Word made flesh

I was recently thinking about how much my religion is often as much about the tangible as it is the spiritual.

For example, religion asks that we not only have a broken heart and a contrite spirit. It also asks us to take bread and water each week.

It asks us not only to follow Jesus and keep His commandments but to put on a jumpsuit and walk into a font of water to get baptized.

It asks us not only to obey God's commandments and live the gospel of Jesus Christ but to make tangible covenants that show we really mean it.

It even asks not only for people who have died to accept Jesus Christ but to be baptized by proxy by living people in jumpsuits and fonts holding little slips of paper they printed out that morning.

It's as if religion says, "It's not enough for your heart to be in it. Your body has to be in it too."

I used to wonder about what there was about the nature of the water or the words that provided the transformative effect to cleanse us or endow us with power beyond what the Holy Ghost accomplished spiritually. But now after having three kids with very literal needs, I don't care that much about the metaphysical or symbolic. Maybe we'll find out someday that most of the tangible things we did were important only symbolically to keep our minds on the right track. Maybe we'll find out it was all literal. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

But I still think there's something to the idea that our body has to be in it just as much as our heart. I think of what Jesus Christ taught about baptism both in the New Testament and in modern scripture. I think about an entire Plan of Salvation that depended on us getting mortal, fragile bodies. And tonight, I think about a little baby born in to tired parents in a tired, confused nation. And I am grateful for his literal, tangible life.

11  And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance.

I'll just leave this here for you

Hinges

"So what kind of hinges do we want?" Kevin asked the other night.

I was shocked. I had to have opinions about hinges? We looked through an online catalog and saw options like brushed nickel, satin nickel, etc. I had never cared about anything less in my life.

You know who does have opinions about hinges? Matthew. The other day he was eating a snack and suddenly had a full blown meltdown about hinges because he didn't want to crack. I mean, technically the song says "I've got to have hinges or else I would crack" but I guess he took it to mean hinges would make him crack and so we had to reassure him about 50 times that he didn't have hinges. Hopefully he won't crack when he learns that we chose brushed nickel hinges.

It's not like I don't have lots of opinions about homes. I have opinions about built-in bookcases (not appropriate for rooms you can see from the front porch), bathtubs (should have space on the edges for shampoo), microwaves (should not be above ranges nor in the island where the kids can reach), and balusters (should be spelled ballisters and should not be as expensive as they are). But at the same time . . . it would be nice to delegate all the decision making to the people with the most strong opinions in my life. My kids.

But that wouldn't quite work either. I asked Joseph which color the house should be and he said the color of his coat. I'm assuming he's talking about the royal blue part and not the orange part, but even that would be a bit intense. The interior paint colors would follow a similar color theme. And of course, if it were up to them each room in the house would primarily be a toy room.

So I guess the decisions are up to Kevin and me (and our moms, who tell us to "do what you want" but also will probably never visit if we choose the wrong paint colors). Windows on a garage. Painted or stained. Linoleum or carpet in the kitchen (just kidding, Mom).

I know that none of this matters in the long run. There are big important things to think about, and cabinets do not fall in that category. But it's still been valuable studying ways to make a house beautiful. It's been mind-stretching to use my imagination all the time, trying to create a space that will require as little thought as possible once it's done. It's a process of knowing when to have a backbone and when to be flexible.

All that said, if I have to think about hinges ever again I might crack.

Cake

Right now Kevin is in the kitchen working on his birthday cake. We started the tradition of making our own birthday cake years ago, and we have no plans of changing it yet. Every year I begin my hunt anew for the perfect treat, except for the time I accidentally made the same dry brownie cake I had made 2 years earlier. I've had a few things that were pretty close to perfect, but nothing is quite the holy grail of birthday desserts.

On the other hand, Kevin discovered a recipe for cheesecake with an Oreo crust and Snickers on top, and he's been fine with that since 2014. I don't blame him -- it is really delicious.

But I didn't think my family would be too interested in it since I didn't ever remember eating much cheesecake growing up. Nor did I think they would be too interested in the cheesecake that Kevin's parents had gotten while we were in town for Thanksgiving. It had gone untouched for days since we had so much other pie to eat, and I thought it might stay untouched if we took it back to my parents' house. But my mother-in-law insisted, so we took a big chunk of it with us.

The minute we showed my mom what we brought, she was really excited. "I love cheesecake!" she said.

"You do?????" I asked.

"Yes. Don't you remember? My friend Meg had a cheesecake party and I came home with her recipes and made a different cheesecake every month one year."

"Right . . ." I said as I tried to remember any cheesecake I had ever eaten in my own home. I guess I had filed it away with all the real Christmas trees my parents ever had (I only have memories for the fake Christmas tree).

"Later, I would make a cheesecake and have a fudge sauce and a raspberry sauce that we could pour on."

That I did remember, and I apologized for almost convincing Kevin to not bring home any cheesecake.

Anyway, I found this song a few months ago on lds.org and I'm wondering if I sing it over and over if the memory of all those monthly cheesecakes will come back.

I suppose maybe we should make another verse about "When Father bakes his own birthday cheesecake."

Bedtime

When we moved to Utah, one of the first things I noticed was how thoroughly our bedtime routine collapsed. For months it was a long, arduous affair like it had never been before to get the kids in bed and keep them there. We tried having the older boys in separate beds in the same room. In the same bed. In separate rooms. And every night it felt like it took at least 3 adults 90 minutes to make bedtime happen compared to the one person who did it in Connecticut while the other washed dishes.

So we got frustrated, we tried all sorts of consequences, and we kept on tweaking. And gradually, we've come up on some rules that have made things easier. As fun as it was to read library books on the main level, we realized that dragged things out too much so we said that reading books couldn't happen until everything else was done (like brushing teeth), and then we could only read books that were already in the basement (no going back upstairs for any reason). We made a rule that they had to sit on the couch while we read scriptures rather than playing with toys in the same room (and made that rule easier by scratching their backs while we read). We said that parents couldn't snuggle in bed with kids (there are full and queen size beds, so there was room for us, but it was dragging things out). We did our best to make sure Jacob wasn't hungry and was wearing a brand of diaper that didn't soak through. And while we didn't have an exact minute that bedtime started, we did our best to finish what we started in a timely manner.

To our surprise, the biggest thing that helped was switching Joseph to Matthew's room. We had put Matthew in a different room because he was keeping everyone awake, but when Jacob needed a bit of sleep training we put Joseph in with Matthew temporarily so that Jacob wouldn't wake him up. When Jacob generally started sleeping through the night (minus a few teething nights), we told Joseph he could sleep in his old bed again. But he wanted to stay with Matthew because the two of them would play with stuffed animals and transformers in bed for a while after we tucked them in. There have been occasional squabbles, but for the most part everyone goes to bed and stays in bed.

Most of my bedtime rules were pronounced in moments of desperation, but I see now why they worked. They gave the kids more boundaries and more intimacy. It's good to know where you belong rather than being spread throughout the house. It's good to have to sit on the couch, especially if you get a back scratch. It's good to know that you can still get all the cuddles you want but that your parents do not belong in your bed. And it's good to know that your brother wants to play with you a little bit after lights are out.

I guess this is what parenting is about. Predictability, security, boundaries, and love.

And teething. Always teething. Even the 6 year old.

Change and gratitude

I think about change sometimes. How do cultures change? How do people change? How do I change?

The first realization I had about that was that change usually doesn't happen until there's no way to avoid it. When I moved back home, I was surprised to see that, despite all the growth in the area, there still weren't sidewalks along the older roads.

Where the sidewalk ends

"They don't bother unless there's a new development," my mom explained. They had petitioned for sidewalks along that main road ever since they moved in, but no one had bothered because no one wanted to foot the bill. Compared to other projects, it was pretty easy to ignore. Something being a good idea didn't mean it was going to happen.

Something similar stood out to me as I read Hidden Figures. It was the World War II labor shortage that first caused people to reach out to African American women to work for NASA. Once they did, the whole country was blessed because of the brilliant women who solved some incredibly hard problems. And yet, without the original labor shortage, all of these women would have been an untapped resource for perhaps several more decades. All too often, change comes only when the usual options are exhausted.

Sometimes it is easier recognize the need for change than to create the change. This is often true for our own habits and mindsets. We may know that the usual options of coping and complaining aren't working anymore, but how do we make the actual change? There are books and podcasts out there, but it can be a chore constantly examining your thoughts and mindsets. It's even possible to listen to those podcasts and come away thinking of people in your life who need the advice more than you. How do you enact change within yourself?

Then the answer came to me: Change is hard, but gratitude is easy.

If you approach life with gratitude, so many problems can disappear. Perhaps you can't (or shouldn't) avoid all conflict, but its resolution can come without ill will on your part. When you live with abundance, there are fewer battles to fight. And best of all, personality flaws like laziness, impatience, and selfishness will melt away in the warmth of gratitude and a giving mindset.

How does change happen? I still don't entirely know, but I think it always begins with a foundation of gratitude.

Veterans and Voices

Most of my Internet browsing these days is based on house stuff. Cabinets, doors, windows, all of that. It's interesting to us right now, but it probably makes for boring reads for most people.

So here is some stuff I've read that doesn't have to do with home design. Most of it was today because I don't remember what I read further back, but oh well.

First, last night Kevin and I were talking about voices. I feel like a lot of people with big personalities also have big voices -- usually pleasant, melodic voices that really carry. So I looked up why some voices carry more than others and got a fun little lesson about vocal cords.

https://www.livescience.com/22191-loudmouth-voices-carry.html

Next, in honor of Veteran's Day, here are a few articles I read about World War I.

http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2008/07/31/jens-leslie-stevenson-called-to-serve/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor

So let's talk for just a minute about Kaiser Wilhelm. I know that people have a habit of comparing politicians to Hitler (especially Bush, Obama, and Trump), but I have to say . . . Kaiser Wilhelm definitely reminds me a lot of our current head of state. Hoo boy. Wonder what Wilhelm's Twitter feed would have looked like.

This next link takes you to an image of a lovely letter written to Major Brent Taylor's family. I am so grateful he was a light while he was in Afghanistan:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/maj-brent-taylor-s-family-gets-letter-afghan-military-colleague-n931911

I was especially touched by how he helped his colleagues value their wives and children more. I have really been thinking a lot about a slight variation of the 2nd Article of Faith: "We believe that women will be punished for their own sins, and not for Eve's transgression." For so much of the history of the world, women have been treated as inferior and some people look to Genesis to justify it. But we know that that is a wicked, false tradition. I still see the cultural baggage from it here and there (sometimes in places I think it least belongs), but overall I am grateful to be in a society that sees women as equals. (I also think the lack of drinking culture helps a lot with that.)

As for books that I've read . . . as always, I'm more likely to reread than read, so there haven't been a ton. But here are a few.

Warbreaker -- I was thinking the other day that I don't have all that much nerd cred, engineering degree aside. I mean, the last Marvel movie I really saw was Avengers in 2012, and I just saw that because everyone said you should go see a movie before you have a baby. So I think I'm going to try and catch up on all the Brandon Sanderson books because I've already got a good headstart. I think all I'm missing now is . . . each of his 1000+ page books. Sigh.
Anyway, back to Warbreaker. It was fun. It was clever. I guessed a lot of the plot.

A Gentleman in Moscow -- I'm only about 100 pages in, but so far I'm enjoying it. It's not a page-turner (except that I turn pages ahead to see if I'm right about my guesses), but it's still lovely. I read Warbreaker about as fast as I can eat a bowl of popcorn, but this is much denser. I'll do my best to finish it.

Educated  -- Read most of it (skipped a lot of the beginning because I didn't want to read about neglect and physical abuse). I liked it when she got to BYU and started learning about things like going to the doctor. I had some quibbles with it, but when I tried to write them down they came out wrong. So you can ask me in person if you care!


And last but not least . . . This xkcd really made me laugh. https://xkcd.com/2065/