Preparing for change

We have a new dog.

I have written a little about this in the main blog, as I was covering death and grief, but I was talking with a friend this morning and I realized some things that are worth writing about.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/adjusting.html


One was in which these dogs are very different is that Jane was hyper and bold and always into things. Adele is very shy. She is also straight out of the adoption kennel. We have never had that combination before. Jenny was very shy, but she had been in a home before, and lived with a few different people. We have had a few dogs come straight from the kennel, but they were fairly confident dogs.

Where this has become difficult is the combination of fear with lack of knowledge. She did not know the difference between a home and crates and this part is the yard, and you do your business out there, but because she was also scared to let us know that she needed to go, it made it harder to teach her. This led to a few accidents, but also for a while she was only peeing once a day, which I know can't be comfortable.

That part is mostly worked out. She understands that this is something that you do in the yard now, and we get her in the yard on a regular basis. The other level there, and what Geno does, would be going to the door when she need to go, and we would open it for her, but she does not quite comprehend that she has the freedom to do that yet.

Right now her safe spot is the dog bed between my closet and desk. She will wander a little beyond that, but then she gets scared and runs back. A couple of times a day I will lead her into the living room, and pet her and talk to her, and then she will run back. I do it to try and show her that it is fine to be out there, but I'm not sure that she is getting the message.

Seeing that Geno moves about comfortably may eventually help, but the thing that will probably help most is her desire to be with us. When I am working at my computer and she is lying down next to me, I know that she is comfortable and relaxed. I'm glad to give her that, and it is certainly better that it is this spot - the first day it was the bathroom, and she stayed in there as four women got ready for church, which was not ideal.

When I have her in the living room, she may enjoy the attention, but she is anxious. When she creeps out into the hall, and approaches the living room, she is very anxious. These times are good for her. They are part of her path to where she will be happier.

That's what came together today. I know home life is very different from kennel life. I feel pretty comfortable saying that home life is better. I know this adjustment is going to lead to good things for Adele. I just hadn't thought about how human it was.

Sometimes there are so many things we could do that we don't even know. Sometimes things could be so much better, and we don't even see it because we are afraid. But if a young dog can learn, then we should be able to reason it out.

Things we can learn from Duck Dynasty

I think there are some teachable moments here.

There is a lot of interesting material for which I am not needed. Photos of the family without their beards and speculation on whether the interview was a deliberate attempt at martyrdom, getting out of the show, or tone-deaf sincerity, I don't know. I've never watched the show, and I can't imagine that I would.

Also, I am not going to spend a lot of time on the difference between freedom of speech and responsibility to corporate sponsors. I kind of already covered that with Paula Deen.

So here are some new things that stood out to me, and my thoughts.

First of all, it was interesting reading about the ratings. The season 4 premiere drew in 11.8 million viewers, and this is apparently phenomenal. The United States population is 317 million, so phenomenal is about four percent. Whether you are impressed with how much money can be made off a small percentage of the population, or disheartened by the popularity of reality TV and the behavior it portrays, it's worth keeping some perspective.

This is probably also a good time to remember what suppression of speech means. A punk band in Russia is in jail for criticizing Putin (and they way they did it, but they would not get jail time here). Or we can remember what religious persecution means. Falun Gong members are imprisoned in China. Huguenots were massacred and had to flee France; Mormons were massacred and needed to flee Missouri. Quakers, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson - I can keep going. People being offended by your beliefs that you remain free to practice is pretty minor, and reflects that the freedom is for everyone, not just some. This is a good thing.

Also, and this is probably my biggest thing here, it's probably good to take a moment and think about those beliefs.

If Robertson had only said that he believed that men and women should be together, there would be people who wouldn't like it, but it would be less of an issue. What he did was put homosexuality together with many other things that are not really fair comparisons, and then went off rather crudely about sex organs in a manner that shows a little too much preoccupation.

Many people are taking this as an attack on Christian beliefs, but this seems to be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. (I covered similar territory writing about the Duggars.)

If you believe that homosexuality is wrong, it is worth stopping and examining what that means. If you automatically agree with anyone who is against homosexuality, you are going to be automatically agreeing with some very ugly things. Let's say you believe it is best that men and women marry each other, okay. Do you also believe that men marrying men is equal to bestiality or terrorism? Do you really believe that they should lose their jobs? Is beating them up okay? Do you really believe they recruit? Because there are people who believe those things, and will say those things; is that the side you want to be on?

It requires some thought, and that leads to the other point. This comment has not been getting as much attention, so I am going to quote it, about blacks in the South before the Civil Rights-era:

"They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, 'I tell you what: These doggone white people' -- not a word!

"Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues,"

It's funny in how literally wrong he is about "singing the blues", but okay, I have a point that may be useful here.

When discussing marginalized groups, we use the term "privilege" a lot, meaning that if you are not in that group you may not be aware of the downside of being in it, because you don't have to be aware of it. That is your privilege. Not knowing about the problems they face does not make you a bad person; that's just something that happens.

Being clueless that they are not necessarily being completely open with you also does not necessarily make you a bad person. There would have been a lot of danger in complaining, or doing anything else that was perceived as being out of line - "uppity" - and there are plenty of stories about that, but okay, you did not see the problem with the hierarchy that had you near the top. Fine.

However, if when you do hear that there might be problems, that this system is not working for others, you get irritated and you feel threatened, and you resent the changes, that is the kind of thing that can turn you into a bad person, because to do it you will either need to cling to ignorance or you will need to actively choose to side with the oppressor against the repressed, and neither of those are what good people do.

Fighting homogeneity

That seemed like the right word to choose.

My thoughts lately have a lot to do with my friend Jen. We got to know each other as visiting teaching companions. On the surface, we don't have a lot in common, in terms of our backgrounds or our current situations, but we are interested in a lot of the same things, and we have great conversations punctuated by "Yes!" and "Thank you!" a lot.

She was telling me recently about a comment in Sunday school that made her very uncomfortable. It took her a while to adjust to it, but eventually she felt like she had to say something, and she did, going back to it and explaining why it bothered her. Many other people indicated similar feelings after she spoke up.

Without being too specific, the original comment was one that indicated a feeling of superiority over people not in our church. It was looking specifically at the youth, and there are some great young people in the church, and they certainly may look better than what you see represented on the news, but there's a dangerous thought pattern there if you start comparing.

The other dangerous thought pattern, though, that nearly won, was assuming that silence meant agreement. Many people were uncomfortable and disagreed, but no one initially said anything. You can have a room full of people thinking they are the only one, if no one speaks up.

I know people who want to disagree with everything too, and they can be really obnoxious. Because of that, it may not feel great being the one to dissent. However, your voice can strengthen and comfort someone else.

Using your voice can strengthen yourself. Lying takes a toll, but leaving true things unsaid can take a similar toll. If you never assert yourself, especially on things that are personally important to you, you will probably find that you don't like yourself very much.

The other possibility is that you will find, if things that bother you are constantly happening at church, and you do not speak up about them, that you are not happy at church, and you may stop going. If it was just a social group, that would be reasonable, but it is the Gospel, and living up to your beliefs affects your ability to maintain your beliefs, and receive the blessings you have been promised by them, so attending church is vital.

When you've been in the Church all of your life, you forget how hard it can be adapting. I have never had to give up coffee or social drinking or adjust my way of life so that there is a place for tithing in my budget. There is no hardship there. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be a hardship for someone else.

Those are things that matter, and as new members get accustomed to them they will be blessed, but they don't need judgment during the adjustment period.

In addition, there are so many things that don't matter. They are things that are common, but not essential to the Gospel. There are people for whom being Republican is a strong tenet of their faith. Never mind that every election they remind us that the Church does not endorse a party or candidates, and that we are supposed to study the issues, and that there are prominent members in both parties, that gets stuck in their head. I had someone snub me after finding out I was a Democrat. She spoke to me again after I gave a good lesson, so I hope that was a teaching moment for her, but it happens.

A few years ago, there were probably more sideways looks at women who had jobs. Yes, the parents being there for the children is important, but we've been gradually moving away from it being common for people to be able to afford that, and there is probably more understanding. And it's not exactly unrelated to the Gospel because of how we feel about families, so it would be easy for someone to feel justified in judging, but it would still be wrong and unhelpful.

No one should feel like they don't belong, but it happens. If those people stop going, it will happen more. More new members will fall away, because they don't fit in and eventually they notice it. It could be very comfortable for everyone who is left, because then everyone is alike, but that's not something we were ever commanded to be. We were commanded to be united, and to not have contention, but that never meant being clones.

It might sound like the point of this is for active members to be more careful about judgment, and more accepting of differences. That's a good point, but that's not what I'm saying.

What I am saying is that if you question whether you fit in, stick it out. If someone says something that you know is wrong, say it. If someone says something that you think is wrong, but you are not confident, ask. You need to be doing that with love too, but mainly it just needs to be done. The key word is charity, not conformity. Once we all love each other, we won't need to be the same, and we will find many ways in which we are not so different.

Preparing to catch up on Family History

Hey, we finished Preach My Gospel!

I don't know that my approach to missionary work will change now, but there is another shift lately, which is that Aaron is out of prison.

That is just the beginning of a lot of changes for him, but on my side, we have posted on each others' walls on Facebook, chatted over the internet, and chatted by phone. I wanted to write him 3-5 page letters every week, and I would fall short of that, but still, that was something that is no longer necessary. Continuing to be supportive doesn't change, but there were things I was trying to do that were time-consuming, and that specific need has changed.

I am finding plenty of other needs to fill, but there are two things that have been coming to my mind a lot, and so I am going to make my those things a big part of my Sundays. One will be writing to my Plan children and my cousins. There are four or five Sundays in a month, so it should be possible to write to all of my children once a month, and to write to the cousins once a month. The other thing will be working on family history.

I think I need to give some background on that, so everything will make sense.

My parents joined the Church after they were married, but my father stopped going a few years later, as did my brother. There have been cousins who joined, and then stopped going, so there have never been a lot of members in the family.  Right now, my mother, two of my sisters and I have temple recommends, and I think I have a second or third cousin who does also, but also female. The point of that is that there are not a lot of people available for ordinance work, and no males.

If that is an obstacle (and it is), we have been given great blessings in other ways. My paternal grandmother was interested in genealogy, and one of her cousins and one of her husband's cousins were both really into it, giving us a wealth of information on both the Harris and Stone sides.

I first got into it in junior high, when we had the option of doing either a family tree or an immigration map for a social studies project. I did a great family tree. I found a big box full of information that my father had gotten from my grandmother, and laid it all out.

There were things that were interesting, like finding seven men listed as Revolutionary War soldiers. I later found out that some of the information had been organized for applications into the DAR and DAC (Daughters of the American Revolution and Daughters of the American Colonists). There was an ancestor who had lived to be 105 years old and had baked bread for Washington's armies.

There were also things that were sad. One family had lost all four of their children in two weeks time from black fever. Obviously they had other children, or they wouldn't be among my ancestors, but it must have hurt. My great-grandmother had written a life history, and she wrote about the night her husband died, and the loneliness she felt, and my grandmother coming in to her bedroom to comfort her.

For me, family history became about reuniting families because I felt how painful their separations must have been. I submitted my first family names in junior high, when you filled out sheets by hand and mailed them to Salt Lake, and then another a few years later.

Things were dropped in my lap so often, where a cousin would send me a stack of pages of genealogy, and I would feel like it happened because they were ready and they wanted their work done. I was not the one researching, I was just the secretary, but I was glad to fill that role.

When PAF came out and I typed everything into the computer, and that was good because I had it done before Dad left and took everything away. As the process developed with the technology, I knew someday we would be able to submit names from home, and when that happened I went crazy.

I knew I should work my way back in an orderly manner, but I thought of all of these people who might be scattered here and there, and have to wait, and I sort of did this submission of over 300 names, just to get done before I started being orderly. I bit off more than I could chew.

There have been some great experiences along the way, but also, I need to work through this, and get these cards completed, and then start being orderly and only working with small batches. So, a little time every Sunday is going to go to that. I have asked the High Priests group for help, and that got some names done. I gave a bunch of cards to someone to do years ago, who was at the temple all the time, so it should not have been a problem, but still nothing. Today I sent a reminder message to him, trying to work out a way to get the cards back. One step at a time.

So, if anyone doesn't have their own family file names to do, I can hook you up. And while I don't know a lot of the research side, I can recommend some good ideas and bad ideas about your own submissions.

Preach My Gospel Chapter 13: Stake and Ward Leaders

My first thought on this topic was remembering back to when they changed the bishoprics in Modesto.

There were not enough Lao members to have their own branch, so we had a group in a regular (Anglo) ward. It was a wealthy ward, or it felt like one to me, but there were some really good people there, and we got on well with the bishop and his family.

When they changed the bishopric, the new bishop had a son who was dating one of the Lao girls. They were one of those couples that takes things really seriously, despite being in high school, where they really believe they will get married, even though they probably will not. I don't think the father was thrilled with that relationship, and I felt like he was not too thrilled with the Lao.

I could be judging unfairly. Every bishop has their own personality and focus. The previous bishop had been really interested in missionary work, and was really good to us. The new bishop was focused more on getting the members to be happy, which was still important, but I feel like our side was on the back burner.

Anyway, now with years in between, I have seen that different bishops work better for different people. One friend was really helped by Bishop Y when she needed it, but a different friend could never open up to him. That one was greatly helped by Bishop M, who alienated a lot of people, because he often came off as pretty judgmental. But he helped someone I cared about, and I will always be grateful for that.

When Bishop D came in, that was great for us, because we have known and loved him for years, but his sense of humor did not work for everyone. Some people would get offended, which I think was ridiculous, but that was their right, but other people were helped by him too.

My point is that maybe it is not always our turn. When it is the person who is not "your bishop", he is still your bishop, and you need to respect that and know that other people matter too, and that for the help you need, there is a way. Maybe it is that you are going to wait, or that it will come through another source, but all needs will be met, in time.