I BELIEVE

One of Jacob's friends doesn't believe in Santa Claus.  We know, because a week or so ago he told us that his friend told him so.  He also told us not to worry, because he told his friend, "It's okay, Santa Claus comes in lots of different ways."  I can't say I understood exactly what he meant, and, like any normal adult, brushed it off; after all, I really only ponder what I don't immediately understand when it comes from someone John Steinbeck, James Joyce, or T.E. Hulme.  Well, chalk my boy right up there with the great and wise ones.  Last night, I understood what he intended.

Santa Claus came to our home, but not in any way we anticipated (we: my wife and I), and despite our children only seeing enough to believe nothing more than the occurrence of the conventional visit.

Christmas Eve:

I was on guard duty, which means I sat on the couch and watched movies while my wife was in the basement wrapping presents.  To keep from feeling guilty for sitting on my butt while my wife worked hers off (though I did redeem myself by mighty application of a deep tissue back rub to her aching muscles two hours later), every ten minutes or so I checked on the kids and delivered a report downstairs.  From ten until just after midnight, the report was same: "One down, the other still pretending" (the latter determined to spy on Santa, just to make sure).

Finally he fell asleep.  I was without further excuse to stay with my movie, so down I went.  Thankfully, Angie had just finished the wrapping.  She stood up and came over to me; we stretched arms across each others' shoulders; and we look at the loot.

Now, if you've been keeping up at all (and really, all you have to do is look at the title of the blog), you'll recognize that putting together any kind of a Christmas (inasmuch as Christmas is gifts for the kids and the maintenance of general childhood illusions) was pretty much little more than impossible.

Well, like I said, Santa Claus came.

We didn't see him come.  We didn't hear reindeer on the roof or spy a red light jetting across the sky. Angie and I ate the cookies and carrots and drank the hot chocolate.  We placed the stockings and arranged the presents.  Dutifully--and thankfully she claims to love it--Angie tied every bow and stuck every strip of tape.  But man!  The stuff that stuffed the stockings!  The boxes Angie wrapped filled with stuff and stuff and stuff!  The decorations!  The food!

Humbling it is, and miraculous; and how it reaffirms that we are not in control, and that someone greater and more generous than I'd previously recognized, not to mention clearly almighty, thankfully and beautifully is.  It was He who sent the wise men bearing their gifts to Jesus; and how generous and awesome that he might similarly send a wise man to us, bearded and jolly, even if we didn't get to see him and my son couldn't catch him.  Most humbling of all: He saw fit to send it to us.

And my kids were in heaven.  And isn't that what Home is supposed to be?

What a great day!

The Unblemished

In a previous entry, I mentioned the Law of Moses.  We know a little about it.  I mentioned its fulfillment in Jesus Christ (no, this isn’t going to be a religious entry—really, I promise).  I can’t say I was really planning on writing any more about, at least not so soon, but a project my “team” took on at my current temp work (I’m intentionally not mentioning the name—copyright infringements and whatnot) reminded me of both.

You’ve likely guessed from the title where this is going.  I will reinforce your assumption:

It’s a cosmetics plant.  High end cosmetics.  Stupidly high end.  Enough so that I throw up a little—you know, that little bile-y burp at the back of your throat—when I think about what people are paying and for what they’re getting and why they’re getting it!

(Someone, please prepare my soapbox!)

saffron, the spice

So we finished one order and prepared it for shipment.  In came the next order, one thousand, three hundred, and whatever kits of this fancy crap designed to prevent your skin from aging and actually undo years of time’s destructive forces.  Supposedly this goop actually works, the company knows it (or is at least confident in their ruse), and is charging upwards of $300 for a total four ounces of product.  (Okay, I’m not well-versed in cosmetics retail; I’m sure there is stuff a lot more expensive than this, but come on!)  Now think about this for a second.  Take saffron.  To harvest a pound--1 POUND--of saffron, you've got to plant a whole football field's worth of saffron crocuses, then meticulously remove the stamen from each, gather them up carefully, package them, and finally sell them.  Saffron sells for around $1000/pound, which is, of course, $62.50/ounce.  Now consider all the work that went into this--the man hours, horticulture expertise, the skill and labor--and it almost sounds like a bargain.  This makeup--which, I'm sorry, let's be real, won't even work--costs an additional $12.50/ounce.  And it doesn't even taste good!  (Saffron's delicious.)  (Okay, I'm just guessing the makeup doesn't taste nice, and maybe, just maybe, it actually DOES work, but I don't know.  And I'm sure there are plenty of man hours and tremendous expertise and research that went into it, but the kit only lasts a couple weeks!  And then you have to keep using it over and over again, buying more and more....  They could at least sell it in bulk.  You know, like those five gallon jugs of mayonnaise you can pick up at Sam's Club.)

But it doesn't end there.  I could go into all the stuff about vanity and consumerism and blatant waste, but I won't.  Not about the actual stuff, because, like I just parenthetically stated, it might actually work!  What do I know?  And who am I to say?  Maybe there's someone out there who really NEEDS to look younger, if only for a few hours or days, and maybe this is the only solution, and then maybe it's actually worth all that cash.

Here's where it gets worse:  So I'm standing at the table, and a box of un-constructed makeup kit cartons is placed before me.  I receive instructions on the folding of the carton and set to work.  And it's pretty--the carton is.  Beautiful stock paper--matte and somehow mother-of-pearl at the same time, with subtle silver text.  Very chic, very.  And I'm an art lover.  I recognize commercial art and design as a legitimate art form.  I'm all for it.  And this, again, is beautiful stuff.  And when you compile that against uniform columns of hundreds and hundreds of these things, all neatly stacked and heavy with crystal and stainless steel vials, it's almost breathtaking.  So none of this really bothered me.  Not yet, anyway.  So after a while, I get the hang of it and can afford to glance away a moment from my work (there's significant pressure to move fast--production line and all).  I look down the line where the assembly of the actual kit is happening and it's all inserted into the carton, folded shut, and run through the shrink-wrapper (or whatever it's called).  Behind the three or four people sticking stuff in the carton liners there's a pile--I kid you not--FIVE FEET TALL and easily seven or eight feet wide of cartons I'd folded.

"Hey," I called down (not angry; just curious), "what happened to the cartons?"  By now I've been here a few days, and I understand--and it makes sense--that faulty packaging and product can't be passed on to the consumers, but I'd been careful.  Meticulous!  I figured someone was screwing up my cartons while placing placing into them.  Or had I don't something wrong?  No.  No one had come to show me the right way....

"Oh," someone called back.  "There're marks on the paper."

Marks on the paper.

Okay.

So over the next hour, I watched each and every carton--examined every single one I handled and folded--for blemishes.  "Marks." 

Nothing.

Finally, at break, I went over to the mountain--now bigger--and picked up a discarded carton.  I couldn't see anything.  I picked up another.  Still nothing.  I took up a third and held it toward one of those who'd been pitching them.  "What's wrong with it?" I asked.

He held it.  Turned it.  Flipped it over.  "Ah!  There," he said, and pointed.  "A spot."

I looked. 

I took my glasses off.

I moved the thing right up to the tip of my very round nose.

There, right where he was pointing, was a black dot smaller than a pore on the face of a Chinese porcelain doll. 

Holy crap.  "And they're all like that?"

"Yep."

"It's a natural flaw in the paper," I argued.

"Yep."

"So?"

"So some marks are bigger.  And there were a few scuffs from sliding the box on the table."

"SO?"

"So, customers want them perfect.  This is expensive stuff were sending out."

"It's a paper flaw!"  I could feel my blood pressure rising.  "What, will they send it back?"

"Yep," he said again.  "And it's a reputation thing, besides."

Okay, I got it:  So, in order to appease the consumers, we were chucking hundreds and hundreds of cartons.  ("Yeah, and they each cost two dollars a piece," the same guy told me later.)  I was having a hard time swallowing that, and I could feel, opening up within my mind and soul, a millions tangents of justified, tirading rebuttals.  But I couldn't close my mouth enough to begin articulation.  Instead I took my break.

The ancient Israelites took the first born of their flocks for sacrifice, but only--if I understand it right--if that particular lamb or bullock or whatever was without blemish (then they ran it through a shrink-wrapper!  Ha! (sorry)).  Jesus Christ was the final sacrifice, and he was both the first born as he was also without blemish.  Both the animals and the Savior were given up to God the Father.  Right? 

I am having the hardest time reconciling these two match ups:

Jesus Christ or the flawless lamb against this silly--albeit pretty--box, and God the Almighty Father of All against these affluent, vain, critical consumers.

Maybe I'm missing something.

But I shouldn't judge.  What utter frivolity would I be wasting my money on if money I had to waste?

The Pioneers Had It Rough

My family and I left for church Sunday morning earlier than usual.  It was regional conference, which meant that pretty much no matter which of the bajillion LDS churches we chose to attend from anywhere across the entire county, we would see the same broadcast as anyone else as relayed from the Marriott Center at BYU.  So we joined my father- and sister-in-law (which I’m always in favor of, because it generally means that I’ll actually get to pay attention to the meeting rather than spend all my faculties keeping the kids occupied and quiet—and they’re quality company, besides), and went to their building. 

It was an excellent meeting, of course (and I’m not just saying so because it was church and Apostles and whatnot), and I particularly enjoyed the comments from Julie Beck, General Relief Society President for the Church, and from Elder Holland of the Twelve.  But I didn’t take notes.  I never do, and I can’t say that any of their words are still hanging out with me.  Elder Packer, however, whom I don’t usually find particularly compelling (sorry), said something that gave me pause—something like this:  Should the pioneers look down and comment on the difficulty of living in the modern age, they would confess how much harder we’ve got it than they had.  So, simplifying: my life is harder than the life of a pioneer—one of those poor people who trekked across the Great Plains from Ohio, Missouri, Illinois all the way to Utah and beyond in the name of religious freedom, and did so under some of the most harrowing circumstances you might ever come across.  If you doubt me, find a Mormon church and attend Sunday services anywhere around the 24^th of July.  And if you are a Mormon, you know exactly the crazy, amazing, and inspiring experiences these people underwent.  Holy cow, and here’s an apostle of the Lord claiming my life’s tougher!?  Sure, he’s drawing a metaphor to living as a “spiritual pioneer” in the Last Days, and is trying to build us up that, hey, our challenges are BIGGER, REALLY, but come on....

Again, I’m not the kind to just take their word for it.  This is what I think and the process I took to get there (nowhere definitive, I’m afraid), and it starts with that modifier, “spiritual,” against that big noun above, “pioneer.”

So, “In the beginning,” we understand that God created all things spiritually before he created them physically.  That makes sense.  He did/does have a plan, after all.  We see a bigger version of this, turned cyclic, in the advent and absolution of the Law of Moses.  Before Moses, there was the higher law, which the children of Israel were deemed too slow to cope with; so the higher law from before was replaced with the Law of Sacrifice, which, of course—for Christians—means that those couple thousand years or so were preparatory, particularly metaphorically, for the ultimate and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  So spiritual versus physical, right?  The higher law is a spiritual law; the law of Moses very physical, and now, we’re back to the higher law.  So what’s this got to do with the Mormon pioneers?

I see it that the pioneers’ trials—and I think this should be pretty clear—underwent ostensibly and dominantly physical trials.  I’m sure that they had their spiritual trials too, but as far as the collective generations of the pioneers are concerned, theirs were physical—and they were freaking tremendous.  On the other hand, physically speaking, we’ve got it pretty easy.  (And what Elder Packer is talking about when he says our trials will make the pioneers happy they didn’t have our lot—what exactly the modern TRIALS are, generally, for an entire population—well, I think they’re abundant, but feel free to comment!)

But is our situation really harder?  Really?

When I gauge the distance across the epochs of humanity (ugh, that sounds ridiculous!) and note how far we’ve come—in whatever sense, though we can probably add, “or how low we’ve sunk” —I can’t say that I think anyone’s got it any harder than anyone else, ever.  We’ve all heard the stereotypical fatherly or grandfatherly when-I-was-your-age boloney (bologna?).  No.  They didn’t have it harder.  No.  I don’t think we’ve got it harder.  Here’s why:

Christ’s temptations.  Let’s look at those first (Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 4).  (I’m going to try and keep this concise.)  So the Bible uses the word “tempt” for what Satan does—not tries to do, but does—to Jesus out in the wilderness among the beasts.  And, yes, I know we have to take the actual wording of the Bible (thank you, Bart Ehrman) with a grain of salt, or several handfuls.  And if you think you can take this literally, which you can’t (though, in this case, literal interpretation works just as well, as it turns out), you’re firstly warded off not by any potential misquotation (which, actually, Bart, isn’t an issue as we Mormons—who believe—got the JST) but by the etymology of the word itself.  (I confess, I was disappointed; I wanted it to be literal and say, “Yes, see, Satan didn’t attempt to tempt Jesus—he DID tempt him!”)  The word “tempt” means to “attempt to influence,” not “to influence.”  Sorry.  Regardless, could any of these little trivialities really be anything for Jesus as are the temptations wily adversary puts before me—us?

Yes.

Now before you call lightning down upon me, think about it (and really, the difference between Jesus and us is perfect here (and, yes, I’m speaking for all of us—and you), that is Jesus didn’t give in!):  Satan knows us.  He knows us well enough that he picks (or maybe it’s just process of elimination and he doesn’t know anything, but I don’t think so—he’s got no veil over his eyes depriving him of the knowledge of all our time and development in the preexistence) only the most likely-to-make-us-fall temptations he can find.  Now, as Jesus is so much greater a potential prize for him than any one or even all of us, wouldn’t he have been all the more careful to most meticulously select the Master’s temptations.  (And besides—and this is just speculation—if Jesus has to really know/understand everything about our experience in order to truly advocate for us, wouldn’t he have to truly know/understand temptation?)  Anyway, I trust it wasn’t so simple as, “Hey, little brother, turning that rock to bread is pretty stupid, so just go away.”  I think he felt tempted.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it?  After all, I can look at all kinds of people—alcoholics, for an extreme example—and scoff, “What the heck’s wrong with them; I’d never do that.”  And I probably won’t.  I can’t say that I’ve got a problem with gossip, or with dishonoring my parents.  Are there people who do?  Well, duh, or there wouldn’t have been commandments set forth to countermand the actions pursuant of such weaknesses in the first place!  I’ve got problems of my own.  And, really, if I’d been fasting for weeks in the wilderness and I had the power to turn a freaking rock into a loaf of bread, well....

Take a step beyond temptations.  Trials.  There are all kinds.  For example, there are trials that we bring upon ourselves, because we’ve succumbed to temptation or made a stupid decision or whatever else. There are also the trials that God simply puts before us, not because we’re weak, but because he wants to make us stronger.  With trials, similar to temptations—but without the examples, as this is going on forever—something that is an obstacle for me would not necessarily be an obstacle for another.

And why not?  Didn’t God create us equal?

Again, here’s how I see it:  We’re all different—little snowflakes, right?  Infinite possibilities.  But for each of us God has the same mission, that is to return to Him.  That’s what he wants.  And for us to be happy.  He wants us back!  He didn’t put us here to fail, no matter how much it might at time seem otherwise and so often.  But he also wants us to be the best we can be.  That’s another thing entirely, and what would make the pioneers the best they could be is not necessarily the same stuff that will make me or you or anyone else of our generations the best we can be.  How do I know?  Well, how many of us are pushing a handcart across the Rocky-freaking-Mountains?

When Elder Packer says the pioneers will look on us and say, “Holy crap, I’m glad that’s not us,” all it tells me is that the pioneers were different people, perfectly suited—eternally speaking—for the trials they were given; and holy crap, I’m glad I don’t have to do what they did.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make my life any easier.  Interestingly enough, despite the difference in trial types—physical versus spiritual—God provided exactly the same means for overcoming them.  To be happy in the face of trials, to overcome the trials and gain what the Maker wants us to gain from them, what do we need? 

Faith, man.  That’s the answer.  And it’s the bleeding answer for every problem we’re confronted with, self-induced, Godly, or otherwise. Faith.  In Jesus Christ.  He, who underwent everything—condescended, to use the King James scribblers’ vernacular—so that he could pull us through or carry us over anything.

So back to the beginning: So, did the pioneers REALLY NOT get it as rough as we got it?  Nope.  It’s true.  Low and behold, old Packer is right.  It’s harder for us, because it is us, not them.  And knowing—or hearing from one of God’s mouthpieces on Earth—that my life, at least for me, is harder than anything the pioneers went through, well, it helps me remember to really put my best foot forward and remember that if it’s what the Lord’s given me, it must also be what’s best for me, and that (as well as being another clause in a ridiculous run-on sentence) is really comforting right now.

Amen.