greaterthansparrows

The minimum grade which will get you credit for a class in high school is a D.  The minimum score which will get you that D is 60.  As in, 60 out of 100.  Now, my children will agree that 60% was never an acceptable score in our family, because we the parents knew that they could do better.  It's not a very high bar.  But in terms of pass or fail, 60 will get you squeaked through, and 59 will fail you. The standard heaven-or-hell concept before Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon received the vision which became Doctrine & Covenants 76 was essentially a pass/fail concept.  If you earned the equivalent of 60%, you were in heaven; only 59%, you were consigned to hell.  That doesn't even address the issue of what happens to those who never had the chance of any knowledge of Jesus Christ, who were assumed to go to hell, lost forever, no matter how good and worthy they might be otherwise. One great key to this vision, as is so often the case, is that...

Some people wake up in the morning and jump out of bed with a glad cry.  I have to confess that I am not one of them.  Sometimes I move only because I know it's necessary.  When I have slept well, it's much easier, and I can be reasonably awake right off the bat, but good sleep is hard to come by most of the time, because of pain issues. Right now I am forced to have a quiet day because my right ankle has decided to be the trouble spot.  On Monday, for the first time in quite a while, I was able to get through both of my water exercise classes, all the way to the end of the second one.  I have been coming close, but not all the way; on Monday and Friday I have a water yoga class before the M-W-F water aerobics class that I have been doing for years since my back surgeries.  So, yay! for Monday.  I came out of the YMCA hungry and suddenly ready to fall over, but that's okay, there was food and a nap at home.  Tuesday I caught a break in the rain ...

This is the other sample column I submitted to the News Tribune last year, along with this one .  When I wasn't selected, but came close.  So, I get to offer it now:  Life can turn on the smallest things.              An older woman I loved and admired died because she wouldn’t let go of a bottle of peaches.              It was a little more complicated than that, of course.  She was bringing up the peaches from the basement, lost her footing, and fell down the stairs, breaking her arm.  In such a moment there really isn’t conscious time to think, ”Let go of the peaches, grab the rail, and worry about cleaning it up after you don’t fall .”  Broken glass, slippery fruit and syrup are their own hazard, of course, but she ended up with those anyway.  Maybe the let-go-and-grab action would not have been successful, there is no way to kno...

Our stake Relief Society Institute class a few weeks ago was on revelations to various persons in the early days of the Church who wanted to know how the Lord wanted them to serve.  (Doctrine & Covenants 4,11,12, 14-16)  The main focus of the lesson plan was to discuss principles of service. The basic messages were lovely and simple.  The various brethren were counseled to learn what the Lord was giving them first, to keep the message simple that they took forward, to teach what God had given them and not to add the things which came from false traditions which were being left behind, and to go forward with the promises of eternal life and blessing. We talked about the blessings that come as we serve in our church callings, we looked at the opportunities to serve that come independent of those callings. We read scriptures which described the importance of giving service. I asked the question, what are the things that can get in the way of our serving? I was lo...

We went to the Gaughin exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum on Monday.  Our Christmas splurge was a year's membership, discounted for the holidays.  There is a free Thursday once a month for the general museum, which we can take advantage of, but I figured out that with the special exhibit fees--which are never waived--if we went at least twice during the year we would come out ahead.  And we could pick any day, any time. We used to do the same with the Pacific Science Center; if we took the family, we would buy a membership and make sure we came again before it expired, and then resist all blandishments to renew it. Until we decided it was time to do it again. So there is one Monday a month for members only, the museum is otherwise closed on Mondays.  Tickets for members are free, discounted parking was provided for, crowds are lighter, and off we went.  Despite Hubby's claims to all and sundry that "my wife is picking me up and dragging me off to this," (somed...

My niece Maddy is serving a mission in Hungary.  Her letter last week, forwarded by her dad (isn't email great?) told of the visit of one of the apostles, Elder Christofferson, with his wife, to their mission.  I want to share a part of that here, with Maddy's permission---  I also really connected with this story from Sister Christofferson. She had a friend who was a brilliant concert pianist, and studied at the most prestigious music university in the US (my guess is julliard, although she didn't say), and this friend wanted Sister Christofferson to play hymns with her when she went to this friend's house to visit. Well, Sister Christofferson tried to protest, because she doesn't play piano and barely knows a couple of hymns. She said, "your students can play a lot better than me," but her friend insisted. So Sister Christofferson sat at one piano and timidly played the simplest hymn she could, and then her friend started playing on the other p...

Last spring my youngest daughter found out that she didn't get a spot in her intended major program.  Besides the disappointment, this created an urgent question of what to do now?  She was rushing around to figure out her options, her other interests, and what her best possibilities were.  Her intended minor was Russian.  She had aced her Russian lit classes at the university.  But despite having had four years of Russian in high school, when she took the university's placement test they told her she had to start with Russian 101.  Now, mind you, she had passed the IB (International Baccalaureate) test in Russian which required her to take both an essay and an oral exam IN RUSSIAN (no English) on prescribed pieces of literature at the end of her senior year of high school.  (That program did not emphasize conversational skills as much as literary ones.  The university's test was apparently aimed at a different kind of program.) How could they p...

We are such creatures of habit.  How many times do we head off in a familiar direction, meaning to go to a not-usual place, and realize that we sailed right past the turn and are heading for school/store/YMCA instead?  Just because that is the place we go to all the time on this road? We had to make some adjustments when our little grandson was staying with us.  I couldn't relax at first, watching for legos and a little body underfoot, fearful of stepping back from the kitchen sink and crushing him or tripping myself and falling--neither outcome at all desirable.  It didn't take long, though, to adjust my radar system to incorporate a very lively crawling boy,. and he survived his three months with us without serious injury to either of us.  The "where is Geoffrey?" alarm became automatic, too.  Locate child, identify what he was into, react if needed.  After all, we had been through this for many, many years--they just weren't recent years.  It...

We looked at the question this week of whether it is possible to be convinced that the gospel is true without being converted.  What are some of the ways in which you can become convinced?  The sisters mentioned fruits--by observation of the results in people's lives--and the beauty of how all the teachings fit together.  You can recognize how long-asked questions are apparently answered.  Such questions as why did God call prophets in ancient days but has left us to more imperfect devices.  Our answer is that He loves us just as much and has given us prophets for our day.  That seems good and reasonable. But that is not conversion.  That will not be sufficient to stand against all the pressures of the world or the wrenching events of life.  Conversion is to change your heart and your life because you have experienced the answer to your seeking, you have received the witness of the Spirit of God.  Being converted means doing something about...

It could be argued that my parents are married because my uncles are so tall.  Actually, that jumps in ahead of the fact that they would not have met except that my father and my mother's brother David were missionaries in France together immediately after WWII.  Dad came to visit in Salt Lake, and he was going to Boston to graduate school.  My mother was transferring to Wellesley in the Boston area from the University of Utah, after staying home with her younger brother Bob while he finished high school.  My grandparents were on the road for a year while my grandfather served as president of the National Association of Manufacturers, and they had asked her to postpone her plans. When Grandpa came home from this gig, he was persuaded to run for the U.S. Senate, and he won.  So here around the kitchen table are two people who need to head to Boston, and two brothers who wanted to visit their folks in D.C.  Road trip! They made a plan and set off to Boston,...

(Not a perfect clarity, but the best I can figure out on my lonesome with the scanner.)   I was just tired enough with the time shift to go to bed last night, rest but not fall asleep, get up for an hour, and now feel crummy this morning. I got up and wrote because I couldn't sleep for the story, so might as well get it down.  (My body says stick to reading next time.) This is not that story, because that is for something else, but this is another part of it. This is Barbara.  And me. 1994, the only time we went to the mall together, and we weren't shopping, we were having a picture for memory before time was gone. I realize that this is about the point in that year when cancer went from a battle to be won to the means for calling her home.  It's funny how anniversary points can come and go and not be noticed most years, but clobber you on others. The dress in this picture I had made for her birthday, because she didn't have anything comfortable to wear after h...