Chickadee

 

The first wave of Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake valley in the summer of 1847. They immediately set to planting crops, because they’d have only the food they’d brought with them until their first harvest. But swarms of crickets descended on their fields the following May. If not for the hordes of seagulls that devoured the crickets, our ancestors might have pushed on and built Zion where San Diego or San Francisco are today. It’s a tale I’ve heard since I was a sunbeam. There’s even a monument to the miracle on Temple Square, or at least there was until the renovation project started. But if you try to find any evidence it really happened – a letter or diary entry from the time it occurred – you’ll just be disappointed. There have been several similar infestations since then, without any help from the gulls. Without any corroboration, this lovely story looks a lot like a faith-promoting rumor.

Four Snails' Trails

 

Last week, a friend shared an anonymous quote that really hit home: “Only parents with gentle children can gentle parent. The rest of us have to square up and fight for our lives with the tiny bullies we made.” We only had four children. They’re a product of the same two people and the same couple of decades. And yet each one was their own unique variety of difficult. Nothing we learned from parenting any one of them was even remotely helpful with the other three. One lesson Heather taught us – repeatedly – was to choose your fights. She spent an entire school year with shoes on the wrong feet. We’d fix them, and every time she’d switch them back. Another year, she signed her name “Oliver Twist” on all her school papers. And she refused to answer to any other name. We learned – eventually – some hills are just not worth dying on. 

Double Windmill

 

“If you go talk to kindergartners or first-grade kids, you find a class full of science enthusiasts. They ask deep questions: ‘What is a dream?’ ‘Why do we have toes?’ ‘Why is the moon round?’ ‘What is the birthday of the world?’ ‘Why is grass green?’ These are profound, important questions. They just bubble right out of them. You go talk to 12th graders and there's none of that. They've become incurious. Something terrible has happened between kindergarten and 12th grade.” – Carl Sagan

“There is always a place I can take someone's curiosity and land where they end up enlightened when we're done. That's my challenge as an educator. No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Snail's Trail

 

Every Friday, as Heather and I head to the hospital in Murray, we pass by a ten-foot-tall werewolf statue. It’s not actually on display. I suppose it was purchased by someone with poor spatial conception. It clearly won’t fit in the tiny house or garage, so it’s trying to be as inconspicuous as possible outside. I find it mildly amusing in broad daylight, but I might not if I lived nearby and had to regularly walk past it after dark. I thought of that werewolf when I read about a woman in Piqua, Ohio with a similar statue she calls “Phil.” Mary Simmons put Phil up last Halloween, and never took him down. The city recently left a notice on her door, asking her to remove the “seasonal decoration.” And that gave Mary an idea. She dressed Phil in red, white and blue, for Flag Day and Independence Day. She plans to dress him for the other holidays, too. 

Fox and Geese

 

“If a friend on social media has strong political or social views that violate everything you believe in, an angry, cutting retort by you will not help. Building bridges of understanding will require much more of you, but that is exactly what your friend needs. Contention drives away the Spirit every time. Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences; but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always. Brothers and sisters, we can literally change the world—one person and one interaction at a time. How? By modeling how to manage honest differences of opinion with mutual respect and dignified dialogue. Differences of opinion are part of life.” – President Russell M. Nelson

Ten Double Pinwheels

 

Things to Always Remember:

 

The past cannot be changed.

Opinions don't define your reality.

Everyone's journey is different.

Things always get better with time.

Judgments are a confession of character.

Overthinking will lead to sadness.

Happiness is found within.

Positive thoughts create positive things.

Your thoughts affect your mood.

Smiles are contagious.

Kindness is free.

It’s okay to let go and move on.

What goes around, comes around.

Things always get better with time.

Card Trick

 

No one’s sure of the exact date, but it happened either late 1864 or early 1865. Robert Lincoln – the president’s first and only surviving son – was at a New Jersey train station, purchasing sleeper car accommodations. Robert came very close to being crushed between train cars. Robert said later, “There was some crowding, and I was pressed against the car while waiting my turn. The train began to move, and I was twisted off my feet, dropped into the open space, and was personally helpless.” A stranger in the crowd grabbed Robert’s coat collar and pulled him to safety. When the young man turned to thank his rescuer, he realized it was Edwin Booth, one of the country’s most famous actors. If this doesn’t sound truly bizarre to you, let me put it into perspective. It’s as if Chris Hemsworth saved the life of Hunter Biden just weeks (or possibly even days) before his brother Liam assassinated the president.