Red Letter Day

Well, I am a gem. Last night, I laughed myself to sleep thinking about the truly amazingly lame attempts at communication I made yesterday. My lameness begets lameness begets lameness begets LAMENESS. So, anyway, I figured I should share these incredible events with the blogging world.

First, I should say, there are times when my mind is thinking about something, and it greatly impacts the way that I respond to others, but they have no idea what I am talking about, so I just come off as bizarre. Such is the case with yesterday. Be excited to see me crash and burn.

First story: I was at church yesterday. While walking from my first meeting to the second, I saw a rather new gal in our ward. She had these adorable button earrings on. So, I said to her, "What darling earrings! I love the buttons." She says to me, " Oh thanks, they were my grandma's, but then she died, and I snatched them."

Now, just realize, Parker and I just watched the animated "A Christmas Carol." With Jim Carey as Scrooge. Anyway, in that movie, at the very beginning, Scrooge's business partner dies, and when he is making Marley's funeral arrangements, he has to pay two schillings...so before they put the cover on Marley's coffin, Scrooge takes the two schillings on Marley's eyes. I believe at this time putting the schillings on the people's eyes was a customary gesture suggesting that in the afterlife they would have great riches. Who knows, but back to the story.

So, for whatever reason, when she said that about her grandma and snatching the buttons away from her, I instantly thought of this scene in "A Christmas Carol" but of course, she didn't know that. So I say to her, "Yeah, hopefully you didn't snatch them off the clothes she was buried in."

Looking a little shocked, she said, "Yeah, hopefully not, because that would be bad...and weird...and awful."

Then I laughed nervously, realizing how really off color my comment was, you know suggesting that a loving grand-daughter robbed her grandmother's body of two solitary buttons to wear as earrings...yep, that's what I did. But, I decided explaining why such a comment came out, would actually be worse than just letting her think I was really weird. Is it really better to say that her mention of her grandmother immediately turned my thoughts toward Scrooge? I think not. Especially not during this holiday season. Well done me.

Second Story: Last night, I saw one of my good friends. We will call her BB. Anyway, she is delightful. She is 31 years old. Single. In the market for a man. Working on getting her master's in school counseling. While we were talking and eating pie, she mentioned that she spoke Spanish. I said to her, "You can't speak Spanish." This was the introduction of the bad. To which she responded all cute hurt like, and then said, "Bekah, it is my goal to be a bi-lingual school counselor." Now, please keep in mind that this whole weekend, I have had to read these rotten cases about child pornography for my paper, and unfortunately, when Bree said "Bi," the first thing that popped into my head was, "Bi-sexual." I know its lame that this would be my first thought, but alas, it was my conditioned response from this lame weekend. So, now let's go back to Bree's comment...

Bree: "Bekah, it is my goal to be a bi-lingual school counselor."

Bekah: "As long as that is the only bi you are."

Score. Excellent. Could I have said something more terrible? Maybe...but probably not. Here is my dear sweet friend telling me her life dream, and me...I respond to it...like that. Cool. NOT! I wasn't trying to be funny either, once again it was just what came to mind, but of course not at all because of her...entirely because of me, but oh my, how do you salvage that?

So, as I lay in bed, going to sleep last night, it occurred to me that I can be so amazingly awkward at times. But even explaining the method behind the madness of my awkwardness, would really only make me seem all the more awkward. I think I need to learn how to keep my stream of consciousness from leaking out in front of people. While a good part of the time it is delightful, I am not convinced it makes up for the times its not.

Hope is the thing with...wings.

One of my very dear friends at law school has a blog that she has named "Hope is the thing with feathers." I don't know what it means exactly, but I sure like it, and for whatever reason, in my mind it always computes to the above phrase.

That is important for my thoughts in this post. I don't know how many of you are current with the news, but I sure try not to be. I hate finding out about the miserable things people do to each other; however, it is nigh impossible to escape in law school, and the BIG, I mean HUGE story this week has been the terrible story about Penn State. I hesitate to post a link, but I will because it is the news, and you would probably find out one way or another. We will name this link the unfortunate and altogether stupid choices of Joe Paterno head coach of the Penn State football team. In a few words, one of the assistant coaches had been molesting children who came to sports camps but now it appears that maybe he was pimping these children out too. Anyway, when this came to the attention of Joe Paterno, he told the Athletic Director who in turn told the Vice President, and everyone just kept it a secret...all for football or embarrassment or something, dunno, but every time I think about this, it just puts a pit in my stomach. So, I try to avoid thinking about it not because I think we should ignore this issue. NOT AT ALL, I just find myself too often trying to find the rationale or logic behind such acts, and it just weighs me down deep. It's pretty difficult to avoid this at school though.

Not only is EVERYONE talking about this story, but the whole first year class is currently working on a paper with the same topic: child pornography. So, as you can imagine, there has been numerous parallels drawn between this recent new story and the nasty fact situation for our papers. The majority of these are done indelicately too. I don't blame them all for talking so harshly about all of these issues, they are terrible, but it is difficult to hear that kind of crap all day long too.

Anyway, I was sure feeling low, and then as I was cooking dinner, my very loving Father-in-Law sent me another news story. This time it was about a magazine salesman who accosted a woman, sexually abused her, broke her face, nearly strangled her. I appreciate him for sending this, because I know that he sent it as a watch out reminder, and it makes me feel so glad to have people in my life who care enough to send something like this, but coupled with all the other events of the day and week and previous few weeks, I just felt so very sad. My heart hurt for all of these people. My mind raced about how Parker and I would ever be able to keep our children safe in this increasingly wicked world.

And then my mind struck upon a thought...read the Book of Mormon. Most of you know that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in the Bible so long as it has been translated correctly, but we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. We are taught to live according the precepts and teaching found in both of these books. The Book of Mormon contains an account of Christ's teachings to the peoples living in the Americas as we believe that he visited here. If you have more questions about this you could always ask me or go here .

But I followed this thought, and I instantly knew where I wanted to read. At the very end of the Book of Mormon which is about 400-421 A.D. the abridger of the Book of Mormon, a prophet named Mormon writes an epistle to his son Moroni. I know this is a lot of set up, but I think that it will mean more with this history.

This is the final letter that Mormon writes to his Son. The world has fallen into wickedness, the two big groups of people in their society, the Lamanites and the Nephites are both incredibly wicked. The atrocities described in this chapter (Chapter 9 of the Book of Moroni) are so grave that my eyes cease to read them without tears a plenty pouring down my cheeks. I feel this so deeply because I believe that these events truly happened; in fact, I know that they did. So, today, as I sat reading, my heart crumbled as I saw the incredibly bad choices the people were making and how that affected those around them. The descriptions continue and all the while, I was thinking, WHAT IS MORMON DOING HERE? This is probably his last letter that he will ever write to his son, why, oh why would he spend so many words describing the dire situation? Moroni is living it too just in a different part of the country.

And when my heart reached almost its breaking point, Mormon said this, "My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever."

And this is why I know that this is from God and why my faith continues despite this wicked world and why hope is the thing with wings, because when I hope is Christ, I am carried by angels.

First Snow

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a Hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I rued. Robert Frost I feel this way about today. It has been so gloriously white. I know that by the end of the season, most dread the snow. I often dread it myself toward the end, but there is something truly magical about the first snow. A marking of time that demands all stop and take notice that a new season of life is beginning. I love that. I think God gave us snow to demand a slow down once and again. Today, I feel somewhat entirely overwhelmed with life. My Saturdays are so precious and so short. I play wife on Saturdays. I clean: clothes, house, dishes. Run errands for: food, bills, everything. And NEVER do I get everything done that I want to. This week has been a particularly demanding week at school. I had the frist draft of my brief due Tuesday. That turned out to be 27 pages. I had a final for my research class on Friday. My medicine dosage was increased yet again. All of these taken together meant that this morning, I walked into a front room littered with nearly every dish we owned, dirty, waiting for me to clean it. I have been milking my last pair of undies since Wednesday. I knew I just needed to get to today and I would finally be able to do some laundry. It turns out, when I say some, I mean nearly every piece of clothing we own. So, my day has been nearly consumed with household chores that just take so much time. I looked at the clock about twenty minutes ago realizing that I hadn't even so much as cracked a book for school this weekend, and I felt so inadequate. I wondered why I was doing this whole thing again. Sometimes I feel so wholly torn between everything I have committed to, I wonder if I will be able to actually keep it all together in the end. I honestly don't know the answer to that, but I do know that last night as I closed my eyes I drew back our curtain a little so that I could see the snow falling down, and I knew that today was going to be a good day. There is so much to be learned from this tiny miracle. Snow is not rushed, snow patiently falls forming each flake uniquely. Snow blankets the earth making even the largest mud pile look like a pinacle of mountainous splendor for a moment at least. Snow brings magic to children's eyes. Snow makes the world go slower, take more time getting where we need to get and really deciding if our needs are needs or not. I love the snow, especially the FIRST snow, and today, I really needed something to remind me that everything has its season, and that my very BEST really is good enough for what's REALLY important.