Monday, June 28, 2010

The Wait Is Over

Well, yesterday brought the end of my winning streak. It's okay. I can handle defeat when I know I fought a good fight. But what can I say? I'm but a mere mortal. No one can stave off the bishop forever.

For the last 8.5 years, I have not spoken in church. Now, before you get up in arms about the universe being cruel and unusual, I HAVE spent nearly the entirety of that time with at least 2 callings, one of which has ALWAYS been playing the cursed, cold, unfeeling, beastly organ. I always thought it my "Get Outta Jail Free" card. However, having to play the organ AND speak on the same day??? More like being tried for the same crime twice. ;0)

I've known exactly what I was to speak on long before I got the invitation: Doctrine & Covenants 122:7, wherein the Lord tells the imprisoned Joseph Smith, “Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.”

Basically, I spoke on Learning Through Adversity.

**DISCLAIMER: This is only about 2/3 of it...I have just a smidge too much self-respect to put my nerdy, feeble attempts at jokes in the actual document...It was WAAAY funnier in person, but don't take my word for it...;0)***

Signed, Levar Burton.

(Ahh. Who doesn't love a good Reading Rainbow reference? No one? Oh. Okay then. Moving on...)

Since we were teeny, tiny mini-Mormons, throwin' down over the coveted nursery dumptruck, we've been taught life’s two purposes: 1) Gain a body and 2) Be tested.

If you're reading this blog today (arguably against your better judgment), put a big, red Sharpie checkmark by 1. No church talk required, there. ;0)

During PA school, sometime around the day I officially lost the ability to spell and the day I had a nervous breakdown in front of my program director and almost cried crocodile tears in front of him, I had an epiphany:

LIFE IS LIKE SCHOOL.

It is:
o New and scary.

We'll have:
o Favorite subjects and places we excel,
o Difficult subjects that make us cry into our textbook,

We'll:
o Make friends, lose friends, gain friends (hopefully a net gain, there!),
o Endure finals week, questioning whether our bodies will withstand the pressure for one more nanosecond,

And then we're graced with:
o Sparse vacation periods, when we're at one with world because for the first time in recollection, we're not studying.

But no one's exempt from:
o Really difficult times, that feel like we're switching schools, starting all over again, shaking the very foundation of who we are…which are part of everyone’s life, but hard nonetheless.

And it wouldn't make much sense to show up on the first day of high school and, right there on the spot, take the tests to get our diploma, now would it? Yeah, didn't think so.

So, if the sum of life is a test, how can we get passing grades?...or at least stay out of principal’s office...

One of my favorite quotes is, “The more I learn, the more I know I don’t know anything.” After "completing" (...haha...funny how loosely a term can be used...) 88.5 credits in the past year, I know but one thing: how to be a student.

So, I spelled out the necessary steps! (...as some general authorities and various prophets see it, anyway...)

How can we succeed in school of life?

Step #1: Come to class...and stay awake.

David A. Bednar stated, “You and I are here on the earth to prepare for eternity, to learn how to learn, to learn things that are temporally important and eternally essential, and to assist others in learning wisdom and truth.”

The best way to make sure you get adequate exposure to all the subject material that will be on the test is to come to church. Come to sacrament meeting. Stay for gospel doctrine, relief society and priesthood meetings. Cultivate a habit. Get to the point where it feels uncomfortable to miss a Sunday of church. If you’re one of our precious and remarkable youth, come to mutual. Attend seminary. Everyone, participate in other church activities wherever possible: it’s like extra credit. Come to church: your kids will always remember your faithfulness. Weekly attendance can only benefit your spiritual comprehension and improve your celestial GPA. Plus we like you and want to see you here.

Gordon B. Hinckley encourages us, “These are the great days of your preparation for your future work. Do not waste them. Take advantage of them. Cram your heads full of knowledge. Assimilate it. Think about it. Let it become a part of you.” I believe he instructed us to do so because, as Brigham Young said, “We are in the school [of mortality] and keep learning, and we do not expect to cease learning while we live on earth; and when we pass through the veil, we expect still to continue to learn and increase our fund of information...we are not capacitated to receive all knowledge at once. We must therefore receive a little here and a little there. We might ask, when shall we cease to learn? I will give you my opinion about it: never, never.”

Step #2: Choose good study-buddies.

There are all kinds of people on this Earth. We need to seek out those that are healthy for us. Neal A. Maxwell very astutely warned us of those, stating, “Such people know they should have their primary residence in Zion, but they still hope to keep a summer cottage in Babylon.” Choose carefully the kind of people you want to surround yourself with, and choose the kind of person YOU want to be accordingly! Be friends with people who make you feel like the best version of yourself, and BE that kind of friend to others. Surround yourself with people who will buoy you up, and watch out for those more like an anchor.

And when it comes to our eternal study-buddy, it’s even more critical to choose wisely. A bazillion different factors come into play when we choose whom we want to trek through life with, and how to choose a mate is another church talk altogether. However, the one key element is to pray for answers. If we are living righteously and we pray before we plunge, the swim will be more leisurely.

Gordon B. Hinckley instructed us, “Be worthy of the mate you choose. Respect him or her. Give encouragement to him or her. Love your companion with all your heart. This will be the most important decision of your life, the individual whom you marry. Be fiercely loyal one to another. A good marriage requires time. It requires effort. You have to work at it. You have to cultivate it. You have to forgive and forget.

Remember Spencer W. Kimball’s insightful challenge, “Don’t just pray to marry the one you love; instead, pray to love the one you marry.”

Gordon B Hinckley once quoted Deseret News columnist Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who observed, “There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young . . . that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks, to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and beautiful wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear, the divorce courts are jammed. . . . Life is like an old-time rail journey–delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.”

Step #3: Read the textbook.

We need to read the scriptures. We simply cannot learn all that we need to know if we neglect scripture study. (Gordon B. Hinckley – Life’s Obligations) “We’ve been instructed in Doctrine and Covenants 88:118 to “seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom” and to acquire knowledge “by study and also by faith.”

We’ve also been taught that “whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.” (D&C 130:18.)

With regard to learning from the scriptures, Gordon B. Hinckley remarked, “The older I grow, the more I enjoy the words of thoughtful writers, ancient and modern, and the savoring of that which they have written.”

If we really thought about it – if we studied prayerfully and sought the personal implications of what we’re reading in the scriptures – we’d realize that there’s NOTHING we can go through that someone didn’t go through in the scriptures. Of course, our struggles might have a modern twist, but the principle is the same. Heed the advice of those who have gone before. When they all tell you the value of a mighty change of heart, realize that your own “mighty change of heart” can help you overcome whatever you’re struggling with right now, in 2010, in these painfully modern lives of ours.

Stanley G. Ellis of the Seventy admonished, “The scriptures warn us that not knowing is not an excuse for not doing. The Lord expects us to inquire, study, and act—even though there are some things we may never know in this life.” The point of such studying is that in working hard to gratefully glean all the life lessons we can from the scriptures, our Heavenly Father will see that we can handle further knowledge, and He’ll give us more.

Step 4#: Do your homework.

This is where I pitch serving in the nursery. Ten years ago, I turned 18 and got my first church calling – in nursery. I’ve been in a primary calling 9 out of the last 10 years. I’d be lying if I said there’s never a time I miss being a Sabbath day grown-up, but I have a strong testimony of callings, even the ones I hated at first, and some of my most spiritual experiences have come while being taught by your kids.

Accept callings. They’re callings, not requests. Each calling you take, especially when you feel totally unqualified, will expand your abilities, broaden your horizons, bring you new friends, teach you a greater appreciation for others, increase your love of the Lord, and make you more like Him. President Hinckley said it best: “There is no small or unimportant calling in this Church. Serve wherever you are called to serve. Do what you are asked to do. Every position you hold will add to your capacity. Make room for the Church in your life.”

Step #5: Keep track of your grades.

In the school of life, we all have solid semesters, and some semesters we just blame on life. We are mortals. Sometimes we stumble. Sometimes we fall. And sometimes, we have what feels like a head-on collision with a train. Though these simple truths don’t justify or excuse poor choices, they help remind us of why we need to forgive ourselves and exhaust our efforts to improve ourselves. When you’ve painted yourself into a corner, remember how that corner felt and what got you there, and commit to never paint in that pattern…or simply abandon the painting profession altogether.

There will be, if there haven’t been already, times in life where you wonder, “Why is this happening to me?” God designed us to learn best and remember most vividly from painful experiences. Science has proven that each time we learn something new, the new info cycles in a region in our brains called the hippocampus, and it’s laid down into permanent memory while we sleep. In contrast, experiences that are especially challenging and emotionally charged are stored in a different area called the amygdala, and there it becomes stored forever and is much more easily provoked and recalled in detail. Why would God give us multiple pathways for life’s information if some lessons weren’t more important than others? We must learn the lessons of life’s pain and use our stumbling blocks as stepping stones. Jeffrey R. Holland reassures us, “God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go.”

Step #6: Take notes.

Perhaps the best way to remind ourselves where we’ve been and where we’re going is to write it down. Brothers and sisters, journal. We’ve been commanded to do it. It is cathartic. It helps us organize our thoughts. It gives us something to reflect on. It can remind us what we’ve been through so we don’t have to learn hard lessons in perpetuity. Some of our greatest epiphanies can be found in the scribblings of our own journals...and it’s good to be reminded of what got you through...and that you DID, indeed, get through.

Step #7: Don’t disrupt your classmates.

Much to some people’s surprise and displeasure, we ARE here on Earth with other people. Like it or not, we must interact with others, and the possible outcomes of those interactions are infinite. There’s a reason we call each other “brother” and “sister:” we are an Earthly FAMILY. That means we’ll have history and drama, good memories and bad, some siblings we wish we could bunk with and stay up all night with giggling and sharing our worlds, and other siblings we can’t legally divorce fast enough.

When we have a bad experience with one of our siblings, may we remember how our older brother loves us ALL and listen to Jeffrey R. Holland’s advice, when he said, “I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead.”

He goes on, “When something is over and done with, when it has been repented of as fully as it can be repented of, when life has moved on as it should and a lot of other wonderfully good things have happened since then, it is not right to go back and open some ancient wound that the Son of God Himself died to heal. Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope? Yes! Is that charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ.”

He continues, “If something is buried in the past, leave it buried. Don’t keep going back with your little sand pail and beach shovel to dig it up, wave it around, and then throw it at someone, saying, “Hey! Do you remember this?” Splat! Well, guess what? That is probably going to result in some ugly morsel being dug up out of your landfill with the reply, “Yeah, I remember it. Do you remember this?” Splat. And soon enough everyone comes out of that exchange dirty and muddy and unhappy and hurt, when what our Father in Heaven pleads for is cleanliness and kindness and happiness and healing.”

Doctrine and Covenants 58:42 reminds us, “He who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.”

President Holland concludes, “Like the Anti-Nephi-Lehies of the Book of Mormon, bury your weapons of war and leave them buried. Forgive and do that which is sometimes harder than to forgive: forget. And when it comes to mind again, forget it again.”

Step #8: Get a tutor.

One thing I’m truly, deeply passionate about is learning from others. Just as I said about the scriptures, there is nothing we can go through that someone else hasn’t gone through in a similar degree.

If we could see into people’s past experiences, we would find that there are people all around who know very well, if not exactly, what we’re going through. Too often during our struggles, we feel completely and utterly alone on this Earth. It’s during these times that we can and should look to others for help, comfort, advice and understanding. I promise you that no matter what you’re going through, there is someone who can help you better cope. And when your burden is one you must bear in silence, and these are usually the heaviest burdens, this is when we learn to be more sensitive to others and more reliant on the Lord for our deliverance.

Step #9: Ask the teacher for help.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf recently instructed, “We need to stay close to the Lord every day if we are to survive the adversity that we all must face.” No one knows us better than our Heavenly Father and our elder brother, Jesus Christ. No one knows us – our joy, our pain, the sum of our existence – better than those two. When we feel like we have nowhere else to turn, to THEM is precisely where we should be turning, whether through scriptures, prayer, temple attendance, or simple meditation. Through the still small voice, we are never truly alone.

So many people love to say, “Life is a Journey.” I disagree. Life is NOT a journey...life is a TRIP! There are lessons that can be learned no other way than by being mortal. That’s why we’re here! It’s not always fun or easy or even comfortable, but it is part of the process, and it always has been the plan. We should do our best to pay close attention to the experiences we’re having and the lessons they offer us. Some lessons come through routine life experiences. Some lessons come through the consequences to our actions. And some lessons come through no fault of our own, wherein we feel like we’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time…or the unluckiest person on the planet. However, how our lessons come to us is nowhere near as important as WHAT we learn from them…and, on a larger scale, IF we learn from them at all.

Again, in the words of the Lord as He is speaking peace to Joseph Smith’s soul in Liberty Jail, “If the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give the experience, and shall be for thy good. Therefore, hold on thy way….Fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.”

In closing, life may be more easily viewed if we think of it like the Arizona monsoons. Some years we’re kissed by the sunshine nearly every day and we think a little rain might spice things up a bit. Other years, sprinkles come and go, but never enough to even form a puddle we can splash in. Some years, monsoon season hits when we expect it, and we do our best to wear waterproof shoes and keep an umbrella in the car, or at least have good windshield wipers. And occasionally, a year comes along that brings seemingly relentless monsoon storms in the most bizarre and unusual seasons, with nighttime thunder that continues into daytime cloud-cover and ambient gray that just won’t quit. But when the sky seems set on being the boss of us, we should remember what lies just above the apparent ominous layer of gray…crystal blue skies, with white, billowing clouds and an infinite view that God himself designed and intended us to keep in our perspective. No matter how hard that flimsy, lowest, gray layer of sky intends to pour down on us, just above it, it’s always blue.

And then I bore my testimony...that I know the Church is true. I know that Jesus is the Christ and our savior. I know that the scriptures are the word of God. I know that Joseph Smith, Thomas S. Monson, and all other prophets, latter-day and ancient, are true and inspired men of God.

Aaaaand if you need me, I'll be lounging in a hammock for another 8.5 years... ;0)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

PA School is Rough...



So is skateboarding face-first.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Use Hairbows

Warning: Storage of hairbox should comply with 3' height restriction enforced when the rugrat was age Two.

Dana, Darling -- You're a saint.