:Naiahdot

The level of misinformation about the FLDS and their ways is astounding. I, myself, began with the same picture of these people as is commonly held–an extremist cult who practices a perverted form of the restorationist doctrine of celestial plural marriage wherein young girls are forced into early marriage and pregnancy, kept in poor conditions, mistreated–all to serve the lusts of the ruling body of old men, who oust young boys to keep them from stealing their would-be brides. Sensationally salcious to say the least, and those who spread such an image, such as Carolyn and Flora Jessop or Elissa Wall, undoubtedly sell many more books painting the FLDS that way than they would if the picture were a little truer to life.

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“Truth is truth, wherever you find it.” That’s one of my stock phrases. The lesser-used second half of it is “whether it’s from the mouth of a sage or the mouth of a babe.” While the wording is not the same, the idea comes from Joseph Smith, himself, and one usually thinks you can’t go too far wrong in following the prophet, but it has recently caused me to receive a little well-intentioned-yet-negative feedback from a couple of friends after I made known my feelings about the recent treatment of the members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints living at YFZ Ranch and my outrage at the utterly unconstitutional way in which their community was invaded by the Texas authorities.

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Those closest to me have known that my mind has been consumed to a great degree concerning ways of living, particularly the paradoxical requirements of living life as a saint in modern society. Much of my thinking has touched on or been inspired by the lifestyle lived by the members of the FLDS who reside at the YFZ ranch in Texas, brought to public view by their recent, heart-wrenching, constitution-crunching persecution and the veritable mass-kidnapping of their children. Since learning of their plight, I have followed the developments of their case closely. I have haunted their new church-sponsored websites, FLDS Truth: the truth about the FLDS faith, Captive FLDS Chilren, and the blog-like Truth Will Prevail waiting for the next development. Three times now, a name has caught my eye, “Maggie Jessop.”

Maggie is absolutely brilliant.

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Note: I originally published this for just a few minutes right after I wrote it, but then I took it down and sent it in email to select group of my closest friends and confidants. I have decided to go ahead and make it public now.

I can’t speak as to how legally defensible it is, and judging by the recent treatment of the members of the FLDS church, it isn’t, but I would like to claim for myself, and for others who choose it, the right to opt out.

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I’ve been pounding through something of a tandem realization together with the sister of my soul recently. We have noticed that we each tend to divide the events and situations of our lives into “life” and “stuff that disrupts life.” I couldn’t even count up for you the number of times that I have lamented “it’s so unfair that as soon as I hit my stride, something knocks me off again!!!”

We have this idea that ‘real life’ are those quiet moments wherein our houses are humming, the laundry’s all done (very, very brief moments…), and we’re quietly having our well-planned out, perfectly taught Family Home Evening lesson that neatly ties up the week’s daily family scripture study before getting the kids to bed not just on time but early for what will make for the 8th day straight. I don’t know about everyone else, but those brief moments are just those–BRIEF moments.

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Normally, you wake up in the morning, and you know who you are, what your place in the world is, and what that world is like. The fact is, there are countless worlds, even within your neighborhood, and it’s up to you which one you choose to live in. There are countless realities, of infintely varying shades and hues, even within the very same home. How you choose to live, who you choose to be, what you choode to do with your life and time, and how you choose to do it. These all rest on a sense of identity and a confidence in your context. What if one day you woke up and began to question your context? Am I where I need to be? Am I living how the Lord wants me to live? Are these values and ideals His true values and ideals? Am I just fooling myself? Am I holding true, being “in the world but not of it,” or have I sold out to the world and man’s ways?

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The topic I was given today to speak on comes from the title of a chapter of a book, “Infinite in Suffering,” from the book The Infinite Atonement, by Tad R. Callister. As I sat down to type up my talk, I wanted to put my own title across the top of the page. I wanted something more evocative than just “Infinite in Suffering.” So, I started typing:

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The other day, while my daughter was off at the stables, my four-year-old son and I had sat down to lunch. Between bites of pbj, and gabbing about everything form legos to his bike, he very suddenly and very earnestly asked, “Mamma, why was Joseph in jail?”

His question caught me off guard, and so, just to be sure, I asked him, “Which Joseph?”

“Jospeh Smith”

The consternation was clearly visible on his face. In his developing sense of the how the world works, only bad guys go to jail, and I could see he was having a very hard time with the thought that the Prophet had been where bad guys go. I want my children to feel secure in the world, to trust that the justice system ‘works,’ that it will keep them safe, and so I hate to have to explain that the unfortunate characteristics of human nature, such as fallibility and the capability for dishonesty sometimes get in the way.

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If you look at the timestamp for this entry, you will see that I am typing it at just about 2:30 in the morning. One would think that I ought to be in bed at such an hour, and I am. I have been for hours. Here I am, though, in the middle of the night reeling and rejoicing in my blessed and unexpected random bit of insomnia that just saved our lives and home…

I came up to bed fairly early tonight, as my kind and sweet husband offered to put the kids down without me so that I could get a little extra project time. I set to and wrote up this week’s book review on A Prayer of Faith, had a great long chat on the phone with Michelle as we edited it together, took care of a few other sundries, had some sweet quiet time with my husband, and before I knew it it was midnight. Mind you, I’m quite the retire-to-thy-bed-early kind of girl, as I get up hours before my children in the morning so that I can have time for study, prayer, pondering, writing, [editing middle of the night blog entries like this, rife with typos,] and other tasks that require more headspace than can be found from kid-up to kid-down.

Regardless of my usual habits, there I was still wide awake. Midnight passed. One o’clock passed. One thirty. Finally my darling husband gave up waiting for my batteries to run out and quit hacking on his project. We turned out the lights, snuggled in, and while he was shortly asleep, I found myself remaining oddly alert. After 20 or 30 minutes, it became clear to me that my mind was moving no closer to sleep. I grabbed my next review book to dig in, thinking that reading would bring on the sandman. No luck. I finished the entire first section of the book, and just as I began the second section, I caught a whiff of something acrid on the air. I sniffed a couple of times thinking to clear it from my nose, but there it was again–and stronger.

I closed my book and slid out of bed to have a good bloodhound-style sniff around the room and see if I coudln’t figure out what it was. It was something burning, no doubt, but what? I sniffed over the vent in the floor that’s open to the downstairs, nothing. Sniffing along I moved over to the bathroom and ZINGO there it was. Only, as I passed into the bathroom, it faded away.

I came back out of the bathroom and caught the trail again, moving along the plane where it had been strongest following it to the other end of the room. Then, I saw it. A cardboard box, the one that our new blender had come in, had somehow been pushed up right against the electric heater in our bedroom wall. The shiny white background was just beginning to turn brown where it had been in contact with it. The flaps of the box reached right over to the bookshelf where the old sci-fi paperbacks are kept.

Holding the box, sniffing it, seeing it, feeling the sheer heat in it, an absolute wave of gratitude cascaded right over and through me. Usually, by two-something in the morning, I am deeply, soundly asleep, and my adorable husband, well, usually about all of thirty seconds after hitting his pillow is deeply asleep as well. We never would have known. As it is, though, I was mysteriously kept awake and alert until I needed to be. Upon discovering the box, I turned on the lights, and roused my ever-so-very unconscious husband to have a prayer with me. He offered it, in sweet, sincere, and humble thanks.

As an added blessing (as if this were not enough!), just as he ended the prayer, I was struck through with the knowledge that some months ago, the battery in our smoke detector had died and I did not recall having seen my husband change it. I mentioned it to him, and he immediately got up, pulled the old battery from the detector, grabbed a pack of 9-volts from his desk, and put a new one in. We had both forgotten. Now, though, as we remembered, we were doubly thankful for the Lord’s protecting hand this night.

Perhaps I should have saved this story for another Ensign article or for a book, but really, my joy, gratitude, humility, and rejoicing is such that I simply must share it now. Besides, I think I just read a very similar story in one of the chruch magazines–only it was a chimney pipe. So, they don’t need this one. Maybe one of you does.

Some people may laugh that the church is so full of such stories and experiences, but truly, they are a testimony to the true and living gospel! What joy, to know, amidst all the dangers of life, that we are protected–that because of a forgotten dead battery and a mislaid cardboard box, I would find myself still awake at three o’clock in the morning. Not surprisingly, though, as I find this written, I am suddenly quite sleepy.

I think I’ll sleep in until 7. Here’s a quick prayer that He will sustain me tomorrow on half a night of sleep just as He has preserved us tonight…

*Gratitude!*

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I wrote this the other day, and as my courage buckles here and there, I find myself coming back to it again and again:

I am such a flawed creature that sometimes I cannot help but feel that I have no right to write. Then again, though, I think that it is exactly because of my flawed nature that I should write. It is a strange calling I imagine for myself—to show my sisters that we are all fallible, flawed, and still so very loved, to see that our human imperfections are not insurmountable (no matter how much they may feel like it) and do not exclude us from the joy and peace available in the gospel. I, myself, have endured and overcome and become so much, and I do not need to have achieved some form of celestial perfection to know that I am moving in the right direction and to be able to motivate my sisters in that same direction.

I am finding it is a rough transition, going from “hoping to write someday” to “writing.” It’s nothing I can’t handle, but it is certainly not without its own buffetings. It seems that every doubt, insecurity, and fear that I have ever laid to rest have all conspired to begin a parade through my mind whenever I sit in front of my computer. I’m under attack from myself, and my only defense is to let it all go, and just do it. So far, I am meeting with only moderate success. I will persevere.

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