Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Endings
I do not like them, Sam I Am. I do not like this cruel wham.
Sometimes I watch planes fly into the airport (why did they put the airport in my area?!), and I get a little euphoric stomach-squeezing sensation. I think about hugging my family members at the airport, and then I want to cry. But then I can't decide whether the tears are happy or sad. And the word "sad" makes me think of everyone that I'm leaving. How rude. Members remind me at least three times daily that I am leaving, and missionaries pipe a continual funeral dirge. It's confusing. Marvelous and horrible and confusing.
I am OCD-organized., so I find solace in lists. God knows this, so He inspires me with list titles to organize my thoughts into hopeful, pragmatic patterns. This week's lists were thus:
1. Things I Will Miss
2. Things I Look Forward To
3. Things I Am Uncertain About
4. Things That Will Remain The Same
The first two lists were quite expansive. If you are reading this blog, know that you are included in number two. I can't wait to see you!!
Number three was comfortingly short. True, the uncertainties loom large (job, location, schooling, dating, etc), but I couldn't come up with more than a pint-sized paragraph no matter how I tried.
Number four is the best list of all. It speaks of eternal things, and of gratitude for a finer vision than I had 18 months ago. I will still serve. I'll feed the people I love. I will teach. I'll probably still annotate the ward list with colors and details about every member I meet until I know them all.
I will still pray in every soulful, hungering, and delighted token of thanks. I will study scriptures with difficult questions in mind. God will still reveal an answer. And I'll attend church with an other-oriented gaze.
I will still love my family, and I will love Oklahomans too.
I will still be Sister Stewart, though I will go by Jenny on most days.
"There seems to be something inside of us that resists endings. Why is this? Because we are made of the stuff of eternity...In His plan, there are no true endings-only everlasting beginnings."
~President Dieter F. Uchdorf
Sometimes I watch planes fly into the airport (why did they put the airport in my area?!), and I get a little euphoric stomach-squeezing sensation. I think about hugging my family members at the airport, and then I want to cry. But then I can't decide whether the tears are happy or sad. And the word "sad" makes me think of everyone that I'm leaving. How rude. Members remind me at least three times daily that I am leaving, and missionaries pipe a continual funeral dirge. It's confusing. Marvelous and horrible and confusing.
I am OCD-organized., so I find solace in lists. God knows this, so He inspires me with list titles to organize my thoughts into hopeful, pragmatic patterns. This week's lists were thus:
1. Things I Will Miss
2. Things I Look Forward To
3. Things I Am Uncertain About
4. Things That Will Remain The Same
The first two lists were quite expansive. If you are reading this blog, know that you are included in number two. I can't wait to see you!!
Number three was comfortingly short. True, the uncertainties loom large (job, location, schooling, dating, etc), but I couldn't come up with more than a pint-sized paragraph no matter how I tried.
Number four is the best list of all. It speaks of eternal things, and of gratitude for a finer vision than I had 18 months ago. I will still serve. I'll feed the people I love. I will teach. I'll probably still annotate the ward list with colors and details about every member I meet until I know them all.
I will still pray in every soulful, hungering, and delighted token of thanks. I will study scriptures with difficult questions in mind. God will still reveal an answer. And I'll attend church with an other-oriented gaze.
I will still love my family, and I will love Oklahomans too.
I will still be Sister Stewart, though I will go by Jenny on most days.
"There seems to be something inside of us that resists endings. Why is this? Because we are made of the stuff of eternity...In His plan, there are no true endings-only everlasting beginnings."
~President Dieter F. Uchdorf
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Feminist
"All human beings -male and female- are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual and premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."
The Family: A Proclamation To The World
Am I a feminist?
Well, I do believe that men and women should be held to an equal standard of responsibility. But I also maintain a number of unfashionable beliefs:
1. Women aren't (physically) as strong as men. Sure, there's an occasional Helga who serves as the exception, but I don't really mind not running as fast or lifting as much weight. We're different, no competition needed.
2. Men should open doors. Why? Because my dad opens my mom's door. Terrible epistemology? Sure. But it is personal, and this is my blog, so I reserve the right to tell the world as I see it. If a gentleman opens my door, I take it as a commentary about his goodness, and not about my own ability. He doesn't open the door because I am not able, but because he is truly that kind.
3. Men can have the Priesthood. God said so. I'm grateful, and not at all envious. I like wearing dresses. I don't want to pass the sacrament, and thanks be to heaven that I'll never have to be a Bishop.
4. Men and women should work for unity rather than divisiveness.
To the dear Mormon women who are picking a fight with the Priesthood, I applaud your zeal. But I'm not so sure of your cause. I would ask you to explain, but this is a blog. And so I must content myself with my own opinion.
For the last twelve months, I have been serving as a Sister Training Leader. This is a new position in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We work shoulder-to-shoulder with priesthood leaders in wards and in our mission to bring about the work of salvation. We sit in on Mission Leadership Council. We minister to sisters. We strive to uplift the elders. We teach and train and go on exchanges. We are needed, and we like that.
People worried about the influx of so many sister missionaries. They arrived, just two transfers behind me, in great hoards. But there is so little flirting. There is not much bickering. Elders and Sisters are not romantic comrades, and they are not mortal enemies. We are partners. I might venture to say that a crucial element of the work of salvation is for men and women to learn to work together.
The priesthood is like an umbrella. God has asked men to hold the umbrella, and women and children take shelter underneath its expanse. As a woman, there is no power of the priesthood that I lack. I can minister and pray and heal as well as a man, I am sure. I can probably even recite the words and actions of ordinances and blessings. But God reserved the Priesthood as a divine means for teaching men how to be men. And women are all the better for it.
The Priesthood is the highest and most divine organization of female advocacy that exists in the world today. Why should we fight against it?
If we, as women, successfully wrested the Priesthood from men (and, but the way, we won't; it is the Eternal order of God), what would we accomplish? A serious gate-keeping issue, that's what. Already overworked women would simply be left alone (in pants) to bless the sacrament, oversee family spirituality, provide financially, and preside in meetings. No dresses allowed.
No thank you! I'll marry a man who open doors, and I'll wear a dress.
I've worked myself through a heated strand of thought, and I ask myself again, am I a feminist?
Well, yes. But only if I can be a Men-inist also. I insist upon the goodness of man and on the goodness of woman. The Family: A Proclamation To The World* is quite enough for me.
*https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation
The Family: A Proclamation To The World
Am I a feminist?
Well, I do believe that men and women should be held to an equal standard of responsibility. But I also maintain a number of unfashionable beliefs:
1. Women aren't (physically) as strong as men. Sure, there's an occasional Helga who serves as the exception, but I don't really mind not running as fast or lifting as much weight. We're different, no competition needed.
2. Men should open doors. Why? Because my dad opens my mom's door. Terrible epistemology? Sure. But it is personal, and this is my blog, so I reserve the right to tell the world as I see it. If a gentleman opens my door, I take it as a commentary about his goodness, and not about my own ability. He doesn't open the door because I am not able, but because he is truly that kind.
3. Men can have the Priesthood. God said so. I'm grateful, and not at all envious. I like wearing dresses. I don't want to pass the sacrament, and thanks be to heaven that I'll never have to be a Bishop.
4. Men and women should work for unity rather than divisiveness.
To the dear Mormon women who are picking a fight with the Priesthood, I applaud your zeal. But I'm not so sure of your cause. I would ask you to explain, but this is a blog. And so I must content myself with my own opinion.
For the last twelve months, I have been serving as a Sister Training Leader. This is a new position in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We work shoulder-to-shoulder with priesthood leaders in wards and in our mission to bring about the work of salvation. We sit in on Mission Leadership Council. We minister to sisters. We strive to uplift the elders. We teach and train and go on exchanges. We are needed, and we like that.
People worried about the influx of so many sister missionaries. They arrived, just two transfers behind me, in great hoards. But there is so little flirting. There is not much bickering. Elders and Sisters are not romantic comrades, and they are not mortal enemies. We are partners. I might venture to say that a crucial element of the work of salvation is for men and women to learn to work together.
The priesthood is like an umbrella. God has asked men to hold the umbrella, and women and children take shelter underneath its expanse. As a woman, there is no power of the priesthood that I lack. I can minister and pray and heal as well as a man, I am sure. I can probably even recite the words and actions of ordinances and blessings. But God reserved the Priesthood as a divine means for teaching men how to be men. And women are all the better for it.
The Priesthood is the highest and most divine organization of female advocacy that exists in the world today. Why should we fight against it?
If we, as women, successfully wrested the Priesthood from men (and, but the way, we won't; it is the Eternal order of God), what would we accomplish? A serious gate-keeping issue, that's what. Already overworked women would simply be left alone (in pants) to bless the sacrament, oversee family spirituality, provide financially, and preside in meetings. No dresses allowed.
No thank you! I'll marry a man who open doors, and I'll wear a dress.
I've worked myself through a heated strand of thought, and I ask myself again, am I a feminist?
Well, yes. But only if I can be a Men-inist also. I insist upon the goodness of man and on the goodness of woman. The Family: A Proclamation To The World* is quite enough for me.
*https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
FHE Talent Show
How to eat Girl Scout cookies the proper way?
Don the Charlie Chaplin look.
Then begin at the forehead and move the cookie to the mouth via facial contortions.
Rivendell
| This is our favorite neighborhood because all of the street names are from Lord of the Rings. Hola to my inner hobbit. |
Teenage Sage
"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape..."
~1 Corinthians 10:13
Tracy* is black. I say this as a hairstylist, not as a racist. He's a 16 year-old with a fabulous two-inch fro who wears neon knee-high socks. His life revolves around tennis and girls. He was baptized six months ago, and he is a leader among the youth. He is unconventional, and for that I love him.
The elders were worried on Saturday night when Tracy didn't answer his phone. He was giving his first talk in sacrament meeting, and they were supposed to help him write it. I'm so glad that they didn't.
What proceeded from Tracy's mouth on Sunday morning was a thirty-minute exposition that made a few people squirm and quite a few people giggle, but which really needed to be said. He was asked to speak about a topic from the For The Strength of Youth** pamphlet. He chose the things that were most pertinent to his teenage lifestyle: Sexual Purity and Media and Entertainment.
"I got involved in some stuff that I'm not going to say," he started. "All you ladies out there might be pure, and I don't want to talk about it."
Alright, I've read Jacob Chapter 2 a few times, and this made my ears perk up. He like Jacob, was going to be plain of speech, but he worried for the wives and children, many of whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste (Jacob 2:7). His vernacular was pidgin, but the kid was all over this.
The word he never said was "pornography."
He proceeded to describe how his friend had shown him a video, and then he got hooked. He said he didn't know it at the time, but he was addicted. He had to watch the videos all the time, until one day his older brother blew his cover in front of the missionaries.
My favorite part of the talk is that Tracy, who delivered most of the talk with his eyes closed, opened his eyes for a few minutes to show us how he looked when he was addicted to pornography. He stooped his head and his eyes got dark and broody. He just stared. He said that he was raised to think that it was OK to do what you wanted with women (again he was a little uncouth in his language), and that his dad had this look about him all the time. He mom takes care of seven kids and pretends not to notice when her husband stays up at night looking at pictures on his cell phone.
Tracy wanted something better from his life, so he cleaned up his act. On Sunday after church, he received the Aaronic Priesthood. Next week he will pass the sacrament.
Tracy understands two wonderful things: 1. Wives and children need husbands and fathers who are pure and chaste. 2. Pornography is addictive, and harmful to self and others. Nothing about Tracy's life promotes these two truths, and yet this is what he has gleaned from six months in the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His life, and the lives of his children and wife will be forever changed because he knows these things.
There is a third thing that Tracy knows, and it is this thing that I would like to testify of today: The Atonement of Jesus Christ is adequate to overcome pornography addiction. I know it because I have seen it. To any that might struggle, please consider Tracy's plain speech. If his words aren't enough, take the testimony of a living apostle:
"We (need) men that women can trust, that children can trust, and that God can trust...Prepare to be a good husband and father; prepare to be a good and productive citizen; prepare to serve the Lord, whose priesthood you hold. Wherever you are, your Heavenly Father is mindful of you. You are not alone, and you have the priesthood and the gift of the Holy Ghost...It is true that we are in many ways ordinary and imperfect, but we have a perfect Master who wrought a perfect Atonement." ~Elder Todd Christofferson***
How I love the good, and imperfect, men of the Church! Here's to virtue, to priesthood, and to the wonderful men in my life. Most of all to the Man of all Men, Jesus Christ our Redeemer.
*Name changed.
**This booklet is nothing short of life-changing! We use it in lessons as often as possible. The standards given to Mormon youth are keys to success for all people of any age! https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/ForTheStrengthOfYouth-eng.pdf?lang=eng
***Brethren, We Have a Work To Do (Christopherson) https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/brethren-we-have-work-to-do?lang=eng
~1 Corinthians 10:13
Tracy* is black. I say this as a hairstylist, not as a racist. He's a 16 year-old with a fabulous two-inch fro who wears neon knee-high socks. His life revolves around tennis and girls. He was baptized six months ago, and he is a leader among the youth. He is unconventional, and for that I love him.
The elders were worried on Saturday night when Tracy didn't answer his phone. He was giving his first talk in sacrament meeting, and they were supposed to help him write it. I'm so glad that they didn't.
What proceeded from Tracy's mouth on Sunday morning was a thirty-minute exposition that made a few people squirm and quite a few people giggle, but which really needed to be said. He was asked to speak about a topic from the For The Strength of Youth** pamphlet. He chose the things that were most pertinent to his teenage lifestyle: Sexual Purity and Media and Entertainment.
"I got involved in some stuff that I'm not going to say," he started. "All you ladies out there might be pure, and I don't want to talk about it."
Alright, I've read Jacob Chapter 2 a few times, and this made my ears perk up. He like Jacob, was going to be plain of speech, but he worried for the wives and children, many of whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste (Jacob 2:7). His vernacular was pidgin, but the kid was all over this.
The word he never said was "pornography."
He proceeded to describe how his friend had shown him a video, and then he got hooked. He said he didn't know it at the time, but he was addicted. He had to watch the videos all the time, until one day his older brother blew his cover in front of the missionaries.
My favorite part of the talk is that Tracy, who delivered most of the talk with his eyes closed, opened his eyes for a few minutes to show us how he looked when he was addicted to pornography. He stooped his head and his eyes got dark and broody. He just stared. He said that he was raised to think that it was OK to do what you wanted with women (again he was a little uncouth in his language), and that his dad had this look about him all the time. He mom takes care of seven kids and pretends not to notice when her husband stays up at night looking at pictures on his cell phone.
Tracy wanted something better from his life, so he cleaned up his act. On Sunday after church, he received the Aaronic Priesthood. Next week he will pass the sacrament.
Tracy understands two wonderful things: 1. Wives and children need husbands and fathers who are pure and chaste. 2. Pornography is addictive, and harmful to self and others. Nothing about Tracy's life promotes these two truths, and yet this is what he has gleaned from six months in the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His life, and the lives of his children and wife will be forever changed because he knows these things.
There is a third thing that Tracy knows, and it is this thing that I would like to testify of today: The Atonement of Jesus Christ is adequate to overcome pornography addiction. I know it because I have seen it. To any that might struggle, please consider Tracy's plain speech. If his words aren't enough, take the testimony of a living apostle:
"We (need) men that women can trust, that children can trust, and that God can trust...Prepare to be a good husband and father; prepare to be a good and productive citizen; prepare to serve the Lord, whose priesthood you hold. Wherever you are, your Heavenly Father is mindful of you. You are not alone, and you have the priesthood and the gift of the Holy Ghost...It is true that we are in many ways ordinary and imperfect, but we have a perfect Master who wrought a perfect Atonement." ~Elder Todd Christofferson***
How I love the good, and imperfect, men of the Church! Here's to virtue, to priesthood, and to the wonderful men in my life. Most of all to the Man of all Men, Jesus Christ our Redeemer.
*Name changed.
**This booklet is nothing short of life-changing! We use it in lessons as often as possible. The standards given to Mormon youth are keys to success for all people of any age! https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/ForTheStrengthOfYouth-eng.pdf?lang=eng
***Brethren, We Have a Work To Do (Christopherson) https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/brethren-we-have-work-to-do?lang=eng
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