greaterthansparrows

This is February 29, a date that doesn't exist except in leap year, every four years.  Today my parents are celebrating the 15th anniversary of their engagement which will be followed in a few months by the 60th anniversary of their marriage. (Preceded a short bit by the 59th birthday of their first child, me.)  It is traditionally the one day when the woman can take the initiative in a romantic relationship, a stricture now seen as ridiculous, but it gave rise to the 'Sadie Hawkins Day' dances all over. Every one hundred years there is actually a February 30, at least that was what I always understood.  I was seriously disappointed to find out that I was going to live through a century year yet not see that double leap day because it only applies three out of every four hundred years and we didn't have a lucky one.  It turned out that if the first two digits of the century year (20) are divisible by four, you skip Century Day.  Our sun cycle is tricky, who t...

This is the first of the two sample columns I submitted in December 2009. We're in This Together      My daughter calls it the year my mother broke her back and my father broke his leg.      It started with a massive disc rupture one Sunday morning, a sudden jump from varying sciatica to screamworthy, unremitting pain.  Fearful of the emergency room bills, I endured till the next morning when my husband drove me to the doctor.  I could not stand, I could not sit, I could definitely not drive.  We decided to try to manage the situation medically, but by summer’s end and the CT scan it was clear that, terrified or not, I had two choices—surgery or be crippled for life.  We scheduled the surgery.      Ten days post-op, my family left for Utah.  Our oldest daughter had to get back for her sophomore year at BYU, and my grandmother was celebrating her 95 th birthday.  We decided that everyone should g...

( http://eyeonsparrows.blogspot.com/2012/01/funny-thing.html see how I got started on this.) As to the title, you thought you knew me already? I dug up my submissions for my first try at reader columnist, in December 2009.  I will run one of them tomorrow, but here is my attempt at 'tell us a little about yourself' which went in with them.  Add two years to the ages quoted, though if you want to freeze me at the age of 56 I won't fight you, and be advised that SOTA stands for School of the Arts, SAIL is a self-contained (full-time) gifted program for the last two years of elementary school.  Bryant is one of the economically poorest schools in the city, and became first a magnet arts school, lost that funding, then a public Montessori school.  It was our neighborhood elementary.  Oh, and we have five grandchildren now, with two more on the way. I tried to imagine what might make me register as an individual to the newspaper committee.  The health care...

When the angel announces to the shepherds that a Savior is born in Bethlehem, Luke records that,"suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men.' " (Luke 2:13-14)  Those two verses have been set to music so many times, it is impossible to think of them any other way, despite the lack  of the verb 'singing' in the text. I wonder sometimes how that manifestation appeared to the shepherds, who were invited to be the first witnesses of the birth of the promised Messiah.  Was there a definitive number, huge, but distinct?  Was there a host so large that the limits could not be seen as they stretched out into a mistiness beyond vision (I know, Hollywood) but powerfully real to spirit even beyond eyes?  Who got to be there, and how were they chosen?  What must that have been like to see and experience, from both the fields and the heavens? Did I ...

Back in the day, BYU Education Week used to travel out into the world, and one of the places it came to was Washington, DC., where I lived, and my parents used to write me an excuse for school and take me with them.  (We debated on the wording of the note and settled on, "Please excuse Marian from school to attend a series of special lectures.")  It was fabulous--we got to hear Reid (music prof) and Hugh Nibley, Truman Madsen, Avard Fairbanks (sculptor) and lots of other notables. One whose name I don't remember had a unique conversion story.  He grew up Southern Baptist in the Bible Belt, and was bombarded with hellfire and brimstone every Sunday as his parents dragged him to church.  As soon as he was of age, he joined the army and shipped out, glad to escape the verbal burnings, and sure that they were not true messages of God if there was a God.  One of his bunkmates was a little odd--the fellow didn't go out with them on liberty to hit the bars, he didn't...

We all have things that are demarcation points in our lives.  Some we anticipate, even expect:  leaving home for the first time, getting married, having children.  We know that life will not be the same, before and after. Some are things we don't expect and wouldn't choose.  Cancer, death of a child, our home burning down, we could make a list.  The bad ones tend to overshadow the good ones when we consider life-altering events, though the joys change our lives too.  We just tend to take them more for granted. For me, one of the significant demarcation points was what is referred to around here as the "original accident."  "Original" because it was the first and worst of four times that I have been rear-ended.  Without that damage to my body, the last one, in fact, would have been a non-event in terms of harm. My best friend, Barbara, and I were going to the temple.  She usually drove into town to me, and then I would drive us to the te...

The sister giving the opening prayer for Relief Society began, "We thank thee for the blessing of coming together to feast at the table of thy love."  Our teacher and many others in the room opened our hearts to share what our testimonies of the Prophet Joseph Smith mean in our lives. Why a "simple farm boy?"  Why not?  My  mind always goes to the prophet Samuel.  He was taken to live and serve in the temple as a very young child, and was still a child--age not given--when he was called by the voice of the Lord and responded, as directed by Eli,  "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth."  John the Baptist was ordained by an angel when eight days old for his mission (Doctrine & Covenants 84:28), and Jesus the Messiah was born in a stable, not to the king of Judea.  Seems to me that God has a pattern of placing his most remarkable servants in simple places. I thought about his age.  Joseph Smith grew up as part of a strong family who knew...

I had the chance to be a grandmother again.  No, none of my children had a baby, though there are two babies on the way.  I went with a wonderful sister in our ward for her first time at the temple, and she gave me her grandmother's name.  She has been actively involved doing baptisms for her family, she has been filled with the excitement of family research, and she was anxious to be taking a further step to bring the gospel's blessings into her own life and to her family members.  She felt that she knew and loved so many as she found their records and identity. I asked her if she was sure she didn't want to wait and do this service for her grandmother herself, but she told me to go ahead.  I thought as we commenced that it might be a joy to know that she and her grandmother obtained those blessings on the same day, at the same time.  As I looked at the record, I saw that this grandmother was born just a few days before my own father.  My father is ...

My father knows how to throw a party.  When he's in charge, you can count on a good time.  He has given out invitations to a unique celebration, and I would surely go if I could get there without an airplane. What is the occasion?  The fifteenth anniversary of his engagement to my mother, whom he married in 1952.  Wait a minute, you say, that does not compute!  But stop and remember what year this is--leap year.  He proposed on Boston Common on a cold February 29, even though it was supposed to be a Sadie Hawkins-type prerogative, that on that day it was the woman's right to propose marriage.  Such quaint conventions have gone by the board today, which is probably just as well. He picked the day, he says, so that if he was required to remember it, he would be able to.  Since my mother is more a practical person than a fluff and flutter person, he was probably safe on that score; she was not the type to flee in tears because he fumbled on a mem...

This was us, so long ago.  Would you recognize us, I wonder?  Yes, I did have contacts, for a year.  Yes, his hair was black, and yes, his face was thin.  38 years and counting, this picture was taken for our wedding announcements when we were young and had little idea of what life would bring.  But we have faced it all together, and raised our children, battled illness and injury, and served the Lord to the best of our ability.  We may be more weathered now, but like the Velveteen Rabbit, we are thoroughly real.  Love to all, always.

Happy Birthday, Carole! Today is our youngest daughter's birthday.  The youngest of the family is 21.  Note that I deliberately do not call her the baby of the family--she has not been a baby for a long time.  Carole is the youngest, a distinction I insist upon if anyone comments that she is the 'baby', a distinction which she finds humorous rather than crucial, but that might be because I have never introduced her as 'the baby' and made her roll her eyes, all grown up as she is.  My father was the youngest of three brothers and hated being referred to as the baby, so my mother made this same distinction with my youngest brother, simply smiling and saying to whomever that he hadn't been a baby since he turned three. Somehow various people over the years have confused us, calling me Carole.  Now, I am used to being identified as (name of child)'s mom, but I have never been addressed by their names.  Once I filled out an order for baking supplies from th...

This is Saturday, and the funeral of two little boys was this morning.  Killed without any expectability by their father as he set the house ablaze, the loss of their young lives has garnered national attention.  The service today was moved to a larger-capacity church for the sake of allowing all who wanted to mourn to be able to come.  Precisely and only because it was attracting national press, the Westboro Baptist Church, which is neither Baptist nor Christian in any form recognizable to anyone else, declared their intention to come demonstrate because of the Washington state legislature's passage of a gay marriage bill, an action I disagree with, but that is a question for another day.  That issue has nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of these two lively, happy little boys.  One can only suppose that Josh Powell could not bear the fact that they would someday know and comprehend the dark places in their father's heart, so he brought their earthly exis...

Paul starts all his letters with the salutation of peace and grace to the Saints; in II Timothy, he declares:"Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord."  Timothy holds a tender place in his heart, so this salutation is personal.  Peter's first epistle enjoins "Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied." Do we find that grace and peace are multiplied in our lives?  (Do I hear someone out there laughing on the edge of hysteria?  Several someones?)  Are we mindful of grace?  How do we find peace in our busy crazy lives, much less multiply it? The best definition of grace I ever heard was offered by a Sunday School teacher when I was in high school.  He said grace could be understood in three words:  "and Christ came."  All that we were unable to do, all the help we needed to become pure enough to return to our Father, all the burden which had to be borne for us, all that we so needed--he loved us and valued us so ...

Lucile Johnson, an LDS family therapist and writer, was in Tacoma a couple of times, years ago, for a BYU Know Your Religion program (I miss those) and for local women's conferences.  One talk about the principle of obedience I would like to think about today. She said that there is always a lot of talk about blind obedience vs. informed obedience.  We can see that issue on people's minds now, under the surface, with the push-and-pull between those who label the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a cult and those who protest that declaration.  The common person's definition of a "cult" would be a religious group which follows a charismatic  leader (probably a charlatan), has a system of beliefs which are outside the mainstream (in other words, weird and strange) and demands blind obedience from its followers.  Actually, the common person's definition of a cult might not be that particular--just a group they think of as "a bunch of nuts!"  ...

Well, the two of them are on their way home.  G-1 and G-2 are getting on a plane to cross the country overnight while daddy hopes baby will sleep. I won't have to push the mouse away from the front of the computer desk, and push the chair carefully into position even if I am only leaving the computer for a minute.  I can do dishes any time of the day I need to, because no little feet will come running when they hear the door pull down, or try to climb onto that door, or grab unerringly for whatever object in the silverware rack is sharpest, and thus hazardous.  The legos will go back into the attic room, the playpen will be folded up, the high chair can be returned to its owners and the dropcloth can be washed and retired.  I don't have to make sure that nothing is left resting near the counter's edge. I will not be buying whole milk anymore, only nonfat. The tendinitis in my elbows will probably calm back down, and my therapy visits (deep tissue massage, not psyc...

My little grandson has grown from crawling and pulling up to walking while he has been here.  Things that roll, things that make sound, things that stack up capture his attention.  Preschool legos have been the most enduring interest to him of what we have available. He is actively in what I term the "guzinta" stage, with apologies to Beverly Cleary's Ramona (who wanted to learn why '2 guzinta 4,' when she got to go to school.).  He has busily, constantly manipulated objects, tossed them into other objects, dumped them all, or extracted them one by one.  Legos are great, he realized very quickly that they could be mashed together, and caught on that the little circles had to all be on top for that to work.  We built towers, walls, silly-looking formations, he took them apart.  He carried them to us to add on, and tossed them down. They also plop into their bucket, they plop into bowls, they plop into anything you can find. Some of them roll, because they ...

We had a chance to go to the temple today, and there was a sister on the organ in the chapel.  It's very nice when there is a live person offering the quiet music, instead of a programmed automated sequence.  As we passed through the door to leave the chapel, my husband turned his head to the organist and mouthed, "thank you."  She smiled and nodded, and was happy to be part of the reverence of that place. It made me remember another sister who used to play the organ as a temple worker.  She was our ward choir director for over 30 years, and was only released because she was called as Relief Society president--and even then, she did both for several months until the bishop, gently, lovingly, sat her down in private and told her she needed to be released from the choir.  It was quite wrenching for her.  Our times of service are normally much more limited. She was called as Relief Society president at the age of 70, semi-retired as bookkeeper to a small m...

Wednesday is my teaching day, and today was Doctrine & Covenants 45, which is the Savior's reiteration of what he told his apostles in Matthew 24 about the last days and then the continuation of more knowledge.  There are a number of things here, and we thought and talked about many of them.  One is the promised return of Enoch and his city when the Lord comes. We are so fortunate to have a greater record of Enoch beyond Genesis, where the record has been mostly lost. When I was younger, if you had asked me how long Enoch preached, I would have said, a long time, a generation I suppose--which would have meant to me 20, 30, maybe 40 years.  I would have believed 50 or 60 if you insisted.  But the true number of years during which Enoch preached, taught, rallied and purified his people was (drumroll, please):  365 years...one year equivalent for each day of a single year.  It not only didn't happen overnight, which I understood, it didn't happen in a ce...