Georgia
Today I took a Lyft to church in Georgia. I attended my brother-in-law's ward with him and his wife. They had fast and testimony meeting because they will have stake conference next week and Mother's Day is the week after that. It was a nice meeting. Kelly played the organ. When she finished postlude we went to Relief Society. The topic was Elder Callister's talk on "The Atonement of Jesus Christ." I was glad that I had read it recently.
The meeting was interesting in that there was a video screen set up. I wondered if we were going to watch a lot of the talk. We didn't, but the teacher had prepared slides that she used as an outline, mostly of quotes from the lesson. It was a useful organizing tool for her. There were quite a few comments, more than I had expected when I realized the teacher's outline was so formal. It was good commentary, but didn't rise to the level of a discussion. It was still very much the teacher's lesson. Yet I was glad to be there and grateful for many of their contributions.
After church I went to Dave and Kelly's home where I saw their son James for the first time in several years. It felt comfortable to be with them. We didn't discuss the divorce. I had made a comment about not knowing what input the kids were receiving that might color their behavior toward me. As we were loading up for them to drive me back to the hotel, Kelly asked to speak to me privately. She wanted me to know that Ben had "" said anything unkind about me "the whole time" he was with them over spring break, which I gather was about four days. I don't consider four days of conversation with family members in whom you don't normally confide and rarely interact with a representative sample of what a person might be willing to say to their children. I also don't know that she would be able to identify every problematic assertion as such (e.g. "This is not what I wanted").
At a certain point Kelly went on about her differences with Dave about how to decorate their home. I think there may supposed to be a lesson in their for me about persisting through disagreement. I took the opportunity to say how I had color on the walls of my house for the first time. She dodged and said that some areas just have their own culture about such things. She didn't want it to be about disagreement with Ben, let alone the prevalence of his desires over everyone else's. She certainly didn't want to talk about it.
So it was a pleasant visit. It felt good to reconnect in some ways. In others, it felt unsatisfying and shallow. I had had some desires for the visit, but no real expectations. Since our meeting began with them telling me James wasn't coming to church, I thought that maybe I should listen more than talk. I ended up doing a reasonable balance of both.
As much as I really like Elder Callister's talk, I couldn't help but think when it was announced, "If it's okay to give time to someone who is no longer serving as a General Officer of the Church, why is it not okay to give time to the General Boards of Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary, and afford more women a chance to speak--and more people a chance to hear from more women? I would prefer that Becky Craven not represent half of the women's voices at General Conference. Sharon Eubank, however, I would gladly listen to any day. I thank God for her.
The meeting was interesting in that there was a video screen set up. I wondered if we were going to watch a lot of the talk. We didn't, but the teacher had prepared slides that she used as an outline, mostly of quotes from the lesson. It was a useful organizing tool for her. There were quite a few comments, more than I had expected when I realized the teacher's outline was so formal. It was good commentary, but didn't rise to the level of a discussion. It was still very much the teacher's lesson. Yet I was glad to be there and grateful for many of their contributions.
After church I went to Dave and Kelly's home where I saw their son James for the first time in several years. It felt comfortable to be with them. We didn't discuss the divorce. I had made a comment about not knowing what input the kids were receiving that might color their behavior toward me. As we were loading up for them to drive me back to the hotel, Kelly asked to speak to me privately. She wanted me to know that Ben had "" said anything unkind about me "the whole time" he was with them over spring break, which I gather was about four days. I don't consider four days of conversation with family members in whom you don't normally confide and rarely interact with a representative sample of what a person might be willing to say to their children. I also don't know that she would be able to identify every problematic assertion as such (e.g. "This is not what I wanted").
At a certain point Kelly went on about her differences with Dave about how to decorate their home. I think there may supposed to be a lesson in their for me about persisting through disagreement. I took the opportunity to say how I had color on the walls of my house for the first time. She dodged and said that some areas just have their own culture about such things. She didn't want it to be about disagreement with Ben, let alone the prevalence of his desires over everyone else's. She certainly didn't want to talk about it.
So it was a pleasant visit. It felt good to reconnect in some ways. In others, it felt unsatisfying and shallow. I had had some desires for the visit, but no real expectations. Since our meeting began with them telling me James wasn't coming to church, I thought that maybe I should listen more than talk. I ended up doing a reasonable balance of both.
As much as I really like Elder Callister's talk, I couldn't help but think when it was announced, "If it's okay to give time to someone who is no longer serving as a General Officer of the Church, why is it not okay to give time to the General Boards of Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary, and afford more women a chance to speak--and more people a chance to hear from more women? I would prefer that Becky Craven not represent half of the women's voices at General Conference. Sharon Eubank, however, I would gladly listen to any day. I thank God for her.
Comments
Post a Comment