Fatherhood in a Frolic

We are in the post-prandial stage of General Conference.

We had some great stories. “Can you imagine what kind of student I was after that?” Eldery Eyring’s story about Eric. Brother Wilson’s story on Ensign Blair and conclusion that emergencies are no time to dust off the gift of the Holy Ghost. We need to seek inspiration in the calm waters so that we know to hear the voice in the storm.

We had multiple talks quoting the scripture “that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord.”

Elder Renlund had a knock-out C.S. Lewis reference.

But for pure delight, the talk for me was Brother Devin G. Durrant. He talked about creative parenting. My wife and I both felt that he and his wife were in our mold. If we knew each other, we’d be friends. The secret is that parenting is fun . . . if you have a purpose! The grimmer I get about protecting my family from the world, the merrier we are. Because the stuff about trying to keep the house clean and the grades up, the frustrating tedious part of parenting, you were probably doing that already. The part that makes your house into fortress, that’s the part where you double down on the family jokes and the little personal homilies and interviews and the day trips to the mountains to splash around in the stream. That’s high octane joy.

Imagine if you took the cross and set out to march into heathen land against overwhelming odds to conquer or die. And then discovered that the way you did it was to tease your teenagers more and tickle your littles. It would make you positively giddy.

Here is the grim knight, cutting capers on his horse.

Other Posts from the April 2018 General Conference

• General Conference April 2018: WOW! by Jan Tolman
• Full of power and abundantly satisfying by Marilyn Nielson
• Gently Hew Stone’s General Conference Notes by Jamie Huston

Your General Conference reflections welcome in the comments