A Woman at Church

Today was a pretty good church day. I went to ward council, which so often increases my faith in humanity. We have some absolutely stellar humans in our ward, not least of which is our YW president, Maryanne Nelson. I sat by a divorcing woman who I haven't seen at church for several weeks, between her work schedule and some family insanity going on. I am going to help her move this week. Relief Society was beautiful. "The Immediate Goodness of God." There wasn't anything that raised my hackles, and there was some pretty frank vulnerability. I came home from choir practice to find my hard drive on the desk. I even found the fishing merit badge photos for William's Eagle court of honor. I will have to hunt through some more to find what other scouting mementos are buried in there. I have one week. Self-reliance group went well. Four left! I went straight from there to the Crawfords to talk to Eean about my performance review. That also went well. After also sp...

I just returned from a stake self-reliance council meeting. It was a good meeting. I am only going to talk about the annoying part at the end. We got on the topic of childcare for people to participate in self-reliance groups. Someone suggested that maybe young women could do childcare for a group, taking turns over 12 weeks. I vigorously shook my head from the utterance of the words "young women" until the person stopped talking. I am ready for this to stop being our first idea. It's problematic on so many levels. Why do we always ask the young women? Why don't we consider the opportunity cost to them of not being able to do whatever the young men are doing during that time (homework, relaxing, sleeping, spending time with their families)? Why don't we ever ask the young men? Why don't we consider the opportunity cost to them of not developing child development skills to the same extent as the young women? Do we not also hope that they will become parents...

Today in Sunday school my randomly selected verse (from the jar prepared by the teacher) was Philippians 3:8, "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." My thought question was "what have you sacrificed for Christ?" I shared, in vague terms, my experience offending my friend and taking several days to realize the self-deception of that moment and let go of my image of myself so I could actually become a better person. Letting go of our image of ourselves as dung is a winning effort, but challenging all the same. That was all well and good. Then Ben made a comment about how important self-knowledge is. It was not a stressful situation, and I didn't roll my eyes, but I found myself wondering whether I will ever be able to take him at face value. The story in my mind was about him trying to reinforc...

Today I drove to Nauvoo to do sealings. I had 5 couples and 1 daughter, all that remained from the cascade Catherine Andersen began several years ago when she helped me find a handful of family names during Sunday school one day. I joined a session in progress and they folded me in to the work. I served as proxy for the wife during a number of sealings, some of my family names and some of others, and stayed there as the daughter was sealed to her parents. I felt tender especially during the couple sealings, thinking of what it means to keep my covenant to God to be a certain kind of wife and mother. The poignancy these days is all about my children and their relationships with me. I had tears streaming down my face during much of the ordinance and I felt God's love for me. After a couple of turns at the altar, the sealer asked me if I would like to be a witness. He asked if I had done it before and then explained the specifics of the role, what to watch for. I was grateful that h...

I cried a lot at church this weekend. Last night I was moved by Sarah Hachtman's beautiful, nuanced performance of Rob Gardner's arrangement of "Come, Ye Disconsolate," accompanied by Marilyn Olson. Pr. Wilde taught about not being deceived. The biggest risk, I'd say, is self-deception. This morning I drove Dad to the airport and then went to the church. I cried through Makayla Steiner's talk about maintaining our connection to Christ through uncertain times. And I cried through Pr. Wilde's talk about focusing on the first two commandments to love God and love our neighbor because I have felt that love. And I felt tired at the end. It was not surprising after a week of my younger kids not showing up for my parenting time, and navigating my dad's visit. The visit actually felt calm and enjoyable, but I was still drained when it was over. It was my dad's first real glimpse of what things look like on the ground here. Tom and Amelia were difficult...

It has been a week of good news at church. I noticed that my response to the news that women and girls will be able to serve as formal witnesses at ordinances included gratitude but not excited amazement. I thought, "Oh good! They've gotten around to taking care of that. Of course we should be able to do that." A lot of women in my divorce groups were effusive about this option and what it means for them and their families. Many of them were in overtly abusive marriages, so the former spouse is often unworthy, antagonistic, or both. I was grateful for Terence Vinson's story about the woman who experienced the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ healing her bitterness toward her former spouse. I identify with that experience, though it was more gradual for me. And then he tossed in the "by the way, she is now happily married," and I thought, "Darn! he almost made it." I don't understand why we have to make marriage the happy ending. That...