under fire

Recently there has been a bit of furor in the Latter-day Saint community regarding some negative attention that will be given to our sacred temple covenants on television. The same day that my inbox was rapidly filling up with petition requests from LDS friends, I came across the video below.

Rachel Esplin is a 20-year-old LDS Harvard student who participated in a religious panel directed by Newsweek journalist Sally Quin. After watching her mature & thoughtful handling of some pretty intense questions about our faith, I wanted to stand up and cheer. I suppose I'm sharing this because I think discussions like these, and forums like this, are much more productive than allowing our critics & opponents "to choose the ground on which our battles are fought". (See LDS news article here.)

Day of Faith: Personal Quests for a Purpose - 3. Rachel Esplin from Harvard Hillel on Vimeo.

Simple Gifts

I love listening to this CD every November. One of my favorite songs on here is this Shaker hymn:

'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free
'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

What "simple gifts" are you grateful for today?

Girls Talk Too Much

Fairy Ball 2008

So says Peter Pan in Disney's cartoon version. And, so I overheard my girls saying to each other just the other day! The first time my girls watched Peter Pan, I almost leapt up and covered their ears at this point--but it would have been too late. Overreaction? Maybe. But, when you have little girls you will suddenly become ultra-sensitive to even seemingly-benign Disney media. (The girls also run around singing, "Why is the Red Man pink?" Eek.)

My BYU roommate made an excellent, not to mention hilarious, argument on her blog regarding bombardment by Disney princesses. I’ve decided the stories are a good opportunity for discussion about what girls could do instead, as well as a chance to read some fab princess tales (see here and here). I do owe the Disney princesses something. Anna potty-trained in one day due to the encouragement of smiling princess stickers. And, the girls have enjoyed hours of healthy imaginative play based on none else but their beloved princesses.