Done, It Is

OK.  These are certainly no all the photos we have of The Boy's Eagle Project yesterday, but it shows a little of what we were up to.  A hidden jewel of our city, Anderson Park, was in need of some TLC--and that is what it got yesterday.  BIG THANK YOU to all 36 friends and family who showed up to help The Boy out.  We put in over 100 hours yesterday alone, not including his planning hours.  The City came through with the wood stain for the benches and bridges.  Now these little bridges and benches are prepped and ready for winter.  And The Boy is done but for the paperwork.

The Mom?  Well, done is a good thing.

From the Mouths of Babes, or Primary Kids Say the Darndest Things

This past Sunday I was subbing in Primary, teaching the class of 4 and 5 year olds.  Our topic was the Sacrament.  For this class of all boys, I wanted to emphasize that someday they will get to have the priesthood and bless and pass the scarament too.

I asked the boys "Who are the big boys that pass the sacramanet to the congregation?"  They looked at me with blanks looks on their faces.  So I prompted, "You know, like The Boy, he is one of them.  He passes the sacrament each Sunday.  What are they called?"

Then, sweet little Dallin raised his hand, and answered me with a question, "Demons?"

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Last night the kids and I watched this week's episode of Glee.  Up to now we have been faithful watchers of this usually clever, musical show where the "outcast" kids gather into the show choir family and find acceptance.

I believe the three of us have come to the conclusion, it is not the show for us anymore.

This week the questionable stuff that has been building gradually finally reached a tipping point for me.  We enjoy the music a lot--in fact, The Girl seems to prefer the soundtrack numbers to regular radio, which might actually be a good thing--have you listened to regular radio lately?  But the discussion and wishful activities of the otherwise sweet, gay character Kurt were up front and personal again.  Two cheer leading skankalicious Glee club girls were shown in an active make out scene on a bed.  One of the same skankalicious girls slept with the wheelchair boy who was trying to forget his other crush.  And the current "It Couple" sang a duet with seriously creepy sexual overtones. And this all followed last week's episode where the It Boy, Finn, discovered Jesus' face on his grilled cheese sandwich and believed it was the source of prayer and power for him; and, Kurt flatly refuted the idea that there is a God and angrily tossed out his friends' spiritual efforts on behalf of his sick dad.

I have had enough.

Early in the show, I used the gay-themed story line to talk to my kids about understanding differences in the society they live.  Then, I used the teen-pregnancy story line to talk about the choice and consequences of living a moral, sexually-pure life.  We talked about the Glee Diva Girl who discovered her birth mom, and discussed how families don't always look like ours and the importance of honesty in our relationships.  We used the teacher, his crazy-not-quite-ex-wife and the school counselor love triangle to talk about the contrasting healthy, honest, cooperative partnerships preferable in marriage.

At first I tried to use the thematic elements to talk with my own kids about what I believe and what our values are as a family.  I am not so naive as to think that they will never experience things that are portrayed on the show.  If anything, I am cynical enough to think they certainly will, and yet still hopeful they will have the foundations of faith and strength of character to behave in accordance to what I have taught them and what they have found to be true for themselves.

But the past few episodes make that ideal feel unattainable.  I feel like I am pushing my family's morality, like a boulder, up a hill on a gravely path.  It is getting to be a slippery slope, and the emotional well-being of my kids (and my own too, for that matter) are on the line.  It is too serious not to take a stand--at least at our house. 

I had them shut off the TV after the episode finished and told them, I think we need to seriously think about the way this show made them feel while they watched it.  Would they still watch it if Jesus sat in the recliner next to them?  I asked them to think about it overnight and we'd talk about what we should do this morning.

This morning they chose to shut it off.

After their decisions, I told them now that as we are deciding NOT to watch the show anymore, the next few episodes will most likely be completely cute, and clean, and honorable.  That is just how things seem to go sometimes.  But contrary to the popular idea at the moment, we are saying good bye to fictional McKinley High School Glee Club and will discover something else that will lift and inspire and encourage the values we have as a family.  They agreed, with smiles on their faces.

Shaun the Sheep is still another favorite. Maybe we could go back to that.

A Curious Theory

Recently on my morning walks, I have been listening to a podcast from a public radio outlet of Edward R. Murrow's "This I Believe" series from 1950s CBS radio.  A non-profit group has revived the program, and, in fact, asked people in the last few years to submit their own essays on what they believe.  The podcast uses both the contemporary essayist's works as well as the original radio broadcasts.

Today, one of the essays I listened to was especially interesting.  It was written and read by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, the so-called Thomas Jefferson of Pakistan, a former foreign minister of Pakistan, and one time leader of the Pakistani delegation to the UN.  He fought first for Indian Independence from Britain, and later for the division of Hindi Indian and Muslim Pakistan.  He was a devout Muslim from the Ahmadiyya Muslim sect.  Here is a section of what he wrote. I thought his ideas were curious, especially the section I have bolded below:

Islam means peace through submission to the will of God. I am a Muslim, that is, one who believes in Islam and hence submits himself to the will of God. I believe that all things proceed from God and depend upon him for support and sustenance. I believe He needs no support; He neither begets nor is begotten. He has no partner and no equal. I believe in God’s angels as the agency through which He communicates with His creatures, and I believe that from time to time that revelations from God have been delivered for the guidance of mankind. I believe in all of God’s prophets—Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna—and that the Holy Prophet Muhammad on whom be peace was the last law-bearing prophet.



I believe Jesus did not die upon the cross but was taken down from the cross and revived. Thereafter, he journeyed eastward, reaching to the scattered tribes of Israel and died in Kashmir, where his tomb is still preserved in Srinagar.


In all my studying I have never heard of this belief by anyone, much less a Muslin group.  Other than that, there are many similarities to what I believe and have read about world religions.  I sure wish people today would seek out those similarities and cooperate together with those as the foundations for friendships, alliances, and humanitarian works.  How much better off we'd all be, if that were the case.

Unpopular Realization

After hearing of the handful of recent "suicides by bullying" in the news in the past few weeks, it made me think about these young adults and teens who chose to end their lives.  I feel really, really sorry for them--that they felt they had no one to talk to who would understand their problems, who would support and protect them, and who might help them see 'this too shall pass'.

The really curious thing I came to understand, especially in light of the Rutger's student whose gay sex encounter was secretly taped by his roommate and them broadcast on the Internet, is, that gay or straight, had he lived a chaste life that would have never happened.

He would not have been taped having sex.  He wouldn't have been outed on the world wide web.  And I like to think he would have still been here to play the violin and go to college.

A while ago a high school girl hanged herself after some risque, sexually charged images--shot for her boyfriend at the time--were shared on cell phones and Facebook by the boyfriend after they broke up. 

If she was living a virtuous life, she would not have ever taken those kind of photos in the first place, and her death could have been avoided.

I know in today's society it isn't considered realistic to live a morally pure, sexually free single life.  But it occurs to me that today, more than ever, our kids, our young adults, and our friends need to know that option is still avavailable.  In fact, it is not such a bad way to live when you consider the trouble you automatically avoid simply because you have chosen NOT to put yourself in the way of danger, bullying, or judgement.

God's laws have been the foundation of society's laws for millenniums.  There is a reason He gave them to us.  He is our Father, and He loves us.  He doesn't want to see His children hurt each other--especially when we can choose better.

Video Sunday

Sometimes it is good to be in on the joke.