Riveted

When Dale slipped out the door to the airport this morning, I was still under the covers. It is never a pleasant sensation to wake up and realize he is gone. This morning I felt that an additional uneasiness -- the one I always feel when his destination is somewhere in the Middle East: a place where, as we all know, people and tradition clash in unforgiving ways. I lay in bed, reminiscing about our trip to Israel last fall...and then made the connection to another memory from a trip only weeks ago to...

Stockholm, Sweden

Turning a corner in the Old Town of Stockholm, we barely avert being towed down the river of humanity suddenly surging round us. These people aren’t tourists – too much tension for that. The banners and chanting take deciphering -- Swedish to English – but we finally get it: this is a tide of disgruntled demonstrators called Communists. (Strange coming from a people with one of the lowest poverty rates in the world.) As I purposefully turn my eyes away from a confrontation between protestors and police on horseback, I glimpse something even more disturbing: a child in the middle of the parade on Daddy’s shoulders.

Tiberius, Israel

We enter another orthodox church of stone, built on a holy site, predictably full of wooden pews, stained glass windows, and shrines of golden saints. At least the cathedral is cool, if not awe-inspiring, and so I sit: near the middle, where I can watch people best. They come and go, site-see-ers seeking souvenirs and spirituality in the Judean desert. For the most part, they spend the ten minutes the tour operator has given them digitizing the dark crannies and dusty crypts, drifting without a program; except for the woman who suddenly bustles past me, a daughter of six or seven in hand. The woman stops with dead reckoning in the very center of the chapel and lowers one knee to the tiled floor, then bows her head. Two seconds later, Mother stands and turns to Child waiting two feet behind, pointing forcefully at the spot she just rose from. The girl moves quickly to mimic the rite verbatim; hair covering face, skirt beneath knee, almost a pratfall as she scurries out the door after her Model.

Jerusalem, Israel

From this hill, our three Israeli companions point out The Church of Holy Sepulcher, the Dome of the Rock, and the “Mormon University” on the opposite slope. Did you know we are Mormon, we ask? Surprised faces. We did not! We have some questions for you, they say. I leave it to Dale and sit beneath a tree a few yards away. The surreal aspect of the situation suddenly hits me, and I watch our animated friends with fascination. Earlier that day, Shlomi had explained that he was Jewish, but secular. When Benji joined us, his yamaka gave him away as orthodox, a Zionist actually. And as the day progressed, Moti made it clear that he practiced his religion, but moderately. Why? I had asked all three. Why do you believe and live as you do? Shlomi shrugged, Benji smiled, and Moti looked thoughtful, but their answers were word for word the same: I was raised that way.

Nazareth, Northern Israel

Our personal guide Aton, though well over 60, is powerfully built and moves so decisively, we have a hard time keeping up. Yet when he tells the stories of Jesus on the shores of Galliee, or reads Matthew 5 atop the Mount of Beatitudes, he holds very still and his voice is full of care. Tell us more, we say, about YOU: you are Jewish? I am. Yet you give tours of the Holy Land. Yes, I enjoy the faith of the Christians and wish I could believe too. Why don’t you? I was raised in a Kibbutz as an Atheist.

**********************************************************

These and dozens of other experiences traveling abroad, have expanded my view of humanity. I appreciate in a new way how deeply rooted and interconnected faith and identity are. So entrenched become the belief systems of our childhood, that the scriptures use the word "riveted" to describe how "the creeds of men" are imbedded in "the hearts of the children."

I will treat the little people at church today with increased respect, and cannot help wishing, as a precursor to the wish for world peace, that all grown-ups would do the same for children EVERYWHERE.

Muse with me: How might this perspective affect the way you teach children?

Related Musings: Romance the Heart
Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Northern Israel in a Day

Highly recommended/ directly related
post by fellow Muser, Bri Colorful:
Determined

Photos of children''s faces from Dreamstime

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.

Toughing It Out

Budapest is populated with survivors. Even the buildings have outlived the ravages of war. Ottomans, Catholics, Protestants, Atheists, Communists and Nazis have competed, confronted, and crusaded, but never crushed this city. As I stood on our hotel balcony, gaping at the panorama perched above the Danube, I realized that this country, colored at that moment by the most fantastic sunset, was more alive and exciting than ever, only because Hungarians know too well how to tough it out.

Back in London, I received a text from a wife who was ready to leave her husband. “HE’S NOT WORTH IT,” she screamed in capital letters. “Ever since I married this terrible man, I have been miserable!”

“Are you saying that every day of your whole marriage has been totally unhappy?” My fingers flew in panic.

“No,” she admitted. “There have been good days and great ones too --” (I waited for the “but”…) “but there have been terrible ones like today!” Then rapidly and back to all capitals: “It’s UP AND DOWN and I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

Now I know for a fact that her husband is far from terrible and that she has been far from miserable. There is something about that fifth principle of the gospel: enduring to the end, which the Adversary takes particular exception with. He concentrates his forces on all of us in that stage of development but especially on those who are green in the gospel or in marriage or in parenthood.

While in Budapest, we walked with our personal guide, Peter Polczman. He told us they’d moved all the statues of toppled communist elites to a park where they have no one to preach to but each other. He pointed out what used to be Gestapo Headquarters and is now a museum. He led us down a residential street where old people sit on benches, watching young people hurry by.

“My grandmother,” he said, as we sat on a stone wall (the ruins of some empire or another), “has seen it all.”

“How did she survive?” I had to know.

“She just didn’t get worked up over things.” (I looked surprised.) “She knew everything would pass.”

Determined longevity clearly takes guts. But is it always the kind of guts that ‘screws courage to the sticking place'? Or can it be the kind that bobs, buoy-like, up and down, anchored in place? At fifty-two, I would agree with Peter’s grandmother: most of what we get worked up over is not here to stay. Our womanly days are rarely catastrophic; they just require coping – which, often enough -- is victory
enough.

Muse with me: Do you agree?

Beautifully related posts by fellow Musers this week: When in the Depths of the Sea or Enveloped by Fog at Valerie's Attempt at Pondering; We Came Here to FINISH the Race at Smith Family Crazies; Ever have one of "those" days at Domestic Diva Dishes All

For more pictures of Budapest, visit Mona's Musings on Facebook

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?

REDIRECT (the story of my life)

Mona's Gospel Musings (this blog) has been inactive for quite some time. (You might go inactive too if corporate sent you overseas for a year and the church made you Relief Society President three weeks later.) While undergoing this remodel of all my previously conceived notions of things as they really are, I have written and photographed the most romantic aspects of my honey-time-and-travels in Europe at the Word Press blog: Mona's Musings With a Hint of Romance.

You are of course, welcome to settle in and gorge yourself on the essays here at Mona's Gospel Musings until my return to it each Sunday, beginning May 1st. As always, if you become a real follower of Mona's Gospel Musings (musing with me on a regular basis), I will consider it an invitation to become part of your family and will follow you like a pesky mother hen, and include you on my personal blog roll.

See you at our rendezvous and back here soon!

OH! And see ya everyday at Mona's Musings on Facebook....

Imitating Mother

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:19)

My daughter-in-law celebrated her birthday on Saturday. Since May 16th is also my mother-in-law's birthday, I spent the day wishing Bri had known her. And then I realized...

if you know me, you know something about LeOra.

When my father-in-law first laid eyes on me, he was stunned. I flew down the street with youthful exuberance and landed in his arms. All he could think was: “LeOra! She’s LeOra! ” Sweethearts since childhood, he remembered her well at the same age: eighteen.

I am a lot like her, or so people have told me. One of those times was on the day of her funeral. Elisa watched me flutter around Mom’s kitchen, trying to take care of things. Though she’d been married to Mother’s brother for nearly fifty years, I’d only met Elisa-from-California once before, so we were something of a revelation to each other. With wonder, she finally articulated what she was thinking.

“Ramona,” she said, “You are LeOra.”

Mom was raised in a less active home, as was I. We both married young: at 18. Each of us was the only (pampered) daughter in a family of boys. Our children were of the same number and gender. We shared shoes, wardrobes, music, and theater.

But it was more than that.

She was my mother.

In the most classic sense of the role, she nurtured me through young adulthood and young motherhood. She taught me overtly. She taught me by example.

In my first year of marriage, I watched with awe as she just talked to people. How did she do that, converse with so much ease? Each person she spoke to was touched and uplifted by the simplest comment, the most ordinary communication. How did she do that? I wanted to be that.

She taught me how to cook chicken soup from scratch. She taught me how to make homemade noodles. She taught me how to put a Sunday roast on the table.

"Mom,” I often phoned, “How do you...” and then I’d ask a question so basic it would be embarrassing to ask anyone else.

She explained a lot through the years as she pruned a rose bush, trimmed the shrubs, fertilized the trees, pulled the weeds. I know she hoped some of it was sinking in, but mostly I watched her puttering around the yard.

I gradually absorbed her good taste. As a young wife, without a comparable bank account, I couldn’t shop from the same upscale department stores that she did, but I tailed along anyway, and learned loveliness.

Though Mom wanted to be a writer, most of her writing is in her journals; a spiritual pursuit she wanted me to learn. She loved the gospel, the work of the Kingdom, the divine principle of family. I watched how she honored, respected, sustained, supported, and cared for her eternal companion and the Priesthood. I experienced firsthand her employment of patience, long suffering, charity and forgiveness. She taught me how to have faith in people who seemed not to want it or deserve it.

She taught me to love spirituality. She taught me to love the Brethren. She taught me to love the scriptures. She taught me to love the Church. She taught me to love the temple and family history.

She taught me to not be afraid of missionary work, or trials, or repentance.

She showed me how to turn my kitchen into a concert hall, how to sing old tunes and dance jigs with babies. She held my hand when I gave birth.

The phone rang on an August afternoon. Dale said Mom had suffered a stroke. As I prepared to meet him at the hospital, I knew that I would not leave her side.

The last words she heard were mine: "I love you Mother.”

Her funeral was nothing less than majestic with nine-hundred people filling the chapel and cultural hall; yet I knew, in the midst of it all, that I was special to her. I felt the Spirit assign me to remember her, by representing her, for the rest of my life.

I’m not worried about what happens after that because when the Lord releases me from mortality she will come for me.

And then all I will have to do is imitate mother.

Related Musings: Cherry-ty (Over Chocolate) Never Faileth
and Whose Body Is it Anyway?

Muse with me: Who have you tried to emulate? Who are you trying to lead to Christ through your example?

Match Made in Heaven

Happy Mother's Day! This Musing was written for you and all the mommies at Mormon Mommy Blogs! MMB’s invitation to share a Mother’s Day Musing was lathered in butter…how could I resist? And who would want to? MMB is “the place” for Latter-day women...and THIS day is a “akin to a holy day" there! (You will forgive me for not mentioning Daddies this week – especially if you will read The Final Test of True Manhood.)

Mother, I love you.
Mother I do.
Father in Heaven has sent me to you.
(Primary songbook, #207)

“Shall we excuse the Sunbeams early today?”

The whole Primary looked relieved. With Singing Time on pause, teachers (whose hard-day-on-the-ranch had just begun) rounded-up thirteen three-year-olds and headed out. The culprit behind the banditos starred me down as he brought up the rear. He’d really outdone himself that day, exciting the herd into a frenzy. I’d caught on and dismissed them just before they would have stampeded anyway. As soon as the dust settled, we went back to practicing our Mother’s Day program.

Twenty-four hours later I had a run-in with Bandito at the town saloon (Applebees at lunchtime.) Instead of shooting me, he lit up like the stars of Wyoming. His mommy said that he had come home from Primary on fire the day before.

“Mommy!” he whooped, “The Curly Lady said Heavenly Father sent me to YOU!”

His delightful interpretation of lyrical doctrine gave my curly head lots to muse about this week: Does Heavenly Father send specific spirits to specific women for specific reasons? What about my own four children?

In youth, I felt impervious to adversity; that is, until my first baby grew physically -- but not mentally. I had sensed an impending challenge for months, even when everything seemed perfectly normal. Slightly more experienced friends had laughed when I confessed my fears. But mommies are realists, not mythmakers (contrary to popular thought) and I knew before the doctors knew. Twenty-nine years later, I bathe, dress, transport and feed her, aaannnd don’t-u-know: that’ll mold or melt a person.

A second baby arrived, and though thrilled with a healthy boy, my intuition kicked into high gear. I sensed a call to brace myself. His super-charged intellect has taken me through so many hills and valleys and twists and turns, I have felt upside-down for most of his twenty-seven years. It took me almost that long to get my heart on straight; its capacity for charity has grown at least “three sizes”. I love him in a way that I can love no one else.

During a third pregnancy, I discerned a different sort of personality. Even prenatally, this child soothed and comforted me. Like a warm blanket, his humility, consistency, and sweet creativity have calmed my heart. Following close behind came his compatriot - and mine: a daughter who shouldered the responsibilities of a firstborn in cheerfully caring for her sister and leading an exemplary life. I felt our team spirit by the time she turned two.

Musing on these things, I couldn’t help humming “Mother I love you…” over and over this week. With each repetition of “Father in Heaven has sent me to you…” I felt the Spirit bear testimony to its truthfulness. THERE IS A REASON.

Our omnipotent Father planted me in my circumstances. He also planted them. I am THEIR mama because of what I, in particular, can do for them; that is the more obvious truth. My every breath is for their sake. What has not always been so obvious is that they are my children because of what they can do for me. My character burst out of the ground when those particular personalities sprang into my life. I grew as they grew; our individual strengths and weaknesses intertwining in a garden that is our own. I am the fruits of my children.

Leading the banditos in their Mothers Day presentation will have more meaning, now that I have mused over their song… I’ll be thinking how little cowpokes, under all those wild-west wiggles, are very much at home on their particular range…

BECAUSE that IS exactly where they are supposed to be.

Related Musings: Romance the Heart
and Old Beginnings

Muse with me:
How do you see a Heavenly Hand in the making of your family?

DEEElightful...for you AND the kiddos!

The Final Test of True Manhood

“When one puts business or pleasure above his home, he that moment starts on the downgrade to soul-weakness. When the club becomes more attractive to any man than his home, it is time for him to confess in bitter shame that he has failed to measure up to the supreme opportunity of his life and flunked in the final test of true manhood. ... The poorest shack in which love prevails over a united family is of greater value to God and future humanity than any other riches. In such a home God can work miracles and will work miracles.” (Pres. David O. McKay, 2005 PH/RS Manual, 148-149)

There! I thought with satisfaction, surveying the clean garage. Winter has a way of piling up stuff, but at last it is spring and time to liberate the cement floor and fling open the cabinets busting with Miracle Grow, slug bait, and gardening gloves. Spring is also the time to celebrate my honey’s birthday, so this year I decided to combine a clean garage with a happy birthday, since it was all I could think to give him.

Now, that last statement is a true one and a significant one. It means we have passed through the “accumulation stage” and have embarked on the “give-it-to-the-kids” stage. I honestly could not think of a single meaningful “thing” to give my honey this week. He has books and music and electronics and ties coming out of his ears. His sock drawer is bulging and we just beefed up his shirt collection.

‘Twas not always thus. We have done our time crawling like beggars through the muddy trenches of unemployment, the battlefield of under-employment, and the mine-field called corporate America. At this time, we are balanced on a tight-rope of uncertainty (like everyone today), but at least we have a rope.

My heart filled with charity last night as I listened to a very dear friend who lost his job recently. Hearing his fears and frustrations awoke poignant memories, one in particular…

It was a season of unemployment for us (not the first time), the result of corporate down-sizing, and after many, many weeks, we had exhausted our resources, our list of contacts, and our initiative. Like mountaineers gasping for air with the summit just behind the clouds, we had no idea how close we were to being delivered.

Then it came, the last proverbial straw; a certified “threat” from the electric company, delivered by a guy with a logo on his shirt, wearing a tool belt. With deep foreboding, I handed it to Dale at his desk. He slit open the envelope and starred at the contents. The red print bled through so that I could make out the numbers, even from the other side of the desk. I knew they could not be matched by what remained in our bank account. Our eyes met, searching for some inkling of hope and faith in the other, but instead, a terrifying realization overcame us both; we had nothing left. We were paupers, temporally and emotionally.

Then, the strangest thing happened. My husband fell forward, his forehead to his arms, and he wept. He wept and wept and wept. The Spirit waved over me, followed by a tidal wave of compassion. All of a sudden I comprehended, like I never had before, the immense burden my husband carried being wholly responsible for the lives of six people.

That eye-opener established a new empathetic undergirding in my relationships with men; husband, adult male family, and Priesthood brothers. My claims upon their time, or evaluation of their performance in familiar roles or church callings became much more liberal. I took great care, ever after, to express my sincere appreciation for what they do for me, for my family, and for others. Particularly in the church, as I served with Bishoprics, High Council and Stake Presidencies, I made a concerted effort to respect their many obligations and lighten their load whenever possible.

The birthday wish I gave Dale yesterday reflected the understanding I gained all those years ago:

“…you provided beautifully and at great strain and sacrifice through the decades,” I wrote, “…so that our children are raised and providing essentially for themselves now. You did it. They never went cold or hungry or felt deprived in any way; quite the opposite. And our sweet Ashley has had an amazing life for an individual with her severity of disability. She has been well fed, well loved, well dressed, and well serviced in the schools and community. Last night, you credited me for that, but the truth is that you always did whatever it took so that we could keep her close to us and expose her to every advantage.

"As for the future, it doesn’t really matter. I believe the Lord will prepare the way and orchestrate our lives so that our remaining time on earth will be productive and safe. Our union is so complete we can weather anything and live anywhere and in any situation together. This is perhaps the most important outcome of your 32 years of devotion.

"So on your birthday, I want you to know that our family’s success, even existence, has been entirely dependent on you for a very long time, and you have not failed us. You have blessed us, like a true Father in every way. I pray that God will bless you with continued joy and progress in your career at this point, for your OWN sake, as you so richly deserve.”

He was touched by that of course. I got a doozy of a hug and kiss for it. And the surprise party I threw later than night didn't hurt.

But the tidy garage comforted him most.

“After all,” he said, “if worse comes to worse, at least we’ve got the space now to hold a moving sale!”

Related Musings: What You Don't Have or Have Lost
and Belonging

Muse with me SISTERS:
How does your husband or the men in your life contribute to your family in a positive way? (And send your husbands to comment too please -- we would LOVE a man's point of view on this...)
Muse with me BROTHERS:
How does your wife or the other women in your life (daughters, mothers, sisters in the church) sustain you? What does that mean to you?

MORE: The Proclamation on the Family