Look Mom, Great Buns!

I'm not bragging. I'm not boasting. I am merely ecstatically thankful that I made a successful batch of homemade whole wheat hamburger buns yesterday. If you had ever eaten any of the others I've pulled out of the oven before, you'd be grateful too! Those were dark, dense, and heavy. These, oh these, they were light and uncrumbly. If I must say so myself, strictly in the interest of accuracy, yesterday's batch was perfect! All I did was follow the recipe to the letter, and it worked. There's a lot to be said for good old-fashioned obedience. Obey the recipe!

http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/blog/whole-wheat-hamburger-buns

I also made black bean burgers to eat on those perfect hamburger buns. And I have a couple of other veggie burger recipes waiting in the wings to try. Then, not to become too puffed up with virtuous cooking, I made oreo truffles. Brianna kindly did the dipping for me, some in white chocolate, some in semisweet chocolate. It was a fun few hours spent in the kitchen. When I wasn't in there, I was either napping or reading. I'm thoroughly enjoying a book of plays by Agatha Christie, duly impressed with the surprising twists she builds into her plots. Witness for the Prosecution and The Mousetrap are my favorites so far. Agatha Christie, or Dame Mallowan, was called the Queen of Crime with good reason!

One more excellent development: Colin landed a great job this week. It could possibly even see him all the way through college, debt free. And thus we see that good things do come to those who wait.

The Heroes of Memorial Day

At noon, we attended a flag raising ceremony by Civil War re-enactors. When I first mentioned we'd be going, Colin was less than enthusiastic about "Watching some old people dress up as older people." Shane contributed his own quip that all we lacked there was someone dressed as John Wilkes Booth. All kidding aside, I couldn't help but feel appreciation, admiration and awe for the soldiers who've served, and are yet serving, our country in defense of righteous principles. Dan and I were surprised to read a headstone of a soldier from the Spanish-American War. Sometime I'd like to wander longer there, reading more of the headstones. Actually touching them made the sacrifices of war more real for me.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The story of the writing of the poem:

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm

Stepping into the Spirit World

As you may know, I've thought a great deal about the spirit world over the last while. I'm now strong enough to read accounts from people who claim to have visited there. I've just finished a book by Dannion Brinkley and Paul Perry,Saved By The Light. It's very interesting to me, but I can't say with certainty that it's true. I believe Mr. Brinkley is telling the truth, but there's a chance he's been deceived. There is also the possibility that he himself is attempting to misled his readers. So while I read it with interest, I can't accept it as doctrine. However, here's a passage from the book that is fascinating, and I'd like to think is true.

On Sept. 18, 1975,Dannion Brinkley's spirit left his body after a lightning strike. For awhile, he was aware of his sobbing wife and worried friend, and watched as medical personnel worked to revive him. But then he saw a tunnel forming, "opening like the eye of a hurricane and coming toward" him. "That looks like an interesting place to be, I thought. And Away I went. I actually didn't move at all;; the tunnel came to me. There was the sound of chimes as the tunnel spiraled toward and then around me."

After describing his surroundings, something happened to him that was a wonderfully effective teaching tool. Wow, it'd be great to be able to cause this to happen here in mortality! I think we'd all be a lot kinder to one another if it did. Just listen to this!

"I began to experience my whole life, feeling and seeing everything that had ever happened to me. ... This life review was not pleasant. From the moment it began until it ended, I was faced with the sickening reality that I had been an unpleasant person, someone who was self-centered and mean.

"The first thing I saw was my angry childhood. I saw myself torturing other children, stealind their bicycles or making them miserable at school. One of the most vivid scenes was of the time I picked on a child at grade school because he had a goiter that protruded from his neck. The other kids in the class picked on him too, but I was the worst. At the time I thought I was funny. But now, as I relived this incident, I found myself in his body, living with the pain that I was causing.

""This perspective continued through every negative incident in my childhood, a substantial number to be sure. From fifth to twelfth grade, I estimate that I had at least six thousand fistfights. Now, as I reviewed my life in the bosom of the Being, I relived each one of those altercations, but with one major difference: I was the receiver.

"I also felt the grief I had caused my parents. I had been uncontrollable and proud of it. Although they had grounded me and yelled at me, I had let them know by my actions that none of their discipline really mattered. Many times they had pleaded with me and many times they had met frustration. ... Now, in my life review, I felt their psychological pain at having such a bad child.

"As my body lay dead on that stretcher, I was reliving every moment of my life, including my emotions, attitudes, and motivations. The depth of emotion I experienced during this life review was astonishing. Not only could I feel the way both I and the other person had felt when an incident took place, I could also feel the feelings of the next person they reacted to. I was in a chain reaction of emotion, one that showed how deeply we affect one another."

After high school, he joined the military, eventually becoming a sniper in Vietnam. Imagine the intensity of emotions he experiences in that horrible setting. He does make enough of a recovery from his injuries to transform his life to one of caring about and serving others. As I said, it's a remarkable story, but for me it's not entirely believable because not all of it squares with the gospel.

The next account, however, does. And Mr. Brinkley included a briefer part of it in his book than I've posted here:

President Jedediah M. Grant was quite sick, and could hardly speak. [Heber C. Kimball] laid hands on his head and blessed him, that his lungs might breathe easier. In two or three minutes he raised himself up and talked for about an hour as busily as he could, telling me what he had seen and what he understood, until I was afraid he would weary himself, when I arose and left him.
He said to me, "Brother Heber, I have been into the spirit world two nights in succession, and, of all the dreads that ever came across me, the worst was to have to again return to my body, though I had to do it." "But O," says he, "the order and government that were there! When in the spirit world, I saw the order of righteous men and women; beheld them organized in their several grades, and there appeared to be no obstruction to my vision; I could see every man and woman in their grade and order. I looked to see whether there was any disorder there, but there was none; neither could I see any death nor any darkness, disorder or confusion." He said that the people he there saw were organized in family capacities; and when he looked at them he saw grade after grade, and all were organized and in perfect harmony. He would mention one item after another and say, "Why, it is just as Brother Brigham says it is; it is just as he has told us many a time."
That is a testimony as to the truth of what Brother Brigham teaches us, and I know it is true, from what little light I have. He saw the righteous gathered together in the spirit world, and there were no wicked spirits among them. He saw his wife; she was the first person that came to him. He saw many that he knew, but did not have conversation with any except his wife Caroline.
She came to him, and he said that she looked beautiful and had their little child, that died on the Plains, in her arms, and said, "Mr. Grant, here is little Margaret; you know that the wolves ate her up, but it did not hurt her; here she is all right."
"To my astonishment," he said, "when I looked at families there was a deficiency in some, there was a lack, for I saw families that would not be permitted to come and dwell together, because they had not honored their calling here." He asked his wife Caroline where Joseph and Hyrum and Father Smith and others were; she replied, "they have gone away ahead, to perform and transact business for us. The same as when Brother Brigham and his brethren left Winter Quarters and came here."
Journal of Discourses, 4:135-36 (December 4, 1856).

Read more about the spirit world here:
http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Spirit_World

Lucky Dog

What award do you think Shane brought home today from the annual Borah High Lucky Dog Awards Assembly? MOST ORIGINAL. If Royal High had given out such an award, I know Jordan would have been the handsdown winner of it. I suspect that Neil was too shy to have won it, and Ethan too insecure at that time, but Kimball and Greg would have certainly been in the running for it.. Colin? I don't know where we went wrong with him - he just gets along too well most everywhere, no need to carve out his own unique niches. Not that Dan and I really know what this fine dog-boned-shaped Most Original trophy truly signifies, but naturally we accept it as a well-deserved compliment to our son, and to the family as a whole. On behalf of the entire tribe of Dan, thank you to the 2009 senior class of Borah High School!

In other news, Dan was diagnosed with acute pneumonia this weekend. Both he and I have been raising quite a rucus with all our coughing for the last few weeks. I'm 90% improved, and after a couple more days on Avelox, surely Dan will be too. I prayed as I sat on the stand in sacrament meeting that I wouldn't have a coughing spell during my talk. Bad idea, it made my throat begin that too familiar itchy-tickly sensation, so I focused my thoughts elsewhere, and I did ok. My assigned topic was being in the world but not of the world. I can only infer from this that the bishop thinks we're not of this world, that perhaps we belong on some other planet, or (dare I hope?) that he thinks we've wandered from a more exalted sphere. And that, I'm pretty certain, amounts to all of us joining Shane in fitting into the category of Most Original.

What Is A Happy Family?

Is it a problem-free family? Is it like Johnson's Baby Shampoo, one that promises No More Tears? If it is, then I guess the happy family has gone the way of the dinosaur,if it ever existed at all. Truth is, I'm overjoyed to say that I know that happy families do live and breathe in the here and now, because I'm part of one. Despite death, illness,squabbles, misunderstandings, divorce, most of us are a happy bunch, most of the time. I'll let Orson Scott Card explain because he does it so masterfully. This is an excerpt from his article, "The Truly Happy Family:"

"The great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said it with the first line of his novel "Anna Karenina": "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Actually, he said it in Russian -- this is just the most common translation --and of course he was exactly wrong. Following a very few patterns, unhappy families seem to chart almost identical downward spirals into misery or dissolution. Happy families, however, seem to find the resources to overcome obstacles, conflicts, griefs and the natural cycles of life.

What do we mean by a "happy" family? If we mean one in which each individual never knows a moment's grief, frustration, anger, disappointment, resentment, envy, loneliness or suffering, then "happy family" is a term without a referent in the real world. Even if such people existed, they wouldn't even know they were happy, having never experienced anything else. A happy family will always contain unhappy individuals, because such is the nature of human life. We always want at least some things that cannot be had; we always lose things we wish we could keep. Our bodies don't do all we want them to do; we suffer ills and pains. There is no such thing as a satisfying career, because careers by their nature can never satisfy us for more than a moment at a time. When you achieve the pinnacle of your ambition, the thrill lasts about 14 seconds, and then you cast about wondering what to try for next. Either we don't have all the children we wanted, our children make choices that we wish they hadn't, or they do everything perfectly -- and then move away to start their own families, leaving us comparatively lonely and purposeless. And yet people going through all these natural woes may be living in a genuinely happy family. Those of us who have suffered the worst thing in the world -- the death of a child --are perhaps most keenly aware of the great paradox: It is while suffering the worst of grief that we feel most keenly the joy of family love. The world gets confused and thinks that joy or happiness are identical to pleasure or amusement. Wicked, miserable, cynical, lonely people can smile and laugh; happy, generous, hopeful, loving people can weep. The measure of a joyful family life is not in our transient emotions, but rather in our lasting commitments. No offense, but Tolstoy was an idiot compared to, say, David O. McKay, who said, "No other success can compensate for failure in the home." The other side of that is: If your family is committed to helping each other achieve worthy goals, then nothing the world can do to you will take away that fundamental joy."

http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=7628

This is why I can say that while my life is not perfect, it is happy. Everyone, every child, every adult, deserves to belong to a happy family. Let us put selfishness aside and make a happy home a reality for our family!

Walking in the Air

It's been 365 days since Jordan departed this mortal sphere. The earth has made one full revolution around the sun, and many of our days have revolved around thoughts of him, the son, brother, husband and friend we cherish. He was here one minute, and gone the next. There wasn't time to say a lot to each other. Our scant words seemed inadequate. But in those last moments, I knew like I've never known before, the strength and power of eternal love. I believe now that the words that carried the very strongest message, were said years before in a temple of God. That is where the covenants were made that sealed us into an eternal family unit, dependent upon our faithfulness.

During this year, my mind has been filled with wonderings about what it's like for Jordan. If only I could have a dream, an email, a message, something to let me know how he's doing! Twelve days ago, I chanced upon a message that could be from Jordan. When I heard it, I recognized it immediately and thought of him. Long ago, our boys watched The Snoweman around Christmastime on PBS together. I'd forgotten all about it until I heard the mysteriously enchanting song again. We'd been drawn to that melody, often humming it absent-mindedly. But here it was again. Could this be what Jordan did after his spirit was loosed from the confines of earth? Could this be a hint of future adventures we might have together? I remember when Jordan and I went to the Grant County Fair together when he was 10 years old. For that evening, it was almost as if he became older, and I became younger, so that we wandered the fairgrounds like peers, eating Spaceburgers and letting ourselves be spun silly by the carnival rides. I imagine that Jordan has taken at least one spin around the world since he left us, and I am picturing that he and I, and anyone else who wants to come along, will do a world tour together ourselves someday. It may just be something like this!

Lilacs to the Rescue

You know how spring can be, balmy one day, chilly the next. That's how the last few weeks have been for me. Life is showing all its facets, from sweetest joys to bitterest pain, shifting back and forth so swiftly that I hardly have time to react. A few of the ups and downs: a disturbing letter from a once-upon-a-time friend listing my faults, two unexpected Mother's Day gifts in the mail, a son describing his worries as suffocating, the arrival of a hoped-for blog invitation from a clever grandson, a bout with asthmatic bronchitis, the approach of the first anniversary of Jordan's passing, and the blooming of one of the lilacs we planted last spring in his honor. I love that baby purple lilac, and marvel at its tenacious hardiness. I want to be just like it, unaffected by winter's snows, steadfastly blooming each spring, bringing comfort or joy to as many places as I can. This year, we will clip the blossoms from the little lilac, placing a few on our dining room table and taking the rest to grace Jordan's grave. I like to think of there being more and more blossoms each year, sharing them with an ever widening circle of friends. A little more delicate than the purple, the white lilac is just starting to bloom, a true symbol of hope for good things yet to come.

If anyone has a special lilac recollection or story, please share it with me. I want to immerse myself in lilacs for a little while, trying to crowd out some of the poignancy of last year's memories.

Even Grown Sons Are Cute

(always click the pic to enlarge)

Since Shane attended his senior prom on Saturday, and Colin was a groomsman in his former missionary companion's wedding, and our Prairifire flowering crabapple tree is in full bloom, it's a great time for a picture! I hope someone is saving all these pics for me in heaven so that I can see them someday too.

Learning From Our Conflicts

Sometimes I can't help wondering just how unusual I really am. Recently, for instance,I read a couple of paragraphs in my Primary 5 book that filled me with pretty intensevcuriosity. No way around it, I had to find out more! If you had read this from page 77, would you have gone bonkers till you knew more too? "While Joseph and Emma Smith were living in Harmony, PA, a few months after the Church was organized, Oliver Cowdery disagreed with the wording of one of the revelations Joseph had received from the Lord. Oliver wrote to Joseph Smith and said, "I command you in the name of God to erase those words!" Joseph immediately wrote back to Oliver and asked him "by what authority he took upon him to command me to alter or erase, to add to or diminish from, a revelation or commandment from
Almighty God" (History of the Church, 1 : 105).

"A short time later Joseph and Emma went to Fayette, New York, where they found that Oliver Cowdery and the Whitmer family were convinced that this revelation Joseph had received had an error and should be changed. Joseph spent much time trying to reason with Oliver and the Whitmers. Eventually Christian Whitmer became convinced that the revelation was correct as Joseph had given it, and helped convince the others." What revelation! What was the supposed error! I finally found it, and I am impressed and inspired by my finding. A speech given at a BYU devotional contained the answers I sought, and much more. Conflicts? Joseph had them. Oliver had them. Captain Moroni and Pahoran had them. Wisely, they learned from them. (Well, Oliver had some problems with that.) This speech, unlike any other I've ever found, shows us how we can learn from our conflicts! This speech is timeless, full of true principles. As relevant 20 or 30 or more years from now as it is today. Or, am I just unusual?

Learning from Our Conflicts-GERALD R. WILLIAMS