Poor Souls

I've got three for you. I'll do them chronologically.

Monday night, we had family home evening after being reminded by Seth for several weeks that we were being slackers. It's true. We are not perfect in this department but we agreed on Sunday that we would, indeed, have a FHE and Seth insisted on doing the lesson.

He took out his Book of Mormon reader and started leafing through, looking for the perfect lesson. When he said he found what he wanted to teach about, I asked him what it was and he responded that it was Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life. I was impressed. It wasn't killing Laban or cutting of arms or anything!

Monday night came and we gathered in the living room. Since I knew what the lesson was about, and my assignment happened to be music, I chose Follow The Prophet as our opening song. The boys have already both mastered it in primary this year so we had a hearty sing-a-long. Seth started in on his lesson and did a great job. He mostly read but when Jay started asking questions to see if he and Sam understood what Seth was talking about, they were both able to adequately answer the questions. Again, we were impressed. Seth wanted an object lesson/activity to go with his lesson so he asked Jay if we had any rope around the house. Jay went and found some and tied one end around the leg of our piano and we took turns holding the other end. The person holding the rope acted like the prophet, someone else tried to find the rope with their eyes closed and then use it as a guide to get to the piano and the other two left (Henry was happily crawling around and tripping whoever was walking around with their eyes closed) were what we called the detractors. Their job was to yell and tempt the person holding onto the rope to let go and come see what they had to offer. Jay and I both hammed it up, letting go of the rope several times acting confused about our choices but Seth and Sam both staunchly grabbed the rope and got to the piano as quickly as possible.

Everyone was smiling. Jay and I had that eye contact moment where I know we were both thinking, "yeah...we rock. We've got the spirit in our home." Then we made the fatal mistake.

Game time. We should have stopped with the rope activity. It was fun and solidified the lesson. But we decided to play a completely random game called Black Magic. The rules are kind of complicated so I'll get to the point. I knew the rules and guessed the right answer. Jay knew the rules and guessed the right answer. Seth guessed wrong. Sammy totally lucked out because he made a random guess and happened to guess right. The point of the game was to go a few rounds to see if the boys could discover the trick. But we didn't get that far. Seth was crushed. He left the room pouting that he wasn't smart and that even his younger brother could play the game better than him. Jay and I ignored him and called out that if he can't handle losing then we aren't going to play any more games. Seth countered by making a sign. It said, "For Sale. Five Dollars" and he headed for the door telling me he was going to go sit on the front lawn holding his sign.

I know it's a gimmick but it's so hard to know what to do. My instinct is to ignore him. Ignore the annoying behavior and it goes away, right? But I know Seth. And I know that all he wants is for me to cuddle with him and reassure him that it's o.k. not to be perfect because, for some reason, that boy thinks that is the only way we will love him. It's frustrating. So I ignored him first, then played the nurturing mother...getting down to his eye level and giving him a hug. When he still pouted and lunged for the door, I overreacted and told him to go sit on the lawn. Instead he ran upstairs. Not our best night. I'll let you decide who the poor soul is. Seth or his parents.

Number two. We went on a field trip for Sammy's preschool today. I went on the same one two years ago when Seth was in preschool and I should have known better. It's a place called Cat Tales which is a very small zooish place with different lions and tigers and....bears, who, the last time I checked, aren't part of the cat family. But they are big powerful animals who are designed for a natural habitat but fascinate humans so we like to look at them behind cages. Obviously, I have a bias. I have been to a few great zoos. I went to one in Omaha once that was very cool. I thought parts of the National Zoo in Washington D.C. were nice and not icky and overly concreteish. The last time I went, Denver's was making some progress. But, for the most part, I think they are sad places. The animals, while certainly protected from hunters and predators, look stifled, bored and pathetic. Their environment is usually some dirt, some hay and a bare tree. Add the smells that are inevitably a part of any zoo experience and usually, I choose to stay away.

First I got lost. So I was a half hour late to begin with. Then, when I finally pulled into the parking lot, a bus had just pulled up that was unloading passengers with handicaps. About 20 kids got out but all needed wheelchairs so I sat there behind the bus, just at the entrance of the parking lot so I couldn't get in another way or go around, for ten minutes. Then I parked, walked to the ticket counter and was behind the same 20 kids in wheelchairs getting tickets. That's all just to give you an idea of my mood to begin with.

Before we caught up with his class, we saw some tigers. That painted concrete is so like their natural environment! I didn't get it in the picture but it's of the Taj Mahal.

I don't know if eventually the let this lion out somewhere else but he was contained in nothing more than a dog run.

I pushed Henry in the jogger but he wanted nothing to do with it and started screaming. My guess is that lions and tigers don't really love screaming babies. I ended up holding Henry who couldn't decide what he wanted (I put him on the ground too and he just had another fit), pushing the stroller and trying to convince Sam to look at the animals instead of begging me for his oreo snack pack that was in the jogger's basket. After 20 minutes of trying and lots of stares my way, I clicked Henry back in his jogger and grabbed Sam's hand and left the other poor souls there. Sammy got his oreos and all was well again.

As we were driving home, I noticed this signboard.



Some character at this church always puts up the most ridiculous sentences. They are almost always political and I can't help but feel for the poor souls that follow this particular leader. I can't remember a time I drove by this signboard thinking, "well, that's uplifting and Christlike". In case you didn't notice, his latest deep thought makes no sense. Follow the thought to logical conclusion. Oppose comes from the word opposite and the opposite of evil is good, moral, righteous, sinless, upright, virtuous (and I even used a thesaurus to make certain). So, let's back up and look at this misguided thought. Give evil nothing to oppose. What would evil oppose? Itself? I don't think so. So don't give evil anything good, moral, righteous, sinless, upright or virtuous to oppose and let's see if it disappears. More likely, evil will eclipse everything so mankind will no longer be able to tell the difference. And then, according to this enlightened person, the world will be a better place. How absurd.

I know what he was probably trying to say and it's still absurd. Ah...I feel a sermon coming on. I'll stop here.