Adventures in Mormonism

I have had the honor — and burden — of writing and delivering not just my own father’s eulogy, but the eulogy for my father-in-law as well. These were two fine men who, while not perfect, did their best to raise and provide for their families. I still strive to live up to their examples. And just in the past few months, I’ve had the tremendous honor of doing my father’s temple work (including, just a few weeks ago, doing his endowment work).

Beyond that, my thoughts this day really turn to my sweet wife, Sandra. She and I were both married previously, and neither of us ever expected or wanted those prior (temple) marriages to end. When we married one another back in 1986, both at the age of 33, we found ourselves with nine (count ‘em!) nine kids under the age of 14. Needless to say, those early years of marriage were quite interesting, as was the 20-year span of raising teenagers. Now we’re empty-nesters (for the 3rd time, actually), and I work at home, so we’re together constantly — and I never tire of it. Each day with her is a gift and a delight.

Here’s a poem I wrote for her a few years after our temple sealing (which itself didn’t take place until a few years after our civil marriage); it still best sums up how I feel about her and about our marriage:

Two years on

To Sandra, on the 2nd anniversary of our sealing, 11/05/90

Two steps towards eternity
Widdershins about the sun,
A dance of light in time and space
That leads beyond.

Threads of glory wind around
And bind us into unity,
Pulled by love’s accretion to
Celestial singularity.

Natural as gravity —
As others note with but a glance —
Our lives collide and coalesce.
But oh! the fire in the dance!

Sandra is the love of my life and as pure an evidence of God’s grace in my life as anything I’ve encountered in my 55 years. As I told her a few days ago — when she wondered out loud what to get me for Father’s Day — just waking up next to her each morning is all the gift I ever need. ..bruce..

The Bloggernacle is permeated with a certain level of criticism about the LDS Church and its members — a lot of it mild and affectionate, or at least tolerant, and often meant to be constructive. But a fair amount of it is quite negative, hostile or even scathing. Yet there are weeks like this where I will cheerfully match up Latter-day Saints against any other group of people you care to name. Here’s what took place in the past week or so in our ward:

1) A young married woman in our ward got news a bit over a week ago that her brother (in another state, also married) had disappeared under unusual circumstances. We had a ward fast for her extended family last weekend. Her brother’s body was found early this past week, and several women in our ward pitched in to help her, her husband, and their young chidlren pull things together on short notice to travel out of state for her brother’s funeral and burial. While this family has been gone, the sisters in the wards put together about 10 days of frozen meals for them for when they get back, while the elders spent a good part of yesterday doing extensive yardword and home repairs around their house.

2) A middle-aged member of the Church — who has been inactive since his teenage years, and whose wife and three kids are not members — started coming back to church some weeks back when he found himself unemployed, broke and on the brink of foreclosure. The church provided critical help, while our ward employment director worked with him for three weeks and helped him find a new job and a new place to live. The elders and high priests came out on two successive weekday evening to help his family move all the belongings to their new place; elders from his new ward were there to help unload as well.

3) The mayor of our town (not LDS) has always been friendly and cooperative with the LDS wards here, particularly with the youth activities; I’ve seen him personally attend an Eagle Scout court of honor at our ward. The young men and young women in our ward and another one in our building wanted to show their appreciation, so about 40 of them showed up at his house yesterday and spent most of the morning doing extensive yardwork that he hasn’t had the time to do. He and his wife just watched in amazement.

4) An older couple in our ward were sealed in the temple yesterday, and their 18-year-old son sealed to them. The husband was inactive for many years, and the wife was not a member, but they started coming to church a few years back when their son started investigating the Church and then was baptized. The mother was baptized a year ago, and the parents have been teaching one of the youth Sunday school classes for several months. The temple sealing room was filled to overflowing with both his children (and some grandkids) from his previous marriage as well as members of the ward. All three of them — the husband, the wife, and the son — bore their testimonies in church today, as did one of his granddaughters (a returned missionary).

5) About a year ago, I got a call late one weekday evening from a woman in our ward. A family across the street — not members — had been literally evicted from their house (all their belongings thrown out on the front lawn), and they were slowly trying to load it into a truck to move elsewhere, but were clearly overwhelmed. She asked what we could do. I called the high priests group leader, and within 30 minutes, we had 20 or so brethren from the ward there. We loaded up the family’s moving truck once, followed it about 20 miles away to their new residence, unloaded it, then came back and went through the process a second time; by the time we were done, it was about 1:00 am.

The same woman who called me a year ago took me aside today to say that the wife and children of that family were baptized yesterday, and the husband is working towards baptism as well. She said that they were so stunned by the willingness of 20 or so total strangers to give them such extensive help that they had to find out more about this church.

6) Oh, and the younger son of the Nigerian family that moved into our ward a year ago was baptized yesterday (after turning 8). The remarkable thing there is that there’s nothing remarkable; the husband’s a high priest, the wife is heavily involved in Relief Society, and the kids are, well, kids, and they’re all just part of the ward famly.

During the fast and testimony meeting today, one sister — a close friend of the young married woman whose brother died — got up, thanked all those who had helped, and said, through tears, “I am so proud to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of this ward.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. ..bruce..

Kenny and Linsey are two of our closest and dearest friends. Sandra & I met them back in DC when they were still single and uninvolved with each other. We watched their courtship, heartily approved of their engagement, and traveled to Utah to be there for their wedding. They were regulars at our DC BBQs and — along with Matt & Cassidy (two more C&DFs) — would hang out to help clean up and talk with us afterwards.  Kenny and I ended up serving together in the bishopric as well.

Kenny passed the Foreign Service exam and went to work for the US State Department; not long after Sandra & I moved to Colorado, Kenny & Linsey headed down to Peru. Linsey has been writing a blog about their experiences, and her latest posting chronicles a week — over the Memorial Day weekend — during which Kenny was the US Embassy Duty Office. A brief extract from the post:

We are at dinner with 2 very tired and uncooperative children: Eliza calls from Spain to say that her ex-husband, who does not have custody of their 8 year old daughter, has been arrested while traveling in Peru with the daughter and now the child is somewhere in Peru in custody of the authorities. This turns out to be the tip of the iceberg of a very complicated story, some of which was true, much of which was sketchy and patently untrue. It took most of the weekend to unravel.

Heh. Read the whole thing.  ..bruce..

[While digging through my family history files for something else, I found a copy of the eulogy I gave at the funeral of Avard "Andy" Anderson, my father-in-law, some sixteen years ago, in August 1992. Since I've already posted my own father's eulogy on line, I wanted to post Andy's eulogy as well.]

All too often, we measure status in the Church — and standing before the Lord — by positions held, particularly those held lately. We sometimes talk of Church careers and promotions, as if the Kingdom were a business. When we gather together, we find ways subtle and overt to let others know what callings we’ve had, feeling self-assured if we’ve held what are commonly called “high” positions, and feeling self-doubt if someone much younger has held higher positions.

By such standards, Avard Anderson — my father-in-law — was not a “success”. He spent over twenty-five years traveling through the US and Canada, building smokestacks. He never stayed in one place very long, living and working in over 100 different locations during that time. When he finally retired, he settled here in Orem and spent the rest of his life enjoying time with Nora, their children, and the ever-growing stream of grandkids. Throughout the nearly fifty years since Dad and Mom were married, he was never called as a bishop, never appointed to serve on a stake high council, never asked to be a member of a stake presidency.

And yet…and yet I think Dad has laid up for himself a reward in heaven which any of us would be thrilled to have. During all those years, he usually lived far from the population centers of the Church, at a time when total Church membership was barely a tenth of what it is today. He served in a succession of branches and small wards, providing leadership and support to the members there. He was always ready to show Christ-like service to all he’d come in contact with, and when he felt it was appropriate, he’d bear his humble, honest testimony — and more than a few people heard it, were touched, and were baptized. He, Mom and the kids faithfully attended their meetings wherever they lived, even though at times they lived 20 to 30 miles from the meetinghouse, and the meeting schedule back then was far less convenient: Priesthood and Sunday School in the morning, Sacrament in the evening, and Primary, Mutual, and Relief Society during the week. All this was done not to impress others, gain appreciation, or to somehow qualify for higher callings, but because it was the right thing to do — and Dad felt he owed it to the Lord to do the right thing.

I think of Dad as a Johnny Appleseed, planting seeds and nurturing branches, setting an example and quietly serving others, doing his part to help keep things growing until the Church membership grew large enough to sustain its own growth. Many of the branches he served in are now wards; many of the wards, stakes; and there are many, many people throughout the US and Canada, of all religious persuasions, who know, remember and love Avard Anderson. O, that we all could have such a legacy!

A lesser man might have felt pride and self-satisfaction; Dad, in his humility, was concerned about what he saw as his shortcomings and mistakes. He spent the last few months of his life expressing his love and appreciation for those around him and bearing his testimony to his many visitors. At night, lying in bed, he prayed blessings on those he loved and mentally reviewed all he had learned in the temple, wanting to be prepared for what awaited him in the next life.

I have few doubts about who was there to meet Dad when he crossed over: family and friends who have gone on before, descendants yet to come, and — as promised in two separate blessings he received during his last weeks — the Savior Himself. I’m also quite sure that Dad will again be doing there what he did so well here: quietly serving and bearing testimony. As his nephew Mike noted last night, Dad is following the pattern of his life: going ahead to set things up, then sending for Mom and, eventually, the kids. While such a promise as Dad’s — to be met by the Savior — would be tremendous comfort, I will be content if it is Dad who meets me when I pass through to the other side, because I am sure that where I find one, I will find the Other.

– Bruce F. Webster, August 12, 1992, Orem, Utah

I never knew Thomas R. (”Tom”) McGetchin personally. Terminally ill with cancer at age 43, he had left his position as Director of the Lunar & Planetary Institute in July of 1979 — just seven months before I started work at LPI — and had died a few months later in October of 1979. But almost all the scientists and staff then at LPI knew him and had been very much affected by both his life and his rather premature death.

When Tom McGetchin left LPI, he and his wife Carle went to Hawaii to stay with their close friends, the McCords, for Tom’s final months of life. Tom kept a journal during this time, and while I was at LPI, I got from my office mate, Caroline, a xeroxed copy of one of his handwritten journal entries. It affected me very much, so much so that I quoted from it at the end of my father’s eulogy nearly 20 years later.

Here’s that journal entry:

[Sunday, July 22
Honolulu - McCords]

Geez Hawaii is a beautiful place and the McCord’s front porch is just one of the good places on this earth; good memories mixed with spectacular views and the kissing of a climate — whatever it’s doing whether sunny or raining — it’s just mellow.

Reading, sleeping, talking and thinking lots — about how short life is regardless of how you cut it, cancer aside. There are a few decades we have which just swim by in the blind procession of days. What matters? From where I sit, I see several really simple and important things.

• shaping your stone well; that’s your part in civilization
• loving — other humans matter most
• taking the next step; it’s always hard

Shaping your stone means quietly doing your job, as well as you can. Your identity will soon be lost to history but your stone, if well shaped and polished will fit into the structure we call civilization and hold its weight, as time sweeps past us and others build upon us. History is full of greed, horror and the worst in mankind — but humaness is built of well shaped loving lives. What we do matters and if there is beauty in the world it is because many quiet souls have shaped their stones well and the cathedral of life is beautiful after all.

Loving matters most — friendships are what make living good and full or empty. Giving and being real, the good and bad, but sharing it all in loving acceptance and without judgment. We are so similar under the skin and we need each other.

Taking the next step, is about the hard part of life. It’s about courage and it does mean trying to do what’s next, even though it’s painful. It also means taking the next step, not the next 10 at once, but the important (essential) thing is to keep moving, even if however slowly it seems.

What death and life mean are beyond knowing for now. I don’t believe we blink out like a light but that could be egotism or false hope. It doesn’t matter for now; for now

there is my stone to chip and polish, souls to love and be truly myself with and always the next awkward step to take.

Tom’s words have stayed with me in the nearly 30 years since I first read them and continue to influence my outlook on life.

This all comes up now because I received an e-mail last night out of the blue from Tom’s sister, Bow. She had googled her brother’s name and ran across my eulogy for my father (posted on one of my other blogs). She wrote me to ask how I had known Tom, which gave me the privilege of explaining — thirty years later, to someone who knew and loved Tom very much — how his insights had affected my life, even though I never knew him personally.

That is a note of life’s grace that I think Tom would have appreciated. ..bruce..