The morning of their departure from Oregon they sent a note saying they were on their way and lots of friends were sending greetings with them. I immediately began to sob when I read those words. Sometimes it is easy to forget what having a large group of people you love and feel supported by feels like. And the fogetting is good. Always thinking about it would make being anywhere but Eugene pretty hard to bear.

When we were in Oregon, we lived in 500 square feet with 3 kids. Kind of crazy. And we had minimal furniture. Our matress was on the floor, our dining table was small despite our large family. When our frieds walked into our new home for the first time they said, “It’s so much bigger. And you have furniture!” It was nice to finally have a large house in which to host friends. A house made more a home by their visit.

And that all got me to thinking. People are always telling us how lucky we are to finally have a house and so much land. To live in such a safe and beautiful place. When I look around me, it’s true. We are suddenly materially blessed in a way we could not have imagined before. But before we were so rich in love and friendship that our little 500 square feet felt like a mansion. I know that all of that love is still there and we are slowly building a friend base here as well, but of course it takes time to develop bonds like we had in Oregon and nothing can replace the easy day to day chats and cups of tea of an in-town companionship. I have one or 2 amazing friends here in town already that I am sure would evoke the same storm of emotion if I were to leave Utah, but I can think of a few handfuls of people I have shed tears over missing since leaving Oregon. My heart can really feel the difference in importance between material wealth and spiritual wealth. We always knew we had it good there with our friends and sense of close knit community. We always said that we wouldn’t trade some of the yeas in that little place for a palace. But boy do I see how right we were now that we’re so far apart from those who have brought us such comfort.

Now our friends have gone home and we have cried many tears. I keep reassuring Hannah jane that over time we will love people here in our new home the way that we love our friends back in Oregon. I think I tell her as much for my self as I do for her. I didn’t realize how lonely I felt until my memory was refreshed on what old friends feel like. We talked about planning a trip back for our own visit, but I think if I am to ever love this placce as I loved that one I shouldn’t visit for a while. A dose of love as big as we would get in Oregon might make it hard to find contentment here. Now I’ve seen it from both sides and let me tell you that a great group of friends beats a great house any day. Hopefully we will soon have both right here in Utah.

I have spent more time than usual pondering these wise words as I struggle with the ins and outs of Cache Valley living. Trying to teach the kids to be free spirits while feeling a bit tied up in knots over not being what other people seem to need me to be has been a bit of a yoga routine for me as of late. But my dearest friend here in the Valley has this adorable little practice that I have adopted for myself. When something is not what she wants it to be, she writes the situation out on a piece of paper as if it were exactly as she would have it. Then she decorates it with rainbows and flowers and tapes it up someplace wher she can see it often. I know, I know. It sounds a bit too “the Secret” and I admit, that very fact makes my skin crawl but it really seems to workd for her. Seemingly hopeless situations have actually grown to match her colorful, doodled-on statement of life as it should be.

So I ponder, why does this work? My conclusion: when you let that desire out of your thoughts and put it out there, even if no one sees it but you, you are putting energy into the good that you want to make of the world and not just feeling bogged down by what just isn’t right.

I now have little reminders decorated with childlike marker flowers around the house to gently remind me to chill out. That I’m doing great. That the world is still spinning and love is there if you just reach out and grab it. In addition to my little happy thoughts on the wall, I have regular reflection meetings with that sweet doodling friend of mine as well as with Hannah Jane, where we discuss what we’ve been doing (in the community or within our family) that has worked, and how to tweek what hasn’t worked so it can grow into something more. As a result of those meetings, there is officially a small group of people who are planning neighborhood classes and about to begin training to be Jr. Youth animators.

Who knows how long we’ll be able to keep momentum, but I can say for sure that there will be lots of little happy notes on walls all around the valley and that at least a few people will be letting their songs loose.

Well, a new little man has taken the name bug man. Hunter, with his most sensitive soul, has become a bug whisperer of sorts. He charms grasshoppers and moths, lady bugs and rolly-polies into his tiny hands with such love. They actually crawl all around him and don’t hop off. It’s so cute. Hannah Jane will beg him to get her a bug because truly no one can woo bugs to the quite like Hunter.

Last wekk we were sitting in front of the AVA waiting for Hannah Jane to get out of camp and Hunter ate a piece of grass. I told him not to eat it because i mighth have chemicals on it. “What kind of chemicals?” he asked. I told him the kind to kill bugs and weeds. “People want to kill bugs!?!?! Like lady bugs???” he asked as the tears immediately elled up in his eyes. I had to rock him in my arms for quite a while to calm him.

The next night at dinner Hannah jane told usthat Hunter had finally succeeded in catching a bee without getting stung. Immediately we cheered for him (he’s bee attempting this feat for quite a time now) only to look over and find his lip quivering and more tears flowing down his cheeks. “What’s wrong, Huner-Roo?” We asked. “The bee died in the cup I was keeping him in and now he’ll never get to make me honey!” he sobbed.

He is such a tender hearted little guy. No bug is uncherrished. He can frequently be found marrying worms, telling rolly-polies not to worry because he’ll get them back to their mommy and daddy bug. In his mind, every bug has a family, and a hobby. This one likes to play hide and seek while that one likes to paint with mud. It’s too sweet.

So move aside, Rich. There’s a new bug man in town. And this one can charm the ees right out of the trees.

The original Bug Man can be found at http://www.richglauber.com/index.html He’s worth every penny!!!!

Then I think, what did people do before the internet? What do I do when that baby robin has fallen from its nest and is clawing its way up the tree trunk with little success? Do I help it? Will its momma smell human on it and refuse to feed it or was that just a myth? If it never gets back up there, what do I feed it? Obviously I need google. Right?

Or what about that all important question of how long to cook corn on the cob? I tried it last year when some friends came over and it stunk, and suddenly I have been gifted a bag of corn from a neighbor’s garden. Google time!

So as easy as it is to get online to find the exact locations of Isfahan (or Easfahan as I am told it is spelled now) and get side tracked for a half hour or so on facebook, I suppose the answer is to exercise a bit more self control rather than to give in to the impulse to discard the demon laptop altogether. After all, if I tossed the whole computer what would I do the next time Hunter asked a question like “do butterflies sleep?” I’d have to go back to the days of making up an answer and pretending to know everything. I much prefer saying, “Well, Love, I don’t know. Let’s find out together.”

So here’s to facing down the evils of random internet distractions head on, loving the massive amounts of information out there and vowing to allow myself a good 15 minutes a day to get lost in the social networking world with no guilt.

How do you fix that magnitude of an errant timeline? I suppose starting our day with spiritual history and then moving to our more textbookish study of ancient civilizations probably doesn’t help, but what to do? Discontinuing our mapping of the Baha’i Faith doesn’t seem like a step in the right direction, but neither does ending Aegean civilizations studies and I sure can’t seem to permenantly straighten things out in her cute little head. I’ll explain the huge time differences and say, “do you understand?” She’ll smile and nod and then 2 days later she’ll make a comment that makes it clear that we’re back at square 1. It’s like explaining eternity to a dog. No good, right?

For now I guess I’ll keep on doing what I’m doing and hope that her sweet little brain makes that important leap on it’s own while I google the fire out of the issue looking for an answer. I never encountered this topic in my teacher ed classes in college. Perhaps it’s because the American education system rarely ventures far beyond the time between the Mayflower and the Civil War while religious studies have been effectively pushed out. When you focus on the same, relatively small time period year after year the question of Abraham talking the Mongols out of invading China yet again probably never comes up.

Well, blessed are we to have such a wacky thoughtful troop of tots. I suppose the parents who don’t have these problems also don’t get the joy of hearing their children come up with amazing ideas about healing the world’s problems with time-traveling sages and religious figures. There are worse problems to have.

Everyone here knows everyone’s business. And when you’re a member of a minority faith, everyone is watching to see what you’re doing. You become a sort of ambassador of the faith and your every move is scrutinized. My thoughtful Baha’i friends realize this and behave in a manner that goes above and beyond the call of duty, and I feel compelled to follow their lead on this one. Where once I was inclined to think, “I know I’m doing the right thing and it’s just between me and God, so who cares what anyone else thinks?” I now think, “Well, if they think I’m up to something, even though I’m not, that reflects on the faith.”

And then there’s the matter of right and wrong. That used to be easy. I never imagined a situation where I would actually have no idea what the right path is. But here in LittleTown they have managed to confound me. I can’t believe I have actually sought guidance from the Baha’i chain of command. I really thought that was for tribal communities who had a squabble of the right height at which to hang Abdul Baha’s picture or at least entire grops of Baha’is with serious questions, but here I find myself actually thinking, “I have no idea what to do and my actions in this case could have potentially dire consequences.” When did this happen? Can the small town dynamic actually muck up the clarity of right vs. wrong? Have I lost my mind? My, how simple things used to be.

I have made a decided effort to become a more thoughtful, less reactive person over the last year or so. Of course I fall short often, when the zoo-like nature of running a house with 3 little ones becomes more than I can sanely bear, but I think I’ have improved significantly in my ability to keep myself out of other people’s dramas. But here I find myself inescapably wrapped up in drama that is at the core of an entire community. I suppose sometimes reality makes a house call even when it is not invited.

So I’m a prayin’ and a thinkin’ and a hopin’ that some wisdom is visited on me before I make any moves. Truly, life should be much simpler. I suppose in a small town, life is trickier than big city anonymity no matter your background. Everyone’s watching and comparing notes so it’s best to get a second (and 3rd and 4th) opinion on things.

But today I had a breakthrough. I saw the light, you might say. We are studying the Maya and one of our projects was to weave a poncho on a home made loom. Hannah Jane was crazy excited about this and she started out wit a bang. But after about 5 minutes her work began to get sloppy, and 20 minutes she had really mangled the whole thing. She said, “Ca I quit?” and I gave her the usual, “If that’s the kind of person you want to be, I suppose.” Horrible, right? But this time she didn’t fall prey to my usual guilt trip. She said, “That’s the kind of kid I am today. I quit. I’ll finish tomorrow.”

As my insides twisted up into knots of quitter rage I had a moment of clarity. “Aren’t you glad you’re not a Maya mother? They had to waeve all of the clothes for their whole family and it takes a long time, doesn’t it?” Her eyes lit up. “Yeah! That wouldn’tbe much fun. I like to be able to weave when I want to, but I also llike to be able to quit when I want to too. I guess they didn’t have much free time, huh?” THe conversation went on to cover why some societies just got by while others developed calendars and musical instruments and great art.

So for today, I am content to quit with Hannah Jane if it means we get a good discussion out of it all. She teaches me far more than I teach her, and it ain’t easy to teach this old dog a new trick like acceptance. And in the end, she did go back to it – a thing which I never did as a child. Perhaps weaving a Mayan poncho is a thing best done in little spurts of working and quitting.

I threw on my UGGs and ran out to grab him. Much to my surprise, he was happy to see me and didn’t try to make a break for it. I hugged him, picked him up and placed him back within the chain link fenced area. Before I could turn my back he had lept right back over the fence with complete ease and grace.

Sadly, for now he must be tethered until we figure out what to do about this situation. But there was a sunny spot in all of this. It came when our neighbor, Mrs. Murray, came out to meet me at the barn with a big ole smile on her face. What she proceeded to tell me about our Wether man kept us both in stitches for quite a while. The story goes as follows…

Mrs. Murray woke up and opened her blinds to let in the sun when the cries of our goats caught her attention. When she looked out to see if anything was wrong she saw a jogger being shadowed on the other side of the fence by Wether, who has an affinity for chasing joggers back and forth as they pass. But this time, as the jogger continued past the point that Wether could follow he jumped right over and kept following. The jogger stopped for a moment, surprised at her new running companion, and looked puzzled as to what to do. Mrs. Murray says that he jogger tried to put him back in the fence but couldn’t get the gate open. After a moment she decided that he wasn’t worth the trouble and she jogged on. Maybe that’s where he was coming back from when I found him on the street.

I can only imaging being a jogger who suddenly finds herself trailed by someone’s goat. I’m giggling just typing the story. Mrs. Murray said she stood there quite a while deciding what to do. She knew exactly where he came from, but when she couldn’t get him back in she just jogged on. Had it been me, I would probably have at least knocked on the door, but she had already lost enough time. I wonder how far he trailed her before he came home. I think tomorrow I might just let him off his leash for that window of time and watch to see what happens. Mrs. Murray says she’s keeping he camera handy so she can make some money off of a video of my little jogger stalking goat!

Joe, not a Baha’i, has always said that he could see how one could come to the Baha’i Faith through the Mormon writings. I never really looked into it much, but now that I have, I can see it. The prophecy that Joseph Smith set forth about “the 2 to come in rapid succession” and the dates of their arrivals are so crazy accurate if you’re looking back on it from a Baha’i perspective. and Joe really gets in there and explains the Baha’i perspective with eloquence and passion. He is quite the persuasive speaker. Every time they leave I look at him and ask, “Did you mean what you said? So, why is it again that you aren’t Baha’i? “

So tonight they began with the question, “DO you believe, based upon what we previously discussed, that Joseph Smith could have been correct?” I am quite positive that they’ve never had someone respond with, “I’m pretty sure he was right, and I’m pretty sure his prophecy has already been fufilled.” They were unshaken, though. I politely asked, “Are you watching for one to come? What do you make of these prophecies?” There were some verbal gymnastics (this was the only time I felt like there was a stretch from the obvious meaning of what was written) and said that they were in fact not awaiting anyone. I can handle that.

It’s so great to have these guys over and feel a bit pressed to back up my beliefs. Don’t you always feel like answering questions about your faith calls you into understanding your own beliefs in a more concrete way? I hope our unwillingness to bend in the “there’s not one true church” department isn’t too frustrating for them. My feeling is that we will entertain missionaries weekly for life. Every 6 weeks we’ll get a new pair and when we’re 80 those young fellas will still be coming to take a whack at that one stubborn family in the 3rd ward. We’ll love it every time. What a surprising blessing this is turning out to be.