Minnesota 2009

 

Tuesday,  27 July 2009 1:00 am

The TV is repeating a cooking show that has already aired twice today.  I have it on because I am the only one awake in Susan’s apartment.  I didn’t pack enough underwear and so I am waiting for the washer to finish so that I can put the load in the dryer.  It has been such a wonderful day.  Martha arrived this afternoon and she is so fun to be with.  She looks great—confident and certain of herself.  She says that they’ll be in Saudi Arabia for 13 more years.  She is teaching Seminary—early morning—for the fourth time this year.  This next year is Church History . . . her first year was with the D & C.  I hadn’t known that Susan also taught early morning Seminary.  “The best thing about it is that you really have to study the scriptures every day,” she said.  She really enjoyed it, and agreed with Martha that it was one of the most challenging, overwhelming callings she had ever fulfilled.  I feel left out—muddling through Seminary with Nathan during the years that he was home isn’t quite the same thing.  I never thought about having to study for an hour everyday so that I could be ready to work with Nate the next day.  He often couldn’t handle much more than 5 or 10 minutes worth—but even if he could have focused for a longer time, I didn’t really have much to offer him.  

I went to ride with Susan and Nancy this evening.  The temperature was cooler than yesterday and the wind was calm.  Susan and Nancy laughed and talked and teased each other and then laughed some more.  It made me lonely for Meg and La.  As we were beginning to ride, I got a phone call from Brent.  He told me about the supplies he had gotten to finish Nate’s bathroom and the glue and roller we’ll need to put up the stylized rabbit border around the room just below the ceiling.  After being with Susan and coming to know more of the challenges that fill her days, I am so glad that I am me and have the problems that I have.  Mine isn’t the life I would have wished for even a decade before—but I wouldn’t even dream of trading what I was facing for the difficulties that Susan has gone through.  Nor would I consider exchanging lives with Martha.  Exotic travels and insular living would push me into panicked anxiety about what I could not understand and what I could not control. 

I met Susan’s grandson Evan today.  He is 3 years old and an adroit manager of his domain.  Susan confides that Evan is expert at “pushing his parents’ buttons.”  I think that she sees what she has known before in her life.  She became an expert at pushing mom and dad’s buttons herself when she was younger . . . as well as mine and M’s.  The magic of the whole process is that it allows her an especially clear view of the situation now.  “Inter-Family Dynamics” should have been required to graduate  from high school, to get married, or to interact with any family member at anytime in the future.

Tuesday, 27 July 2009 noon

Nathan called me yesterday afternoon.  He was at the pet store to buy shavings for the bunnies.  “What kind of shavings do I get?  Aspen, pine, the vacuum packed kind?  One of the sacks looks like one of the bags at home, but it feels like there are just little pellets inside.  Am I at the right store?  And the bunnies have started to pee on the floor of their cage—what am I suppose to do about that?”  There was no panic in his voice, but I could tell that he took the responsibility to care for our three buns very seriously.  He is determinedly precise about anything that he undertakes.  He attributes this characteristic to his Asperger’s Syndrome.  I think that that may be a part of it—but he is also dedicated to making the environment around him better.  Either way, I am grateful that he is as he is.    

I miss Brent horribly.  I have been away from him before, but I keep thinking that he would really enjoy hiking through the woods here.  It is mostly flat land he could easily walk beside me as I rode one of Susan’s horses through the woods and meadows.  Connections via cell phone are tenuous at best and we are often cut off in the middle of conversations, necessitating a quick re-dial so that we can finish our dialogue.   It is OK though because we now say the most important things at the beginning of the call instead of waiting for the last moments before we hang up.  To quote Martha Stewart:  It’s a good thing.

Martha brought us both quilts.  In Saudi she is the president of the quilting group that meets to make amazingly, quilts.  They are painstaking works of art:  a sweet reminder that she loves both Susan and me and thinks about us when all of us are apart.  I like that.

What Do You Put In a Blog?

 

 

Journal                      Sunday, 5 July 2009

 

Dear Bobbie,

 

It was such a wonderful surprise to be able to spend time with you last week.  I have always admired you for your ability to go and do things that I would never have the courage to try.  While Brent and I have discussed going on a mission in a few years, neither of us has even considered the option of going to Asia. 

 

You are so very different from the Rob that I remember—who was still a teenager when I got home from my mission.  Of course you are now a real grown up person who has worked and married and is a father. It feels like you consider me an OK person also—and I like that very much.  Because I felt so comfortable with you, I couldn’t believe how defensive I felt when you asked me what I could write about on a blog.  Since last week, your question has had me thinking over and over about the worth of what I have written.  My only scholarly publication was 20 years ago—about the need to have students practice writing skills:  an example of a classroom lesson that I had used to allow the students to apply the principles of subjective assertions supported by objective statements.  Another article was about my change in priorities from wife and student to mother.  Even the book that I’m writing with Megan is just a simple story about family.  I have written thousands and thousands of pages of personal essays—journal-type observations organized around a single idea.  They are not based on scholarly research, only peppered heavily with ideas and observations that I read from other authors.  Usually I don’t even start with an original thought of my own:  I write out the reaction that I have had in response to something I’ve heard or something that I’ve read or something that Brent and I have talked about.  I am not a Chaucer or DaVinci or Copernicus or Aristotle or Goethe or Einstein.  I sing the songs that others write.  I read the words that others have written.  I write about things that I have heard or experienced in other places.  I remember that Mom used to complain to me that I could do lots of things well, but I had mastered none of them. 

 

I look at Brent’s resume and there is nothing I’ve done that can compete with that.  I quit before I finished my PhD.  I missed 6 weeks of my mission recuperating from operations.  I have not even worked enough hours in my 50 years to qualify for social security when I turn 65.  I suppose that I demonstrate a fair amount of chutzpa in leaking my thoughts onto paper or into my computer and offering them for others to read.  I am self-centered enough to believe that what I think and how I present it is significant and interesting enough that others will find it worth reading.

 

I have not accomplished much in my 50 years that would be worth putting on a resume.  I have created teaching methodologies specific to the ways that Megan and Nathan learn so that they have been able to comprehend math, composition, and science.  I have learned through my own experience how to propagate (the few plants that flourish in my yard) from cuttings.  I was once called a Master Teacher.  I was voted Teacher of the Year at a junior college where I taught.  When I was 19, a fellow ballet student told me that she loved to watch me dance. My children tell me that I have done the right things at the right times to allow them to grow up and do the things that they want to do and become the people that they wanted to be.  I can play the piano and speak Spanish and sing and swim and ride horses and sew and cross-stitch and take pictures and raise rabbits and cook what needs to be cooked.  Mom was right.  I do lots of things—but I have not mastered any of them. 

 

So what do I have to write about? 

 

I guess I just write about the fact that I am still learning and doing and discovering things.  I’m not an accomplished writer, but sharing what I think, try, hope, read, and believe is satisfying somehow.  I suppose that I put stuff on my blogs for the purely selfish reason that I like doing it.

 

What you think of me matters to me—and I have come to the conclusion that you would like me no matter what I could do or had accomplished.  That is one of the things that I have liked best about this last week—I like knowing that others like me even if I am manic depressive, stubborn, narcoleptic, lazy, opinionated, and apt to do things that I know are not good for me.  I do love you, though, Robbie.  And even when I cannot keep up with where you work and where you live and how old Natasha and Benjamin are—I am interested in who you are and what you are thinking.

 

So.  That’s what I have to put on my blogs.  I hope that sometime you will look at them and find out about me—what I am doing, where I am going, how I am doing.

 

Much love always,

Carolyn

 

PS  I will put some of the thoughts from this letter on my blog for tonight.  So now you’ve read the kind of stuff that I blog about.

From Texas to Argentina

 

 

Moving to Buenos Aires Argentina

12 May 98

 

We are moving again.  Usually before we move, I sit up alone late at night--after the children are in bed--in a spotless house that has been stripped of any indication that a real family actually lives in it.  The towels in the bathroom are untouched.  The sink and the counters in the kitchen gleam.  The carpets carry nary a single footprint to mar their just-vacuumed surface.  But this time, the house sold while we were away for a week visiting Dad and Cindy.  It was clean when I left and sold when I returned.  This move finds me sitting in my own little oasis of chaos that surrounds the computer.  Paid and unpaid bills fill the cubby holes along the wall.  The bulletin boards behind the computer are dotted with reminder cards of doctor and dentist appointments kept long ago.  There are files bristling with papers that I shall need--but whose location I will not be able to remember when the time comes.  I have a bottle of cherry flavoured Chloraseptic oral anesthetic spray beside the computer monitor that I douse my lower gums and my tongue with periodically to numb the ache that my just-tightened braces cause.  There are notebooks and directories and notebooks and magazines stacked in a precarious pile next to the phone.  And when the phone rings, I often have to dig through the pile of papers that I have just placed on top of it because there was no other place to put them.  There are pills and hard disks and CD computer programs and a newspaper photo of a 53 year old ballerina floating through the air that I cut out and have saved since November of 1993. 

Yes, this move is indeed different.  Compared to my familiar, cluttered computer space, the rest of the house is very tidy indeed.  The chairs, the tables, the bookcases--even the piano--are encased in layer upon layer of protective wrapping.  There are mountainous piles of boxes lined up along the edges of the rooms like wall-flowers waiting to be asked to dance.  The center floor of each room echoes brightly as if it were lit by a spot light.  It is a strange feeling.  We are moving and the house is messy where we live, soldier straight where the movers have been packing, and a welcoming sight when I pull into the driveway. 

I feel a special pang when I think of moving from this house.  There is a vague, uneasy feeling within me because I am going to a home that will not be mine.  I will not be free to poke holds in the walls so that I might hang my dozens of pictures where I please.  I will not be able to have Brent attach shelves where ever a whim directs me so that I might have a convenient place for a TV.  I will not be able to hang a deep, paisley, floral wallpaper with a muted, Noah's ark boarder to welcome me to my own bedroom.  I will be moving into someone else's home to live for three years.  I am not giving up my home for another one--but to become a nomad.  Like Sariah, we will be "getting by" with whatever we can find available to us.  Certainly moving to a modern, European kind of city for three years, to live in a four bedroom house with maid's quarters, and a pool and a great climbing tree in the backyard, is nothing like leaving great wealth and an influencial social position in order to waunder through the wilderness for untold years.  But, like Sariah, I am leaving the majority of my most precious earthly treasures--photo albums of our family history, scrap books of each of the children, pictires and paintings and counted cross stitch wall hangings, the handkerchef doll that my mother made for me and gave me the year before she died.  There will not be space for them in our new home. 

The children are also leaving a great many of their things behind.  There will be no place for the doll house that Brent made for Megan or for the collection of dolls that Lauren got from her grandmother.  

Family Home Evening Talk

A Smaller Family

The Three of Us:  Brent, Nathan, Carolyn

Brent, the Light of my life

After Church, early 2025

After a temple session, early 2025

March 9, 2003

Family Home Evening 

Sacrament Meeting Talk

Brent Hendry

Family Home Evening Talk                           March 9, 2003

Brent Hendry

 

I have been asked to speak today on Family Home Evening.  This is the topic of the First Presidency Message in the March Ensign.  It is as much a warning to us by the First Presidency to prepare ourselves as the recent reminders we have been given regarding our one-year food storage and emergency preparedness.  And while food storage may save our physical bodies in times of worldly or personal catastrophe, Family Home Evening may save our spiritual family lives in times of worldly or personal stress and hardship.  

 

President Hinckley repeated in this month’s Ensign that "[The Lord] expects us to have family home evening—one night a week to gather our children together and teach them the gospel.”  He then quotes Isaiah chapter 54 verse 13,  “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord.  And great shall be the peace of thy children”.  I would recommend reading the First Presidency Message in your next Family Home Evening; it is not long and would provide great opportunity for the family to do a self-evaluation on how well we are following the prophet’s counsel. 

 

Family Home Evening is one program that is too often just lived as a program rather than being used as an inspired program with a principle.  In each instance the family gets together one evening a week, usually Monday, and has a lesson, family prayer and possibly a family actively.  The difference between following a program and implementing a principle is that when Family Home Evening is seen as the way to implement the principle of an eternal celestial family then the family, through time and effort, grows closer together.  If just practiced as a program it is often just a weekly opportunity for everyone to get irritated with one another.  

 

Before anyone accuses me of being unrealistic in how hard it is to set up a Family Home Evening run on the principle of building an eternal family unit let me hasten to add that I know this process is not easy, at least it has not been easy for my family.  Let me preface my comments by citing a statement we often hear in the world.  “Quality time is more important than quantities of time.”  We have all heard this phrase spoken in some form or another.  I think the world uses this credo to justify spending less time with their children, in an increasingly hectic world, as long as the few minutes they spend with their children are packed with worthwhile activities.  But our prophets have reminded us again and again that, contrary to the worldview; it is all about quantities of time.  The more time we spend with our children the better.  Quality time is not rushing our children to activities.  The true definition of what quality time is can only be realized after we have spent a significant amount of regular time being together as a family. 

 

Carolyn and I have been holding Family Home Evening every week ever since our children were very little.  Carolyn initially took the lead in our home and made sure that we held it every week and that we taught our children.  Because my experience growing up was clouded by a few memories of some tense and stressful Family Home Evenings I did not immediately appreciate the importance of the principle behind the program.  Carolyn taught me early on to take responsibility for my role as the priesthood leader in my home as it relates to Family Home Evening and we have shared that roll ever since.  The difference between having family home evening and effective family home evening is understanding the principle behind the program and having the spirit be able to communicate with the family as they sit together and talk.  But we need to recognize that this takes time and consistency.  Not every family night will be a spiritual experience or even a peaceful event.  But through consistency and thoughtful preparation and time the family will grow closer together and will be taught by the spirit.  

 

 

It is the same with family scripture time.  The spiritual moments may be few and far between but they will never come if you are not there, reading together, every night.  Our family took to heart the admonition of President Hunter to read the Book of Mormon, we wanted the peace that he promised if we would do so.  The peace did not come the first night or the first week or even the first months.  It took a long time of committed family scripture reading before it went from a tense few verses before bedtime to something that was calmer and even anticipated.  We are now getting to the point in our lives, after many years of putting in quantities of time, that during and after scripture reading we can often have some serious discussion on gospel topics raised either by the reading or just because we are together and someone has a question or thought they would like to express.   It is not every night but the frequency of such times of connecting are greater now and the feeling of calm and peace is much more prevalent in our home.

 

The requirement of perseverance and time is also is true for Family Home Evening if the principle behind the program is to be achieved.  We will often just talk together as a family about things we learned in church or things we have been wondering about and our children, for the most part, are not anxious to be done and leave.  But this calm peaceful period in our lives was preceded by many nights of just being there and getting through the scriptures or getting through the lesson.  The true spiritual payoff is not in the individual experiences of a few minutes trying to keep everyone quiet so that a few verses can be read or a lesson given, the payoff is in the building of a family who knows each other and enjoys being together.  This takes large quantities of time and then the smaller amounts of quality time; time of peace and harmony, time of real spiritual teaching will come.  They will sometimes be fleeting, and may be infrequent, but they will come and they will be worth it.  But in order to come at all they must be preceded by quantities of time and effort.  

 

It is the weekly and daily teaching in the family setting that will ensure that our children are sufficiently armored to be able to withstand the onslaught of false and evil information our children are faced with everyday.  My children accuse me of being a broken record when it comes to teaching them about the things that I think are important and the lessons I want them to learn.  But I can tell you that they know what I value and they know that I love them and they know what I have been trying to teach them.  I read a survey a number of years ago that said, if I remember correctly, that on average a parent only speaks with their children less than 10 minutes a day and the majority of those minutes were spent in negative communication, scolding and berating for failures.  How is spending this little time in negative communication going to help our children grow up into the people they need to be?  How many minutes did we spend with our children yesterday talking with them versus how many minutes were our children influenced by the media and other people?

 

Family Home Evening is not magic hour for family relations; it is a time to set aside for teaching and togetherness for longer than we might otherwise have during the week.  It should be a continuation of our family relationship--not the only family relationship.  Do we talk to our children?  Do we listen to our children?  My wife has always been amazing to me in this regard; almost every night while our children were growing up she would spend 15 minutes or more with each of the children listening to them after they were in bed. She would sit on the end of the bed and let them tell her about what they were thinking about, what they had done or what they wanted to do.  She also used it as a teaching time when appropriate.  Her example has spurred me to do better at trying to build my relationship with my family.  This takes time, some time ago I thought I would try and visit my children after they had gone to bed just like my wife to see if I could build my relationship with my children.  I walked in sat on the end of the bed and asked if there was anything they wanted to talk about.  They just stared at me.  It was like who is this stranger in my room.  There are no instant relationships even with relations.  While the nighttime discussions are the domain of my wife I work on my relationship with my children in other ways.  I usually take one of my children with me when I run errands.  I try and take opportunities to do activities with my children, even if it is cleaning the car or working around the house.   My children may not appreciate these efforts as much as I do.

 

These efforts to spend time with my children occasionally pay off in some quality time.  I remember once when Megan was ten years old she had a project she wanted to do and needed some sticks.  So I decided to take some time with her and went with her on a walk along the side of a quiet road to look for sticks.  As we walked we talked.  I asked her some questions.  “Megan where did you come from before you came to earth?” And she told me and then I asked “Megan why are you here on earth?   She then looked at me with an expression that told me “I think I know but I’m not sure, I would like to know”, and so as we walked along picking up sticks we talked about why we came to earth.  This was quality time that could have easily been no time if I had been too busy to help my daughter pick up sticks.  Quality time is often an unexpected treasure found only in the midst of large quantities of time.

 

How much time do we spend watching TV, how much time do we spend on the computer?  How much time do we spend with books and magazines?  Versus, how much time do we spend talking to one another, teaching one another?  Do we talk about standards, morals, and beliefs?  Do we know our children?  How much real influence do we have over them and their lives?  This can only happen if we are trying to teach them and get to know them.  How much do they know us, do they know what we believe?  Do they know what we think about and what we desire for them and their futures?  Do they know what is important to us?  Do they know they are important to us?  Do we spend quantity time on those souls who are most precious to us?  

 

Do we have scripture time and Family Home Evening with enough frequency so that we have a chance at developing a celestial family?  Even if there is not a spiritual or quality experience every week our efforts will result in the long term in calm peace and a stronger family.

 

During our Family Home Evenings we like to go over our family calendar for the week so that we can coordinate our activities.  We discuss something that each of us learned in church as well as occasionally having a family testimony meeting.  We have songs and short lessons and activities.  For our family we look forward to these times together, but as I have mentioned the first time is not going to necessarily be a positive thing, or even the second and third times.  In fact it may take months and months of doing it before it occasionally offers a glimpse of spiritual progress.  It is through the years that we develop the attributes of a celestial family.  The program itself will not change our lives it is living the principle behind the program that over time will bring peace to our homes and a closer family relationship.  The program of Family Home Evening is one important and inspired tool we can use to bring the principle of an eternal family into reality.

 

In conclusion I would like to quote once more from our prophet in this months Ensign, he says of Family Home Evenings in his childhood:

"Out of those simple little meetings, held in the parlor of our old home, came something indescribable and wonderful. Our love for our parents was strengthened. Our love for brothers and sisters was enhanced. Our love for the Lord was increased. An appreciation for simple goodness grew in our hearts. These wonderful things came about because our parents followed the counsel of the President of the Church".

It is my prayer that we will follow the counsel of our prophet and spend the time necessary to follow the principle behind Family Home Evening, that of building an eternal family unit, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

My Two Men