Multiply and replenish the Earth

Genesis 1:28

I had a breakthrough of understanding about these words the other day. It was during conversations where we were projecting our children's future and also touching on the subject of our own effectiveness as human beings to serve and love and help the people around us and talking about another couple we know who are dynamic in the way they serve together because their efforts are completely synchronized.

One idea was that much of life is spent just living, taking care of our own needs, economically, physically, maintaining a house, keeping things ordered and clean, that in a way we are limited to how much we can really help other people. My husband and I are only two people after all, how can we make that big of a difference in the world?

Pair that with how we think of our children. We are so pleased with how they are now and what they are becoming. It is absolute delight to see them working together, serving each other, being responsive and compassionate when one of them are hurt or sad, and to hear their thoughts as they express testimony of truth and right. Physically they are beautiful, intellectually they amaze us, spiritually they are sweet and pure. We feel blessed and grateful just about every time we watch them. (I hope they know this even when I am correcting them. Sometimes I may be a little harsh, but the intent is the concern for the end product, and I am working on making the two match a little better.)

I know the world is full of scary things and we don't hide reality from our children, but I think they will turn out to be great people who love and serve humankind. We recognize that they will each have their own decisions to make, but are so glad that they will have one another for support and help throughout their lives.

In training and teaching our children we multiply our own effectiveness as mortals. The world is replenished through the actions of those who love and serve....this is the future we see for our children.

This is what my Mother feeds us

It is super nice to have my Mom here to help out before baby Oliver is born.  It is good to have someone to talk to.  One of the images I will remember from today is watching her on the treadmill at the gym with her done hair and make up and non-black-more-formal-than-normal workout clothes.  It is great how we can divide and conquer at the grocery store while balancing children that are ready for naps.  It is amazing to see how clean a thorough vacuum job makes the house feel.  The children even have attention as they practice piano and do chores, and someone who will play a game with them.  There was even time for me to join in a game today without feeling like there was something else I needed to be doing as far as work around the house goes.  Today was a good day.  Yesterday she was also kind as she managed my stressed-outness as I had several hours of contractions and worried about my husband not making it in time....before everything calmed down,  and....no baby yet.

Wanting Violence

A while ago I read an article about the riots over the "accidental" burning of copies of the Koran on a US military facility. One of the reporters covering the story interviewed a person who was part of the activity and that person's statement shocked me. "We do not want a peaceful protest," he said, " We want violence."

How could someone actually want violence? I thought to myself. What kind of culture would produce an individual like that? Of course we categorize the violence that comes out of that area of the world, and somehow it is part of how we think of "them" as being uncivilized, uneducated, backwards, even irreligious.

We are nothing like that, we say from our chairs as we watch the news or read it on the computer. Something like that wouldn't happen here, we are better than that....we think, and justify our own culture and society. It wasn't much longer that I was reading the preview for a new movie that was coming out. The producer/director was responding to a question about it being too violent and he said something like "This is definitely and R rating, we did not want a PG-13, yes it is violent but you just have to take it and move on with it."

Essentially he was saying the same thing as the other man. He wanted violence too, and for an even worse reason/cause...for entertainment.
How could a society of peaceful law abiding citizens who work and earn their living and pay taxes and go to the park with their kids support a real culture of violence in movies/games? Aren't we aware of the danger? Aren't we more civilized, educated, forward thinking, religious? Do we want violence too? What a horrible thought.

I have heard it said that our country's biggest export is our culture. The movies we make go everywhere, influence the brains, thoughts, and actions of people all over the world. Is this the real America? Can people really be so ignorant when they read or watch something violent to suppose that it isn't real, that it won't change them into violence-loving-beings?

Going Deep

How long does it take to become a true friend?
I have had moments in the last couple of days when the value of another being is so remarkably apparent, so illuminated by their own acts of service, when those beings are being true to their own ideals, true to their own selves and true friends. What incredible times those are that tie us to our brothers and sisters here on this earth. Thank you.
My heart is forever softened and grateful to see and know these friends in this light.

I like to go deep with people.
I want to know how people think, how they respond to something, not just what they fill their leisure time with. I love to find intelligent, caring, thoughtful, questioning friends.
I love learning about their histories and how they have come to deal and think about life.

I love to be a listener, but how can I get someone to talk to me who I want so desperately to be a friend to? How much time does that take, to really understand and value a person?
A moment of kindness, a word, a phrase indicates an open heart, and that is fulfilling in relationships, and more valuable than gifts....but harder to write thank you notes for....

How do we move beyond chatter into the real stuff? It is the real stuff that connects us, well at least me...the other things make me feel very alone in this world....
I hope to be a better friend to the sisters around me.

I guess I am feeling very serious tonight. I guess that kind of face might stop conversation in its tracks anyway.

I'll be glad when my best friend comes home from his business trip, he has a way of lightening my seriousness.

That Moment

There is a moment I have been waiting for my whole life. I think I heard it first described by astronauts for the USA. The description was something like this...."I knew I was doing what I came to do." It is a moment of affirmation of purpose, of a life's mission. Astronauts undergo months of training, repeating tasks over and over so that when the moment arrives for them to do it for real they can do it perfectly. As I have analyzed and waited for my moment to come, I have had thoughts that the process of intensive and focused training may contribute to how they feel in "That Moment". I have heard it described by other professionals as they do what is fundamentally themselves, a fulfillment of who they are. I thought that I would have to wait a long time for that moment to happen in my life, for when I have an advanced degree and a career doing what makes my heart and mind alive. I didn't anticipate that it would happen tonight. I was singing my children to sleep, snuggling the littlest ones, holding the hand of my daughter, feeling the movements of Oliver when it happened. I knew this is what I came to earth for. It is who I am. It was a perfect moment.

Each life that touches ours for good

I have to admit, I have been avoiding making social commitments lately. Waking seven times a night to use the potty or to try to find a comfortable position makes me really need nap time after kindergarten and be very grateful for my boy's bedtime of 7:30.
Physical needs just overcome social needs....almost. The wonderful thing is that those few seconds when my life does communicate with "those who love" gives me so much happiness and courage "enrich our days" and makes me remember how wonderful friends are and makes me want to spend more time together...when I can give a little back too.

The impossible dream

Monday, for president's day holiday, our Stake had a goal.
Do you remember last October when our goal as a Stake was to index a million names to digitalize census records and make them available for free for people to research their family histories? Well we did it, and surpassed the goal. So for one day we were going to do it again and see how many we could do in one 24 hour period. However, we received notice that there was a bottleneck in the system dealing with arbitration. When a name is indexed or made digital, it is done more than once for quality assurance. If there is a discrepancy in what is typed an arbitrator has to decide which characters are right. So every adult in our stake who had indexed more than 800 names was made an arbitrator and we had training to help us do the job right, and the goal was changed for the 24 hour period to see if we could arbitrate one million names.

It was a lofty goal and it took some convincing for me to believe it was possible and to throw my own efforts behind it, but I have to admit I caught the fervor of it and was dedicated and excited to try to make it work. I was humming Don Quixote's "To dream the impossible dream" all afternoon as I prepared for the five o'clock starting time. I was glad that we had leaders who didn't mind challenging us to something that seems a little crazy. What ended up happening was that we crashed the system....multiple times and the project was cancelled officially just a few hours after it started. I finished my first batch of ten census records (25 names each) and called it good for the night, though I was a little shocked that it was over, and relieved because it is painful to sit that long with my pregnant belly.
Lor went to work the next day and I finished sewing my daughter's costume, my first try at a folkloric dress based on e-how instructions online. My calculations for circumference and radius were right, I just forgot that it was a double circle so the ruffle should have been doubled in length as well, but it all worked out anyway because if it had been a full ruffle, the skirt would have been too heavy to hold up there is so much material in it. As I sewed and checked Facebook through the day, I noticed that a few people were still persisting in the original goal and I was glad for them, though I didn't do any more.

I was also looking at more houses and neighborhoods online and feeling depressed about the idea of buying a house that, in our boundaries, are too big and ill designed with yards that are too small for gardens. It made me feel trapped just to imagine it. That feeling has been with me most of the week. I know that it is silly to be so particular in what I feel is a trial when people are dying in Sudan and Somalia, when there is war and pain and destruction in so many places. Why am I complaining about having to buy a home in Suburbia?

I did have an idea before we even moved here for an internship. Do you remember? It was for us to live on a property by the river and somehow gain access/permission for Lor to kayak on the water route over the nature preserve that would take him to work. I can feasibly still imagine that if we took water samples or cleaned up the invasive species a certain amount each day we could have that permission and live that way. To live over there would be so far removed from the thoughts and behaviors of how people live a regular suburban life. We wouldn't be as integrated in people's lives. Lor drops by to visit people on his bike ride home from work. I enjoy conversations and neighborly moments when our lives cross paths. There is quite a group who meet regularly at the gym, park, volunteer at the school, go back and forth to children's activities...all of those things would be replaced in our lifestyle with things like scientific experiments, gardening/farming, taking care of animals and the land, and commuting....hopefully still by bike and boat, but for night time activities or shopping trips it would still be by automobile, and it would take more time. Perhaps it would make us less serviceable to our fellow human beings. Is that more important than being true to the impossible dream?

Adventures are different than settling down. I can bear it mentally to live in a different country or a completely urban environment as long as I think of it as being "for a few years". How can I bear it mentally to know I am buying into a system of housing that I completely disagree with philosophically and physically? I am holding onto the idea that God knows me, and my family and the things we need to experience and grow and live and learn. I am hoping that everything will work out right.