The Givers

Today was my turn. I admit it felt unnatural. I confess it took guts. I can tell you that I didn’t want to do it. But since I can’t perform arthroscopy on my own knee, I had to let them: I had to let others serve ME.

The doctors in the “operation theater” did perfectly; Nurses Ingrid, Fiona, and Sue Ellen pampered me sweet, and my husband is cooking dinner right now as part of his waiting-on-Mona-hand-and-foot-recovery- program. I’ll never forget his stroking my forehead while I regained consciousness and the whisper that came with a kiss. It’s an honor to serve you, he said.

Raising four children means I have played nurse and caregiver for a long time; my honey remembers the twelve times I have sat through his surgeries; extended family knows I have cared for them when they needed me; nearly forty years worth of callings has kept me busy in the church. But it was Ashley, my noble beauty and firstborn, the child who never grew up -- who has depended on me all her life to eat, to move, to be her voice -- that raised the question in my mind of who is serving who.

In her tiny days, Ashley’s therapy incorporated 275 volunteers over three years time. The program required my attention every waking minute and Dale had to work four jobs to pay for it, so members of the church and friends of other faiths assisted while they also did our laundry, cleaned our bathroom and, believe it or not, brought us dinner five nights a week for two years straight.

Old and young appeared on our doorstop every single day, flush with optimism, eager for their assignment, anticipating another 2 hours with Ashley. Witnessing the joy of this self-appointed army as they watched her crawl or walk for the first time -- the result of literally thousands of hours of incessant therapy -- I began to see things the way the volunteers saw them: Ashley was not “unfortunate”; nor did they regard her as an “opportunity” or a “project”. Rather, they revered her as their “Teacher”, even “Mentor” in the ways of patience, endurance, and unconditional love.

That is when I began to wonder: what is it about society that makes “HELP” a four-letter word? Why do we treasure our “independence” so much that many of us would rather die than “become a burden”? How is it that we assume the right to serve our fellowman, but mysteriously, never seem to need help from anyone else? Visiting Teacher wants to bring us dinner (no-no, we’re fiiiiiiine). Neighbor offers to mow the lawn (noooo really, we’ve got it). Ward Member asks if they can take the children for an hour or two so we can nap (oh pleeeease don’t worry about me). And yeeeet – WHO is the first to fill up the calendar and empty the pocketbook with “good works”?

The big news, that Ashley has spent her thirty-one years broadcasting (though she has never spoken a word), is that somebody has to be served in order for the rest of us to feel good about ourselves; somebody has to humble themselves so that the rest of us can grow; someone has to come to earth in challenging circumstances so that those around her can be proved.

Maybe it’s because my elevated leg is making all the blood to rush to my brain, or maybe it’s the pain-killers, but my musing tonight is in hyper-gear and I feel like carrying this train of thought all the way to The End and to The Beginning: to Alpaha and Omega. Think on THIS: Even God expects us to serve Him! The LORD of the Universe asks for our help, allows our help, even commands our help. WHY does HE want OUR help?!

Could it be because He knows all progress, the essence of the gospel, is based in Community and Reciprocity?

I love how Superman, while catching Lois Lane mid-tumble from a skyscraper, says: “Don’t worry miss. I’ve got you.” She’s dumfounded. “You’ve got me!” she cries. “Who’s got YOU?”

Indeed, who HAS got who? Would Superman be Superman without people to rescue? Supergirl Ashley has saved me and a multitude of other people, far more ordinary than she is, during her lifetime of “dependence”. In her frequent conversation with the angels, I’m sure those heavenly pals smile and exchange knowing glances every time she benevolently refers to all of us--her personal army--as “The Givers”.

Related Musings: Angel Talkin'
and Match Made in Heaven

Muse with me: Are you a giver or a receiver?

Beautifully related posts by fellow Musers this week:
Special mail to Aileen from her friend.a touching post at The Alan and Lois Brown Family;.
Scarily Delicious, for a childlike view on "helping" at Crumb Crunchers;
Good Better Best, another fun one at A Splash of Life;
and Lisa reminds me why I braved surgery with
Running? at Nick and Lisa and Kids.

Finding Zion

Fellow Musers; I am happy to announce a return to Mona's Gospel Musings each Sunday. I hope you will join me again, and as we used to, muse together here. The romantic side of our time overseas (nearly a year now) has been mused upon at Mona's Musings with a Hint of Romance, which blog I will continue - featuring YOUR romances and more specific ideas on strengthening marriage. I have also been invited to become a regular contributor to Mormon Mommy Blogs (at least monthly). However, here we are at gospel musings, and its a Sunday, and so we begin. I love you and look very very forward to your thoughts.



As a new expat in the United Kingdom, I found I could regard people like postcards, idly turning them over in my mind with mild interest: three-dimensional-me did not expect to be included in a world that felt like a guidebook. At church though, I assumed I would be find instant and comfy assimilation.

Cue the proverbial-culture-shock: we stood on, what to me, felt like an island called the Staines Ward: the most ethnically diverse group of Saints in all of London. Sunday after Sunday, I buzzed round the middle like a flustered bee hitting glass until at last we cross-pollinated: a magic moment that dissolved the window between us.

When I walked into the chapel that morning, I felt drawn to the woman on the other side of the room. She watched me with a shy smile, perfect teeth and wide eyes glistening against a chocolate face. After Relief Society, she inched her way to me, ready to make contact, her beauty even more breathtaking at close range.

"I love your hair," she said.

What? It took me a split second to process her Nigerian spin on English. My hair? My hair is a mass of coarse curls, once brown, now streaked with unruly silver. I dislike it very much most days.

"I love your eyes and face and make-up," she continued passionately.

Blue eyes, white face, Bare Minerals.

"I love the way you talk -- and I loooove," (emphasis on love), "the way you dress."

Without taking my eyes off hers, I mentally compared a blue blazer and black skirt with her flowing...Flamboyant... FLORESCENT --

Oh my! She thinks I'm EXOTIC!

Sound of break glass.

A week later I was called as Relief Society President of two hundred women from twenty different nations: a village with too many windows to look like 'Mormonville' to me, but nevertheless, built on the foundation of apostles and prophets; one faith and one baptism (Ephesians 4 & Mosiah 18). My sole journal entry for 11 July 2010 reads: "God help me.God
help me."

He did. He showed me that you cannot pack a box with scrapbooks, funeral potatoes, and snicker-doodle props, stamp it "Mormon Women" and ship it overseas. He taught me about the real Zion, a phenomenon that will not be defined or contained that way: it is organic. It breathes and grows and if necessary, shatters silly notions in order to expand (D&C 82:14). The tiny pane from which I used to view the world has, after a year amongst my sisters, morphed into a great glass conservatory and I contentedly dangle like a prism there, spinning in the sunlight.

Muse with me: What does Zion mean to you? What experiences have you had in the church that relate to the ideal of Zion?

My Gospel Definitions Part 1

Since Mona's Musings will include so many references to gospel terminology, the language of the prophets, I thought I'd begin with the list of "Gospel Definitions" I have discovered or landed upon throughout my studies. I love each one and a happy soul when I ponder their magnificence, intelligence, clarity and simplicity.

Consecration = the willingness to give, set apart, or devote everything we have on earth to God’s cause.

Covenant = Promise made by man to God: commitment to use sacred knowledge to the blessing of self and others; the key to perfection of character.

Evil = Satan acting upon our flesh, which influence, if followed, results in loss of reasoning power and limitation of options.

Faith = the process of reaching beyond our knowledge. The more knowledge we possess, the farther we can reach. Absolute conformity + absolute action = absolute confidence.

Good = God acting upon our spirits, which influence, if followed, results in greater reasoning power and wider range of options.

Humility = a soul convinced of its worth to God.

Gospel = the laws of progress by which mankind may obtain a fullness of joy.

Holy = consistent, pure behavior in perfect harmony with God’s will.

Joy = unity with other intelligences in truth.

Justification = the immediate result of being forgiven and the end result of specific repentance, including freedom from guilt and change of heart - being forgiven from sin.

Love = the medium through which value is conveyed.

Patience = reconciling with the fact that God operates on a different plane: that time is measured only unto man.

Pride = a soul trying to prove its worth.

Sacrifice = the willingness to surrender self-interest for the betterment of another or for a cause.

Salvation = freedom from pain.

Sanctification = the long-term process of being made holy and having a change of nature; purified from the effects of sin (and the Fall).

Testimony = Enthusiasm for Jesus which comes from knowing and living His gospel truths. “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” (1 John 2:3)

Zion = establishing the ideals of Jesus!