The Gods of Christmas

On Saturday, I set out to finally get some of the last presents on my list. But the freeway exchange I needed to take was closed, so I found myself on a detour in a somewhat unfamiliar part of town. I’d almost made my way back to the freeway, but before I made it to the onramp, I noticed a pupuseria, a Salvadoran restaurant.  I couldn’t help myself from pulling into the parking lot. When I walked in Maná was blasting too loudly from the juke box and a soccer match played on the TV screens mounted around the restaurant. I smiled. Families sat at tables eating pupusas and sopa.  A few workers with paint-splattered clothes who were on their lunch break sat eating plates of beans, rice and beef. On the walls hung several El Salvador flags, a few maps of the country and traditional Salvadoran folk art showing women making pupusas at food stands and harvesting corn and local vegetables. I immediately felt at home and my spirit lifted. I walked up to the counter to order.  I could hear the women in the back slapping the masa back and forth between their hands making the pupusas and thick Salvadoran tortillas. I selfishly wanted to speak Spanish to the girl at the counter even though I knew she was from California. I asked first if I could speak Spanish with her because some Latinos get offended if you presumptuously speak Spanish to them. They don’t want you to think that they don’t know English. She said, “sure,” so I ordered. I ate as much as I could, then ordered some more pupusas ‘to go’ for my family. By the time I left, I‘d lost the desire to get back on the freeway and continue shopping. I just went home. Being in the pupuseria pulled me for a minute out of my consumer fetishism. I didn’t want to ruin the peaceful disposition that had come over me. I figured we’d just make do without whatever it was that I was going to go buy … or more likely, I’d just order it online.

I’m just having trouble pin-pointing purpose with Christmas this year.

While living out of the country for over a decade, I didn’t feel a lot of pressure to create Christmas traditions. Usually I’d pull together some decorations and partake in the local traditions to the extent that I understood them. Most years we’d travel back to the US where we’d make the best of Christmas trying to piece together old traditions with divorced parents and spread out family. Now that we live in the States, I feel pressure to establish traditions like the ones I see everybody doing. But they mostly feel contrived and excessive. Not that I’m any kind of minimalist, but Christmastime makes me envy those who are.

How are the none’s handling this time of year, I wonder? No, that’s not a typo. I mean, I do kind of wonder what nuns do at Christmas, cloistered away from the cares of the world.  But the none’s I’m referring to is that group of people that would check the box that says “none” when asked their religion on surveys. I almost envy them at Christmas time too.  They don’t have to pretend that any of our pagan traditions have something to do with the Savior. I wonder if just ignoring that Christ exists is better than making a mockery of Him. I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of two loyalties: worshiping the God of Materialism and The True God who gave life, and who gave us His son. So, who or what is lying in the manger of your nativity?  I hope I’m teaching my family to search for hope in the Savior instead of the packages under the tree.

Does God give us a pass on our Christmas excess if we are lighting the world at the same time?

I’ve had people ask me if I celebrate Christmas when they find out I’m Mormon, possibly trying to distinguish Mormons from Jehovah’s Witnesses in their minds. I often reply with a hearty, “Oh, yeah, we celebrate all holidays” with a tone that implies that we’re not as ‘strange’ as those religions that do not.  But there is a part of me that respects the J Dubs too. They’ve thrown off many worldly traditions and have the integrity to label them as such despite social consequences.

In theory, I love the idea of stripping down our Christmas traditions to only the most meaningful. But, in reality, there are many superfluous traditions I don’t want to give up. The preparations to create an inviting Christmas ambiance: glowing candles, a crackling fire, twinkling Christmas lights, the scent of cinnamon and pine. Rushing into a cozy house, greeted by carefully cooked food that comforts and sweet hot drinks that warm you as they go down. Familiar carols that make us happy because we’ve always sung them during a season in which we focus on giving and gathering. Christmas movies that we watch over and over. The sentimentality we indulge in at Christmas time is permitted in a way it’s not at any other time of the year.

Santa is a little bit tougher though. I see Santa as an impostor, a character who has warped the true meaning of Christmas, which is to rejoice in the birth of the One who gives life, saves and is the giver of all good gifts. Some say I have a special place reserved in hell because we’ve never included Santa as part of Christmas for our kids. We’d still fill their stockings and have their big present set out on Christmas morning, but never made any part of it about Santa. Of course, as the kids grew, they asked me about Santa, I simply explained that he represents the tradition of giving without receiving. And then I explained that while Santa isn’t real, people carry on this tradition because it’s exciting and fun to anticipate a stranger coming to give presents.  Then I’d segue into talking about the real giver of good gifts, The Savior.  I am not suggesting anyone should abandon the tradition of Santa. Not doing Santa was something Jeremy and I agreed on and felt worked best for our parenting approach.

I guess we each need to claim Christmas and celebrate it on our own terms.

My neighbor has done this beautifully. Unlike me, she loves Santa because she sees him as the embodiment of The Spirit of Christmas. For her, Santa spreads hope and teaches us how to give without expecting things in return.  Of course, she sees Santa this way because she has spent a lifetime giving to others, providing Christmas for hundreds over the years. She gives all year long and the myth of Santa provides a space for her to give even more than usual.

I’m not sure how to reconcile. Like all things in life, we see Christmas traditions through many viewpoints and we live out and love our perspective. But whether St. Nick is your demi-god of materialism, your sentimental teddy bear warming the nostalgic fire of childhood, or your guardian angel of generosity and happiness, I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Cycles of Dysfunction

I took a Women’s Studies class at BYU where we explored cycles of dysfunction. Cycles of dysfunction are destructive behaviors that pass from generation to generation and inhibit healthy familial relationships. As part of the class, we each explored the cycles we were subject to through our female progenitors.  It wasn’t until I went through the process, that I realized that I was caught up in a cycle of dysfunction. My mother, grandmother and great-grandmother had all married men who could not, or would not, take them to the temple.  Now, its fine to not get married in the temple if one doesn’t want that for themselves.  But, there is evidence that each of these women wanted a temple marriage. They went to church. They got all their children baptized. They had problems in their marriages, in part, because of their differing beliefs from their husbands.  All the marriages ended in divorce. For my mother, her divorce resulted in a psychotic break, from which she never completely healed. To this day, she suffers from debilitating mental illness. My mother has passed the greater part of her later-adult life as a shut-in, just as her mother did. It was not necessarily the marrying a non-Mormon that was dysfunctional, but the naive thinking that a religion that meant so much to them and nothing to their husbands wouldn’t pose a problem. So, for these believing women, not marrying a man who believed likewise, seemed to be a factor in some of the profound struggles they faced.

While writing up my findings for my class, it became clear to me that I was following the pattern set by my matriarchal line. Of my mother’s two daughters, I was the believer. I was seriously dating a guy who was not, a guy I’d loved since high school.  As I prayed about my situation, a clear answer came: I needed to break things off with him if I wanted a different outcome than my mother. Obviously, the Lord might direct others to do things differently. But for my journey, the Lord made clear to me that I needed to sharply change course.

The night He answered my prayer, I got real with Heavenly Father. I bargained with the Lord, something we are not supposed to do. But I felt like our relationship was strong enough and that I could bare my soul.  He’d seen me through a lot. We had history. I told the Lord, “OK, I’ll do it.  I’m not sure how, but I’ll do it. But, Lord, thou knowest me and how much I need love. And here I have someone who I love, who loves me back.  And I’m going to give that up for thee. But, please realize that if I don’t find love again soon, I might not be able to make it. I want to do thy will. I want to do what’s right. I want the Temple. And even if love doesn’t find me again soon, I’ll try. I’ll always try. But it’s just I’m afraid that I won’t make it. Please help me.”

***

“But I’ll take the missionary discussions,” he offered.

“It’s just not going to work out,” I willed myself to say. Tears began to form in my eyes.  “Believe me, I wish with all of my heart it didn’t have to be this way.  I wish I didn’t believe, it would make things so much easier.” We both cried. We exchanged I-love-you’s and gave one last hug good-bye.

In saying good-bye to him, I laid my will on the altar of the Lord. And it was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done.

As I walked to my car I sobbed. I immediately regretted my decision.  I wanted to turn around and say, “Never mind, I take it all back. We can find a way to make it work.” Every ounce of my intuition, screamed with horror.  Subconsciously, the collective psyches of my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, weighed on me. That weight, an invisible but all consuming force, compelled me to continue in their cycle of dysfunction: choose a man who loved me, but who had little interest in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gaping hole I felt in my soul seemed almost too much to bare.  The sheer discomfort of it all made me want to vomit. “If I turn around now, I could probably catch him,” I thought.

But somehow, I didn’t go after him. A superior force came to my rescue and repeated to me the clear revelation I’d heard before: “Break it off.”  So, I drove home.

Within 6 months, Jeremy literally came knocking at my door. I honestly believe he was the reward for my sacrifice, but my happily-ever-after didn’t instantly materialize.

When Jeremy proposed, I only loved him 90%, but I said yes anyway. I couldn’t feel that extra spark for him because I was wired and nurtured to feel excited about someone who would display love the same way I saw it as a kid.  But when Jeremy came along, he was so different than anyone I’d ever dated or even met. I knew the Lord was telling me, in essence, here is your chance to have what you want. I knew in my soul that he was sent from Heavenly Father. I knew somehow we’d figure it out.

Initially in our marriage, I thought if Jeremy changed I could love him completely. If he was just more gregarious and more out-going, I could love him all the way. But a few years into our marriage, I had an epiphany that I needed to be concerned for Jeremy’s feelings. I know, big revelation, right? For the first few years of marriage, I was mostly concerned that he treated me right, with the respect I deserved.

At some point in my life, I’d become afraid to love wholeheartedly.  So, to justify not loving fully, I found faults in Jeremy. When I realized that I was the one who needed to change, and that the problem wasn’t Jeremy, it became easy to love him completely. And when I loved him for who he was, a miraculous thing happened. Between his job and callings at church, he grew and developed, and he became really good at connecting with people. Not only that, I started to notice his sense of humor more and more. I’m not sure if my loving him unconditionally allowed him to grow or if my increased love permitted me to see what had been there all along.  Anyone marrying in their early 20’s has a lot of growing up to do. I sure did. But, I’d always been introspective. That ability to look inward led me to discover what I needed to change and helped see us through the self-centered nature that I came to the marriage with.

Looking back now it's abundantly clear that it never would have worked out with my boyfriend from high school. With years of perspective, I understand that what I felt for him was the shallow exhilaration of being wanted, conflated with the weight of dysfunction tethered to me. The pain that I felt in breaking it off was a result of stepping out of the pattern I had learned, internalized and felt comfort in repeating. Sure, some of the sadness came from letting go of someone I cared about, but the soul gripping pain had nothing to do with him. It was the pain of breaking with ingrained models and losing a relationship that was comfortably following in the footsteps of my mother.  It would have been so easy to stay and avoid the pain, and say it was all for love. But that would have been lying to myself, and I knew it.  And deep down, I wanted something more.

If you know Jeremy, you understand that Heavenly Father blessed me a hundred-fold for my sacrifice.  I couldn’t have dealt with my deep-seated issues as effectively being married to any other man. Besides being dedicated to the gospel of Jesus Christ and his family, he is secure and confident without the arrogance that sometimes accompanies those traits. An insecure man would have made me feel bad when I gained weight, because an insecure man thinks of his wife as an object whose looks and accomplishments reflect his worth. When I quit diet pills for good, I knew Jeremy would love me no matter what. His unconditional love made it easier for me to name and face my irrational demons about my weight.  A lesser Mormon man would have shamed me for drinking caffeine, because he would have feared my habits might cause others to question his worth or reflect badly on him. An insecure man would have panicked when I struggled with church history and policy. Instead, Jeremy listened and didn’t try to talk me out of my concerns. He’d only offer his point of view when I asked. Through his support, I passed through a period of deep questioning about the church and came out with a stronger faith than when I began. And when periodic depression overwhelms me, and I can’t stop being sad or do the things that for most people are easy, but for me seem like monumental tasks, he loves me still.  He doesn’t make me feel that I need to be anything other than who I am.

What I have now is a relationship that is mature, full, profound.  It is one where deep trust and complete love exist which has allowed me to blossom in ways that I could never have imagined as a young woman.

Now, lest I paint our relationship too rosily, let me assure you that there are…things. Like he’s not handy around the house. His working from home this past year and a half has proved a challenge, because we’ve had to define new boundaries and expectations. I have to let him know when I want to have an in-depth conversation and then, if he’s busy working or tired we have to schedule it. This works fine when we are dealing with administrative stuff but is maddening at other times. He can be disconnected or detached, because that’s his coping mechanism. But we manage these challenges because we have a solid foundation.

Some patterns of dysfunction or “evil traditions” are less obvious than others. For some families, there might be cycles of gossiping, fault-finding, shaming, holding grudges, only including people who are “active” Mormons, judging those who leave the faith, disrespecting women, differing expectations for sons and daughters about mission and education, an emphasis on material possessions, an emphasis on appearance, or any number of misguided traditions that were passed down through family culture. Obviously, there are many ways to be dysfunctional and we won’t ever have perfect families (the idea that such a thing exists here on earth is dysfunctional). But its important to try and overcome the dysfunction that gets in the way of the happiness we truly seek.

In the end, our lives are really just the stories we tell ourselves.  And in the narrative I’ve told myself, the above story is pivotal. It is this story that is the keystone of my faith.  It is the experience that tells me that when I trust the Lord, he delivers abundantly. When I sacrificed my entire identity at 16 to come back to the church, he delivered. When I gave up who I thought to be the love of my life, he delivered. When I couldn’t get pregnant, and after almost two years of anguish, I told Heavenly Father it was fine and I’d accept his will, I got pregnant with twins.  He makes more out of my life than I ever could alone.

True Beauty

I sat on the school bus looking out the window at Kayla’s butt. It wasn’t big like my older brother and his friends had said just a few days earlier while joking and laughing about it. I was confused about their ideas of physical beauty, but still, I thought my brother’s friends had to be the coolest guys in the world.  My eyes moved to her face. She was pretty; blonde curly hair, a soft face with Scandinavian-blue eyes and a swipe of shimmery, light-pink lipstick across her lips.  I didn’t get it. Why would they say those mean things about her?  If Kayla couldn’t make the cut, then I didn’t have a chance.  I looked down at my thighs pressed against the vinyl bus seat. Too big. I scooted forward so my feet could touch the floor. I pushed my toes into the floor and lifted up my heals.  There, that way they looked thinner. I looked back out the window as we waited for the middle and high school kids to finish getting on the bus. I looked around at different girls wondering which ones were pretty and thin enough for my brother’s friends. That’s where I’d be next year, with the middle-schoolers. 

With an attractive enough face, and no particular talent as a child, I put time and energy into trying to make the most of the measure of good looks allotted to me. I learned to despise my very medium-framed body because it didn’t have the right proportions to make it desirable. I somehow decided that my best chance for love came from having an attractive appearance.

I know exactly how to make the most of my looks because, sadly, that’s where I’ve spent my 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell and others say it takes to become a master at something.  To this day, people are surprised at how different I look when I do my hair and makeup and when I don't. That’s how good I am at it.

In my early thirties, I started connecting with old friends from college on Facebook.  The thing that most of them remembered about me was how I taught them to do their makeup, pluck their eyebrows, or do their hair.  I was less than thrilled with that legacy.  Surely, I’d made a more valuable contribution to their lives then just helping them become more vain. Showing them some beauty tip was, in effect, teaching them that they too could now chase after the empty promise that beauty brings happiness and fulfillment.     

There are some women I’ve met at church, who would never be put on the cover of a magazine, but whose beauty is undeniable. They embody the definition of True Beauty that I’ve come up with: the undeniable power and light that shines forth from a woman who is truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Have you met these women? They are the ones who speak with authority and confidence. When she speaks to you personally, you feel loved, special and heard. She exudes love. This love cannot be faked; it can’t be put on and taken off. When you talk to a woman with True Beauty you have no concern with how she looks, because you know how wonderful you feel in her presence. You know to listen because her words are wise.

I took diet pills off and on since college until a couple of years ago. I used them as a means of keeping my weight in check. I took them as soon as I was done nursing each of my children.  I took them when the scale got up too high or my pants got too tight. And when I finally decided to stop taking them, I proceeded to gain those 15 pounds I hated. Over the past couple of years, I have finally had to deal with what the diet pills allowed me to postpone facing: my deepest insecurities. When I found myself stressed or feeling insecure, the urge to take diet pills was stronger than I thought it would be. But I’d committed to myself that I would abstain, so that I could finally root out the dysfunction. I was getting too old to keep up that kind of nonsense and I knew like all addictions, it was only a false promise of happiness. I wanted to radiate love to others, like these women of True Beauty, but I knew I had to first cleanse the inner vessel and truly love myself. I knew that True Beauty was nothing I could buy, have injected or photo-shopped. It couldn’t be faked.  It is earned by turning to the Lord in our pain, instead of whatever one’s means of escape may be. 

Whenever we attempt to prove we are lovable and relevant, we are like a hamster running on a hamster wheel. We get on and “hustle for our worth” (Brene Brown). Satan has us running and running but we never arrive at a place where we will be smart enough, thin enough, righteous enough, or successful enough. And pretty soon, we find ourselves stuck and afraid. We believe we’ll be too badly wounded if we try to jump from the hamster wheel.  We wonder if it’s possible to feel worthy or lovable, if we are not frantically trying to avoid the pain and discomfort that is an inevitable part of life. But, the Savior has offered a solution, a way that enables us to break free from the highs and lows of basing our worth on anything other than His ever-constant love. His words encourage us to take that leap of faith. He gently offers, “Come, follow me. My yoke is easy, my burden is light."  

What are we ensnared by?  What has us hating ourselves, or, if that’s too strong for you, what has us envying others? What has us judging others harshly?  Or, in other words, what dysfunctional behavior have we adopted in order to obtain a sense of self-worth in moments of weakness and self-doubt.  Do we work too much, do we exercise for the wrong reasons, do we gamble, do we watch TV excessively or look at social media excessively to escape, do we starve ourselves, do we look at pornography, do we go over past accomplishments in our heads, do we go over our children’s accomplishments in our heads, do we look for the wrongs in others?  What is our “drug” of choice to numb us when anxiety and pain overcome us.  If we are not turning to the Savior in moments of pain and weakness, we only beget more pain.  We are forced to explore the answers to these questions when we become sick of being ensnared.  These deeply-rooted problems we’ve created bring us to the Lord with a broken heart and contrite spirit. Then, he can begin to help us and heal us. It’s miraculous.  

Once we recognize what we need to change, and acknowledge that we cannot do it on our own, we go to the Lord in prayer.  We admit we are helpless in this endeavor, and that we rely on him. There have been so many instances over the past couple of years where I have desperately asked the Lord to take away my pain. Sometimes, it was a pain that reverberated back to child hood, whose echo sounded without warning. Sometimes, I’d just cry and feel a pain I had no explanation for. Each time I went to the Lord, he’d show me how to move through the pain. He might give me the idea to go running or write in my journal. Sometimes, He'd give me the idea to call a friend who’d know just what to say. He always held my hand and helped me walk out of the pain. And I swear, with each act of faith, I felt my character build, my resilience sharpen. I learned that feeling pain, anxiety or discomfort wouldn’t break me. Discomfort inevitably arises for each of us. When in times past we turned to our pet vice for comfort or to numb ourselves, we can instead turn to the Lord, plead for help to see “things as they really are” rather than see them from a worldly view or from the evil traditions of our fathers.  We can search for further light and knowledge in the scriptures, and wait upon the Lord. We can practice living in His paradigm rather than the worlds’, all the while praying for help and strength against Satan’s lure to trust in the “arm of flesh” for the solution.  As we put aside our dysfunctional behavior, we will see the hand of the Lord helping us, giving us knowledge and showing the way.  And we will see miracles that let us know that it is He who is sustaining us.

This process is so individual and personal and can only happen if we are willing to put in the work and the waiting.  The Lord could very well direct one person to start up an exercise program to help them while they wait upon the Lord.  On the other hand, the Lord could tell another, who is addicted to exercise, to stop all together.  The tutelage of the Savior is so precise to what each one of us needs.  And this is one reason why we should never presume to judge the actions of another.  The Lord could direct us to any number of things that come from the world, like a book, a news story, or some insight from another faith tradition.  The key is that it has been directed from the Lord and is within the bounds the Lord has set.   

Satan’s lies are in the messages that the world tells us, the messages that say we have to change first and then maybe, just maybe we will then be acceptable, or worthy of being loved.  Even if we do follow the worldly prescription and arrive at the worldly ideal, the promise is empty and we will still be wondering what more we can do to prove our worth.

The Savior’s yoke is easy, and His burden light because He loves us no matter where we are at in our journey, or no matter what we’ve done. We don’t have to change before we can get his love, assistance or support, we only have to show him our broken hearts and contrite spirits.  He says “come follow me” and “his hand is . . .outstretched.”  And when we walk with him in love and obedience, he will gently teach us that our worth is infinite.  When we understand who we really are, we will no longer have to carry the burdens the world says we have to carry.  They no longer make sense in the paradigm in which we are daughters of God who have infinite worth. We no longer must numb ourselves or try to escape the fear caused by the inevitable pain of life, because we know the Lord’s atonement can help us pass through these experiences.  We will trust that our weaknesses, pain and anxiety can teach us and change our very beings for good when we utilize the Atonement to move through them. And we will understand that we can come as we are, right now, to the Savior and know that we will be loved and accepted. Right now.

A New Take on Grace

As we learn from the Parable of the Ten Virgins, we cannot fake our way through the important challenges that life gives us. If I want to have patience, I must put in the time and work required to obtain that virtue. It is the same with charity, and all other virtues. No matter how much patience, love or kindness my spouse or my best friend or my mom has, I cannot borrow these virtues from them when my need for them turns up in my own life. Knowing this, I decided I needed to get to work “filling my own lamp”, as it were, with some needed patience and love.Thus, I recently began looking at what things in my life might be impeding my spiritual growth as well as what good habits I might be lacking.  With so many faults, it was hard to know where to begin. OF course, I needed to pray more fervently and make scripture study a priority. But in some ways what I needed was a paradigm shift: a new way of seeing my situation with my children. Let me explain. So many times, when I’m interacting with my children, they do something that irritates me or, more accurately stated, they do things that bring out my insecurities and fears.  An example might be something like Child A loses patience with Child B and proceeds to shout and call names and, if things get really bad, Child A may even hit Child B. In observing their argument, my mind flashes forward to Child A’s adult life and I wonder what her temper means for her future relationships…and will she even be able to have successful relationships? And then I speak up to solve the problem from a place of fear and insecurity, which response on occasion comes out as a shout. And then, I realize I am shouting and the guilt sets in. And in my head I begin berating myself because obviously if I had control of myself then I would be a better example and this child wouldn’t behave in this way because they’d have a good example and what is my problem and why haven’t I learned this by now and so on and so forth.  Now, episodes like these don’t always occur in my home, but they were frequent enough that I began an earnest effort to correct them. In my pleading with the Lord for help in this area the answer came through a Mormon philosopher named Adam Miller who often speaks about Grace.  Miller’s explanation of Grace is what I’d like to speak to you about briefly today.

Traditionally, we as Latter-day Saints see grace in three ways. One, we know that it is by the Grace of God through his son Jesus Christ that all who ever lived will be resurrected having their spirits and physical bodies reunited after death. Second, it is through Grace that we can overcome spiritual death through repentance and keeping the commandments. And finally, we see grace, as outlined on LDS.org, as something that “helps us every day. It strengthens us to do good works we could not do on our own. The Lord promised that if we humble ourselves before Him and have faith in Him, His grace will help us overcome all our personal weaknesses.” Adam Miller, after a series of philosophical proofs and borrowing from a definition from a French Philosopher suggests a fourth definition of grace. He says grace is also the “giveness” of life. What that means is that instead of seeing life through the lens of work where all that we do in life is to achieve one particular end or another, we would do well to see life through the lens of grace where all instances, moments, hardships or obstacles have been given specifically to us from God for our betterment or, in other words, all of our moments are a Grace from God. Each circumstance we are given is not to be judged as good or bad, but rather, we are to care for each moment and do so by acting in Charity. Elder Uchtdorf talked about this same idea in the April 2012 general conference. He shared a story about how he often rides bikes with his wife but that once and a while he gets the idea to try for a better time or to race. When he does this his wife kindly reminds him that,

“Dieter, it’s not a race; it’s a journey. Enjoy the moment.”

How right she is!

Sometimes in life we become so focused on the finish line that we fail to find joy in the journey. I don’t go cycling with my wife because I’m excited about finishing. I go because the experience of being with her is sweet and enjoyable.

Doesn’t it seem foolish to spoil sweet and joyful experiences because we are constantly anticipating the moment when they will end?

Do we listen to beautiful music waiting for the final note to fade before we allow ourselves to truly enjoy it? No. We listen and connect to the variations of melody, rhythm, and harmony throughout the composition.

Do we say our prayers with only the “amen” or the end in mind? Of course not. We pray to be close to our Heavenly Father, to receive His Spirit and feel His love.

We shouldn’t wait to be happy until we reach some future point, only to discover that happiness was already available—all the time! Life is not meant to be appreciated only in retrospect. “This is the day which the Lord hath made … ,” the Psalmist wrote. “Rejoice and be glad in it.” [Psalm 118:24.]

When we view grace in this new way, we no longer view the tasks to be done and the hardships to endure, as a difficult means to some distant intangible end.  Instead, the tasks and hardships are the deliverance of grace in and of themselves. Work itself then becomes a Grace.    

For some reason, this idea of grace resonated with me.  It sort of gave me the paradigm shift I’d been looking for.  I’d always heard the quote enjoy the journey, but up until I came upon Miller’s ideas, I never understood how exactly I could go about doing that.  I began to understand that enjoying the journey is wrapped up in this two-step process.  First, we have to strive to see each moment as a gift especially for us, as something we need in in our lives: for enjoyment, growth, or understanding.  And secondly, we care for the gift by acting in charity.

When I began trying to apply this principle, I realized how often I wasn’t engaging in so many important moments in my day to day life.  Instead of viewing something like Paloma’s refusal to put on her seatbelt on as a challenge to be endured, I could stop, view the moment as a gift, as an opportunity to grow and be charitable. And in an instant, the whole situation changes.  I suddenly gain a measure of patience that wasn’t there before and my tone changes.  Just as promised, when I open myself up to grace I am given power beyond our own.  I can do a good work for Paloma that I wouldn’t have been able to do on my own.  Paloma immediately senses the shift and lets her guard down and the power struggle fades.  No longer clouded by anger, an idea comes to my mind to have her first buckle in her baby doll in the adjacent seat, and then her own.  She agrees and we both end smiling instead of crying.  I began to realize how often I was viewing the interactions that I had with my children as moments to just get through rather than moments to be enjoyed.  If I could remember to view all situations as gifts and opportunities for growth, a distinct softening of the heart would occur.

But alas, this remembering is a hard thing to do.  I feel much like Ben Franklin when he set out to live by his 13 virtues and said “I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined.”  It was amazing to me to discover how often I am not present in the moment.  Not being present means not being able to act with the charity that a particular circumstance calls for.  Not being present means that we are not seeing the moment as a gift from God or as an opportunity that has been given to us for growth.  Miller points out three common distractions that sidetrack us from being fully present in each moment of our lives.  The distractions include: reeling over past mistakes, fantasizing or fearing the future and boredom.  I find these distractions mentioned to be fascinating because I struggle with all of them.  First of all, reeling over past mistakes.  Let me give you an example.  Last Sunday around 11 O'clock or so I got a call from Linsee Christensen.  She said, “Oh hey how are you doing?  Are you getting ready for your talk?”

“What do you mean, my talk for next week?  It’s for next week, right” Well it turned out it was not for the following week but for that very day.  I was willing to give the talk anyway, but Brother Christensen graciously stepped in and was kind enough to give me another week to prepare.  Then, a little while later I was arriving at church and I saw Sister Tikalsky carrying some food and all of the sudden I remembered having received an email a few weeks back about being in charge of snacks for the nursery at some point.  “Oh my gosh,” I thought to myself, “I totally forgot that I was supposed to bring snacks on one of these Sundays.”  Then, a little while later while enjoying Sister Moon’s Senior Sharing Time Lesson in primary, a nice young woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I still was going to join them.   “Oh yeah, sure” I replied. But I had totally forgotten that Sister Glenn had asked me to share an experience with the young woman a week earlier.  Luckily, I had some thoughts ready to share. But the point is, I’d forgotten.  And here’s where the sin of reeling over past mistakes could easily set in.  In this moment, I had a choice.  I could escape the moment of pain by easily beginning negative self-talk. I could begin berating myself for being unorganized, totally flaking, and letting people down.  Or I could remain present in the moment by seeing it as a grace from God, an opportunity for growth.  I could live in the moment by repenting and resolving to put commitments into my phone calendar.  I don’t have to waste time by wallowing in self-loathing.  It is Satan who wants us to do that.  Therefore, the negative self-talk we do is unproductive, it is being ungrateful, and it is a sin.

The same goes for fantasizing and or fearing the future.  I don’t know how many times I’ve seen one of my kids behave badly and instead of seeing the moment as a teaching opportunity, I automatically go in my head and begin to imagine how my child’s shortcomings at age 3 or 5 or 7  will manifest themselves when my children are adults.  Then, allowing the fear and anxiety that the image in my mind has created to take the forefront, I respond impatiently, or in an overly-critical way.  The better alternative is to be in the moment with the child, on their level, trying to figure out how to respond with Charity.  It takes real work to treat each moment with the care it deserves.  The moment we begin ruminating over something in our heads, we have stopped being present making it more difficult to be open into the spirit.

Boredom is another state that can block us from seeing the Grace of God.  Often we are just bored with many of the tasks or circumstances of life, so we adopt habits to try and escape or dull our sensitivities. 

Over all the task of seeing each circumstance as a grace from God, and then acting charitably is a very daunting one.  It is one and the same with the charge to “be ye therefore perfect.”  I still have a long way to go in feeling like I can respond gracefully to the daily circumstances God gives to me.  Just ask anyone in my family.  I am lucky if I remember to apply this concept a few times a day. But Latter-day Saints do not lower their standards because they are hard to achieve.  Instead, we should follow the Savior’s example in growing from grace to grace.

Sacrament Talk: Sustaining Our Leaders

Joseph Smith said that, “By proving contraries, truth is made manifest” (Mason Loc 3364).  That means that it is in the tension of seemingly opposing ideas, or paradox, that we get closer to discovering Truth. Think for a moment about Jesus’ teaching that by losing ourselves in Him, we find ourselves.  Or about the idea that through our weaknesses, God can show us our strengths.  I’ve heard people say that the scriptures contradict themselves proving them inferior.  But it is in pondering those commandments or principles that may seem at odds with one another, say, for example, grace and works, that we discover the mysteries of God. Mormon scholar Terryl Givens says that the great Mormon paradox is that of authority and agency (Mason Loc 3364).  We as a people value free agency because we know that God made it a priority for his children to have, as it is an integral part in the plan of salvation.  Yet, we Mormons also have an abiding respect for the authority that our leaders possess and defer to their decisions because we trust God’s model for governance here on the earth.  In living between the spheres of authority and free agency we glimpse the genius and omniscience of our God and Creator.  When we sustain and support our leaders while simultaneously using our free agency to receive personal revelation and claim knowledge for ourselves “truth is made manifest” in our lives.

I can wholeheartedly testify of the safety and peace that comes when we sustain the leaders of the church. However, I think there is danger when we follow without receiving our personal witness of the truthfulness about what they teach and I’ll tell you why.  There might come a day when hard doctrine is preached or difficult policies are implemented.  And if we have not already received a witness of our leaders’ words and their callings, having received a spirit-to-spirit confirmation, then we do not have a testimony on which to stand while we struggle over newer, harder doctrines and policies passed down to us.  So, we need to learn to balance the commandment to sustain our leaders with receiving personal revelation. 

I’d say that for most members, there is no real problem reconciling these two commandments.  Oftentimes, our personal revelation confirms what our leaders are telling us.  But what I’d like to stress here, is that if we are following our leaders without doing the work to receive personal revelation on what is commanded and taught, we are being lazy in our discipleship. For a long time, the saying “that when a prophet speaks the thinking is done” was propagated throughout the church.  This phrase came from an article printed in in The Improvement Era in June of 1945 as the ward teaching message. When a pastor there in Salt Lake City read the article in its entirety he wrote to President Grant to ask for clarification as he saw the message as contrary to what he knew about the church and because he also felt that the ideas made the leaders of the church look bad when he knew they were not.  President Grant wrote back and said the following:

The leaflet to which you refer, and from which you quote in your letter, was not “prepared” by “one of our leaders.” However, one or more of them inadvertently permitted the paragraph to pass uncensored. By their so doing, not a few members of the Church have been upset in their feelings, and General Authorities have been embarrassed.

I am pleased to assure you that you are right in your attitude that the passage quoted does not express the true position of the Church. Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church, which is that every individual must obtain for himself a testimony of the truth of the Gospel, must, through the redemption of Jesus Christ, work out his own salvation, and is personally responsible to His Maker for his individual acts. The Lord Himself does not attempt coercion in His desire and effort to give peace and salvation to His children. He gives the principles of life and true progress, but leaves every person free to choose or to reject His teachings. This plan the Authorities of the Church try to follow” (FairMormon).

President Grant makes it clear that we must do our part and claim truth for ourselves.

When I watch General Conference so much of what is preached reverberates with my spirit and I know it is pure knowledge, truth being spoken to my soul.  However, there might be times when I hear something and I’m like, “Really?”  Either for my soul’s lack of understanding or for a need to explore more about the principle being taught, it falls on deaf or critical ears.  It is much like when Laman and Lemual heard about the dream of their father Lehi and they were like, “No, un uh, I don’t get it.” And Nephi questioned them saying, “Did you even think to ask?” Frequently, when I study and pray about a principle that initially did not sit well with me, I find that over time I can make sense of it when I go to the Lord for understanding.  However, there are some issues that for me have remained unresolved.  In a few cases, I don’t understand why the brethren and sisters in Salt Lake have made certain decisions.  And that is ok.  I still wholeheartedly trust and sustain them because I understand that running a worldwide church is not easy.  I understand that policies must be made for reasons I cannot fully appreciate.  And mostly, I sustain them because I have received a sure testimony about so much of what they have preached and counseled us to do. Also, I’ve received abundant blessings and knowledge from following their counsel.  We are better able to sincerely sustain our church leaders when we are practiced in receiving personal revelation.  As, Patrick Mason, Chair for religious studies at Claremont University puts it in his important book, Planted, “The friction between obedience to church authority and personal agency belonging to eternal intelligences creates sparks that give energy and vitality to Mormon theology and life.”

So much of the vitality and energy of Mormon life is found right here in our stake and ward congregation. I’ve learned over the years a simple truth: when one is leading a project in the church, he or she cannot please everyone.  Someone will always have an opinion about how things should be run.  Before offering up our comfortable critique, it is best for us to remember the wise words of Teddy Roosevelt. “It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better, the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”  The beauty of the structure of the church is that we all get our chance to be in the arena as we receive different callings which then gives us more empathy and allowance to others who serve in the same callings after us.  

The very simple and obvious reminder where sustaining our local leaders is concerned, then, is to support rather than judge. It is easy for us to criticize the job others are doing.  But when we have our turn in a leadership role, we realize a little better the complexity of decision making. Others might do things differently than we would, almost certainly they would do them differently.  That is part of the genius of the way the church is organized and run.  It forces us to grow in love and patience. It is so easy to criticize and find fault.  The more difficult task is to support and sustain those whom the Lord has chosen despite any weaknesses they may have.

More often than not, our leaders make it easy to sustain and love them through all of the selfless and loving service they provide.  I remember being sixteen and coming in to meet with Bishop Regnier for the first time.  I was on my own in coming back to church.  I’d been raised in a less-active, part member family, but through primary and the love I felt from primary leaders, I’d gained a testimony as a girl that I never forgot.  So, when life seemed full of despair at age 16, I knew deep down in my soul where to go for the help I needed.  I had never met Bishop Regnier before, but when we talked in his office for the first time, I knew in a way I’d never known before that the Savior loved me.  I felt the joy of Eve when hearing about the Savior that a loving Heavenly Father had provided for me.  As Bishop Regnier continued to Shepherd me into activity in the church, he provided the coaching that my lost soul needed to learn how to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Years and years later when my husband Jeremy was called to be a leader in our ward in Mexico, I thought of my experience with Bishop Regnier. I told Jeremy, “The most important thing for you to do is to remind people that the hope and love found in Jesus Christ is infinite. Everyone, needs to know of that love and offering of the Savior, especially, when life or their decisions have clouded that knowledge and they find themselves in need of counsel.”  I am eternally grateful for the loving leaders I’ve had that have demonstrated a true understanding of the love of Jesus Christ.

So many of my sisters in the gospel have also been truly great leaders that have shepherded me through on my journey of discipleship.  So many sister-leaders have been there along the way but I will share the story of just one of the many placed in my life by a loving and aware Heavenly Father.   In the months leading up to my parents’ divorce I would cry and beg and plead with the Lord to not let it happen. I would pray, Please, Heavenly Father, I beg you, please do not let them do this. Please, oh, please…until my sobbing would eventually put me to sleep.  The Lord did not choose to step in and stop them from using their free agency and my little girl soul ached.  

Through all this turmoil I was turning 12 and needed to pass off the requirements to receive Gospel in Action award.  I found myself at Sister Knight’s house, Primary President of the Mill Road Ward in Heber City, Utah.  I was there to pass off the Articles of Faith and show her that I knew them by heart.  I didn’t have them down perfectly and needed a few hints from her here and there, but I made it through.  Just before I was about to leave she stopped me and told me, “You know, Fashion, your family may not be together the way you want them to be now, but you can make sure that the family you will have in the future is always together.”  There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this kind woman was inspired by the Holy Ghost to say these words to me.  With my parents’ divorce, my hope of having an eternal family had been obliterated, but Sister Knight gave me a new hope by reminding me of the power and gift of free agency.  My prayers begin to change that day.  I began to pray for the family I would one day have.  I began to pray that I would be able to grow up and create that eternal family.  It became the thing my deep soul desired most.  Well, life continued and more challenges and trauma occurred and my righteous desires fell dormant.  But the seeds of hope and truth had been planted in my heart.  And when I was lost as a teenager, they began to swell within me, leading me home.

I am grateful to all the leaders who have helped me along the way, and those who continue to help me and now my family too. I have been blessed as I’ve sustained my leaders and as I’ve sought for a personal witness of their teachings.  The tensions and paradox in the Gospel, and the conflicts and challenges of life have all been a gift to me from God, an invitation and opportunity to call upon the power of the Savior’s atonement, and by so doing witness in my own life the promise in Isaiah that the Lord will make “beauty for ashes.”

Works Cited

Mason, Patrick Q. Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2015.
"When the Prophet Speaks, Is the Thinking Done? - FairMormon." FairMormon When the Prophet Speaks Is the Thinking Done Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2016.