Chapter Book-Rabbit Hole

Down the rabbit hole meaning

Used especially in the phrase going down the rabbit hole or falling down the rabbit hole, a rabbit hole is a metaphor for something that transports someone into a wonderfully (or troublingly) surreal state or situation. On the internet, a rabbit hole frequently refers to an extremely engrossing and time-consuming topic. 

Sometimes my personal life and challenges converge with my study of spiritual things and I go down a wonderfully surreal state!... a rabbit hole!  One thing just seems to lead to another and I gain needed help for dealing with mortality and also a greater connection...a greater understanding of something spiritual.  I can feel the Spirit teaching me and I am thankful as thoughts of solutions and things of the Spirit do this wonderful converging!

For a few weeks life has been challenging with Terry's health issues.  I felt we'd hit a new-time low, and as I tried to regroup and figure out how to deal with another NewNormal, I went down a great rabbit hole.  I wonder if the wonder of it will even come across in my words?  I guess to just share, seemingly unrelated thoughts and talks, and perhaps you will enjoy these gems without having to research to find them!

I'm thinking this is a Chapter Book!  A small book.  A Booklet?  Whatever.  Enjoy!

Foreword

I was seeking help, prayerfully & tearfully, on how to deal with helping Terry (he does not have a disease and he is not bedridden but his balance is off and he can't really do much of anything.  his intense pain has decreased but we still have a lot of challenges and the work load is on me.  I am thankful I have that challenge and the strength to take care of "us".  so there you go.  in a nutshell.  Me feeling overcome and very overwhelmed with my life)

I was seeking help on that level and also studying the Come Follow Me program.  

These two scriptures were the beginning of my recent learning journey.  

Paul said, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Nephi said, "Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you" (1 Nephi 15:11).

Chapter 1

A Pattern for Learning Spiritual Things by Elder Paul V. Johnson... August 7, 2012 here  Speaking at Seminaries & Institute Broadcast

Nephi continued with a brief summary of the process for learning spiritual things: “Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you” (1 Nephi 15:11).

This pattern is crucial for our students to understand if they have questions about spiritual things. We can make the mistake of trying to resolve doubts about spiritual things by leaning exclusively on intellectual answers. Answers to spiritual questions are given to individuals who don’t harden their hearts; who ask in faith, believing they will receive; and who diligently keep the commandments. Even when we follow this pattern, we don’t control the timing of getting answers. Sometimes our answers come quickly, and sometimes we must place questions on the shelf for a time and rely on our faith that has developed from the answers we do know.

(this talk is just amazing and then as a bonus...he shares something 34 years previous to his talk.  It is the perfect talk to use with your family as an explanation about Prophetic counsel that changes current things in a major way!! In June 1978 it was announced that all worthy males could receive the Priesthood.  It was a shock wave that rolled over the Church members in many cases. This marvelous talk was given a few weeks later by a member of the 12. Enjoy!)

Bruce R. McConkie All Are Alike unto God.... here

“Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.

“We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don’t matter any more.

“It doesn’t make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the … matter before the first day of June of this year (1978)” (“All Are Alike unto God” [CES symposium on the Book of Mormon, Aug. 18, 1978], 2; http://si.lds.org).

Chapter 2

(marvelous talk by Elder Cook and I have always loved the wisdom in the Fosdick quote he shared)

Quinton Cook....here  The Eternal Importance of Righteous Choices  

(From devotional addresses given at Brigham Young University–Hawaii on November 20, 2018, and at the Utah Valley Institute of Religion on February 1, 2019.)

We need to understand that there is opposition in all things and that the righteous choices we make are critical.

When I was young, I was introduced to a statement by Harry Emerson Fosdick, a renowned Protestant minister. In speaking of choices, he said: “The tragic evils of our life are so commonly unintentional. We did not start out for that poor, cheap goal. That aim was not in our minds at all. … That is why the road to hell is always paved with good intentions, and that is why I am not celebrating high ideals, lofty aims, fine purposes, grand resolutions, but am saying instead that one of the most dangerous things in the world is to accept them and think you believe in them and then neglect the day-by-day means that lead to them. Ah, my soul, look to the road you are walking on! He who picks up one end of a stick picks up the other. He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determines the end.”

Chapter 3

More Than Conquerers through Him That Loves Us  

by Paul V. Johnson - April 2011 CR     here

We don’t seek out tests, trials, and tribulations. Our personal journey through life will provide just the right amount for our needs. Many trials are just a natural part of our mortal existence, but they play such an important role in our progress.

Elder Orson F. Whitney said: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. … All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable. … It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.”5

Alma 36:3 And now, O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me; for I do know that whosoever shall put their ^atrust in God shall be supported in their ^btrials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be ^clifted up at the last day.

Chapter 4

Acquiring Spiritual Guidance Elder Scott  here


Afterword

Elder Scott tells us to write things down when the Spirit speaks.  Because this Rabbit Hole experience happened a week ago, I see a note to myself that is a list of last names... Eyring...Nibley...Benson...McConkie...Hinckley...Scott...Johnson.  
I can't remember if they are mentioned in the talks I shared or what!!  True Elder Scott said to take notes when the Spirit speaks but I'd say for me...more detail than a last name!!

The End

Ever Learning...

A couple of weeks ago I went to an early Temple session. 8a.m.  a couple of hours later when I pushed open the doors to step back into the world, I was just stunned at how things looked and how the weather felt.  It was perfection!  I spontaneously broke into quiet song...being all alone gave me that license...off key and garbled words but feeling joy, I belted it out.  Can a person belt quietly?  I think so!  Oh, what a beautiful morning!...Oh, what a beautiful day!!  I've got a beautiful feeling!...everythings going my way!!!  My plodding steps felt light and lyrical and I felt like swinging a calico skirt.  It was unexpected to experience the entire, extremely brief moment, but the memory has stayed with me.  I knew it was the emotion, the heaven-sent feeling, of pure joy.  Fleeting but real.  Life is a paradox...a conundrum...a ying/yang...black/white and on and on and on.  Exhilarating and exhausting!

Belting out...is that akin to shouting for joy?  Did you and I shout for joy in our previous life?

previous life...not in a reincarnate way as someone in a different form but familiar me, myself, abiding in a different location.  I guess... I realized that preparations were made and complete with all I/we would need for survival and progression on an earth, made with such care and planning.  I guess...I thought we gathered round a amphitheater setting and the plan was presented and 2 volunteers told of their willingness but each with a different outcome.  I guess... I thought I gave a sustaining of Jesus and Adam and Eve left for earth.  I guess... that not thinking and digging and pondering a bit more, maybe a lot more, caused me to miss a very important point...the fact being- that I was me and was active in my choice of that supportive decision.  I was in that battle of persuasive words and I did shout for joy at the victory.  As did you.

When I got my Patriarchal Blessing, I was very new in the Church.  I was new to understanding the Bible and especially new to Living Prophets and the Book of Mormon.  My blessing is long and it is filled with lingo that was foreign to me...references to scriptures and names and counsel that left me scratching my head in puzzlement.  I felt overwhelmed and rather doomed as to... how does a person become what this document is talking about?  This is an impossibility!  At times I was frustrated and even angry and tearful and felt hopeless at never being good enough.  I did not feel the feelings of guidance that I wanted to feel because I didn't feel worthy of the mentioned blessings and I felt that I was not in a place, of my progression, to receive the mentioned blessings.

These feelings were very motivating to me and there was a deep desire to be worthy of living up to what this blessing talked about.  Lest I'm coming across like my blessing is extraordinarily amazing and I'm going to now announce some personal spiritual experience that you will call and tell a friend...not so. This is about how I made peace with my inner conflict and as a result grew in feelings of self-worth and confidence.  In my estimation, a bit late in life, but even that has been a blessing because in the interim between receiving my blessing and my dawning of the beauty of it...the confidence derived from it and the gratitude and self-love of being me and the learning the power of prayer and how to pray and access God and loving/hungering for gospel study/knowledge...came about because I was trying so desperately to feel worthy of receiving and living/becoming myself- my full self spiritually.  Myself - that is the person described in that inspired blessing.

The key that was missing for me and honestly, I think I'm very consistent/persistent, in disciplining myself to keep on keeping on but many times I have my ladder up against the wrong wall in pursuit and determination of doing and understanding.  I missed the point that I was involved in the pre-existence and not passive.  I was thinking/doing/ being and siding with the plan of Christ.  I was growing.  I was becoming.

that is what I missed...I was in bud.  I had strengths & I had weaknesses in that previous realm and they came with me because they are me!  I was me.  I still am me.  I will continue to be me.

I did not arrive on earth a blank sheet.  I arrived with all sorts of myself in bud and some blooms!  My blessing lets me know of things that are already there and developed to a certain point, a foundation to build on.  I don't have to build the foundation.  I build on the foundation not start from square one.

When I have desires for goodness or enjoyment or even accomplishments in certain doings...most likely I can read my blessing and see that is a part of me and it is familiar and I recognize that and am thankful for that recognition.  Like all of us, blessed by our Church membership, which affords us the Gift of the Holy Ghost, we are in process.

Therefore when I look and recognize gifts of strengths, the neglect of self-discovery will not allow those backpack gifts to grow and flourish.  They will be weighted rocks of guilt.  A painful prodding.  Discovery and development of self takes desire and then discipline.  I need family.  I need friends. I need those that see a glimpse of the real me, when I am blind or looking at a shattered mirror and seeing no wholeness.  I need that love.  I need that acceptance.  I do not need those that see the reality of my struggles and weaknesses...things in need of being overcome and faulting me.  All of that mass of goodness and struggles is my lot to sort...much like a twisted necklace of the finest gold.  I'm in a constant state of unkinking!!

Wouldn't this be the perfect time for me to announce that I've overcome all and I've developed all?  Stop reading if that is your expectation.  I will be trying until I die.  Moving ahead at a snails pace but inwardly feeling amazing stirrings and stretchings- that feel so great!

The best EVER!!!....

This little 5 minute video, by Elder Soares, is applicable to every life situation!  Marvelous!!  here

Onward...ever onward!

Again.  Here I go again. Trying to convince myself that it's good for me to share how I feel even when I'm filled with self-doubt...yet not enough doubt to just bag the entire blog.  So as I said...Again.  Here I go again!!

Terry's health didn't make it possible to go to McCall for our annual get-together.  2nd year in a row.  Still aiming at next year!  Our 5 kiddos are so awesome.  They ended up coming here!  We live in a very small place and even though it's 2 bedrooms, it's now more like no extra bedroom.  Terry spends more nights back there than he used to.  They rented hotel rooms at a nearby Hotel and had the advantage of privacy and a pool and hot tub and a breakfast and an evening light meal also- plus they could bring dogs!! So we ended up with 20 here and then 5 up in Kennewick...where our grandson and family live.  We went up there for our big seafood celebration.  25 people!  awesome!!

Our sweet Granddaughter -Cassie- wanted some alone time so she came out and we had almost 3 days alone.  She and I love to sit and talk!  We talk a lot about everything plus she loves to watch Jaws-type movies with her Poppa.  She bought him a T-shirt with the Jaws shark on it, that matches hers!

We ate and talked our way through our time together and it was amazing.  I picked her up from the airport and she was hungry so we went to Hoptown Wood Fired Pizza (she loves the pizza and rootbeer!)  Then we came home and she saw her Poppa and Uncle Kipper.  She then wanted us to go get a manicure so we headed back to Yakima and after gorgeous nails, we ate at Teriyaki Grill.  Next day I took her to Prosser to Jades British Bakery as a surprise for breakfast. We also covered food trucks in Sunnyside  and another surprise, our tradition, lunch at the White House Cafe plus Mongolian Grill!  And another tradition...WTC matinee...this year Singin' in the Rain...and to say hi to Sophia Bos!  We also visited the newly opened place in Zillah...The Calico Cat Cafe.  (We did not eat but did visit and see their establishment that offers employment for some challenged folks...like autism and serve food plus a separate area where you can adopt cats.  It's a non-profit from what I understand.)

She shopped and bought a couple of things and I sat and watched!!  from the car!!

It was magic.  Memories are magic!!  Especially magic when it's familiar and tradition...even something like Cassie making sourdough starter and later cooking pancakes when others arrived or she and I grinding wheat and making bread. 

Life has been a bit overwhelming and as I've readjusted to yet another level of change, I find memories, and talking about them or actually repeating them,  makes life so meaningful and comforting with the familiarity. 

Lately I've had others, from my past, reach out with a shared memory and it has added a level of richness that I enjoy walking down memory lane with someone I shared it with.  Now I form new memories with those around me.  And that includes you!!!

video pancakes...here