Saturday was my birthday. Göran baked me an incredible, super fantastic chocolate chocolate chocolate cake. His gift to me was a love story, Habibi, by Craig Thompson, a book I couldn't put down until I had read it cover to cover. I want to read it again... and again... It is so full of wonderful, incredible stuff, and taught me so much about the gift of love Göran and I share, and my responsibility to everyone else I share this beautiful planet with, and what it means to be a child of God and to be human.
Glen has been thriving in college. He's been living independently for a little over a year now, and is doing so well. On my birthday, Göran and Glen and I had a great time at a nearby apple orchard, going for a hay ride, eating cider brats and apple pie, visiting the petting zoo, getting bitten by little black gnats, and successfully avoiding any actual apple picking. We are so proud of Glen. I love him and miss having him around the house, though we are usually able to spend time with him every week or two, and I find I don't cry when I see little reminders of him around the house quite so often as I did in the months just after he moved out!
We had promised Glen that we wouldn't take in any new foster kids for at least a year, until we were sure that he was doing well and successfully living on his own. We wanted his bedroom to be available in case he needed it! We're satisfied now that he's well on the road to independent living. (Glen insists he doesn't want to subject himself to our rules again!) So last night, we met with a social worker for about an hour and a half to fill out paper work for our foster care licensing renewal, and we are finally actively looking for a new placement again.
I feel a great sense of peace about this. In the month of November, we will finish paying off our house. We will own it free and clear. We have been blessed with material prosperity and good health and a loving relationship. So it would seem supremely ungrateful not to share that with another child in need.
We're expecting again!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Obedience as Principle of Creation
Lately I've been reading the Book of Abraham, and a few verses particularly struck me as I read the fourth chapter this morning:
This all brings me back to a Sunday School lesson taught by a member of our Stake Presidency years back, that made a profound impression on me. He was using D&C 121 as the text, particularly a phrase in verse 46: "and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever."
Unfortunately, the worldly understanding of the principle of obedience has become imbricated with the notion of compulsion, force. Worldly governments coerce or force obedience with armies, police forces, jails, torture and corporal/capital punishment. But that is a satanic principle. (Something that the Book of Moses develops, in chapter 4:1-4.)
The idea of obedience in itself, in its purity, is actually an expression or manifestation of the principle of freedom. The concept of obedience requires the possibility that the one obeying may go a different way than to obey. When we obey, we willingly collaborate out of trust and love. In this account of creation in the Book of Abraham, we see creation as a kind of divine dance. The gods (it's a collective endeavor! one in which we participated!) say, "OK, elements, let's do this!" Then they watch (!), as it's the elements' turn to respond. The elements obey; they join in the dance. They move, they coalesce, they cooperate! And marvelous things happen!
In my practice of yoga, I've learned that a similar principle operates within my body. My mind says, "Move! Hold! Breathe!" And then it watches, to see if my body will obey! Sometimes it does so more perfectly than others. Obedience takes practice.
This life is that wonderful opportunity for us to develop the discipline that enables us to join the divine dance. God calls to us out of a deep hunger to create joy. "This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man [and woman!]" (Moses 1: 39). "Adam [and Eve] fell that men [and women!] might be; and men [and women!] are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2: 25).
Yes, we make mistakes! Yes, we frequently fail miserably and fall flat on our faces! (That's happened to me a couple of times in yoga class!) This life is our chance to get back up and try again! Keep trying until we get it! Until we enter into the dance of joy that the gods -- that our Heavenly Parents -- have invited us into!
And the Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they obeyed....
And the Gods saw that they would be obeyed, and that their plan was good....
And the Gods organized the earth to bring forth the beasts after their kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind; and the Gods saw they would obey....
And the Gods said: We will do everything that we have said, and organize them; and behold, they shall be very obedient. (Abraham 4: 18, 21, 25 & 31)
This all brings me back to a Sunday School lesson taught by a member of our Stake Presidency years back, that made a profound impression on me. He was using D&C 121 as the text, particularly a phrase in verse 46: "and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever."
Unfortunately, the worldly understanding of the principle of obedience has become imbricated with the notion of compulsion, force. Worldly governments coerce or force obedience with armies, police forces, jails, torture and corporal/capital punishment. But that is a satanic principle. (Something that the Book of Moses develops, in chapter 4:1-4.)
The idea of obedience in itself, in its purity, is actually an expression or manifestation of the principle of freedom. The concept of obedience requires the possibility that the one obeying may go a different way than to obey. When we obey, we willingly collaborate out of trust and love. In this account of creation in the Book of Abraham, we see creation as a kind of divine dance. The gods (it's a collective endeavor! one in which we participated!) say, "OK, elements, let's do this!" Then they watch (!), as it's the elements' turn to respond. The elements obey; they join in the dance. They move, they coalesce, they cooperate! And marvelous things happen!
In my practice of yoga, I've learned that a similar principle operates within my body. My mind says, "Move! Hold! Breathe!" And then it watches, to see if my body will obey! Sometimes it does so more perfectly than others. Obedience takes practice.
This life is that wonderful opportunity for us to develop the discipline that enables us to join the divine dance. God calls to us out of a deep hunger to create joy. "This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man [and woman!]" (Moses 1: 39). "Adam [and Eve] fell that men [and women!] might be; and men [and women!] are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2: 25).
Yes, we make mistakes! Yes, we frequently fail miserably and fall flat on our faces! (That's happened to me a couple of times in yoga class!) This life is our chance to get back up and try again! Keep trying until we get it! Until we enter into the dance of joy that the gods -- that our Heavenly Parents -- have invited us into!
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