Warning: this is long and it's only part 1 of 3, but I don't know how to tell this short. I've needed to write about my journey through the workplace and back home for quite a while now. A dear friend who is a young mother on the front lines with three littles sent me a prop reel a few weeks ago, wondering what I thought of it. I say "prop reel" because it had the feel of advocation for a specific life path - that of a working mother. Rhetoric was specific and targeted. It got me thinking about my choice to stay home rather than stay in the work force, and what brought that about. Because these choices are only mine, based on revelation given only to me (private lesson), there's a danger this will be seen as judgmental if anyone reading this has received different personal revelation and made different choices. I could NOT be sorrier about that. I assure you: there is zero judgment in these observations which are born from my experiences and choices. That said - part 1 is the background to the choice: I never planned to do anything besides teach school. As a little kid, I absolutely loved everything about school. I was like a less likable Hermione Granger; it was ridiculous. I grew up hearing often from my dad - a school teacher - what a great job teaching was for a woman. You must forgive this sentiment from a different generation, bless him. He longed for my mom to go back to school and get a teaching degree so there could be two teachers' salaries in our home. And while my mother could've run a Fortune 500 company, she was no teacher, and had no desire to do that. As we kids got old enough to all be in school, she worked as a secretary at the high school to ease the financial burden of a little family growing up on one teacher's salary. My dad had a lawn business in the summer for many years to afford the luxury of being a basketball coach; I have this notion he made more money doing that than teaching. So while there was definitely some conditioning going on for me to become a teacher - looking back - I can't deny that I was born to teach. Some kids played hospital; I played school. As young as my toddler years, my parents punished my disobedience by taking away my books. This was the freakish child I was. I got a degree in English and reading secondary education and taught in a junior high school for five years before my first child was born - a waiting period that is a whole other private lesson for another day. I had every intention of going back to teaching. She was born in June of 1985, and I was given a year's unpaid LOA from Jordan School District. A year later, when I tried to re-enter the district, I requested a part-time position. The conditions of the LOA meant the district was under no obligation to re-hire me unless I came back to a similar position - full-time. That second school year began with me still at home and left me restless and ambivalent. During that second school year, in February 1987, President Ezra Taft Benson gave one of the talks that began his figurative stoning: "To the Mothers in Zion." (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/womens-divine-roles-and-responsibilities/to-the-mothers-in-zion-institute?lang=eng) It was broadcast as a Sunday evening fireside, and for some reason, Dale and I didn't attend. The next day, Dale came home from work a little shell shocked. "WHAT did President Benson say last night?? You should've heard the women at work today!" he said. Every woman there was MAD. Called President Benson an out-of-touch old man with no idea what it took to pay for a family these days. Dale and I looked in wonder at each other, and waited with great anticipation for the far less-than-instantly-available text of the talk. No technology to make it quickly available; we waited for weeks. When we finally got a hold of the talk and read it, I had the same powerful spiritual witness I've had when I've read the Book of Mormon. I knew by the power of the Holy Ghost that this talk was a "thus sayeth the Lord" talk. I put the career I had planned for my entire life on the altar that day and never looked back. Well. Almost. Looking back, it was the tiniest of widow's mites. It made the widow's mite of the New Testament look like a Jon Huntsman donation. Talk about meager. But I witness: I laid it somewhat reluctantly on the altar with my whole heart, and proceeded to try - over the next 22 years - to devote my life to something I truly, truly reeked at. I nearly lost my entire identity making this choice. I cannot overstate how horrible I was at homemaking and mothering. I remember wandering through grocery stores when I went alone, bewildered at what my life meant, and wondered what it was supposed to be. I suffered from depression for much of it. Now, you might say - perhaps I wouldn't have been depressed if I'd just gone back to teaching - the job I felt more suited for - the job I felt I was born for. But beneath the difficulty of staying at home, I knew I would've come home exhausted - teaching 200 students for 6 hours is a special kind of adrenaline rush. I knew there would be nothing left for my most important job when I got home. And as an English teacher, I knew that job that sucked the life out of me wouldn't even be finished. So I tried to figure out homemaking and mothering. And while I really, really stunk at it, I can at least tell you this: I loved my children in the most fierce and flawed manner possible. I tried to give them what my parents had given me: I taught them the gospel. I read to them. I gave them Suzuki piano against their very wills. When Dale went back to work after both our children were born, his life resumed the patterns and routines it had always had. Mine vanished irretrievably. I quit teaching when we had a little starter home with a mortgage with a 14% interest rate. There was a "government program" at the time which subsidized some of that until we made more money; my $11,446 first year teaching contract was almost too high to qualify for it. Knowing what we now know about "government programs," we probably wouldn't have done it, but at the time, it seemed like our only shot at getting into a home. I started teaching piano lessons to six - maybe eight kids in the neighborhood, charging $20 a month. Wow. What a huge financial contribution. I sold Discovery Toys for a few years when for some reason, piano teaching had become quite odious. I imagine it had become odious because I started it with the same reluctant ambivalence that took me out of the public schools. Remembering snowy winter nights, lugging toy crates in and out of homes, I have to laugh that I imagined THAT was more attractive and less odious. I taught a music pre-school with no private students for a couple of years - again - ambivalent about wanting to teach, but trying to figure out how to do it from home. I was offered a job at a junior high school in 1997 for maybe 48 hours. I accepted it, had a major panic attack over it, and then called to turn it down. As bewildering as homemaking continued to be - even then - I recognized it as the treason it would have been, and couldn't make myself do it. After that, my piano studio grew to 20-35 students over the next 10-15 years - long past when my children were out of the house. By then, I saw it as the personal ministry it was, and felt almost called to do it. No one was more surprised at this change of heart than I was. These are the choices I made based on a real and profound revelatory moment which I cannot deny. That moment of "thus sayeth the Lord" wasn't a command that removed my agency; it was an invitation to a harder, higher climb. I was invited to place my career on the altar, and I obeyed. Part 2 - my reaction to a prop reel based on my life's experiences this far... Part 3 - the lessons I learned from my choice... If you're still reading, God bless you.

I've been working feverishly on a Stars and Stripes quilt for the 4th of July. Nothing like waiting till the last minute, eh? That's a story not fit for telling. I'm holed up in my beautiful English-speaking sweat shop and just cranking out the last of this project, glutting myself with podcasts and audiobooks. This morning, I listened to an Inklings podcast about being good to each other and living in an attitude of perpetual belonging, perennially sending the inviting message that beckons, "Welcome! We've been waiting for you! There's a place set for you right here; we were hoping you'd come - it wouldn't have been the same without you." I found myself hoping I'm developing that vibe, and suddenly, a tidal wave of memories came, and here I am at my computer, weeping - when I should be starring and striping. I need to tell you about some of the loveliest times when someone gave me that vibe, and how it's forever changed my heart in wanting to always, always, always give that vibe to others. None of these are very grand gestures. The person offering them might read me rhapsodizing over them with nonchalance, like what they had done was not so grand at all. But grand they were, because each of them were mini lifelines, giving me the strength to keep going. I have to apologize in advance - these all happened during my Liberty Jail Winter - and they are only a small representation of the ordinary/extraordinary ministering that was given to me then. A lifetime of such acts - but I mention these from that singular life event: Not-so-grand gesture Number One and Two: When I couldn't move my legs, I'm pretty sure I was the UNfunnest of all the patients. Dale insisted the nurses would tell him they argued over who got to have me on their rotations, but I had a hard time believing that when I was buzzing the nurses constantly all through the night. Between the panic attacks that would awaken me when I'd forgotten I was relatively safe in a hospital, and NOT in an unknown prison where no one knew where I was (gotta love those ventilator sedatives!) and the inability to rearrange my body, it always felt like I'd been awake most of the night every morning when I "woke up." One of my favorite nurses came in one night after I'd awakened in that blind panic, and just stroked my hair and talked to me until I fell asleep again. I weep afresh remembering how safe I felt, when moments before I was certain I was hidden away and no one who loved me knew where I was but God Himself. Another night, there was this darling young man who was the aide for the night shift; I can't even remember how many times I had buzzed - apologetically - again - asking if someone could come in and rearrange my legs because I couldn't move them myself. On about the third or fourth rearranging, he said, "I'm a massage therapist - would it be all right if I just massaged your legs and feet so you can relax?" Who every says no to massage? As he worked, we got to talking (imagine!) and he learned I was writing a book. He said he was a writer, and we talked about writing. And in that way only explained as God doing His work in us, the two of us became deeply connected over higher things than this world, and felt like good friends when I was able to fall back asleep - comfortable at last. "I'd really like to give you a hug - may I?" he asked before he left. How can you know these will be lifelines? Not-so-grand gesture Number Three: When I finally got to the skilled nursing facility to learn how to do everything over again, my regular day aide was Olympia - the most adorable Hispanic woman who, from nearly day one, confidently told me I would walk out of that place on my own one day. Who knew it would take seven weeks?? When I could finally start eating again and the feeding tube came out, Olympia really paid attention to my food. Because my room was at the end of the hall, my food was generally cold by the time it got to me. It was uncanny how quickly Olympia would appear, asking if she could warm it up for me in the microwave at the nurse's station. I couldn't have gagged down those institutionalized eggs were it not for this and the several catsup packets she would bring me to smother them. What an ordinary, extraordinary thing - to pay attention when someone's appetite is coming back after not eating for three months. Lifeline indeed. Not-so-grand gesture Number Four: Women in my ward signed up to drive 45 minutes to Roy to sit with me so Dale could go home and rest - and run our household - before another day back in the saddle in that tiny little room that had become my entire world. One dear friend saw Dale's spread sheet (SO Dale!) - where he kept track of who came when, so he wouldn't overburden anyone. Indignant that she hadn't been there the most, Julie insisted on him putting her on the schedule more times in the coming week. Not-so-grand gesture Number Five: My ministering sister offered to bring a blanket from home one evening when Dale let her know he needed to take my favorite (yes, I had a blankie) home for washing. She grabbed a favorite of her daughter, then eight, without thinking to ask. When Katelyn protested, Mandy explained how I had been in the hospital for many, many weeks, and that I just needed it long enough for Brother Simper to wash mine and bring it back. She assured Katelyn that Dale would bring it back the very next day - that I'd only need it for tonight. This will never not choke me up: upon considering this, Katelyn thought for a few seconds, then told her mother, "Will you tell her she can keep it as long as she needs it? She can give it back when she comes home if she wants." Ordinary kindness is so very extraordinary. Not-so-grand can end up being so incredibly grand. Something that could be passed off as everyday mundane can be taken into a human heart as life changing - life saving. It will never be wrong to send a message with our demeanor, words, or not-so-grand gestures: I see you. But because those gestures affirm the divinity and potential holiness of the receiver of the gesture, what we're really saying is, "I. See. THOU." It really, really matters to be kind - to see souls - to imagine their needs as real and raw as our own. When Peter responds to the lame man begging for alms, he tells him: "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." (Acts 3:6) We generally don't give silver and gold these days, but there is silver in calming a troubled heart or massaging legs in the middle of the night. There is gold in helping someone gag down the first food being eaten for weeks, or in offering a beloved blanket to an old lady in the ward you barely know when you're only eight. What a lifestyle to practice - to go about as the Savior did, doing good, using our words and good will to say, "Such as I have, I give thee - in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth - let me do this ordinary thing for you so you can walk toward Jesus another day." When we look into someone's eyes and see a fellow traveler and respond in the name of Jesus Christ - we will turn our not-so-grand gestures into the grandest of life changing - life saving acts. And there's a very good chance we'll never even know how much it mattered. I am a humble victim of so very many.

Let me tell you about my dad. While my mother was growing up west of 5300 South, in smelter homes behind what would become the future site for Murray High School, Dad was growing up in a charming little house just off State Street on 48th South. His mother moved back in with her parents after divorcing my grandfather; my dad was only 5 or 6 years old. My grandmother's parents helped with her children so she could go back to work to provide for them. They had recently moved into their own apartment for the first time when my dad was nearly finished with high school; in February of his senior year, she was killed in a car accident. Dad left for a mission to Alberta, Canada in 1950, the year after he finished high school. He and Mom were great friends from 7th grade on. They met on registration day for high school. As they stood in line together, Dad confidently announced to Mom that he had a $100 to register for 7th grade. This was 1943, so naturally, Mom rolled her eyes. She had to laugh when she saw that Dad had carefully folded a $10 bill to make the last '0' on the far right side of the bill perfectly align with the '10' on the left. They often sat by each other in classes but never dated. It wasn't till Dad saw her for the first time after his mission in 1952 - at a stake conference - that he came just short of stalking her for three days until he had to leave for the army. What a lovely serendipitous thing for Mom to send Dad a Christmas card a few months later; they wrote the rest of the time he was in Korea. He got home in November of 1954 and they married 7 months later. Dad loved music when he listened to his mother play practically anything she could hear, but he couldn't be bothered with music lessons. But when he asked me to play the piano for him, he always sat so he could watch my hands. That was his favorite thing about watching his mother play. My grandmother read to Dad almost every single night, and just like old radio serials, loved to find a dramatic place to stop for bedtime. He loved books the way he loved oxygen: instinctively and for survival. It wasn't the books themselves so much as the beauty and truth that was in them. Tonight, I gave Dad his Father's Day present with a similar piano repertoire to Mom's Mother's Day present six weeks ago. As on Mother's Day - I was heading upstairs for bed and realized I hadn't given him his Father's Day present - a little concert. I taught Sunday School today a bit on the fly - got the schedule mixed up and only realized I was in the docket last night. When I think of how I've learned to study in such a way that this didn't cause the panic attack it would have even a few years ago, I have to thank Dad. If my love of the beauty and truth in music came from Mom, my love of the beauty and truth in words came from Dad. Both of them, really - they were such an inseparable team. But I attribute my love of music to my mother, and my love of words to my father. Music is for expressing the inexpressible, but words are most often the way truth and beauty are expressed. The Word - Logos - the source of both (see John 1:1). No wonder my love for music and words are so linked. Dad's the one who sprawled out on the floor with me - my notebook and pencil in hand - and patiently asked me questions and waited for my answers, instructing me to write them down. Those answers became rudimentary outlines for church talks or school papers. Dad shaped my voice in a nearly subliminal way. How was I to know that truth and beauty went together? But by Dad's reactions to both, I grew up knowing they did. He savored both - and because he had a true education, he had the ability to articulate what made something true - what made it beautiful. My love of truth and beauty catch in my throat because I watched them catch in my dad's. As I finished my concert, I turned to the empty couch where Mom and Dad used to sit when I played for them. I blew them a kiss and told them I loved them. What an investment they made in me - to make a home laboratory of learning and practice. Always the practice. How else do you become holy? I'm grateful I learned who Jesus Christ was from two phenomenal humans who adored Him - who lived grand lives of ordinary imperfection with extraordinary consistency to covenants. I can think of no finer legacy for a mama and daddy to leave their little girl.

I had the great fortune to grow up across the street from a mentally handicapped boy a few years older than me. We always knew Brad was different, but we didn't really care. He was just one of the neighborhood gang, and allowances were always made for the fact he couldn't do everything the rest of us could. Brad was smart in a different way - he was far more socially aware of tension in a group dynamic than you might expect. He had an hysterical sense of humor, and could keep up in quips with my mom and dad - king and queen of the quippers. Until his parents died and he went to live with siblings, he had a running contest with my mother to see who could get their American flag out first on holidays. The 'in-your-face' gloating began when he won. He worked at the Deseret Industries for decades, and was awarded an honorary Eagle Scout for his service in scouting in his 60's. Brad had a neighborhood of fierce friends who defended him when the pettiness of humanity was ever directed at him. All of us - not just his siblings - would brook no mockery of him. We had watched his older brother - the older brother of the block, really - always pick Brad first at games. Taking our cue from Brent, we subliminally learned to understand that Brad gave his best efforts to any neighborhood enterprise, and that was good enough for us. What a gift, to grow up with someone who comes into this world in such a notable disguise. It has been a major private lesson that has continued into my adult life, giving me an instant respect for anyone who comes into a fallen world gifted with a disguise of mental and physical limitations. Anyone reading this who has known such a person knows exactly what I'm talking about. The older I get, I'm realizing pretty much every one of us is in disguise in one way or another. And yes, if you must know, this is absolutely in part because the morning reflection in my mirror does terrify me at first glance. Talk about a disguise. Old age - let's not sugarcoat it - is a fascinating disguise. I can't remember exactly when it happened, but I was NOT an old lady when it did: I suddenly became invisible to anyone a generation younger than me on down. Or if seen, instantly dismissed as irrelevant. When one of my DF's needed to move her daddy into assisted living after too many falls to keep track of, she told me she made a placard to hang outside his door with this written on it (not a direct quote): "This is a cowboy. This is a former Golden Glove boxer. This is a former math teacher who has been Math Teacher of the Year. This is a beloved father, a grandfather and great-grandfather. This is our dad." My DF wanted casual caretakers to know whom they were taking care of in the hopes of inspiring a little more dignity and respect than is far too often afforded the elderly. Of course, the young often feel equally dismissed; their disguise is their obvious inexperience. Too often, passionate opinions are too often smiled at benignly, treated as a passing 'phase' and dismissed with not always unintentional condescension. How sad: that's the very dynamic that is often carefully choreographed to gaslight someone into escalating their passion to prove the point of mental instability. There's some dignity and respect for ya. And seriously - don't you think just garden-variety ordinariness is a disguise? Who lurks behind an accountant, a health care worker or welder? What wonders might you discover if you stumble into a conversation with the checkout clerk, and learn she's about to road trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to scatter her mother's ashes beside her father's grave? (This may or may not be actually based on a true story.) Ordinary is most definitely a disguise for us humans who "trail[ed] clouds of glory" into this world (nod to Wordsworth) from a home of glory. In a world where a pleasing appearance is everything, it can be challenging to go against the mainstream flow and not proverbially judge human books by their covers. Attractive disguises can be far more subtle, and even quite pernicious. Not only are many extraordinary humans disguised with ordinariness, the converse is true. There's an entirely different subset of humans who disguise shallowness and vapidness beneath a pleasing veneer of beauty. Worst of all, some of the darkest humans who glory in cruelty hide beneath this disguise. My favorite literary lesson of this principle is Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame. You know it's a prominent human tendency when even Samuel in the Old Testament - a prophet of God - is surprised by the Lord repeatedly telling him - upon being presented SEVEN TIMES with one strapping, good-looking boy after another: "Not him. He's not the one I want as king, keep looking." (not a direct quote). "But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7) Samuel got guidance from God Himself, but we're just ordinary humans. Do we have the Lord whispering in OUR ears the way a prophet of God does? Actually, yes, we do. It's definitely a project that takes a lot of practice, seeing beyond the disguises at all - but the greater practice is that of listening to the voice of our Father Creator who is constantly available to help us when we are serious about seeking His help. Curiously, the help seems contingent upon asking with the intent to actually DO something with what you're told. Generous Father that He is, He doesn't want you to ask in vain - ask and dismiss - and then be accountable for disobeying. There are learnable, practiceable things to see past disguises: Engage with people every chance you get. Make conversations about other people Inject yourself only as you look for common ground Assume each and every one of God's children has something to teach you (Imagine biggest font on this one) Limited mobility doesn't mean limited mind. Limited mind doesn't mean limited bandwidth and wellsprings of compassion and insight. Limited worldly experience doesn't mean limited experience. Limited depth doesn't mean limited life narrative. Limited physical beauty doesn't mean limited spiritual beauty. Limited flaws don't mean limited challenges. I repeat: if you assume everyone you meet - regardless of how they look, sound, smell, or act - has something of great value to teach you - and treat them with the respect and dignity that affords them - life will change and become profoundly richer. Seeing past the disguises of a fallen world (translation: temporal. Translation: temporary) is the hobby of a lifetime, and a huge stepping stone to develop charity, "the greatest of these" (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Dudley was right. Cary Grant played the part of Dudley - an angel - in the 1947 Christmas film, The Bishop's Wife. This photo shows Dudley him talking to Debbie, the bishop's daughter (also Su-Su in It's a Wonderful Life). He's telling her the story of David, a young shepherd - who, thanks to an angel, gets the idea of how to save one of his lambs and kill an attacking lion. While there's no account of an angel in this story in the Bible, the idea that an angel gave David an idea is a central theme in the film. Several characters besides the bishop in the title find solutions to pressing problems by seemingly receiving a sudden, expected - brilliant - idea. Perhaps you've had this kind of sudden inspiration: you're running errands and realize you're very near something else you'd intended to do, but somehow the task had left your current radar; now you can do both. Or maybe you're making a meal and suddenly decide it'll take no extra time to double up and stick the extra in the freezer... unless you've remembered while you're making it that so-and-so down the street just had a baby. It happens all the time, and here's a private lesson of late: the sooner I recognize it was heavenly help - angel or no - and the sooner I acknowledge it by muttering a quick prayer of thanks - the more "good ideas" I seem to get. Coincidence? I think not. A few recent "good ideas" lately have gotten me thinking there may be no such thing as a good idea, a good intention, or a good resolve - that didn't come first as the quietest inkling of an invitation from Someplace Else. Nothing bossy - no, no. Just a quiet: "You know what might be a great idea? _____" Fill in the blank with your most recent brilliant idea. In fact, I'm willing to up the ante and suggest that there's no such thing as any resolve in self-improvement, any attainment of a good habit, any good thing anyone may ever do, that if you trace the quiet thread back to the Source of the idea, you won't find Jesus standing there. I assert that Jesus is the Source of all the good ideas - because He is the source of all good. The reason we are able to choose to be good - choose to RSVP those quiet invitations at all - is because He performed the atoning sacrifice. His great gift is the only way we are truly able to choose and be 100% responsible for those choices. This is likely to tick off quite a few people - unbelievers and those who actually hate the influence of Jesus in the world. Imagine their surprise at the end of their lives, watching the whole thing play out in whatever version of home movies heaven has, and seeing that it wasn't an angel like Dudley who whispered quiet ideas to them - but the very Father of their spirits and the very Savior of the world Himself - through the quiet, inviting influence of the Holy Ghost. The mighty Godhead who work and serve in tandem for the good of humanity - for our very salvation and exaltation - are the reason any of us can do anything ennobling. They plant the idea through the influence of the Holy Ghost, and it's up to us to act on the ideas. No wonder daily repentance is such a great idea. How else can I review when I've listened - and give thanks - or when I haven't listened - and resolve to do better? That's what daily prayer is for - daily coaching sessions that involve this kind of review and resolve to do better in our practice tomorrow. The best news of all is that the more we practice accepting the quiet invitations, the better we get at recognizing them - and the stronger our inclination to act on them becomes. You really can get better at just about anything... with practice. Elder David A. Bednar has cut to the chase on this idea on a number of occasions - usually when speaking to youth, missionaries, or young adults. Here, in a 2009 talk in the Missionary Training Center, he explains: "Somehow, someway in the culture of the church, not in the doctrine, but in the culture of the church we have come to believe that I must know in the moment that it's a spiritual impression. That I must receive the spiritual impression so that it will guide me and tell me what to do. And that unless I receive such an impression, I cannot go forward because I won't know what to do. Now, Elders and Sisters, every once in a while, rarely, you will receive an impression that will guide you and you will know it before the fact. The overwhelming majority of the impressions and revelations you will ever receive will come in the course of you being a good boy or a good girl, honoring your covenants, keeping your commandments and you will become an instrument in the hands of God and He will take you where you need to be so you can do what He wants you to do and much of the time you'll never know it's happening that way." (https://ldsmomentsoflight.com/an-apostle-explains-revelation/) This teaching from an apostle suggests a powerful promise worth holding onto: the more you listen to the quiet invitations, the more you'll receive. And this idea has left me a little apprehensive about ever ever ever thinking I've ever ever ever had a good idea. EVER.

I need to tell you about my mama. She grew up in Murray, Utah. Her mother was pioneer stock - my 3rd great grandfather is atop the This is the Place Monument. Her father was born here after his mother and her parents immigrated from Sweden. Grandpa worked at the Murray smelter until it closed, and then at a paint store. Grandma kept a clean and tidy house, stating often that "soap was cheap." Mom loved music, and loved it when the family had the radio on in the evenings. It used to sadden her that her dad was able to turn the radio off in the middle of any piece of music when it was time for bed - slightly scandalized that he could interrupt such a heavenly flow of sound. There was no money for a piano, but she made one out of a cardboard box, fighting to cut through the cardboard on the "keys" she had drawn for a keyboard so the cardboard would somewhat reluctantly move up and down to her touch. The first thing Mom bought as an adult with a job was a piano. She made modest payments she could afford until it was all hers. That's the piano I first learned to play on. When my mother started to hear me trying to plunk out any melody I could hear - from Primary songs to movie themes - she started to get out the elementary reading books she had used to try to learn to play. I was temporarily overjoyed to start piano lessons, because as abby-normal as I was in soooo many things as a kid - in that thing - I was terribly normal. I loved to play the piano, but practice? You're kidding, right? This is actually the core of the book I'm striving to finish - the metaphor of personal practice in our lives and the individual tutoring we receive from God, but I merely digress with that brief interruption for a moment of shameless self-promotion. My mother was so sly about enticing me with new piano books. After movies like The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, and The Sound of Music, little simplified piano books from the movies would just appear on the piano. Clever bird. Rather than insist I help with dinner dishes, Mom more often than not called out requests for various pieces while she did the dishes. Not that I never had those chores, but she often asked me to play specific songs while she worked, and I was only too happy to "get out of work." Clever bird. If you'd told my kid Self that I would make a 40+ year career out of teaching piano, there's an excellent chance I would have rebelled on the spot and never touched the piano again. I'm pretty sure this thought makes Heavenly Father smile quite big. My mother's tenacity at keeping me at piano study is a testament to her great love of music - and her ardent desire to give me something she so desperately wanted for herself. And my dad was her willing accomplice. A typical piano dropout who chose sports over music, he was the cliche of an adult who rued that he couldn't see the value of what his mother - a gifted pianist herself - was trying to give him. Well. I didn't see the value of what they were trying to give me, either. But tonight, as I got ready to come upstairs and go to bed, I realized I hadn't played the piano for several days. It suddenly felt a little urgent to play for a few minutes, because most of the times I've played the piano in the last 2 years, that's when I feel my parents come around the very most. I played several of my favorite pieces that still sound semi-respectable without practice: Mendelssohn's Venetian Gondola Song; Bach's Siciliano, Debussy's Reverie and Clair de Lune, and Ashokan Farewell. It felt like they'd come to listen, as they so often do. Gratitude rushed in like a tidal wave again, as I remembered - again - how I wouldn't have this beauty in my life - respite from chaos - were it not for two beautiful souls who gave me a gift almost against my very will. Thank you both - Mom and Dad - but thank you, especially, Mom - who had to put up with my attitude the most. When I think of the 40-year back pain you endured the last half of your life, I fear it was me that broke your spine of steel. I made deals with both my parents near the end of their lives that in the Millennium, I'll teach them to play the piano. Dad and I promised after several weeks of loving to learn to play right hands, only to discover he had a weakness in his left hand that wouldn't allow him to play hands together. Mom and I promised after she had become blind from macular degeneration - seeing only "men as trees walking" at that point in her life. What a lovely thing that will be - to give them the joy of creating music. The three greatest gifts my parents gave me: Jesus Words - given to me in stories and books Music - the language we use when we pray without words I'm glad I remembered just in the nick of time to give Mama her Mother's Day present this year. It's because of her I had it to give.

It felt important to lay out my fraught experience with motherhood before I offered an opinion about a reel that felt like propaganda in favor of mothers working outside their homes. (https://www.laureensimper.com/post/because-i-came-home) Thanks to the shared mentality from the Tower of Babel/Babylon, we humans tend to compare. A LOT. Women, particularly. I say this to reiterate: if any woman reading this got different revelation than mine - made different choices than mine - no harm, no foul. I'm merely sharing my impressions, based on my road. Kudos to you and your road. When my younger friend still in the trenches sent me a link to ask my opinion, I was shocked to see it was from the Facebook page of one of my church's university pages. It didn't feel neutral to me on this topic, though it either tried or pretended to be. I will never discount a woman and her husband seeking, receiving, and acting on personal revelation. The woman in the reel may very well have received such revelation. I only know that based on my life's experience of the last 46 years - not to mention watching those of countless other women - I've seen an alarming trend to choose working over staying at home. I think the reason I've seen it is because a prophet of God warned me of it 39 years ago in a very profound way. In this reel, I heard a well-meaning young mother speak of building her strengths and talents in her career. She even went so far as to say that building those talents was God-like, and that she wanted her children to see her striving to become like God as she developed those talents in the workplace. The language was so subtle, stating that of course strengths and talents could also be built at home, BUT... Sadly, that BUT cancelled out the first part. This choice has been fraught with controversy for decades now. My mother felt horribly guilty for choosing to go back to work in the late 1960's - so much so, that she wore herself out demanding the standard in our home stay the same. She continued to sew most of my clothes. We rarely ate out - partly just because back then you rarely did, but partly because we still couldn't afford it very often, even with now two incomes. Our house was still spotless, and she continued to CAN every fall. CAN, I tell you. After work. The stigma of working mothers was softening when I made the choice to stay home 20 years later. I constantly second-guessed that choice, but in the end, I couldn't deny that important moment of revelation. And, as I said in Part 1, I knew it would be an act of personal treason if I went back to work. Now here we are, 40 years after that, and to me it feels like the philosophies of men have mingled with scripture so much so that our thinking has been infected by those philosophies far more than we realize. If a church school can publish a piece like this - clearly advocating for working mothers - it speaks volumes to how much closer to the world's thinking we've come as a people who have made covenants - particularly knowing this is the same church whose prophet leader gave the talk that inspired me to leave the work force in 1987. I am not speaking about women who have no choice. I am particularly not speaking to women who are single mothers. And I am absolutely not saying that the Lord will never NOT inspire women to work - double negative intended. I will never second-guess or judge a woman's receiving her own revelation on this point. I simply believe that content like the reel I saw can lead women to make the choice they'd RATHER make, and then feel good about it because it's become so much more mainstream - and because in so many ways it feels easier. Elder Glenn L. Pace gave a talk at BYU in 1986 called "That Elusive Balance" - where he talks about a phrase commonly used in the church that made him cringe: "I've prayed and feel good about it." He asserts that this often signals a spiritual laziness that must be avoided. (https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/glenn-l-pace/elusive-balance/) He teaches important points to consider. Watching the world over the last 46 years of my marriage has brought me to this: I just don't think making the choice to work outside the home takes a woman into the crucible of family and motherhood the same way as staying at home does. There. I said it. I don't write this to pile on to any woman's personal pile of self-imposed purgatory - the lists of faults and failings we all keep handy and at the ready. No need to wait for the accuser to indict us at the judgment bar; we too often indict ourselves with the list we've neatly cataloged in our minds. I write this to give another nearly archaic point of view in a world I did not grow up in. I actually developed more strengths and talents by leaning into a place where there were seemingly no strengths and talents. For me, it would have been mentally and emotionally easier to lean into the strengths and talents of the workplace. And somehow, making that choice would have provided me with the justification for choosing a harder road physically and financially, and a far more dangerous road spiritually. In Part 3, I'll share the lessons I learned from going into that crucible without the insulating buffer of a job outside my home.

art: "Home" by Amber Ellis Eldredge,https://thecoloramber.me/ I will forever be in awe of a loving Father in Heaven who tailors personal curriculum for each of His children. As a former private teacher, the thought exhausts me and fills me with awe. Everyone gets his or her own private lessons, and I once heard someone say Father, in His great wisdom, is able to factor human stupidity into the lessons. Glib though that may be, it underscores that Father is able to turn not just our dimness, but even our outright naughtiness and rebellion into "beauty for ashes" (see Isaiah 61:3). I've taken the time to explain some of my sordid past in order to connect dots to the things I've learned because of my choice to stay home with my children and not return to work. Because the sweet sister in the reel that sparked this whole discussion spoke of the strengths and talents she developed because she went back to work, I need to talk about the strengths and talents I gained by staying home. These contrasts must be discussed for anyone honestly searching for their own individual, custom-made path according to the Lord's will. The contrasts aren't about a right or a wrong way to do life. I've learned that if you choose to do motherhood with a spiritual focus there's a higher and a holier way to do it. Ironically, this road is SO MUCH MESSIER along the way before you get to holy. From choosing, doing, watching, and speaking to other mothers over nearly five decades, I've learned there's a spiritual way and a temporal way to approach this. And there are huge problems with attempting to do a spiritual thing with a temporal focus. You will never do anything harder. Both are hard - make no mistake. But those who did without to stay home can assert - with all the kindness and love we possess: this celestial thing we must do in a temporal world can be done with a spiritual focus. It's a different kind of hard. It'll wreck you. It'll break you. By design. I really need to reiterate with added emphasis: trying to do a spiritual thing with a temporal focus is THE. HARDEST. I could not be sorrier that that will ever feel like judgment. You must believe me: it isn't. It's simply a reality that can't be warm-fuzzied away. We are practicing celestial living here in a telestial sphere - practicing it in the far less than ideal circumstances of opposition and resistance. That resistance is necessary, just like it is in weight resistance training, because those are the very circumstances that train and condition us to learn to love parenting. Even as we hate it. On my road, I was invited to make a legitimately painful sacrifice to be obedient to prophetic counsel. I often hated it. There was often very little joy involved. I'm pretty sure I lost much of myself along the way. And I still firmly maintain: there was no other way for me to learn what I learned. I've learned that it was worth it. I've learned it CAN be done if you're willing to do without what most view as essentials nowadays. We had newspaper at our windows in our new homes longer than everyone else in the neighborhood. We drove cars longer. I've dressed like a beggar most of my life. We didn't take vacations. I told myself my sacrifice was going to make my children's faith stronger, and I write this currently as the mother of two prodigals, learning their private lessons somewhere else. So, what was the sacrifice for? It was for me. In choosing this lifestyle: the lack in it, the difficulty of it because of my own weaknesses, the depression, the loss of identity - all of it - hollowed out a place in my broken heart. It's hollowed out and feeling quite empty without the promised fulness right now. But it's been hollowed out to hallow it. As empty and grief-stricken as it still so often is, this side of glory, it is bigger and has a greater capacity for the fulness that is coming. It's been promised in the covenant, and I trust the Maker and Keeper of the Covenant - the Promiser. And, He's the one who makes up the difference for my imperfect keeping of the covenant if I keep trying. I became someone I would never have become if I'd stayed in the swirling current of the world. It was vitally important to my children, lost as they currently are, for me to have stepped out of the current of the culture river that moves with the speed of rapids. It matters in a family to have one parent moving in more still waters - I DIDN'T STAY STILL! - I ONLY SAID MORE STILL! As chaotic as those baby years are, and the toddler years, the school years, the teenage years - as chaotic as all of it is - there is something centering and grounding for a family to have one parent at home who isn't moving in that current the same way. This is a different kind of stillness which can't be replicated any other way. Who did I become? A daughter of God who knows how to take hurts and questions to her Father and have frank conversations with Him. I became a more earnest student as I searched for answers. Any "strengths" I've developed in homemaking have come from decades of pee-poor practice. I wish I could have given a more orderly home to my little children, but if C.S. Lewis is right, and heaven and hell are both, indeed, retroactive, that means I'm becoming the mother they would have had all along (see The Great Divorce). I've wryly quipped that if I had continued working, I'd weigh a good 50 pounds more than this, be a strident activist liberal, almost certainly be divorced and very possibly a far less committed member of the church - if I were still a member. But hey. That's just what MY Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come showed ME. This choice was part of my tailor-made curriculum, and Father has used it well to teach me what I needed to learn to steady my walk back home, and secure that I really wanted to walk it. I'm so grateful that 29-year-old-girl - 40 years ago - with her finger SO far up her nose - put her dream career on the altar of her God and tearfully told Him - "You can have it. I want what You want more than what I want." And then as clumsily as it could possibly be done, spent the next 40 years trying to live like she meant it. Because now she does. Along the way, she had an epiphany similar to Robin Williams being bonked in the head by a baseball as Peter Pan in Hook, a flood of memories rushing in to remind him of who he really was, and that becoming a father was the reason he had decided to leave Neverland. It turns out, I've learned that while I thought I was born to teach, what I was really born to do is be a mother. And I learned it the very best way I could learn it - by coming home.

[Originally published March 17, 2017] I was privileged to share this essay with UN delegates at the annual Commission on the Status of Women in March 2017: A societal movement to diminish motherhood has been in the propaganda mills of elite central planners for generations. This is spelled out in new policy being considered at the UN, and calls for "measures to recognize, reduce and redistribute women's [and girls'] disproportionate [burden] of unpaid care of care and domestic work..." Apparently, the propaganda has culminated to this bold moment of honesty, or, the central planners have decided they can wait no longer to win you over with spin. Bottom line: the State wants your children. For over a century, the most forward thinking elitists have prepared for victory on this point: a well-ordered State can raise a child to serve the State better than its parents can. The State is right. If the end of raising a child is to see it serve the collective well, then the incubator of cradle to career oversight is perfect. Devoid of any real nurturing, the State can raise serfs to its service much more efficiently when love, nurturing, and family loyalty are removed. But, if the world still wants thinkers, innovators, and people with a sense of humanity, they still need homes with mothers and fathers. Children still need to see adult human beings - appropriately sacrificing for them - to know that this is the surest way to have a life of purpose and joy. The elitists have made a fatal mistake: they say "burden" like it's a bad thing. C.S. Lewis once said that homemaking was the ultimate career that made all other careers possible. Policy crafters and influencers forget something as they deride and dismiss motherhood and family life: once upon a time, someone took on the burden of raising...them. It's a glorious burden to lose your figure, your sleep, your mind - so you can bring another human being into the world, sit up with her when she has croup, help him get his science fair project finished, and teach him to ride a bicycle. It's a glorious burden to lose all dignity as you leave your house in sweats that have spit up on them because you're out of milk, and wear last year's dress to a piano recital - your stomach in complete knots as if you were the one performing. It's a glorious burden to read a seventh bed-time story to your children, the words slurring into near-drunken incoherence, as you are the only one who gets sleepy in this night-time ritual nearly as sacred as the family prayer. It's a glorious burden to be given a necklace made of macaroni, a sloppy kiss that smears spaghetti sauce on your cheek, and a tiny wad of a love note that says, "I love you, Mom - you are the BIST!" It's a glorious burden to wander, sleepless, through a darkened house, stopping at the beds of each of your sleeping children, pouring out wept prayers of gratitude and pleading that God will watch over them when you can't. Here is what the elitists don't know, or have forgotten, so far removed from such realities as humanity can be: the very thing that makes motherhood glorious is the fact that it is a burden - a back-breaking, mind-wracking, heart-stretching, soul-forging burden. It's a glorious burden because it turns us into better, higher human beings for having taken it on. Every human on this planet started life with a mother and a father. Not everyone takes to parenthood, and tragically, there are still too many children who don't have the love and sanctifying sacrifice of present parents. But through the millennia, there is no alternative way of raising children that can hold a candle to it. To buy the lie that this is a burden that should be "recognized, reduced, and redistributed" is absurd and dangerous. The glorious burden of motherhood is most definitely to be recognized - as the highest thing a woman can choose to do with her life. Motherhood should be recognized, but it should be reverenced - and protected - for the endangered species that the central planners are trying to make of it. In spite of the spin, this is the cold hard reality: in spite of the imperfect execution, there are still more parents, around the globe, that freely choose to take on parenting, because it is a glorious burden worth shouldering. Civilization depends on it. #MomStory #EmpowerMothers #LoveIsNotABurden #CSW61

Thanks to Broadway, there's a Bible story we all know just a little better than most: the story of Joseph, his coat of many colors, and his brothers of many jealousies. It strikes chords of common experience in practically every human with a pulse. The story of Jacob's family rivals any reality TV show of today in drama, and there's something for everyone to relate to and learn from in studying it. Joseph was my favorite Bible story long before the fabulous musical came along; I've loved it since I was a little kid. Without fully understanding why, I knew Joseph was different - even special. Talk about what to do with those lemons life hands you. Of course, this was before I knew he was my grandpa. Even as a little kid, I could recognize exceptional behavior in difficult circumstances, and hoped I was a person capable of that. Joseph's life pre-Egypt was complicated enough; you can't tell me those brothers loved and adored him till Dad gave him a coat. There had to have already been obvious preference shown, just as there was between the wives. And kids would notice something like tension between their mothers. Then Joseph guilelessly shares his dreams - I like to think it was guileless anyway, maybe just my opinion... And then the coat. "But the Lord was with Joseph..." (Genesis 39:21) Warning: I am going to do a LOT of extrapolating now to lay out a theory, based on what I've learned from my own trials. I've handled a few of my trials with the grace of Joseph. No, it's true - the Lord actually confirmed this through the power of the Holy Ghost, so I'm only reporting the facts. That's one end on the scale of how I handle life's afflictions. However, the way I handle most of my trials lands firmly on the other end of that scale and has all the grace of a petulant toddler. Let's start with some absolutes: believers know that God is always good. This is His character. It's completely against His nature as God to ever DO anything unkind, cruel, or evil. Of course, this is a sticking point with non-believers who insist there must not be a God because the world is so full of unkindness, cruelty and evil. They fail to acknowledge these are products of a fallen world, and the individual agency of humans. But - if you start from a premise that the SOURCE of these things is never God - and that He CAN'T by His very nature AS God - DO anything evil - that means the source of the evil will never be Him. Believers know that God loves all His children - unequivocally, eternally, and equally. Our value to Him is completely independent of our behavior. THANK. HEAVENS. So what does THAT mean - "the Lord was with Joseph" ?? If He is always with His children and loves us all the same - what is up with all these different outcomes? SOME people serve as slaves and never get put in charge of the household - God's with THEM, isn't He? Others go to prison for years and rot there - unjustly - and God is with them as well? What gives? This is the part where I extrapolate. If you ask a person who has gone through something extreme: waiting for days to be rescued from the bottom of a well, being forced into slavery - because there's more slavery today than ever before in history - being unjustly accused of something you didn't do and not being believed, or languishing years in prison even though you're innocent - believers will tell you God was with you the whole time. Yet sometimes, in the waiting, it really can feel like you're completely alone. If Jesus Himself can cry from the cross, "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) , then clearly we're meant to experience the sensation of total abandonment as part of mortality. The meme that perkily suggests: "Remember when it feels like God has abandoned you: the teacher is always silent during the test" is SO not helpful while the suffering continues - and even increases. But if the Lord is with US - as He was with Joseph - OUR job is to be WITH HIM. Be here now. Maintaining a spiritual focus is some of the highest, holiest stuff we practice in this life, and if we start with the premise that He is in fact - with us - than the practice is to find Him - feel Him - tell Him you're not having a great time - ask Him to just be with you and mourn with you. In my worst moments, I found myself going straight to Gethsemane or Calvary in my mind, and asking in wonder, "This is wrecking me - breaking me - and You did worse for all of us. How did you do it? WHY did you do it?" In answering this, I would come back to the unequivocal, eternal, and equal love. He did it because He loves us - for the joy that was set before Him (Hebrews 12:2) knowing His infinite sacrifice was our only way home. THIS is what finally taught me to praising Him for the experience. My own suffering has led me to this conclusion: if I'm willing to be in the moment of suffering with Jesus, the space of suffering is so tiny that you can't help but bump into Him there. He's right there. When the scriptures tell us the Lord was WITH Joseph, that's code for "and He'll be with you, too." Those six words mean Joseph didn't abandon God because of unexpected outcomes and circumstances - so God didn't abandon Him. To be clear: while some humans MAY abandon God in their suffering - allowing it to turn into misery - God will never abandon you. Ever. First premise: it's against His nature to do so. Never-ending trials are calculus problems on our earth test. When I was in my worst, several rescue packs were sent by the power of the Holy Ghost to buoy me up and help me drown out the voice of the destroyer that would demand answers and meaning immediately. I read or listened to these talks repeatedly over months of illness and recovery. They were salve to spiritual wounds and articulated emotions I was experiencing: "Lessons from Liberty Jail," Jeffrey R. Holland, BYU Devotional, September 7, 2008 ( https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland/lessons-liberty-jail/ ) "Hope Ya Know, We Had a Hard Time," Quentin L. Cook, General Conference, October 2008 ( https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2008/10/hope-ya-know-we-had-a-hard-time?lang=eng ) "One Percent Better," Michael A. Dunn, General Conference, October 2021 ( https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/10/54dunn?lang=eng ) As God's beloved children, there is room to go to Him and say "ouch." Repeatedly. Telling Him we're having a hard time is not murmuring. Telling Him we're discouraged that the progress is slow is not whining. More often than delivering us, Jesus strengthens our backs for burdens too heavy to carry, or gives us strength to forgive the unforgivable. Sometimes - all He does is sit with us and mourn with us, because He knows we're having a hard time. He's already had it. Jesus didn't go into that garden and die on the cross - completely alone - to leave you to do it alone. He lived the worst couple of days ever lived by a human - half human that He was - so you don't have to do it alone. The Lord will be with you. It's not in His character to ever leave you.

The world's a little weird right now, don't you think? You've probably noticed; the shift is real. Things are not as they've always been, and changes are coming faster. To me, it kind of reminds me of when you're about to deliver a baby. One minute, you know the baby is coming any day, but everything is still the way it's always been. Then quite suddenly, the baby is coming TODAY. And once that hard labor starts, you are living in an intensity you're pretty sure you're not going to survive... until suddenly the baby comes. Am I the only one who feels like that describes modern life right now - an intensity you're pretty sure you're not going to survive? Somehow, it's starting to feel like the whole planet is yearning for the return of the Savior - even if those who don't worship Him don't recognize the feeling, much less anticipate His return. This might be a stretch, but to me, the Marvel world is a multi-million dollar craze that seems to be expressing the world's craving a savior. I've told friends lately that I feel like the whole world is in a spiritual kind of labor. The intensity of everyone's lives is so extreme - it feels like every single one of us in hard labor - living in the rhythm of breathing, pushing, and resting until the next contraction. Somehow we're all managing to have relationships with each other between contractions. Neal A. Maxwell taught: "God will also 'hasten' His work (D&C 88:73). He will also "shorten' the last days 'for the elect's sake" (Matthew 24:22); hence, there will be a compression of events (see JS- M 1:20). Furthermore, 'all things will be in commotion" (D&C 88:91). (Neal A. Maxwell, "My Servant Joseph," General Conference, April 1992) ( https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1992/04/my-servant- joseph?lang=eng ) I don't know about you, but I feel that compression everywhere. One of the things that makes the relentless intensity so challenging is that it puts most of us - almost chronically - in an emotional fight-or-flight state. Because of this, if I'm not careful, it's too easy to react as an object with no agency. I feel the need to more intentionally practice acting like never before. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke about how to navigate turbulent times in his October 2010 conference address, "Of Things That Matter Most" ( https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2010/10/of-things-that-matter-most?lang=eng ). His counsel is still relevant 15 years later; living at this heightened level of intensity makes it crucial to purge non-essential activities and pay more attention to reducing and eliminating distractions (ironic, as you're most likely reading this on your phone). I've found that when I'm finally left with what matters most, it's what the scriptures call real (see Jacob 4:13 and Alma 32:35). Real is lasting - it's always so - it doesn't change. In a fallen, fickle world, that is deeply comforting to consider - even though real is messy and unpredictable and cannot be controlled. No wonder so many are annoyed by real. Yet - when your life becomes only about real, it becomes more obvious that there is simply no time left for pretense or fake - for counterfeits. And the more you invest in real, and pretense is incrementally left behind, you start to realize there was never time for anything but real all along. Here's the weird part about how the world has shifted: this topic used to be a bit of a DUH. But in this more intense world where AI is filtering algorithms to curate increasing online residence, it feels more important to recognize the difference between real and not real. Not real = counterfeit. In a world prior to the Bridegroom returning, let's just call not real what it really is - counterfeit. Counterfeits are designed with the explicit purpose of looking and feeling like real - with the intent to deceive. Counterfeit connotes something more than something simply not real. It implies by design.  Which only makes sense when you think of a Creator and a destroyer. If you're familiar with scripture, you'll recognize the disparity between real and counterfeit in the building of two kingdoms simultaneously on the planet - God's kingdom and the world's kingdom - which Satan has been noisily attempting to rule and reign over since Adam and Eve exited Eden. Anciently, the building of God's kingdom was so successful at one time it was literally taken up into heaven. Moses chapter 7 in the Pearl of Great Price recounts the conditions which caused this miraculous departure: "And the Lord called his people ZION, because they were of one heart and mind , and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them ." (Moses 7:18) Incredible timing: shortly thereafter, work began on the construction of the Tower of Babel. I've often wondered if Zion leaving the earth was an impetus for the first centralized project of building the counter kingdom - scripturally referred to as Babylon. Zion and Babylon have been building simultaneously since the world began. They've both been recruiting citizens as well. It's helpful to study the conditions which characterize each kingdom - particularly through the lens of reality. Look at what is being built and how it's being built. Most importantly, study outcomes by contrasting the potential fruit of each. I started this side-by-side list a few years ago to better compare the two kingdoms. I continue to add to it as I consider another aspect of each. This is what I have so far: Zion—REAL Babylon—COUNTERFEIT Eternal Temporal (can’t be sustained indefinitely) Built on faith—hope—charity Built on greed—hostility Change flows UP Change flows DOWN Focuses on individuals & families Focuses on the collective whole Service oriented Oriented on selfishness—BEING served Decisions based on principles Decisions based on emotions/personalities Education is for self-governance & self-reliance Ignorance is preferred for subservience (education is for job training only) Reliance upon God Reliance upon the State Creates abundance and lives in it - fosters cooperation Creates scarcity and lives in it - fosters competition - winners & losers Lives by & honors the law of the harvest Seeks for instant gratification & erasing natural consequences Citizens freely choose to live God's law Citizens must be bribed or threatened into compliance This list has been helpful in two important ways. First: it's helped me recognize patterns in the scriptures - particularly the Book of Mormon. Motives and objectives are more clear; it's easier to recognize effective methods for intended outcomes - whether they were intentional or not. From the city of Enoch and the Tower of Babel to the communities of 4th Nephi and the end days of Mormon and Moroni - the patterns play out predictably. This list has also been important because if those patterns are predictable through the millennia of scriptural records, they are in our day as well. Since human nature doesn't change, the patterns continue to play out, and will until the Savior returns. Somehow, with the intensity of living we're facing, knowing this makes it easier to navigate without fear. One kingdom is being built to last - forever. Knowing the other is temporal - temporary - exposes the folly of aligning with it in any way. Suddenly, stripping away anything not real takes on a different urgency. Knowing Babylon is temporary underscores the resounding witness of President Dallin H. Oaks as he simply testified: "This is real. Let us be a part of it." ( https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2025/10/58oaks?lang=eng )

Several months ago, I learned that a young adult in our neighborhood had changed the pursuit of her professional career. After graduating from college in a rigorous and competitive field, she realized that path wasn't for her, and set about to discover where to go next after such a heavy investment of her time and money. I've found myself thinking of that brief conversation often. I admire her deeply for her pluck. It's generally counter to human nature to invest highly in anything - only to then leave it and go another direction. Somehow, we tend to think we've wasted something in the switch. Humans must hate changing direction for more than just the fact it involves change. Boyd K. Packer said it this way: "I am reminded of the statement "There are two many who struggle and climb and finally reach the top of the ladder, only to find that it is leaning against the wrong wall." ( https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/boyd-k-packer/arts-spirit-lord/ ) This recent conversation has gotten me thinking how passionately we humans invest in some choices - how committed we can become even when it's looking like those choices aren't good ones. Or worse - if the choices are downright disastrous - even, potentially - spiritually fatal. How do you develop the integrity necessary to recognize and admit you've leaned your ladder against the wrong wall? How do you develop the courage necessary to climb down that ladder? And finally, how do you develop the humility necessary to start at the bottom again, choose another wall, lean your ladder against it - possibly with any advantages of what was invested in the previous climb completely lost - and start over? These are the qualities someone will need who has leaned a spiritual ladder on a wall with more serious importance than even a career choice. If you've chosen a worldly wall that will lead right into the great and spacious building, how do you possibly recognize that that choice even needs to be reconsidered? It takes great integrity to recognize and admit you're in the wrong place. It takes great courage to withstand the mocking and derision and climb down. It takes great humility to grab the rod instead, and start climbing towards the Tree of Life. There are scriptural models of people who have invested their lives at the top of a ladder on the wrong building, and their stories are remarkable because they recognized it, climbed down, and sacrificed all that was invested in getting them to the top of that wrong building. Likewise, there are scriptural models of those who made that same unwise investment of their lives, and have gone to incredible lengths to justify their choice and stay exactly where they are. In the Book of Mormon, the leaders of the Zoramites - a group who dissented from the Nephites - quietly went among the people to see how the preaching of Alma and Amulek had affected public opinion. They did this via stealthy, dissembling polling. They were angry at the teaching because the scripture states "it did destroy their craft" (Alma 35:3). The phrase - " destroy their craft " captures the idea of not wanting to face the reality of having made a bad investment. It perfectly describes a person atop the ladder propped up against the wrong building, needing to climb down and start again. What does it cost to climb down the ladder, find the right building, and climb up again? Is it really so painful to admit the original building was wrong - that the time invested in the original climb was a waste of time? The Zoramite leaders were prepared to create an ancient cancel culture to keep from facing that reality. Not only did they eject community members who had accepted Alma's and Amulek's teaching, but they became angry at the neighboring community - the people of Ammon - who were willing to give them a place to live. And when the people of Ammon ignored their demand, the Zoramites petitioned Lamanite neighbors to intervene forcefully (see Alma 35:1-10). That is some pretty serious commitment to the wrong building. The most obvious scriptural example of refusing to recognize a wrong-minded investment is the Pharisees in the time of Jesus. If what this young Rabbi from Nazareth was teaching was true - if He really was who He said He was - they were most definitely at the top of a ladder leaning against the wrong building. Such was their commitment to their wrong investment - when confronted with the idea that it WAS wrong - the Pharisees went to incredible lengths indeed to protect their "craft." Rather than climb down and reclimb with new ideas - saving ideas - they resorted to plotting the crucifixion of the very Messiah they claimed to preach of. Again - tragically serious commitment to the wrong building. But the scriptural stories of Alma and Amulek, Zeezrom, Paul - are beautiful examples of men who had the courage, humility, and integrity to start over again, being willing to sacrifice the investment of possibly years of being atop the wrong building. Every repentance story is the story of someone who got to the top of a ladder against the wrong building - recognized it - and had the courage, humility, and integrity to do something about it. As I so often find myself praying for loved ones atop the wrong building, I've found myself asking that they have enough of all three of these qualities in order to sacrifice the "craft" they've committed to and climb back. It takes courage, humility, and integrity to repent. C. ourage H. umility I. ntegrity CHI is the Asian philosophy of a vital life force which gives all living things energy, health and well being. I've decided spiritual chi is having the courage, humility, and integrity to correct course as quickly as you're able to see you've committed any part of yourself - your heart, your mind, your commitment of time or resources - to a wrong thing. No matter the cost. That's what courage and humility and integrity are for. Because I don't know about you, but my life has been starting over again too many times to count. I'm learning to look at my own reluctance to NOT want to start over as a huge red flag. Why? What am I unwilling to give up? Thanks to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have wasted nothing climbing to the top of wrong buildings. It's all counted as experience for our good if we're willing to start over at the bottom of another ladder (see D&C 122:7). I just want to be willing to scamper right down the minute I recognize there's a better building to invest in.