A Prayer of Faith

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?”

“Joseph 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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Merrilee Boyack has done it again! The author of The Parenting Breakthrough and Strangling Your Husband is NOT an Option has brought us yet another way to enhance our family lives in the delightfully readable and easily practicable52 Weeks of Fun Family Service.

Whether you are new to the idea of family service projects, or already incorporate a great deal of service into your family life, 52 Weeks of Fun Family Service can help inspire you and guide you to ways to touch the lives of others and strengthen your own family in the process. Read the rest of this entry »

I went to the cannery yesterday.

Ordinarily, I love the cannery. I love the spirit that is there, a spirit of industry, unity, self-reliance, and obedience.

We were cruising: 50 cans of orange drink, 140 cans of white wheat, many cans of sugar, 50 cans of red wheat….

“How much wheat are you putting in those cans?” the missionary asked the sister across the table from me. She was weighing cans just as I was.

“Five pounds,” was her reply.

He proceeded to tell her that she wasn’t putting enough in. The chart read 5 pounds, 13 ounces. (How did we all miss that?)

Feelings of panic and dread came quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s review is a scrumptious little Valentine’s bon-bon. It’s The UnValentine, by Sam Beeson with paintings by Jesse Draper; it’s delightful; it’s adorable; and it’s something completely different. Beeson and Draper’s respective works are well married in this piece, as they both perfectly portray overwrought teenage romance tinged with a comically naive cynicism.

It’s a stand-alone piece, just one brilliant, darling, hilarious poem exquisitely illustrated with spectacular mixed-media work of original oil paintings and vintage valentines amidst candy hearts and gaudy gilt frames that would do any Victorian parlor proud. The poem tells of Lily, lost in her distaste for all things Valentine, who experiences a sudden change of heart with an unexpected note from Ray, a boy just as romantically disenfranchised as she. I can’t help but see it as something of a bound printed matter version of performance art–beautifully crafted, flawlessly executed, and yet, tantalizingly obscure. While I loved it, I honestly didn’t quite know what to make of it upon first read. Luckily, I had the chance to exchange an email with the author, Sam Beeson, and was able to ask him a few questions. Read the rest of this entry »