This is a talk I gave in Logandale 6th Ward on 2/19/12

Time: The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues

Eternity: A seemingly endless or immeasurable time, infinite time, the quality or state of being eternal.

Eternal: Having infinite duration: everlasting, continued without intermission: perpetual, timeless - Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Illustration of Eternity: Picture a great wall made out of stone, similar to the Great Wall of China. The wall is 100-feet high and 30-feet wide. Every 1000 years two doves fly over it, carrying in their beaks a long silk scarf, one on each end, and they drag it gently over the top of the wall. Eternity is how long it will take for the wall to be ground down and disappear from the abrasion of the silk scarf running across it every millenium.

Time and all Eternity -- We add the word ALL eternity, but by definition, since eternity had no time and no end, eternity is ALL eternity.

The Only Way to Kill Time is to Work It To Death – My Memories of Dr. Franklin Little

It couldn’t have been easy teaching sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds in Sunday School every week, but Dr. Little, a Sacramento dentist, was always there, prepared and enthusiastic. Through his entire teaching one thing was very clear: He cared for us.

He would write a quote that he thought might help us on the chalkboard before each lesson. I’m sure he wondered sometimes if we even remembered them. After graduating from high school, I was thrilled to land a high-paying summer job to help me save money for my mission. Unfortunately, the thrill wore off all too quickly. The job was at a pallet factory where they took raw lumber and cut it into sizes to make pallets and fruit and vegetable crates. My job was to walk to a pile of boards that had been cut seconds before, visually inspect and grade them, and then walk a few steps and stack them on the A, B, or C tables. Then I returned to the saw and did the same thing all over again—over and over and over, eight hours a day. The day just dragged. I soon found myself counting the minutes until I could take a break or, better yet, stop at the end of the day. I was miserable, but the pay was too great to even consider quitting.

One night as I was praying for help in making it through the next day, one of Dr. Little’s quotes sprang suddenly into my mind: “The only way to kill time is to work it to death.” I wasn’t sure at first how I would apply it, but I decided to put it to the test. The next day I went to work with a mission. I was going to kill time—by working it to death. What a difference! I found myself trotting back and forth between the tail-off saw and the grading tables. I would set goals like not letting more than three boards stack up before they were on their way to the grading tables. I would concentrate, really concentrate, on making the right decision on the grading—eyeing the cut boards waiting for me as soon as I dropped off the previous ones. And when the whistle announced a break, I was astonished at how quickly the previous couple of hours had gone by, and then the weeks, and soon the summer had flown by, all because of one quote from a wonderful teacher: the only way to kill time is to work it to death.

Recently I was thinking about tedium, about boredom, and it occurred to me that I seldom get bored any more. No matter how repetitious the thing is that I'm doing, no matter how mundane, I usually have enough going on in my mind and in my life that it isn't boring. I rather find myself wishing there was more time. When I go to bed I am sad that I don't have more time to read and write, to video and to volunteer. I catch myself frequently wishing there were more hours in a day. I find myself yearning for the time when there isn't time, when we have all the time we want, when life is literally timeless.

Some scriptures on time:

Psalms 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Eccl 3:1 time to every purpose under the heaven

D&C 88:110 there shall be time no longer

Alma 40:8 all is one day with God, and time only is measured unto men

In a BYU devotional entiled "Patience" Elder Neal A. Maxwell captured the quandary I have -- that I believe we all have -- when it comes to Time:

"When the veil which encloses us is no more, time will also be no more (D&C 84:100). Even now, time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves impatiently wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course. Whereas the bird is at home in the air, we are clearly not at home in time--because we belong to eternity. Time, as much as any one thing, whispers to us that we are strangers here. If time were natural to us, why is it that we have so many clocks and wear wristwatches?

Some of us have been momentarily wrenched by the sound of a train whistle spilling into the night air, and we have been inexplicably subdued by the mix of feelings that this evokes. Or perhaps we have been beckoned by a lighted cottage across a snow-covered meadow at dusk. Or we have heard the warm and drawing laughter of children at a nearby playground. Or we have been tugged at by the strains of congregational singing from a nearby church. Or we have encountered a particular fragrance which has awakened memories deep within us of things which once were. In such moments, we have felt a deep yearning, as if we were temporarily outside of something to which we actually belonged and of which we so much wanted again to be a part.

There are spiritual equivalents of these moments. Such seem to occur most often when time touches eternity. In these moments we feel a longing closeness--but we are still separate. The partition which produces this paradox is something we call the veil--a partition the presence of which requires our patience. We define the veil as the border between mortality and eternity; it is also a film of forgetting which covers the memories of earlier experiences. This forgetfulness will be lifted one day, and on that day we will see forever--rather than "through a glass, darkly" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

There are poignant and frequent reminders of the veil, adding to our sense of being close but still outside. In our deepest prayers, when the agency of man encounters the omniscience of God, we sometimes sense, if only momentarily, how very provincial our petitions are; we perceive that there are more good answers than we have good questions; and we realize that we have been taught more than we can tell, for the language used is not that which the tongue can transmit.

We experience this same close separateness when a baby is born, but also as we wait with those who are dying--for then we brush against the veil, as goodbyes and greetings are said almost within earshot of each other. In such moments, this resonance with realities on the other side of the veil is so obvious that it can be explained in only one way!"

I would like to share some thoughts from one of my favorite wordsmiths, Marvin Payne, from his column "Backstage Graffiti" published in the on-line Meridian Magazine on November 9th, 2011:

"Now think about this for a minute: You are kneeling by your bedside and praying that, say, your wife and/or daughter will last out the night. You expect an answer. You are taught that there will be one. But for an answer to come, a question first has to have been heard. Of course, at this very moment several million Christians and Jews are asking the same Person their own urgent questions, and several million Muslims, depending on the time of day, are vying for His attention, and uncounted believers in God by many other names are doing the same. (Talking this phenomenon over with my frequent director… the legendary Jayne Luke, she said that in her church ((I can’t remember whether it was the Congregationalist or the Universalist Church)) their prayers were addressed “To Whom it may concern.”) Anyhow, that’s a lot of people trying to be heard at once. Some churches have dealt with this apparent impossibility by believing in “celestial call centers” where prayers are heard and mediated by a plethora of saints—still, there just can’t be enough saintly cubicles to make it work.

But, against all logic, you happen to know that Heavenly Father is listening in a personal, focused, undistracted manner to you. Not because it makes sense, not because any dogma contains that preposterous notion, but because you have experienced it. You know exactly how it feels to have the exclusive ear of Deity. To someone who hasn’t experienced it, it’s foolishness. Ask Paul.

A few years ago, Elder Merrill Bateman, as a Seventy, suggested in General Conference that in Gethsemane each of us had some personal interaction with the Savior. That’s more people competing for the Savior’s time than ever prayed all at once, even when BYU is up against the U. No matter how you slice it, the notion of Deity spending quality time with mortals defies logic.

Unless one is lifted above the limitation of time. What if time were merely a convention of mortality? Like water is what fish live in. We don’t live in water, we live above water—but try to explain that to a fish. The brightest among our finny friends wouldn’t be able to imagine living above the limitation of water.

You can read in the scriptures about time ending, about all things being present before the Lord, about Moses seeing everybody and everything all at once. But Moses made a particular point of his being transfigured during the experience.

If time didn’t matter, if time didn’t restrict the Lord (as water restricts fish), it would suddenly be perfectly logical for Him to attend to each of us, alone, for as long as it took to love us, understand us, teach us, and save us. The Savior could walk your whole life with you and with no one else. Without denying the same gift to each of us. Okay, this is not about trying to explain the miraculous. What we’re about is having faith, repenting, getting baptized, and befriending the Holy Ghost. Adwen is sleeping soundly. I think I’ll tell the Lord how grateful I am. But I won’t have to take a number."

And thus we face the quandary of mortality: we live in a today, an element that is not natural to us, a period of testing and learning and faith and time. And that time is limited. Not only is it limited, we never really know when it will end. But while we're experiencing mortality, we must -- we MUST -- act in Time while focusing on Eternity. D&C 64:25 Wherefore, if ye believe me, ye will labor while it is called today.

How many times have you had an argument with your spouse and looked back months or years later and can't even remember what you argued about? How many times have made decisions based on the moment, and then with the perspective of additional time, realized how wrong you were? We need to live in time, but think in terms of eternity. Faith is a big part of that. We need to have faith that there is more to life than mortality. We need to have faith in the things that are timeless including love and truth and family.

Let me conclude with a quote from Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley from a talk entitled Pillars of Truth in the January 1994 Ensign:

"We are not chance creations in a universe of disorder. We lived before we were born. We were God’s sons and daughters who shouted for joy (see Job 38:7). We knew our Father; He planned our future. We graduated from that life and matriculated in this. The statement is simple; the implications are profound. Life is a mission, not just the sputtering of a candle between a chance lighting and a gust of wind that blows it out forever . . .

While here, we have learning to gain, work to do, service go give. We are here with a marvelous inheritance, a divine endowment. How different this world would be if every person realized that all of his actions have eternal consequences. How much more satisfying our years may be if in our accumulation of knowledge, in our relationships with others, in our business affairs, in our courtship and marriage, and in our family rearing, we recognize that we form each day the stuff of which eternity is made….Life is forever. Live each day as if you were going to live eternally, for you surely shall."

May we follow this beautiful counsel from Pres. Hinckley. May we stand committed. May we look forward to the time when there is no time! And may we, because of our commitment today, whilst there is time, prepare for and qualify to return to our Heavenly Parents, when our experience with them again will be timeless!

God does answer our prayers - always, but not always in the way we may recognize and sometimes very definitely in a way that we would recognize.  His answers come to us as --

Yes

 

Not Yet

 

and . . .

 

I have a better plan.

My recent week-long backpacking adventure into Grand Gulch in southern UT turned into quite a park-hopping adventure as we couldn’t find water where we were. Although it was supposed to be there, it wasn’t, so we hiked back out and instead decided to visit the parks of southeast Utah and southwest Colorado. Grand Gulch was wonderful, and the Bannister Springs ruins (and they were interesting), but no water equals no fun so out we came.
We had carpooled so my adventurous carpoolmates (is that a word?) and I decided to go sight-seeing. We still lived out of our packs and slept in out tents (well, actually, the shorter of my two companions slept in the back seat) and cooked our meals on our JetBoils. But we did manage to snag a couple of campgrounds, and I was able to sleep in my hammock tent every night (I avoid sleeping on the ground if at all possible). Below is the link to some pictures which I put into a slideshow. Before you go there, though, let me tell you a little bit about what you’ll see.
We went to UT state parks, national monuments, and national parks. You’ll see photos I took, and they’re all captioned. In one you’ll see a crow flying away – I’m still learning how to stop motion better, and in another you’ll see a turkey vulture in flight in front of one of the many ruins at Mesa Verde National Park – I felt pretty good about capturing him/her in the sun so well! You’ll see some familiar shots – especially in Mesa Verde NP and some not so familiar sights – like the goblins in Goblin State Park.
It has been a dream of mine to visit Mesa Verde NP, and I wasn’t disappointed. Next time I’m staying there several days! And I can’t wait to play hide ‘n' seek with the grandkids in Goblin SP – it might take days to find each other!
Anyway, hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed the vacation. No cell phone reception! Drop dead gorgeous parks! I even was able to get a shot of lightning (even if it was flashing behind a campground outhouse). In short, a much-needed vacation that, although the water wasn’t there, no problem!

Here's the link to my favorite photos from the trip: click here.

At this time in my life I really want for nothing, but have everything. . .  When I was a teenager I wanted so much to find a husband to love me and to raise the perfect family.  That was my dream.  Over the years I've learned that to raise a perfect family, you'd have to be perfect to begin with!  Dah!  I'm getting smarter with experience.  I've learned that being married and raising a family is really an experience where your spouse and your children have to be patient with their wife and Mom -- it's on-the-job training.  You can read all the manuals and books you want (and you should) but you will never do it exactly right.  Or maybe you are always doing it exactly right:)  Being a family is a growing and learning experience for everyone.  The key is to love where you're at for a minute, for 10 minutes, for an hour or for a day.  "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

As a mother, there were lots of times that I thought that it was, gosh, a lot of work!  The hours were long the laundry endless.  But the opportunities for creativeness, joy, teaching, sharing and learning were also endless.  Even now, as a mother, I am constantly learning.  I am constantly blessed by the cathedrals that I have been a part of building . . . and am thankful for the blessing of being a mother.

 

THE INVISIBLE MOTHER

A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was Almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does.

No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he'd say, 'You're gonna love it there...'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers

 

A TRIBUTE TO MY GRANDMOTHER

Grandmother Pfiffer lived in a very large log home in Camptonville, California during the years that I knew her. She descended from a line of strong women. Her grandmother, Julia Quigley raised 10 children in the wilds of Iowa and Nebraska, after her physician husband died unexpectedly shortly before the birth of their 10th child, Deborah Ellen Quigley Blatchley, my great grandmother.

Julia's mother, Debra Ann Somers married Nathan Quigley whose grandfather made a living as a "slave getter", while she came from a line of Quakers who were supporters of freedom for the blacks and the Underground Railroad. Perhaps because of this, she left her husband in Mobile, Alabama prior to the Civil War and moved to Ohio, taking four children with her.

 

The ABC’s of Being POSITIVE by GrandPar

 

I listened to a friend of mine on a radio program. When I saw him a few days later I commented on how much I enjoyed listening to the interview. He pointed out that it was good, but when he played back the recording of it, he had said the word “absolutely!” seventeen times. This came to mind recently when I had an interview and was told what my new volunteer assignment would be. I found myself saying “wonderful” and “terrific” over and over again. I like to be positive and affirmative, but I realized I needed to expand my usage of positive affirmations. Now, when I catch myself repeating a word, I use my ABC’s of Being Positive and “run the alphabet”. It’s surprising how easy it is once you get on track – the next word just waits to be said. And so far, no one has noticed me doing it. :o)

 

Awesome, Absolutely, Agreed

Beautiful, Bueno, Brilliant

Cool, Certainly, Conclusively

Definitely

Engaging, Enterprising

Fantastic, Fabulous

Great, Gnarly, Good

Ho, Happily so, Heavenly

Indeed, Impressive

Jubilation

Kingly

Luminous, Luckily so

Marvelous, Muy bien

Not bad

Outstanding

Positively, Perfect

Quite right

Remarkable, Right, Rewarding

Smart, Super, Si

Terrific, Tremendous, To be sure

Undeniably, Unquestionably

Very good, Viable

Wonderful, Without a doubt

Xactly, Xtraordinary

Yes, You’re right

Zany, at the Zenith

Each time we have moved to a new home, I've said "We're going to plant fruit trees right from the start!"  Growing up we ate oranges, grapefruit, lemons, cherries and almonds fresh from the trees in our yard (2 acres).  I took that for granted.  We often bought lugs of fresh peaches and pears and canned them for the coming year.

I stayed with Aunt Jonnie and Papa every year that I can remember for a week.  During that week we often had fresh apricots from their trees growing at the very back of their small yard.  We had fresh peaches in homemade ice cream.  What a treat!  So during our years of marriage, many of those years we have also canned or frozen large quantities of fresh fruit -- all of which we had to buy. 

Moving to Nevada I realized that once again I had never planted those trees while living in Connecticut for nearly 20 years.  Now we have come to Nevada and once again, we have lived here for nearly 7 years and, you guessed it, no fruit trees.  So today I attended a class on caring for fruit trees.  I learned a lot!  We're about to re-landscape our yard and it will include fruit trees!

So my word to the wise is, don't procrastinate -- plant those trees this week or as soon as your climate allows or you, too, may be . . .

~ Fruitless in Logandale

The Touch of the Master's Hand

by Myra Brooks Welch

'Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer Thought it sacredly worth his while To waste much time on the old violin, But held it up with a smile: "What am I bidden, good folks," he cried, "Who'll start the bidding for me?" "A dollar, a dollar"; then "Two!" "Only two? Two dollars, and who'll make it three? Three dollars, once; three dollars, twice; Going for three....." But no, From the back of the room, a gray-haired man Came forward and picked up the bow; Then, wiping the dust from the old violin, And tightening the loose string He played a melody pure and sweet As a caroling angel sings. The music ceased, and the auctioneer, With a voice that was quiet and low, Said: "What am I bid for the old violin?" And he held it up with the bow. "A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two? Two thousand! And who'll make it three? Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice, And going, and going," said he. The people cheered, but some of them cried, We do not quite understand What changed its worth." Swift came the reply: "The touch of a master's hand." And many a man with life out of tune, And battered and scarred with sin, Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, Much like the old violin. A "mess of pottage," a glass of wine; A game--and he travels on. He is "going once, and "going" twice, He's "going" and almost "gone." But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd Never can quite understand The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought By the touch of the Master's hand.