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We scheduled the Lewis cousins gift exchange on Monday the 26th in the middle of the day, rather than on the traditional time we have held it on Christmas later afternoon or evening. From my perspective, this had several advantages:
1) Allowing our nuclear families to have more time to celebrate Christmas in their own smaller group
2) Making Christmas Day (and this year, the Sabbath Day) less hectic
3) Making travel mostly in daylight
4) Giving the cousins and extended family a more relaxed time together.
5) Extending the joy of Christmas another day.
In our way to Ogden, we dropped Michael off in Salt Lake. Then we had a Christmas visit with my sister Dorothy for a few minutes at her home.
We arrived at Alison’s right at noon. There was a nice menu prepared, with some of the best home-made soups I have ever tasted as center piece–broccolli and cheese, Italian sausage and potato (like at Olive Garden but with more sausage), and taco soup. Nathan loved the soups, we think. He had a bowl of each of the varieties in turn. Then he finished with his fourth bowl which had some of all three kinds with a big plop of guacamole and sour cream all stirred together.
I was pleased to make this a book Christmas with our gifts to the grandchildren and hope that they will find the Church books we gave to be useful. We tried as best we could to pitch the particular book gifts their individual age and interests. I was also please to make a gift to each couple of our three volumes of Lewis family history that we just published.
The highlight of the day was connecting to David’s family in Massachusetts with Skype. With Scott helping on the set up, we used our laptop and projected the image onto a large screen. The whole group here in Utah crowded into the Soderquist’s family room and gave very happy and enthusiastic responses to things the Lewis boys did as they opened their presents from their cousins.
On our way back home in the early evening we spent a few minutes each with Brian, with Hilary’s family and saw Wendy’s mother, Annette.
--We had only sacrament meeting as per the Church's policy. I sang in the choir.
--After Church we went to the Blakes and saw their Christmas.
--In the late afternoon, we went to Matthew and Kim's for dinner and had a program. The kids acted out the nativity according to an outline I had prepared. Alyssa directed the performance. Megan read passages from the Bible to introduce three scenes, the birth of Jesus, the coming of the shepherds, and the visit of the wise men. After the littler kids had acted out each of these events, Erin led us in singing carols that pertained to each one. Present with us and Matthew's family were Nathan and Gloria, the Blakes, and Wendy's son Michael. [Pictured are 1) the manger scene with Brianna as Mary and Adam as Joseph; 2) the appearance of the angel ((Erin) to the shepherds (LIndsey, Joshua, Adams, sheep (Garrett)); and 3) wise men (Ethan, Justin, Jeremy)].
In our fair city, a lot of people set out and light luminaries in the Spanish Fork Cemetery. Luminaries are candles in some kind of container, including small lunch-size paper sacks, that give out a glow in the dark. It provides a way to recognize and in a way include family members who have passed away, in our Christmas celebration. We have done this for the several years we have been in Spanish Fork. It feels good to put luminaries by JoAnn’s and Michael’s graves, both of whom loved Christmas very much.
Early on Christmas Eve, we went to the cemetery along with Matthew’s and Emilie’s families. We also had Wendy’s son, Michael,with us. The weather was chilly, but the was no snow.
After visiting the cemetery, Matthew and Kim and family joined us to make Davenport fudge (pinoche and cream).
While on and recovering from our mission, we gave money for Christmas. This year we have repented and have gone back to my favorite gift--books.
I take pride in having children and grandchildren who are "readers." And I encourage each of these persons to develop a personal library of books, especially of church books, and to become acquainted with their contents.
My mother, Hazel, helped establish reading as a proud family tradition. She was constantly reading. She was not generally funny, but I do recall a comment she once made that still amuses me. At one time, as she was reflecting on her values and abilities, she said, "One of my talents is that I can sit down beside a whole pile of work and enjoy a good book."
I hope all of us can follow her example.
–We have had a yucky inversion here for the last few days, cold that settles to the valley floor and is trapped along with smoke, smog, etc., for us to breathe. The temperature has been mostly in the high 20s, night and day. The sky is gray and we cannot see the mountains or the sun. A light frost has been falling and has accumulated enough to make things white. Part of the time the humidity in the air has made frost (rime) stick on tree branches and other plants and is kind of pretty. This picture from our front steps shows how it looks outside this morning.
Sometimes the Spanish Fork canyon wind saves us and blows the bad air back toward the north end of Utah County, but not this time.
–We took Ryan to the Salt Lake airport on Sunday morning to catch a plane to go home for the holidays. His plane was supposed to leave at about 9:25 am so we had plans to pick him up at about 7 am at his apartment at BYU. The phone rang at 4:30 am and Valerie was calling to say that his flight had been cancelled, and he was now scheduled on a flight that was to leave just after 8 am. So we go up, got ready, and picked him up just after 5:30 am. The going was a little slow because Utah County was foggy this morning. Thankfully traffic was light and we found a couple of taillights to trail up through the I-15 reconstruction. Salt Lake County had no fog, just smoke, so we dropped him off at the American Airlines gate at close to 6:30 am. Then we came home and had naps.
–Yesterday we got up early to go to Matthew and Kims to see the kids off to school, while they took Jeremy at an early hour to have a procedure to open up and clean out his infected sinuses. We arrived at 6:30 am and had morning prayer with the three big girls before they left, then later helped get Brianna and Josh up and ready and dropped them off at their elementary school.
–I had another medical adventure this past week. Last Monday morning we were headed for the Provo temple to meet matthew and Kim and do some couple sealings, but I wasn’t feeling so good, sort of achy and uncomfortable in the chest, and just generally a little miserable. As we got into Provo we were concerned that this feeling might indicate the start of a heart attack, so we diverted to Utah Valley ER. What it turned out to be was that I was having some arrhythmia. The ER doctor gave me some medication that got it back in rhythm and we went home after a couple of hours. I saw my cardiologist on Wednesday and things were still OK but he is keeping me on a small dose of the medication as a protection.
--A second thing that the ER doctor noticed from the bloodwork was that I was testing a little high for blood sugar. I saw my family doctor yesterday for some more testing and it looks like I have become borderline diabetic. At this point it does need treatment but we will monitor this (Wendy has the equipment to do the test) every few days to make sure it doesn’t get worse, and I am supposed to cut down on refined sugar intake and get regular exercise.
In an article in the latest issue of Mormon Studies Review (Vol 23, Number 1, 2011), Brant Gardner proposes that Nephi was trained to be a Scribe, which helps explain or give meaning to a number of Book of Mormon happenings and shows as with many other things that the deeper you dig in the Book of Mormon, the more truth and insights you find. Here are some of the highlights:
--Lehi was well-to-do financially, possibly drawing resources from land holdings and from a trade of metalsmithing or metal-working. Evidences: 1) Nephi had these skills, as shown by the fact that he didn’t pray to know how to make the tools to build the ship, just to locate ore; 2) Lehi left behind gold and silver, the possesing of the former being rare and perhaps indicative that he was involved in goldsmithing/making precious jewelry.
–Laban would have inherited his father’s business, not Nephi, so the latter would have needed another trade or profession.
–Indicator that Nephi trained for another profession–he could read and write. (Literacy was not the norm in that day.)
–Beyond that, the production of two complex writings (1 Nephi and 2 Nephi) show writing skills beyond what even most literate people of his day could do.
–What Nephi accomplished in the creating of these books and other facts suggest that he had received the scribal training of his day.
–The great civilizations (Egypt, Mesopotamia) of his day had formal scribal schools, as did Israel.
–Only the higher social classes (money, status) were acceptable sources for scribes.
–The curriculum of these schools included languages (mastery of at least one foreign), writing systems associated with these languages, study and explication of classic texts, public speaking, and perhaps travel to broaden one’s experience.
–Note the extraordinary skill level in combining the phonetics of one language (Hebrew) with the symbolic representation in another language (Egyption).
–For Jewish scribes, there was heavy emphasis on making them scholars of the Torah (the books of Moses and the prophets). For Nephi, note 1) his familiarity with and love of Isaiah; 2) his use of literary parallels with earlier Hebrew scriptural examples, such as the children of Isreal in the wilderness, David and Goliath, Joseph in Egypt. Also there is this telling incident in 1 Nephi 15, in which Laman and Lemuel come to Nephi (a younger brother, whom they resent, no less) for interpretation of their father’s religious teachings. The author suggests that they recognized that Nephi had been trained in the interpretation of symbolic content of religious matters.
Its Saturday. The day was sunny but cold (about 32 degrees), but comfortable enough for us to do some outside Christmas decorating. I suspect our neighbors think that we haven't any Christmas Spirit, since our house has been so light-less.
So here is our lighting scheme for 2011. It makes Wendy nervous to see me climbing around on the roof or on ladders, so we decorated our two Hibiscus plants with net lights.
Interpreting the prophecy of Malachi 4:5-6 about turning “the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers,” else the earth would be smitten with a curse, the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that there must be a “welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children.” That link was baptism for the dead (or temple work/temple ordinances). Or in a sense, we ourselves are the links between the “fathers and the children.”
This concern for past and future in families is expressed in the Prophet’s prayer of dedication for the Kirtland Temple: “We ask thee, Holy Father, to establish the people that shall worship, and honorably hold a name and standing in this thy house, to all generations and for eternity” (D&C 109:24).
The word "establish" might mean to create a foundation, stabilize, straighten, set a course resolutely, to be firm, true, strong, courageous, or faithful as regards the Gospel of the Savior. I ask myself, “What do I need to do, to stand in my place in the generations of our family, and serve as a welding link to help establish our family in the Gospel, both those of past generations and also future generations (including persons now living and those yet to come)
1) Past generations
Early in my efforts at family history research, I concentrated on finding direct ancestors, but was later persuaded to broaden my search to identify direct relatives and their families, all persons who are descended from end-of-the-line ancestors. For example, as possibly the first descendant of John Lewis to be a member of the Church, to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, and to receive temple blessings, I might stand in a sense as proxy for John, and have equal interest in performing temple work for all of his descendants. Family history work can also be seen as a way to connect (link) scattered relatives now living.
I experience a powerful confirming spirit when I perform family history research and resulting temple work for the persons identified. It is like the capstone for every other joy derived from trying to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a sense of wholeness, of completion, of fulfillment. It is found in the combination of finding and then doing the temple work for kindred dead. It seems to me that this sense is not fully present in genealogical research alone or in doing temple work for non-family temple extracted names.
2) Future generations
Linking future generations is much more complicated and multi-faceted, but I think, at last equally satisfying and joyful. With the living, it certainly involves the quality of relationships, example, how we perform as parents and grandparents, teaching moments, family traditions, being there for family moments, extended family events and projects, visits, reaching out, forgiveness, tolerance, patience, and especially, our ability to communicate interest, concern, and love.
We try to set a pattern for the future through the Lewis Family Creed: “We seek successive generations of grandparents, parents, and children who are grounded in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and sealed in His Holy Temple.” ("Grounded" might be a synonym for "established.")
Keeping records of the present through journals, personal histories, blogs, photographs, videos and recordings, and other writings might extend our influence into the future.
As an example, JoAnn has written to the grandchildren in this family:
“As I see the many temptations that face young people today, I fear for you. I pray that you will early develop a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and know that by following it's teachings is the only way for you to safely move through the trials and challenges you will face. You received the blessing of membership in Christ's true church when you were born. It was a gift to you because of noble ancestors who heard and accepted the Gospel and in many cases, left their families, country and language so that their posterity would have all the advantages of membership in Christ's Church.
“Those noble ancestors gave much so that you could be born here in this choice land and have the Gospel teachings to guide you. You can repay them, to some extent, by accepting the gift they have given and by living the Gospel as they would want you to do. I know, without question, that gaining a testimony, obeying parents and Church leaders, and committing your life to following the teachings of Christ is the way for you to find true happiness and be truly successful in this life. By doing so you win bring honor and credit to your ancestors, your parents and your Heavenly Father.” (Letter to grandchildren, 22 Feb 2004)
Thanks to JoAnn for the wonderful foundation she laid and direction she established for our family. Thanks also to Wendy for filling a void and loving us all, especially the grandchildren. We will continue, to the best of our ability, to try to make this a celestial family and hope others will also pick up this torch and continue and improve upon our efforts.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, in his October 2011 conference talk, spoke of a “paradox” regarding mankind in relation to God and the universe: “This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it.”
A paradox is opposite ideas or inconsistencies that are seemingly both true, “a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true” (Miriam-Webster); “a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth” (Dictionary.com); tensions in a culture that appears to be logical contradictions” (Terryl L. Givens, “People of Paradox: A History of Mormon culture”, pp. xiii-xiv).
Characterizing particular gospel principles as paradoxical may initially strike us as a little strange and inconsistent with what we may have been taught about truth, that truths have consistency with other truths, that “there is right and wrong to every question.” Yet Brother Givens, a the highly regarded LDS scholar, has recently published a book that focuses on four other “paradoxes” for Latter-day Saints or tensions that seem to him to drive the development of a distinct Mormon culture (“habit of mind”).
1) Authoritarianism in the structure of the Church vs. individualism/free agency
2) The certainty of religious knowledge vs. the eternal quest for learning
3) Collapsing the distance and differences between the sacred and the human (seeming opposites in juxtaposition), without diminishing the former
4) Alienation from the larger society/chosen/peculiar people vs. a desire for acceptance and integration
Having this introduction, a couple of more paradoxes come readily to my mind:
1) Salvation by the grace of God vs. our needing to work out our salvation (where should the credit be given?);
2 ) How we relate to other institutions/churches--abominations in the sight of God (1 Ne 14; P of G P Joseph Smith–History 1:19) vs. respecting the relative truths they have (Alma 29).
This first has some common elements with President Uchtdorf’s paradox of man; the second has a connections to Given’s #4.
Here are two questions that come to my mind about the existence of these (and probably also other) paradoxes:
1) What is their source? I would suggest the answer is, God. It seems to me that they would not exist in God’s Church unless he placed or allowed them to be there,
2) What then is their purpose? Is it possible that these doctrinal paradoxes build and bless us? If so, how?
(Image: Nephi and Laban, by Walter Rane)
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We might call this the Year of the Reluctant King. Somehow, Garrett discovered an almond in his cherry cobbler even though he was unwilling to eat this dessert and then stated that he didn’t want to be called “the king.” He did seem, however, to like the cuddly bear that he was given as a prize and led the Grand Parade in a happy chase from the Great Room, out around the balcony and back several times until everyone was winded. He also seemed to enjoy handing out the dollar gifts we had prepared for the grandchildren. So, all’s well that ends well.
--Until Brandon gets old enough or unless Ben or Henry happen to be here for a future version of this party, we seem to have used up all of the grandchildren who have not had the opportunity to be King or Queen at least once (I don’t remember about the Chandler guys). Bruce has the honor of being the only adult who was a King, back in the days when the selection was more truly random. (Please don’t tell this to Daniel and Paul–they still believe everyone has an equal opportunity each year.)
--Most of our Utah contingent attended, except that we were missing some of college students and our three missionaries, Alyssa was with a school group in California, Bruce was ill, and Gloria had to work. We appreciated Ryan’s presence as the token Chandler. We thought that people enjoyed the Piñata (thanks to Amy and friends for turning Pedro into Kris Kringle), and the White Elephant Gift Exchange (conducted expertly by Matthew, who had recently done some research on WEGE options). We heard quite a lot of Christmas music from the player piano. The favorite activity seemed to be putting jigsaw puzzles together until the wee hours of the morning. Thanks to Wendy and helpers for a wonderful dinner (Build-your-own-Mexican-fiesta) and breakfast (apple pancakes). And the sun on the snow on the mountains was beautiful in the morning.
--Lots of people were singing "Am I a man or a muppet?" It made me think that I had missed something in my reaction to the Thanksgiving movie that some of us attended.
--We learned that Jeremy will have surgery later in the month to try to have corrected a persistent sinus infection problem.
--Kimberly heard Friday afternoon that an aunt had passed away. At the party, she and Matthew were making arrangements for her to fly home to Missouri Saturday morning to be with her family for a few days for the funeral. We give our condolences.
--Valerie called Saturday morning with the news that Jaron had passed his Eagle board this morning. Congratulations!
We scheduled the Lewis cousins gift exchange on Monday the 26th in the middle of the day, rather than on the traditional time we have held it on Christmas later afternoon or evening. From my perspective, this had several advantages:
