Ducks and Dark

For the most part I have recovered completely from the brain surgery and radiation. The past month or so I’ve felt my full strength finally returning and during our time in New York and Ireland I didn’t experience any of the fatigue that I had been going through before. It was wonderful! It is so nice to be able to move through a day without having to constantly stop and rest.

But there is one strange side effect that I still have to deal with. Every once in a while I say the wrong word. For example, yesterday I assigned my students to read the prefix to the Book of Mormon instead of the preface. Awhile back I told someone that “I was in the duck about the subject” when what I meant was that I was in the dark. This is annoying, but at the same time fascinating to me because the wrong word always starts with the same letter as the word I want, but usually has nothing else in common with what I mean. It has made me realize what an extraordinary thing the brain is and caused me to ponder on how it works.

This strange working of my brain has also given my whole family some good laughs. I just hope it doesn’t cause any problems like the one I read about the other day when a woman emailed to tell her friend that her mother was very ill, but that the family was praying she would recover and be back to normal.

The friend, sympathetic but in a hurry wrote back, “I hope she dies.”This devastated the woman with the sick mother. She never replied to the friend and it was months before the friend finally was able to get the woman to talk through the situation. At that point it was discovedr that there had been a typo in the email. The message the friend thought she had sent was, “I hope she does.” One little letter and yet it made all the difference in a friendship.

There is lesson in this. When we live in Truth instead of taking offense and jumping to conclusions, we give people the benefit of the doubt and let them explain.

We're All Students

It's the first day of school--an exciting time meeting new students and the very air filled with expectation. At this point everyone is an "A" student. Everyone has the same possibility. Everyone is bright and eager.

But the coming days and weeks will separate the students. The procrastinators will fall behind. The unfocused, uncaring will not make time to do the homework. Those students begin to look stressed and harried. They sleep through class because they've been up all night playing.

but the ones who have done their assignments and kept up with the work look peaceful. They smile and joke and enjoy learning.

And then comes the day of grading and the unprepared begin to come into my office with their excuses. (The strangest was a student who once told me that the spirit told him not to do the assignment.) It is too late. They didn't do the work, but somehow it is my fault and they want me to change the rules so they can get by. But I can't do that.

Every semester this reminds me of life. It makes me evaluate my own life and check to make sure I'm doing the assignments and am focused because I know that there will be no changing of the rules to let me slip by. That sounds harsh and difficult, but as my good students testify, it is really a lot easier to just do what is required when it is required. Not only is it easier, but it is the only way to find peace.

So here's to all the good students in the classroom and in life! May we all be among them.

Ahh, Sweet Sabbath!

I'm home! 

Sorry, I didn't have Internet access while away, 

but it was a wonderful trip.

I've come home rejuvenated, refreshed, relaxed, and ready to go.

And I hope your Sabbath does all of that for you, too.

Have a sweet Sabbath! 

See you tomorrow!

Happy Anniversary to Me!

This is the room I was married in.

Forty-three years ago this morning, at six o'clock to be exact, Mr. J picked me up in his little red Corvair and drove me to Manti where we were married for time and all eternity. In some ways it seems like yesterday that all this happened, and in other ways it seems like the eternity part is all we've ever known. We've had ten children, sent one on to the next world where she's waiting for us. We've paced the floor with the other nine for reasons that included sickness, emotional crisis, and forgetting they had a curfew. We've worried about how we were going to put braces on their teeth and how we could help them through school. But despite the worry and because they are all such great kids, we made it through. We've loved, argued, laughed, disagreed, played, prayed, and loved some more for forty-three years, and now we find ourselves getting old together. What a blessing!

So today we are off to celebrate those forty-three years.We're going to Las Vegas to see the Lion King thanks to D2.We are excited not only to see the play, but because it is also a trip down memory lane. You see, forty-three years ago we went to Vegas for our honeymoon and we saw Hello Dolly. (We both love live theatre and especially musicals!

It isn't every day that I can tell you what I was doing forty-three years before. But today I can tell you what happened during almost every hour of the day. At exactly this minute I was getting into my wedding dress!

An Example of Living In Truth

When I give the Truth Workshop, I invited people to send me their experiences as they implement the principles of Living in Truth. The other day I received a story that with the permission of the author, I would like to share.

When my son became engaged he brought his fiancée home for dinner and to meet us. That night she sat in the living room with him all evening and never offered to help prepare or to clean up after the dinner. I didn’t mind at that point because it was her first introduction to our family and she was, after all company. But as the months wore on and they were finally married, the same behavior persisted. She never lifted a finger or offered to help, and I found myself getting upset and irritated. “She thinks she’s some kind of princess and I’m the maid,” I found myself thinking one night after an especially nice dinner I’d worked hard to prepare. And from there other thoughts bombarded me like, “She is so lazy!’ and “Didn’t her mother teach her anything?” But suddenly, as the negative thoughts churned inside me, I realized I was in the Pit of Illusion.

“All right,” I said to myself. “What is the truth here? She doesn’t help. So what are my options to deal with that Truth?” I thought a moment and then came up with three. I could accept the reality that she didn’t want to help and keep serving but without all the vexation. Or I could stop inviting them over for dinner. Or I could simple (and nicely) ask her to help. Since I love my son and enjoying seeing him and really I enjoy her also, I decided to try the third option. So the next time they came over I told her I was a little behind and asked if she’d be willing to help. “Sure,” she said. “What do you want me to do?” I asked her to peel some potatoes which she did while I stirred the pudding to a boil—which was so much nicer than me stirring to a boil! We had a great visit while we worked and soon dinner was ready.

The surprise came after the meal when she not only started to clear away the dishes without me asking, but said as we finished, “Thanks for letting me help with the dinner. That was fun.” And said it in such a way that it seemed to me she was saying more than those words; saying something like thanks for letting me into your world for the first time. I now feel more a part of the family.”

Since then I’ve sometimes had to ask for help again and other times she’s come in without me asking and offered to help. Either way, I’m not vexed at all and as far as I can tell either is she. As a matter of fact, our relationship is much closer and we’ve had a lot of fun while working together in the kitchen.

I’ve thought about this a lot since that night and wondered what would have happened if she’d refused to help even when I asked. I have no idea, but by staying in Truth the Spirit would help me know what to do next. But I do think that what I’d assumed was laziness or worse was simply her shyness and not quite knowing how to fit in.

If you have a story of Living in Truth you'd like to consider sharing, email the story to me at smillsjohnson@gmail.com

Get Set--Go!

It has been a crazy and fast paced summer around here. Last night as Mr. J and I sat down to dinner we realized that it was the first time in 2 and ½ months that we had eaten dinner alone in our own home. We’ve either had company or were away from home during that time. It felt so nice, but today as I’m now starting to feel better all the things I’ve let slip for the past few months are jumping out at me and hitting me over the head. Wow, am I behind. My to-do list is longer than the paper I always use to make to-do lists on! It’s times like this that stress begins to push me into the Pit of Illusion. It tightens in the chest and makes all kinds of obnoxious noises in my head. “You’ll never get all this done!” it laughs a deep, delighted-to-see-you-fail chuckle that could sink a battleship in deep water.

But, the Truth Tools work. And I’m armed for battle. I’ve got a box full of tools and as every negative feeling of gloom and doom arises, I pull out a tool and go to work on it. My favorite Tool today is affirming to myself, “It just doesn’t get better than this!” and making the challenge of this to-do list into a game.I can do it!

I’m on my mark. I’m set. I’m going!!!!

The Solid Facts About Living In Truth

There is something in C. S. Lewis’ book The Great Divorce that I have been pondering all week. In this book a bus load of people leave Hell for an excursion to an interim place just before Heaven. If they like, they may stay and make their way to Heaven. But if they don’t like, they may get back on the bus and go back to Hell. All but one of the passengers chooses to go back.

The thing I’ve been pondering is that the interim place is a very substantial place. Everything is hard and durable—the grass doesn’t bend when one of the passengers steps on it; instead it is spiky and hard so it hurts to walk on it. Everything in that place is solid and heavy, so that in the metaphor the way to prepare for Heaven is to make yourself tangible and solid so you can walk to the mountains where Heaven is. I love the symbolism in that idea.

In the metaphor, when we follow God, we are making ourselves solid, more tangible. When we follow the adversary we are dissipating, dissolving, liquefying, or melting away. It helps me to do what is right by remembering that image. I want to be solid and firm. I want to be made of substance not fluff. I want to be strong and not pliable. This is what I’ve been pondering. The solidness, firmness, substance and strength are what come to us when we Live in Truth.

That is one of the surprises Living in Truth had for me. The solidness grows in you as you Live in Truth in ways that are tangible. You feel it. You know it even if you can’t explain it. It is real, not metaphorical, and it is wonderful!