Shout of Acclamation!

From the Fall of Man, in the Garden of Eden, when mankind was put out of the presence of God, mankind was in darkness. 

But adding his voice to all the other prophets that had lived and prophesied, since the beginning, Isaiah prophesied that it would not be forever.  While death and sin had been introduced into the world, it was not to be permanent.

Isaiah was a prophet during a time when Israel was not so righteous.  So naturally a lot of his messages have to do with the dismal future Israel faced because of its disobedience.  Scattering and affliction were a common theme in Isaiah's writings.  But part of his mission was to also prophesy to future generations so deliverance was also a common theme in Isaiah's writings. Part of his mission was to prophesy of the time when God would fulfill His covenants that He had made to Israel.

And so Isaiah gave us one of my favorite passages of deliverance.  He spoke of the reason Israel would not have to remain in darkness forever.  But not only deliverance from their earthly affliction and sorrow, but from death and hell as well.

"The people that walk in darkness have seen a great light: They that dwell in in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.  Thou has multiplied the nations, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou has broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.  For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning an fuel of fire."

And then, after explaining that the people, all mankind, would not remain in darkness or under the pall of death and hell forever, but be delivered and have reason to celebrate more than they had ever known, he breaks forth in acclamation at the source of their deliverance!

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

"Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the Throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgement and with justice henceforth even forever." (Isaiah 9:2-7)

This is why we celebrate Christmas, because those that were in darkness can now move into the light.  This is why there is hope, because unto us a child was born!  Never was there a greater reason to rejoice!  No doubt, His gift was the greatest gift ever given.  How right it is that we should celebrate His birth.  How right it is that our celebration should be centered on Him and His gift.

Praise the LORD!

Yes, give praise, O servants of the LORD.

Praise the name of the LORD!

Blessed be the name of the LORD

now and forever.

Everywhere—from east to west—

praise the name of the LORD.

For the LORD is high above the nations;

his glory is higher than the heavens.

Who can be compared with the LORD our God,

who is enthroned on high?

He stoops to look down

on heaven and on earth.

He lifts the poor from the dust

and the needy from the garbage dump.

He sets them among princes,

even the princes of his own people!

(Psalms 113:1-8

New Living Translation)

The Art Project

Several years ago, about the time school was getting ready to start, a couple of the kids decided to do an art project.  Schwarzbeere was quite pleased that his big sister was going to work with him to get it done.  It was quite the undertaking.

They got their materials out and figured out how they were going to approach it.

There was some tracing involved.  Since they were doing body outlines, this took a minute.

Their canvas was pretty big, so it took several minutes.

Then they traded places and the tracing continued.

Once they had all the tracing done, then the detail work began.  If you thought the tracing took a while, the filling and coloring really took them some time.

Team work, they kept at it and kept working.

In the end, I thought they ended up with quite the work of art!  I liked it.  They were pretty happy with it, too.  It was a fun afternoon.

Kinda Soupy

Not too long ago, at the school where Brombeere teaches, they had a contest, a challenge for the kids.  The kids in third grade got points for good behavior.  Then, at the end of the period, those with the most points got a prize.  The prize was to hit the teacher of your choice, from those that volunteered, with a pie.  There ended up being several teachers volunteer to be on the receiving end of the pie, including Brombeere.  There were several more teachers volunteer than there were students to throw pies - she figured the odds were good she wouldn't get picked.  She was wrong.

She got picked and she got a pie.  They let the kids stand nice and close so there was no chance of missing.  And he didn't miss.  Not even a little.

Maybe he was coached in how to effectively put a pie in someone's face.  At any rate, he did a good job.  And everyone had a good time.  Three cheers for Brombeere, the good sport!

Commonplace Book

A collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace”

(C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, New York: MacMillan Co., 1960, p. 160).

“Great souls have wills; feeble souls have only wishes.”

(Chinese proverb)

“Oh, it is wonderful to know that our Heavenly Father loves us—even with all our flaws! His love is such that even should we give up on ourselves, He never will.”

(Joseph B Wirthlin, The Great Commandment, October Conference 2007)

“An optimist is someone who plants two acorns and buys a hammock.”

(Anonymous)

“May the dead rest in peace - and the living be ever mindful that whatever divides us, it, too, shall pass.”

(Kathleen Parker, The California fires remind us of our common humanity, Washington Post, November 16, 2018)

“The cavity created by the suffering through which we go becomes a receptacle for compensating blessings.”

(Gibran Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese-American writer, poet, visual artist and Syrian nationalist.)

“Haste is the enemy of the Spirit.”

(Nathaniel R Payne. President. St Paul Temple)

“The Hebrew verb lehitpalel, meaning “to pray,” is reflexive, implying an action done to one- self. Literally, it means “to judge oneself.” It means, to escape from the prison of the self and see the world, including ourselves, from the outside. Prayer is where the relentless first person singular, the “I,” falls silent for a moment and we become aware that we are not the centre of the universe. There is a reality outside. That is a moment of transformation.”

(Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, When the 'I' is Silent, Vayetse 5779. November 14, 2018)

“The formula of faith is to hold on, work on, see it through, and let the distress of earlier hours—real or imagined—fall away in the abundance of the final reward. Don’t dwell on old issues or grievances—not toward yourself nor your neighbor nor even, I might add, toward this true and living Church. The majesty of your life, of your neighbor’s life, and of the gospel of Jesus Christ will be made manifest at the last day, even if such majesty is not always recognized by everyone in the early going. So don’t hyperventilate about something that happened at 9:00 in the morning when the grace of God is trying to reward you at 6:00 in the evening—whatever your labor arrangements have been through the day.”

(Jeffrey R Holland, The Laborers in the Vineyard, April Conference 2012)

“I learned about peaceful intensity. … I would sometimes recall a scriptural phrase I'd first heard [Elder Maxwell] quote: “But if not…” (Daniel 3:18) - meaning, we must do everything we can to make this work, and then if it doesn't, “it matters not” (Mosiah 13:9).”

(Bruce C Hafen, A Disciple's Life, the Autobiography of Neal A Maxwell, Deseret Book 2002, preface)

“Our prophets have focused not on the terror of the times in which they lived and not on the ominous elements of the latter days, in which we are all living, but they felt to speak of the opportunity and blessing, and above all the responsibility, to seize the privileges afforded us in this, the greatest of all dispensations.”

(Jeffrey R Holland, Terror, Triumph, and a Wedding Feast, BYU Devotional, September 12, 2004)

“Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.”

(Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet)

“This same special assurance can see each of us through all the seasons and circumstances of our lives. A universal God is actually involved with our small, individual universes of experience! In the midst of His vast dominions, yet He numbers us, knows us, and loves us perfectly. … We can wrongly charge God with that large portion of human misery which is actually caused by mortals’ failure to keep His commandments. Or, like Enoch, we can be intellectually meek enough to look and to accept the truths about God’s being there and about His personality and plans.”

(Neal A Maxwell, Yet Thou Art There, October Conference 1987)

“Leadership isn't about position. It's about who you are. …Leadership isn't about dominion, leadership is about service. … Leadership is about turning up at the top end of who we really are, … it starts with having a clear understanding of who we are and what we really stand for. … it's about listening and trying to identify what is lost. … Everything we really need to know about leadership was written down a long time ago. Maybe it's simply time to start listening.”

(Peter Anderton, Organizational Development Manager, 3M, TED Talk, TEDxDerby, May 21, 2016, Derby, Derbyshire, UK)

“I find it moving that Isaac, who underwent so many trials, from the binding when he was young, to the rivalry between his sons when he was old and blind, carries a name that means, “He will laugh.” Perhaps the name – given to him by God Himself before Isaac was born – means what the Psalm means when it says, “Those who sow in tears will reap with joy” (Ps. 126:5). Faith means the courage to persist through all the setbacks, all the grief, never giving up, never accepting defeat. For at the end, despite the opposition, the envy and the hate, lie the broad spaces, Reĥovot, and the laughter, Isaac: the serenity of the destination after the storms along the way.”

(Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Courage of Persistence, Toldot 5779, November 7, 2018)

“Until I changed myself, I could not change others”

(Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, 1918-2013, revolutionary, political leader, philanthropist)

“Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but the absence of courage.”

(Neal A Maxwell, Notwithstanding My Weakness, October Conference 1976)

Happy Holidays!

'Tis the season and we were all at the Ward Christmas Dinner the other day, even Himbeere.  So we were sitting at the table waiting for the festivities to get started and noticed that they had provided some crayons for the little kids to keep them occupied while they waited.  Some fun, here. So pretty soon Himbeere began playing with the crayons.

First, he made a  cute little stack.  Had to use a green bean to finish off the top, didn't quite have enough crayons.

Then he got a little more challenging, standing them up on their ends, on top of his inverted cup, no less.  That is pure, unadulterated skill.

Then he actually colored the picture.  Yet another display of skill; talent unleashed.  The paper was hardly able to contain it.

Yeah, Himbeere was all bubbly with fun and excitement.  It was a great time.  The food was pretty good, too!

The Tale of Two Thanksgivings

The original plan for Thanksgiving this year was to have quite a few of the kids home for the holiday.  It was going to be nice.  But then life happened. Heidlebeere had put her house on the market and it sold quicker than anyone could have dreamed it would sell.  Then the process of closing on the sale began and Heidlebeere learned that they would need to be out of the house by November 30th.  That was compounded by difficulty in finding a new place to move into. When all the stars had finally come together and lined up, it looked like she was going to have to spend her Thanksgiving vacation moving.  No joy, but you do what you have to do. So Erdbeere suggested that we take Thanksgiving, such as it could be in the middle of moving, to Heidlebeere's house so we could give her a hand; she put our thoughts into words.  We took a quick inventory and found that, while not everyone would be able to make that work, those that could had no trouble at all with that little alteration to the holiday.  And that is how our Thanksgiving this year came to be bifurcated.

For those unable to go to Heidlebeere's, we had a Thanksgiving celebration on the 10th at our house.  Same feast, different day.  We had Schwartzbeere, Maulbeere, and Himbeere over and had turkey with all the trimmings, except the sweet potatoes.  We totally forgot the sweet potatoes.  They were in the fridge all ready to go but nobody remembered to get them out and cook them.  Ah, well. 

Everybody pitched in and helped get everything ready.  Quite a crowd in the kitchen but we made it work.

Deviled eggs were never a part of Thanksgiving when I was growing up but somehow it became a tradiiton with the next generation.  And a delightful addition at that!

Schwartbeere was put in charge of carving the fowl and did a very nice job at it.

Grandma was in charge of keeping the youngest addition occupied while everything was readied ...

... spelled occasionally from that arduous job by Grandpa.  Being the grandparents definitely has its advantages.

Pretty soon everything was done and ready.

Maulbeere even got extra fancy with a veggie tray!

I'm always amazed at the planning, preparation, and timing that gets it all to the table together, at the right time.  Like an orchestra, all those instruments coming in together to hit the right note together, at the right time.

Brombeere likes to set the table up nice for this once a year meal.

It is times like this that I'm extra mindful of how blessed I am, how blessed we all are.  Surely God is good.  Everybody gathered 'round and it was every bit as yummy as it looked.

As Schwartzbeere has always said, there's the dinner shelf and a dessert shelf.  So no matter how much dinner you eat, there's always a place for some dessert.  And because tastes vary so widely, there are always a large assortment of pies to choose from.  I, of course, had the cherry pie, along with some ice cream.  Everything else pales in comparison.

The next two weeks just zoomed by and pretty soon it was time to head for Heidlebeere's place.  Because we were unsure of what was still unpacked, we took way more than normal.  Kitchen stuff for cooking, bedding for sleeping, and other things to help with the move.

Including our trailer.  It isn't real big but it would help.

So pretty soon we were loaded and on our way.  Thanksgiving at Heidlebeere's house was pretty simple.  It was in the middle of all the moving that was going on.  Brombeere fixed a non-traditional meal of spaghetti with some side veggies that we figured the kids would eat.

We had hauled a load of stuff in the trailer over and while we unloaded and unpacked, Brombeere fixed lunch.

By that time of day, everyone was getting a little hungry and the menu went together very quick and easy.

Not quite as eye-appealing as a traditional Thanksgiving meal.  Also not served with all the trimmings and show of a normal Thanksgiving day feast, but it was every bit as good.

We thought we may be enjoying the first meal eaten in the new home but Heidlebeere said she had stopped by a day or two before and had pizza.  So we couldn't claim the first meal.

But it was the first family meal, with everybody there!  That counts, right?

So we sat around, on the floor because none of the chairs had been moved over yet.  We rested and had lunch and it was very nice.

Seating was wherever you found a spot.  Me, I opted for the stairs.

Maybe it was spread out a bit, because we didn't have the customary pie for dessert until later in the evening when we got back over to the other place.

But there was pie, and it was good!

So, yeah, that was the second Thanksgiving feast, in all its glory.  The move, which was the real reason we were there, began for us the day before.  We arrived on Wednesday to find Heidlebeere had already done a bunch of packing and cleaning.

So it wasn't a whole lot of work to get up Thursday morning and load up a bunch of stuff and throw it on the trailer and in the cars.

Once loaded it didn't take very long to drive to the new place.  She wasn't moving very far.

She was moving into a cozy little house several miles away from the old place.

So we pulled in and began unloading.  Once all the stuff we'd brought on this trip was in the house Heidlebeere set about unpacking it while lunch was being fixed.

The kids quite liked the tire swing hanging from a big tree in the back yard.  The one trip was pretty much all that got done that day.  At least, as far as loading and moving stuff to the new house.

Back at the old house, packing still went on and the next morning furniture began coming apart.  Beds, tables, and stuff like that which had to be broken down in order to get it out the door and on the truck.  That whole process was supervised by Heidlebeere's cat.  She seemed to always be nearby and out of the way.  Well, most of the time, anyway.

One of the things that was lost in the move was a tooth.  You know how there is usually something or another that gets lost or broken when you're moving.  This time it was a tooth.

The second trip over, on Friday, was during the rain and after dark.  So the mud puddles were hard to avoid.  A little bit of mud got tracked in.  But fortunately mud cleans up pretty good.  We just had to  make sure we weren't tracking it all over the house.

Saturday was the big move day.  That's' when the help and the truck arrived.  By that point, pretty much everything was boxed or bagged and ready to go on the truck.  But even at that, it still took a few hours to get it all out and into the truck.  You have to arrange it as it goes in so that it will all fit.  At one point we actually thought we had more truck than we needed.  But by the time the last few things went on it turned out that the truck we had was just right.

And about that point, the inside of the house was getting to look pretty empty.

With all the stuff out and gone, houses seem pretty empty and have that echoing sound.

Then it was back over to the new place again to unload it all.

Fortunately, we had the perfect day for moving.  Last night's rain had gone and the ground was pretty dry.

So we backed the truck in and began unloading.  As with the loading, the kids were pretty good about helping.

Unloading always seems to go faster than loading.  It wasn't long before everything was off the truck, out of the trailer, and out of the cars.

Then all that was left was the job of unpacking.  Arranging, rearranging, and rearranging yet again in some cases, to get everything where it was going to be when put away.

A lot of the kitchen was mostly done by this point because a lot of the first stuff to get moved was kitchen stuff.  But still, the kitchen was an easy place to set things down as it came in off the truck so there was still plenty to do.  Plus the kitchen itself had to be arranged and, yes, rearranged as things found their final resting place.

Like the house she was moving out of, the house Heidlebeere was moving into had some stairs.  Fortunately, not as much had to traverse the stairs in the new house.

Once everything was in the house then we began putting the big stuff where it was going to go.  That was where all the rearranging came in. Heidlebeere had to try a couple of arrangements to find the one she liked best.  By the time things began to land everybody was getting tired.  It had been a long day.

When Heidlebeere sat down and began to play her piano we knew she was beginning to feel like she was going to be able to settle there.

Making it her own.

This, actually, was one of the more memorable Thanksgivings I've ever enjoyed.  I don't feel bad about spending it this way at all.  In fact, spreading it across a couple of weeks was kind of fun.  And it was nice to be able to help Heidlebeere get moved and begin getting settled.