ARK Week

February 17 is National Random Acts of Kindness Day and February 9-15 is International Random Acts of Kindness Week.  In honor of GOD'S LOVE IS KIND (and PATIENT, because sometimes the greatest kindness you can show is patience) and to culminate our month of Valentine devotionals and "be doers of the word and not hearers only," we spent many days the second half of February in RAK, or ARK. (I like the sound of the acronym ARK better than RAK and it ties in with the suggested movie at the end.)

Our devotionals continued through the month, but the remainder were focused on kindness, tied in with charity. We spent a lot of time in 1 Corinthians 13, reading, pondering, and discussing meanings and applications. We made heart garlands for reminders:

We partook of so many scriptures I'm not going to list them all. (If you have an LDS Hymnal you will find most of them at the bottom of all the hymns listed below.) We memorized Ephesians 4:31-32. We read and discussed the scope and details of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Another activity we did was to make conversation hearts out of paper and write on them the things we would like to hear other people say to us. This was an individual assignment. I thought of this activity last Valentine's Day and I learned so much about my children in seeing what they wanted to hear that I wanted to do it again this year as we discussed being kind to one another in our speech.

I would much rather be quietly anonymous about this next part but I decided to share because I hope it is catching. This world is in sore need of kindness; I don't know anyone who couldn't do with more of it. Every day we made a point to purposely plan and execute some out-of-the-ordinary act of kindness. Some acts were big, some were small, but each one changed our hearts. The family catch-phrase all day for many days (and it continues) was "that was a random act of kindness." Sometimes it was said in jest, other times I caught my kids being just a little more aware of what they were doing and saying. For my part, being in this ARK frame of mind changed how I looked at every person and every situation for two weeks (and counting) and influenced my reactions. As a result, this is something I want to continue, with at least one purposed ARK day per month. We should be kind always, in all things, but it's too easy to fall into ruts and routines and not really notice and think about what you are or aren't doing so I think having some standout days will help keep the fire burning.

I don't want to share everything we did, but I will list a few of our kindness adventures.
     -Made smiley-face-stickered, heart-shaped notes saying, "You are loved" and went to the high school and taped them to cars in the parking lot.
       -Took a box of donuts to a nearby urgent care clinic for the doctor and nurses there with a note of thanks for the great care and long hours. (We had recently been there twice for x-rays for two different kids and on one of those days these people were so busy they were nearly worked into the ground and the doctor didn't get any break whatsoever.)
       -Baked cookies and took them to our bishopric (ecclesiastical leaders) with notes thanking them for their testimonies, service, and examples.

The remainder of this post shares many of the things I used in our kindness devotionals.

“Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.”  (Marvin J. Ashton)

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation

"9 Ways Random Acts of Kindness Can Heal a Lonely Heart"

Let's Do Some Good Today

"101 Easy Ideas for Random Acts of Kindness"


"Have I Done Any Good?"
"Lord, I Would Follow Thee"
"Kindness Begins with Me"
"A Special Gift is Kindness"
"Love One Another"
"Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words"

Think Before You Speak!

T    Is it true?

H   Is it helpful?

I     Is it inspiring?

N   Is it necessary?

K   Is it kind?

I also shared the following story that I have remembered since the first time I heard it. I searched and found it in Gordon B. Hinckley's "Some Lessons I Learned as a Boy."

“An older boy and his young companion were walking along a road which led through a field. They saw an old coat and a badly worn pair of men’s shoes by the roadside, and in the distance they saw the owner working in the field.

“The younger boy suggested that they hide the shoes, conceal themselves, and watch the perplexity on the owner’s face when he returned.

“The older boy … thought that would not be so good. He said the owner must be a very poor man. So, after talking the matter over, at his suggestion, they concluded to try another experiment. Instead of hiding the shoes, they would put a silver dollar in each one and … see what the owner did when he discovered the money. So they did that.

“Pretty soon the man returned from the field, put on his coat, slipped one foot into a shoe, felt something hard, took it out and found a silver dollar. Wonder and surprise [shone] upon his face. He looked at the dollar again and again, turned around and could see nobody, then proceeded to put on the other shoe; when to his great surprise he found another dollar. His feelings overcame him. … He knelt down and offered aloud a prayer of thanksgiving, in which he spoke of his wife being sick and helpless and his children without bread. … He fervently thanked the Lord for this bounty from unknown hands and evoked the blessing of heaven upon those who gave him this needed help.

“The boys remained [hidden] until he had gone.” They had been touched by his prayer and felt something warm within their hearts. As they left to walk down the road, one said to the other, “Don’t you have a good feeling?” (Adapted from Bryant S. Hinckley, Not by Bread Alone, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1955, p. 95.)

The film Evan Almighty is a pretty good family flick that has a great message. (There is a little potty humor in it, I'm sorry to say.) The premise is that if you want to change the world, you do it one act of random kindness at a time (ARK).

This February has been life changing for me with these Valentine devotionals. I hope I never forget what I learned and felt. And I hope that everyone will catch the ARK and be a little kinder.

On Top of the World

This is a long post but it was a long time in the making. Our geology and geography studies continued as we moved on to a unit about mountains. We began this unit in the middle of November but with the holidays and all that goes with them there were several interruptions and so it took longer than normal to complete (and even longer afterward for me to put this post together bit by bit). I'm listing resources used as well as showing and telling most of what we did with these resources.


Informational Books
The Big Atlas of the Earth and Sea by Susanna van Rose and Anita Ganeri*
Scholastic's Everything You Need to Know About Geography Homework by Anne Zeman and Kate Kelly*

Mountains (Mapping Earthforms) by Catherine Chambers

Everest:  Reaching the World's Highest Peak (DK Discoveries)
Denali "The Highest Peak in North America (Wonders of the World)
Grand Teton National Park by David Peterson
John Muir, America's Naturalist by Thomas Locker
John Muir, My Life with Nature by Joseph Cornell

Each book was read cover to cover and then the information used for notebooking.  Books marked with * are being used throughout the whole of our geology studies.

Videos
Amazing Earth, a Discovery Channel video
Planet Earth, "Mountain" episode
Kilimanjaro:  To the Roof of Africa from the Houston Museum of Natural Science (SlingShot)

Game

"Himalaya" - a mountaineering card game involving adding meter cards to reach base camps and having equipment cards to avoid the danger cards; first to the summit wins

Music
Hymn "High on the Mountain Top"
Hymn "O Ye Mountains High"
Hymn "Our Mountain Home So Dear"
Hymn "For the Strength of the Hills" (both to sing and study and to learn on piano)
Piano Solo "Smoky Mountain Waterfall" by Martha Mier in Celebrate America! Book I
Piano Solo "Rocky Mountains" by Ted Cooper in Around the World on 88 Keys Book 1

A mountain unit study was the perfect time to introduce my kids to the poetic lyrics of John Denver, starting with "Rocky Mountain High."

Art
Possibly the coolest art project ever:  textured mountain paintings from thatartistwoman

These two are my creations. Yes, I did two, and if I'd had time I would have done more. The texture technique was addicting.

Notebooking

There were vocabulary pages in addition to the following.

The Seven Summits:  Highest mountain on each continent.

Eight Thousanders, Altitude, Snow Lines

Tree Lines, Altitude Sickness, Temples as the Mountains of the Lord

Mountain Biomes

Topographical Maps, Major Mountain Ranges in the U.S.

This fold-out "book" was about the mountain ranges in the U.S.
with maps, photos, and information such as the highest peaks in
these ranges and other interesting facts about names and places.

You can see in some of the notebooking pages that we learned about topographical maps and contour maps, and then we made relief maps of the mountains in our state. We also did a notebook page on specific mountains in our state. 

We also learned about the science and folklore of our immediate local mountains and completed a tour and activity book produced by America's Scenic Byways.

Language Arts

The majority of our Language Arts for this unit was focused on John Muir, a fascinating individual. I read a beautiful picture book to everyone:

Then everyone read on their own:

Following the reading there were writing assignments, including writing a biographical report on Muir. John Muir wrote so much himself and it is a real pleasure to read some of his very poetic observations; one assignment was to create a mountain collage with photographs and John Muir quotes. 

Another creative writing assignment took place at Christmastime after we read "Fairy Tale Christmas."  The elements of the story had to include familiar characters from books they loved and a mountain figuring prominently in the scene/plot.

Field Trips

We went into the mountains to hike and make observations of rock strata and the obvious folding and upheaval. One day we hiked from the mouth of one canyon, along the bench, to the mouth of another canyon. ("Benches" usually mark a former shoreline and wave-cut terraces in the flanks of the Wasatch Mountains.) On other hikes we identified things with vocabulary words such as foothills and scree. One particular trip to the mountains had another significant purpose, learning of the relation between prophets and mountains and revelation.

History

There is history in all the other components from the history of mountaineering to John Muir, etc.

Quotes
"The mountains are calling and I must go." -John Muir

"Be Master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out--it's the grain of sand in your shoe." -Robert Service

"Go to nature's school--the one true university." -John Muir

"People are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home, that wilderness is a necessity."

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread..."

"Climb the mountains and get good tidings. Nature's peace will flow unto you as sunshine flows into the trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while care will drop off like autumn leaves." -John Muir

"The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men, whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains."

Journey to the Center of a Story

As part of our Geology unit I read aloud Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. I had never read the book before but had seen film adaptations and heard all the hype about Jules Verne being the "father of science fiction" and thus expected a good read. Ugh. We hated this book. It was a chore to finish (the kids didn't even want to) but I was determined to read every word for the sake of doing it. Painful. Mostly we detested the characters (one insane and irritable, one hysterical and whiny, and one so calm and collect as to not be human). What must have seemed adventurous to 19th century readers was seriously lacking to us, and we didn't care for the writing style and overuse of the same big, descriptive words again and again.

After finishing the book we watched two films of the same title, and then we compared them to each other and to the original book. The kids liked both film versions better, and not because they were movies. My kids are addicted readers and love a good book; changes made in plots and characters and even settings in the films made for much better stories. It was interesting that normally we are a family that appreciates original books to film adaptations (we've read and seen many) but in this case it was the complete opposite.

Here are our Venn diagrams for comparing/contrasting. The kids also made charts explaining what they did and didn't like about each version.

After all the reading, watching, and comparing each child wrote their own "Journey to the Center of..." story. We had "Journey to the Center of Mount Everest" and "Journey to the Center of Mount Olympus" and "Journey to the Center of the Moon."

The kids also made postcards of their favorite scene in whichever book/movie version they liked best. The front was was a hand-drawn and colored picture with the phrase "Wish you were here." The back was addressed and written to whomever they wanted regarding the scene.

We learned about Jules Verne with this episode of Biography and these clips of Science Channel. (You do have to give the guy props for his research and eye for the future, but he wasn't a good family man.) Then we used this simple template for a biographical notebooking page.

This is just one example of how to include Language Arts in a science-based unit.

The Faithful God and Commandment-Keeping Hearts

"Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations."           -Deuteronomy 7:9

GOD'S LOVE IS FAITHFUL

We began with the hymn "God of Our Fathers, We Come unto Thee."  This hymn "is a prayer that sends forth praise and thanks to our Father in Heaven while asking for him to continue the blessings he has poured out in the past. It is a hymn of partnership:  we ask him fervently to stay by us, and we promise, just as fervently, not to stray from him." (Our Latter-Day Hymns)

Accompanying this, Psalm 119:10 is so full of feeling:

"With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments."

We discussed the meaning of the word "faithful" in this context and talked about trust, loyalty, and keeping promises. This faithful partnership involves us keeping God's commandments. The most important thing to know about God's commandments is found in Matthew 22:37-40:

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

"This is the first and great commandment.

"The second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

"On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

 So all the commandments ever given can be categorized into these two commandments. We read Jesus Said by Debbie G. Harman and discussed all these commandments (and others we could think of) and how they fit into the first and second great commandments. 

For an example of how God's love is faithful, we read Anna's Prayer by Karl Beckstrand.

Then we turned to chapter 14 of John and read the many statements of Jesus telling his disciples that if they love Him (and love His Father) they'll keep His commandments.  We talked about the idea of loving others as ourselves, showing mercy and forgiveness and understanding.  Then I shared the song, "What If" by Five for Fighting and we discussed the ideas implied in the lyrics.  Here is a lyric video of the song (and I apologize if there are any inappropriate ads before the video--I really wish I could control those).

For a thoughtful concluding activity we made commandment-keeping hearts in the style of this Valentine printable, hearts made with drawings of commandments and how to keep them.

Sunshine in the Soul

Today's Valentine Devotional was on GOD'S LOVE REJOICES, Zephaniah 3:17.

We began with the hymn "There is Sunshine in My Soul Today."  This is such a happy, happy hymn that really conveys rejoicing. Not only does God rejoice in His love for us, but with so much light and love we can't help but rejoice ourselves. In Our Latter-Day Hymns the author writes, "This hymn is simply an expression of the happiness that comes to a person who accepts and follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. Such expressions benefit us all; when we rejoice in the happiness that righteousness brings, we lift our own morale and encourage one another's good efforts.... Since the joy of discipleship is difficult to express in words, the author of the text sought to make this joy more vivid through comparisons. She likened it to things that naturally suggest pleasure and contentment: sunshine, 'glorious and bright'; music, 'a carol to my king'; and springtime, with birds and flowers." (POETRY!)

Isaiah 60:19 and Psalm 19, especially verses 9 and 11 went along.

I was already planning to read a particular story about this song that touchingly talks about the second verse and, interestingly, one of my sons kept asking about the second verse regarding Jesus hearing songs we cannot sing. It didn't make sense to him. So it was a perfect segue to our reading "Jesus, Listening, Can Hear.

To then equate God's love with how we should love, we returned to a couple of scriptures we read last week with some new examples.  We talked about how not every person has sunshine in his soul and it is up to those of us who do--who know of God's love for us and rejoicing over us--to spread that sunshine and love.

Sometimes it takes courage to do that.  We read "Talking to Lenny" from the March 2014 New Era and revisited 1 John 4:18.

Then we read a new Valentine book purchase that I immediately fell in love with, Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch  by Eileen Spinelli. This book perfectly, in both word and illustration, shows the difference feeling loved makes in a person's life and the joy that is felt and shared.

We revisited Doctrine & Covenants 18:10-16 and talked about the joy that comes from sharing the gospel, because all missionary work should be motivated by love. Missionary work begins with kindness and service and genuine love for our fellowman.

A rejoicing kind of love also cheers others on and congratulates and is genuinely pleased with the triumphs in others' lives.

Now, after doing all this, one of my sons was bothered and at this point he asked, "How can love rejoice?" That just didn't make sense to him, especially if we're always saying that love is a verb. I'd been saying that light is a manifestation of love, that God gives us light and direction (we even mentioned Hebrews 12:6 and chastening) plus all our blessings because He loves us and that love makes Him and us happy; but from a grammatical perspective a verb follows a noun, not a verb. So I went back to the first concept of God is love. Love is a noun in this sense, God being the embodiment of it, and because His work and His glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, He rejoices in that work. When you really think about it, everything comes down to love. God IS love thus God DOES love as a result. That satisfied my son.

We ended with a writing/drawing activity. I had found some wonderful Mary Engelbreit notecards a while back (okay, I collect them!) and had been saving them for the perfect time, which all of a sudden was today. Inside they were supposed to draw and write scriptures and thoughts and images that meant something to them from our lesson today. The cards had a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. which was perfect for today's devotional. It's hard to read it on the image below, so here it is:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Maple Magic

A year ago we took a break for a couple of days from our regular studies and did a fun little unit on maple syrup.  This could easily be a one-day unit; ours took two or three because of other things we had going on away from home. We did it during the months that maple sugaring takes place so that as we learned about it we knew folks were actually doing it on the other side of the country. (This did tie in with our Early American History unit we were doing at the time, though.)

You can't very well do a unit on a food item without actually having the food item to sample and experiment with. Real maple syrup is expensive, so I looked for deals ahead of time at discount stores and was blessed to find just what I needed at a great price (TJ Maxx).

I had actually been planning this unit for quite a while having found this fantastic book at a novelty store on a trip for a baseball tournament. Not only is this book chock full of recipes and creative ways to cook and substitute with maple syrup, it is loaded with factual information and history.

A good unit study always has good reading to go with it. For this unit we read Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube showing the process of getting maple syrup from tree to table. The following videos are some that we watched and go in historical order from the Native American way to the smaller family business to full automated production. 

Next we used this informative National Geographic page to do research on the geography of maple syrup, the necessary climate conditions, tree varieties, producers, etc. I printed a blank map of the U.S. and we marked it ourselves using the National Geographic information, made graphs of production, and did some math problems figuring how many gallons of syrup we'd get from _____ gallons of sap. 

If you've been keeping track, this short unit covered history, geography, social studies/culture, science, literature, and math. Arts could be added, maybe something with maple leaves, but I didn't.

The unit could end here, or it could go on into other sugars. We did go on to learn about brown sugar, refined sugar, molasses, sugar cane, sugar beets, corn syrup, the affect of sugar on the body, etc.

This was a fun and informative little unit. But here's a warning:  once you start eating the real maple syrup, you'll never want to go back to fake flavored corn syrup!

God Gave Us Love

Friday's focus for our Valentine Devotional was GOD'S LOVE IS A GIFT. I didn't think the scripture suggested in the download for this one was "right," so I changed it to James 1:17.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

We sang the hymn "Because I Have Been Given Much"  (Can't link to it because of copyright.) Then we spent some time in the Topical Guide under "God, Gifts of" discussing the many gifts of God and the purposes of the gifts, which always, in the end, come down to His love for us. We talked about gifts and giving in general and what those two words imply as to motivations and expectations. Then we read a new Valentine book purchase, God Gave Us Love by Lisa Tawn, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Perfect!

We read and discussed Jacob 2:17-19, Mosiah 18:27-19 and 2 Corinthians 9:6-7:

"But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

"Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity:  for God loveth a cheerful giver." 

For a visual reminder of the lesson we went to this great site for making Word Hearts.  Everyone took turns reflecting on the scriptures, discussion, lesson and taking what stood out to them and turning it into something neat for decorating the house with. (We LOVED doing these and found it kind of addicting. My daughter later made several different ones to send to her missionary brother and I stayed up late making a whole bunch of them for my husband with phrases from "our song" and other things and "heart-attacked" his office door with them.)

Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy

Thursday's Valentine Devotional focus was GOD'S LOVE IS MERCIFUL, Ephesians 2:4-5.

We began with the hymn "Sing Praise to Him", discussing the meaning of the song along with Psalm 121:2-4.  We talked about what the word "mercy" means, then we read He Took My Lickin' For Me." 

We used Elder Holland's "The Justice and Mercy of God" to discuss the concepts of justice and mercy.

Next, to discover what is expected of us as far as mercy goes, we sang and discussed two more hymns:  "A Key Was Turned in Latter Days" (with 1 John 3:16-19) and "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" (with Doctrine & Covenants 18:10-16 and 1 John 2:10). It is really important to know the story behind the writing of "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy." This video explains:  

After our lesson this week, this hymn has a special place in my heart! 

To bring everything together, the kids did an art project. They made a lighthouse out of cutout hearts, putting a picture of Christ as the main light in the lighthouse and a picture of themselves as a lower light on the shore.

Everlasting Lovingkindness

Today's focus was GOD'S LOVE IS EVERLASTING, from Jeremiah 31:3:

"...Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love:  therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."

We began by singing the hymn "Reverently and Meekly Now", verses 1, 3, and 4.  Later in the discussion we focused on these phrases from the hymn:

"I have loved thee as thy friend, with a love that cannot end."

"Bid thine heart all strife to cease; with thy brethren be at peace." 

I broke the scripture into two parts. First we talked about everlasting love and what that means. I asked the kids what "everlasting" means and got an answer of "never ending." Everyone grabbed a thesaurus and looked it up. We listed what we found on a dry erase board:

continuing on and on without end

endless

interminable

unceasing

We discussed each word (including taking "interminable" apart into prefix, suffix and root and associated words with the same root).

I brought up the word "enduring" and a thesaurus check of "endure" gave us another list:

continue

last

abide

persist

bear

tolerate

suffer

stand

We talked about everlasting as an adjective and a noun and endure as a verb. As God's love for us never ends, no matter what, we should follow his example and have everlasting love for others; we have and show everlasting love as we endure in our relationships.

I took this time to teach about marriage. We talked about how people get married, as in what they actually do:  they make promises to love and care for each other, no matter what, to endure in everlasting love. (This is just a very short summary of the discussion.) Then we watched the following wonderful video:

The next part of the scripture talks about drawing others in with lovingkindness. As we experience the Lord's lovingkindness towards us, we love Him in return. He blesses us and helps us and guides us because He loves us and we draw towards him as we recognize this. So how do we take this example and apply it in our relationships with others? Do we make friends by being rude or mean? Do we have a peaceful family life by being selfish and blaming others? It was time to read the delightful and instructive Enemy Pie by Derek Munson.

We ended with a brief discussion about the book and what we learned from it.

The Rock of Our Salvation

"As a symbol of fortitude and eternal stability, the metaphor of the rock has inspired many writers, both in our scriptures and in our hymns. This hymn is a call to battle, in which the leader of the army is a 'rock,' unconquerable and firm." So begins the commentary on "O Thou Rock of Our Salvation" in Our Latter-day Hymns.

As a part of our geology unit we are learning not just the science of rocks but also the symbolism. There are many, many scriptures referencing the symbolism of Christ as a rock. 

Helaman 5:12

Psalm 62:1-2

Psalm 18:1-3, 31

Deuteronomy 32:3-4

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

Moses 7:53

1 Samuel 2:2

2 Samuel 22:1-4

2 Nephi 28:28

As a family we memorized a couple of these scriptures.

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of endless misery and wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." 

~Helaman 5:12

"The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God , my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower."

~Psalm 18:2

Then we went outside and found large, smooth rocks, brought them in and washed them and then used permanent markers to write the scripture references and some key phrases on our rocks as reminders. 

God Loved Us, So He Sent His Son

Today's Valentine Countdown began with the hymn "God Loved Us, So He Sent His Son."

The focus was GOD'S LOVE IS FOR EVERYONE.

The scripture for this is John 3:16 (and we included Doctrine & Covenants 34:3). I pulled out my absolute favorite Valentine ever to go with this discussion:

(I really wish I knew who created both the original version of this as well as this particular image, but I do not. I cannot take credit for it. I'm thankful, though, because it has blessed my life!)

We discussed whether or not the scriptures say that Christ's Atonement is just for any particular group, or whether it was for everyone. It wasn't a divisive act but an inclusive one.

Then we read one of my favorite stories, You Are Special by Max Lucado.

We discussed the original meaning of this story, that we need not worry what the world thinks of us only what God thinks and let His love be enough, but then I turned it into a discussion of how we need to broaden that to how we look at others. In addition to ignoring the marks others give us, we should also take care to not give marks to others, even if it's just in our minds.  The Atonement was both individual and personal and Christ would have atoned even just for me or you, but it is also infinite in that it was done on that individual and personal level for everyone. If each person matters that much, we need to treat each person as the valuable child of God that they are.

Finally we ended with one of the most life-changing quotes I've ever heard:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours." 

-C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Each person then privately thought about a person they didn't usually see as a child of God or possible god or goddess; they made a list of positive things about that person and then decided on and wrote down a planned action for treating that person more like the valuable immortal that they are.

God is Love

I love the idea of Valentines Day and many of the lovely and cutesy things to be done with it. I've always celebrated something or other about it. But the past couple of years I've had a strong desire to make this day into something significant, something real and meaningful. Recently I have had some devastating personal issues that have left me dried up and angry and feeling pretty much everything but love. Thankfully a friend shared some links with me the other day and they were just what I needed; I have felt invigorated and inspired to deeply focus on the topic of love with my children in February. 

Over the next two to four weeks we will be doing a daily devotional unit on love. I will utilize and/or adapt several ideas from Kim Sorgium's "Ultimate Scripture Valentine List" as well as come up with a few things of my own. The backbone of our focus, at least to start with, is  "14 Days of God's Love" Valentine Scripture Countdown.

We began today by singing the hymn "God is Love".

We read Moses 6:63 and Doctrine & Covenants 59:18 and discussed how all of God's creations are for the benefit and joy of man because He loves us and wants us to be happy and the more we observe and learn the more we see that all things bear witness of Him.

Today's theme was GOD'S LOVE IS PERFECT, with the scripture reference of 1 John 4:18. The thing is, though, that all of chapter 4 in 1 John is GOLD and so we spent a lot of time reading the chapter and discussing each verse in detail, including how God's love is perfect.

Then everyone was assigned to make a heart-shaped collage on the theme "God is Love," keeping in mind our discussion. Each person was to somehow depict in art how he knew that God "first loved us" (1 John 4:19). I would show you the finished products but one of my sons said his was copyrighted and I couldn't post it without his permission, which he was not going to give.  :)  Maybe I'll add mine when it's finished.