A Reverent Home

I like to listen to old BYU speeches on my phone (at speeches.byu.edu) when I am cleaning and the kids are busy with things.  I listened to one the other day called "Living a Reverent Life." It made me ponder on the importance of reverence.

He said it was possible to be boisterous and reverent at the same time since reverence is so much more than a behavior.  Reverence is how we feel about God.  It made me realize that as I come to know God, and become re-acquainted with His infinite love, I am better able to see those around me as He sees them.

I mentioned to the kids this morning that if we could lift the veil for a moment and remember each other before we came to earth, we would remember the things we had gone through together, the help we had given one another as we developed our spirits and in our fight against evil.  We would stand in awe of one another and in great love.  The idea of speaking rudely to one another or showing disrespect would seem absurd.

As we were talking about some of these things, Gem walked in with one of his mischievous looks on his face.  One of my nicknames for him is "Stinker," so as he walked in with that look on his face, I said, "Hi Stinker!" But at that moment, with the vision of who he was so fresh in my mind, the name didn't seem quite appropriate, so I said to the kids, "That name doesn't quite fit with what we've been talking about does it?  I think from now on I will call him General."  They all thought this was really funny, of course, as he was giggling and being so silly.  I kept doing it in fun, but the interesting thing was that it was a reminder to me of who he really was - and the kids were reminded as well.

It made me reflect on the fact that if we actually treat our children as the great spirits that they are, they may just start treating each other that way.   A little after our talk, one of the kids started teasing his sister.  I asked him if he remembered who he was teasing.  They both smiled as though it was funny, but he did stop teasing and they did seem a little more kind.

Sometimes I have a hard time differentiating between appropriate boisterous behavior and inappropriate, irreverent behavior.  This realization of what reverence is, has been a great help to me.  I really dislike silly, loud, "movie" talk at the dinner table.  Sometimes I have wondered if I am just "no fun" when they are obviously having a great time laughing.  It occurred to me, that perhaps I don't feel comfortable with it because they are acting below who they are, and they are not showing respect to the work that went into the meal and the opportunity we have to be together to edify and uplift one another.

In contrast to that, this morning. Bud, Little Miss and I were singing upbeat primary songs while the little ones danced and jumped and laughed and fell.  It was very boisterous and loud, but it felt reverent.  Every time we tried to stop singing, Gem would put his hand on our faces and grunt for us to sing some more.  Sometimes one of them would cross the line into irreverence by pushing or tripping a sibling in fun.  I would remind them not to do that and they controlled themselves and continued to have a great time.  Sometimes Gem would sit in between songs and fold his arms and close his eyes (indicating that he wanted us to say a prayer).  To me, that shows that he was feeling the spirit and felt prayer was appropriate (kind of cute for a 20 month old!)

I have a great deal to learn about this still, but I like the vision that is starting to be open to me.

On a slightly different topic, I read a FABULOUS talk today (I actually listened to it Friday, but I loved it so much I had to print it and highlight it and take notes).  It is called "A Disciple's Journey" by Bruce C. Hafen.  It was very insightful and profound.  It is interesting to try analyze where you may be on this "disciple's journey" and what the next step to take may be - great Sunday reading (or watching)!

Is the Gospel Stifling?

Someone said to me recently, "Karen, you need to relax a little.  It is no big deal to watch _____, or to let your kids ______.  You're not going to go to hell if you let yourself have fun once in a while".   I left the actions blank because I can't remember exactly what it was that we were discussing and it wasn't what caught my attention.  I just remember feeling confused about the perspective of why I was choosing not to do those things.

Am I worried about the punishments I will receive if I do not live each and every gospel law that I know of?  To be honest, thoughts like that are so far from my mind that the comment caught me off guard.  I appreciated it though, because it gave me a new perspective of how some people could find the gospel quite stifling.  I am an advocate and great believer in the cause of freedom.  I love being able to choose and I tend to rebel if someone tells me I have to do things a certain way.  I love having agency and I try to do my best to advocate more freedom and less laws in our government.  If I saw the Gospel as a set of rules, I would probably feel rather stifled and a little rebellious to it, to be honest.

Perhaps I did see it that way before I came to understand it as I do now.  I guess the understanding I have may come from choosing to obey even when it feels stifling, only to discover (after the obedience) that I was seeing things all wrong and that what I was being asked to do actually brought me joy, peace and much more freedom - freedom to see things as they really are, to understand things a little deeper, and to gain the spiritual sensitivity to sense the path of freedom (the path to God) a little more keenly.

Instead of seeing the Gospel as a set of rules, I see it as a path to joy.  We are free to get off the path all we want, but all those detours are dead ends and keep us from getting to the real adventure and the beautiful view ahead.  I don't choose to not watch an unwholesome movie because I think I will be punished for my choice - I choose it because I know how I will feel if I choose to do something else, I know I will feel close to God, worthy of His guiding Spirit, peace in my heart and love in my soul.  Why would I give that up for any length of time just to hear some crude humor or see violent action?  It just doesn't make sense to me, it's not even tempting anymore since I am so aware of the difference.  I am a pretty great mother, friend and person when I am facing towards God (and I feel so at peace and full of joy in all I do - even if it's washing dishes), but I have to admit that I am pretty crummy when I turn away, even if it's just momentarily to glance at worldly things for a moment (and I feel grumpy, sorry for myself and under-appreciated).  Why would I choose to bring that upon myself and my family?

Now, I should say that I am far from perfect, and I experience moments of turning away every day.  That is how I know what it feels like.  But I am so grateful to be able to recognize the difference and the source of my feelings and to know the way back by reaching to my Savior.  I'd be lost without this knowledge and certainly on a different (and miserable) path. 

I have been studying Isaiah lately, and trying to learn some things about what is expected of me.  I have been learning how those who want to be able to stand in the presence of God need to pass through a refiner's fire and prove that they are willing to stand with God no matter what.  This can be a sobering thought as we contemplate what we may have to endure, but I really don't think we have to wait for some future trial to show the Lord we will stand by Him no matter what.  This is from my journal this morning:

"Life is a refiner's fire.  Every single day we have different circumstances and how we react or act in those circumstances (not the circumstances themselves) is the test of our willingness to stand with God no matter what.

"I don't need a major trial right now to see if I will stand with God - am I willing to stand with Him when the house is a mess or do I give in to self-pity and frustration? Am I willing to stand with God when children are rude to each other (or to me) or do I give in to angry feelings that drive the spirit away? Am I willing to stand by God when the spirit tells me to say or do something or am I too worried about what people think (even after I have already said it and then I let those worries drag me down)? Am I willing to stand with Him even when I'm tired?"

Those are the questions I am trying to answer today.  I see things so clearly sometimes, but it is so easy for me to get distracted with the cares of this world and forget what is most important.  I think it is pride and selfishness that get in my way.  When I am humble and ask myself, "what would God have me do right now?" I have great peace in my heart, regardless of what I "get done" or thought I should have gotten done.  Many things on my "to do" list are not getting done lately because I am expecting baby #7 (due in August!) and I tend to move a lot slower (because of my energy level - I'm not huge yet) than I used to.

Anyway, I felt like I should blog today, so I put in some pictures (see previous post), and wrote down some of my recent thoughts.  Hopefully it is of help to someone, or to myself at some future point.  I feel like I have spent too long on it now though so I better go get ready for church :-)

P.S. I have been reading some great books lately.  I recommend "Visions of Glory" by John Pontius and "Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain.  My favorite movies lately are "Gifted Hands" and "Agenda: Grinding America Down".  You can watch Agenda for free for a limited time here:  http://vimeo.com/52009124. And I heard that Gifted Hands (a movie about the life of Ben Carson - a very inspirational man) is available for free on  http://www.zionvision.com/.  My friend, Becky, also told me of another great resource for inspirational movies: http://www.christiancinema.com/dvdrental/top_dvds.php

Glimpses into the last several months

Here are some glimpses into our last several months. They are not in chronological order since I uploaded from two different cameras and I didn't want to take the time to organize by date, but the first several are from our trip to St. George earlier this month. Then it moves to some Christmas and birthdays and things. I haven't taken the time to update our latest so this is my attempt at preserving some memories, however scattered they may be ;-)

This was a fun vacation. We shared a condo with some friends and got to visit Snow Canyon a few times, Brigham Young's winter home, some parks and a museum, we played games and got to go swimming.

Christmas Nativity Play with some friends for Family Home Evening

Little Miss on her birthday morning.  She chose to take the family to "Planet Play" to celebrate

The Girls at Ben Behunin's stairwell - an amazing author, potter and man.

Little Miss doing a solo in a choir concert

Bud and Spice doing a solo in choir

Bud opening a compass from his grandma at Christmas

Little Miss gets crochet things for Christmas

500 piece puzzle completed

Ray is one cool looking soldier

Ray and Gem dancing to Bud's great music.  Gem spends a lot of time trying to imitate Ray's cool "jump off the stairs" move.

Bud's Birthday morning at Grandma's house

Ray and Gem playing with markers while we are distracted doing "Family School"

Hopefully Helpful Random Thoughts and Ideas

A friend called me the other day, she had found my blog and had been trying to figure out what she wanted to implement in her home.  "A lot of your entries on this were from more than a year ago, so I'm wondering what had worked and what you are still doing."

I made sure to tell her that my blog is often my ideal of what I would like to do and what I feel strongly about, but that not all of my ideas stick at first and sometimes I have to revisit them later or just accept that they aren't going to work for my family.

So this post is a little view at what we're doing now.  It is all a work in progress and I'm sure things will continue to change (for the better hopefully!)

MORNINGS:
 
One of my favorite things is our morning music.  It is our variation of "Miracle Music".  If you're not familiar with Miracle Music - basically you get an instruction: "Time to make you bed" and then you have until the end of a song (or more depending on the task) to finish.  If you finish before the music ends, you get a point for that task.  I heard about Miracle Music before I started homeschooling from my great friend, Angela.  She told me how her variation of it was working so well at her house, and it sounded nice, but I guess I didn't think it sounded nice enough to actually implement it.  So I forgot about it and recently another friend mentioned how well it was working at her home.  She was just using the CD and varied it slightly, like if her family needed more time for breakfast she would just play the breakfast songs twice.  Ordering the CD seemed much easier than trying to create my own, so I figured I could give it a try.  Our biggest problem with family work was staying on task.  The kids knew what to do, and would generally get it done, but it would take so long as they distracted each other throughout the morning.

The CD was incredible.  It helped all of us (including me!) to stay on task through the morning.  Finally, since it was working so well, I figured it was worth making my own adaptation of the concept.  If we were listening to the same thing every morning, I wanted to choose what that would be.  I recorded the kids voices saying what the next task was and I chose some great learning songs (like the Declaration of Independence, The Preamble, The Gettysburg Address, The books of the scriptures, The Articles of Faith) as well as some songs that invite the Spirit to our work (like If the Savior Stood Beside Me, Nephi's Courage, etc).  I am so happy with how fast we are getting our work done and how good everyone is staying on task.  Our tasks are:
1. Make Bed
2. Clean Room
3. Clean Zone
4. Put Pajamas away and Get Dressed
5. Animal Care
6. Weekly Job
7. Monthly Job
8. Breakfast Job
9. Eat Breakfast
10. Breakfast Clean up
11. Brush Teeth
12. Do Hair and take a shower (if needed)
12. Ask Mom to Check your Work
13. Ask Mom what else she needs

I want to make an evening one too, but I haven't gotten to it yet.  If you like details to spur your own ideas, here are our weekly jobs

Mon: Car and Clean Animal Cages
Tues: Bathrooms
Wed: Straighten Hall closets
Thr: Mopping
Fri: Vaccuuming
Sat: Project (ask dad)

Here's our monthly jobs (the kids pick one from the list daily (except Wednesdays) until we've done all of the list.  Then we start over.

Windows, Sills and Blinds
Kitchen Drawers
Kitchen Cupboards
Bathroom Drawers
Bathroom Cupboards
Bedroom Dressers and Drawers
Bedroom Closets
Chicken Coupe
Refigerator
Freezer
Pantry
Walls and Doors
School Supplies
Craft Room
Sheets and Pillow Cases
Paper Work/Junk Drawers
Game and Movie Closet
Special Bins/ Backpacks/ Purses
Bookshelves
Toy Room

The whole thing takes 2 hours (if you don't count the 30 minutes of instrumental hymns that play to wake them up and remind them to read scriptures before the tasks start). 

Ideally, we start the CD at 6:30 am and we're done by 9am.  But there's been some glitches in the system.  First of all, I've been trying to get up early to do yoga, but James has been waking up at night lately so I sleep in.  I do yoga anyway, but then the CD doesn't get started until closer to 8.

The other problem is that sometimes making breakfast (depending on what's made) or monthly jobs take longer than the 14 minutes given to each by the music, so the kids ask if they can pause it since they were working hard the whole time.  I say yes, of course, but then we're done closer to 10 or 11 (especially because we often forget to turn the music back on and then we take 1 hour to eat breakfast instead of the 20 minutes that is given us by the music).

But overall it's working great!  I love to see everyone happily working as the music plays and staying on task and trying to beat the music to get done early.  There's something to knowing that the work will end when the music does that motivates you to get it done.

After morning music the kids do their "Skill Practice": Math, Piano, Writing, or whatever other skills they are working on).  Those that get done before devotional get free time.

AFTERNOON
Around noon, I put the baby (and sometimes the toddler) to bed and we have devotional.  We sing, pray, and do a lesson from The Family School while we snack.  Ideally, we would do this everyday except Wednesdays, but it's usually more like 3 times a week.

After Devotional (Ideally around 12:30, but usually around 2), the children have their free time and they go read, explore outside, study, play sports, play some imagination game together, etc.

EVENING:
Rock gets home around 3:30 and I start dinner and we eat around 5.  Then we clean up, get ready for bed and do our family reading ideally around 7, but usually around 8.  After the family reading, we tuck the kids into bed (again, ideally around 8, but they always seem to want to have long conversations at night and usually they go to bed around 9).

That's pretty much the plan of our day most of the time.  Most mornings are pretty routine and afternoons are more flexible  (like Tuesdays for piano, Wednesdays for our groups or Fridays for choir and sometimes Thursdays for art).  Usually that means I get less prep time for dinner and the kids get less free time, but they enjoy what they do, so I guess it is sort of like free time since it is what they are choosing to do with their time.

 I have no idea why any of this would be of interest to anyone, but I know I enjoy hearing other people's schedules and getting ideas for my own.  In fact, probably most of what I do came from hearing other people's ideas and then getting inspiration as to how to apply them to our family, so hopefully some of these borrowed ideas will be of help to someone else.

SIMPLICITY
I think I'm still applying the Headgates principles for the most part.  I have allowed a few more toys and clothes then when I first go rid of things, but I think I try to keep things pretty simple still.  We still don't have battery powered toys and we try to get rid of things pretty often.  We no longer have "screen time" for two hours on Saturdays, but we do let the kids watch something when Rock and I go on a date, so I guess we just moved screen time to a more convenient time.  We also allow a movie if it's something we are watching as a family, but that doesn't happen very often.

MOVIES
Speaking of movies, I recently saw The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Life of Pi and Lincoln.  I must have been on a movie kick.  I have to say that Timothy Green was better than I expected.  I loved the message that family is the most important thing and that we should take our parenting seriously.  It's a message most needed in our culture.  Life of Pi was great.  I loved the message.  I would recommend it, although I wouldn't take my kids to see it since there is some difficult suffering (especially of animals) that they would not like to see.

Lincoln
Lincoln left me thinking...  I thought I liked it, but upon further reflection I wasn't so sure.  I thought Lincoln's character seemed to be fairly portrayed.  I enjoyed the dramatization of that period of time and how it must have been to be in such a difficult position.  I even thought the politics were interesting and fairly portrayed.  I loved so much of the thought-provoking dialogue. After thinking about it, though, what bothered me was the underlying message through the whole film that the ends justify the means - that it is okay to use your power to get what you want if it is for a good purpose.

It is a dangerous message.  It can be true message.  If someone with a pure heart is sincerely doing God's will, then he must do it - no matter what stands in his way.  However, most people do not have a pure heart, but they do have causes that they believe in.  A message like this in our day, could be very dangerous, as there is already an abuse of power in high places to get what they believe are righteous ends.  Only they and God can examine their hearts, but I fear a message like this may be misleading to them and anyone in a positition of power.

In my opinion, there was not enough done to show the pureness of Lincoln's heart.  You didn't see him pray in the movie, though it was a regular part of his life.  There is one part that looks like he may be praying as he sits on a chair and looks down at his hat and then he looks up and makes a decision, which after some discussion with some young men, he decides against and does something different.  There is one other time I remember someone praying.  It was right before a vote on the 13th ammendment, and after his prayer he votes against it.  I wonder why the two instances in which prayers are offered in the movie seem to lead to wrong choices.

The other thing I did not like was the very violent war scene at the beginning of the movie.

Anyway, I think that is it for my movie reviews ;-)

BOOKS
I have been reading an incredible book about how to parent.  I think every parent should read it.  It's though to get through in one sitting, but I would recommend buying it and reading a section every day.  It is full of great thoughts and truths.  It has opened my eyes to see more clearly the nature of the spirit and how to nurture that spirit to walk in the light.  It is called Gentle Measures by Jacob Abbott.  Thank-you to my friend who recommended it!  I would love to have a book discussion on it with someone.  Anyone up for it?

I recently read a book called Following the Light of Christ into His Presence by John Pontius.  I read it after a friend told me that it changed her life.  Knowing her to be a person who is incredibly close to the spirit, I decided I better read this life-changing book.   I would agree that it is life-changing in that it opens your eyes to see some gospel truths so much more clearly in how to hear and obey God's voice.  I heard him speak at the women's retreat I attended a little while ago and I enjoyed his sincerity and desire to share the truths he has come to understand.  I bought another of his books "The Triumph of Zion" - I am looking forward to getting to it!

We just finished reading Yearning for the Living God by F. Enzio Busche as a family.  It embodied the truths I leaned in Following the Light of Christ and how we often live far below our potential.  We really enjoyed learning from this true disciple of Christ and his experiences.

GOALS
My latest goals are to pray more sincerely - to pour out my soul unto God daily and put forth my sincere efforts to exercise my "spiritual muscles" (faith) by hearing and obeying his voice more diligently.  I want to rid my heart of all contention and watch it spread to my family.  It's a tall order, but I am feeling great joy as I try and increased gratitude for my Savior as I become more keenly aware of my rebelliousness (my choice not to think before I act sometimes) and weaknesses.  I feel such joy in so many moments in my life and I am just so grateful for this mortal experience.

I think that is enough random thoughts for now.  I really should try to just write more often so I don't have to try to fit so much into one blog post, but I can't seem to find much time these days.  Life is quite the adventure!