I’ve been presiding my ward’s elders’ quorum for almost four years now. It has been my aim that the quorum meeting be more than a lesson, and the quorum more than a meeting. One factor to work with is that half of the quorum are serving elsewhere during our usual meetings, either with the Primary children or Aaronic Priesthood youth, or attending other wards in the stake. Our quorum secretary, who is away this month refueling planes over Iraq and such places, has a name for this condition: “outside hide.” Members of his squadron are often attached to various other units in support of far-flung missions, so something must be deliberately done once in a while to bring them all together in order to maintain a group identity.

The idea started to form of convening an elders’ quorum meeting on a Sunday evening. I told the bishop what I wanted to do and asked if he wanted the preparatory priesthood invited too. He did, and thus I went about planning a Ward Priesthood Meeting. Like Stake Priesthood Meeting, but just our ward. (more…)

It’s hard to tease out what exactly the new and everlasting covenant is, once you decide its not just polygamy.
The Lovely One gave me two clues yesterday.

First, she pointed out that President Nelson taught that there is one overarching covenant of which all actual covenants are an aspect and to which they lead us (“the covenant path”).
Second, she said that President Oaks once said that testament and covenant were interchangeable, so that the Book of Mormon could be read as “Another Covenant of Jesus Christ.” Which means that each dispensation is its own covenant, but some aspect of the over-arching covenant.

It put me in mind of a 3-dimensional ball covered in lines and images. Dipped in ink and pressed to the paper, the resulting stamp would be different every time. But it would be from the same, unchanging source. One might say, a new stamp from an everlasting source. Each covenant is new–because it is a different, customized variation, because it is being made right now–and everlasting, because it is a slice of the unchanging pattern.

Like revelation, half the point is not the content, but the experience and miracle of making covenants with God.

Or maybe better put, the experience and the content are one.

The startling thing from this is the realization that I may be able to make my own covenants with the Lord, if He is willing to make specific covenants with me.

She was once the grace of all eyes. She is still beautiful. But when she moves, she moves as one in pain. When she is still, you see the grit of her teeth. She smiles cheerfully…and then sometimes cries for no reason…except for that one, big ever-present reason.

You are a straw in a current, a straw in the air. Great forces decide your life, or small ones–friends, neighbors, loved ones. When you try, you are stymied at every turn. Maybe you see the disaster coming and can do nothing, not a thing, you can in no way change or vary. Like in a nightmare, you are on rails. Maybe you would just like to act… but can’t.

Every misery you have ever had, doubled by living it again through your child. Your child had such high hopes…and just can’t. You could do it for them, but that’s not the point. There is no consoling to offer them. You would do almost anything to withhold this bitterness. Your child is discovering, for the first time, that dreams die.

I was wondering today what use gratitude is to a God? Who does God have to be grateful to?

Well, for us at least, supposing we are one day exalted to reign on high, we will have Him to be grateful too. Every glory will be the sweeter knowing we owe it to the Father and the Son.

So that’s one use of gratitude.
But there is another. We don’t usually call it gratitude, but it is the same emotion. It is when you see someone you love do something kind and good, especially for you. God gets this a lot. That overflowing of love when you see your children do right.

The child is wailing and they look at you to stop it, but you can’t. You can’t.

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

The speaker at church says he’d had some time to stare at all the scuffmarks at the base of the podium. He imagined all the speakers, all the testifiers, all the youth and adults and men and women who had come up there one way or the other to speak or to testify or to sing. He says that is a precious piece of wood.

You are not surrounded by peace, rhythm, order, and loveliness. These strip malls, these asphalts, these barren places, these gross landscapes and gross people–perhaps, saddest of all, it is even your face that apes you from the mirror.

Why bother? No one cares. You don’t care. Weary minute after weary minute, gray, dull, plodding. Why are you so sad?

The loss of a child.

You hesitated, but not long enough. You took the plunge and the Holy Ghost withdrew. You feel rage and horror, hollow winds in the soul.

You just don’t feel good.  You don’t move like others do.  That fresh joy which comes so much from the body doesn’t come to you much any more.

We have two chunks of garden, beds with paths in between. Both of them got overgrown with grass and weeds towards the end of the season, including the paths. This year we plan to put down weed tarp and wood chips, but first I decided to burn the weeds around the edges to make the tarp easier to lay down. I wanted to burn the whole garden but decided it would be too much trouble.

My thought was that the weeds I torched would burn and no others. This is how it has worked for me in the past.

I started with one lick of flame in each section and it caught. it spread like… fire. I had to scramble to get a hose up and call my son out to get the other hose. We barely suppressed it before it reached the wooden fence and the grape vines.
But it turned out what burned was exactly what I was wanting to have burned. Except that I hadn’t removed my drip lines first so they all melted down in the general combustion.

I was thinking on this–I had plenty of time to think as I stood there hosing everything down afterwards–and something inside me whisphered, “You don’t plan for wild success enough. Nor pray for it enough.”

Aw, spring!  There really are days in this season that are the best days.  When bad poetry is no longer bad poetry.  Soft breezes, tender grass,  flowers in bloom.   But not for you.  Your eyes itch, your breath cramps down, the snot starts up.

There are foods you can’t eat.

There are clothes you can’t wear.

No reason why, but the body sullenly revolts.