Friday, November 28, 2008

Attitude of Gratitude


Wasn't able to post a blog yesterday about Thanksgiving as it was a bittersweet day for me. It was the first Thanksgiving since our sons went on missions that we did not spend time together. Last year was a little off as well and signaled the beginning of the end, but I did not see it then.

I could not write about my feelings then, but this morning in my LDS gems there was a great quote from Elder Eyring that put it all in perspective:

“I am at a stage in my life when, because of great distances, I cannot come to know well grandchildren and, in time, great-grandchildren. There are also people who have never had the opportunity for marriage and parenthood who have the same yearning as I do to somehow be close to family. Because of the restoration of the knowledge of eternal families, we are more hopeful and more kindly in all our family relations. The greatest joys in this life center in families, as they will in the worlds to come. I am so grateful for the assurance I have that if we are faithful, the same sociality which we enjoy here in this life will be forever with us in the world to come, in eternal glory (see D&C 130:2).”

Henry B. Eyring, “The True and Living Church,” Ensign, May 2008, 22


Although his inability to see his extended family is due to geographical distances and mine is an emotional void, the yearnings are the same. An emotional gap is difficult because all communication is cut off. While our sons were on missions, we greatly enjoyed our biyearly phone calls and weekly (?) letters. We no longer enjoy that luxury. We still are hopeful as we know that in the next life all will become clear. There will not be the misunderstandings that exist in this life nor the mistrust. If I am faithful, all that the Father has will be mine. I don't really want His, I only long for mine, or what I perceive to be mine.

I really don't want to wallow in this, but it is a source of great pain. I suppose it is a good thing to at least address it especially in a journal kind of way. I think that pain is something we are supposed to experience however unpleasant it might be as it adds to our experience we are supposed to gain here on the earth. How can we expect to inherit eternal life if we have not felt the rejection of those we love? Jesus Christ certainly has been reviled by those He loved; should we expect to get through this life without this? Apparently not.

That being said, I cannot help but feel extremely grateful for what I have which includes wonderful memories with those I can no longer have contact. I have been a most blessed mother in Zion. I have 3 wonderful sons, and they have wonderful wives. What children have been born have been incredible, each in their own unique way. My husband is an incredible man who keeps his talents and spirituality well hidden from the world.

In saying I am thankful for the wives, I have to add the thought that I have been feeling grateful for Bonnie lately even though she and Dorian are getting a divorce. I went through a time when I was not so grateful, but I realize now that was foolish. She and Dorian produced 2 wonderful children that would not be in our family if they had not been together. While a divorced situation is not what we would have chosen for them, this world has a way of beating young couples up. Unfortunately, they have definately been a victim of this. As we are now given the opportunity to share our life with Wyatt, their son, we can only hope to stop the carnage, or at least alleviate it. I'm sure Darius and Alicia feel the same way about Angelina. I am grateful she is there as it helps me share in her life in a way I had not have been able to before.

My love for little Brooklyn is limited to my visions from afar. Maybe that is how our Heavenly Father feels when we move far away from Him. He is not able to enjoy daily communication with those who do not wish to communicate with him. I'm sure He sneaks a glimpse whenever He can. Just as there are children that don't even know about Him, she will not know us. I wonder at His patience and understanding.

I really intended this post to be about Thanksgiving. We celebrated with my mother on Monday with an apple harvest celebration, but the actual day of TG we spent at Sombrero Beach in Marathon, Florida. It was a beautiful place and we saw an amazing number of sea creatures there. Sombrero Beach serves as an estuary for the Florida Bay which means it is a nursery for the wildlife that lives in the larger bodies of water. We saw a baby sea urchin that was only an 1/8 inch wide as well as baby sand dollars! There were thousands of baby hermit crabs, but the find of day was by Angelina: a giant hermit crab. He would have easily been a foot long if we had pulled him from his shell. He looked like a Maine lobster! I have never seen one so big. He scared her to death! I'm sure Darius will post some pictures on his blog. We also saw a colony of the conchs that are the original mollusk to inhabit the hermit crab shell before they are eaten by the urchins. It was a great environmental study although I'm sure the kids did not fully appreciate that aspect of our discoveries.

One cannot be in a place like this without thinking of how blessed we are to live on the earth. He has truly given us everything we need to be happy if we could only see that and appreciate it. I hope this Thanksgiving will help me to remember to always count my blessings and truly develop an attitude of gratitude.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Ode to Dorian



A tradition I started a number of years ago was recording a journal entry about each of my children on their birthdays. I haven't done it as consistently as I should ... in fact, that is the bane of my existence: consistency. I have not done anything as consistently as I should, except to be consistent with inconsistence, of course.

Anyway, I've been thinking for a week about Dorian's birthday. He is 35 today. He has had some rough times, and this year may fall into the memory banks as one of those, I think. I'm not really sure how he is perceiving it, but maybe someday we will be able to talk about it.

35 years ago, he was born in a hospital in Plantation, Florida. He was a month late, so he weighed 9 lbs. 3 oz. He was always a tall, skinny kid until we moved to our present home in rural Northeast Florida. Because he was used to the city life, he was a little intimidated by living in an area where there were no neighbors and no where to go, so he spent a lot of time at home. He had little interest in the outside activities the rest of us did with the landscaping and gardening and animal husbandry.

Dorian was a beautiful baby with the blondest hair you have ever seen in your life. He didn't have any brothers until he was 8 years old, and he always hated that he didn't have any siblings closer to his own age. I don't think he ever felt like he fit into his family. This is odd as I have always felt that way about my family. I am unlike any of my sisters. I thought I had been hatched or something. I think he feels more estranged now than ever, and this makes me very sad. I really love him so much, but I don't know how to relate to him in the situations he is in presently.

Loving our children is a very peculiar thing. We can love our children, and yet, this does not mean we always understand them. I have found that unconditional love is a gift given to me as a mother for which I am eternally grateful.

One thing a lot of people don't know about Dorian is how smart he is. As a 3 year, he was reading on a 3rd and 4th grade level. He has always been advanced, but this poses its own set of problems. We soon found that home school was the only way to keep up with his rapidly developing aptitude. He was horribly bored while in any classroom setting. We credit Dorian with teaching us about the wonders of home school. He taught us to value it as a superior form of education for anyone who wants the best for their children. When I first began homeschooling someone told me that no teacher could care about my child as much as his parents, and he taught us how true this statement is.

My greatest memory of his early childhood education was a teacher who told me she could not put Dorian in the time out room because all of the children wanted to be in there with him, and she could not maintain control of her classroom. Another memory I have was once when he was home with a little cold, he asked me if he could learn to write cursive...he was in kindergarten! That was when I realized he would never get to learn at his own pace in any other setting besides at home.

I don't think he ever really liked home schooling, unfortunately. I don't know if we would consider it a success with him or not as he always missed interaction with his peers. It was that same desire for socialization that got him in trouble while he was at school, so in retrospect, I still don't know what the best solution would have been. All I know is that we felt inspired to pull him out of government school, so I don't regret the decision. Since we were directed through revelation to do it the way we did, all I can suppose is that the alternative would not have been good for him. Maybe one day, all the unhappinesses he feels about his childhood will come into a different perspective. I hope so.

I love you, Dorian. I always have and always will. I'm sorry you see my actions as unloving. I can't change how you perceive us. All I can tell you is that I have spent most of my adult life trying to do things that would help you to be happy. May you find what will lead you to happiness and peace and joy.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Blogging: the new Sitcom

I've been thinking a lot about how exposed we are with this blogging thing. I'm wondering how we will see it years down the road. There are perhaps two ways to look at it: my first thought is that no one really reads them anyway, and the more people post, the less read any individual blog will be. Secondly, if everyone is putting it out there, we won't be so shocked by the individual defeats people post.

It's kind of like the wave of sitcoms that became popular in the 50's. They remain popular today because people can relate to them. Blogging fills this perhaps better than TV as it is people we know or can get to know. They are real people.

It seems like whenever I am thinking about something, I read a blog about it somewhere else. This time it was Steve Pavlina's again:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/11/share-your-shame/

He talks about how as we "share our shame" in a public blog we are getting rid of the burden. As it is lifted from our soul, we can move on. True confessions as it were.

I have always been cautious when journaling not to include things of a "negative" nature, not because I feared what my progenitors would think should they ever read it, but as a precaution if they did. I didn't want to bring them down in some of my worst case scenarios. But, like the sitcoms of the 50's, everything is not rosy. Somehow, we can identify more with people's trials than their triumphs. I guess the triumphs are easy; it is the trials that get our attention.

As I was reading daughter-in-law blogs today (thank you both, by the way), I was thinking what a blessing this would be to their children someday. I think my children have seen my life as too easy as I kept my trials to myself. This was possibly a disservice to them as they assumed their life would be as easy as they saw mine to be.

Well, I'm here now to tell ya, it ain't easy. Hardly any day is easy. Every once in a while, maybe, but not usually. There, now I've said it. I will try to "share my shame" more on my blog and in my journaling as I learn to let go of my failures.

That being said, it is not an easy thing for me. I'll try harder tomorrow...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A Little Bit Here, A Little Bit There, It All Adds Up...


I was listening to someone talk about cleaning out their space, and I was thinking how much decluttering our homes relates to decluttering our minds and our bodies. I have been hearing a lot about this lately, so it must be on everyone's mind. One poster went so far as to say if one is living in a cluttered environment, they can't possibly be making progress on decluttering their bodies or minds. That seems a little judgemental because one of the big factors in decluttering is how much space one has available. Some really do not have room for the necessities, but then again, maybe we just need to prioritize.

What I have learned from watching Roger go through this process (in watching him, I realized I did the same thing, but I couldn't see it in myself until I saw him) is that just as our bodies get rid of the waste by what I call shelves, we do the same with other decluttering that needs to be done. Example? ok.

We decided a couple of weeks ago to clean out our closet that had not been cleaned since we moved here. There were things put there when we first moved in and never looked at again. Then we just kept stuffing more and more things on top until we could barely get in there to get our clothes.

First, we just emptied everything out. It all started because we were getting rid of clothes we had undergrown in our 75 pound weight losses. Some of the obviously large clothes we had already gotten rid of, but there were some clothes to which we had emotional attachments. Imagine having emotional attachments to a piece of fabric! It seems strange to even say it.

As we started going through the piles in the closet, some things were so ridiculous to even think about saving that we laughingly threw it out or put it in the pile to sell at the flea market or donate to Goodwill. Other things, we actually had to think about. Remember, we did not even remember this stuff was there...how could we possibly need to KEEP IT? Some things had memories attached to it that caused us to shed a tear or two. I became aware of how many memories are attached to THINGS...

As we sorted, most of the stuff could be disposed of, but of the things we decided to keep, I saw an interesting pattern: emotional possessions. Part of the healing process we are going through in the raw vegan diet is very much emotional. We have learned that much (most, all, not sure what %) of the food we ate prior to starting the raw vegan diet was eaten for the emotional support it gave us. When I say emotional support, I'm thinking that's not such a good word for it. It served more as an emotional suppressor. Feeling sad, lonely, tired, depressed, angry, worried: have a bowl of chocolate pudding (or a piece of pizza, or .. well you get the picture). Since I no longer have those options available to me, it has become glaringly obvious that most of these foods with their addictive qualities serve the same function as alcohol does for the alcoholic and pot, cocaine, heroine, crack for the drug addict.

I read a story about a woman last night that had given up sugar for two weeks when someone came to her door at Christmas time with a box of chocolates for her. She knew if she ate them that she would have to start over in her attempt to get rid of the substance in her system, so she tossed it high in the attic where she wouldn't be able to get at it. (She had just had hip surgery and couldn't climb the stairs very well.) The longer it was in the house, the more she started thinking about how good they would taste, so finally she crawled up the stairs to get at it. It wasn't until she actually reached the top of the stairs in tremendous pain from the effort that she realized how foolish this was and how addicted she was to the substance. She didn't eat the chocolates by the way because this recognition got her through it.

Some would say, "So, what's the big deal? Just eat the stuff, and move on." I have found it is not that easy. Just as a drug addict won't get well by taking another hit, a food addict won't get better with another twinkie.

I realize a lot of people don't see the foods I no longer eat as addictive. It won't be long when one is without them that it will be realized. Healthful foods are never addictive. We may know that they are healthy and that we really want a salad today or some fresh juice, but there is a difference between knowing what we NEED to eat and desparately WANTING something. This is a good way to find out how addictive a substance is: go without it for a week, and see how desparate you are to have it.

In conducting this experiment, one must isolate the whole category. For example, you can't say, "Well, see, I gave up parmesan cheese this week, and I didn't have a negative symptom at all," when you continued to eat other dairy products. In fact, with a food addiction, the mind is very clever about substitutes. Any dairy product will feed a dairy addiction, any bread product a wheat addiction, any processed sugar a sweets addiction. I imagine alcoholics would go through this as well: any alcohol will do when the alcohol of choice is not available. My father was in detox in the hospital once for his alcoholism and begged for 8 oz. Hershey bars (which he normally never ate). This helped me make the connection between alcoholism and sugar addiction.

Well, I intended to write about decluttering our living spaces, and this may seem unrelated. In fact, since I have given up addictive foods, decluttering other aspects of my life has been complicated by the emotional addiction I have to things, memories, stuff in general. I have been really surprised by this. But the good news is, that as I peel off layers inside my body, I am able to peel off layers around my body including negative emotions, relationships, excess baggage. This is a wonderful side benefit. As I hit each new shelf internally, I can see how difficult it is by how difficult the external shelves are to clean. It is amazing how hand and hand they go.

As we enter this new phase of our lives via grandchildren living with us, we are able to apply these principles. I can already see where their emotional attachments are. I can see more clearly why the scriptures tell us we have to put these things behind us if we are to truly follow Him.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Just Give It to Me Straight...


Welcome to another edition of "If you write it, they will read it!" I didn't write yesterday as it was one of those totally overwhelming days. I'm still in this state today, but wanted to record some things before I forget them.

Yesterday, Roger and I decided to ask Dorian if he would like us to take Wyatt to raise due to a lot of problems he has been having with him. These are not behavior issues really, although the problems with behavior are significant. Apparently there are mental health issues at play, and he has spent 13 days at a mental health facility where no real answers have been found. Darius and Alicia have agreed to take Angelina, our other grandchild, Wyatt's sister. Apparently someone reported Dorian to DCF and investigators want the children out of his home.

I do not understand any of this. How does this happen to a family? to our family? I wish I could understand that part of it better. I have been praying and praying for help to understand, but understanding does not come. Fortunately though, we do receive revelation for the other aspects like what we need to do and how we should do it.

We are not sure what is going on. Everything is so strange with Roger's brother in Fort Lauderdale, and now this with Dorian, that it feels as though everything in our world is falling apart. There is still a strange sense of calm though. Normally I would be totally freaked out, and I am not. Neither is Roger, and that is even more unusual. I am positive that our dietary choices are helping us get through this, and I'm sure the Spirit knows this would have been a requirement for helping us do what needed to be done.

Angelina is with us this weekend also, but she is having a bit of a detox this morning as she adjusts to life without the processed food she is used to at school breakfast and lunch lines. I know it won't last long, but I feel badly for her. She loves all the fruits and vegetables; she ate a whole tomato for dinner last night along with celery sticks, carrot sticks, cucumber spears, sprouted wheat crackers, and sunflower seed dip. She was a very happy camper. Wyatt tolerates it, not loving it, but eating only it only to survive. They both had a great time using the different dinner components to make faces and animals on their plates. The crackers, broken in half, made great kitty and puppy dog ears. I should have taken a picture! I'll try to remember next time, and then I'll stick it in as an edit.

We had lemonade for breakfast, and I was going to fix Angelina a fruit salad, but she was feeling poorly. She has slept all day, and it is now after 1:00 in the afternoon. Wyatt and Roger went to the flea market as we have been doing a lot of cleaning out and have tons of stuff to get rid of. (Another benefit of eating only living foods is the desire to simplify your lifestyle getting the junk out of your life just like getting rid of the junk in your body. As the body clears the garbage out, so must the junk in your life and your mind.) He is not having detox to my knowledge, but he has been at the hospital for over a week. Maybe they have been giving them more natural foods as they know how sensitive most kids are to chemicals and such. I hope they can make the adjustment to our lifestyles.

I wanted to give a heads up to a post by Steve Pavlina, one of my favorite bloggers. He is doing a juice feast as I've previously blogged about, so I've been following his progress with interest. I wanted to document this post as it has a great part in it about comparing live fooders vs cooked fooders with being color blind. Here is the link, if you're interested.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/11/juice-feasting-day-13/

By the way, day 14 has an interesting post about social activities WITHOUT food. This was equally inspiring for me as I have been thinking about this a lot. So much of our social lives revolve around food. As a member of a church that does not believe in drinking or socializing in the traditional ways, food activities are VERY important. It is hard to think of a church activitity that does NOT revolve around food. So, naturally, this has been on my mind a lot for Roger and I as a couple. Going out to dinner is not as enjoyable an activity as it has been previously. We have been thinking of other activities we enjoy. We have been married 36 years; it is hard to change old habits! We are enjoying our new found activities much more than we ever enjoyed eating out, especially since there was always a down side to the restaurant meals. We are still evolving in this respect, and now that our family dynamic is changing, I'm sure it will change even more!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Synchronicity


We just got done with our first week working solo. It has been a long time since we've done this. It was not without a few hiccups obviously, but Roger and I have always worked well together amazingly enough. Most people can't even figure out how we got married no less work together.

I wonder that myself sometimes. I think about how people get hooked up all the time. It really is quite an amazing phenomena if you put some thought into it. I know it has to be God that puts us together because most couples are very unlikely candidates when it comes to finding each other. Circumstances under which people meet are usually odd, and what are the odds that they would then be attracted to each other? It really is strange.

I've been reading about syncronicity lately. This is what a lot of people call "coincidences". I have never believed in them, but I do believe in syncronicity. I actually had to look that word up on wikipedia the first time I read it. I couldn't figure out what it meant from the context of what I was reading. Here is that website with the definition (just in case you were wondering):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

Now, to put that in my own words, synchronicity is when all the powers that be are working together for one cause. It is interesting that it cannot be caused by your actions (making it a consequence). For example, I have been thinking about yoga for about 6 months now, maybe longer. I have spent a lot of years being inactive and have lost alot of my agility. I was wondering if yoga might help me get some of that back. I was thinking of it kind of casually at first, and then about a week ago, I started thinking of it seriously. Last night I met a young woman who teaches yoga, and I expressed some of my concerns to her. She felt like yoga would really help me, and she gave me the phone number of a studio where I could find some good teachers.

A causal effect would have been me picking up a phone book or googling for a yoga studio and then finding one. Synchronicity is me "thinking" about it really hard and having someone come into my life that is able to resolve my concerns and give me some advice.

How is that not a coincidence? A coincidence would be considered related in some way. To quote wikipedia: "Events that happen which appear at first to be coincidence but are later found to be causally related are termed as 'incoincident'".

That this is a scientific phenomena is extremely fascinating to me. To believe it is scientific, one must acknowledge that there are other powers that be which are greater than we ourselves. I attended a goal setting class once where the teacher said if we write down our goals we are more likely to achieve them because there are folks beyond the veil wanting to help us accomplish the desires of our hearts.

If these postulates are correct, there really is no limit to what we can accomplish if we would but realize the potential to which we could aspire. The only limit to what we can do is US!

According to Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass, "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards". What if we could remember forwards?

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Looking for the Little Miracles


I find it pretty amazing that when I make the attempt to write an entry, there is always something that comes out. On the other hand, when I contemplate making an entry, I can't think of a single worthwhile thing to say. I guess it goes back to the "If you build it, they will come theory". If I make the effort to write, things come out of my brain that I didn't even know were there.

That being said, I really can't think of anything. I had an interesting experience with my seminary lesson this morning. I normally know where the lesson is going to go. As I planned the lesson, I had a general idea. Every once in a while, it goes a completely different direction, and today was one of those days.

We were doing the lesson from Luke where Jesus teaches the parable of the rich man and the beggar named (coincidently his best friend's name) Lazarus. When teaching this, the discussion always comes up about rich versus poor, and how rich people have a harder time being righteous. I was trying to take it in a different direction based on how we are supposed to teach a principle of the gospel: in this case, the atonement. (We have this list that goes over the gospel principles in every scripture block from the gospels. We have a list of 12 gospel principles that we are supposed to teach including: Godhead, commandments, covenants, apostasy & restoration, etc.)

As I've looked at the list, I sometimes have a hard time envisioning how that particular block relates to the chosen principle. Usually when I think about it, I can figure it out. This was NOT one of those cases. What did a rich man going to hell, and a poor man going to heaven have to do with the atonement? In my notes I made for teaching the lesson I had that maybe the rich man could have chosen during his life to apply the atonement, and the poor man's burdens were surely lifted by his application of this.

Well, that's not what happened. The Spirit totally blew that out of the water. We ended up with a discussion of how the Atonement makes us all equal. We all have the opportunity to partake of it. We talked about how these students are being blessed by the gospel in their lives, and they all have family members who want nothing to do with it. Nonetheless, they are being given the opportunity even if they reject it. We all have ancestors who were not given the chance while alive for whom we are doing baptisms for the dead. The Atonement truly makes us equal when it is all said and done.

My point in bringing this up is how cool it is that the Spirit cares enough about what we are doing to speak up and tell us how it should go. We seem like such an unimportant group; why bother? It builds my testimony in how important each of Father's children are to Him.

I am grateful for the ways in which my calling helps me to grow. I never progress as much as I do when I am teaching. I am grateful to be a member of a church that requires a lay ministry. When I belonged to other churches with paid ministry, I never experienced this kind of growth. I know this is one of the marks of the true church on the earth today; no church with a paid ministry can be the Lord's Church. (As a side note, I like how Nephi defines "paid ministry"; he calls it "priestcraft". Seems a little harsh, does it? Think about it!)

Monday, November 3, 2008

What a Beautiful Earth We Have


There really is nothing much going on. I feel as though I should write so that I can get in the habit of it. There was a lesson in Relief Society yesterday on doing more regular record keeping. The point was made that although it may seem mundane to us, it may not be that way to others that read it after us.

There is so much talk these days about a crash. I think people are more frightened now than they were in 1999 just before the year changed over. There was a lot of talk then about everything failing, but it didn't happen. It does seem to be happening now. When Wall Street is affected, that is when we know we are in a little bit of a spot.

Now is the time when we can look back and wonder if we have done everything we could to be prepared. We think of all the warnings we had to not get into debt, but we thought surely we will have time to dig ourselves out before times get really bad.

I am wondering who it affects the worst. I think the really wealthy get the worst end of it. The poor just keep surviving as they have always done; things aren't really that different for them.

I'm not sure where I fit into that picture. How would I fare if there was no money to be had? Well, I wouldn't be able to pay car payments. I don't think that would bother me too awful much. If I was never able to leave my home, I don't think I'd be too bad off. Not as much fun, but then, you can't really say that. Without work, there would be more time to do the things we really want to do at home but don't have the time for.

Probably we would have to redefine "fun". We've gotten that way stretched out. Maybe we should look at it as enjoyment more than fun. There are a lot of things that are very enjoyable that might not have the label of fun.

Like sitting outside on a cool fall evening watching the sunset...
Walking through the garden discovering how many sweet potatoes are buried under the vines...
Taking a walk with your granddaughter as she points out all her friends - the beautiful flowers she likes so much...
Helping your grandson take pictures, even if they aren't of anything spectacular...
Like having your students tell you that was the best lesson ever...
Like having a graduated student call you to tell you she found the best job ever...
Like biting into a big, juicy tomato...
Rubbing each other's backs and feet...
Playing a rousing game of Canasta or Scrabble or Boggle...
Relaxing at the baseball park watching a grand slam from one of your favorite players...
Watching one of your loved ones eat something you've made and really enjoy it...
Knitting and watching the fabric grow on your needles...
Discovering a butterfly chrysalis...
Watching the waves and discovering a porpoise in the horizon...
Cutting open a perfect avocado...
Tasting the first fruit of the season (every season!)...
Starfish...
Rain falling softly...

As I think about it, the few things that disrupt our earthly utopia are such a small part of our world, I wonder why we give them so much credence. The earth is a wonderful place. Whatever the evil powers that be have planned, we will weather it somehow.