Keep your Monday Nights Open

Family Home Evening has a new night in the Williams household. With all due respect to the Church, Monday night is saved for the non-stop season of 24. Instead, we've been doing our FHE on Tuesdays. We find it’s a lot less rushed on Tuesday—and our conversations seem less focused on ‘who’s the real mole in CTU.’

And by the way, it is my belief that Jack Bauer’s popularity is proof that America is fed-up with political correctness, impotent legal systems and bureaucracy in general. It’s a fantasy in which all our feelings of frustration and powerlessness (think DMV) are released on screen in the form of broken fingers, high voltage and medical interrogations.

Just a little taste of how it ‘would have been’ had Jack been born in a different time.

What’s in a name?

As Ned Flanders would say, “we’ve had a diddly of a pickle” figuring out what to call this blog. The only thing we agreed on was that it had to be creative and not too obvious. Therefore, “Chris, Malinda & Ella” was nixed from the start. (So was “Williams Family”, “Life with Ella” and “The Williams Variety Hour”.) I’ve always wanted a band named “Mourning Wüd” and thought I’d ask Malinda’s permission to use it as our blog’s title. She said sure; it then dawned on me she didn’t have the foggiest idea what it meant. After another twenty-five minute lecture on more endocrinology, she promptly vetoed the title.

I’ve developed a fond appreciation for J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve read a lot about him; I’ve read “The Hobbit” and a number of his short works and poems. I’ve even listened to “The Silmarillion” on audio CD (I’d rather try withholding vital information from Jack Bauer than do that again). But I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never read the “Lord of the Rings.” In my readings, I came across one of Tolkien’s all-time favorite poems. It’s an Olde English verse he translated from a very old manuscript entitled, Pearl. In it, he describes a dream in which a sincere seeker crosses a river entering paradise and beholds “streaming stars when stroth-men sleep.” The Old English Strođ means ‘marshy land, overgrown with brushwood. Stroþemen were ‘men of this world’, largely unaware of a higher plane. The Pearl-poet saw the inhabitants of Middle-earth as men sleeping in the wood, ignoring the stars. I like this metaphor. As a man of this world, it is often difficult to recognize celestial majesty through the brushwood. It becomes most detrimental however, when we stop looking for it. It’s a reminder that yes, we are consumed with day-to-day problems, chores and goals, but if we don’t look up we’re apt to get lost. King Benjamin said it best: “If ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith…even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.” (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 4:30)

Interestingly, and perhaps paradoxically, in Tolkien’s writings nothing is more exalted than trees and forests. Perhaps those who focus too much on the stars or the beyond, may miss a great deal of beauty in the present. This blog is mostly a record of the mundane thoughts and events of our present. (But don’t read too much into it—nothing’s more obnoxious than a literary snob.)

Explanations & Introductions:

I’ve moved on to Blogs. Whether this is a step up or a step otherwise has yet to be determined. What’s important is that I still have a forum to apprise everyone of our family’s happenings and my ideas. I’ll still be putting tons of pictures of Ella on Flickr which you can link to here. Whenever we post videos of Ella online, those will be linked also. This blog thing is liberating and more informal. Feel free to post comments or ask questions if you want. If you don’t, that’s fine too.

I’m still in Med School, my second year. It’s winding down now; I’m in the last module: endocrine & reproduction. I’m finally gonna learn the great secret behind womanhood…Hormones. Now listen up, men. Constancy is fleeting in the female body. Women are allowed a relatively steady stream of hormones in two-week spurts. This allows them to achieve a slight whiff of regularity—so they know what they’re missing when it’s all ripped from them. You see, the hormones change sides halfway through the game. The hormone that was holding back the flood-gates a day earlier, treasonously ushers the flood in on the day following. And that’s the normal physiology! There’s a medical condition called pregnancy that eliminates this cycle and replaces it with a 40week tsunami. This culminates in a coup d’état in which the largest hormone-producing organ in the human (the placenta) is expelled. But if you really want to understand the woman, consider this. No blend of hormones wreaks more chaos than when the hormones go away in the menopausal years. Despite the confusion and disorder of the hormone storm endured for 50+ years, what they end up complaining of most is the lack thereof.