HYMN STUDY: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

During the holidays we did a few hymn studies. These are really expanded literary studies in poetry. We spend time on vocabulary, learning any words we do not already know. We look to understand any symbolism, metaphors, etc. We point out poetic devices used and how they influence the chosen language. We pick apart and put back together, appreciating the tiniest nuances and the grandest themes. We dig for meaning and look for personal applications. 

One of the hymns we focused on was "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," which is one of my favorites. In addition to studying it literally, we listened to several arrangements and compared the musicality. Then there was an interpretive art component where the kids sought images to personally illustrate each verse for themselves.

To really understand this hymn, it's important to know what in the world "Here I raise my Ebenezer" means. I found "Raising Your Ebenezer: A Monument to Remember" which is a wonderful lesson on that which we read and talked a lot about.

Finally, though I don't think I've met a version I don't like, I'll share one of my favorite arrangements of the piece. I like the "I will sing" bridge additions. Also, I like some of the images and quotes in the following video.

Already in Love with 2017

I am already in love with 2017. Not because, three hours into the new year, anything particularly marvelous has happened to influence my opinion or outlook already (though I did toast my family and some good friends with a very tasty apple-pomegranate sparkling cider) or because I'm one of those who figures 2016 was so bad that anything else has gotta be better. It's true that my year last year did have some major pits, potholes, and pathetic and perplexing problems; I'm certain I cried more in the past year than I've cried my entire life. But it's also true that there were moments of great clarity, times when I was supported and sustained by friends both in Heaven and on Earth, and the blessings were too many to count. No, I am in love with 2017 because I hope and have faith.

Many people hope when a new year rolls around, if they haven't become too hard and cynical anyway. It's what people hope that varies. I honestly don't know how anyone can hope without faith, and I do mean faith in a Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ. Sure, people can have faith in loved ones or financial institutions or themselves, or whatever else, but all of those things are subject to the faults and frailties of the mortal condition. I have hope and faith because time and again my Heavenly Father has brought me to and through things--strengthened and taught and directed me--and time and again I have marveled at how He never gives up on me, even when I feel I might as well give up on myself. I know He hears and answers my prayers--every one, spoken and unspoken--down to the tiniest of details. And at the beginning of this new year I have the most hope ever in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The year 2016 really was the Year of the Atonement for me, as I saw firsthand the fruits of it in people's lives and saw the unmistakable and undeniable change in these people. In different places and through various ways I felt an incredible witness of the truth and power of the Atonement. I am not perfect. Uh, not even close. But I can look back over the last year and see improvement and it makes me giddy with anticipation at how I can change and become this next year with God's grace.  I am certain there are going to be some really bad days in 2017. Lots of tears. Pain. Grief. Regret. I won't accomplish half of what I want, I won't change quite as much as I'd like, I'll probably take one step back for every two steps forward. But I stand at the doorway of the new year, glad to be alive and able to think, choose, and change and looking forward with hope and faith.

Even the Best Decisions Can Be Hard to Live With

It's November. This is the month I've been both pushing to get to, seeing it as a summit, and also the month I've been dreading to come, a little sad about the view from the top once reached. It has been a full and busy fall with lots of plans and goals as well as many unexpected surprises. I've backed way off the blogging in an effort to spend time where it really needed to be spent this autumn. And now November is here. Today we dropped off our newest missionary at the Provo MTC and I'm feeling so many emotions I just can't give words to them all. Let's just say that I left a part of my heart in Provo and I'm really feeling it tonight. Even though this is the best decision my son could possibly have made and I am so proud, pleased and full of hope, faith, and gratitude, it's still a little hard to live with it.

As the calendar days have passed I've been looking forward to listening to my November Playlist. After arriving home from the MTC and feeling the need for some grace in my thoughts, I put on David Tolk's appropriately named album Grace which is my newest November Playlist addition. 

The music was soothing and filling and then finally releasing. "I Need Thee Every Hour" broke the dam and I had a good, hard, mournful, grateful, prayerful cry.

Raising children is something of a paradox. You nurture and nourish, teach and train, love and lead, and give your whole soul to helping these children of God realize and reach their potential only to feel a little bit sad when they actually do. Wait. Success brings sadness? 

It's just that you love these children so much and you love being a mother so much that you'd gladly hit replay and go through everything over and over again so you could hold on to every happy, hard, sweet, trying, silly, bewildering, wonderful moment with these amazing people you've been blessed to bring into the world and hold hands with.

Thank God for motherhood! The privilege! The challenge! The journey! The joy!

Happy November. 

Summer Highlights

"If odour were visible, as colour is,

I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds."

~Robert Bridges~

I always have mixed feelings about summer. First of all, I really don't enjoy temperatures anywhere above about 80 degrees, and even then I need a breeze. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have this ingrained idea that summertime should equate to "the lazy days of summer," yet I don't seem to have many of those, and that idea is in direct opposition to Aesop's fable of "The Grasshopper and the Ants," which is also ingrained in my head. This often leaves me feeling raw, as if I'm in the middle of a great tug of war between multiple personalities!

Being a baseball family, summertime is packed with travel, travel, and more travel, and a lot of late nights under the lights of ballfields. While I love the inspiring changeup of seeing the world through a roadtrip and being in different places, and I love watching my kids play ball, the work is stacked up when I get home and all those late nights make it hard to get up and get the outdoor chores done in the cooler morning hours.

I love a rocking and rolling summer thunderstorm and the positively delicious aroma of rain on the wind as it kisses the dry earth. I love the heavy perfume of a patch of petunias and the invigorating smell of a just-mowed lawn or a field of cut hay. I don't like mosquitoes, earwigs, grasshoppers, and fruit flies. It's a mixed bag, for sure.

I wouldn't trade four distinct seasons for anything, though. Each has its blessings and banes. As always, gratitude and attempts at balance go a long way in a happy life.

As August slips away, I like to look back and see where I've been and what I've done so I know the summer didn't just pass me by and leave me wondering "Where did the summer go?" Even acknowledging small delights and happy surprises keeps the scales of joy and contentment tipped in my favor. Here are a few highlights of this year's summer.



A round of family Frisbee golf in a canyon park, with the inevitable retrieving of a stuck Frisbee,
which was followed by the inevitable Insta Care visit for a tetanus shot:

Ma and Pa Swallow, returned to raise another brood on my front porch:

Encountering an entire bush in motion with moths...

...and catching one!

Embracing gravity with friends:

Reflecting on the ways that God keeps his promises:

Seeing sacrifice and perseverance pay off:

Summer night lights:

Shoshone Falls:

Seeing, smelling, touching, tasting red:

Simple joy in a cute pair of festive shoes (and, no, I don't have another pair exactly like this :) )

Field trips and  bucket list destinations:

Watching my stars shine:

FINALLY having a close encounter with a muskrat, after nearly a dozen wetland field trips:

Being torn between watching the ball game and watching the osprey who were watching the ball game:

Experiencing triumph in tests and trials, gratitude for miracles and medicine, recognition and respect for the power and reality of the priesthood, and witnessing the wonder of the human body and its ability to heal:

My first (very cool) encounter with a Western Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar:

Apricots! Early spring weather finally cooperated to give us a great summer harvest:

Peachy paradise in crepes and smoothies and in juicy goodness dripping down my chin and wrist:

A sweet-tart plum harvest turned into jelly and fruit leather and more smoothies:

Watching my boy bloom where he's planted:

Celebrating another year of marriage:

Discovering a "new" swimming hole:...

...and meeting the swimming hole's local residents:

Conquering some personal fears and inhibitions and loving it:

Getting one missionary ready to leave:...

...and welcoming one missionary home:

Having the whole family together again:

Some additional highlights include some media that was particularly special this summer.

Here Comes the Boom is not a new movie; it's been around for a few years. We didn't know anything about it, though, until one of my kids saw it on the shelf at the library and checked it out. We. Love. This. Movie. Besides being funny and entertaining, it has some good messages and things to think about, especially in the realm of education and inspiration, as well as the American Dream and citizenship.

The following videos are to songs that meant a lot to me this summer. I'm not necessarily recommending the videos because as I've posted previously, videos often ruin songs for me (though I do like these ones). But they're the easiest and most legal way to share music. So, if you don't want your perception of the music influenced by the videos, play them and listen with your eyes closed.

The first song is "Humble and Kind" sung by Tim McGraw. I don't normally listen to country music, but I love, love, love this song and it has influenced me greatly this summer. I came to listen to it while driving my son to a doctor's appointment. The song came on the radio and not knowing it but realizing it was country, I switched the station. My son said, "Don't!  Go back. I like that song." Naturally I wanted to hear it if he was so insistent, just to see what he liked about it. And then my whole world changed, along with how I look at my son.

These next two songs are by Paul Cardall. Interestingly, they are on a CD I have had for years but not listened to. I got the CD for free during some promotion, listened to it once, and at the time decided there was only one decent song on the album. This summer I was cleaning out some things and was about to toss the disc in a giveaway pile when I decided to listen to it one more time to be sure it was junk. What I've come to believe is that I was meant to have this CD but I needed to really hear it for the first time now. I wouldn't have purchased it, then or now, so it was given to me. I think I had a sort of stupor over it when I received it so that when I needed the message in these songs, they'd be "new" to me and therefore have more of an impact.

Well, summer is over. It would be a sad, sad thing if summer ended and there was no autumn to trail it so gloriously. I hope your summer was blessed. If you think it wasn't, or that it was over too soon, make a highlight reel for yourself to count your summer blessings.

Remembering a Bumpy Stretch on Memory Lane

I was recently cleaning out some files and came across a journal entry from eleven years ago that made me happy. It was such a fun memory and I'm so glad I wrote it all down the day it happened. I read it aloud to all of my kids and we laughed and laughed.

On that day, I had five children aged 10 and younger. That was such a physically demanding time! For all you mothers of young children, and especially if you have a house and heart full, enjoy every crazy, awesome, exhausting second of it! I've also been going through a lot of old photographs and darn it if I didn't have the cutest, most muggable kids on the planet. I'd happily relive this and all those days again and again and just hug and kiss and squeeze and love the heck out of those darlings all over.

Here is my journal entry.  I have abbreviated names, because I don't like to share too much personal info.

June 22, 2005

Note:  Nothing has been changed to protect anyone. The names and events are, sadly, all true.

           Please do not attempt to try this yourselves.  We are professionals.

It began as a simple but desperate trip to the store for diapers. P5's little bum was of necessity wearing a P4-big-bum diaper. Now I've been spoiled in the last few years by getting to go to the store by myself, or occasionally with one or two of the kids. But for this trip I had to take them all with me because (hubby) was out of town.

We had to get two carts. P3 had lost his shoes in the long grass's Twilight Zone and therefore needed to ride. That left little room for groceries.  I know, I said I just needed diapers.  But since I was already there...

It looked promising at first.  P1 and P2 were being very helpful, each pushing a cart.  Everyone was smiling and happy to get out of the house.  An older couple needed some assistance and so P2 ran to fetch them a shopping cart and P1 chased down a runaway cantaloupe that the lady in the wheelchair accidentally dropped.  That cantaloupe should have been our cue to get the heck out of Dodge.

We stopped at the bakery department for free cookies, only to be disappointed by the absence of anyone there to assist us.  As we moved on throughout the store, P4 wanted very much to get out of the cart and run.  I tried to keep him preoccupied with other thoughts as he screamed and then growled like a mad dog.  P2 skipped and jigged and slid around, every now and then stopping to pose against a shelf in a suave GQ position.  In his performance frame of mind, he forgot to pay attention to where he was going and hooked his nose on a wire rack.

We remembered that it was our turn next to provide after game snacks at baseball, and P1 and P2 began dashing about the store looking for something really good, no matter what it cost.  They went back and forth like madmen with their carts, nearly running into other customers (of course, they DID run into me) and nearly taking out displays.  Then they lost interest in the carts and abandoned them altogether, leaving their siblings in random aisles. This didn't help the situation with P4 wanting to go AWOL.  It did encourage P3 to get out and push...right into the frozen food freezer doors.

With both carts completely full, P4 just couldn't stand it anymore.  He began trying to throw merchandise out of the cart to plead his case.  P5 had had it as well, and began charming everyone with her off-the-chart high octave screams.  And then, we ran into the toy aisles.

It was of course mutiny at this point.  Barefoot P3 was oblivious to anything I had to say and did a stunt man jump out of the cart.  P5 HAD to be held.  P4 was so determined to get out of the cart that I had to choose between helping him out and letting him look for  a minute, or cleaning his teeth and fractured skull off the floor.  They all calmed down somewhat as they looked up and down the aisles, talking together and showing each other their finds.  And then, the three not in diapers had a massive attack of the "gotta go's" and proceeded to do the potty dance all over the place.  I sent them together to the restroom (remember, I still had two full grocery carts and two toddlers).  Jolly lot of good it did.  They came running back like a herd of buffalo, shouting, "We can't find the bathroom!"

FINALLY we headed for the checkout.  P5 was back in the cart.  I was holding P4.  Then the three oldest had to take a test swing on some patio furniture.  Not to be left out, P4 had to swing, too.  I made the mistake of putting him down.  And then he bolted.  Have you ever tried to find a two-foot tall kid who doesn't want to be found in the clothing racks?  When I finally did spot him, he took off, giggling hysterically.  I had to sprint my very sore joints (another long story) and nearly did a face plant.

Checkout!  Please get us out of here!  We somehow made it through and out the door.  And then...the unspeakable.  The unthinkable.  I was holding P5 and P4 and trying to keep P3 from darting into the parking lot.  P2 was pushing the VERY full and VERY heavy shopping cart.  I turned to check on him.  I saw the impending disaster before it happened, but couldn't get the words out in time to stop it.  THE WHOLE CART TIPPED OVER, almost on top of P2, and he did a Starsky and Hutch roll away, grabbing on to his ankle.

In his defense, this parking lot wasn't handicap accessible.

I'm still in shock.  I think once I get to bed tonight, I'm not going to get out again until (hubby) comes home.  Normally it's not like this... I don't know what's going on.  I couldn't deal with being the only one who knew, so I called (hubby) in Maryland and woke him up.  I hope he gets back to sleep...

After our "adventures" in town this evening, we got home, I fed the kids and got them in bed.  To unwind from it all, I put in a movie for myself... a comedy.  When it was over, I remembered that I needed to pull the car in the garage and lock up.  Can you guess what happened next?  I ran the van into the garage wall.  Yes, I really did.  Pulled into the garage at the wrong angle.  At this point I can't tell all the damage to the house.  The car looks AWFUL.

Good night.

P.S.  For clarification, I scraped the driver's side of the van along the trim of the garage entrance.

LOVE YOUR LITTLES!

And keep in mind that the so-called "bumps" on the road help you know you're alive.

A Savior is Born

I love, Love, LOVE this year's Christmas video!

My November Playlist

We listen to a lot of music at our house. During December (and often November or even October!) Christmas music is almost constant on the stereo. We love the sounds of the season and everyone keeps rotating in their favorite CDs in the CD changer and singing along as we go about our day. The past couple of years, however, I’ve sought to create a November playlist to specifically reflect and enhance the kind of thoughts and feelings I want to have in my heart this time of year. As much as I love Christmas, I don’t want Thanksgiving overlooked.

I’d like to share some of my favorite songs for November with you. In many cases you will likely already know the song, but I’ll tell you my favorite arrangements and performers as well.

Traditional

“All Creatures of Our God and King”— Paul Cardall has a lovely, peaceful piano arrangement. I love Stephen Sharp Nelson’s percussive cello performance.  The upbeat a capella harmonies of the Eclipse 6 version are nice. And for an absolutely joyful rendition that makes one glad, electric guitar and all, check out West Coast Revival’s recording.

“For the Beauty of the Earth”—John Rutter, a brilliant British composer and conductor, has a beautiful arrangement performed by the City of London Sinfonia and the Cambridge Singers. Cantus does a stirring a capella version that is reminiscent of monastic music. John Schmidt’s piano arrangement is classically beautiful. And David Tolk combines this hymn with “Beautiful Savior” to make a happy, hopeful medley.

“All Things Bright and Beautiful” —Michael O’Brien’s recording featuring Joseph O’Brien is full of praise. John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers delight with another arrangement.

“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”—For an instrumental version, you cannot beat the reverent but fervent longing in Paul Cardall’s arrangement.  Two good but very different a capella performances are from BYU Vocal Point and Insideout A Capella (the latter having a lot more bass).

“Simple Gifts”—This Shaker hymn is the epitome of gratitude to me. I love the Piano Guys’ reggae medley combining this and “Over the Rainbow” for a happy, thankful, feel-good song. Aaron Copland’s rousing orchestration of it as a part of his Appalachian Spring is, to be sure, more spring-y than fall-y, but it’s great music. The 5 Browns give a nice classical piano performance.  Cantus sings a fantastic a capella version.

“Shenandoah”—Not really a song of thankgiving, but I love, love this stirring traditional folk song so much, and for some reason I like it even more in November. Peter Hollens sings it so fantastically that he’s my number one pick to listen to. If you like jazz, the Julian Waterfall Pollack Trio plays a truly delightful, carefree arrangement.

Seasonal

“Thankful”—Sung by Josh Groban

“Thanksgiving”—George Winston

“Colors/Dance”—George Winston

“Before the Last Leaf Falls”—David Lanz

“Leaves on the Seine”—David Lanz

“Gratitude” by Paul Cardall is the instrumental version of his vocal “Grateful.”  “Grateful” is peppier and full of praise, while “Gratitude” is quietly reflective. I like them both.

Because

“Homeward Bound”—Written by Marta Keen Thompson and performed by BYU Vocal Point, this moving piece sounds like a traditional folk song but isn’t very old. Full of meaning and emotion, this is an amazing song.

“More Than the World”—Sung by Mindy Gledhill, this is not a Thanksgiving song per se, but it is about where happiness really comes from. The lyrics are incredibly poetic, the music perfectly compliments it, and I love it.

“Pictures at an Exhibition”—While original composer Mussorgsky is responsible for the main melody, The Piano Guys’ adapted arrangement finished what Mussorgsky started. This song is on my November playlist because it is so beautiful it makes me unspeakably thankful to be alive and able to hear.

I'm too tired to link everything.  Sorry.  But I'll add some videos of a few of these songs below. The video portions aren't much, but turn up your volume.

P.S.  I wrote most of this earlier today but didn't have time to finish and post. I had to leave for a few hours and when I got home my kids had the stereo cranked with Christmas music.  What'd I tell ya?