WHO'S IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT?

Saw the following on the marquee of a scruffy little church in Longmont.  Made me stop and think if I might be calling the shots--or if I have enough faith to let the Lord do some driving in my life so I can reach a final destination which is probably far better than I could plan for myself. 

Maybe you need to think about a possible driver-exchange, too...

"If God is your co-pilot,

maybe you'd better change seats."

OVER AND OUT....!

CONTINUING QUALIFICATION 2016 in order for me to continue being a flight attendant for United Airlines is over until next fall.  I cannot express how relieved and happy I am that excruciating two-day exercise is over for this year.

I had NO idea what an ordeal I was going to have to go through when I put myself on sick list for CQ Labor Day weekend while the Nichols Family was gathering to go to the Fort Collins Temple open house.  I just figured I could call the service center after I got off sick list and reschedule the date. After all there were about five more CQ sessions in Denver for the month of September.  But no.  They told me all the slots were already filled for those times.  But... I could call at 00:10 am the following week to see if the FA who had requested time off had been awarded it and therefore would NOT be in the scheduled class for the 19th of September. 

Well, I set the alarm for midnight on the specified day and groggily called the Crew Desk.  "Oh, so sorry.  You are 24 hours too late.  Those trades when through YESTERDAY at midnight, and someone else got that open slot.  You will have to bid to attend CQ in October."

Bummed!  So, I carefully read all the directions on how to bid  as I had always automatically been assigned a time slot sometime during my reserve month every September.  Several flight attendants told me to be sure to bid for at least one day of training that was during a scheduled trip.  They would have to drop the trip, let me go to CQ and I could pick up a trip on the trade board to make up the deficient time.  (I know you probably don't have the faintest clue what I am talking about, but bear with me.)

Instead, I was assigned to go October 28th and 29th--the last two days of October's work month--AND MY DAYS OFF!  When I called to see WHY I had been assigned those days, they politely told me that they weren't going to drop a trip if Denver had a scheduled CQ session on days I wasn't scheduled with a trip.  And, oh, by the way:  This is your HAVE TO GO MONTH.  So, you have to go or be denied flying on October 30th which is the first day of November's work month.

So, I had to wait nearly eight weeks before I went to CQ to get it over with.  I did the computer work in August and filled out all the forms for September.  Obviously, I had to do THAT all over again.  The forms, I mean.  And than wait it  out.  And with every passing day, CQ loomed darker and darker on the horizon until it was so out of proportion for me I haven't slept past 2am for the past two weeks.  When I have slept, my dreams have all been frenzied stuff having to do with flying the wrong planes, not getting to briefing, etc. etc. etc.  ALL bad!

Oh, the actual training and testing days WERE awful.  And I am so glad I passed the tests once again.  But, the emotional strain was horrible.  So I will NEVER, EVER postpone going to CQ again.  I have gone at other times when I have had a kidney infection.  I have gone TWICE  when it was assigned to me the very next day and I had to stay up all night doing the computer work and then paste a huge sheet on my dash board to help me study the evacuation commands and details I would need to know to pass the tests while I was driving to the training center the next morning.  Those were bad, too, but in  retrospect the eight week wait was probably worse.

Now I am releasing my seat belt and getting out--leaving everything behind in my memory until I have to do it all over again!

Sweet dreams and peaceful sleep tonight!

A NEW VIEW...

The window cleaners came today. 

This is a present I give myself now that it's not the simple little job it used to be for me to wash the windows.  It's work! And most of the time I have done it myself since you all grew up and went your own ways.  Oh, I have had you pitch in now and then when there was a wedding or I was getting the Secrest Court house ready to sell.  I even roped Burgandy into it one time here at Sweetbriar with a bribe of money if she would get up on the ladder and do the second story windows, too. 

Truthfully, I have convinced myself that I am worth it to have a professional team come and do the WORK for me. There are some things that are priceless.  Today it was clean windows. 

I leave in the morning for several days so I won't  be able to gaze out and marvel that it doesn't even seem like there is glass in the window frames right now.  Or  come down the neighborhood path behind the house after my walk and catch the glint of light reflected in each clean window.  No, I will miss that day-after ritual that I love.

Probably by the time I get back from my trip, there will have been some kind of wind storm whipping up gritty dirt and dust.  Or maybe a sprinkling of rain along with it to make muddy finger painting like the year of the Windsor tornado just a day after I had washed the windows AND blinds all by myself.

But today.....ahhh, today after the window cleaners left I had such a beautiful perspective on my outside world again. 

It put me in mind of when I was a little girl, and each Relief Society chorus was called The Singing Mothers.  In our ward my mother played the piano and Wanda Van Zandt with her "Relief Society Chorister Arms" led the choir.  "Bless This House" was one of the songs they used to sing.  I loved it then.  I still do.  However, now it is the Tab Choir singing "Bless This House" for me on my cassette tape that I listen to on Sunday mornings when I am getting ready for Church.  (That tape is so old there is not even a copy of it on CD.  I know.  I have been looking for one for years.)

Tomorrow I will be long gone before the sun even thinks about getting up.  But later it will be coming through the east windows infusing everything familiar and favorite in the kitchen with its rays of golden light.  The glory of the sun--symbolic of the best and the brightest.  How lucky I am to live in the Rocky Mountain West where the sun is not a stranger but a welcome guest.  Now I need to remember to mention clean windows in my prayer....

Bless these windows shining bright, letting in God's heavenly light!

Bless This House

Bless this house, O Lord we pray,
Make it safe by night and day . . .

Bless these walls so firm and stout,
Keeping want and trouble out . . .

Bless the roof and chimneys tall,
Let thy peace lie overall . . .

Bless this door that it may prove,
Ever open,
To joy and love . . .

Bless these windows shining bright,
Letting in God's Heavenly light,
Bless the hearth, ablazing there,
With smoke ascending like a prayer!

Bless the people here within,
Keep them pure and free from sin . . .

Bless us all that we may be,
Fit O Lord to dwell with thee . . .

Bless us all that one day we may dwell,
O Lord! With Thee!
Words and Music by Helen Taylor
And May H. Morgan ( a.k.a. Brahe ), 1927

IN TWENTY-FIVE WORDS OR LESS....

THEN...
When I was a kid there were a lot of contests on the radio and on the back of cereal boxes which asked the participant to reply--"in twenty-five words or less"--with an advertising jingle or a testimonial to the sponsor for their product or their promotion.

I never entered any of those contests, but word smith that I am, I was always rolling some string of words around in my mind to see if I could satisfy the requirements.  You have to be pretty succinct to get your message across in so few words.  Words need to be weighed for their importance because no superfluity can be accommodated in that small of a parameter.

That's why, when I first heard of Jay Hess who had been shot down over Viet Nam on August 24, 1967, I was intrigued with the message he  was finally able to send to his family.  Jay C. Hess was a prisoner of war in Hanoi.  Neither his family nor the U.S. government had heard from him for over two years when his family received a terse letter .  His captors' requirement for him was the message had to be short, not much more than twenty five words.  Lieutenant Colonel Hess knew his message had to be one that would let his family know it was genuinely from him, and that it would also give counsel and advice to them in the briefest of missives

Following is the content of that letter dated Dec. 13, 1969:

"Above all I seek for eternal life with all of you. These are important: Temple marriage, mission, college. Press on. I had a slight flesh wound and last summer some sickness. All is well now. Set goals, write history, take pictures twice a year."

He was released  on March 14, 1973 , 5 1/2 years after he was captured .

In a later interview with the Deseret News Jay Hess shared that the prisoners could hold "school" in the afternoon where he taught others the gospel.  Reciting the Lord's prayer and saying the Pledge of Allegiance was a Sunday worship ritual for all of the men who were imprisoned with him.  He spent long hours remembering words to hymns, scriptures he had memorized, and other details of his life prior to his imprisonment.  Those are some of the things that took up those long, long days in addition to keeping himself as fit as possible to withstand the rigors of interrogation and whippings.

Throughout his retelling of this horrific time in his life, Elder Hess maintained that this BAD experience changed his life--for the better.  He then remarked that the same could be true for our bad experiences, too, if we want them to have that power to change us.

NO!  Jay C. Hess wouldn't want to do it again, but he said that's how he grew.

After reading about this or hearing about Jay C. Hess  (I think in a fireside where he was speaker is where I heard of it the first time ),  that's when I started trying to accomplish similar goals with our own Nichols family.  These seemed succinct and important.

So, we also emphasized mission and college.  But I didn't even think twice about your marriages.  I made assumptions they would be in the temple.

I set goals for you, then supported you when you set goals for yourself. 

I didn't do so well writing the family history.  The daily journal entries didn't include ALL the important things and rarely the spiritual experiences which should have been the main stuff I recorded.  Instead it was the mundane and the fluff of our lives more often than it was the meat.

Also after reading this letter, I started having pictures taken of you kids all the time.  Now  we have  a plethora in the picture box at home that is just too, too much and nobody really cares about them anymore.

"Press on" was probably the most important phrase of Jay Hess' whole message.  What good if we only get half the way there before going off the rails.  It's enduring to the end--doing our very best with our life to the end--in spite of setbacks, disabilities, death, divorce, and other tough stuff. 

NOW...

I ran across the same interview in the Deseret News a few weeks ago.  It made me wonder what kind of message I could write now to my family in 29 words.  After thinking about it quite often since then, I decided I would record pretty much the same written exhortation as Jay Hess did to his family.  In fact, his message is MY message.  Especially the "press on" part.

In the ensuing years I have learned I CAN be happy in that journey!

It may look to you that I am not happy because of current circumstances in my life.  But I am.  I am square with the Lord.  I am temple worthy.  I feel the love of friends and family.  I have been trusted with a calling to build the Kingdom of God here on the earth.  I have been blessed with good health, a compensation for a couple of really crappy things that have happened to me.  I live in America.  I am grateful for employment, though at this time I--along with about 2-3,000 other flight attendants--am  trying to play the cards right for a buyout so there is more money in my retirement account. Most important, I have a desire to live a celestial life.  Yes...  I am happy!  I feel joy! 

"Saints can be happy under every circumstance. We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year!  ...the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives."  Russell M. Nelson

May I gently--and with deep love for each of you-- remind you that we are in the business of building an eternal Nichols Family.  Won't you please join with me in making that happen...

No empty chairs!

"FORTRESS OF FAITH"

I just returned from the Fort Collins Colorado Temple dedication.  It was an uplifting finale to the announcement of this temple's location by President Monson in April 2011 General Conference.  President Dieter F. Uchtdorf presided and was accompanied by Elder Dale G. Renlund, and Elder Ulysses Soares and Elder C. Scott Grow of the Seventy.  Plus last week the bishop called Louis and me into his office briefly and gave us tickets to attend the dedication in the temple itself during the    3 pm session.  That made it even more special to be in the temple itself!

Yesterday was an absolutely pristine Autumn day in the Mountain West featuring deep blue skies, whiffs of white clouds, and, thanks to a longer than usual Fall season, a landscape up and down the Front Range of green grass and gold trees interspersed with the occasional purple and red trees and orange bushes used only as yard accents here in Colorado.  The fields have been plowed and are brown, but their patchwork squares  still made an attractive October quilt nestled up against the occasional stand of trees or cultivated yards and open space.  And how did I know that?  After I arrived home yesterday morning from Hartford, Connecticut (where incidentally there will be another temple dedication in the next few days) Louis and I went down to the Denver Temple and to the Distribution Center.

Oh, and did I mention the weather was unseasonably warm as it was in the mid-eighties, so the evening Cultural Celebration in Hughes Stadium at Colorado State University wasn't too chilly at 7 pm when the "Fortress of Faith" began.  Our own soon to be 13 years old Orion was part of this wonderful program paying tribute to the history of the temple district which is mainly in Northern Colorado.

I liked that in his talk, Elder Renlund first spoke about the hymn a small choir from the temple district had just finished singing.  Number 141 in our Church's hymnal is one of my favorites--Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee.  It was written a thousand years ago by Bernard of Clairvaux.  Five hundred years later Martin Luther declared that Bernard of Clairvaux was one of his inspirations.  These men were both deeply religious, paving the way in their teachings for clarification of the true gospel of Jesus Christ, which had become corrupted through the centuries following the removal of the priesthood authority from the earth.

Then Elder Renlund told a little about the beginning history of Fort Collins, first an outpost near La Porte, then because of flooding the fort was moved to where Old Town is now near the Cache La Poudre River on Willow Street.  Interestingly, 800 miles almost directly to the east just a few years before the beginning of Fort Collins, there on another river--the Mississippi--Joseph Smith preached from revelation what neither Bernard of Clairvaux nor Martin Luther knew.  That was the principle of baptism for the dead.  Death was the last great obstacle for those who had gone before.  Whatever would become of them if they had not yet heard the gospel of Jesus Christ?  That those who lived before COULD enjoy the blessings of the gospel and inclusion in Christ's family and eternal ties to their own families--it is significant that the Fort Collins Temple will be a place for that sealing to take place.

President Uchtdorf talked about this dedication day being a day of celebration and a new beginning.  The temple indeed is a "Fortress of Faith" yet not like other forts--closed in--but open for all who embrace the gospel. 

•      Those who believed walked before God with all their hearts.  There is no more sublime definition of pure and true discipleship.  That should be our standard, too.
•      The temple recommend questions tell us whether we are always before God in our own walk through life.  Our recommend is a symbol of our faithfulness and determination to keep the commandments.  Live by the principles outlined in the pamphlet "For the Strength of Youth" and we will be temple ready at all times.
•       The center of the gospel is taking a covenant to take on the name of Christ.  When we do that we will be able to resist the trend of the times to judge others.  Forgive others. Love them.  Follow Christ in reaching out to those we may want to judge or if we feel they have judged us.   
•      President U. told about moving to Arizona with their family.  After attending church, his wife came home and told him she had a problem.  "When they asked me how I was, I told them."  Apparently, the ward members were rushing about trying to be of help to her after she told them.  President Uchtdorf laughed and told her when they asked how she was, just to say, "Fine!"  He said its a cultural thing.  Love those who are different.
•      Be enthusiastic and positive about the future.  DON'T BE AFRAID!  We can be humbly bold with a natural confidence which will help us progress as individuals and families with faith, hope, and courage.

     President Uchtdorf said he knows all the preparation made for the culmination of a temple building and dedication is hard work.  He and his wife have been in charge of all of the many details that go into putting on a temple open house and dedication.  They were called to do that for the Frankfurt Temple about the same time the Denver Temple was going through a like process.  "This is the Lord's work.  Church work.  Family history work. Temple work.  Missionary work.  It's ALL work!"  He laughed, "It ain't easy.  It's hard work!  Now you can go back to living your normal lives."

And the last thing he said was that this was not only a day of joy and recommitment, but it was also a day of reflection.  To go home and write in our journal or our online notebook or however else we record things our impressions of this beautiful day and the spiritual uplift  that has come with it.    A temple dedication is a time to join hands with those who have also participated in a temple dedication.  In all of the world there really are NOT that many of us. So this is a special blessing.

I wish I could capture the true essence of the remarks of these two priesthood men.  I felt the spirit.  And I was happy to have a second opportunity in Colorado to attend a temple dedication.  Heaven knows in 1986 I was pleased as could be that I was able to go to that one.  It was a special privilege then.  Never had the foggiest idea there would be another temple in Colorado to whose dedication I was able to go.

President Uchtdorf acknowledged that there were probably some there today who had gone to the one in Denver thirty years ago.  "But don't worry, " he said.  "There won't be another one in Colorado for a long time so you can rest." 

Rest?  Now the work starts...though I am so happy it will only be twenty minutes and lots less traffic away!

Between Louis and me we took about 10 shots of President Uchtdorf as he walked to his car.  But his face was always in the shade of a tree or shaded by someone's head.  Boo Hoo! Upper center with a tree behind.

And here is Ragamuffin me.  Yesterday was no  wind.  Today was a GALE!  Everyone's hair and clothes were being blown all around.  Those beautiful Fall leaves aren't going to be on the trees for long.