The Sunday before Christmas I went to church with Grandma Thacker. I wore jeans and only stayed for sacrament meeting, which was right and good on so many levels. And I'm sure that everyone's Christmas program was delightful, but I think it was providence that I went to church with Grandma that day, because I was deeply touched.
tangenting paragraphs - First off, her ward is the musical genius ward of the world. The Jacobs live in that ward, and even though you've never heard of them, they're amazing. If you get BYU Magazine, LaDawn Jacobs was highlighted as a great mother in one of the recent issues. Granted, the author of the article was LaDawn's daughter, but still, it's not just LaDawn's daughter that thinks she's amazing. LaDawn Jacobs was Young Mother of the Year back in the time when she was young, because she makes all of us look like slackers. I mean, not just people like me who are slackers in reality. You think you're doing a lot with your kids? Do you teach them geography, philosophy, and politics over dinner, complete with world maps? Do each of the 10 of your children practice both of their instruments for half an hour every day? Are they also graduating at the top of their class and participating in sports, drama, church, and service clubs? On top of all that, are you also the nicest, spirtualist, down-to-earth-est person in the world? No? Then you're no LaDawn. (It's okay. Like I said, neither am I.)
LaDawn played the piano for most of the songs performed. Half of her grown kids were in the choir. And one of her daughters played the violin perfectly. I couldn't stop staring at that violin. The music coming out of it was so beautiful. Truly, it felt like the music was her gift to me.
- end of tangent
Their program had 2 speakers who actually gave talks, which is different for a Christmas program. The first talk was like most talks: nice and fine and forgettable. The second talk, though, inspired me. It was given by a young mother of 4 whose husband had to come down off the stand to sit with the kids so she could go up there. The talk was amazing. It was real and nice and warm, but challenging and thoughtful.
She started by talking about how much thought and effort they had put into a gift for an extended family member. They thought about what this family member liked, about the constraints of finances and shipping, about what would be the most fitting for her age and interests. They imagined how excited she would be to receive the gift that their family had put so much time and effort and caring into.
And then she talked about a gift we can give the Savior. I've heard this talk before, as I'm sure you have. But this time it really struck me. She said that every year she puts effort into giving gifts to family members, and she asked herself, and by implication all of us, if she put that much time into thinking of a great gift for the Savior.
She wanted it to be something she could do all year, but she didn't want to clutter up her life with one more thing to do. There are lots of things on her to-do list, she said, and one more thing would not only be frustrating, but very possibly it would be something that she couldn't keep going all year. So she thought of ways she could improve things she was already doing.
* She does dishes every day, and usually she looks out the window, which faces her neighbor's house, and "watches their comings and goings." Instead of doing that, why not post a scripture on the window and ponder that scripture while doing the dishes? She could try to memorize it, or just think about it and how she could apply it to her life. And while listening to the talk I thought, "A way to add Gospel study into my normal day-to-day life without a huge to-do? Genius!"
* She sits through the sacrament every week, and she has pictures for her kids to look at, but why not create something for herself? It could be the size of a bookmark, and she could include a picture or two, and then some scriptures that focus her attention on the Savior and his attributes. She already had in mind 4 scriptures that were meaningful to her. As time went on, she could add to that list, or switch some of the scriptures out, so her sacrament experience wouldn't get stale. She also thought they could make it a family activity. Why not have a Family Home Evening about the sacrament and get the family's input on which scriptures they should add to the list. For the younger kids, they could go over the verses and explain to them what they meant with a fun family activity. And again, while listening I thought, "This all sounds so do-able."
She went over a few other ideas and then said, "Pick one, or come up with one of your own, and do that this year." And with a little bit of shame I thought to myself, "Why am I not already doing things like this?"
It's not like it's hard, you know? I just don't take the time to do it. How easy is it to post a scripture on my window? I've done things like that before, I just haven't consistently done so over the years.
Well, it's time again to do it. It occurred to me that I'm at the point where if I'm not going to start more actively DOING what my religion calls for, then I just need to stop going. I go to church every week, and I think, "That's a good idea," and then I go home and do nothing about it. This has always bothered me (are we all hypocrites from time to time?), but it's easy to do nothing and just get involved with the busyness of the week, and then it's Sunday again and you start the whole process over: Inspired by Church, Intend to Do Something About it, Get Busy with the Week, Repeat.
Well, I'm done. I might not be ready to start doing everything perfectly today, but I CAN start doing some things better today. I'm not going to beat myself up about what I haven't been doing, because I'm not a bad person or anything, I'm just a slacker. And beating myself up doesn't do any good anyway.
So here's to the New Year. To slacking a little less and efforting a little more. Here's to scriptures on my window.
