Parenthood - Common Uniqueness

My good friend Marc had his little girl, his first child, blessed today. I was lucky to be there. As he, and I, and others stood to bear our testimonies afterward, it occurred to me just what an interesting ride parenthood is.

I mean, it's like the ultimate in shared human experiences. Almost everyone at some point in their lives will experience it. Many who don't experience it biologically will still be able to do it socially. It truly is one thing that almost everyone does.

But for all of it's common ground, shared experiences, and universality, it's still unique with every child and every parent. I interact differently with Brendon than I do with Jake. I know that I interact differently with their friends who come over to play, because they are someone else's child. Even though I do make them follow the rules of our house while they're here, and I'm the responsible adult while I'm here, I'm still not their dad.

If fate had touched someone else with the task of being the parent to Brendon or Jacob, their shared experience would be vastly different (possibly even better) than what we've shared.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, other than that I find it interesting that God has set up our lives in such a way that we can be so unique. We all do it, but we all do it our own way.



MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com

Praying & Singing & Drumming

It was kinda cool to post up that song the other day, but even cooler to get this response:

Subject: I just read your blog...

and I thought the lyrics were amazing. So, I listened to the music and thought it could use a bit more fill-in-type drums - just for fun.

Here's what I came up with.

http://www.ilovemyjournal.com/SingThisPrayerFull.mp3

Feel free to do whatever you want with it - or nothing at all. I just needed to play to this awesome song, and now I feel *MUCH* better.

Thanks again for sharing.

--Jason

I decided to leave the full link on there. I really like reading his "I Love My Journal" blog. He's got some real insights into the scriptures. Just don't look at his pictures if individuality scares you!

MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com

Church Food

Many of you, who are my friends, know that this last six months have been very difficult for me, especially financially. My parents have had to step in and help us cover what could have been a very big gap in our health insurance, and just recently, we started to get assistance from our ward.

This is probably the second or third time in our 20+ years of marriage that we've had to get what's known to Mormons as "Church Welfare". The most common form it takes is the food order.

You meet with your Relief Society President and determine what food staples you need. The two of you fill out a form called a "Food Order", and then you take that to what's called a "Bishop's Storehouse".

The Church has a vast network of farms, orchards, canneries, and other food-producing resources all over the World, but especially in America. The food is all grown, manufactured, packaged, and distributed to these storehouses all across the country. It also happens across the world, but I'm more familiar with how it works in America.

In a lot of cases, these canneries and distribution networks are managed by paid church members, but much of the staff that does the more menial labor that requires less critical skill is volunteer. Assignments are given out to wards and stakes (local and regional congregations) to fulfill certain days and hours of volunteer labor.

Usually, the first people to fill those slots are the the folks that are receiving the aid. So, when the next assignments come up in our ward, we will be expected to go. Still, there were many times when I helped fulfill these assignments when I was not on assistance. Sometimes you just go to help out.

In addition to all this help, one of the more famous, if not mundane, aspects of the church is its emphasis on prudent living, and a great emphasis is placed on having food storage. This is only partly due to a mild paranoia that arose out of the great depression. It's actually very practical. We don't have any special line on a prediction for the next natural disaster. It just makes good sense to have a supply on hand when you need it.

I mention all this because tonight, I cooked a meal that was provided, in part, by the groceries that were given to us from the bishop's storehouse, and partly from our own food storage. I didn't have to go out and buy anything to make tonight's meal. Technically, it cost money, because we had bought the part that came from storage. But still...

And, since I cooked it in my dutch oven, I didn't even use any electricity or gas!

Here's the fun part: It was incredibly delicious. I made a seafood chowder with garlic, cheese, and butter biscuits. I daresay, it was as good as, if not better than, a restaurant meal.

I'm not sure that I should be bragging about needing help from our ward to make ends meet. I hope it doesn't sound like I am.

But a long time ago, as I was growing in the music industry here, I learned something very important from a friend. You can complain about what you don't have, or you can make some thing good with what you do. I feel like I followed his advice tonight. And I feel a bit richer for it.



MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com