Today is a good day to think of my life at this time, particularly the past couple of days. Last night I went to Book Club. I love this group. It is eclectic and diverse. We discussed the book The Glass Castle. I loved the exchange of ideas and the respect given to each other. I am so glad that Carol had the idea to start the group and that I can be in it. I say "can" because there will be times when I will have to make a choice. My poetry group meets the same night next book club is scheduled to happen. It will be interesting to see how it will unfold, how I will balance my time with two activities that I enjoy. I will continue to read the assigned book. And then if I can't be there in person, I will make a blog entry about my impressions of the book. For next month we are reading Tisha, "the story of a young teacher in the Alaskan wilderness". That same morning, I went to the temple with Joan. She is a wonderful friend. She inspires me to hang in there and to do good things for others. I love so many things about her that it's hard to name the many ways she helps me. Yesterday, it was a ride, dropping me off at the door, and putting up with slow walking. And, as always, she gives common sense and laughter. Today the Family History Center was the destination. The work of entering names into my computer file was calling. And dear Pat. If family history work had done nothing more than give me Pat as a friend, it would have been worth everything. How do you express adequately the love received from friends? Alice was there too, my friend and traveling companion on the trip to Wales. And the spirit was nourishing, as always. Art, my companion in good times and bad. How blessed I am to still have him in my life. Being 71 and awaiting knee surgery is not so bad when he is here, steady and compassionate beside me. We had lunch today with Heather on her day off. Since this post seems to be about friends, I am so blessed to have our children become my friends, too. I have been observing the loneliness of others who have lost their spouse. I can't really know, but it pains me to see how hard it is for them. Their courage gives me hope that I can face what is before me with a bit more strength and grace. Sometimes because Art and I are somewhat handicapped by his painful hip and my knee, I feel sorry for myself and think I am definitely homebound. But as I write this, I realize that is not true. Thanks to all the people mentioned here, and more, we get out and about. And the future holds hope and promise. After all, our greatest friend, the Savior, offers even greater blessings than these. It is a "good Friday". And may it be an even better Easter.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Kimberly, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter
When I was expecting my third child, the due date was very close to St. Patrick's Day. Because of that, and because we liked the name, if the baby was a girl we planned to give her the middle name of Erin. She was born three days before March 17th but it was close enough. For some reason, we seemed to give birth on Sunday, but Kimberly came on Saturday because the Dr. suggested starting the labor then. After being born, she did not squinch her eyes at the light but opened them and looked around. As they wheeled us to recovery, she was still wide-eyed and alert. This year, Kimberly's birthday (March 14th) has come and gone and St. Patrick's Day as well. For the sake of convenience, she has chosen to have her party on Easter which comes early this year. It seems to me to be an appropriate day to celebrate new life and rebirth together. I am grateful for Kimberly, for her gifts, for her tender heart and for her ability to love. And as I think of it, for many other qualities too numerous to name. Happy Unbirthday, honey.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Are We Prepared?
"The average guy on the street has nothing to worry about, there should be no panic whatsoever." – Gerard Cassidy, banking analyst
The headline today says, "Will your money be safe if the bank fails?" The people interviewed for the article are saying "yes". And yet...Art and I grew up as depression babies. We have a memory of the anxiety of our families as they dealt with difficult financial issues. We are evaluating our own readiness for a more challenging financial future. So, because of that, I have a couple of links to lessons on personal finance. (Check out "Roving the Internet" on the right column of this blog.) It may be time to get serious about the old truisms, "Pay as you go, save for a rainy day, get out of consumer debt." I think the advice regarding "no panic" is valid. I also think that rather than worry, I would like to thoughtfully and step by step become more self-sufficient and stable regarding our stewardship over the resources we have. Repairs and food storage are on our list of items to focus on. What about you?
The headline today says, "Will your money be safe if the bank fails?" The people interviewed for the article are saying "yes". And yet...Art and I grew up as depression babies. We have a memory of the anxiety of our families as they dealt with difficult financial issues. We are evaluating our own readiness for a more challenging financial future. So, because of that, I have a couple of links to lessons on personal finance. (Check out "Roving the Internet" on the right column of this blog.) It may be time to get serious about the old truisms, "Pay as you go, save for a rainy day, get out of consumer debt." I think the advice regarding "no panic" is valid. I also think that rather than worry, I would like to thoughtfully and step by step become more self-sufficient and stable regarding our stewardship over the resources we have. Repairs and food storage are on our list of items to focus on. What about you?
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The I Can
The I Can is a literal can which is a small reminder of the store Michelle owned. The story of the end of the store is not a happy one, but the cards of personal affirmation which are inside the can are something I enjoy and thought I'd pass along. On the days when I remember, I will post a new one. Now if I could just remember how to set that up! I DID IT! Is it redundant to say, "I can"?
Monday, March 10, 2008
Kathleen Flake: Mormon and Intellectual
Today I went on the internet to verify my belief that Kathleen Flake is LDS. I found a wonderful interview using Google. The site mentioned PBS American Experience and Frontline and this is a partial copy of an interview with her. I think bits and pieces of it were in the telecast "The Mormons". I recommend reading the article/interview which I found just by typing in her name. I suspect that her academic life in history was helpful in writing the forward I posted. As you may have noted, she was wonderfully even-handed in expressing herself which is part of what I admired.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Wish I'd Written It
You know when you read something that is so good you wish you had written it? That's the way I felt when I read this as a forward from Kathleen Campbell, one of my poetry group friends. After I stopped feeling envious of the writing skills, I was just plain grateful that someone wrote it! If you want to try the address for yourself here it is: http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive.2008/0207.shtml If you have no better luck than I did with retrieving, here is the printer-friendly version.
How to Bury a Prophet
— Kathleen Flake
The Latter-day Saints buried their prophet on Saturday. Thousands attended the service in person and millions more faithful watched in chapels around the globe, as well as on the internet. What they saw was an unusually personal ceremony for a very public man who led and to large degree defined the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Notwithstanding the numbers and titles of participants, Gordon Hinckley's funeral was a family affair both in word and sacrament. It was an extraordinary display of what makes Mormonism tick.Gordon Hinckley died at the age of ninety-seven, having been in the church's leading councils since 1958 and serving as its fifteenth president since 1995. He shaped the church through a half century of growth in one hundred and seventy countries. A third of its present membership joined during his tenure as president. Displaying remarkable vigor late in life, he met with church members on every continent, responding to their needs with curricular, welfare, and building programs whose costs are impossible to imagine and no one will admit. He met the press to a degree unequaled and with an openness heretofore unknown among Mormonism's leadership. This effort too was largely successful. No less a cynic than CBS's Mike Wallace admitted that Hinckley "fully deserves the almost universal admiration that he gets." He was, as Newsweek's Jon Meacham said, "a charming and engaging man, an unlikely prelate — and all the more impressive for that." The same could be said of his funeral. Hinckley's funeral was an unlikely but impressive mix of the sacramental and the mundane, in large part because it observed Mormonism's custom that families bury their dead. The family designs the memorial program, participates actively in it, and performs the ordinances that send their loved ones off to the next life. Yes, the chapel in this case was the LDS Conference center that held 21,000 mourners; the lay pastor who conducted the meeting was Thomas Monson, Hinckley's presumptive successor as "prophet, seer, and revelator;" and the music was provided by the three-hundred-plus member Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But, in all other essentials, the service was performed by the family. A son gave the invocation. Monson conducted at the request of the family, he said, not by ecclesiastical right. The eulogy was given by a daughter who described her father's life as half-way point in a now seven-generation story of sacrifice, death, and survival that is the Mormon saga. Explicitly gathering the millions watching into that story, she declared "we are one family sharing an inheritance of faith." Friends with high titles spoke next. Though the requisite list of Hinckley's ecclesiastical accomplishments was given, it was subordinated to his success as a courageous and amusing friend and a successful husband and father. Another daughter gave the benediction: "We are buoyed by the knowledge that we will see him again as family, as friends."Hinckley's sons and daughters with their spouses led the casket out of the hall and between an honor guard of church authorities. Cameras followed the mourners, focusing on his five children, twenty-five grandchildren and sixty-two great-grandchildren who formed the cortege to the cemetery. There, possibly most surprisingly, the eldest son dedicated the grave without fanfare. Notwithstanding the presence of the entire church hierarchy, the son stepped forward to pronounce: "By the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood, I dedicate this grave for the remains of Gordon B. Hinckley, until such time as thou shall call him forth." Then, church leaders were "dismissed," as Monson put it. As the church teaches is the case in the afterlife, only the family remained. Families are, as Latter-day Saints like to say, forever. What they don't say is that the church is not forever. It is only the instrument for endowing families with the right and duty to mediate the gifts of the gospel to their members, thereby sealing the willing among them as families in the life to come. This was Hinckley's message as a prophet. As he would have it and as the best Mormon funerals do, his message was embodied and enacted by his family who blessed him in death, no less than in life. This is how the Latter-day Saints, at least, bury a prophet.Kathleen Flake is an associate professor of American Religious History at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion.
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
How to Bury a Prophet
— Kathleen Flake
The Latter-day Saints buried their prophet on Saturday. Thousands attended the service in person and millions more faithful watched in chapels around the globe, as well as on the internet. What they saw was an unusually personal ceremony for a very public man who led and to large degree defined the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Notwithstanding the numbers and titles of participants, Gordon Hinckley's funeral was a family affair both in word and sacrament. It was an extraordinary display of what makes Mormonism tick.Gordon Hinckley died at the age of ninety-seven, having been in the church's leading councils since 1958 and serving as its fifteenth president since 1995. He shaped the church through a half century of growth in one hundred and seventy countries. A third of its present membership joined during his tenure as president. Displaying remarkable vigor late in life, he met with church members on every continent, responding to their needs with curricular, welfare, and building programs whose costs are impossible to imagine and no one will admit. He met the press to a degree unequaled and with an openness heretofore unknown among Mormonism's leadership. This effort too was largely successful. No less a cynic than CBS's Mike Wallace admitted that Hinckley "fully deserves the almost universal admiration that he gets." He was, as Newsweek's Jon Meacham said, "a charming and engaging man, an unlikely prelate — and all the more impressive for that." The same could be said of his funeral. Hinckley's funeral was an unlikely but impressive mix of the sacramental and the mundane, in large part because it observed Mormonism's custom that families bury their dead. The family designs the memorial program, participates actively in it, and performs the ordinances that send their loved ones off to the next life. Yes, the chapel in this case was the LDS Conference center that held 21,000 mourners; the lay pastor who conducted the meeting was Thomas Monson, Hinckley's presumptive successor as "prophet, seer, and revelator;" and the music was provided by the three-hundred-plus member Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But, in all other essentials, the service was performed by the family. A son gave the invocation. Monson conducted at the request of the family, he said, not by ecclesiastical right. The eulogy was given by a daughter who described her father's life as half-way point in a now seven-generation story of sacrifice, death, and survival that is the Mormon saga. Explicitly gathering the millions watching into that story, she declared "we are one family sharing an inheritance of faith." Friends with high titles spoke next. Though the requisite list of Hinckley's ecclesiastical accomplishments was given, it was subordinated to his success as a courageous and amusing friend and a successful husband and father. Another daughter gave the benediction: "We are buoyed by the knowledge that we will see him again as family, as friends."Hinckley's sons and daughters with their spouses led the casket out of the hall and between an honor guard of church authorities. Cameras followed the mourners, focusing on his five children, twenty-five grandchildren and sixty-two great-grandchildren who formed the cortege to the cemetery. There, possibly most surprisingly, the eldest son dedicated the grave without fanfare. Notwithstanding the presence of the entire church hierarchy, the son stepped forward to pronounce: "By the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood, I dedicate this grave for the remains of Gordon B. Hinckley, until such time as thou shall call him forth." Then, church leaders were "dismissed," as Monson put it. As the church teaches is the case in the afterlife, only the family remained. Families are, as Latter-day Saints like to say, forever. What they don't say is that the church is not forever. It is only the instrument for endowing families with the right and duty to mediate the gifts of the gospel to their members, thereby sealing the willing among them as families in the life to come. This was Hinckley's message as a prophet. As he would have it and as the best Mormon funerals do, his message was embodied and enacted by his family who blessed him in death, no less than in life. This is how the Latter-day Saints, at least, bury a prophet.Kathleen Flake is an associate professor of American Religious History at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion.
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Sharing Books
One of my daughter’s friends had a link on her blog which interested me. The name: PaperBackSwap.com/. Joining this group has been a real break-through for me. You see, I have so many books that the shelves are overflowing into precious living space. But could I let them go? No. Not without a strange panic that was truly overwhelming. But something had to be done. This site has made a difference. I post the books I decide to share, even if only a few. Sometimes it is just the book someone else has been waiting to have. That feels great! I put the posted books on a particular shelf. I mail off the ones selected by others. The others rest on the shelf until a month or so has passed. By then I have mentally let them go, so it is easy to send them off to the thrift store. And the process starts over. I now have 9 credits so I could (if I wanted to) ask for books from others in the group. I do have 3 books on my wish list, but so far they haven’t been posted by anyone else. I’m making an offer: if you want to use one of my credits for a book, I will send away for it. Or better yet, start your own account. They give you two free credits to begin, then you go from there. This has been more than a fun experience. It has been enlightening. In more ways than one.
