On the sweetness of Mormon life.

Your daughter comes to you. She says, I read your post on how I’m spoiled rotten. (She never reads your posts.) She says, it was funny. You’re funny, daddy. Will you play with me?

You play with her.

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

Your family has gathered to a popular vacation spot in rural Deseret.

You go to the church Sunday morning. The sign says Visitors Welcome.  Inside is just one big room stuffed with folding chairs.

It is a sea of wrinkled short sleeve white shirts, tshirts, polo shirts, and the kind of one piece knit dress that washes and folds easy.

There are so many visitors they have a building just for us. The local Saints run services three times a Sunday.

You feel very welcome.

The young priest asked God to blave the bread.

He had to do the prayer over.

I was grateful, it gave me a chance to pay attention to the words.

On the sweetness . . .

A strange ward.  A woman gets up to speak.  It’s a full on blue collar ramble.  She’s talking about her alcoholism, taking a shot at her addict exhusband, boasting about her lawn ornaments (!), and talking about service and repentance, all mixed together  She says she was floored when they ask her to be Relief Society President.  I am in the back laughing and laughing but also crying by the end.  It was pure and beautiful.

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

A sort of impromptu testimony meeting. A sister has a sweet moment to share. Youth temple trip, dinner, everyone got their phones out to compare family history.   The old game–who is related to whom? The app has that function now.  Some surprising cousins, not everyone related, but all having fun.

What great energy. We need more of this, not less.

On the sweetness

A sister gives a talk about her dream job.

She got it about a year ago.  She felt inspired to take it.

It has been rough on her family with her out of the home.

Last week a young lady taught a lesson to the young women on the Proclamation on the Family.  She, the sister with the dream job, felt inspired to go back to being at home.  So she gave notice.

On the sweetness.

Our ward sang beautifully but absurdly today.  We still cannot sing together.  So we had some families record songs in advance.  Others had stations in rooms around the church building where they could sing to have it piped into the chapel.  It was beautiful but also absurd.  Much like, I suppose, God in a manger.

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

You drive a recent convert to Church. He is half drunk and reeking. His father just died. You say what you can.

You bear you testimony. You try to say, “Christ already won the victory, the Baby was already born”; you cry.

Your daughter plays O Little Town of Bethlehem on the organ.

The enchantment in the world returns with the night.  It is dark, the moon has not yet risen, and in the cool grass and the cool air you push your daughter on the swing that hangs from the shade tree.

I had a cold yesterday.  I sat in the foyer, took the bread and water, and left.

My mind is usually pretty active.  Everywhere I go I carry with me a superstructure of plans, goals, attitudes, and mythmaking.  I like it that way.

But it was nice to be too run down for any of that.  It was nice to experience the sacrament and the spirit of it without any preconceptions, hopes, or narrative.

I took my family to see Palmyra recently. My wife had been there before, but none of the rest of us had. One thing I’ve learned about Mrs. C is that she doesn’t really have the fourth-dimensional sense of wonder at occupying a historically significant spot of earth. I can personally attest that she’s much more excited to enjoy a Caesar salad than she was to visit Caesar’s tomb. Which isn’t to say she doesn’t find history interesting, just that she doesn’t take any special pleasure in retracing its steps.

“It’s a gift, you know, being able to feel history in certain places. My mom has it. We’d visit Church historical sites, and she would ask me, ‘Can you feel that?’ But I never really did.” (more…)

I’m laying on the couch when my toddler asks if she can lay down by me.

“Sure.”  Pause.  “Do you want a story?”

“Yeah!”

I start in on Aladdin’s Lamp.  I am at the part where the evil uncle magician has taken Aladdin out into the wilderness, where they find a crack opening in the ground.  “And at the bottom of the crack they saw a gate . . .”

“No, a penguin!”

“What!  Why?”

“Because the crack!  The crack!  And they’re hunting the penguin and she has a mommy penguin and the mommy penguin gives her crackers!”

. . . .

Then my young school age son asks me if I know about the Chief Judge Holiday.  I don’t.  It’s Christmas, he tells me.

Again, “what!  Why?”

“Santa Claus, Dad! I thought you knew that!”

Next time I get my kids’ brains wired, I’m not just hiring just some guy.

Two nights ago, my little daughter had a fever. She asked me if I could say “a boy prayer.”

“What’s a boy prayer?” I asked.

“It’s where you put your hands on my head and you say a prayer for me. Only boys can do them.”

I’m grateful for the restored power and authority to give boy prayers for my family.

“Is there any particular scripture story you want to read tonight, bud?”

“How about the one where King David’s son gets his hair caught on a tree and is killed?” You rack your brain. King David’s son? Absalom? Is that how Absalom dies? Yeah, that sounds familiar. But we only read that story one time, and it was at least six months ago. How does he remember it? At first you feel pride at having such a bright little boy, but then it hits you: If he can remember that, what else does he remember? You resolve to start behaving yourself better, lest your misdeeds be recorded on your Permanent Record. (more…)

Overheard from a missionary:

Our families are worth the world to us.
We are worth the world to God.

(more…)