Category: Religion

Garden, Snake.. Butcher?

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh, Religion, Tia

This morning, sitting on the front porch after he asked if the sun was hiding behind the mountain and I answered him no and showed him where it was hiding behind a tree, he asked:

Mago: “Daddy?”
Me: “Yes.”
Mago: “Are we in the sun’s garden?”
Me: (I don’t know where he got this, or maybe he made it up, but I think it’s a great idea, so I expanded on it) “Yes, the whole world is the sun’s garden. You’re in the sun’s garden, and I am, and mommy is, and sister is, and our neighbors are, and our family is.”

(It’s the Son’s garden, too).

At a cousin’s house Mago was playing with a wooden toy snake – the fairly large kind with a lot of interconnecting spine pieces or hinges, which make it slither back and forth when you bend it up or down – and Nem-nem was on her back on the floor, wiggling and cooing. None of us watched exactly what Mago did, but he was near Nem-nem when she gave out a howl and cry of alarm, so Tia went over and comforted her. As we speculated what might have happened, referring to Mago as we spoke, he approached a couch where several talking about this were sitting, and removing the wooden snake’s head where he had put it in his mouth, exclaimed:

“But I like a snake in my mouth!”

(So why doesn’t she? It’s a perfectly fun thing to do – what’s wrong with it?)

After we had taken him to the Chuck-E-Cheeze kid’s restaurant one evening (replete with a singing animal robot band on stage), the next morning I asked Mago how his time at Chuck-E-Cheeze was, and what he did. In his answers, he talked about the “butcher” on the stage – holding up his hands in the way a drummer would, working the drums.. er.. knives.

(Tia later clarified to me that he has a baker toy he often mistakes for a butcher – and I learned his birthday cousin does the same thing sometimes – so he probably thought the robot that was baking a pizza was a “butcher”. If so, I still think my mistake of his mistake is a very funny image)

Cuteness, Divine Excursion

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Pictures, Religion, Songs, Tia

A week or so ago Mago said, despondently:

“I’m not cute anymore, because I’m not a baby.”

I think this is jealousy of the attentions his new little sister is getting? But he’s how old, and saying this? (Two and a half years). And besides in my fatherly opinion this isn’t true, but besides all that, it doesn’t matter.. I hoped this wouldn’t happen. It’s bolstered by so many people he meets (especially old ladies) so emphatically saying in his company “He’s so cute!” There’s a place for it, I’d just hope not to excess. It can become (quite unintended – nobody wishes for this), the token of affection, status. No, you gotta love any kid just because they’re a kid. I’m pretty confident he’s confident enough of himself that having to be cute (to meet that demand) won’t need to be a focus, but.. how do you counter this? A few times since hearing this I’ve tried to tell him – a two-and-a-half year old! – that cuteness doesn’t matter, all that matters is trying to be good, and you are good (but, even though it doesn’t matter, you are cute to me).. it doesn’t seem to get across. Maybe a matter of time.

The affection of old ladies must be a lot more persuasive.

Tonight I went in to say goodnight to him after Tia put him to bed (and I had been watching Nem-nem), and when I walked in he said in tones speaking of a smile I couldn’t see in the dark:

“I need a hug and a hug.”

Okay. I’ll comply. As I did, he looked up in the very dim light to a picture of Jesus on the wall: (this one – link – incidentally, that one affected me more as a kid than any other painting of Jesus)

Mago: And Jesus loves them, and he’s treating them kindly. And he’s here.. and he’s showing them.. a dinosaur museum.

Me: Yes, that sounds like something Jesus would do, doesn’t it? [reader: please don’t think I don’t mean this. I do. [07/20/2015 EDIT: That link is outdated. This is a link to the intended image.] Okay, maybe not necessarily like that link..]

Mago: And.. he’s showing them a museum and it has T-Rexes.

Tia just told me they sang “Jesus said love everyone, treat them kindly too..” for bed time.

[07/20/2015 Amendment: fearing that image may ever vanish, I told the Wayback Machine about it, so here is a link to a (hopefully) permanent archive image.]

A Lullaby for Nem-nem (Highland Cathedral)

Alex / / Nem Nem Niamh, Religion, Songs, Video

I’ve been very taken with a tune I found (and what it necessarily has to do with Christmas re the album I have no idea). I’d kept thinking it captures my feelings about Nem-nem’s arrival, and that I’d like to use it in my video here depicting my idea of that. I’d kept meaning to look up the song origin and finally did. I at first mistook it for one of many old Scottish folk tunes but it was apparently written by two Germans in 1982 for a bagpipe festival in Scotland. It’s called Highland Cathedral. Two prominent sets of words (at least) have been written for it; I very much like this set:

There is a land far from this distant shore
Where heather grows and Highland Eagles soar
There is a land that will live ever more
Deep in my heart, my Bonnie Scotland

Though I serve so far away
I still see your streams, cities and dreams
I can’t wait until the day
When I’ll come home once more

So Lord keep me from the harm of war
Through all the dangers and the battles roar
Keep me safe until I’m home once more
Home to my own in Bonnie Scotland

On first reading these lyrics, I was overwhelmed by the coincidence that the tune both expresses my feelings about Nem-nem’s birth and that these lyrics are so similar in several ideas to words I wrote for Mago’s Lullaby:

So together we’ll hie
Through the sky love, and fly
To the sunny bright places we’ll see
With the Irish we’d die
For our mothers would cry
For the days to be sunny and green

Both are songs of a fair distant land of my ancestry, both speak of soaring/flying, both refer to battle (that’s what I mean by “With the Irish we’d die”).

So Highland Cathedral is Nem-nem’s lullaby.

I’ve got Scottish blood, so I suppose it isn’t necessarily fair to give the Irish all the attention (as I do with my children’s nicknames). But I don’t have any children for England, or for Wales (yet), or..

I’m also struck by allegory in the words; Nem-nem arrives from a distant land she left (her place with God) to serve in a battle (the war for souls on this earth) and will long for her eternal home. So I sing it in homage to both God and my ancestors. Further, I hadn’t even realized when I wrote Mago’s lullaby that it maybe could work allegorically in the same way.

Here is the song with this video for Nem-nem; only it isn’t so “lullaby” here, though it can be sung that way and has been child-tested and found to work. It’s versatile. Click the image.

Come Home

The stills in this are deep space photography which I color-alter, distort, zoom, pan, cross-fade, and change lighting of to give a sense of travel, merging into the opening sequence from CONTACT reversed and sped up. CONTACT had it wrong. In that film, pious scientists/priests repeatedly declare that the remainder of space without any life apart from Earth would be a “waste”. On the contrary I feel it isn’t about how far we can look or travel out there and whether it means anything to anyone else, human or alien, but how amazing, beautiful and meaningful it all makes our existence here. Not that life elsewhere isn’t compelling.

Incidentally, I hope my video, while philosophically in great sympathy with this amusingly distasteful schlock I found at YouTube, may be better. Even a little better would fill me with hope.

These were Tia’s comments on my video: “It’s good”. Later I sought clarification on this:

“So you like it?”

“I don’t like that music with it. This Scottish tune to that.. it doesn’t fit.”

“You’d appreciate it more if you appreciated Star Trek.”

(Derisive sarcasm) “Well, yeah.”

“You don’t remember [Star Trek II Spoiler!] [spoiler]the bagpipes at Spock’s funeral?”[/spoiler]

“Did I ever see [spoiler]Spock’s funeral?” [/spoiler]

“Well, there you go. It’s really good, I recommend it.”

Dream, Dream, Dream..

Alex / / Mago Elf Liam, Religion

Today I confessed to Tia for the umpteenth time that my sleep habits are insane. She replied: “I think it goes back to my theory that for anything really out of balance in your life, you start with scripture study and prayer.” As soon as she had said this, Mago, sleeping in his crib and heard through the baby monitor, emitted a sudden, brief, intense gale of laughter, joyful almost to crying, over as soon as it started.

I think he likes that theory. And his laughter in sleep has recommended prayer and the like before. It’s like that. As a biased parent I’ll say that If the kid won’t sell that, no one and nothing will.

My wife is very good. This is of course always a contrasting statement, if you are a Mormon, meaning that I am very bad. But seriously, that she should recommend this while I.. need to go to bed this second! I will! Anyway, that she should recommend this to I, who am supposed to Lead (TM) puts me to shame. But this is good. She has a good idea there.

ROSIE THE DOG

Alex / / Religion

Tia’s old dog Rosie died in her sleep last Sunday night at her dad’s house. She’d been withering and vomiting and couldn’t use the bathroom in her final days. We went to say goodbye to Rosie on Sunday evening.

I wrote this for Rose – I of course miss people too but mabye just remember them silently. I don’t know if this has a form, and it went in silly directions I didn’t necessarily pick. This may be knowing bad taste – but for me it’s one of those terrible situations where sentiment overpowers it.

Out at the stair she met me
Waited for me to play
But now her weathered ages
Ask for me to stay

In a corner, behind the couch
On a bed where memory rests
The loneliness of departure
From the days we spent our best

Running circles, playing chase
Fighting over prey
Throttled out, devoured life
Bleeding to the grey

And grey is where she meets me
Now turning into black
I’ve come to say I’m sorry
For leashing too much slack

For leaving off, for leaving life
For trading sweet for bitter
For visiting too little
And it tastes like kitty litter!

But this dog knows and understands
That kitty litter happens
There’s too much life in this old dog
So litter only fattens

Though retching out the last of life
She tells me where it goes
It is not dog, but mighty God
Who has come to take this Rose

She won’t bear and I won’t bear
The retching for the wreched
And in her ageless sinlessness
She knows the Lord has fetched

For all our wrongs a better toy
Than any wrong could wish for:
A timeless life, an endless day
Where angel doggies soar.

Triptych of Mago (Gallery 10), Update, Maintenance Pants

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Pictures, Religion

Here’s a Triptych I did of him. I’ll update this post soon with links to the source images [yeah, right -2007-07-04]. Photos by Tia, selection, arrangement and titling by me. Click this image for a larger image.

Thumbnail of Mago Triptych

Here are the originals from which were combined to make this.

[1] [2] [3]

.. are the things that I must do..

He’s walking all over the place all the time now. He loves the guitar and the one song I sorta play which I wrote (a toungue-in-cheek bit entitled NEW HOTEL – that’s a link to a crummy sketch recording). He wanders over to the guitar case and tries to get the guitar out, saying “Da! Da!” which I guess means guitar.

He’s invented a sign which he uses, holding a wrist with the other hand. We don’t know what it means.

In reference to my recent [sadly dull and desperate] post about pants, I’ve had an idea for new designer pants. Whereas current pant design trends send a message of being used by a sweatshop/company, I’m going to wear pants that bear a message of my son claiming support or maintenance from me. The other night I was feeding him a bottle at bed time, and out of nowhere he erupted a great load of milky vomit all over – himself, the chair, my shirt, and some smallish splatters and streaks of it got on my new pants, and the floor. I haven’t yet washed the pants because of business. But I’m thinking, maybe I’ll just leave it. Maybe I’ll work up the motif further with notable splatters of milky-white glue, small dried chunks and smears of seeming food trapped therein. That is my idea. What do you think? Think that will be “all the rage”?

Undated Dates (The First Vision, Halfway to Christmas)

Alex / / Alex, Religion

(This is blatantly and particularly churchy. Anyone disinterested may skip it without offending me.)

Yesterday I was thinking a lot about Joseph Smith’s “First Vision”, as it has come to be called, when God the Father and God the Son appeared to him. Actually, I was thinking that there may be many earthlings who have seen visions of God the Father – Lehi in THE BOOK OF MORMON apparently saw a vision of God:

.. he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels.. – THE BOOK OF MORMON, 1st Nephi 1:8

In the late evening Tia related a comment she heard in Relief Society – which of course I didn’t hear, not going to the women’s meetings in my church 😉 and it’s a comment I hadn’t heard before anyway – it is that people have looked back through records of the weather in the year Joseph Smith had his vision, and correlated these reports with Joseph’s comment on the weather the day of his vision, to guess that his vision was probably on March 26th. Joseph’s weather comment is in this verse of his witness:

So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty.. – JOSEPH SMITH—HISTORY, verse 14

Apparently the only clear day in early spring of that year was March 26th.

Blatantly, I see it as more than coincidence that I was thinking heavily on the First Vision on the apparent anniversary date of it, unaware. If it’s not the anniversary, the synchronicity of thought is striking. None of this is proof to me; only signs (I see a distinction between the two), if this hearsay is verifiable. Whatever the case, my faith rests on more certain things.

.. Another significant coincidence: about mid-two-years ago I woke up thinking I should get in the Christmas Spirit (as it were, and I never really did, and I often am abysmally not in that spirit), and that it was probably halfway to Christmas. I didn’t know it literally was until I looked at my calendar and calculated. I forget the date now 😉 as I don’t consciously track dates. I unconsciously track them. .. I could doubtless benefit from consciously tracking them, except that now I’m curious what other signs I’ll find unconscious, drunken and not with wine..

First Step, Little Scout.. Me

Alex / / Mago Elf Liam, Religion

Tia called me at work to let me know he took a step from the bed toward.. the computer. Um.. I don’t know what kind of omen that might be. Anyway, he was standing alongside the bed and wandered off [holding both arms in front of him (update: I reported this a bit wrong at first writing)], stood balancing on both feet, took a step forward, [stayed balanced for a short while, and grabbed the back of the chair in front of the computer. Tia said he was laughing and just full of joy through the whole adventure].

Also he has five teeth and one more coming in. And he gave me a gentle affectionate vampire bite this morning.

Also I forgot to say that at church last Sunday we passed a glass case in the wall, and he reached for it after I passed and went “Hhuuuuuuuuh!” – I said “What?” and moved for the case. It was full of antique and modern Boy Scout pariphinalia, and he ogled at all of it. When I caught up to Tia again, she asked what we stopped for and I told her – and when I did, he grinned from ear to ear. So he might be really interested in scouts.. which he’ll probably be ready for in what feels like a blink.

Oy.

I loved scouts.. only for the campouts. Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges! .. maybe he’ll want them. I have no doubt I’d have been very proud to be an Eagle Scout. I don’t even know how far I got.

Something I read reinforced an I suppose innate idea I have that kids need nature, the wilderness .. but I don’t think it’s any different for adults.

And a note from church.. the Elder’s Quorum president talked about how he was kind of creeped out when he was younger that they blessed (dedicated) his house – he said maybe it’s because you normally bless sick people, or something else I don’t remember, or, I sardonically inserted, a grave, which made people laugh.

Something I Didn’t Know about Me

Alex / / Alex, Religion

I learn from an uncle that when I was very little, maybe 3 or 4, at a baptism I was roaming around while a speaker preached about the Holy Ghost. At the mention of the term, I exclaimed in a high pitched, emphatically expressed astoundment: “The Holy GHOST!?” and continued wandering around. The speaker continued and soon repeated the same term, at which I exclaimed in the same manner but more intensely: “The Holy GHOST!? *AGAIN!?*”

The Love of God

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Religion

Yesterday morning his mother needed to leave for an hour for a school errand and I was left to listen to him howling in his crib for his morning nap as if Hell itself had descended on him. It struck me with guilt for my negligence of him in previous days. Of course the guilt made me wonder if his howling was in any way related to my negligence. When the crying went beyond the rationally tolerable (maybe past half an hour) and it was apparent he was not going to sleep on his own, I entered his room, told him I was sorry, picked him up, he calmed down, and I wiped his tears and proceeded shushing and rocking him. He looked out the bedroom door for his mother, but as I sang to him his lullaby (also too oft neglected beyond his first few months of life, though I use others), he relaxed more.

The guilt and holding him and wanting to comfort him moved me to pray just enough for him to hear [should I be confessing this to The Internet? – too late!], which relaxed him further, and soon and too my surprise he fell asleep on my shoulder, the first this had happened also for far too long (four months? six?) – or at least, I miss it, because our practice is to put him in his crib and let him cry himself to sleep, which is a practice my heart disagrees with.

I went to silent praying, and after standing for a long while rocking him in his sleep I moved him to my arms at my chest, and he stayed asleep. I sat in the rocking chair and rocked him and looked at him as I prayed. I found myself praying for more charity for this kid, and at the very moment I started this prayer, he laughed in his sleep and smiled for a short while, and then returned to ordinary sleep. My prayer was in his dream. It reminded me of Nephi’s dream, or vision:

And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms. And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw? And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things. And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul. –1 Nephi 11:20-23

It also reminds me of this:

Dream, dream, dream, of the joyous day to come
While guardian angels without number
Watch you as you sweetly slumber.. – Verse from a translation of the Austrian Christmas carol Still, Still, Still

As I went for my scriptures to find the verses above, though I knew generally where to look for this (Nephi’s books), the first page I opened to was the very verses. A bit of Mormon cultural mythology is that if you just open your scriptures to something it will be exactly the right verse for you..

Recent things, Naming, Funny Babble 2

Alex / / Mago Elf Liam, Religion

Erm.. haven’t kept up on the lad in writing.

Some maybe almost month, or so, ago his mother presented him a Mother Goose book to begin reading to him, and he made an exultant sound and dance when he saw Mother Goose on the cover. Babies know. Stories for babies are primaeval.

In recent weeks (or so?) he was laughing at Tia’s oldest sister and stepmother, when they babysat – I envy not having witnessed, and wonder if my sister didn’t when I was the first to make her first baby (the first grandchild) laugh. .. that seems somehow like a very monumental accomplishment now that I think of it; except that I didn’t do anything, I only came to her crib, and she laughed and smiled at me. ..very much like my boy, now that I think on it.

I’ve since seen him laugh with his aunt, whom I dare say has a gift for invoking delight in babies and children (I think my wife has the same gift relating to her neices and nephews). He openly pealed and giggled, repeatedly, the two of them just looking at each other. It made me laugh hard watching, and he’s since done this for me occasionally when I make a dog bark, or at other random times, but it’s worn off.. I think I must need to just be inventive, because nothing has worked for a while. But he smiles at me, and his mother, all the time, which is wonderful.

Two sundays ago I named him under the authority of the Priesthood, which is an ordinance in the LDS church, and then blessed him under the direction of the Spirit. The words and ideas of the blessing came with great certainty. The whole of the blessing was to incline the baby to live a life that will lead him back to his Heavenly Father from whom he recently came, bless him with gifts of faith, hope, and charity for the course, and to return with a wife and all his family. That is God’s plan for each of us, and God’s Spirit has witnessed it to me. I wrote soon after of the timeless sensation in the blessing:

I felt a strong connection back to Heavenly Father in giving this (which I am very grateful for), to a place where time stands still, yet thoughts of the future proceed in such certainty as causing by the very thoughts the events to occur; as if traveling forward in time.

Last morning (I’m posting this past midnight), he awakened us by saying:

Mimba

Followed by –

Boo? Gweh?

Late tonight I woke him up (a breach of decency) because I felt bad coming home so late and not seeing him today. After I cuddled him a while (he was mildly bothered and sleepy but cuddly) he began complaining, and said

I wa ma ma!

Which sounded stunningly like “I want my mom”, if that isn’t what it was.

Churchy Tender Laffs

Alex / / Religion

Months ago in the ward men’s general assembly they announced that the food drive went well, plenty of donations were recieved for a ward member in need, and that the blood drive went well. The Bishop’s comment: “You see how it goes brethren, first we want your food, then we want your money, then we want your blood.”

We laughed hard.

Churchy tender laff!

A few weeks ago the Priests were idly and somewhat loudly prattling during the men’s assembly: I overheard a Priest talking about a girl who was (I presume) the previous evening giving a play-by-play of simple popular music that was playing. He quoted her (my paraphrase) – “Okay this is where the drum solo is, coming up.. okay here it is..” – rediculously short drum riff – “..Okay that was it right there” – then later apparently she said “This is the part where you feel the love.”

This mildly disruptive talk continued into our singing the hymn: Love at Home. I thought this was opportune, I was standing near these Priests (who were also standing), and I approached the one who had gossiped about this girl; I interrupted his conversation with a dry declaration: “This is the part where you feel the love.” He got it immediately, and laughed hard. But far more importantly, he also shut up.

Churchy tender laff!

Two weeks ago I was supposed to give a spiritual thought in the assembly. I didn’t remember this obligation until it was minutes before I would have been called on. I fled in a panic and gathered my thoughts. When they called on me, this was it: “Brethren I didn’t prepare anything and fled out the door in a panic to gather my thoughts. What I came up with is simple and ironic. It’s the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.” – and I sat down. This produced hard laughter.

Churchy tender laff!