Exceptional

What makes you "except"ional?  And by that, I don't mean what are your gifts, talents, special skills, etc.  I meant what is your "We should obey the commandments, except me, with this one here, where I've developed a great self-justification or believe I am the exception to the rule?" We all do it, at times, so examples large and small abound.

Honor the Sabbath day, use it as a time to be with your family and your ward, to read and talk and ponder on sacred, holy things.  Except if your kid is, like, super-dooper good at soccer.  Or football. Or basketball.  Then, by all means, travel and attend clinics and games and tournaments on Sunday.  It will teach him commitment and follow-through and team building.  He'd never learn that from, say, honoring his commitment to use the power and authority of the Priesthood to prepare and administer ordinances of salvation to his ward members, with his fellow quorum members.

Don't put off marriage and family.  Except if you've got a lot of years of grad school ahead of you, or you'd rather be in your own home first, or you really need some "couple" years before you have babies.  How could you possibly focus on the right things if you have a family distracting you from your secular education?  How could you possibly grow close and get to know each other and love and appreciate each other better if you're raising a baby together?

Don't watch R-rated movies.  Except if they have a lot of really good, redeeming qualities or a meaningful story mixed in with the foul language or gratuitous violence.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.  We all think (or behave as though we think) we are the exception to the rules.  We rob ourselves when we do that.

But here's the flip side: sometimes, in some circumstances with some rules, there are exceptions.  The Lord commanded Nephi to slay Laban, after all.  He didn't tell him to defend himself with lethal force against man lunging at him with a sword or a gun.  He commanded Nephi to slay a blacked-out drunk--a momentarily vulnerable, defenseless man.  He made a very big exception to a very important rule in order to fulfill his righteous purposes.  Laban had plenty of chances to do the right thing, but he didn't, so the Lord told Nephi, essentially, we need to make an exception here.  Do you think that if someone else had been watching down the street and saw what Nephi did they'd believe him if he said, "The Lord told me to"?

So you don't get to play judge and jury with who is or isn't the exception (or come down hard on someone because you think the rule they break is more important that the ones you break).  Probably not as many people are an exception to the rule as think they are.  But that is between them and the Lord, not you and them.  The Lord doesn't tell you whether or not they are the exception, he tells you whether or not you are.  Focus on the places where you are behaving as though you are the exception to the rule.  Obedience to the law is what our blessings are predicated upon, so if you think you're the exception to the rule, make sure that you're as certain as Nephi was.

Thoughts on the role of women

One of the most difficult things for me to face about our society is that there is very little understanding in the world about different forms of power and strength--we have been steadily erasing the vital and eternal roles--and differences--assigned to us in favor of a more superficial and, ultimately, destructive "equality".

I took my kids to see Brave this summer, and I loved it.  It hit home with me, as a brown-haired, relatively-mild-mannered-but-sometimes-still-prideful mother to two wild-haired, independent, willful and high-spirited red-headed Scottish daughters.  The thing about the movie I loved the very best, however, was how the men were all good-hearted but still barely civilized ruffians, who devolved to competition and then battle nearly any time they were left alone.  But the second a woman walked into the midst of their contentions, they immediately froze.  The battle stopped.  Too few people understand anymore why these men would've reacted this way, and why that division of and respect for the differing roles of men and women are vital to the success and health of communities and civilizations.  Sometimes it is very literally true that women can, by properly embracing the roles given to them by a wise Heavenly Father, and making righteous use of the power inherent in those roles, stop the bullets from flying.  My father shared this story on Facebook last week:

"In Gulag, Solzhenitsyn noted that when trains bearing prisoners to Siberia stopped in small towns to get water for the steam engines, guards were posted to prevent any contact between locals and the thirsty prisoners in the cattle guards. It was always old women who ignored the soldiers and their guns and did what they always did--responded to immediate human needs--,who took water and food to the prisoners.

I reminded James Billington of that story once after he told me about being in Moscow when the Soviet regime collapsed. He said that as the Soviet army surrounded the Kremlin with its tanks, no one knew how the story would end. He said that what really happened, that went unreported, was that the Russian babushkas, the grandmothers, went out among the tanks and told the young men to 'go home.' He said, "a different moral order asserted itself and the crisis passed.'"

These women did not defend their homeland with tanks and guns--they prevented battle altogether by properly using the moral authority inherent in their roles as mothers and grandmothers.  Women, who pass through the valley of the shadow of death to bring souls through the veil into this world, who expend so much of their time and energy and focus on protecting and comforting and nurturing those lives,  women who are required to bear so much of the brunt of the spiritual battle for the welfare of those souls, should not be asked to go to physical battle to see those lives cut short. Women should not be asked to see those bodies that they, with God's assistance, created from their own bodies, fed from their own bodies, mangled and mutilated.  Men should not be asked to train out of themselves their natural and good instinct to provide protection to the women around them first;  men should not be asked to extinguish the natural deference he has toward women, the natural inclination to see in all women the tenderness and nurturing that he has received at the hands of his mother, his wife, his sisters--he should have the privilege, especially in the ugliness of battle, to be able to see in women the loving glances and warm embraces of his beloved daughters.  As they return from battle, men must be met at the home front with softness and nurturing, to remember why they are fighting--the role of women needs to be preserved not as fellow soldier on the field, but as a reminder of all the good and gentle things for which they fight.  Otherwise, men who are asked to battle often turn from soldiers into monsters.  When men are trained to see women no differently than they see men in the most stressful and ugly and surreal circumstances in this world, the consequences for civilizations are grave. 

A few years ago, I was talking with my husband and several of his coworkers and friends discussing recent events in our community which had caused considerable stress and concern for all of us, and a couple of the men, in the course of the conversation, used a few vulgar swear words.  Almost immediately they caught themselves and turned to me--the only woman present--and apologized for their language.  I know many women who would've been offended or amused by that action, which seems quaint by many people's standards today.  I certainly did not expect it, but I was grateful for it.  I had worked with all these men myself, and had great affection for them.  I knew their characters well, and had no doubt of their respect for my intelligence and capabilities.  They did not show they respected me by treating me like "one of the guys", they showed that they respected me by remembering that I wasn't.

I have never believed that having different, but complementary, roles makes men and women unequal.  The sad reality of our times is that in attempting to make themselves "equal" to men, many women have in fact been seeking to make women "the same" as men, and in so doing have made themselves less powerful, less effective.  There are many women who are physically stronger than many men, and that is true of nearly every "manly" characteristic you could substitute into that sentence, but the characteristics and capabilities of men in general and women in general are different, and with good reason.  Women, in seeking to be powerful or strong in the same ways as men, have failed to recognize the incredible power and strength inherent in their female nature, and, in so doing, have weakened both themselves and men.  I'm not optimistic that that his a trend we can reverse, but I think it is one that could have some of the most dramatic effects on our society.

As a woman, the power rests largely with you to create.  It is largely the power of your body that creates new life.  It is largely your influence that shapes the character and decisions of those souls you bring into this world.  It is the result of that nurturing and those many years of sacrifice and service and love that gives you the power to step up to a man with a machine gun and a tank and tell him, "Go home" and have him listen.  Do not abandon that power for lesser things, for poorly defined ideas of "equality".  There is unspeakable strength and power, sisters, in the roles the Lord has given you as wives and mothers and sisters and daughters--as creators and nurturers.  Do not sell that marvelous birthright for a mess of porridge.

I'm rocking my baby. . .

and babies don't keep.

Friends and Marital Loyalty

So I was going to leave a comment on this blog, but it was getting a bit ridiculously long for a blog comment when I thought, "Hey, you have your own blog, you know."

The primary point of the blog post is summed up in this sentence: Never say anything negative about your spouse to anyone. Ever. [The exceptions being God, in prayer; your bishop, a counselor or your spouse].  I would add that this includes the kind of jokes you make about your spouse.

It was refreshing to read this after an article I came across last week that had 15 tips for a successful marriage.  Most of the article was actually quite good--it sounded like it was written by someone who actually had a long-term successful marriage--but one tip made me laugh out loud, "Complain to his mom, not to yours".  Bad, bad advice, in my opinion.  You shouldn't be complaining to either of them.

One of the most wonderful blessings in our lives and our marriage has been that, during the most intense and challenging times in our lives, my husband's two closest friends happened to be the husbands of my two closest friends.  There were two couples we spent a lot of time with, and we were all close to each other--I worked with one of the men for some time while I was working outside our home part time, the other was my bishop while I was Young Women's president, and both of the sisters had at various points worked with my husband because of his callings, and we all love each other and have high opinions of each other.  All of us have very good marriages, something each couple puts a high priority on. Knowing that one of us had some frustration or agitation with our husband would never diminish the favorable opinion that the others had of that man as a husband, father and individual, but because there was such wonderful affection on all sides, there was never much temptation to complain or criticize. Because the people around you saw the best things about your spouse and appreciated those things, it made it easier for you to remember those things yourself.  It has been such a comfort in life to have friends who love my husband and are as forgiving of his flaws as they are of mine.  Neither of those sisters would've indulged me if at some point I started ranting or complaining about my husband--I'm sure they would've either changed the subject or, as politely as possible, excused themselves.  Had my husband started complaining about or criticizing me to his friends, I'm quite certain they simply would've stopped him mid sentence.  Spending time with our friends was edifying to, not erosive to, our relationship with each other.

I don't think I appreciated as much as I should what a blessing that was until I saw a contrast.  Many years ago, a friend of my husband's (now, sadly, a former friend, for many reasons) came to the house in the middle of the day.  To see me.  When he knew my husband wouldn't be there.  Big. Red. Flag. So inappropriate.  Also, completely bizarre.  I let him sit down, because, well, my impulse is always to be polite and accommodate people, and I certainly didn't suspect him of mendacious motives.  He sat down and proceeded to give me relationship advice, basically (this was rather amusing for a multitude of reasons I won't get in to).  At one point, despite my trying really hard to be polite, I actually laughed out loud at him.  Then, he succeeded in getting under my skin just before he left, when he turned and made a remark about how some joke that my husband had made about me at work that week had surprised him at how rude and over the line it was.  He also wouldn't tell me what the joke was (because that would've been a violation of my husband's trust, which clearly he was very concerned about [insert eye roll here]), and then left.  For about 10 minutes, I was very upset and rather disturbed.  I kept thinking to myself, "What on earth could he have said that this man thought was so over the line?!"  Suddenly it occurred to me: nothing.  Obviously, this dunce had to have wildly misinterpreted something.

When I stopped to evaluate it, I realized I knew my husband's character, I knew what kind of marriage we had, and I trusted my husband completely.  This guy got something wrong.  He'd gotten nearly everything else wrong that day, why would I think he was accurate here?  I trust my husband--he's given me every reason to, and no reason not to trust him.  So much did I trust my husband, that by the time he got home from work I had completely forgotten about it.  Several days later, something he said reminded me of that particularly bizarre portion or an entirely weird conversation, so I asked him what he thought the man was talking about.  He thought for several minutes, then remembered a joke he'd made the previous week that he thought may have been the catalyst.  And I laughed.  Because its a joke he would've been comfortable making in my presence.  And I would've laughed if he'd told it in front of a group of people.  We often show affection by teasing, and it was little more than that.

From that moment on, I began to be a lot more appreciative of that entirely-warranted trust I had in my husband.  But I also began to appreciate the trust I had in his friends, and in mine:  I knew that for the most part we had friends that would not indulge such destructive nonsense, who certainly wouldn't try to maximize the damage by sneaky go-rounds to the offended spouse.

If someone regularly indulges you in ranting and raving and complaining about your spouse, they are probably more interested in drama and entertainment than they are in your well-being.  Get ahold of your tongue.  Only spend significant amounts of time with people who bring out the best in you.  If someone else finds ways to pick on your spouse, defend when you're able, change the subject if you're having a hard time getting through, and if they won't drop it, drop them.  Real friends will want you to succeed and be happy--especially in the most important relationship in your life. 

Murphy's Law

For some mysterious reason, I spent a week and a half dealing with some mysterious fatigue (going to bed at 10:30, sleeping in til 7:30 and still feeling exhausted and in desperate need of a nap by 2 in the afternoon), so only the basic tidying and absolute essentials had been getting done, cleaning-wise, around the house.  Yesterday, I finally felt myself again, so I scrubbed the house top-to-bottom: cleaned the floors, remade all the beds, scrubbed the bathrooms, etc.  Then, when I was finally finished, I went to pick up older kids from school and we went and scrubbed the church (its still our month, and I knew none of us were going to want to do it after dinner, and no one was going to be interested when we got home from wrestling on Saturday).  Then I got home, finished dinner, got everyone bathed, picked out their clothes for the next day (early morning), fed them dinner, watched our family movie, and got everyone put to bed, ready for the 6:30 wake up call.

I was on my feet for nearly 12 hours straight, and was pretty excited about  getting to bed.  I had been reading in bed for about five minutes when Kylie emerged from her bedroom looking dazed, with some sort of brown substance all over her pajama top.  The light was dim, and I strained for a minute and realized it was on her hands and face, too, and it clicked:  she had eaten three--yes, three--brownies after dinner.  "Did you throw up?" I asked.  She wearily responded, "I think maybe?"  I got up and pulled her hair back (in case it happened again) and looked at her bed:  covered in brown vomit (including both her Pillow Pets).  I took her to the bathroom to clean her up, and she said she had to go potty.  While she was sitting there, copious amounts of brown vomit covered the freshly scrubbed toilet and floor.  I was rubbing her back and said, "I'm so sorry, baby", to which she responded tearfully, "Its not your fault, Mommy."  I rinsed her off in the bath quickly, then put some fresh, warm pajamas on her and put her in my bed and, thinking her stomach must surely be empty by now, went to rinse her bedding and pajamas off before going downstairs to get her a bowl.  When I walked through my room, she looked at me with big, pathetic eyes and I started to walk toward her to ask how she was doing.  She asked, "Did you hear that?"  I started to ask, "Hear what?" just as I stepped in a big puddle next to my bed.

So much for all my scrubbing yesterday.

She continued to heave every hour or so for most of the night (though it was mostly dry heaves after the first time--the poor little thing had a very empty stomach by then).  So I'm home in a not-so-clean house with two little girls while Doug, Keilana and Dylan are off to Helena for Dylan's first wrestling tournament of the year.  He looked so cute in his Copperhead singlet.  I wish I got to watch him, but I finally gave Kylie some water and cereal about a half an hour before they left, and she didn't eat the cereal and promptly threw up the water.  A car ride doesn't seem like such a good idea, and a gym full of other kids sounds like an absolutely horrible one.

I need a nap.

Cats in trees

So, my little girls were watching a cartoon while I cleaned this morning, and a cat got stuck in a tree so they called the firemen.  Is this one of the stupidest ideas ever or what?

If someone tied up emergency services to "rescue" a stubborn cat, I'd be really irritated if my house caught on fire.  And what is this nonsense about rescuing treed cats, anyway?  They're cats, for Pete's sake!  I'm pretty sure if a cat won't come down from a tree, its because he's sick to death of being man-handled by the overly-aggressive preschooler in the neighborhood.  But even if he really was stuck, so what?  All summer long, I'm telling my kids, "If you can get yourself up, you can get yourself down."  If they climb themselves up too high and then get worried, that's their problem.  I think this is an important lesson in choices and consequences (though if they are exceptionally high or in a particularly precarious position, I'll stick around til they get to the ground, just in case).  If I'm not gonna call the fire department to help my treed kid, I'm certainly not going to bother them about my cat.  Its a cat, for Pete's sake!

Rant over.

Turning Weaknesses into Strengths

The last year or so, I have confused a few people who watched me grow up as the youngest child in a large family by making occasional reference to "my baby sister".  I meant, of course, the wonderful Rachel, Doug's baby step-sister.  I didn't meet Rachel until she was 10 and I was 19, but I very much think of her, and love her, as my baby sister.

We ran down to Rexburg in November and stole her away to spend Thanksgiving with us.  She and I were able to have some really good conversations while she was here.  Rachel's mom had some health problems already when she got pregnant with Rachel (who was very much a surprise and a trailer baby--her oldest brother is 22 years her senior).  She didn't live very long after Rachel's birth, and Chuck, Rachel's dad, was suddenly left with a couple of young adult sons, a teenager, a five-year-old and tiny infant to take care of, all while trying to keep his business together and deal with his own overwhelming grief.  He had some very difficult years trying to find his way forward, and Rachel and her older sister spent several years living with Chuck's younger sister, who lived close.  After several years, Chuck was able to start putting his life back together and heal. When Rachel was a little girl, he started courting Doug's mom, Katy, not long after her own difficult divorce.  They courted for several years before being sealed in the Fresno, California temple.

As Rachel and I talked about her mom, her dad, and her brothers and sisters, and her step-mom and step-brothers and step-sisters, she expressed a thought that resonated with me:  as much as she would have loved to have known her mother and grown up in a traditional family right from the start, she realizes now how much she has gained through the people and experiences the Lord has placed in her life because of that loss, and she would likely be a very different person without those challenges and losses, and somewhat compensatory blessings.  She is grateful for the things she has gained and understood because of the things that were missing.  Though I lacked far less in life, I had often had this same thought about my own life, and I was impressed to hear this 19-year-old girl coming to such a wise and mature view of her life and blessings.

What I don't think I'd ever thought about much, or at least articulated any appreciation of, was how the difficulties and losses in Doug's family, and how the respective individuals responded to those challenges, have blessed my life.  I am not grateful that Chuck had to experience the heart-wrenching loss of his companion, at a relatively young age, and all the many challenges that spring from such a tremendous loss.  I am not grateful that Doug and the rest of his family had to live through a difficult marriage and messy divorce.  But I am tremendously grateful, having joined the family after all that was in the past, that those losses and difficulties provided Chuck and Katy with the opportunity to find each other.  Chuck and Rachel have been such extraordinary blessings in my life, I honestly can't imagine a version of my life with Doug's family to which they are not essential.  Chuck is the kind of man that you hope your daughters will have in a father-in-law: affectionate, kind, patient, and wonderfully generous.  He's exactly the kind of grandpa you want your kids to have: playful, gentle, and, again, so wonderfully affectionate.  Rachel dotes on my children--she is the half-generation, several years older than all the grandkids, but several years and a life phase or three behind all of her siblings, and instead of resenting that, she has found delight (and delighted all of us) in lavishing attention and affection on her nieces and nephews.

I am continually impressed by my husband's ability to hang on to the good things he learned from his parents' marriage and parenting, and let go of the rest.  I have watched him and all of his sisters try (and usually succeed) to build on the good things that they were taught at home, while simultaneously trying to change the things that didn't work.  It is much to their parents' credit, as well as their own, that they are all themselves good parents and generally kind, supportive spouses to their companions.  Even if execution of principles was sometimes elusive, they were always well instructed in how things should be, on what was truly important, and they paid attention to those things.

I think that while individuals lives vary in difficulty, its probably safe to say that no life is easy.  I am grateful to have married into a family--that is actually two families--that has shown me a wonderful example of using the weaknesses and deficiencies in life as opportunities to learn and grow and become better, all the while building on the strengths with which they've been blessed.