Things That Make Me Feel Smart.

When my wife quotes me, I feel *REALLY* smart.

But when I find something I know she'll love, that makes me feel pretty smart too.



This is a landscape/sculpture made from six old books. It's from a series by Guy Laramee (go look at some more here).

I predict Jennilyn will probably be hacking some more books next year.

Can't wait to see what beautiful things you do next, love. Happy Birthday, Happy New Year!

Christmas is about Music

Christmas is about a hundred different things, but *one* of them is music. We sing Christmas songs all month long in our home. The seminary class sings them every school morning. We sing them in church, go caroling and deliver fudge with our chorusing (not carousing). Christmas eve, we spent almost an hour singing them with my Grandma Billie, a new Christmas tradition (which actually mirrors an old Christmas tradition, one I remember doing more than once with Betty and Blen Stoker).

There was a bittersweet moment this Christmas listening to Max perform as an alumnus with the Maryland State Boychoir for their Lessons and Carols performance last Sunday. I snuck into the hall where they were singing, via a back passage in the basement just to hear him sing "Of the Father's Love Begotten" (a song based on a translation of several passages from Aurelius Clemens Prudentius 5th century poem, "Liber Cathemerinon").

I wept. It was so beautiful, so poignant. It captured, for me, the aching desire we manifest to be perfect, and how we never succeed in that goal, and yet we continue on.

I cannot explain how touching and beautiful it is to hear the layers of voice singing. I loved in the Boychoir arrangement, how after the first verse, one portion of the singers carry a note over at the end of their phrase, and the next line begins underneath of it.

Especially near the end of verse two, when the bass singers go up and down on the word "Redeemer", ending on a solemn B and holding that low reverberating note while the tenors begin singing about Christ revealing his baby face.

How low we go on this earth, how fallen this world becomes, and we fall with it. As low as it is possible to fall! Yet Christ's love and grace carries us back from those deep places, carries us back into the light to feel glorious, new, reborn.

How is it that we can share such beauty and still feel such great anger and frustration with each other?

Yet we continue, we try, we work. Despair is all around us, reasons to stop. I am so glad for Christmas, for songs that inspire and lift me up.

This is a slide show presentation of another mens chorus singing an arrangement similar to that of the Boychoir. "Of the Father's Love Begotten".




"Of the Father's Love Begotten"
by Aurelius C. Prudentius, 413, cento
Translated by John. M. Neale, 1818-1866
and Henry W. Baker, 1821-1977

1. Of the Father's love begotten, ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the Source, the Ending He.
Of the things that are, that have been, and that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore.

2. Oh, that birth forever blessed, when the Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race.
And the Babe, the world's Redeemer, first revealed His sacred face,
Evermore and evermore.

3. O ye heights of heaven, adore Him; angel hosts, His praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him, and extol our God and King.
Let no tongue on earth be silent, every voice in concert ring
Evermore and evermore.

4. Christ, to Thee, with God the Father, and, O Holy Ghost, to Thee
Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving and unending praises be.
Honor, glory, and dominion, and eternal victory
Evermore and evermore.

Elder Landbeck's Zone Meeting picture (I think)

Brashly swiped from one of Stewart's companion's facebook!

Sam on the Honor Roll

Sam made the honor roll this semester. We went to Burger King after the ceremony.





I thought it was hilarious how much he looked like Stewart at church last week.

I Recognize that Fabric!

This block is on the wall outside the Vaccine Research Center (where I am getting immunized against Malaria FOR SCIENCE!). I recognize some of the fabric from other things Jennilyn has quilted over the years.

It makes me happy to see pieces of us reflected everywhere.

Fall Stake Youth Activity

I love going along with my kids on youth outings.

Sam was happy to see me.

Suzanna was not. At least, she was pretending to not be. I think secretly she's happy I still like her.

She turned 16 this week. She's growing up, turning into an adult.

I'm glad we got to be a part of that process.

Photos from Dallas

The last time I stayed in a hotel with the census, it was just some hotel in Philadelphia. This place reminded me of the huge convention hotel we stayed at in Atlanta for the World Science Fiction Convention in August, 1986. It has a bank of glass elevators.

Going up (a pic from inside the elevator).



The elevators from the vantage right out side my room.



My cousin Roger is a marketing/branding manager at the Dallas CW affiliate (if you said "What's CW?" he just cried a little). Both nights I was there, he came and got me, taking me to dinner. Monday night was a Tex-Mex place. This picture is from the balcony at a place called "Smoke" Tuesday night. See the little tiny glowy ball on the right side of the photo? That's Wolfgang Puck's restaurant at my hotel.



I went for a walk (to buy some food so I could make lunch/breakfast rather than buying it), and saw some interesting places. These blue lights were really pretty, but hard to see in the day time.



I'll bet these vines are really pretty in the Spring. There were some neat-o icicle lights hanging from the trees with "dripping" lights that ran down the lengths. Again, not so cool in the day.



Thanks Brother-on-law Bob for the suggestion to seek out Dealy Plaza. It was *really* cold that day, so not fun to walk around and look at the sights. That red brick building is the book depository.



Sunrise through the huge slanting front window of the hotel.


Boy am I glad to be home.

On the Way to Work Sunrises

That's all. Just some of the things I see on the road in the morning.

The Bees Sneeze ReVisited

Remember this bush from earlier this year?



Fall has come and gone, taking the flowers, the leaves, and the bees.



But look closer. It has revealed something else.



Only two more Easter Eggs left to find from this year's impossibly difficult hunt.



Max, you are never allowed to hide Easter Eggs again!

Cultural Literacy

My behavior is populated with filmic allusion.

Especially from my childhood favorites. When insisting on something with a child, threatening a punishment or a course they dislike, I challenge them, a la Grand Moff, "Would you prefer another (punishment, objective, chore, etc.), a military (punishment, objective, chore, etc.)? Then name the (punishment, objective, chore, etc.)!"



And Luke, ever earnest, overachieving, and in desperate need of affirmation, "(beat) *I* care!"

It is always wryly disappointing when I hear people get an allusion wrong. The other day, a co-worker joked about needing any "stinking badges", and I asked him if he'd ever seen the movie.

"Blazing Saddles? Yeah, it's one of my favorites!"

To think that kids these days grow up without bothering to source their favorite quotes. It is to weep.



I have tried to instill a similar discerning love for film in my children. I am certain that makes me occasionally entertaining. I am also certain it is not enough.

What are the cultural things that are important for children to know? Do we need to teach them the School of Rock chart of Rock and Roll etymology? Political terms and historical stances?

We teach them what's worth fighting for, striving for, what things are worth the sacrifice. What things are not.

I want my children to know that I expect them to go to church each week, even if it's inconvenient.

I want them to have fun and laugh, but to know when to be tender and reverent.