Month: May 2018

On Monday morning I rounded the kids up and drove everyone up to Bridal Veil Falls so Lydia could bike, Mary could scooter, Clarissa could snuggle in the Boba, and Ammon could run.

Lydia biked, Mary scootered, Clarissa snuggled, and Ammon…tried to pitch himself into the swollen, raging river. It was a total nightmare. I was wearing Clarissa and still crippled from plantar fasciitis and my pulled groin, but I did yell loud enough to scare Ammon back to the trail on suicide attempt #1. Then I caught him right before he threw himself off the bridge into the river on suicide attempt #2. He really resisted the rescue that time. I forced him into his stroller and placated him with goldfish for the next hour.

Even though my camera got fixed on Saturday, it never occurred to me to take a picture on this outing. I was too busy keeping Ammon alive.

Then we went straight to a doctor’s appointment for Clarissa, during which time Ammon was completely and utterly out of control.

We came home and I collapsed on the couch while Clarissa crawled around the floor. My mom watched her crawl. Thank you, Mom!

After Abe came home, we put Clarissa to bed and then went to Cook’s Greenhouse to buy fruit trees and more plants for the garden. Abe miraculously fit it all in the car!

I don’t remember many details from last Sunday, but I do remember that it felt incredibly luxurious and that it was full of a lot of rest and relaxing and that it felt delicious. I’m not even sure how that all happened, but I’m guessing it was a combination of good naps from Clarissa, Stake Conference (church only 2 hours), tv for the kids, and Ammon having a long quiet time/nap time. It felt like what a Sunday should be. A time for nourishment, healing and rejuvenation and preparation for the week ahead.

Lily stayed home from Stake conference because it was right during Clarissa’s nap time.  While home, Lily wrote an article on prophetic fallibility which has been a very important topic for her lately. Lily feels that many people leave the church when they stumble into troubling church history because they can’t handle the idea of the church’s leaders doing crazy wrong things. That cognitive dissonance was destroying Lily inside until she had her epiphany that sometimes even the prophets get things super wrong, and that that is o-k, that the church is still true and inspired, and that all humans have weakness, and that is all God has to work with. It’s a beautiful concept that should put less pressure on the prophet and also less pressure on the saints to treat everything a prophet says as direct instruction from the mouth of God. Instead, it is better to weigh heavily the words of the prophet, but to make your ultimate source of truth your own judgment as enlightened by the Holy Spirit of God. The article is great. It is below:

Prophetic Fallibility: A Light

 

For most faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, facing uncomfortable facts about church history or policy often feels like a test of testimony. The practice of polygamy, the priesthood ban on blacks, and current anti-LGTBQ policies are just three troubling aspects of the Church that, upon closer examination, can leave members reeling–or compel members to leave.

It does not need to be this way.

As those who have studied these issues and chosen to stay can likely attest, there is a logical answer to not only these problems, but indeed, every problem in church history and policy. That answer is prophetic fallibility.

Prophetic fallibility may appear on the surface to be something we all agree on, and yet the practical application of this principle feels heterodox to many.  We just finished sitting through fifteen years of church manuals which began every lesson with stories of how the prophet of the year exemplified the gospel principle of the lesson. We have mutilated and taken D&C 1:38 out of its original context so many times that we commonly treat the prophet’s words as a literal read on the mind of God.  And in our most recent conference, not only did we hear routine praises of the prophet sung by various speakers, but we were reminded that the prophet himself has said he reacts to prophetic utterances with exclamation points instead of question marks.

In our church meetings, when the subject of prophetic revelation arises, almost inevitably someone raises a hand to say that we do not blindly follow the prophet. Instead, this comment continues, we are invited to receive our own personal confirmation of prophetic counsel. In my twenty-two years of church attendance, I have never once heard anyone comment about what to do if our personal revelation leads us to reject the words of the prophet.

Prophets are indeed called of God, but they are also mortal, fallen, and subject to acting on their own bias, ignorance, and even base desires. This should not be news, but it feels like news. Current members and leaders alike unapologetically defend the history of the church. If the Book of Mormon is true, these people insist that everything that followed must also be true. Polygamy was inspired. The priesthood ban on blacks was both instituted and removed by God. God, whose first pronouncement after declaring Adam good was that it was “not good for man to be alone,” now commands our LGBTQ members to live a lifetime of loneliness, so devoid of hope that Wikipedia actually has a page on Mormon LGBTQ suicide rates.

On the whole, it seems as though Mormons would rather worship a malignant God and deal with the subsequent misogyny, racism, and suicide among our own than find fault with our prophets or their policies.

This is not to say that the words of our prophet and past prophets are never inspired. Just yesterday I attended my own stake conference and came away profoundly uplifted and inspired by the new counsel on ministering. President Nelson has acted as a prophetic oracle for me on the subject of ministering, on living the higher law of Sabbath Day observance, and of outlining how critical women are to the work of the Lord. I give his words and the words of all of my leaders the best of my religious attention. When the prophet speaks, I consider it my covenant duty to give their words extra weight in my mind and heart.

But for many years–long, embarrassing years–I confused “following the prophet” with following the Spirit. I fell into the Mormon culture trap and assumed the prophet’s words and the mind of God were the same. I assumed that in order to be active and faithful, I had to ignore the cognitive dissonance at the back of my mind. After all, my own thoughts paled in comparison to God’s, whose thoughts were higher than my own. If the prophet’s words were God’s thoughts, then any cognitive dissonance I experienced was simply evidence of how fallen I am. Though the following statement might sound like lunacy to non-Mormons, I believe most Mormons will understand: Even in the midst of racking cognitive and emotional pain, I never seriously entertained the notion that the prophet could ever get it wrong on an issue that mattered.

I remember the first time I realized that I needed to take personal responsibility for my own views. Sharing this will date my epiphany as all too shamefully recent. I was reading All the Light We Cannot See for the second time, and I came across the passage where Frederick refuses to throw icy water onto the dying Russian. All of the other young Nazis in training throw the water when ordered, but Frederick refuses.

I read this passage and froze.

I read the passage over. I read it again. Then I read it once more.

I realized that I was not Frederick. In my profession of ignorance as to the why’s and how’s of God, I was upholding a system of belief that literally kills people, spiritually and physically. Yes, the Church is the place I go for personal spiritual sustenance, where I find a beautiful community and lean into the grace of God, where I have literally found family, but for others–my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, my black brothers and sisters, my fellow women who feel pain from the fall-out of polygamy culture and the current all-male aspect of the priesthood–the Church is not a haven. Or if it is a spiritual haven for them, it is also a place of distinct and extreme exposure.

The Church remains the bride of Christ, and so much of it is breathtakingly, stunningly beautiful, but we can still do better. But if we hope to keep our beautiful church healthy and relevant for us and our children, we must be willing to face the ugly, uncomfortable aspects of our culture. We must be willing to face these aspects, apologize for them, and then disown them. We need our leaders and prophet to apologize for episodes of our past and acknowledge fallibility and weakness in the present. Above all we need to emphasize, as President Nelson did this past conference, personal revelation. The prophet does not doctrinally function as our intermediary with God, and we should cease to treat him as such.

Only then will we begin to behold the light our culture has yet to see.

 

Saturday is quickly becoming my favorite day of the week.  I have such a good time with Lily and the kids.

On Saturday, May 19, Mary had a piano recital. It was at a music store (Piano Gallery).  She was third on the program (of 50 or so performers), and since Clarissa was squirming in my lap, I left the recital room to look around the store for a bit right after Mary’s piece. I found their guitar selection and longed to buy one. Ammon sat on mine about six months ago and snapped the neck of it. I’ve been wanting to buy one again ever since, but finances have been tight. While in the store, I called Lily who encouraged me to get a decent one so I found one for $229 marked down from $300.  I’ve already played it a lot. I am sooooo grateful to have a guitar again!

Mary did great on her recital piece. She played Mary had a little lamb. Since I am in charge of her piano now, I took extra interest in her performance. Her tempo was a little rushed and uneven at times, but she hit her notes, and overall did a fantastic job. Before going to the recital, she asked if we could wash and vacuum the car for a reward if she did a super good job. She had such a blast last time we washed and vacuumed the car together (when she picked out cotton candy scented deoderizer) that she now views it as a reward. I agreed to her request, so after the recital we went to wash and vacuum the car. She chose a daisy fields deoderizer this time which was a major upgrade from the cotton candy one. I love my one on one time with Mary!

Also, Lydia and Mary helped Lily make BBQ chicken pizza and IT WAS SO DELICIOUS!

 

 

 

Here are the pictures from Mary’s playdate with Jaklie on Tuesday May 15. Mary loves Jacklie!

Monday May 14 turned out to be one of the most significant days for me of my entire life.  Comically, there is a slight chance I’m mixing things up and the important things happened on Tuesday….but I really do think Monday was when they most likely happened.

Weather has been unbelievably good the past few weeks. I think May is my new favorite month. I love being outside when the weather is good. Again we spent time outside after I got home from work, and I got these cute shots of Ammon.

Even though the weather was nice, I was feeling very sad and troubled, and Lily could tell. Lily started feeling very sad because she felt like she did something wrong to make me feel bad. We put the kids down and we started to talk. As we started to talk, I started to blame Lily for why I was feeling sad and troubled. I won’t go into my accusations. They were relatively minor, but still hurtful enough. Obviously hearing me make accusations upset Lily so she went downstairs to work on cleaning up dinner. I sat in my room and prayed and cried. I then went downstairs to be with Lily, having no idea what I was going to say to her.

I then just collapsed onto her and burst into tears and apologized for my behavior. We went downstairs in the basement where we could be alone and I sat on the futon weeping and confessing the fact that I had been feeling jealous of all of the attention and praise she was getting because of her mother’s day talk.  I felt so pathetic. Jealousy is something I feel frequently, probably daily and it is one of my biggest Achilles heels. I apologized profusely and tearfully about not being able to celebrate her successes better with her, I apologized for being threatened by her successes, and I just let everything out and allowed myself to be more vulnerable than I had ever allowed myself to be. In that moment, Lily sat right on top of me and stroked my hair, just saying over and over that I was beautiful, that I was so self-aware and vulnerable, and that she forgave me, and that it wasn’t my fault. She told me later that she felt promptings from the Spirit in that moment that helped her to understand why I was struggling the way I was and it helped her to have deep compassion on me. I felt so pathetic, and yet this amazing woman was stroking my hair and calling me beautiful. I’m sorry for how personal this segment is…..but I need to capture this moment for my posterity.  That moment to me was the most loved I have ever felt in my entire life. It was a moment in my most pathetic wretchedness, feeling lower than the dust of the earth for the way I failed Lily, and yet, I was received, accepted, loved, forgiven……even beautiful to her. That moment is seared into my memory. It was a major turning point to some of the strain Lily and I had been facing and we have been on a major high ever since. True love is so powerful.

On Sunday morning Abe and I knew we had a big day ahead of us, so we both woke up early to get ready for the day.  Then we got the kids ready and started celebrating Mother’s Day.

By which I mean, Abe and the kids made me my favorite Mother’s Day breakfast in bed (Martha Stewart French Toast), presented me with chocolate dipped strawberries in hand-painted boxes and love notes, and then gave me lots of time alone to just pray, write, and practice my talk. The sun was shining through the windows and I felt so happy and full of grace.

Then it was time for church. I gave my talk, and that was a beautiful experience. I felt so much love from God and from my ward. Afterward I felt so embraced by my ward–I felt like I was surrounded by love. It felt a celestial connectedness. I had just shared my raw self–the unpolished parts, the parts I wasn’t proud of–with my ward, and afterward I was embraced. That is an amazing feeling. It was a total gift.

Then afterward we headed to the Miners to celebrate Mother’s Day and Tom’s birthday. Tom, Suzanne, and Doris had come all the way down to hear my talk, and so we spent most of the day with them.

It was a wonderful day.

When it was all over, I submitted my talk to By Common Consent, and when I woke up the next morning, there was an email saying they were going to publish it! They just wanted me to write some sub headings and a brief bio. Once those were written, they published it:

https://bycommonconsent.com/2018/05/14/i-am-a-child-of-heavenly-mother/

 

Today the weather was perfect again, and we all had really wonderful days. Abe had a good day at work, and I honestly enjoyed myself all day at home with the kids. They were all well-behaved, and in the afternoon we went outside and enjoyed the glorious weather.

Ammon and I played a game where we named animals for almost an hour, and somehow we both thought that was so amusing. Clarissa was darling all day and is so proud of herself because she can crawl and pull herself up to stand. She did a lot of happy nose crinkles all day long. Mary had her teddy-bear picnic at school, and Lydia brought home her poster for arbor day. She won third place in the whole school! I was amazed at her poster and want to frame it. Abe’s family has a ton of artists, and mine has a few, so perhaps Lydia picked up some of the art genes.

My mom has been really enjoying her family history and has been working hard on the Fiery family line. She has been on a roll with that.

When Abe came home after work, we lounged in the back yard together for an hour before corralling the kids to bed. As soon as the kids were in bed, we went and helped our next door neighbors shovel their giant rock pile. That was really fun, and afterward Abe and I went swimming.

It really was such a great day.

On Monday Abe got up at 5am to catch the 5:40 temple session. He missed it by one minute! But he got on the next session, so it all worked out. Clarissa caught the early-morning bug and decided to get up at 5:15. It was an early day for all of us.

The morning got very busy with a play date that kept ballooning. It started off with Heather, Amy, and their kids, and then my neighbor Lydia and her kids joined in. I enjoy all of the lively commotion, but sometimes I do get nervous with so many kids running around the house without supervision. I just have heard a lot of stories about what can go wrong with sexual abuse, and so I usually try to keep the house hordes-free. We weren’t quite at horde level Monday morning…but we were sure getting close!

In the evening I made Abe take Mary to her piano lesson because I can’t figure out how to practice with her lately.

Ammon is just such a handful, and so is Clarissa. After her piano lesson, they cleaned and vacuumed Abe’s car, much to Mary’s delight. She kept saying, “Wow, you  really ARE the best dad!!!” the whole time because she was so thrilled to be polishing the car. Abe was tickled pink.

This is Abe. I am sitting on my porch at 8:40 PM, blogging next to Lily who is reading a book about Adam and Eve. It is 68 degrees. No wind. Dusk. No bugs. I. Love. Summer. in. Utah.

We had a very good week this week. I had a personal breakthrough in letting go of a lot of my personal goals and routines. I know that sounds like I’m settling and not trying to achieve as much. It sounds like that, because it is that 🙂 Ha. But I’ve found myself able to be way more flexible and happy in each moment, and it turns out flexibility matters when you have four kids 🙂 This week had a lot of awesome moments that I’m so glad I was able to be mindful for rather than being stressed out at each moment that my agenda, vision and goals for the day were not getting executed. Tuesday-Thursday was a work trip for me in Ohio. The meetings went well. I always miss Lily and the family when I’m gone, and I’m always so grateful to return home safe and sound. Things went well for Lily at home. One of her recent secrets has been cooking all the food for the week on Saturday. That definitely helped her week to go more smoothly. She also had a play-date with Heather on Wednesday which she loved. Mary helped Lily make rolls for the playdate (pics below) and also Ammon had fun playing dress-up right before the play-date.

 

Now for the rundown of Friday through Sunday:

Lily came to Qualtrics with the kids on Friday. It was fun to see them!

 

When I got home from work on Friday, we did our normal evening routine, after which I took Ammon to the emergency to get his staples removed from his head. Lydia and Mary came for moral support for Ammon and they were darling. They had me assure them that they could close their eyes while the doctor took the staples out. I assured them.

Ammon fussed a little. It hurt more than getting them in, but he did just fine.

Saturday was a mammoth day, but a very very good one.  In the morning I exercised and then the whole family went on a run together. We went to a church parking lot. Lily and I jogged and walked, Lydia rode her bikes and Mary and Ammon were in the buddy bubble. In the church parking lot, I raced Lydia on her bike. It was so fun to “compete” with her, and “trash talk” to her (“you can never beat me!!”) only to see her going faster and faster on her bike. My, how she has taken off after just learning a week ago!

At home, I couldn’t resist myself, and I made a tuna sandwich and lemonade setup for everyone to refresh ourselves after the outing.  It was only 10:30, not even close to time for lunch, but I hadn’t eaten breakfast and want to have an outside brunch with the kids 🙂 Pics below:

The morning also involved helping my neighbor to shovel rocks into wheel-barrels for his landscaping.  That ended when another neighbor asked me to help move a pool table.  I couldn’t believe how heavy it was, and even though we left a ton of marks (and a hole) in their wall, I’m just glad nobody got injured. I’ve been studying a lot about service lately and losing our lives in the service of God to truly find our own happiness. To me it is not a coincidence that I had opportunities to serve on the very week that I was pondering about serving others.

After all the activities in the morning, Lily and I did some housecleaning. Then I took the youngest 3 kids to get groceries (thanks to Lily’s list!) and Lily took Lydia to her harp festival. 

I’m not exactly sure what the event was, but Lydia competed against others at her level or age and come home with “superior” which is the highest mark you can get. This made me extremely pleased, especially because I have a sense for all the long hard painful hours Lily and Lydia have put into practicing. Lily was also so pleased that she bought Lydia a necklace at the festival.  Lydia broke it as soon as she got home, and completely melted into a puddle. One thing about Lydia is that the moment something is not how she thinks she needs it to be, she completely falls apart, starts balling, and throwing a giant fit, often with her back flat on the ground.

“Now I’ll never have a necklace!”

“It’s impossible to fix!”

“I need a chain that looks just like this one!”

And my personal [least] favorite:

“Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeaaaaa!!!” (at the top of her voice which can be extremely loud and blaring).

I was not feeling patient in the moment, and I looked Lydia in the eye and said, “Lydia, I’m sorry your necklace broke, we will do everything we can to make it right. Right now I’m dealing with two real babies, Ammon, and Clarissa. They are both crying too. Stop acting like you are also a baby. Pull yourself together, or I will throw what’s left of your necklace in the trash.”

Maybe not my finest parenting moment. Or maybe it was? That garbage behavior is not acceptable to me. When to use tender love and when to use firmness…..?  Ahh, parenting is so confusing. I was glad Lily showed more empathy than I did. It’s so awesome to parent in a group, so that we can round out each other’s parenting. I’d say the “mean cop” is just the parent that has recently spent the most time with the kids respective to the one specific moment in question :). Who is most worn out? Yeah, that parent will be the one being firm/harsh. The other “fresher” parent has the energy to swoop in with tenderness. At least that’s how it seems to work in my house :).

Anyway, later in the evening I fixed her necklace and told her, so it all worked out. Sunday she broke her necklace again, and I celebrated her for not throwing a fit or even feeling sad or crying. Not even a little! After I congratulated her, she said, “Dad, I’m not sad because I know you can fix it now.” Hahaha, parenting sure can be charming at times.

After a delicious salmon dinner (which Chris, our yard-keeper joined us for, to our great delight), Lily and I stayed up late getting her cooking done for the week.

Sunday was an awesome day and way more low-key than yesterday. I especially needed a break after how physical Saturday was. At 10:00 I went up stairs to shower and get ready for work, and then woke up 20 minutes later, since all I actually did was collapse on the bed. Then Lily gave me a back massage which was amazing after all the manual labor yesterday.  I then took the kids while Lily napped and read her book about Adam and Eve called The First Love Story, Adam, Eve, and Us by Bruce Feiler. Church was nuts. Ammon is in a completely nutty stage right now. Think of a normal two year old boy (already crazy) and then think of giving that boy caffeine pills. That is what Ammon has been likely lately. He talks, moves, runs, sings, skips, jumps, spins in circles, crawls, climbs, jumps again, gives kisses, falls, gets back up, talks more. and that might all be in a few minutes.  Ha, he is so hard to keep up with. Lily and I took turns in sacrament being with him outside because he was so hyper. Then Clarissa woke up in her car-seat right after sacrament, so I took her home and did the budget while she crawled around. I was to tired from yesterday (and fasting) and didn’t feel like I could handle her at church.  Clarissa is also in an amazing stage. Her crawling is getting faster! She’s now more like a puppy than the snail she was 2-3 weeks ago. And she is dazzled by all the drawers, the pantry, the open dishwasher, the pan drawer under the oven, the hutch.  She was in an incredible mood all day as she explored this new world that has opened to her now that she is so mobile and even standing. That’s right, standing! I caught her yesterday and today getting to a standing position by herself and holding herself there so she could have a better reach into all the treasures in the dishwasher.

Dinner was a wonderful pizza meal outside, and now, as I mentioned in the beginning, Lily and I are chilling in the porch. It was a wonderful, wonderful week.