Helping Christi

 in January of 2007 we went for the 20 week ultrasound at a small imaging clinic in Taylor, Arizona. We were excited and the tech was silent. Expecting it was standard operating procedure, we waited for the doctor's read of it. The phone rang a few days later inviting us to visit a specialist 3 hours away in the Phoenix Valley to investigate "abnormalities." When we made the trip, the specialist brought us in, hypothesized about a defect called "holoprosencephaly" with an incredibly high mortality rate and suggested abortion. We caught our breath, asked if Deana was at risk, and refused. He transferred our care.

The next doctor gave us one of only two prognoses that we have ever received for Christi. He told us that while in the womb she was in a safe place, but whatever was going on in that head of hers would be too much for her to survive more than a few minutes to a few hours after birth. That was all we could expect. 

Trusting that families are forever, we decided to loose no time building a relationship with our girl and began singing nightly to Deana's growing belly. "I am a Child of God" was the standard, and we hoped together for opportunities to lead guide and walk beside our sweet girl through whatever life held for her. 

March 29th was the scheduled C-section delivery. The pressure in her head had caused it to grow off the charts and she needed to come 2 months earlier than expected. We steeled ourselves, but were overjoyed to welcome our rather robust looking 4 lb 14 oz angel into the world. 

The doctors worked hard to stabilize her and then collect tests and samples to determine how they could best help. I followed - with a finger for her to hold and a familiar song on my lips. And when I sang it was powerfully clear - She knew me! She would quickly calm down and listen intently whatever was going on to hear our common plea that Heaven would lead us, guide us and help us find the way.

Within hours of birth they made a hole and inserted a tube into her head to relieve the pressure. 10 ounces and three days later, her now overlapping head plates created a curious spectacle. But she was here! she was ours! And she was beautiful!

The doctors determined now that she had suffered a stroke in utero killing some and disfiguring other parts of her brain. She had prenatal hydrocephalus and the fluid pressure in her head had literally been smashing her brain tissue against the inside of her skull. 8 days after her birth - on the 6th of April she had her first of many shunts placed to keep a regular fluid pressure in her head. The ensuing years included all sorts of new experiences and helps: head shaping helmets, feeding tubes, and seizure meds. Occupational, speech, and physical therapists came to our home became part of our routine. Milestones we had taken for granted and used to compare our children against others with our first two children became priceless and personal miracles. Talking was maybe the most normal milestone she reached around age two. She took her first steps at age 5. Before she began schooling, at 4, Christi's cognitive function testing revealed that she was significantly behind in all categories except one. She had the auditory memory of a 9 year old! She loved music and we felt so grateful for those early feelings to sing to her. 

Jospeh Smith taught: "All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement" (Teachings, 354). Parents naturally hold the primary responsibility to nurture that growth. With our first two children, that looked pretty standard, setting goals for milestones, school, sports, etc.. With Christi, sometimes it felt like all we could do just to keep her alive. Her growth and progress were punctuated dramatically with life threatening episodes from time to time. Shunts would fail, seizures wouldn't stop etc.. We joked with life flight teams occasionally about the frequent flyer miles that we must be accruing. 

There were great times of almost normalcy too, and we looked, hoped, and prayed for ways to help Christi's life be as wonderful and enriching as possible. Some of the answers to those prayers included the idea to enlarge the hole in a bottle nipple using a heated fork prong - to help her get off her feeding tube and learn a normal hunger response. And later, when she was 7 years old, the idea to bungee-cord her feet to the pedals of her bicycle to help her learn to discipline her muscles to the pattern for riding (watch her here). She was so determined and worked so hard! She inspired us with her drive and zest for life.

Then when she was 7 1/2 years old we had our closest call of all. After struggling to keep anything down for at least 12 hours, Christi went into cardiac arrest. When I found her she was blue gray and unresponsive. I called out to Deana and started CPR. She called 911 and our neighbors. After a pleading blessing, she was transported to the nearest hospital and then flown to Phoenix Children's. Deana flew with her and I drove. The former student of mine that was on the ambulance crew that day went home and told his mom, "There's no way she'll make it." With a few close calls on the flight, they arrived at Phoenix Children's hospital where they put her into a medically induced coma to save her life. She would stay that way for the next 2 weeks. 

After my 3 hour drive to the hospital one of the doctors took me aside before I was allowed to see her - to convey the severity of the situation and to temper my expectations. Doctors and nurses rushed in and out for a while, but then things slowed down and it was just me and her. It was pretty clear - our lives were going to change again forever. The eerie way the monitor showing her brain waves drew a continuous flat straight green line day after day testified to it. We yearned for her, talked and sang to her, prayed for her and hoped. We wondered too - what was her experience like? What would it be like if/when she awoke? We talked to each other too - about how important it was to provide as much normalcy for our other 4 children as possible. They couldn't feel they were less important.

So many around us fasted and prayed for her and us during that time. When she finally woke up two weeks later we found out slowly that she could no longer see, speak, eat, or even move her muscles voluntarily. But she was still here and still ours! Maybe we could help her regain function. We were excited to help her as much as possible. Fasting, prayers, improvements and setbacks filled our days and nights before an insurance company and a bedbug outbreak sent us packing back up the mountain and home.

Since that time we have worked hard to improve Christi's life. We moved back to Utah to be close to Primary Children's and family. We learned an intense medication and physical care regiment and how to de and re-construct her wheelchair to fit into the trunk of our car. We've been with her in the hospital over and over and over again. Long enough to learn the lingo, know many of the doctors and nurses that work there, and the staff at the Ronald McDonald house. Sometimes it has been intense - like the time all her doctors assembled in a room to tell us that they felt like she was in decline and encourage us to put her on hospice for what they expected to be the last weeks or months of her life - that was back in 2017. She likes to defy the odds.

She has helped teach my children compassion and service without expectation. She has taught me lessons about topics from determination and grit, to love and simple joy. She has brought us neighbors and friends full of love. 

Deana bears such an immense burden for her! Countless daytime hours for stretching and therapies, medications and bowel regimens as well as meeting the needs of our other 4 children. I, for nearly the past decade, have covered the night shift. I slept on a beanbag outside her door for most of it, but now on a foldable mattress beside her bed. Helping her has been a helping us for a long time. (to be continued) 

A Sacred and Protected Place

After attending a stake fireside on pornography put on by family services, and while living in a world where sexual things have become divisive and pervasive, I wanted to write down my thoughts and convictions. 

I’m currently a bishop, a father, and the principal of a seminary. Before any of those though I was a boy, a teenager, and a young man with all of the awkwardness I could handle, and all of the strength of emotion that sometimes I thought I might not be able to. Long before all of that though, I was - I am - a child of God. I now recognize that that last truth is more important to all of this than I had supposed.

The procreative power our Heavenly Father has given to each of His children on this earth through birth and maturity is such an incredible trust! Think of it, of all the possible opportunities to partner with the Father in His Creative work, He extends to us the chance to be co-creators of the physical bodies He gives His very children!

Adding powerful detail to the degrees of glory revealed to Paul, the Lord taught Joseph that, “In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; "And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase” (D&C 131:2-4). Increase means family. The procreative power will only remain in the eternities with those who will be exalted. It is the privilege and even the very essence of Godhood. 

It is such a privilege to wield procreative power in a lasting manner that no cheat, liar, or even lazy person will. Only those valiant in the testimony of Jesus (D&C 76:79), those who love not their lives even unto death (Rev. 12:11), those who sacrifice after the manner of the Son of God, those who make and keep sacred covenants. For the rest its use is momentary and, in eternity, fleeting.

Why does such a sacred and godly act have such a sordid reputation here on earth then? The answer lies at least partially in the raging jealousy of the devil and his followers.

When Satan and his followers were cast out of the presence of God for rebellion they came disembodied to this earth (see Abraham 3:26). Forever lacking that essential characteristic of godhood, their rebellion halted their progression and stifled their capacity for joy (see D&C 93:33). Their rage directed at sexuality seeks constantly to make something that is inherently Godly and sacred common and profane. Popular music, movies, shows and styles seek to arouse and exploit sacred God-given emotions for profit. These modern moneychangers need to be driven from this sacred space as forcefully as Jesus did it from the temple in Jerusalem.

Society won't do it - individuals and families must protect the sanctity of sexuality. I got a feel for this need as a college student looking for extra credit in my Psychology of Gender class. Without enough thought to look at the guest or the topic, I chose a date to go hear a speaker on campus. Walking in a little bit late, I looked quickly for a seat in a packed combination of ballrooms. I noticed, in passing first, but then more and more, that the audience was predominantly female. I took my seat and quickly found out why as the speaker began to recount her experience with date rape. The air was heavy with shock as we listened motionless to her detailed account. Then at the end she asked the males in attendance to stand. I remember quickly scanning for the exits and wondering if I was going to have to make a break for it. On the heels of such a story, opinions of males had to be at an all time low. The handful of us in attendance stood up slowly -- then she thanked us for coming. She suggested that in case we felt that this topic didn't have much to do with us that we should remember that 1 in 4 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. She asked us to think of four - mother, sister, wife, daughter - which one were we willing to let this happen to? I had 4 sisters at the time. I couldn't imagine. If we wanted to change that culture, she encouraged us to do a few things -- not to laugh next time someone told an objectifying joke, maybe even speak up against it. It would take bravery, but given the weight of what we'd all just heard, it wasn't hard to commit.

I heard once that President Nelson refuses to be entertained by the breaking of the commandments. What a powerful, yet difficult position. It sounds like Nephi to me - praying that the Lord would help shape his response - "Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin?" (2 Nephi 4:31). The media would shape my response to the appearance of sin also. What influences will I permit?

One of the strongest - and even surprising - emotions the Savior displayed during His earthly ministry was His response to the presence of the moneychangers in the temple. Those seeking to make money - to desecrate and make common merchandise of the sacred. "Sex sells," the modern moneychangers say - as they seek to stimulate sacred God-given emotions to move their product and attract viewers. Such is the world people say with a shrug of the shoulders. What about those who have taken upon them the name of Christ in this world though? How are they to act?  

Last week we attended the open houses for the Taylorsville and the Layton temples. Neither one had been dedicated yet, that was still to come, but each had a row of people by the entrance to the temple putting white disposable plastic booties over each set of shoes that came by. To be holy means to be different, set apart, sanctified for a specific purpose. Right on the building, etched in stone are the words "Holiness to the Lord," His house is uncommon by nature - even in it's undedicated state - so much so that my shoes need covering before entering. The Lord said to Moses on Sinai - "put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground (Exodus 3:5). What if we refused to allow the immorality in popular entertainment to be tracked into the sacred temple-topic of sexuality in our hearts and minds? What if the music we allow to play upon our feelings was also similarly guarded. What if we really drove the money-changers out?       

Abinadi's Teaching Audit

 

Brought before the priest of King Noah in bonds, Abinadi offers one of the clearest collections of feedback regarding the role of those entrusted to teach the gospel in holy writ. Because I do it for a living, he has my attention. Here are some highlights I found today:

• Teachers of the gospel must understand (and rely upon) the spirit of prophecy - Trying to trap him, Noah's priests ask him to explain a scripture in Isaiah describing peaceful comforting teachings - probably as a criticism to Abinadi's more cutting words. He had been preaching the need for repentance or imminent destruction would come upon these Nephites. Shouldn't gospel teachers preach pleasing things?? Abinadi answers with a question of his own, "Are you priests, and pretend to teach this people, and to understand the spirit of prophesying, and yet desire to know of me what these things mean?" John taught, "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Rev. 19:10). Nephi explained, "after ye have recieved the Holy Ghost ye [can] speak with the tongue of angels... [and] they speak the words of Christ" (2 Nephi 32:2-3). The Lord taught Joseph, "the Spirit shall be given unto you by the prayer of faith; and if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach" (D&C 42:14). Jesus' words were not always soothing platitudes. Messages from Him must be obtained from Him.
• Teachers of the gospel must teach students to understand the word of God - Abinadi tells Noah's priests, "if ye understood these things (passages in Isaiah) ye have not taught them; therefore ye have perverted the ways of the Lord." I think it's pretty likely, from this reading, that they were cherry picking the scriptures for teachings they believe validated their choices - no matter how far out of context. Are we teaching in such a way that all things come together in one in Christ, or are our teachings about a specific gospel doctrine imbalanced, distorted, or inflated in a way that students may have difficulty with other truths as they encounter them?
• Wise teachers of the gospel must be diligent students - He then adds, "[Y]e have not applied your hearts to understanding; therefore, ye have not been wise." The gospel of Jesus Christ offers us nearly unlimited learning possibilities, and there are teachers who teach from decades and decades of diligent study and discipleship. There are also teachers whose introduction to the gospel has been incredibly recent. Both are qualified by diligent study. Both hearts applied to understanding open themselves to the teaching of the Master. 

Past-colored glasses

 Reading Mosiah 7 today I got to thinking about the difference all the background things in a person's life make in their present experience. The three Nephite kings placed side by side in this chapter come from very different places. Mosiah is the first. Relatively recently anointed king by his famous father, Mosiah is the beneficiary of the powerful effect that his father's life and final sermon have had on the people. Benjamin's words and the covenant the people made as a result still resonate powerfully. Three years of righteousness, peace, and prosperity free up the collective headspace of the people to wonder now about their brethren who had departed years ago seeking to resettle the land of Lehi-Nephi. A search party of 16 strong men is assembled and they set out to find that which is lost. Firmly footed in this this background, Mosiah's orientation is to reconnect and reunite. 

Mosiah's strong men find the second Nephite king in a much more desperate circumstance. Son of a wicked idolatrous king, Limhi is on edge. When his would be deliverers are found at the city gates, his swirling and overwhelming context keeps him from seeing who they really are. He imprisons them thinking they must be part of a group of former priests to his father who had helped get to them into their present sticky circumstance. Trembling both with fear and anger, oppressed Limhi's oreinetation is revenge - a terribly mistaken one for the reality of his present circumstance, I might add. Yet terribly true to his context.

Limhi's circumstance can be traced back in time to the third Nephite king mentioned in this chapter, his grandfather, Zenniff. Zenniff made a terrible miscalculation of his own situation that started all this trouble for his grandson. Blinded by his own overzealousness, he misreads the motives of the Lamanite king, and places his people in danger. What could have been the cause of his zeal? Could it be nostalgia -- a yearning for the good old days and the way things were back in the land of Lehi-Niphi? If so, Zenniff's orientation may have been to relive the past. Had he been able to see the future his focus provided for generations to come, he would surely have reasoned differently. 

Mosiah, Limhi, and Zenniff - these three Nephite kings are so dramatically influenced by the perspective that their past has created for them, that it couldn't be coincidence to see them set side by side in this chapter, could it? Maybe it's my perspective -- and how my perceptions of my classes, students, ward, and family have been influenced by recent unrelated, yet taxing, events. Maybe it's not understanding the perspectives of some around me - perspectives that seem to hold them back. Why would they not accept the outreached hand of thier Savior to them?

In one of these stories, the middle one, there is a dramatic change in perspective - Limhi sees Ammon for who he really is when he gives him the chance to speak. Oppressor to redeemer, hindrance to help, night to day, because of the chance to explain. What chances to be freed am I (are others) potentially missing due in part to the lack of a clarifying explanation of what reality is? Most importantly though, because Ammon is a Christ type in this story, misunderstood and imprisoned by those who he would deliver from bondage, How can I find Him disguised in my present and help others do the same? I'm not sure of all of the words that should be part of that answer yet, but from Ammon's example, one of them should be "Speak."          

  

Religious Speech in the Public Square??

On earlier occasions He had told others to "tell no man," but it was different now -- and it still is today. 

On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey's colt to shouts of "Hosanna" and "Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven and glory in the highest." Dismayed by their public praise "some of the Pharisees among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples."    

His answer: "I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." Whether by the voices of believers or by the cry of the stones - His praises would be heard that day in the public square. 

In a world seeking to become more and more tolerant of and welcoming to a great diversity of viewpoints, let this one never be silenced: God loved the world so much that He sent His only Begotten Son to the earth to save all mankind from sin and death if we will follow Him. And let me be at least as willing and excited as the stones on that day years ago to proclaim His incredible goodness. 

Now squint your eyes almost closed and look at the picture -- you'll see it. Others should too :) Happy Palm Sunday!