Mormons at our Giveaway

Great Giveaway
Six months ago my husband was laid off from his job. New work has not come easily and our financial situation has remained very tough. During this time we have learned new lessons about receiving help from others. For the most part, this help has come from close friends, family, and systems set up within the LDS church for families in need. At the invitation of our dear friends, however, last Saturday my family drove to the parking lot of the First Assembly of God in Mesa just a few miles from our home for their “Great Giveaway”, a “totally free event for those in need in our community.” Receiving such help is never easy, but we were undoubtedly outside of our comfort zone in accepting help from a neighboring Christian faith.

Baptists at our Barbecue
One of our favorite movies is Baptists at our Barbecue. While depicting the comical side of LDS culture, the focus of this story is the struggle of a community to heal itself from a serious religious division between the Baptists and the Mormons living in the small rural town of Longfellow (or Longwinded, to its residents). In an attempt to heal the community two new members of the Mormon church’s leadership and newcomers to the town suggest that the Mormon branch host a community barbeque. The response? “But none of the Baptists are actually going to show, right?” asks one concerned Mormon. The community of Longwinded does come together, enjoying food, sports and a talent show, and they begin to heal. When Mormon member Sister Wingate hears the mountains humming to her, Baptists and Mormons alike go together to the mountains to hear. Another newcomer to the town incredulously asks, Tartan, one of the new Mormon leaders, “You actually think it’s from heaven?” To which Tartan responds, “Who cares? Look at everyone!” He is watching a miracle taking place. Personal religious conflict melts into hugs and forgiveness. The community, though still separate in their faiths, now comes together to serve each other. Tartan reflects, “It was as if everyone had just been waiting for a sign from God to finally get along.”

Christian Courage
Comedy can be a powerful tool to help us understand problems in our society. The chasms of difference between Mormons and neighboring Christian faiths are very real and have a long history. LDS claims to the very title of a Christian Church causes much of the contention because of fundamental doctrinal differences. Do we diminish our goal of standing for truth and righteousness by finding peace in ourselves with what we claim as another’s erroneous religious
understandings in the name of bridging the chasm between us? I proclaim that the answer is no. The key is not to perceive misunderstandings or doctrinal differences as a challenge to our faith. Rather, as Elder Robert D. Hales explains, “True disciples of Christ see opportunity in the midst of opposition,”* an opportunity to answer with boldness, concern, and love, not with overbearance, for personal vindication or in judgment. And “sometimes true disciples must show Christian courage by saying nothing at all” because I believe that only then can bridge building be the focus. President Henry B Eyring claimed that, “God will help us see a difference in someone else not as a source of irritation but as a contribution. The Lord can help you see and value what another person brings which you lack. More than once the Lord has helped me see His kindness in giving me association with someone whose difference from me was just the help I needed. That has been the Lord’s way of adding something I lacked to serve Him better.”†

Unity
During these days of trial and struggle we are being “prepared as a people for our glorious destiny”‡ as servants of a king. Part of that preparation requires unity. “The miracle of unity is being granted to us as we pray and work for it in the Lord’s way.”§ When our family chose to attend the Great Giveaway, we did so in the spirit of reaching that goal. We needed help. They offered it. We accepted. We went and found a few items to help us out, and we stayed to enjoy some of their youth worship. Along the way we connected with our friends and others of this neighboring faith. We saw lots of differences in our religions, but we also saw lots of similarities. And we saw Goodness, and we were blessed. Sister Wingate is right when she said, after the healing had taken place, “We are all eternally bound together.” When we reach out to participate in service with others in our community we follow the 13th Article of the Mormon Faith where it says, “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” Furthermore, as Tartan promises in the movie, “If we do this, our burdens will be made light. I promise.”

Thank you, Mesa First. Thank you for lightening some of our burdens. We hope yours have been lightened too as a result of your service.

Love,
The Rob & Verena Beckstrand Family

* October 2008 LDS General Conference
† IBID
‡ Pres. Henry Be Eyring October 2008 LDS General Conference
§ Pres. Henry Be Eyring October 2008 LDS General Conference

Effective and Efficient, Cute and Inspirational

My friend Keelee is always reminding me that Steven Covey's 7 Habits for Highly Effective People tells us to be EFFECTIVE with people and EFFICIENT with tasks.

This is me being effective with Merisa on a Saturday morning.

She's coloring with pens from my studying pencil holder. I'm not being very efficient at getting my journal writing done. She is cute, though, isn't she?

I did eventually efficiently finish my journal writing at the dining room table, in between times of being effective with Merisa, who also liked spending time with me at the dining room table.

Still cute, hunh?

While I write in my journal usually just once a week, this effective/efficient process is repeated many times during the week as I pursue my studies as assigned by my mentor and as the director of a Statesmanship Mentor Circle. Here's my thoughts on how my children fit into those studies:

Never settle for less than a classic. The world starves for classics. Only man’s greatest creations will fill the world’s hunger. It hungers for news of God’s impressions and man’s reasoning thereon. Man starves himself who ignores the past and the future. The future holds the seeds of tomorrow’s classics. Conversations with ‘hat’ and ‘cat’ and ‘mat’ are complex theorems. Buildings of block and brick and stick are rocket science. Eight plus seven is the solution to societal ills. Play ground feats will bring peace to nations. Watch and learn.

[My own meditation after reading those of Marcus Aurelius.]

Must Be an Age Thing . . .

I don't know what it is about age, but the struggle to repent when we find ourselves on the wrong path or simply facing a new path that we don't know how to navigate very well is only getting harder. This has been a tough week for me. I'm feeling the stress of lots of new changes in my life. I haven't handled them very well sometimes, and I found myself pleading often for God's love to enter my heart.

This morning before church wasn't much better than the rest of the week. If I didn't have a testimony that Church is for the sinner not the saint, I would have stayed home. That testimony is only stronger now. Since I print the Sacrament bulletin, I knew what the Sacrament hymn was. A very familiar hymn to many members, I wasn't prepared for the love that would fill my heart to overflowing as we sang this before partaking of the Sacrament today.

193 I Stand All Amazed (click on the link to hear it now)
1. I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,
Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.
I tremble to know that for me he was crucified,
That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died.

[Chorus] Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me
Enough to die for me! Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

2. I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine
To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine,
That he should extend his great love unto such as I,
Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.

[Chorus] Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me
Enough to die for me! Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

3. I think of his hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt!
Such mercy, such love and devotion can I forget?
No, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy seat,
Until at the glorified throne I kneel at his feet.

[Chorus] Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me
Enough to die for me! Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

Text and music: Charles H. Gabriel, 1856-1932

Sometimes God allows us to struggle alone for a while, but His love and His grace are nevertheless real. I'm so grateful I hung in there this week and continued knocking until He answered. He continues answering my prayers and giving a rebellious soul His wonderful peace.

Sweet Clara Schumann

Since I have begun blogging, I had to check this book out again about Clara Schumann. Susanna Reich tells a beautiful story of Clara Schumann: Piano Virtuoso that I couldn't miss posting something about her in my blog. Her story really touched me and left me feeling drawn to her somehow.

I first learned of Clara from the library's copy of Beethoven's Wig, a wonderful compilation with amusing lyrics for classical music. My favorite song on the first CD is "Harmony".

Sweet Clara Schumann played the piano well
And when she played her music cast a magic spell
Her husband Robert wrote the melody
The Schumanns were a family joined in harmony
They'd sing and play
Together every day
Together they made music merrily
The Schumanns were a family joined in harmony


They had some children in their happy home
So they would never ever have to play alone
When mom and daddy played their happy song
The children tapped their tippy toes and sang along
They played their song
The kids all sang along
Together they made music merrily
The Schumanns were a family joined in harmony

OK so Clara was a concert pianist and composer and Robert a composer (in case anyone didn't know). Clara performed in her first concerts in the spring of 1830 (March 6-April 7, according to the book). She continues performing until 1891, 4 years before her death. Based on my admiration for her, I like to think that she was Heavenly Father's herald for the Restoration of His church again on the earth.Some favorite quotes from the book:
"Work is always the best diversion from pain." Clara

Reich tells us that Clara "immersed herself in her work and found in music the comfort she needed."

New Music Journal from 1865:
"There are many virtuosos who are not inferior to her in technique or general interpretation, but she distinguishes herself from all the rest through her high level of musicality, which gives her performances the stamp of a divine summons."

Yes, sweet Clara Schumann must have been

divine.

“INVITATION TO THE PAIN OF LEARNING”: my thoughts

at the brink
Just over two years after stepping up my education with HAPE Group and 7 years after finally learning was education was really all about in Oliver DeMille’s A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century, I stand at the brink of my mentored education.

Advanced friendship had pulled me through wonderful classics in HAPE Group, but in August of 2008 we found it time to part ways, each to their own avenue of getting the education they needed. It took me four more months to prepare for and then really find my own new path.

By being mentored in my education I hope to: maximize my study time and feel confident that I'm getting the best education possible, more effectively meet my need to learn, fill in the gaps of my education, apply and realign my existing knowledge with correct/higher educational principles, experience a new level of educational training (a mentor), improve my writing along with all of these goals, gain a better sense of my mission and guidance in building my second tower.

With the education gained via the mentoring experience, I hope to: more fully experience Leadership Education so that I can lead others along that path, better understand educational theories so I can lead others to true educational principles, increase my impact on the world, help anyone in any educational situation to be inspired and do the hard work necessary to get a great education, understand the mentor process so that I can help others mentor, spread the impact of the 5 environments of learning, improve my ability to help my children.

now
The process begins with reading and responding to Mortimer Adler’s 1941 article, “Invitation to the Pain of Learning”. While I have continued my studies during the last few months since HAPE Group ended, my first response was complete joy. To follow the analogy of the teacher who told his student to come to him when he wanted knowledge as much as he wanted air, I was finally breathing again. At least a little.

I know I'm ready to be mentored. I just do. The past four months have proved it to me. I'm so relieved and excited and ready to use some mental muscles that I haven't been able to use for a while and in a new and more intense fashion than before.

Adler, et al
As I read Adler’s essay I love it, and I'm also thinking of everything else I've learned about education and trying to see how it all fits together.

When I think of the pain of learning, I also think of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Finding Flow. Pain, but pain with a purpose. Pain that is just the right amount and permeated by meaning.

When I think of pain in education, I also think of my neighbor who must spend several hours each afternoon helping her children with their home work of gaining information. Then I think of How Schools Work: A Sociological Analysis of Education by K B DeMarrais (???) and the rite of passage. Certainly school isn’t always easy. In our society it has become a difficult thing that everyone just does. Whether or not it has meaning or merit beyond that, is certainly debatable. The difference I see is the goal; gain sterile, useless information? Or gain knowledge and wisdom in order to be transformed? Both have their prices in our society, both in the lack and the gain.

Recently, when I think of getting education at almost no expense or by “capillary attraction”, I think of John Holt’s How Children Learn. I don’t need fancy curriculum because my children already know how to learn. They just need a few simple tools and some inspiration. The kind of expenses required for Scholar Phase, however, is less known to me in many ways. Regularly and continually working over my head is still strange to me.

right now
After the joy of returning to scholarly studies, my review of Adler’s article while writing this short essay has humbled me some. I have tasted the discipline of Scholar Phase, but I have not yet feasted.

freedom

I wanted to say that Friday's park day was the MOST FUN park day ever, and so sweet because of all the less enjoyable ones my family has attended.

Right off the bat I got the long jump rope out and gave everyone who wanted to (including a 12 year old boy!!!) a chance to jump. We called them by name and kept cycling through all the kids as long as they wanted, pretty much. The other moms gathered round and got involved, and we took turns turning the rope. It lasted maybe 15 minutes (though I don't really know) and was very relaxed. Then the kids played really well on their own, though moms felt good about spending time with them too as needed. (check out: Loving the Village )

I LOVED it!! And, of course, I loved the visit with moms after wards. But knowing I had put my/the kids first made the visit even better.

--OK, so maybe it just seems like the best park day because it's the first one I have finally found FREEDOM from guilt. I get so excited to share with my friends that I just keep shoving the kids away. By starting and focusing on the kids for just a bit at the beginning then I do what I know I should do, and really do want to do, first. Then it's easy to do what I'm much more inclined to do.

. . . such a blessing to witness and be a part of a transformation, a transformation first and foremost of MYSELF.

wow

Thanks, Mom!

The wisdom of ages is available to anyone willing to pay its price.*

Growing up, mom was my most wonderful teacher. As a student of education and while learning of the 7 Keys of Great Teaching†, my gratitude for my mother’s personal courage and discipline as my teacher has only increased. Mom never read a book that taught her to use these 7 keys to help me learn, but use them she did. Even though my mother is still living and practicing these principles, allow me to reminisce about the education I received at her hands.

Mother taught me to value the best, God’s word and the best that man had to offer. She respected those who made education a priority from any class of life. “Before they went to bed, Francie and Neeley had to read a page of the Bible and a page from Shakespeare. That was a rule.”‡ My life was immeasurably different than that of Francie and Neeley, but the memories of reading and sharing the lessons of sacred scripture and Shakespeare together with my mother are still truly precious. Mother also passed along the important lessons she had learned in 4-H from her own mother. Learning wasn’t about a merit badge; it was about blue ribbons.

I remember my mother telling me she was a late blooming reader. To me there was nothing late about it. Mother loved to share what she was learning and her efforts to study great books and improve her talents of writing were right on time and unequivocally inspiring for me. I often saw her or Dad studying by lamp light on the couch early in the morning. Sometimes I curled up next to her or Dad and enjoyed the opportunity for quiet sharing.

Mother was always inviting me, inviting me to reach higher. In college I sought advice in my quest to follow her educational example and asked her, “Do I really have to read Jane Eyre in order to be well read? This part is really depressing.” To which she answered, “Yes, you need to read it, if you want to be considered well read.” I finished the book and continued my quest to be well read.

Some things I didn’t see with my eyes or hear with my ears, but understood, nevertheless. She taught me to be my own expert, and to seek unlikely allies in persons from all walks of life. Then she gave me the freedom to fail.

For mom education simply isn’t complicated. It is about seeking truth and then seeking understanding that changes a person inside and, as a result, the world. True principles are her guiding light and she holds them high so all can see. Mom continues to follow her passion for all that is best and diligently sets the example of what it takes to get a great education.

With all my heart,
THANK YOU and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

* P 2 DeMille, Oliver & Rachel. Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning. George Wythe College Press: Cedar City, UT.
† Classics not textbooks; mentors not professors; inspire, not require; structure time not content; quality not conformity; simplicity not complexity; you not them
‡ Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Perennial Classics: New York, 1998.