If you throw out the best idea, what you're left with is....

This showed up in my google news health section today:


"Gift cards key to new AIDS prevention strategy
The Associated Press - 37 minutes ago
ATLANTA (AP) - Could the AIDS virus be stopped with gift cards? Desperate for a way to stop the escalating spread of HIV among young gay men, public health officials are looking to novel strategies, such as enlisting local gay opinion leaders to urge their peers to practice safe sex....The idea is to give gift coupons to popular, influential men in the gay community and encourage them to talk up condom use, regular HIV testing and other responsible actions.

It may sound frivolous, but little else has proven effective for the men most affected by the epidemic.

Last week, new figures showed still-rising HIV infections in gay and bisexual men, with about 53 percent of new cases in that group. Meanwhile, HIV rates among injection-drug users and heterosexuals is declining."

Frivolous? The idea is frivolous?

I, actually, am deeply saddened by the HIV epidemic. Thousands of people are suffering , and thousands of children are being left parentless. I am not trying to negate that this is a major problem, and also an immense tragedy.

But it seems to me that the best solution is not gift cards. It's the one they defined out of the equation in the first place: monogamy. Abstinence. Self-control.

More condoms and a few gift cards just won't cut it....

I think the greatest tragedy of all is that we, by our choices, are enabling the crisis to continue because, darn it, we don't want to take the risk of offending anyone.

It reminds me of the section in Nephi where he scolds his rebellious brothers, and they get mad at him for saying "hard things" against them--for offending them. I agree with Nephi--the truth sometimes is hard, especially when it requires you to change not just your behaviour, but the paradigms that make it okay.

Nephi says, "the wicked take the truth to be hard." I hate to say, "the wicked" and "repent" because not all the victims of this plague are in need of repentance or were wicked themselves--the wives whose faithless husbands brought it home, the children, the victims of rape, and, unfortunately, all the people who are caught in the cultural morays that have changed and encourage risky sexual behavior--the ones who ought to know better but have been taught from a young age to experiment and follow their body's natural inclinations (the ones who were taught that bad is good from such a young age--like children whose fathers take them to prostitutes or introduce them to porn when they should be hearing fairytales--that it honestly never occurs to them that it might be wrong).

But repentance is the right concept--not just for people who are wantonly sharing their bodies with others, but also for the entire culture that decided that not offending someone was more important than truth.

What a sad state for our world to be in.

I am reminded of when I said to my mother, "I would do anything to lose this extra weight." And she replied, "Not 'anything'. You know what you could do--you just won't do it, so it must not matter THAT much to you."

Stung, I realized she was right.

The same principle applies here. If they were really 'desperate' for a way to stop the spread of HIV among young gay men, they might consider teaching true principles,like abstinence and monogamy, instead of offering gift cards. It might just work.

Multicultural Woes

An article from Reuters here:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2007-12-10T184055Z_01_N10410142_RTRUKOC_0_US-CHRISTMAS.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2

expresses what I think about multiculturalism. It should be about accepting and tolerating ALL cultures, not just minority ones. I'm not offended when a Jew wishes me Happy Hannukah. Why is it unacceptable for me to wish people Merry Christmas?

Before I was subjected to "multicultural education" in college, I watched music videos and only noticed if the people could dance or not. After I was "educated", I noticed the races of the people in the videos. Before, it was just a group of dancers--the more talented, the better. After, everyone was defined by their race (and their "race role") in the video. Doesn't this seem counter-productive?

I'm seriously worried that multiculturalism has created a culture of divide in our nation. I am absolutely, 100% in favor of recognizing that not everyone is a white anglo-saxon protestant male. I'm not. In fact, most of our nation is not (so doesn't that make them a minority group? Now we're going in circles!). But I am not in favor of putting people in boxes based on racial characteristics, and I think that's what multicultural education has done to our nation. Is it possible to be an educated, happily married professional black man anymore without facing the "all black men are thugs and absentee" prejudice? I can't know because I'm a white Mormon woman.

But, you see, I never would have thought that thought before multiculturalism took stage. I didn't know that "black men are thugs and absentee" until the multicultural education folks told me so--and then blamed it on me because I'm white. I was raised blissfully unaware of anything "racial" except that people are people, and they all are born with advantages and disadvantages in their lives, and we treat them all with equal respect regardless of where they or their ancestors came from.

Sorry if I've offended someone by saying "black"--one of my good friends in high school was Haitian, so not really African-American, right? I don't want to offend anyone, but I don't know the realities here--are all "black" people of African descent and do they claim that? Or would they rather be Jamaican, Haitian, Sudanese, or Brazilian like the "Native Americans" would rather be identified by their tribal affiliation?

And am I supposed to not call myself white? Should I instead label myself of German-Anglo descent? I can't be Caucasian--none of my ancestors came from the Caucus region......but I don't really claim Anglo or German because culturally I'm neither. I'm American--the English will tell you that in a heartbeat. (Oh the troubles and circles multicultural education has put me into).

Before I was "educated", the race issue never would have entered my mind except to acknowledge that prejudice is wrong--against ANYONE. Not just asians who are underrepresented in film (is it okay to say Cambodians are underrepresented, or do we have to class all asians as one cultural group?).

I guess the solution would be to choose not to be offended, especially by the good-intentioned.

I have long thought the American approach to multiculturalism is broken, highlighting and emphasizing the differences, not celebrating one another but trying to divide. Everyone now is focused on tolerating bigotry (unless it comes from white men--except white men are allowed to be mean to Mormons lately, it seems) instead of being a unified nation that loves and celebrates all the parts that make us a whole. I love the different cultures in our nation. I love it when someone is willing to share their culture with me.

I'm just not yet sold on the concept of "diversity." It's too divisive. I'd rather focus on the concept of "unity" (which doesn't mean uniformity. I'm not in favor of uniformity--even as a white person, I have often suffered from people wanting me to be more like them. Uniformity is a bad thing when it comes to people.). Unity includes celebrating the things that make us different, because that is part of the whole that we are. The difference between unity and diversity is not the amount of sameness in the group. It is the concept us "We".

Can't our nation have a "we" with love and tolerance rather than a mass of racial boxes that divide? We--different people, different cultures, different loves and hates, but all working toward the same goals of freedom and opportunity for all people to live and grow and learn and develop their talents and contribute to the happiness of their families.

Isn't "divide and conquer" one of the oldest sayings in the book?

So, back to the Reuter's Article. I think it took a great deal of maturity and common sense for the British leaders to step back and say that wishing someone Merry Christmas is not about me forcing you to be Christian. It's not about me "dissing" muslims. It's about respecting one another and embracing one another--and isn't THAT what multiculturalism should have been about?

Multiculturalism as it should be was included in Mormon doctrine from early on. It's part of our Articles of Faith:

"11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
Joseph Smith"

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Why Dutch Women are happier

I read an article here about why Dutch women are less likely to be depressed. Some of the points were funny--like they determined which nationalities are happier based on a scale invented by (you guessed it) a Dutch man! and they say the people in Holland invented the nuclear family.

But the main points were interesting. The book the article is based on apparently is full of research supporting the claims. The author says that Dutch women are happier because they have more freedoms and more voice in their world than other women. The article mentions more than once that the women are free to be prostitutes or do drugs legally.

But the drugs and sex can't be it. Russians are also free to do these things, and nobody is looking to them as a model of a happy culture. In fact, the drugs and alcohol and promiscuity seem to be destroying the Russian culture. So that can't be it.

But some things they mentioned could be it. Two things stood out to me.

One was that the pressures that depress women in America to a great extent are lacking in the Dutch culture. Hospitality and glamour are minimized. The article says that women dress for the weather, not for sexuality, for example, and if you show up at dinner time, you'll be sent home, not invited in. Removing the need to look "right" and "sexy" and removing the need to make your home up based on visitor's needs (the way we do in America) would eliminate more than half the pressures that depress women. Suddenly weight, and poverty, and messy houses wouldn't matter as much.

The bigger of the two, though, was the emphasis on Family. The article says Dutch women are happier because they are surrounded by supportive families and a culture that emphasizes that. 80% of elderly people live with family still, which, if the elderly are functioning, adds just another helpful adult to the household, and guarantees the retired woman is not left lonely and gets the help she needs, too. There is an expectation that all men help with housework--eliminating the idea that Dadddy should be thanked when he does the dishes, but nobody even notices when Mommy does. Furthermore, while more than half of Dutch women do have jobs, most of them only work part time (25 hours a week or less). Women who work full time are, in fact, stigmatized.

So why are Dutch women less inclined to be depressed? Because their culture is family-oriented. Interestingly, the women perceive themselves as very free. American women have falled prey to the lie that freedom means freedom from family obligations, but if the Dutch women are to be believed, that is the one thing that makes us happy and, in reality, feel free.

As I see it, the women are pressured to be present and active in their families, have talents and interests that they pursue (but not full-time), and not worry about those extraneous things that make it hard to raise a family, like the American emphasis on glamour, big houses, big cars, entertaining visitors, etc.

One thing they didn't mention was that the Dutch don't drive much, so they get lots of exercise. They are also a socialist society, though not an oppressive one, so everyone has health care and a home. Interestingly, they don't really get the kind of freedom of choice regarding their homes--you have to get on a long wait list to get a bigger apartment or a house near a city, if it's still the way it was when I was in the country--but that really takes the pressure off regarding homes. Because of the way it's set up, a home is not an identity marker or a bragging point. It's a place to live. Isn't that how it should be? The article also didn't mention that the people have a well-established education system, and, while children do have to specialize in high school (which I am definitively NOT in favor of), they do get excellent education in their chosen fields. They also have excellent art and music education.

Don't read this to say I am in favor of socialism--I am just noticing that one side effect of capitalism is conspicuous consumption, and that, culturally, is bad for the happiness and success of women raising families because it puts the focus on the wrong things, and puts an inordinate amount of pressure on mothers and fathers to do things that are contrary to the success of families.

So why are Dutch women happy? They are free to do the righteous things that make life worthwhile.

Melody Becomes a HomeBody

I've been thinking it for a month, but when Tim came home the other day and said, "We're not on the road!" in a voice of relief, I started verbalizing my joy at becoming a normal family again.

It's not that being on the road as a lifestyle was terrible.

It's just that I never want to do it again.

Here is why living on the road was hard:

--You don't get to sleep. The beds in hotels stink. I had to share with Tim AND one kid (in a queen bed....). Plus, other performers (usually drunk) make noise until later at night than we go to bed (can you believe it?!), and then the maids make noise starting at about 8:00 am. Did you know that maids yell up and down the halls to each other after you leave the hotel? And that they open all the doors to the empty rooms and turn the TVs on to the same music station so they can work to music? No sleep.

--Food? What's food? Finding things to eat when you are living in a hotel room is hard. If you have a kitchenette, you still can't store enough food for a family of five for one day, and then you're pretty much limited to things you can fix in the microwave one portion at a time. Look through the freezer section of your grocery store some time and think about it. Carbs and highly processed food. Not good for health, weight, or ADD. And this is when it's good. When there is no kitchenette, you're limited to what comes out of a can or a box and can be heated in a pan on a hotplate that you can't let the hotel discover you have. Also not healthy or satisfying. And feeding kids (ADD kids, no less) this way? Not good.

Of course, you can go to fast food places and buy from the dollar menu. My view on that now: the idea of eating another cheap hamburger or fries LITERALLY makes me sick to my stomach.

--It's hard to stay clean. Hard to bathe kids. Hard to wash dishes. Hard to do laundry. Nothing is convenient. And just try to keep three kids' worth of trash in one of those tiny hotel garbage cans....

--Isolation. We traveled as a family and with the band, but it's an isolating life. Nobody wants to take the effort to get to know you except as a novelty (or bragging point--"I met ___ musician!"), even if you make an effort to get to know them. There are two reasons for this: musicians have a pretty bad reputation; and you're moving on in a couple of days. Nobody wants to commit the energy to get to know you if there is no permanence in it. The church members were nice, when we could meet them, but it was hard to find them.

For the family of the band, it's even more isolating. The band takes the car, and the family is stuck in the hotel room or wherever they can go on foot. Plus, tour season is hot summer, so arranging the car and going out is NOT easy. Not with three kids under five, anyway.

In addition to not being surrounded by people you are familiar with, you don't have resources you expect to. Like doctors. Musicians don't make enough for insurance, let alone nationwide insurance plans that work in all states. And it doesn't really matter because even if a doctor IS taking new patients, they are not taking transient patients. So if you get sick or hurt, you're pretty much limited to emergency room visits (costly) or welfare clinics (long waits for mediocre to poor care--and the welfare clinics are hard to find. They aren't listed in the phone book as "welfare clinic"). And it's not just doctors. It's the whole community around you that you don't even think about having (banks? libraries? internet access? movie theaters?)--but nomadic folk like musicians lack.

--You get sick. Oh boy did we get sick this summer. When we're at home, we rarely get sick. Maybe a cold every once in a while (rarely even serious ones), or a stomach virus. This summer the kids got chicken pox, pinkeye, head-to-toe eczema (due to Utah's water we found out today), viral meningitis, colds, stomach viruses, allergies to antibiotics, and I don't remember what else. Fortunately, we HAVE a pediatrician in Utah who was willing to see us still, and give us a "self-pay" break. Still--no mother wants all those serious childhood illnesses to go through all three kids in their entire childhoods. We had them all in 8 weeks.

--Constant displacement makes growth and development hard for kids. Kids don't really learn and grow if they have to think about where they are constantly. So, while we learned geography and about things you see at fairs, and other useful knowledge, the real Growth was stunted.

--There's nothing to do. Really. It seems like there should be. But we ended up watching TV and going to fairs. Boring. And it got to be a little much when my four-year-old knew the first names of all the hosts of all the daytime shows on the Discovery Channel. And I was bored--I can't write when we travel.

This is actually heavily influenced by the next one...

--Even "Family friendly" places (hotels, fairs, restaurants) are unprepared for THREE kids age 4, 3, and 9 months. So we lived in constant fear that we were bugging people. And certainly healthy kid stuff (jumping, running, laughing, singing) are NOT allowed--leaving me either policing or entertaining (and not writing...) and the kids with nothing to do.

--For all of our effort, we didn't get Tim anyway. We were there, but fairs work you 3 shows a day every day, which amounts to about 10 hours a day of not being able to leave fair grounds. And when Tim DID get to come "home", he was either too exhausted or too busy catching up on the work that runs the business to really "Be" with us.

--For all that work and sacrifice, we still were living at a wage 80% below poverty level and qualified for Colorado Medicaid without any trouble--Even making $500 more per month for those months than we did usually. And the extra expenses of travelling (everything costs more, even the performer's time) cut back the earnings significantly.

--I hate living with the band. I hate walking out of my hotel room at 3:00 am to get ice and finding one of OUR band members sitting in the hall in his garments. I don't need to see that. I hate living with their schedules (why do they always check out of a hotel late but get to the next place before us?!). I hate having to be nice to them if I've had a bad day or if I have PMS, and feeling guilty if I only cook enough for my family or don't want them to come over during the one hour we get Tim. And they, I'm sure, think I am equally hard to live with.

--You can't be fully active in the church (or community). You can't have a calling. You can't have (or be) visiting or home teachers. You can't serve the poor. You can't help people move. And when you come back, you are no longer an integral part of the ward. They've moved on without you, and you are an outsider once again. What's more, they never know when you will be around and when you won't, so they assume you're always gone, and everyone forgets to tell you about Ward Parties and stuff.

I guess what it boils down to is there is a rhythm to life that you are unaware of until you have to leave it. And then when you get home to, as Desi Brown puts it, "Your cold and dusty house," it isn't home anymore. You can't find anything, you have no food (you can't leave a house with food in it unless you WANT mice), and it's all very foreign. It's that rhythm that we missed.

Now I completely understand why Roma culture developed the way it did. In order to be happy as a nomadic people, you would have to ALWAYS live out of your gypsy wagon (own a motorhome today, which is way more expensive than driving a car and staying in hotels every night), and you would have to travel in a large group of some kind. This would create a solidarity--and a unique culture--that made it so that the rhythm of life came with you and it didn't matter where you landed. I can see why the gypsies turned to each other--we, as musicians, were no more trusted than gypsies. And I understand. Most musicians leave a town with a few richer drug dealers, a few more destroyed hotel rooms, and a couple of pregnant teenage girls. (In fact, I even had to tell several local girls to obey their parents and not associate with "our guys" any more because, "on Sunday we're going to pack up and drive away, and you'll never see him again." And we're nice!)

So the gypsies, in order to survive their careers, took the community with them and developed ways of eating, dealing with sickness, sleeping, etc. that worked for them and that were consistent. They had their own language, their own 'Ways'--and that made the culture work.

And that's what I think happens when a people is forced to be nomadic. To survive, they develop their own culture and associations.

Maybe that's why the early Mormons had to endure so much rejection and forced wandering. It took a group of fully culturally integrated people and isolated them, creating in one generation a unique culture that otherwise might have taken decades to form, if it ever did. But for the Lord to get what he wanted out of the people, they had to leave the "old ways" COMPLETELY behind--and being forced to be nomadic DOES that. So they very quickly developed their own ways of talking, eating, teaching, governing, etc. Then, when the immigrant saints started pouring into Salt Lake City at the last part of the 19th century, there was an established, unique culture for them to be integrated into, instead of a mishmash of everyone's old traditions getting mixed up into something new and man-made. He did it to the Jews, too--back in Moses's time.

Just something to think about.

Mormons weren't made to be gypsies. And they still aren't.

Do you believe in magic?

Last summer we ended up touring with a magician named Tim Gabrielson. His wife was another Rebecca, and his "thing" is comedy magic, so we all hit it off really fast. Fabulous guy. We caught his very funny show at least twice, and Caleb was hooked. Now he wants to be a magician when he grows up (all the kids get a kick out of the similarity between the words "magician" and "musician"). He told Tim G. that and Mr. Gabrielson gave Caleb a kit to teach him how to palm a squishy ball--with the instructions and materials.

Jon was really into magic when he was young, too, and I played "assistant" a lot. It was really fun for both of us. I only learned how to do one trick on my own, though--palming a small object. So I tried to show Caleb how the trick worked. Only I couldn't get the squishy ball palmed right, so I used a coin, like Jon showed me. Caleb was impressed. I had to repeat the trick a lot, "blowing" the coin out of my hand and into the air, and then pulling it out of their ears or heads or pockets. Then I told him maybe Uncle Jon would teach him how.

So when we went to Utah in December, Caleb asked Jon. And Jon showed him exactly how the trick worked--and all four children there still believed that Jon was magically making the coin disappear and reappear in their ears or whatever.

So just a couple of days ago, I showed Caleb again how the trick is done, and explained it, and didn't try to hide it at all, and he STILL believed that if I would just blow on it, then the toy would really disappear. Magically.

No matter how much we explained, showed, illustrated, and revealed the trick and technique, Caleb refused to believe in any but the most magical reasoning. We've never really done the Santa thing (never really NOT done it either--we just have avoided the whole issue), and Caleb believes in Santa, too. It's amazing. Something in him really WANTS magic to be real, so much so that no other reasoning will suffice. I understand the feeling. That's a major reason why I write. When I write, I get to live in world where not only does magic exist, I get to set the terms for it and then play with them. I get to continue to "Play", the same way Jon and I did when we were kids--doing magic, chasing bad guys, and making up stories that we could live to our heart's content.

I suppose I could go into all kinds of analysis about belief versus science versus reality, and people (in all camps) just seeing what they want to believe.

But I won't. I don't have the energy.

Daniel seems to have caught the bug, too, though. Today he put a toy barn on my lap and hid a train in it. Then he signed to me, "Where is it?" I said, "Where is it?" back to him, and he immediately blew on the place he hid it and then, with a flourish and mock surprise on his face, he produced the little toy train. I guess Daniel understood the reality of it better than his siblings.....

Food Storage and Emergency Preparedness

Merry Christmas, everyone.

We had a nice church time (Tim sang "O Holy Night" and it was beautiful. Made me cry. We got so many comments afterward that it made us uncomfortable in the same way you feel awkward when someone says, "Congrats" when you get made Primary President.). Then we came home and slept some.

We're still digging out from the blizzard, and most of the merchants in the area are saying they lost several key days of sales. Judging from the stream of cars outside, people are making it up today. Merry Christmas and Happy Sabbath Day to you all, right?

Anyway, we did our shopping last night, calculated for a time when the grocery store would be empty of the crowds. Everyone, suddenly freed from the freeze yesterday, hit the stores to replenish and Christmas shop. And Tim and I were no different. We'd stocked up before the storm because we thought Tim was leaving town, but we had to face two days (Sunday and then Christmas Day) with no restocking possible, so we had to go out and get milk and bread, mostly, and a few other thisses and thats.

Amazingly, there was almost no bread in the store. Only specialty loaves that cost $4.00/loaf, and not even much of that. And who wants peanutbutter on marbled rye? Not my kids. And we can't spend $4.00/loaf anway. The store was mostly or completely out of a few other things (eggnog, chips, sugar, flour, shredded cheese, etc.). This was something that made perfect sense, considering that no ground or air traffic moved for several days through the entire state, but it was a surprise nonetheless.

I stood there looking at the empty bread row and said to the kids, "That's okay. We'll just go home and make bread. It's cheaper anyway."

And then I started thinking about food storage and emergency preparedness. Granted, we don't have a year's supply of anything right now. But we do have a supply--more than a couple weeks usually (now is an unusual time for us, but I still have 20 lbs of flour left). And--the key thing that I realized they talk about but I never focus much on--I know how to make bread.

It seems like everyone in the US, unable to fathom any but the most unusual emergency that would require a year's worth of food on hand, justifies the requirement for a year's supply of food by saying, "You never know when your husband will lose his job." I've heard it a hundred times in Relief Society. Usually paired with, "Besides, obedience has its own reward." The problem with that justification for food storage is that it brings to mind a different sort of food storage requirement. When you are storing in case the world still functions but you don't, you store things like a year's supply of cheerios, and a year's supply of canned chili, and other things that you eat everyday--usually you can come up with a few dollars for what you lack, right? This is the kind of food storage we've usually had. And justifiably. Don't they say, "Store what you eat"? So I always have, say, 30-50 lbs (3 months supply) of frozen hamburger on hand.

But the church ALSO says to have the basics on hand, and to know how to use them.

Why? For our family, today, it is clearly because there are times when the world DOESN'T function, no matter how much we trust our governments to dig us out or fix what's broken. And it's not so distant as the once-in-a-hundred-years New Orleans Disaster or World Trade Center Disaster or ....okay, maybe even in America it hits frequently. And when the world doesn't function, we suddenly need that massive amount of flour and sugar. It really doesn't take much to disrupt the shipping lines--and without shipping, our cities shut down very fast. And then you not only need flour, and yeast, and sugar. You need to know how to make bread and tortillas and you need to have canned stuff (fruits, veggies, protien) around. Because sometimes the stores actually DON'T have it. And then what?

I have a friend who has a year's supply of money on hand. Been useful since her husband lost his job 6 months ago. Wouldn't have helped her get bread this weekend. Fortunately, she has the other food storagey stuff, too.

Luckily for us, we got to the store right after the first truck did--so they were completely overstocked on fresh fruits and veggies, which was a main thing we needed. And they were stocked with milk. But I definitely came away saying, "Wow. I suddenly wish I had just one or two sealed cans of powdered milk on hand." Sure, it doesn't taste good. We'd almost never use it. But, you don't have this stuff for everyday (okay, you have to rotate it). But I understand now why we're instructed to have enough of the basics on hand to keep you alive FIRST, and then worry about the cheerios. Even in America. Lucky for us, this emergency didn't last a year. And it didn't include loss of heat or power (then we would have been in trouble). But having some on hand left us with enough to share, had we needed to.

And we are thinking now about what to do if we did have a loss of heat and power. Already I've said, "Maybe we should have the coleman stove in an accessible place. Maybe we should test it occassionally--have a yearly outdoor barbecue on it to keep it functional and make sure we both know how to use it. Maybe we should make sure we can a can of fuel for it also accessible. Maybe we should think about how would we keep warm in an emergency since we got rid of our (nonfunctional) standalone fireplace."

Oh, and we HAVE been using our food storage to supplement Tim's job when he was teaching choir and also his joblessness now. It's good for that, too. And we do have a lot of the recommended emergency supplies on hand--candles, matches, first aid stuff (and the knowledge and resources necessary to use it), medicines, bleach, diapers in all sizes, warm clothes, consecrated oil, ward list, etc. We have also (wisely, I see now) kept a year's supply of "something to do" for each of us in the house--things to do with and without electricity. That's been nice, since everyone still needed to stay busy, and we couldn't rely on the library to entertain us like we usually do.

And now I'm thinking, "How easy would it be for something to not only foul but also completely disrupt the water supply? Phones? Heat and power?"

Probably not so hard.

Once again, the Lord is right, and I am grateful for the limited amount I obeyed, and anxious to become completely obedient in this thing.

Now if he will just bless us with a job so we can.....