Monthly Archives: December 2015

December 22, 2015 · 5:10 am

Confessions of a Xenophile

Before we begin, I have to tell you that I have passionate love/hate vibes towards those who post photos of themselves in foreign countries (ah-hem: Steve…Vanessa…Rebekah…Keri…). I salivate just looking at passports, suitcases and maps. Photos of people I know having experiences abroad make me feel like a fish in a fish tank, watching the world go by without me. And yet, as painful as it is, I can’t look away.

So I hesitate sharing these photos with you, lest you are a fellow xenophile whose heart yearns to see photos like this yet breaks at the same time. But listen, we just have to face the fact: there is a place called the Bahamas, and somebody has to go there and help boost tourism in that country. Hate me or love me, we are all just going to have to deal with it. Scroll through the photos if you have it in you. Like my guide said before I jumped into the Blue Hole last Friday, “it’s over quick.”

(Too quick for my liking.)

Here is the story: Scott completely took me by surprise last Wednesday morning when he handed me a pair of new sandals and said, “Pack your bags, Chelsea. Tomorrow we are going to the Bahamas!”

This has never happened to me before–getting surprised with a trip or going to the Bahamas.

We went to Nassau and then to a more remote island. This might give you an idea of how big the island is:It is still hard to believe I was there. Sniff.The first day there we went kayaking, snorkeling and cliff jumping. As for accommodations, we roughed it . . . no luxury hotel for us! Instead we stayed in at “Surfer’s Haven” with our guide and his wife. He was an incredible guide. She was an incredible cook. I’m always trying to learn new things for my books (I write mesoamerican fantasy romances. It’s a new genre, soon to be the rage) and our hosts had a great variety of tropical plants in their yard including coconuts, orchids, lemons the size of grapefruits, pineapple plants . . . . . . and poisonwood, which was very well marked.This is Tom, our guide, surfer, kayaker, diver, and native Bahamian:I have to admit that the weather wasn’t ideal every day. On our last day it got a little windy. Here is a little surfer’s hangout at the beach. I suppose they use car seats because they are the only chairs heavy enough to not blow away. And if a hurricane came rolling through at least you could buckle up. To escape the wind our guide took us underground to a mile-long cave filled with graffiti, some of which dates back 200 years. Here were some of our favorite signatures. And this is how we got out.Saturday night the BYU/Utah game was on. Of course being in a foreign country on a small island was not going to stop Scott from finding a tv, even if it happens to be in a bar. We had a great time watching the game and teaching the 18-year-old bartender the rules of American football. We drove over the famous “glass window bridge” many times while we were there. This is the left side of the bridge (the Bahamian Bank, or the Caribbean side):And this is the Atlantic side of the bridge: On our way home we hung out in Nassau for a few hours.This is how they celebrate Christmas in the Bahamas. But we missed our kids so it was time to head home. Flying over Charleston, SC.

I hope you were able to make it through the photos okay. Are you crying? I am. I know it is hard. Now that I am home I can hardly stand looking at them! The agony!

But I have to keep reminding myself that the best is yet to come. So much to do in this world. So many things to discover. What a glorious place this earth is!

I’m so glad Scott threw caution to the wind and planned this adventure for us. We have so much to celebrate this year. It was the perfect time, at the perfect place and with the perfect person.

I hope YOU are the next person to go do something memorable. Go ahead! Make it happen! I want to see your photos. Really, I do. 😉

When a 12-Year-Old is in Charge of a House Full of Dying People

I heard the rumors.

Something was going around at school. Also at church. They said it attacks like lightning and leaves you feeling like a grenade just went off inside your body. The only merciful part of the ordeal is that it only lasts for 24 hours.

Perhaps my home will be spared, I thought.

But then, last Wednesday, just after lunchtime, the school called.

It is never a good sign when the school calls. And somehow I knew before I answered what it would be.

It was one of my daughters. And she had it. (She will hereafter be known as THE FIRST, since she was the beginning.)

I went to the school and picked her up, spoke comforting words, and brought her home.

Later I waited for the bus to come, bringing home my younger kids. I waited and waited. Strange, I thought. This bus is never late. All of the sudden I had that terrible premonition again: the bus is late because of my child.

Sure enough, when the bus finally arrived and my younger two children got out, one of them shouted up the driveway, pointing to her brother, “Mom! Guess who just threw up on the bus!” (She will hereafter be known as THE TATTLER and he will be known as GUESS WHO.)

But I didn’t have time to answer her because just then, THE FIRST threw up again. She had almost made it to the toilet. Almost.

THE TATTLER and GUESS WHO walked into the house, and GUESS WHO told me, “Mom I’m not sick. I just don’t feel well.” After which he went to my bedroom and threw up on my gliding rocker.

I put GUESS WHO in the shower for safe keeping while I attended to the messes. Meanwhile THE FIRST was now curled up in a ball on the couch, while THE TATTLER told me in detail about what happened on the bus. “We had to climb over the seats to get off!” But in less than an hour the dreaded plague hit her, too. At least she made it to the toilet.

Now even I was starting to feel woozy. Would I be next? But I couldn’t get sick–I had a critical rehearsal that night in preparation for a huge multi-denominational concert and I was the director. My choir was not yet ready, and there would be hundreds of people in attendance. I couldn’t back out and no one could take my place. But how could I go when my children were unraveling before my eyes? My only comfort and hope was that soon THE SPOUSE would be home and he would be able to help me fight this battle.

In between washing and sterilizing and more vomiting (from all three) I went outside to get some fresh air and lo and behold THE SPOUSE rolled up in his truck! Salvation! He got out, his shoulders slumped, his feet dragging, his face as gray as a sidewalk. “I don’t feel well . . . ” he said.

So now there were four. If they were not vomiting they were writhing in pain or moaning into their pillows. At one point there was a line for the toilet.

Yet there was still one more child left to arrive home. When she walked through the door she gazed in astonishment at her deteriorating family.

“What’s up with everyone, mom? They all look sick.” (We shall call this child THE LUCKY, for the Black Angel of Gastrointestinal Rage had saw fit to pass her by.)

I could only give her a look of desperation and go back to my work of caring for the sufferers.

For the next two hours the battle raged. The horror! The horror!

Finally the time came for me to leave for my rehearsal. I knew I needed Extra Help to get through this rehearsal, least I be victim #5. When I finally found a room where there wasn’t someone laying on a bed groaning I hit my knees and asked God to preserve me for the next two hours so I could direct this choir. After that He could do whatever He wanted with me. Just please help me make it through this rehearsal. I got up feeling a little better.

Now there was just one more thing to do.

I located THE LUCKY who was trying to escape the horrors of reality via a computer and headphones. I took her headphones out of her ears. I grasped her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes and I said:

“I am leaving. You are the only one in this house who can help people. You need to take care of everyone. If someone throws up while I am gone, you have to be the one the help them. I am counting on you.”

She looked afraid.

And I left.

I conducted the rehearsal without an incident, though it went longer than I anticipated. Afterwards I thought I better go to the store and get Gatorade to help replenish dehydrated bodies. When I got back it was very late. As I turned off the car I sighed. I would have a lot to do when I walked in that door. I had left the house in shambles. I hadn’t fixed dinner (what was the point?) and I knew that dishes and cups and crumbs littered the counters. I knew I would have to start the laundry, especially if there had been more accidents while I was gone. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Miles before I sleep, miles before I sleep.

The house was dark and—mercifully—quiet. I walked into the kitchen and received the shock of my life: The counters were clean. The table was clean. The dishwasher had been emptied. The kitchen was spotless. Not only that, there was this on the counter:

It was hot chocolate–still warm–covered in marshmallows. The living room had also been tidied and put in order. Had THE SPOUSE done all of this, even in the throws of his tribulations? Since my last memory of him was staring at the ceiling moaning, “Death come quickly,” that seemed unlikely. Did he somehow rally the other suffering souls into making an effort to clean the house?

I crept into the bedroom where THE SPOUSE was resting uneasily on the bed.

“Thank you for cleaning the house,” I said.

“The house is clean?” he croaked.

“Yes. It wasn’t you?”

“No. But I know THE LUCKY was doing something in the kitchen for a long time. And when GUESS WHO threw up in his bed THE LUCKY took his sheets down stairs and put them in the washer and started it.”

Really?

As I lay down to sleep that night I couldn’t help reflecting how often we underestimate the potential of others. Especially those who are young. I have asked, begged and pleaded with children many times to clean this and clean that, watch out for your siblings and take care of each other, and there are times I feel like I am shouting into the wind. “Mother deafness” I think they call it.

But when a person, even a child, knows that they are depended on, that they are counted on, that all hope is riding on their shoulders, they find an inner motivation . . . not from obligation or force or even a sense of duty. But a motivation of pure love. That is when someone goes from being THE LUCKY to becoming THE HERO.

Thank you, Sophie.

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Filed under Parenting

Tagged as Family, good kids, illness

December 8, 2015 · 6:21 pm

Religion, Faith and Violence

She was stay-at-home mom and a college graduate. She was devout in her religion, and is described in the newspaper as being very “religious” and “conservative.”

Words that could also describe me.

In many ways Tashfeen Malik and I had much in common.

One of the most, if not the most, disturbing things for me about Sept 11 attacks was that these were done by people who believed devoutly in God. So devoutly that they would do anything for Him, even the unspeakable.

The husband and wife who attacked a holiday party last week were similar. They embraced a radicalized faith that completely warped their sense of civility and humanity and drove them to do something undeniably evil.

And worse, they did it in the name of God.

As President Obama said on Sunday, terrorism “has evolved into a new phase” but that “we will overcome it.”

He listed off methods he planned on using to overcome it: Intelligence, airstrikes, gun control . . . and when I hear this I think about all the money it will cost, and I think of how pointless it will be.

Because you can’t fight this “new phase” of terrorism from the outside in. I know, because, as a devoutly religious person myself, I know how powerful faith can be.

You can make it harder for suspicious people to enter the country. You can drop bombs on their bunkers and cut off their sources of finance, you can send out your drones and your sophisticated weaponry, but you can’t fight ideas.

This is not a war of intelligence, it is a war of hearts.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article by Johnathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth entitled “Turning Swords into Plowshares: How to Defeat Religious Violence.” I recommend it to all. In the article Sacks explains that the only way to defeat religious violence is with religious devotion.

He says, “We must raise a generation of young Jews, Christians, Muslims and others to know that it is not piety but sacrilege to kill in the name of the God of life, hate in the name of the God of love, wage war in the name of the God of peace, and practice cruelty in the name of the God of compassion.”

Religion is powerful. Like government, it creates a social structure, laws and communities, but unlike government, it provides a spiritual identity, a purpose and a mission. Government may feed us, organize us, help us live our lives, but religion gives us the reason to live. The words of a prophet will always have more power to create action among the masses than a president because a prophet’s message–even if it has been misinterpreted or twisted–transcends borders, oceans, walls and barriers.

Never underestimate the power to belong, the desire to make a difference or the need for purpose in a young person’s life. The government cannot grant this the way religion can.

Eboo Patel, a Muslim, said in his book Acts of Faith: “Many mainstream religious institutions ignore young people or, worse, think their role should be limited to designing the annual T-shirt. By contrast, religious extremists build their institutions around the desire of young people to have a clear identity and make a powerful impact.”

I find it mind-blowing how young these extremists recruit their henchmen . . . sometimes at eight years old. Are we doing the same on our side? Are we as thorough when it comes to giving children a religious belief that is cemented in love, compassion and respect for God and others?

One way we can do this is by teaching our children that first amendment rights are there to protect all religions and not just our own.

Sacks says, “We must put the same long-term planning into strengthening religious freedom as was put into the spread of religious extremism.”

I like what the president said in his call to Muslim leaders in his Sunday address. He said that Muslim leaders must “speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity.”

This could be said to every religion. No matter how “true” you think your religion is, you are not better than anyone else. No matter how “righteous” you think you are, that does not give you a right to inflict violence on innocent people. And before we are Muslims, Jews, Christians or Mormons we are children of God. Children. Children who unfortunately fight and argue and act like we are better than each other.

A few years ago I sat next to a Muslim woman on a 2 1/2 hour flight. We talked the entire time. We talked about her home country, Iran. We talked about her husband, her kids, her education. I told to her about my kids and the book I was writing. We even talked about the conversation no-nos: politics, religion and sex. I found I had more in common with her than with my Baptist neighbor. I marveled out loud at her dedication to modesty (I had considered myself pretty modest in my cap sleeves and knee-length skirt), and she in turn was impressed that I refused to drink coffee. I could not help admiring her for her faith, and I felt that she shared the same admiration for me.

Right now it is Christmas, and we are celebrating the birth of Christ. It is a time when we all should reflect inward on what we believe and why. What are our religious motives? Do we feel that we are better than others? Do we feel like, since we have found our true religion, that God does not speak and inspire others to do good or that they are somehow unworthy to be treated with respect and protection?

“The Saints can testify whether I am willing to lay down my life for my brethren. If it has been demonstrated that I have been willing to die for a ‘Mormon,’ I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves.

“If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

“We ought always to be aware of those prejudices which sometimes so strangely present themselves, and are so congenial to human nature, against our friends, neighbors, and brethren of the world, who choose to differ from us in opinion and in matters of faith. Our religion is between us and our God. Their religion is between them and their God.”

–Joseph Smith