Happy Birthday Mrs. Landbeck!

It's a running joke that amuses me, anyway, calling Jennilyn "Mrs. Landbeck". When we were first married (like, in the first few weeks), one of her old roommates invited us to eat with her and her husband. He kept calling her, "Mrs. Z" (her married last name initial), and the charm of it stuck.

Anyway, it's

HER

BIRTHDAY

TODAY!

Thus my annual campaign to make today happy, celebratory, awesome, special, and poignant for her.

She is amazing. If you know her, you know that already. My goal and purpose is to make her appreciate how appreciated she is (without triggering the instinctive Christian resistance to anything that smacks of pride or arrogance).

Sweetheart, you are best thing in all of our lives. That's not pride, that's the truth.

I love you. Happy Birthday.

Christmas Songs!

I love Christmas songs. There is a station in Baltimore that switches their whole playlist over to Christmas songs after Thanksgiving. The worst part about the station is their commercial breaks are like 10 minutes long, but we just turn the sound down for that.

It has been rewarding and delightful how cheery and willing our children have been to listen to and sing along with Christmas songs. Somehow we've avoided any grumpiness about the cheesiness or commercialism of Christmas that seems to afflict kids sometimes as they grow into an awareness of the "real" world. Here are some of the songs that have been favorites this year.



I wish there was a real video for this, and not just a karaoke prompt. But it's still one I love to catch when it comes on.



I still remember the year that Max's middle school choir sang this. Nine boys awkwardly shifting from foot to foot trying to his the low notes, it was still awesome.



This was a song that Max's choir sang this year. *Superb*. Christmas, funny, *and* full of puns.



Everytime this comes on the radio, the kids sing along with fervor and delight.



We love Christmas carols, Christmas hymns, funny, serious, reverent ones. I was touched last night as we carolled from house to house by a Father my age who told me he had never had carollers come to his home before.

Merry Christmas!

Sing some songs!

Links for Emma

I would email these to her, but some of them are interesting enough to share.

A good article on great teachers.

What would happen if you combined every element in the periodic table?

I can't believe it's only 50. Do you recognize them all?

The Things I've Lost

Thanksgiving is past, and Christmas is coming. I feel a little melancholy today. While I adore the holidays and look forward to more family-time and yummy food, I remember things that are gone, or that are grown distant. I am mulling today on what I've lost in my lifetime.


Well, for the last year, the obvious one has been my job. But that's not really true anymore. I'm working every day now, including weekends, at three part-time jobs. Still looking for something full-time with benefits. Now I'm so busy, I can be a little choosier in what I apply for.

There is not much, by way of stuff, that I've lost over the years that I remember, or miss. The rocking chair that went missing (probably stolen) one move when we were in college. There was that pair of glasses I hadn't seen in a few months, then one day I knew right where to look. Found them.

Once, when he was young, I lost one of our sons at a picnic. I was watching him from a distance, maybe 30, 40 meters away, play on a playground in the center of a housing development. Then, I didn't see him anymore.

We were at a party, with lots of adults, and we all scattered, every which way looking for him. I felt very certain he would go in a certain direction, and drove around the development to the other side.

Found him walking between the back yards of houses, exploring. Unaware of the crazed fear he had inspired. Now he is at BYU, 2000 miles away, hopefully looking after himself, because I no longer can.

Once, when Sam was about seven, he gave a talk in church.

"My Dad’s name is John Landbeck. He is the father of my body. I look like him. My eyes are blue, like his are. My hair is blonde, like his was."

Now and then . . . I've lost some hair.





 The Spaces between my children and me have grown, but I earnestly hope that we are never lost to each other. As I consider their adult futures, I pray they will stay close, that they will communicate and seek each other's company.

I've never lost my faith. I have on occasion lost my patience, but I can find that again quickly.

I am delighted to say I have shed myself of several grudges over the years. Their loss is definitely an improvement. Would that pounds were as easy to lose and stay shed.

I have lost a few family members over the years, and still miss them. But I have gained many, and treasure them all.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Grateful for Obedience

"To obey is better than sacrifice." -- Samuel

Saul did everything the Lord asked him to do, except destroy the best of his enemy's spoils. Those he allowed his people to keep, so they could "sacrifice [them] unto the LORD".

Mrs. L pinched my arm softly during Stake Conference a few weeks ago and whispered that she always had a hard time with that story. She works *hard* at everything she does, including obeying tasks assigned her. She often produces things better than asked for, makes them wonderful instead of just nice.

I think the story of Saul is not one of being in trouble for trying too hard to make things better, though.

Saul's act to let his people sacrifice some of the spoils was a fundamental change to the command he was given. It altered the nature of the action. He gave into his people's urge for convenience at the cost of following the Prophet's instructions.

Obedience is better than efficiency. It's better than convenience. Doing an extra good job at something isn't disobedient. But it is when we assert to be "doing more" when what we are really doing is something different.

I am grateful that I married a woman who is determined to obey the commandments. That it is so important to her to obey the prophet. I know to someone who doesn't believe what we do, that can look like blind obedience. But do not discount the process we undertook to be certain of the command in the first place; I trust the scriptures, trust the prophet. To me, the uncertain rumblings about blind obedience look like equivocation, intellectual justifications for partial obedience.

I know that I am happy when I obey God.

I am kind of sad that November is ending. I'm looking for a good pattern or theme to blog about next month. Can I find 31 things to love about Christmas?

How about 31 birthdays to love?

Thankful for the Second Law of Thermodynamics

In a closed system, over time entropy increases.

It was in 11th grade Chemistry that I was taught about how energy is conserved and about how chaos only increases. Our teacher asked us to consider a snowball, thrown at a wall. The energy of the moving snowball changes direction when it hits the wall (sending little pieces of snowball in every direction, until gravity and air resistance bring them to a halt), perhaps melts some of the snow, but the energy never goes away.

Then he held up a jar 1/3 full of little white fuzzy balls, and poured a layer of little black fuzzy balls on top of the white ones, so they formed two strata. He asked for a volunteer to shake the jar, and then said to keep shaking until the distinct layers reformed.


Obviously, no matter how long you shake, they never reform. Once things have become disordered, they do not spontaneously reorder. Left along, things become more chaotic, less organized.

These two concepts have informed my life ever since, but especially the explanation of entropy.

I look back now and can see how hard I try to make things *better* rather than worse. It is meaningful to me that what we do ripples out in effect to the world, having consequences far beyond what we can see in the immediate term. Why would you risk doing something that increases the disorder, the chaos, the bitterness of the world? It is *so* hard to undo some things, impossible to undo them sometimes.

Time to go sort some laundry. See, it's a closed system; those socks aren't going to match themselves.

Grateful for Poetry

I had an English Teacher in college who encouraged us to be very deliberate about the metaphors that we embrace. Our metaphors are how we see life, how we manifest our most basic and instinctive actions.

Love is a battlefield. Or is it a red, red rose?

I knew at a young age that I would always love poetry. It was never stupid or sissy to me. The lyrical nature of language resonates in my heart, I adore the well-turned phrasing, the impressionist verse, the complex rhymes or rhythms of poetry. I love the meaning it can convey in just a few simple words.

I reject the notion that some things cannot be explained. That idea, that experience is necessary for understanding, is at odds with everything I believe about the human experience, about knowledge, truth. It might take a mighty exertion of intuition and empathy, and the concerted effort of imagination, but I truly believe we can understand each other.

And poetry, for me, is the best and most perfect medium for that understanding to occur. Often the language of poetry slips back into our conversations, we use the imagery from a poem by alluding to its construction.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

I have spoken often of my love for words and language. I think that poetry is the highest expression of language, in poetry. My favorite scriptures are poetic, lyrical and powerful in their instruction.

I have never thrown away a book of poetry, which is actually kind of silly, since nearly every poem in the world is out their on the internet somewhere. But I love just turning through the pages of a poetry anthology and finding new and old ones, over and over again.

the world is puddle-wonderful
All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe.

Do you take time to consider the metaphors of your life? How you see the world, your relationships, your future? I hope so. It's never too late to have a more positive vision.

"Look on my works and despair!"

To turn from the urge to selfishness and be more kind. To yearn for greater happiness and more complete peace.

To love.

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.