed therapy to recover from such a devastating trauma. I also told her that she deserved to be loved and if she were being treated cruelly by her daughter, she needed to communicate that that is not okay.<br />
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The point of this is that it got me thinking about who I have subconsciously cut from my life...a woman who I had tasked with the duty of protecting me.<br />
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My Grandmother was exactly that to me: my Grand Mother. She was the most exalted form of mother there was. She was the last word, the highest authority, my role model, and my mentor. I looked up to her, I loved her, I adored her. She truly was the epitome of everything I aspired to be as a human, as a female, as a Mormon, as a mother, and as wife.<br />
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She was very present in my life, in part due to the fact that I spent a large part of my childhood living in one part or another of her triplex in Orem, Utah. It was like musical chairs, and this triplex was like the Little Old Lady's Shoe. There was always a child hanging out of some door or window. <br />
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She wouldn't like to think of it that way. She was very refined and dignified. She had actually hoped that this triplex her husband designed and built would be quickly rented so that she could get her dream home up on the hill. But alas, things didn't work out that way, and one circumstance after another forced her to stay in that house, and house her grown children in it. <br />
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A daughter got divorced and moved her little family across the country from Boston. A son's wife delivered twin daughters and immediately after found out she had cancer. Another daughter's husband left her with her three kids. Family after family moved in, and was cared for, while she picked up her belongings and moved to a different section of the house so that she could give them more space to spread out. Eventually she and my grandfather were in the smallest part of the triplex, a little afterthought that was only accessible through the basement. With one little bedroom, that barely housed a queen size bed, it was definitely not where my Grandmother pictured spending the second season of her life.<br />
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I have a vague memory of sitting on the garage stairs, in my Grandmother's lap, right after the twins had been born to my Uncle's family. My Grandmother must have been fatigued, as she acted as their nurse, feeding them bottles of goats milk, as her son worked on his dissertation and her daughter-in-law underwent cancer treatment. There was a heavy cloud hanging over that house, that death was imminent for that young mother. Thankfully a miracle occurred and my Aunt's cancer did not kill her. In my mind, the greater miracle was that I selfishly had my Grandmother back and I could continue in my role as her shadow.<br />
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As we sat on the steps, me in my Grandmother's lap, I confessed that I was sad that the twins were here because it meant that I no longer had my Grandmother's attention. She held me. She was like the statue, Pieta where when you were held by her, she enveloped you. She was strong, yet soft, and could take away all your pain.<br />
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She smelled marvelous. No matter how little sleep she'd had, her teeth always sparkled like pearls and her white hair always sat stiff atop her head in a perfectly coiffed halo. Even her mu mus seemed glamorous to me. Her outfits were always well tailored. Her matching heels were shiny. She wore a perfume that even to this day has the power to stop my heart. It was the perfume her mother wore, and she applied it daily in a type of ritual to remember the powerful red headed woman in her life.<br />
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She was well read, and there was always a book of hers lying open, with her black or red Bic felt tip pen beside it. Her paragraphs would be covered with notes and epiphanies she'd had while reading. Large chunks of the book would be underlined. And not neatly. Double underlines, exclamation marks, happy faces where the eyes looked like this ^ ^ covered the pages. It made her books feel like journal entries, and it seemed like trespassing on something sacred to turn the pages and read.<br />
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In observing her reading of LDS scriptures and other books, she felt very safe studying and dissecting them side by side. There was often a psychology book, next to a book by a general authority, where she felt that they complimented one another. The newspaper was always out in sections, with her scissors so that she could cut out pertinent articles to use in her talks for church. I sat with her and watched PBS, where she acted as a second commentator next to me on the bed, telling me why one was trustworthy, while the other was not. She let me in on a little secret that after the politicians argued and screamed at one another on TV, they all went out and had dinner together.<br />
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I would hear conversations with my Grandfather, or my Uncles, around her little pine dining table in the middle of the kitchen. She would have on a pot of herbal tea, while the adults sat around the table snacking on peas from my Grandfather's garden, or peaches from the fruit trees outside. They would talk in to the wee hours about gospel principals. My Grandmother's testimony of her church was as solid as a rock. There was no question that did not have an answer. There was no scripture passage whose meaning could not be unlocked, without the proper amount of study and prayer. She seemed to have a gift of discernment, and shared that it said so in her patriarchal blessing. People took what she said seriously.<br />
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Growing up with her in my life I came to the conclusion that there were two types of women in the world; those like my Mother, and those like my Grand Mother. Both were strikingly beautiful, so that was just a given that appearances were of the utmost importance. But my Grandmother was not afraid to tackle issues and have very intense opinions on them. Where my Mother almost felt that it was tacky to take a stand on any subject. To me it seemed that in her eyes, the very definition of a lady was that of someone who keeps their mouth shut and puts on a happy face.<br />
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I was sure that I was like my Grandmother, and I felt confident that I could be every bit the woman that she was. She was almost arrogant in the way that she was assured that every move she made, every question she asked, was personally answered by God. She would talk of the frequent conversations she'd had with her Heavenly Father, and her eyes twinkled as if he were on her speed dial, while the rest of the world was still figuring out how to plug in their land line telephones.<br />
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I was happy to be receiving my own spiritual confirmations, though it didn't surprise me. I didn't hear much of my Mother's prayers or conversations, but had the sneaking suspicion that maybe she wasn't quite cut from the same cloth as my Grandmother. After all, every one of my Grandmother's prayers had been answered. The wonderful husband, the five children, the great career as a marriage and family therapist, etc and etc. While my Mother was still a single Mom who was living in her parents home.<br />
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As a therapist it was often that there was a neighbor knocking with a plate of cookies or some homemade bread, hoping to just quickly chat with my Grandmother, which ended up turning in to a free therapy session in our front living room while the rest of the family was in the back room watching TV. <br />
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I would eavesdrop occasionally around the corner and hear words like "disappointed" "sex" and "depression". Words that were unfamiliar and intriguing to me. I liked the idea that my Grandmother was helping them. That she had this power to influence their lives for good. There were constant thank you notes littering our mailbox and front porch. Women gushing about my Grandmother's advice that had saved their marriage or their lives.<br />
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To me, this was my normal. I assumed that not many people were as lucky as I was. People came up to me at church all the time and told me this. But in some way I also guessed that there were other women in the Mormon culture who were powerful like my Grandmother. <br />
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Several years later, as a 20 year old woman and wife, when I was volunteering at the Provo soup kitchen, I got to know the director. He was a dynamic man who cared deeply for the poor people of Utah valley. Somewhere in our conversations, gospel principals came up, and he confided in me that he thought that the apple that Eve partook of in the Garden of Eden was really grapes, because that was the fruit that Jesus was constantly referring to in the New Testament. I was intrigued.<br />
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I had felt myself a seeker of knowledge all my life. In my patriarchal blessing it said that "I had a good mind, and that if I sought after knowledge I would discover things not yet in the books." There were so many mysteries that I felt were out there, waiting to be unlocked.<br />
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This director and I conversed as I continued to volunteer. Finally he recommended that I go to a book store in downtown Provo, so that I could get the book that he had been talking to me about. It was a photocopied stack of papers that the store owner had taken the time to prepare for me, as he knew I was coming. I paid for them, and thanked him.<br />
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That night I began to read, and devoured what I read. It seemed familiar and yet new at the same time. These pages spoke of Brigham Young's revelation that our Heavenly Father was Adam from the Garden of Eden. It was something exciting that I wanted to share with my Grandmother. I couldn't wait to ask her about it. When I had the chance, she seemed solemn. She sat me down on her couch and asked me if I had read every other church book there was. When I replied that I had not, she said that before I read this book I should read all of the others. She had heard of this idea- the Adam God theory, and it didn't bother her. But she wasn't going to waste her time on it when there were so many other worthy books.<br />
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I put it away. I felt guilt, though I didn't understand why. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-57679241415454699692012-08-23T17:38:00.000-06:002012-08-23T17:40:10.669-06:00I was at Fisher's Bike store in Sugarhouse today to get Garrett and Dalton new bikes. I had been dealing with a nice sales guy, talking about Salt Lake and the shopping areas. He was really involved in his neighborhood of Gateway and was lamenting City Creek and how they'd poached many of Gateway's best stores.<br />
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I was agreeing with him and found him to be a nice and knowledgeable guy. Then a bike cop came in. I asked the bike cop if the Road Home (state homeless shelter) was part of his area. He rolled his eyes and answered in the affirmative, which told me everything I needed to know about his feelings toward the homeless. <br />
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At that point the sales guy chirps in and voices his opinion of the Road Home. He tells us that we can't be PC about it and that the city needs to scrap that place and move the homeless shelter to a new location. I am trying to stay positive as I am pretty shocked at his comments. I tell him that the shelter has been there for over twenty years, when there was nothing in that area but railroad tracks and that it's the Gateway's development that has displaced the homeless shelter.<br />
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The sales guy goes on to say that we can't think that way. That there are tons of criminals, and crazies that are living off the system and are not being empowered by it, and that the Road Home does nothing to actually help the homeless people. He tells me that 5% of the clients there actually move on but the rest come back. I tell him that I know the woman who works in rapid rehousing to help the families get in to apartments or homes, and that the success rates are much higher than that.<br />
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I respond that I volunteer with the children that live there every week and that I see that place do a lot of good. If it weren't for that shelter, these families would be living in their cars or out on the streets. He hesitantly agrees with this statement and says that the families could stay there but that the men need to go.<br />
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He says that he can't believe that The Road Home turned down the offer from the LDS church when they said that they would double the amount of beds at the shelter, if they would sell their property and move to welfare square, that is located about four blocks south and eight blocks west. I told him that that made sense to me, as that would prevent all the people from having access to food and medical needs if they were that far west and that far away from public transportation. He just shrugged and said that it's what L.A. and all the big cities did- moved their homeless away from the cities.<br />
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The cop looks at him and can tell that this is an argument that is going no where, so he says his goodbyes and leaves the shop. I tell the salesman that many of the men that are living at the shelter are there because they have mental illnesses that they have no medication for, and so they self medicate with drugs and alcohol as they are unable to call up their primary care doc and order in a quick Rx for Aderall or Prozac like the rest of the anxiety and depression filled state of Utah.<br />
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He tells me that there are a lot of crazies there but that he has a Masters in Political Science and he knows that it's all about politics. It is at this point that I am repulsed. It's been building up in me during the entire conversation, but at this point I can stand it no longer. So he's at the cash register, he's rung up my purchase of $170 for a new bike for Garrett, and is waiting for my credit card, when I tell him that I am going to wait.<br />
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Garrett and Dalton are shocked. Dalton's already picked out his free stickers. The salesman is pretty shocked as well. If I had a real backbone I would have told his manager that I can not support a store that has such judgement against the most desperate and needy people in the state. While I have no idea what the store owners feelings are about homelessness in this state, I am disgusted enough by this employee that I can not do business with him.<br />
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There's a new bike shop that is right by my house in the 15th and 15th area. I have no idea what this owner's views are on the homeless, but until he shows me that he doesn't deserve my business, I am going to be doing business with him.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-73619535604915335842012-08-14T10:54:00.000-06:002012-08-14T10:54:28.187-06:00Take it easyI can do it. I can do it. The only thing, ONLY thing that was good about being sick for a week, was that it wasn't just okay to lounge around in pj's and watch the boob tube all day, every day, for days on end, it's what I was SUPPOSED to do to get better.<br />
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And it wasn't just okay that my kids were eating sugar cereal for breakfast lunch and dinner with a side of otter pops, it was what they NEEDED to do because it was the only thing they could eat in order to get better. <br />
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There was something seriously freeing in having zero expectations for the day, let alone the week. The only thing that I needed to do was try to stay alive and make mine and my kids lives comfortable. In a weird twisted way, it was almost like a vacation. But even more relaxing, because I didn't even have to plan a surf camp day or a "swim with dolphins" excursion. It was the first time, in I don't know how long, that I truly let myself be downright lazy.<br />
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Maybe I needed it for just that reason. When it's just me that's sick, I am still worried that my kids are not getting stimulated, having fun, learning, etc... But when we are all near-death, we can just curl in to one giant fetal position together and zone out to Design Star together.<br />
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But now it's over. The house is full of healthy people, and we have to drink in the last few days of summer, gosh damn it! We must have fun! WE MUST BE MANICALLY ENGAGED IN MILKING EVERY LAST MINUTE OF SUMMER FOR ALL THAT IT'S WORTH. Except, I don't quite have the desire to do that anymore.<br />
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Dalton has it in me to always be anxiously engaged in a good cause, but really only if that cause involves him socializing with a friend, or doing something really cool. Shelby would rather do art for 8 hours while her cat rubs her leg. Garrett just wants to play with anyone who will give him the time of day.<br />
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So, the last week of the summer may look a little more relaxed than I had originally thought it was going to be. I had planned to take the kids to Yellowstone, with my cousin and her kids, because Gavin was going to be traveling for work, and I'll be damned (sorry the second time this post) if I am just going to sit around while he's gone! I was going to show him that as a mother I can be a leader who takes our kids on great adventures. But now, after having been sick for a week of summer, my kids don't want a road trip. They just want to see their buddies in the neighborhood.<br />
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Fine. Totally fine with me. I haven't signed up for school myself...that starts in six days. And I am really not sure if I will. Maybe one class, but I am not going gang busters. I feel that I need to ease in to the fall. Ease in to life. <br />
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This week with Gavin gone, I am thinking of trying some new ethnic restaurants with the kids. Getting Dalton a new mountain bike and maybe going for a ride or two. And watching a lot more movies together. We are reading the third Hunger Games book, Dalton and I. I may still make them do a workbook sheet or two, just because it's not like my personality has completely vanished from my body. But taking it easy may be my theme song for the rest of this year. <br />
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Take it easy...I like the sound of that.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-74029452212618104632012-08-09T22:44:00.000-06:002012-08-09T22:44:02.067-06:00sicklyBeing sick this past week has been a slight nightmare. The only thing that feels more helpless than having sick children is not being well enough to care for them.<br />
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I haven't had more than two seconds to have cohesive thoughts this week, but the couple that I have had have gone like this:<br />
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<ol>
<li>I have no idea how polygamist mothers, or mothers with more than 4 children stay sane or are able to care for all their children when they are sick.</li>
<li>I felt helpless and hopeless for the mothers who crossed the plains 150 years ago. The sicknesses of their children and themselves that they were forced to try to overcome takes my breath away, when I think of how bone-grinding hard it is in the 21st century with every modern convenience. I can truly say to those heroine ancestors who were forced to endure such torture, that I am not worthy.</li>
</ol>
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My Mom came and picked up Garrett, who was feeling far too chipper for the rest of us moaners, and so we were free to veg in our sweaty sickliness without a hyper four year old begging us for attention. This came just in time because Gavin was heading out of town for work. </div>
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Since Wednesday Dalton, Shelby and I have left the couch only to pee, refill our drinks, and refill our Tylenol/Motrin dosages. We have probably watched 12 movies. Of them, Matrix (Dalton loved), Wizard of Oz (to get ready for Wicked next weekend, which I found far more annoying than I ever did when I watched it as a kid. That lion...seriously...too much drama), far too many Scooby Doo's, Hugo (which we liked), some foreign kids film where a cat turns in to a girl but we only got through half of it because the kids got sick of my reading of the subtitles, and the Golden Compass which is now Shelby's favorite film on earth. I must admit that I loved it too. </div>
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Just when I think that one of us is getting better, here comes the fever again. I can not count how much Motrin and Tylenol we have gone through, oh wait, I can, because I have had to write down every single dose so I didn't, in my sickness induced delirium, drug my kids to death. </div>
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My kids have been scarred by my appearance. A mother with red slits for eyes who walks like a gaunt zombie, I guess is not the most comforting image. So yesterday I wore sunglasses in the home all day long. The pink eye has been driving me nuts. Garrett had it. But Shelby and Dalton haven't caught it. Until tonight, and now it looks like Dalton's gotten it.</div>
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We missed a week of summer camps for each of the kids, so there's a few hundred dollars down the drain. </div>
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Tomorrow Gavin comes home and part of me wants to murder him for leaving us in the first place, while the other part of me wants to run to a cave and hide the second he comes home so that I can sleep while he cares for the kids. Heaven help him that he doesn't get this bug, because it has been awful.</div>
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That reminds me that I need to go fill the humidifier for Dalton. Poor kids. So that is the end of my woe-is-me post. Thank goodness for delivery pizza, OnDemand, and air conditioning. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-10754353189887080372012-07-03T16:59:00.001-06:002012-07-03T18:10:39.637-06:00My Truth About Bodies and Boobs...as described to my daughter<div style="text-align: center;">
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Shelby started getting interested in bodies, oh at the age of about birth. She has always been very inquisitive...about everything. So it makes sense that this giant organ that she inhabits is going to be of some curiosity to her, especially seeing how it changes and grows. <br />
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She has always loved animals and been fascinated with how they adapt and change...the snake shedding it's skin, the shark with its thousands of teeth, the butterflies and their metamorphosis.<br />
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So it was that as she started her first grade year in school, she wondered about her own metamorphosis. She was seven, in human years, but in dog years, which is a more apt representation of her true age, she was going on 30. <br />
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I am sure that part of this has to do with the fact that girls now a days are sexualized from a very early age. From Brats dolls to busty Disney characters, little girls can't help but be aware of the sexual energy that is supposedly locked up somewhere in their bodies. <br />
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The dance moves that they learn, the TV shows that they watch, all teach them that there is something delicious, yet forbidden about their bodies. It's a tough one. While I don't believe that it is healthy to sexualize young girls, I also feel that it is equally damaging to suppress their physical connection to their bodies.<br />
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I think that dressing a pre pubescent girl in a tube top and daisy dukes is no more reprehensible that dressing her in a burka. If the ankle isn't evil, why would the shoulder be? If the stomach and chest are too titillating then why isn't the calf or the nose? These issues of girls bodies have a lot more to do with an oversexualized society than they do with the girls themselves.<br />
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I don't think that it is healthy to demonize any part of the body. All parts of the body serve a function and they are all perfect. I finally realized this when I was pregnant with Dalton, and taking the Bradley Method Natural Childbirth classes from my friend's older sister. Finally I was connecting to these forbidden areas of my body. Finally they were not off limits to me. Even when I lost my virginity with my husband, there were areas of my body that were still taboo to me. They were now his, but still not mine.<br />
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Ironically it was only when another human was growing in my body that I could finally claim my body as my own. It was only when I was sharing every one of my systems with another dependent life form that I could finally be selfish with every inch of my being. It was glorious...and it was god given. We weren't heathens sitting around in a sexual orgy, we were women and partners sitting around in a circle of life.<br />
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It was in these classes that I learned the eternal circle of arousal and contractions, milk flow and stimulation...it was like two worlds colliding. In my sheltered existence, pre-pregnancy, I had thought that pregnancy and motherhood were some buttoned up business of prudish modesty. Now I was learning that the more in tune I was with my body, the easier it would be for my hips to open and my milk to let down. But although I had finally become comfortable and in touch with my body, there was still a skeleton, or two, in my body-acceptance closet.<br />
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****<br />
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Fast forward to three kids later, and I've got some splainin' to do. Not because my kids want to know where babies come from...that has been a common topic in our house for years. We've got books laying around the house with bubbly cartoon characters in the act of pro-creating, and nature channels showing the mating habits of every animal that was in that magical ark. No, my explaining has nothing to do with my oldest son who is 11 but everything to do with my seven year old daughter.<br />
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She's got the birds and the bees thing pretty much wrapped up. <b>What she wants to know is "When is my chest going to look like yours?" </b> And this is when I get weak in the knees. Funny how bumping uglies rolls off my tongue like the pledge of allegiance, but explaining how one gets around genetics is absolutely terrifying. <br />
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You see, I was born to goodly parents who were naturally thin. I know, it's a curse. Where the curse comes in, at least that is how I viewed it, was in the fact that when you have very little body fat, you have very little body fat, and therefore very little breast tissue. I think that many of my teenage prayers were to my loving Heavenly Father who I knew could answer even the smallest of prayers, and I knew that he could see how I longed to be "female". Because you could only be really feminine if you had ample breast tissue.<br />
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Until he saw fit to answer my prayers, I would pretend. Not that it made a huge difference I am sure to others. But I could fool myself. With my long dangly body I could fold sheets of tissue in my bra. I could wear a padded swim suit top. I could pretend. I don't remember the age that I was when my Mom took me to get my first bra, but it may have been more out of pity than necessity.<br />
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However, once I had a bra, I was almost certain that it was only a matter of time before I needed to upgrade to a bigger model that would hold all that was awaiting me as the fruits of my heartfelt prayers were answered. Friends grew busty, and filled out in other areas. Their hips grew, their bottoms got round. And there I stayed, a string bean, only growing in one direction- up. <br />
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I was resentful. Here I had a period, and had to go through the monthly angst of a week of blood and gut wrenching stomach cramps, only to be denied the gift that was supposed to go with it, of turning from a pre-pubescent looking girl in to a woman. <br />
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It was when I had graduated from High School and dating a boy seriously, that I realized that there was a way to cheat my failed genetics. It was expensive, but in my family, it was a cost that could be rationalized over most others. In my family, your self worth was inexplicably tied to your physical appearance. When you couldn't perm, bleach, wax, or diet your way to the perfect appearance, you knew that you always had a last ditch option on the table.<br />
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And this option was something to be hush-hush about, yet not really feel ashamed about. Because if one's self esteem was suffering, then certainly God did not want you to suffer and would be happy to have you lift the burden that was weighing you down. Men (and women) were that we should have joy. And what greater joy could we have than feeling radiantly beautiful? It was with this vessel of a body that we would go forth and proclaim our love of the Lord. We would only use the new gifts to serve and enlighten him. It was like a Monet or a Rembrandt. Another sign that the Lord loves and rejoices in all things beautiful.<br />
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Not partaking of the available gifts that would enhance oneself was as foolish as not using fertilizer to strengthen the crops, or not using asphalt to improve the roads. We used the gifts that were on the earth, because all things were given to us by God.<br />
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So it was that the conversation began about me needing cosmetic surgery. I spoke with my mother about it, who called up my Grandmother. I have a vague recollection of her telling my grandmother that I needed it desperately because I looked like a pre-pubescent boy. My nineteen year old self was hurt by this comment, but only momentarily because I realized that it was key to show my grandmother, who was the final word (and checkbook) on every decision made in our family, why it was so essential that this operation take place post haste.<br />
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Being a pre-pubescent boy at the age of nineteen meant that I was never going to land a decent man to marry. I would have guy friends, and could land dates, but to be a good wife I also needed to be able to sexually fulfill a man, as was my sacred duty, and no man could be expected to be sexually fulfilled with someone whose chest resembled that of a prepubescent boy...in fact, it would almost make the man abnormal if he could be aroused by that.<br />
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This was akin to a cleft palate or a mermaid tail. It was not meant to be, and modern medicine was God's way of fixing those uh oh's that he let slip through the cracks when he was busy spiritually procreating and forming all of our bodies in the pre earth life. <br />
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I went to the Plastic Surgeon's office with my Mom in Provo. It was beautiful. Hidden and nondescript from the outside, but lush and sophisticated on the inside. There were dark woods, and fine furniture. A large fish tank held bright and exotic fish. I entered the exam room and was told to disrobe to the waist. The nurse told me that she would need to take "before" pictures of me. I was assured that no one else would see these, as my horror would not be that naked pictures were floating around to damage my moral reputation, but the fear that someone...anyone may be able to see just how inadequate I really was under all that padded clothing.<br />
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The nurse pointed the camera at me and her scrubs pulled tightly against her taught and full chest. My Mother came in the afterwards, when I was sitting with my paper shirt that tied up the middle. She wanted to be on the consultation, as she was an expert in all things beauty. The Doctor entered the room with the nurse and my pictures in his hand. He had a mantle of white hair that sat atop his tanned face. His nails were perfectly manicured and his fingers were soft. His voice was low and soothing, as if he knew that this process was simultaneously terrifying and stimulating all at the same time and he was blessed with the job of calming my nerves throughout it.<br />
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My Mother knew this Doctor. Everyone did but me. He was a prominent member of the community. His daughter and my sister went to school together. He was in the Bishopric of his ward and his palatial home was situated only a few miles away, in the foothills above our rented townhouse. <br />
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He said something about the pictures. I couldn't concentrate as I was dying with embarrassment over the fact that someone my father's age was conversing with me about the topic of my breasts. He opened my shirt so that he could fully understand the scope of the project at hand. He and my mother exchanged knowing glances. Yes, the situation was dire, but there was a solution.<br />
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Luckily we were in good hands with this Doctor. His nurse could vouch for his good work and showed off her perky profile that was the result of this good man. We talked sizes and everyone agreed that the biggest mistake I could ever make, and for which I would forever regret, would be to choose a breast implant that was too small in size. <br />
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Samples of the implants were brought in and I was able to compare and contrast them. We passed them around like giant cream filled Moon Pies, waiting to be devoured. The tangible sensation of holding my future femininity in my hands was breathtaking. I could write the script of my future right here in this mahogany panelled doctors office. Did I want to be simply female, or did I want to be noticed as being overly feminine? Did I want to be secure in my new profile, or scream it from the rooftops with a profile that demanded the eyes of everyone who passed?<br />
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The sizes got bigger, and bigger, until we settled, the nurse, my Mother, and me, on one. I kept asking her to put it in bra size terminology. I wanted to walk out of there at least a C cup. She was talking in milliliter's and abstracts, unable to promise an exact cup size but assuring me that I would be satisfied. <br />
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I do not remember much between the time of the consult and the time of the surgery, that stands out. The day of the surgery I remember my Mother taking me. She was teary. I lay on the operating table, waiting. People in scrubs were behind me talking. From behind, someone laid their hands on my head and said in a soft voice, "Heavenly Father, we lay our hands upon her head and give her a blessing..." I recognized it as the voice of the white haired doctor. He continued with my blessing of health and strength as I faded in to a semi conscious state of anesthesia.<br />
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There were band aids, and bruises afterwards. Every part of me was sore. Instructions were given to my Mother that I could barely understand as I was wheeled out of the surgery center and out to our car. I woke up in one of my Grandmother's beds. My Grandmother and Mother staring down at me, exclaiming how beautiful and perfect I looked. I hadn't yet seen the results of the surgery for myself and needed help getting up to get to the bathroom so that I could look in the waist up mirror above the sink.<br />
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They were big. Hard as rocks. And just as foreign. I couldn't feel a thing above my waist. But I was assured that that was normal. I was supposed to knead them in my hands to make sure that no scar tissue formed. There were other things like a giant bra that resembled an ace bandage, that must be worn in order to help with the healing. I was dazed, but I was excited. God had answered my prayers, and here I was with the two most important women in my life, reveling in the metamorphosis that had finally taken place for me.<br />
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I was like a kid in a candy store. New bras, new shirts, new self esteem. Finally I felt beautiful, I felt whole. I was like an amputee who finally knew what it was like to live with a limb they hadn't known they were missing. Men noticed me, people noticed me. This is what it felt like to be a woman. Truly it was a gift to be born female. <br />
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My friends visited me with flowers, oohing and ahhing over the impressive results. I let them feel them and observe them, as they still resembled foreign objects to me. My boyfriend, whom I was engaged to, was all too excited to see the results. Our heated make out sessions suddenly grew with intensity as I was finally confident with my body. <br />
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Though the interaction between us with my new body was no more fulfilling for me than it was before. Now I was a spectator, observing my fiance with a new set of toys that were his to explore. It made me happy to know that with these new tools in hand I would most definitely be able to be the wife that he needed. Equipped with the proper Victoria Secret underwear, I could be that pin up, who arched her back and surrendered myself, whilst he did the work to make the magic happen.<br />
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I knew that if I were available intimately whenever he needed me, and if I were my most beautiful self whenever I was needed, I would fulfill him. Oh, the luck of my fiance to be betrothed to such a knowledgeable catch as me.<br />
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****<br />
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Fast forward to fifteen years later- it turns out that the salvation to my self esteem was not two liquid filled balloons. Rather, that was somewhat of a temporary determent from reality. Was it worth it? Did they do more good than harm? I don't know...the answer is yes and no.<br />
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I was too young. I didn't know who I was. I wish that I would have found that out beforehand, and then maybe I wouldn't have chosen them at all. Or maybe I would have. I mean it is nice to fill out a swim suit that looks like it's made for a Barbie. <br />
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Plastic surgery to me now, is like booze. You just want to be aware of why and how you are using it. What hole is it filling and why do you need it? There are plenty of reasons to do it, but there are also some reasons not to. There are also appropriate and wise ages to do it at, and ages where it's not smart.<br />
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All of this comes back to me as Shelby looks at me, hope in her eyes, that her little body holds the magic seeds that mine must have, in order to have bloomed in to the figure that she sees before her. It only makes sense, right? She is my daughter, her DNA comes from me. So, when will that blessed day be? She needs to plan for it. Start a countdown calendar.<br />
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I could tell her a lot of things, or I could scoot around the subject till she gives up in getting her answer. I could also tell her the truth. It would not be what she wants to hear, or even something that she'd imagined as a possibility. But it would free me, and it would free her. Free me from creating webs of stories and lies about how the perfect body is created. And free her from holding up a model of her future that is not reality.<br />
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So I said something along these lines, as we stood there, me in my bathroom and her just outside of the doorway, "Shelby, all women are different. All bodies are different. Women's breasts, or their chest, are usually in proportion to the rest of their bodies. Women who have meat on their bodies, will often have more breast tissue. Women like Mary and Becky,*(not the real names of my friends that Shelby knows) are thinner and so because they have less weight on their bodies, they also have smaller chests."<br />
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"But you are thin like Mary, and Becky." <br />
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"You are right. I am. So I am going to tell you something really weird. Some women feel sad that they don't have big chests, which is idiotic, because all the sizes are great. And all sizes work to feed babies that get milk out of them. But there was this thing that was invented a while ago where men figured out a way to cut open your chest and put a balloon in there and fill it with goo to make it look like the women had a big chest when they didn't." <br />
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Her face was aghast. "Why would they do THAT?" <br />
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"Because they really thought that their body wasn't good enough and they wanted their chest to look bigger because they thought that they weren't pretty enough without a big chest."<br />
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"Did YOU get the balloons?" Her eyes are as big as saucers as she is digesting this new alternate reality that she has just become aware of.<br />
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"Yes Shelby, I got the balloons....but I think it was silly of me because now I realize that it doesn't matter how big my chest is."<br />
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I showed her the scar under my arm pit where the implant was inserted. She asked if it hurt. I told her that it had. I told her that when she starts puberty, about the age of 12, there was a good chance that her chest would not get big, because she has a body like Daddy and Me, where she is tall and lean. I was totally unprepared for this conversation, so it was not rehearsed. If it had been, it probably would have been much neater with less info. I tend to err on the side of information when I am nervous.<br />
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I told her "I think that when you are older if you want to get these balloons in you, you can. But there is a good chance that you won't want to. Because you will feel really good about your body. And I may get these balloons out in the future...or get smaller ones put in...because I don't need them like I used to. I want to be able to run faster, and be my original self. Or maybe I'll never change them...who knows. And whatever you want to do, when you are a grown up, is fine. But think of Mary and Becky...aren't they pretty women?"<br />
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Shelby nodded, because they are stunningly beautiful friends of mine, who are fit, and athletic, and perfect.<br />
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"Wouldn't that look weird if they had giant boobs? Do you think they need them?"<br />
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She shook her head no, and she meant it, because Shelby doesn't do or say anything she doesn't mean. <br />
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I told her that most people don't like to admit it when they get the balloons put in, because they think it is something to be embarrassed about. Which is silly, because a lot of women get them. She asked me who else has them and I told her who some of the women were who we knew.<br />
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Gosh, I didn't mean for this to be the epistle of boobs here. Let me wrap up this novel. This is about body image. <strike>Women get plastic surgery because they feel that what they have is inadequate. Women feel shame about their bodies because they are made to feel guilty about them. Guilt and inadequacy are twin fallacies that we have been taught to buy in to.</strike> Or maybe I should just say when women make decisions about their bodies, whether it's to cover it up or slice it open, because of shame- it's not a good thing.<br />
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I told Shelby the truth about my cosmetic surgery because I don't want to feel shame about my body, which is ironic, because it's why I got the boob job in the first place. I want to raise a daughter to have self worth about her body regardless of what shape it is and have realistic expectations when it comes to beauty. Maybe this is the case of do as I say, don't do as I do...but I don't see it that way. I am telling her that I once felt horribly insecure, so I made a rash decision, and I have learned better. I'm not saying don't ever get a boob job. I'm saying examine why you feel you would need to. I'm not saying don't have a beautiful body. I'm saying notice the real diversity of bodies around you that haven't been photo shopped or surgically enhanced, to appreciate the spectrum that makes up the human race.<br />
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I'm also saying that I know that it is confusing to have a parent tell you to love and accept your body when they don't accept their own. How can you be whole if you are the mirror image of what they thought was lacking in themselves?<br />
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Regarding breasts, they are not something to be hush hush about. They are a wonderful part of the body. I don't believe that a tank top makes a girl naughty because it will cause boys to think about sex (that's their issue of self control and being over-sexualized, not hers). Her shoulders are just as precious as her smile is. I also don't believe that a girl's belly button always needs to be covered, because it is what connected her to her mother for nine months. I see it as a precious part of her, not something lewd and sexual. <br />
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I'm not advocating full on nudity here. We live in a modern society where we have to maintain certain codes of conduct. But regardless of whether she chooses to pierce her ears or her navel, shave her legs, or shave her head- her body is hers and hers alone. I trust my daughter Shelby and I want her to feel glorious, because she is. I also want her to know the truth when it comes to "beauty" and what it takes to achieve the look that the teenage pop stars have, who are actually 29 years old.<br />
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Once we de-stigmatize the female body, we can have a real conversation about it. And admit that as cool as breasts are, they come in all shapes and sizes, and they are just one of the many parts that make up her beautiful and unique body.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-18157697358484477792012-06-14T22:31:00.003-06:002012-06-14T22:36:01.462-06:00Friends and the last week of school<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Throughout my life I have been afraid of losing my friends. Yet, if I am being honest, I have often felt that there was something missing in the very friendships that I clung to. That I had to be "on my best behavior" or they wouldn't want to be my friend any longer.</div>
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Not the friendships of my childhood, where I lost myself in one or two special soul mates, and someone ceased being just my friend for a season, and instead became an extension of me. </div>
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But the friendships of adulthood, which should be easier to come by, and often are because of play dates and story hours and such, often produce fruits that do not stand the test of time. Families move away, your kids stop being friends, you develop different interests, you realize that that husband did really annoy the crap out of you and you can finally admit it.</div>
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I love and value the friends that I have had over the 33 years of my life. But I must say that I have some precious friends that I have stumbled upon as of late, and I feel as though I have hit the jack pot. With them I can absolutely be myself...whatever that is at the moment...and they accept me 100%. That is a pretty empowering feeling. Talk about girl power. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-MQ3bvkzD4/T9pRXWQxdAI/AAAAAAAAGao/M0yFAULd-M0/s1600/IMG_1815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-MQ3bvkzD4/T9pRXWQxdAI/AAAAAAAAGao/M0yFAULd-M0/s320/IMG_1815.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here we are with some of our friends at Sugar House Park</div>
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Here is Dalton and his best friend Jack, with Garrett and Sis at one of our favorite after-school hangouts, Elizabeth's Bakery, where we get homemade scones with clotted cream and lemon curd and tea...talk about a fun after school snack. They usually get some funky British candy or soda too.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ik-v4d22qpA/T9pRcTfrX1I/AAAAAAAAGa4/ya7WvDp_aYg/s1600/IMG_1827.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ik-v4d22qpA/T9pRcTfrX1I/AAAAAAAAGa4/ya7WvDp_aYg/s320/IMG_1827.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here are some of my best gals at a fun evening get together.</div>
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Ahhh, how I love them.</div>
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More park action with the little ones.</div>
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Oh, could he be any cuter? Just like Shelby, where his smile swallows up his face.</div>
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More of the boys, this time surfin the web for video games or lacrosse stuff.</div>
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At Kilby Court for a friend's band.</div>
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And here we have misery loving company. This is one of the last days of school for Shelby where she had her Fun Run, and let's just say, the end was not fun. She was pretty ticked about the fact that she ran so fast once she realized that she could have just loafed it and walked the whole damned way...why didn't someone tell her that she didn't have to give everything 100% effort?!?</div>
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Here are her 1st grade friends, after an otter pop and some water to soothe the pain of the victory.</div>
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Dan and Mom came to Shelby's final soccer game and Dalton's final lacrosse game. Aside from Garrett pouring a drinkable yogurt on Shelby's head for no reason, and Dalton's team getting spanked, it was a fun game.</div>
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Dalton didn't really think so. His Alice Cooper eyes show that he was NOT feeling the love with how this last game went. He did well, but he wasn't happy with the positions he had to play and the fact that he didn't score a goal (even though he blocked like 20 playing the keeper).</div>
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Pizza and watermelon afterwards made it a little more bearable.</div>
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After Shelby's fantastic soccer season ended, we had a party. Here are the pics from it. I love these gals.</div>
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We had amazing BBQ, and homemade carrot cake.</div>
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The kids played and played in the sun.</div>
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It is nice to have good friends. I take that back, it is life saving and life affirming to have good friends. I am SO thankful that my kiddos have good friends as well. Makes the journey for everyone a whole lot more enjoyable.</div>
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This past month or so I did something that I have never done before...I unfriended someone on facebook. A year ago I never would have thought to do that because my mindset was that even if I had nothing in common with a friend, even if that friend made me feel like dirt, they were still my friend...and you never know! What if I was in an earthquake some day and I needed that friends help? What if I had kidney failure and that friend is my only match for a donor? Forget about the fact that I didn't really want to hang out with friends like this, it just made me feel safe knowing they were there, like the back-up, back-up parachute.</div>
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But then a "friend" said some really hurtful stuff, and said it in a way that was so passive aggressive and so offensive that my alarm bells started going off in my head. Maybe they had been going off all along, but I could now finally hear them. And suddenly I was past overlooking the negative because "people can change" or "it's nice to be friends with people from all walks of life" or "you never know what the future holds". Nope, I was done. And as scary as that was, it ended up being so liberating. I was freed from pretending that this person was my friend, and I was able to open myself up to some new authentic friendships.</div>
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So yeah, I'm not over my fear of losing friends just yet, but I do think that I am finally seeing the beauty in the whole quality verses quantity thing and if I have even just a few loyal good apples, then I am content. </div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-33470075172789903602012-06-12T22:59:00.000-06:002012-06-12T22:59:09.056-06:00Random Ramblings about the Past Few Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
This is the way that Dalton prefers to get around. It's why he wants to take the UTA bus to school next year- so he can long board to the bus stop.</div>
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Here is Shelby in her end-of-the-year Australia play. She's the cutie on the left at the end in the green hat next to her friend Gabby in black. Shelby was a snake (I think) and Gabby was a black spiky Australian creature of some sort.</div>
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The end of the school year is always pretty nuts. This year it seemed that it was extra crazy because Garrett is now involved in things other than living in the car being schlepped from one sibling activity to another. This was his end-of-the year performance at the Little Gym.</div>
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He is so cute. I mean edible cute. Of course I get teary looking at him, and remembering Dalton seven years ago doing these very same things. </div>
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Garrett was especially in to it because the Big Kahuna was there.</div>
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And the end, when he got his extra special medal, was of course the best part.</div>
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I've been volunteering once a week down at the homeless shelter, and holy crap, every time I go, I still feel like the wind has been knocked out of me, because of how bad these poor people have it.</div>
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And when I am done volunteering I get in my car and I see the multi million dollar mall and condo development across the street. It would be ironic if it weren't so depressing.</div>
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I love this picture. Garrett running to catch up with his big brother and the 5th grade friends.</div>
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Here are a few pictures of Dalton and his buddies rock climbing. We went to a local indoor climbing gym one day after school was over for the summer. </div>
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After they climbed they played some ping pong and fusbal.</div>
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I love this picture because I don't get to have many lunch dates with both of my boys since Dalton is usually in school or with friends. But this day Shelby still had school, where Dalton was already on summer break, so we got to play together, my boys and I. Plus, I love seeing Dalton's long hair, since he just got it chopped off.</div>
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One of Dalton's end of the year parties...this one with some of his besties. Don't they look like darling little hoodlums?</div>
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When I drop Garrett at his private pre school, where there are luxury cars pulling up to drop off their kids, I am always struck by who the school's neighbors are.</div>
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Poverty is closer than I like to imagine.</div>
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In this case, right next door to my kids school.</div>
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I wonder what it would be like to grow up like this. I wonder who the people are who live there. I have this conversation with myself every time I drop Garrett off at school. Across the street is an auto body shop. There are boarded up buildings next to it. The area of State Street where prostitutes hang out is just down the street. Garrett's school has big fences surrounding its property so that it can try to forget who its neighbors are next door. Wouldn't want the kids to bump in to reality while they are learning their phonics. </div>
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Last day of pre-school at Challenger with his costume for Circus Days. I LUHHHUVE this kid!</div>
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These pictures are from Shelby's girl scout camp that she attended this week. I LOVE girl scouts. I love what it teaches her, and who she gets to hang out with and how empowered she feels because of it.</div>
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I took these photos of our house because in just a few weeks it will look and feel a little different as we start construction on it to add an attic addition. I am excited.</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-58713636473025243842012-06-11T14:41:00.000-06:002012-06-12T22:11:01.271-06:00Job Sharing works, and so does Kid Sharing<div style="text-align: left;">
I am so tired. Not tired like, I have triplets who nurse and co sleep with me, and a full time job, and a husband who doesn't help around the house tired. No, that would be called institutionalized in my play book. </div>
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My form of tired is because I played too hard this week. Not played hard like the party bus to Vegas where I was DOA (drunk on arrival), and lost the kids college savings on card games that I didn't know the names of, and wore clothing that could have been better described as tiny sparkly band aids, and lost the hearing in my left ear because of the craziest concert on the continent, and woke up with two out of the following three things: a tattoo of a bird on my rear end, a Latin guy named Julio from the band, and a gold tooth. No, that would be called mid-life crisis, though to be honest, parts of it are appealing.</div>
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I did have a wonderful weekend, but it was not that crazy, thankfully. It involved my parents taking my kids to their house in Elk Ridge, that we refer to as "the ranch." To my kids, it should be called Disneyland, because that is what it feels like to them. Their trip usually begins or ends with a trip to the local toy store (Walmart) where they talk Grandma in to some LEGO set that is way too big and way too expensive.</div>
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At some point there will be way too much TV, sugar, running wild, nudity (the kids, not the adults...I think), staying up late, misbehaving, stray kittens, and giant bubble baths. Luckily, because the weather was pretty, their trip also included a day trip up to Payson Lake where they kayaked and played in the sun. I am pretty sure that they all went horseback riding and rode ATV's. My eyes start to glaze over after about the fifth activity where I can imagine their death because of the lack of helmet, sunscreen, or adult supervision, but I try to breathe deep as they retell their grand adventures that Mom would never let them do because she is way too boring (safe).</div>
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Well, that is FINE that they had the best weekend ever, because Gavin and I had a great time too. In no particular order we did the following: we had really good sex where we didn't have to worry about the just-turned-four-year old who lives two feet from us, and likes to pop in to his parents room at every chance he can. </div>
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We ate at Silver Fork Lodge up in Little Cottonwood Canyon and had the best homemade meatloaf and mashed potatoes that has ever been made whilst watching the mid-life-crisis club meet on the patio outside as their hair plugs blew in the wind and their Lotuses, Porches, Ferraris and Bentleys kept their egos inflated in the parking lot out front. </div>
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We hiked through aspens and evergreens, up to Lake Solitude on the same runs that we ski on during the winter and saw the old silver mines. We listened to NPR podcasts together and talked about the <a href="http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/bishop-john-koyles-dream-mine"><b>Dream Mine</b></a> that is located close to my parents home, and that we had never known much about as well as <a href="http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/counting-saints"><b>mormon membership</b> numbers</a> that seem to be on the decline, unbeknownst to both of us. We did a sunny and steep climb up to what locals call "The Living Room" above Red Butte Mountain and saw the most gorgeous view of the entire Salt Lake Valley I've ever seen while sitting on lazy boys fashioned out of giant slabs of sandstone that had been constructed by clever and/or drunk U students from the past.</div>
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I entertained my sisters in Zion, (aka: the infidels) with our "coffee church" brunch that included the infamous kouing aman pastries. However, we should probably rename it "coffee day" instead of "coffee church" because it's always well past lunch by the time we tear ourselves away from each other. We had Gavin's homemade chile verde with cilantro, sour cream and avocado on our patio in sweet afternoon silence. We went out to go see the Snow White and the Huntsman movie (stupid but oh well because the cast was incredibly hot). We went to a BBQ with wonderful older and newer friends where we shared our common stories of the delight and peril of growing up mormon in Utah in these "latter days." We watched our Tivo'd shows together and slept in...it was better than kinky, wild times in Vegas.</div>
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The kids got back last night and it was a lovely reunion. They had baths and Popsicles, and we all watched "Design Star" as Shelby cuddled us on the couch and Garrett and Dalton constructed battles with LEGO's on the floor. Afterwards the little ones raced to their beds to see who would make it there first and have as their prize their Mother to snuggle with (BOO YAAH!). I snuggled Shelby and Garrett got Dad. </div>
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This morning it was the first real day of summer vacation with all three kids officially out of school. The two big kids started Art Camp so Garrett and I played in our pjs all morning with cartoons in the background (shhh, don't tell the big kids) and ate leftover chili verde whilst vegging on the couch.</div>
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Tomorrow I do plan to get in my gym clothes, and if I find my Kindle, I will use those clothes at a gym. So, my fatigue is joy-induced, but none the less, I will indulge in a nap today. The house can wait, as my mental sanity takes priority over the dust bunnies.</div>
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As a side note, a new family next door and one across the street, both with boys Garrett's age...oh happy day.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-73574449931257032182012-06-08T17:40:00.002-06:002012-06-08T17:40:28.033-06:00Today I suckedShelby, I totally suck. I am hard wired to suck. I see other people who have it down, but not me. I am the over reactor. <br />
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You were trying out Dalton's BMX bike today. It has hand breaks, which you didn't know how to use. Garrett was running in front of you, and you accidentally mowed him down. You felt awful and I put salt in the wound.<br />
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WHY DO I DO THAT? Why can't I let the life lesson be lesson enough? You wouldn't have made that mistake again. You saw that your brother was hurt. But I had to make darn sure that you understood the gravity of your "sin".<br />
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I told you that your brother could have had to go to the hospital. Your big blue eyes were like a swimming pool of tears, filled to the brim, waiting to overflow. <br />
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Damn it. It was at that point I knew I'd overreacted. Garrett was fine. But then a scab on his leg had been torn off so his injury looked worse than it was. Instead of the skinned knee, he looked like he had a major gash. The blood kicked it up a notch in the drama department for him, and he began to wail.<br />
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I sent you in to get a band aid and a wet towel, but the damage was done. You felt awful. I am so sorry. I said I was sorry to you. I said I over reacted. I told you that you are a wonderful sister. You cried your eyes out, your mother-imposed-guilt was so heavy and hurtful.<br />
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And then Grandma Paula pulled up like the magic fairy godmother, in her black Lexus, to whisk you all away to her ranch for the weekend. You took solace in her arms. I wanted to hold you, but I was holding a blubbering four year old. Dalton just stood calmly back and observed.<br />
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I've seen my parents over react. So I think I learned it from them. I remember being chastised, being shamed, feeling guilt, and over minute things. What is the deep seated feeling that you walk away with? Is it betrayal? That someone your trust just carved out a little piece of you?<br />
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That every child born could be born the youngest in a family of three, oh how in tact their self esteem would be. Not that they could do no wrong, but that their wrong would be measured proportionately so that the punishment would never be too severe or the lesson to harsh.<br />
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Dalton is the child of mine that I internally weep over because of how many times I've botched it. Shelby, I mess up with you, but not quite as often. And with Garrett, I get it. I get that life is short. I get that childhood is fleeting. I get that it's okay to mess up. That most accidents were not on purpose. That more important than the infraction, is the lesson learned.<br />
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And what did you just learn? That I conditionally love you? That I am only accepting of you if you don't blow it? That you were at fault for that accident? THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER TRY SOMETHING NEW FOR RISK OF EMINENT DEATH AND DANGER. Good lord, I am the worst.<br />
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Shelby, I am sorry. I am so poorly equipped for this job called motherhood. I started too young, I was too idealistic, I am faking it till I make it most of the time, and I am just knocking on wood most of the time that I've made it this far along without having social services called to come and take you away.<br />
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If anyone tells you that parenting is natural, then they are lucky. Because for me it is a constant internal battle (like the imaginary one of the devil and the angel on your shoulders) where I am trying to balance non-stop fun against important life lessons. With each situation that presents itself I always see it in a three dimensional light where I ask myself "to what end?" With the way that I handle this decision, what will the end result be? Will it be momentary happiness, and if so, does it come with any long term price? Obviously I am doing a rotten job of it, but there is my internal parenting philosophy in a nut shell. I do want you to be happy...oh my gosh, I want you to be filled with joy. But I also want you to be fulfilled and achieving and self-aware, and a critical thinker, and confident and empathetic. <br />
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I totally screwed up today. After spending hours at girl scouts camp with you in the hot sun, sewing buttons on to shirts, and walking around Sugarhouse pond, and watching you do yoga, and it's all for nothing, because at the end of the day, I biffed it big time.<br />
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So here is what I am going to do: I am going to forgive myself, because it is all I can do. I can look internally and see my seven year old perfectionist self, and give myself a hug. I can tell myself that next time I'll know and do better. I'll tell myself that you know you're loved. And I'll tell myself that I know that I love my kids, more than anything in the world.<br />
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You kids are my world. I live and breathe for you. I love to be with you. Okay, big girl panties up, time to move on. You'll be in good, happy, loving hands for the next few days with your grandmother, whose singular goal it is in life, to make you kids happy. I hope you'll be safe. My heart momentarily stops when you pull away in her car, as I imagined a seat belt not done up, or an engine without oil, or a future horse back ride without a helmet. <br />
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But it's probably the same way she feels about pulling away from my home in her car, imagining a mother who is disciplining too harshly, or pushing her grandkids too much, or not drinking it in...every precious minute of it.<br />
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I'm sorry Sis.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-43205453282954408852012-06-04T00:56:00.000-06:002012-06-04T01:03:13.865-06:00Jesus said love everyone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I marched in the Salt Lake City Gay Pride Parade today with my family and friends, and I have to say that <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">it was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life</span>.</div>
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Dalton brought his best friend, Jack, and they threw lollipops to the crowd as they walked and waved. They were smart (or maybe I should give Gavin credit for that), they had camel back water packs on which was really nice in the heat.</div>
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Shelby was in to the parade. For her, she couldn't really quite understand what the problem was to begin with. Of course people like her Uncle David should be able to get married if they fall in love. </div>
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There were over 100 groups marching in the parade, but I chose to join my friends and march with the Mormons Building Bridges group. Above, Shelby and I hold the sign that we made, next to my friend Travis, who is an active member of his ward in Sandy, and was in our ward with us in Boston, serving in the Stake High Council. </div>
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The word had spread just two weeks before the parade, via facebook, about a group of mormons wanting to march together. When the parade organizers heard about the group, they moved us up to the front of the parade, behind the Grand Master. We wondered if there would be 20 mormons who would show up. It was hot, it was on a Sunday, and it had not been advertised but through word of mouth. </div>
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Mormons did show up, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">well over 300 of them,</span> with more jumping in to join the group as we walked down the street. These mormons came to support their friends, their brothers, their sisters, and others in their lives who have been shunned and mistreated because of their sexuality. </div>
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There were members of all stripes and stories, from youth leaders and bishopric members, to middle way mormons, to those that grew up in the faith but were inactive to those like us in faith transitions. They turned up in their church clothes, to join in the march before or after their ward meetings. They came with their strollers and their scooters and their knee length dresses.</div>
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We lined up in the heat, ready to lead the parade. When our group had been given the okay to begin, and the group started to finally move, it felt like <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">the waters of a damn had been unleashed </span>and my feet seemed to lift off the ground as I floated next to my brothers and sisters on a sea of shared hope. </div>
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Parents, children, the old and the young, were all standing together with Christlike love as we marched to show our support of our gay brothers and sisters. My friend Jared, and his daughter above, were filmed about their feelings. He is a Professor of World Religions at a local university.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lfkJWEJgLo8/T8xDp-BK_tI/AAAAAAAAGSo/zFUNNYQz0WQ/s1600/532853_10100508992417089_870880279_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lfkJWEJgLo8/T8xDp-BK_tI/AAAAAAAAGSo/zFUNNYQz0WQ/s320/532853_10100508992417089_870880279_n.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="213" /></a></div>
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My friend Meredith, above, drove 30 minutes with her little kids, to make the march. The question I had, as I passed the speedo wearing, boa covered groups, is "Would the community see us as friendly mormon families who wish for a future in the church where there is love and tolerance for all, or would they see us as sheep who are blindly hoping for change from an institution that has shown itself to be painfully slow on granting human rights to those who are marginalized?"</div>
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I had hoped that they would be able to see my sincerity. I had hoped to give my love and support to them. But I can not put in to words how floored I was to discover within the first city block that it was me who was being lifted up with <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">the outpouring of their love and support for me</span>.</div>
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I had practically dragged Gavin out of bed this morning with him not seeing what was so important about this event, and wondering why his presence there was necessary. But after that first block he put Garrett on his shoulders and I could hardly believe my eyes as the enormity of what we were involved in hit him, and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">his arms went up in loving waves to the community</span> that cheered him and my flag waving three year old on.<br />
<img src="http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/7pns4VGX4JLF9Qb4V.ATZg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0yNjM7cT04NTt3PTUxMg--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2012-06-03T184956Z_872973323_GM1E864083701_RTRMADP_3_USA.JPG" /></div>
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We were walking right behind the Producer of Big Love and Milk, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustin_Lance_Black">Dustin Lance Black</a>, our parade Grand Marshal.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I had tears running down my cheeks </span>as I held Shelby's hand in my right and my sign in my left, watching the old and young mouth the words "Thank You" to me and my dear sweet waving daughter. She could feel their love and was lifted by it, offering to carry our homemade sign. We held it together as we marched, until she finally admitted that her arm was about to fall off.</div>
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I guess that part of the reason that it was so shocking to me is that as a NON-OFFICIAL representative of the mormon church I was suddenly aware of how awful we've been to people who are gay, and I felt suddenly sick at what my church had done to these beautiful brothers and sisters of mine. I was shocked at their willingness to forgive me and my religion.</div>
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I watched as gay couples, old and young, held hands with their partners, weeping as they watched us, giving us the hand sign "I love you". I saw mothers hugging their lesbian daughters, kissing their heads as if to say, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"See, I am not the only one who loves you and accepts you." </span> I thought of my dear brother and all the anguish that he experienced growing up gay and LDS and how lucky I am that he survived his youth where he was constantly receiving the message that something was wrong with him. I almost physically could not go on it was so powerful.</div>
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After walking for several blocks the parade was ending, and we were passed by a familiar face who asked me and my friends if we were with our kids and thanked us for coming. It was the unbelievably modest and kind Dustin Lance Black, who we immediately asked to get a picture with. </div>
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We hung out in the shade, all of us little mormon families, and remarked at what a joyful experience it had been, even with heavy little kids that weighed our arms down, and our sticky legs and arms that dripped with sweat as we walked.</div>
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We shared what we saw in the crowds and the messages that we heard.</div>
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Some one said to my friend as she marched, "I forgive you." That resonated with me, because that is exactly what was so touching to me, that she could forgive us...that she could forgive my church. I don't know if I would have been as Christlike to another religion, if they'd denied me of my right to start a family and live in a sanctioned union with the partner of my choosing.</div>
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Dalton hugged me and thanked me for bringing him. He said that he saw a lot of cool stuff.</div>
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Shelby was my human rights warrior. This girl's moral compass points north and even at this young age I can see that she is aware of when there is injustice. </div>
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My sweet friend Katrina, my sister in Zion.</div>
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My eyes were puffy from weeping and my feet were tired from walking. I was so glad that Gavin came. Leaning on him is one of my favorite parts of our marriage.</div>
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Afterwards we ate burgers and fish tacos at Squatters with our buddies, while we talked about the best parts of the day.</div>
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Dalton and his "other little brother" Ethan, hung out at the table, and the big boys let him smother them with his undivided attention and energy. Gosh, my big guy is a sweet heart.</div>
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The two little ones climbed in to their dad's lap at the end of the meal.</div>
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As we walked back to our parked car, Gavin and the kids talked about what they'll do differently for next year's parade. Gavin said that next year we'll bring scooters for our kids, we'll have a wagon for the little one, we'll have a small cooler in the wagon with Otter Pops (that one may have been Shelby's idea), everyone will have camel backs, and Gavin said he may don a speedo.</div>
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I thought that next year my sign would say "I'm sorry"to send the same type of message about Prop 8 that this billboard did for a similar situation. I can not overlook spending millions of dollars to prevent people who love each other from being married (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8">California's Prop 8</a>) when a century ago when we mormons were practicing a form of marriage that was not "traditional" and we were hoping for others to see that when it comes to marriage between consenting adults, love is the most important thing. </div>
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I want mormons to think for themselves and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">receive inspiration for themselves </span>when it comes to supporting gay rights. I do not believe that a loving father in heaven would ever communicate to his children that it was okay to discriminate against his other children. We can be like the members who knew before 1978 that blacks should have the priesthood. We can be like the members who knew before the 21st century that women working outside the home would not ruin their families. We can speak up because we shouldn't wait, and right now we know that denying gay people marriage equality is wrong.</div>
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<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8">Deseret News Article on the parade</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-03/news/32009917_1_mormon-church-lesbian-parade-grand-marshal">Boston Globe Article on the parade</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://askmormongirl.com/">Ask Mormon Girl on being gay and LDS</a></b><br />
<a href="http://mormonstories.org/350-352-dance-champion-benji-schwimmer/"><b>Mormon Stories interview with gay mormon</b></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-11381934500921269972012-05-31T18:21:00.000-06:002012-05-31T18:26:13.773-06:00Garrett's 4th birthday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
The day before his birthday I decided to throw a party for Garrett...cause that's just the way we roll around here now...sometimes.</div>
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I called a bouncy house place and got a good deal on a bouncer because I needed it for a Thursday. I invited Garrett's three friends, Ben Boyden, Asher Anderson, and Owen Prettyman. I also let Shelby invite Hanna and Eden and Dalton invite Jack. My Mom and Dad came too. I learned two things from this party: 1) It's not worthwhile to stress over these things and 2) Posing kids for pictures is idiotic.</div>
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Here's Garrett leaving the "perfect picture" that I missed. Here is my Mom trying to recreate the moment.</div>
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Nice try Mom, but no cigar.</div>
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Okay, here is me trying to get the boys to smile...when will I learn how little control over life I really have?</div>
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Tried to get Garrett to step to the side of the balloon string, but that gave him enough time to remember that he wanted to pick his nose.</div>
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Here's Garrett with the Prettiest Grandma in the whole world. He wanted to wear the crown that they made him for his birthday in his pre-school. It's good to be king for a day.</div>
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Here I am realizing that the sleek hair do I am sporting looks more like stringy ugh and that I need to start actually blow drying my hair again...sigh.</div>
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The boys loved the bounce house, except for one, but they are four years old, so that's to be expected. They all loved the motorized cars. The Transformer's cake was a hit, especially since I ordered it from Dan's grocery store the day before so it was a piece of cake, literally. </div>
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Here are the girls (teens-in-training) who loved to boss, I mean help, the little boys during the party.</div>
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And the presents were of course the best part. I told my Mom that I thought we had too many presents. She assured me with all of her maternal wisdom that there was no such thing as too much when it comes to children and birthday parties. </div>
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My cute friend Katrina stayed with her kids and I told her about the insane parties that I used to throw for Dalton when he was Garrett's age, where I would work for weeks on the details, send out homemade invites, spend all day making the homemade cake, and they never turned out a lick better than this party that I just put together in a day. It is nice to know that in my aging I am gaining some wisdom. Here's to lessons learned, and my baby who has now just completed his fourth year on the planet. How I love him and am so glad he is the little book end of our family.</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-89886230280731293092012-05-30T14:38:00.001-06:002012-05-30T14:38:38.276-06:00Get RealI have been thinking about it, and I have decided a couple of things in regards to my blog.<br />
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Number one: I am writing for three reasons and those reasons are A) Dalton, B) Shelby and C) Garrett (aka: loves of my life), because I want them to know me. They may not read these words for years...or at all. It may be their kids that read them. Regardless, I want the words to exist, because I existed.<br />
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Number two: Because I am recording my life for my children, I need to be honest with them. I'm not perfect, so my words won't be either. They don't need me to edit my life, to be syrupy sweet, or make everything look like it's coming up roses. They deserve the truth, warts and all.<br />
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Number three: MY life equals MY perspective. Because I am telling my side of the story, that's just what it is. Gavin may have a different perspective (and most likely will), other family members may have a different take on things, and guess what...that's okay. My personal duty is only to share my thoughts and feelings and leave others to tell their own accounts of their experiences.<br />
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Those three revelations are pretty freeing for me because there is this societal norm that I've been bonking my head up against ever since I started blogging, and it says that you should record the pretty version of your life, the version that doesn't make anybody feel uncomfortable...cause heaven forbid if that were to happen. <br />
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And a couple times I have drawn outside the lines...where in I have been chastised. It felt good at the time I was drawing outside the lines, freeing, because I was recording my truth. But afterwards, when I was paying the consequences of my societal boo boo, it made me scared. What if my writing caused me to look like a bad person, or made my friends and/or family not love me anymore, or made me look stupid? Those were pretty heavy prices that I was not willing to pay. A couple of times I had people chastise me in public on my comments forum, anonymously, which made me wonder who felt this way about me.<br />
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Here's the conclusion that I've come to about all of that: I AM OVER IT. I am over giving a damn. Seriously. I want to reach back in to my past and hug that needing-to-please human that I was. I want to tell her that if someone didn't approve of her words then their issue was not with her but with themselves. If someone really cared about me and wanted to give me some good advice, they would have the integrity to sign their name to it. If they are judging me with the comforts of anonymity, then they are acting out of fear. And fear is a very powerful weapon.<br />
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When I say that "I am over it" it doesn't mean that I don't care about other peoples feelings. It simply means that my truth is numero uno because I want to teach my children that their truth should be their numero uno. If we doubt our own feelings and experiences, or try to hide them away or polish them up, it invalidates who we are as human beings. We must trust ourselves that our truth is precious. And it's not always going to be pretty, but what will be pretty is the journey.<br />
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Looking back on some of my adventures, or misadventures, whether with my kids or my spouse or my family or my friends, I can see my personal growth. I can see myself stepping out of the mold that I was given, the confine that I was placed in, and expanding to find myself and the roles that work the best for me as a human, a woman, a mother, a friend, a lover, a spouse, a partner, a friend, a child, a sibling, a confidant, a student, a teacher, and a disciple. <br />
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So, for you my darling Shelby, Dalton and Garrett, welcome to my journey. You are enough.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-25805309711071994472012-05-14T15:26:00.001-06:002012-05-14T15:34:13.392-06:00Shelby's First Real Dance Recital<br />
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One of my favorite things this week was watching Gavin helping Dalton and Shelby rehearse for their upcoming Spanish play. They are each playing a character in the play, Cinderella, but the catch is that the whole thing is in Spanish. This is with their after school Spanish class at McKee Immersion Spanish School (that I love). The kids see their Dad in a whole new light when he is rocking his sweet Spanish accent.</div>
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This week we had the rehearsals and performance of Shelby's Virginia Tanner dance class. I didn't have big expectations because a couple of the girls in her class have the attention span of a gnat, and Shelby hadn't been super jazzed about her classes. We did it because it was something fun to do and try out. (Here we are below on the day of the show, all done up.)</div>
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Little did I know that Shelby would become sold on dance. Maybe it's the femininity of it all. She's been into soccer and tennis and art, but in this extra curricular activity she gets to flit and float and be very PINK. I think that she viewed her Grandma Paula and Aunt Kristen as the masters in that department. I was the Mom who donned the sweat pants till 3:00 PM with hat hair and unbrushed teeth. But on the day of her performance I got us both glamorous, and it was like she was seeing a whole new side of me...her Mom could be a pageant mom...oh happy days!</div>
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These two girls nearly did me in...but who doesn't love a challenge? I was asked to be a "Monitor" for the performance. Good thing that I had no idea what that entailed...otherwise I would have run for the hills. I got to go multiple times to Kingsbury Hall where we did dress rehearsals with the girls, helping them to get in to their costumes, and keep them quiet while we waited for the other dancers. Sounds easy, right?</div>
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Wrong. One little girl was terrified of heights and stairs...which meant that running up and down three flights inside the theatre was very difficult especially when you have six other girls pulling ahead of you and you all have to stay together. I ended up doing a lot of pep talking as I held her hand and helped her to take one of the thousand steps at a time. Her best buddy has the energy of a wind up toy and the personal boundaries of a jelly fish. Her little hands and arms were like tentacles that she would wrap around any moving thing that was within her reach. </div>
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So I had to summon all of my patience and contraband candy that I used for bribing, to survive the week. It was a lot of reminding the girls to whisper so that people couldn't hear them on the stage, or try to keep them entertained with Gavin's IPad in their half hour of down time while they waited for the other dance groups to finish up. I had never been a dance Mom. I never envisioned myself as one. Too many memories of pre pubescent girls bumping and grinding on a dance floor in half time shows, looking like they were training for their roles in smoke filled Vegas casinos. I got the lure it had for others but it never did much for me (especially since I had zero talent in it).</div>
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But with Shelby, I see why she loves it. It is because with Virginia Tanner, the dance moves are not sexual or seductive, but freeing and empowering. They teach dance to inspire the girls. With their vision, I was converted to how wonderful dance could be. </div>
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This is the special hair do that I did for Shelby. Oh yes, I have secret hidden talents.</div>
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Here she is waiting with the girls in the basement dressing room of Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah.</div>
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The women who run Virginia Tanner dance are inspiring. They are not done up. They are not beauty queens. They are not super thin, or really fit. What they are is confident. They are at home in their bodies. I have never seen women so alive. And whether they were in their twenties or their sixties (like Shelby's teacher) they were beautiful. Here the director gives the girls from all ages a pep talk before the show.</div>
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Before the performance, Shelby was unsure about what was going to happen. She wasn't really nervous.. it's more that she thought all the hype was a bit much. Some of the girls were really nervous...to the point of some drama (which we both have limited patience for).</div>
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But once she was on stage, she was SOLD. Here she is below with her hands in the air, freezing for her pose. Her smile covered her entire face. She said that she could hear her Grandma Paula cheering for her in the front row. The stage was something that she felt safe on. I remember that feeling.</div>
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These panels were their props, and though they were pretty cumbersome and heavy, the girls did well with them. </div>
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They finished their dance and at the end they hugged each other and laughed till their sides hurt. I viewed it all from behind the scenes, off to the side of the stage curtains, and loved to see them all shine. Even the gals that had been a little challenging were amazing...giving it all they had and giving a beautiful performance. Once they were downstairs, they were so thrilled with how well they did that they ran down the hall to their dressing room, jumping for joy.</div>
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Hooray for new talents, interests, adventures, friends, and self esteem. Life is wonderful.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-75503482221257258602012-05-07T22:52:00.004-06:002012-05-07T22:52:59.464-06:00There is a lot I want to write about. Here is my list:<br />
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<li>My elementary school's Art Night fundraiser</li>
<li>Shelby's dance recital that is coming up</li>
<li>Our home renovation project that finally looks like it is about to begin</li>
<li>Shelby's conversation with me this afternoon about boobs, boob jobs, and more boobs</li>
<li>The last book I read for my book group and loved</li>
<li>The documentary "Bully" that I saw with a bunch of wonderful women</li>
<li>Why we will only have two cats by the end of the summer</li>
<li>Why I've gone from loving to hating Mad Men this season</li>
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I will have energy tomorrow. Right now I have to sleep. Yes, I took a 30 minute nap today...but it didn't cut it. MUST SLEEP.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534398293882227646.post-86354834173174158122012-04-30T23:21:00.000-06:002012-04-30T23:21:58.234-06:00Quality versus quantityOnce upon a time I met a Mom recently who had more kids than she could handle. And she yelled at them all day, yet she didn't know that she was yelling. I think that she was shocked at my shock. I tried to hide my wide eyes but her loud, booming, threatening, grating, mean-toned, voice shook me.<div>
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And it made me scared...because that is how I have sounded to my own children. I have never heard a yeller like this mother, and it made me realize the power of the voice. I don't use that voice as much as I used to...but I have used it. The "mean mom" voice. Like, when you are so burned out and overwhelmed that it's either a yell, a cry, or a banshee shriek that are the sounds left available to come out of your mouth.</div>
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I am worried that I used that voice far too often with my sweet Dalton. </div>
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Garrett was with me and this mother's voice scared him. I looked at her little ones running all around her, and felt sorry for them. This is when I would usually say, "Who do I think I am?" cause it's not like I haven't screamed at my kids before. But now I can see how easy it is to melt down with little kids. How easy it is to just always have the mean voice as your voice, with the hope that somehow it will bring some sanity in to your house. How easy it is to just switch over to the auto-pilot where the mean voice comes out way too often.</div>
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You think that people know that your voice isn't the real you...it's just your coping mechanism...to let your kids know you mean business...but sometimes they don't know. How would they? They can't read your mind. The voice of this overwhelmed mom made me sad for the overwhelmed mom that I have been for many years that I have been a mother. </div>
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I was mad at this mom, but maybe just because it held a mirror up to my own shortcomings. Why do we think that having kids, and sometimes having lots of kids, makes us a good mother? Mothering has almost nothing to do with the act of just producing a kid. If that were the case rats and mice would be moms of the year. It's parenting that makes you a good mother. It's caring about your kids individually. It's having the time and the patience and the concern for not just what they'll be like when they are chubby faced and darling at the age of 3 when the definition of being a good mother is sticking a nipple in their face, keeping their butt dry, and pasting a giant bow on their head, but also being equally concerned over who they have the potential to be when they are 18 or 35 or 70. It's truly wanting to bring another human on to the Earth who is going to positively impact this world and be someone who you want in your life for eternity.</div>
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I had my kids about 4 years apart. It kind of made it so that each of them was the only baby when they were the baby. That being said, I still was nuts when my babies were babies and I had an older one who was a four year old. I did kind of know that I was nuts, so I always tried to surround myself with kind people that could be there for my children when I emotionally could not. </div>
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I remember the girl that I had helping me in Boston, when Shelby was a new baby. Her name was Yumi, and she will always be an angel to me. She really saved my life. I thought that I was hiring her to help with Shelby, but instead she became the surrogate mother to Dalton. She was kind and steady and young and loving. She would walk him to his preschool and take him by the toy store on the way home. All day long I was like a zombie...covered in breast milk that didn't seem to want to come at the rate that Shelby needed it, unshowered, depressed, overwhelmed. </div>
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I didn't have near the love or the patience that my little preschooler needed. And so I would snap. I would be impatient. I would be controlling. To be honest, I was not a good mother. I am not going to beat myself up over this, because I have done that for years, and it doesn't really do any good. I have apologized to Dalton over and over for this, and again, it's pretty ineffective. The only recourse that I have is to try to be a really loving, patient, calm, kind mother now. I was young. Too young to have kids...in my opinion. My control of my children probably had a lot to do with me trying to regain control over the young adult period that I had lost out on. Or I was just chemically imbalanced. Both are a likely possibility.</div>
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Morgan was my angel here in Utah when Garrett was a newborn and Shelby was the preschooler who needed a solid, loving, kind, interested mother. Thank god, literally, for Yumi and Morgan. Without them, Dalton and Shelby would have been like little islands floating on their mom's sea of emotional instability. Now with Garrett, I finally get it. I finally get how to be kind to your kid, and love them and be the Mom that they need.</div>
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It's hard for me to see Moms now who have three kids under the age of four because I think that all their kids are all babies. Yet, how can you parent three babies at the same time? So by default the eldest becomes the "big brother" or the "big kid" and is expected to act much older than he is. He is held to higher standards. </div>
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I think that the screamer mom's kids were darling. I hope that they make it. I hope that my kids make it. After a past soccer game where I overreacted big time at Shelby for not having a good attitude (ironic, I know), we made up a sign where she makes an L with her hand when I need to cool down. The L doesn't stand for Looser, but for Loosing it. I wish that we all had this system in place. </div>
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Here's to seeing the timidness of the little ones that we speak to, and how fragile their little sense of self worth is.</div>
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