What if the Temple had sticky floors and crayon marks all over the walls?

A friend of mine told me of a sign that she saw and wants to have in her home.  It reads:


I've heard of similar sentiments like this before, and I get it.  If it comes down to cleaning house or spending time with children and family building loving eternal relationships, then the pick-up game of kickball or the taking a moment to teach or comfort a child in need always wins. Sticky floors need to take a back seat to the nurturing of one's family.  There are moments where we just have to jump in and use the opportunities to spend time with our children and our families as they come.

But what happens after the kickball game is done, the mud pies have been baked, or the teaching moment has been educated?  What happens next?

What happens when the sticky floor comes up against Church callings?

vs. when a friend or sibling calls up and wants to stop by to visit?

vs. when you see a person in great need, or get an emergency call from a Sister on your Visiting Teaching list?

vs. when someone invites you to sing in the Stake Choir and needs you to go to choir practice several times a week?

vs. when you notice someone is having a really bad day and needs some cheering up?

vs. when your friends want to go out for a "Girl's Night Out", or when someone has a baby shower coming up and you saw this super-cute DIY craft on Pinterest or a craft blog that you think if you hurry up you'll have just enough time to finish?

vs. when your friend wants you to see their art exhibit or wants your support in some other endeavor they are attempting?

vs. the latest teenage fiction novel series that everyone is talking about, or when your favorite TV show is on or when you haven't checked Cake Wrecks or seen captioned pictures of cute kittens in a while?

Where does the sticky floor fall within all the other aspects of a modern Mormon life?

There are many different demands of our time, and it is easy to get lost within so many competing priorities, but I believe the Lord has given us sufficient direction on this matter.

(Warning - this is a work in progress with frequent updates and an extremely long and quote heavy post with a few lateral jumps and some gender flip-flops, so you may want to pace yourself on this one and realize it is subject to change without prior notice...)

C.S. Lewis Quote: Are we optimistic inmates, or disgruntled (& delusional) hotel guests?

"If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place for correction and it's not so bad.  

"Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison.

"Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable.  

"So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic.” - C.S. Lewis

Wow.  Let that sink in a bit.

Are we being "optimistic inmates", or "disgruntled hotel guests"?

Ensign: "Be on the Look-out for Wild Doctrines Roaming the City..." (Maxwell - 1975)

"Spiritual Ecology" by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign Feb. 1975

 I can picture in my head the opening scenes of an old black and white monster movie, where we pan to a little house in a quiet neighborhood and zoom in on a family sitting peacefully around the radio enjoying their favorite evening program.  Father is in his chair reading his paper, Mother is doing some knitting for the bundle of joy they are expecting, brother and sister are on the floor rapt with attention to hear what will happen next to their favorite radio hero.  All is as it should be - when all of the sudden an announcer breaks in to set the stage for the horror that is about to be unleashed on their small town and unsuspecting home ...


"Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this program to bring you a special public safety news bulletin.  This just in ... Reports are coming in of escaped doctrines roaming the city.  

"They have broken away and unraveled themselves from the 'fabric of orthodoxy' and are considered wild and dangerous.  These doctrines are so powerful that left unchecked by the other doctrines they can ruin lives, wreck homes, and bring down whole civilizations.  

"They tend to travel in packs with other dangerous vagabonds such as ignorance, deception, idleness, idolatry, pride, and fear; they are also known to carry other vices as parasites.  Do not approach these renegade principles if you find them on the streets, do not feed them, and do not let them into your homes or introduce them to your family or friends.

"The authorities are advising everyone to return to their homes, lock their doors and windows, stay inside, and remain calm.  We will bring you further news as it becomes available."

Well, from the words of Elder Maxwell, maybe we need to have some PSA's like this in our day and time ...

Quote: "Arriving at the Pearly Gates" (Sis. Hinckley)

(Reposted from the "Daily LDS Quotes" mailing list on LDS.NET...)

January 24, 2012 - Arriving at the Pearly Gates "I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.   I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.   I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.   I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.   I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.   I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." Marjorie Pay Hinckley

BYU Devotional - Traps Impeding the Ability to Meet Challenges (Maxwell - 1974)

Neal  A. Maxwell, “But for a Small Moment,” BYU Devotional, 1 September 1974.

This one is one of my favorites.  Elder Maxwell gives warning about eight different traps he has been able to identify that we could fall pray to and lead us off the path.

Here are some excerpts from the ones I found particularly interesting.

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"A seventh trap, brothers and sisters, is that some of us neglect to develop multiple forces of satisfaction. When one of the wells upon which we draw dries up through death, loss or status, disaffection, or physical ailment, we then find ourselves very thirsty because, instead of having multiple sources of satisfaction in our lives, we have become too dependent upon this or upon that.  How important it is to the symmetry of our souls that we interact with all the gospel principles and with all the Church programs, so that we do not become so highly specialized that, if we are deprived of one source of satisfaction, indeed we are in difficulty. It is possible to be incarcerated within the prison of one principle. We are less vulnerable if our involvements with the kingdom are across the board. We are less vulnerable if we care deeply about many principles–not simply a few.