Author: Jana

  • Pete’s Balls


    Pete’s Balls

    Here’s one more thing that brought a smile to my face this morning.

    [Note: Pete belongs to Suz & Chris]

  • Make me smile…

    –Watching the kitties search for mice under the Christmas tree skirt [note: our cats have never yet found any mice anywhere, but they continually search for them anyways]

    –Looking at each of the ornaments on our tree and remembering their stories (they are all gifts or handmade items). My favorite today: a little reindeer hand-carved out of upholstery foam. Made for us by a Chinese grandpa who was in a free English class that John & I taught at a local church many years ago.

    –Listening to GameBoy practice his cello, especially his jaunty rendition of “Let it Snow”

    –Seeing GameBoy eat a caramel-chocolate-pretzel confection. His first sticky treat since getting his braces on nearly 2 years ago (they come off in a few days so we aren’t worried about broken brackets now!)

    –Swimming with the kiddoes on a weekend morning and discovering that I’ve got to swim pretty hard nowadays to keep ahead of them when we race (it was 80 degrees here, unseasonably warm for SoCal)

    –Turning in the last long paper I need to write this quarter yesterday. Whew.

    –Lighting a candle lantern with CatGirl in my room last night. Turning out the lights and laying on our backs in bed. Basking in the lovely cut-glass pattern that was reflected off of the ceiling and walls. Enjoying my daughter’s breathlessness at such beauty.

  • Congrats!


    Hot off the press: the latest issue of Sunstone magazine with John‘s prize-winning winning essay, “Saving the Dead: A Comparative Study of Post-Funerary Rites in Japanese and Mormon Culture.”

    A few quotations to whet your appetite:
    “The simple ritual act of stepping through the veil profoundly influences the way [Latter-Day] Saints view death. Mormons who receive their endowment in the temple have already experienced death symbolically. They realize that their essence does not change when they have pass through the veil. Death is merely a flimsy barrier to be pushed aside as one enters into a brilliant reunion with loved ones.”


    “Through a series of [Japanese] rites, the spirit moves from impure association with death to ultimate assimilation into the pure and godlike ancestral spirit… Following key ceremonies, a wooden ancestral tablet representing the spirit is sometimes moved to higher platforms, a symbolic gesture that recognizes the ancestor’s increasing status and refinement in the afterlife. The final state of the spirit represents an anonymous amalgamation of all of the spirits of family ancestors, whose purpose is to ensure the prosperity of their line. By taking care of their dead, the living Japanese are entitled, in return, to the protection and helpful intervention of their empowered predecessors.”

  • honesty

    Sure there are moments when it’s best not to be too honest–when doing so would offer undue criticism that would hurt another person.

    Yet it seems that in telling one’s own experiences honesty is an admirable thing. Over the past few years, as I’ve written much about my experiences as an amputee, as a cancer survivor, and as a Mormon woman, I’ve tried to be unflinchingly candid and honest. I want to tell my stories truthfully and sincerely. Because truth staves off fear.

    However, I was talking with some friends recently who challenged my need for honesty. They asked me why I had informed my LDS leaders that I was no longer planning to attend church. Why hadn’t I just drifted into inactivity or gone my own way without need to ‘inform’ people of my choices? It’s a good question, one that I’ve been muddling over.

    And, honestly, I have had many moments over the past few weeks when I should have just lied a little to make it easier. Told a few falsehoods to smooth over the difficulties, or just kept my mouth shut and pretended that everything was okay.

    So it’s when I have a night like last night, that I wish I’d never been honest. That I wish I was a liar. That I wish I’d just said nothing and pretended that I was complicit.

    And I wonder where my honesty has gotten me???

  • “They are all Come-Outers”


    An interesting rumination by famous prison-reformer and Quaker Elizabeth Fry, who suggests that “The Mennonite, Dunkard, Shaker, Oneida Communist, Mormon and Quaker are all one people, varying only according to environment.”

  • "They are all Come-Outers"


    An interesting rumination by famous prison-reformer and Quaker Elizabeth Fry, who suggests that “The Mennonite, Dunkard, Shaker, Oneida Communist, Mormon and Quaker are all one people, varying only according to environment.”

  • quotable: anger vs. bitterness

    From Maya Angelou via Russell at The Cultural Hall:

    “If you are not angry then you are a stone. You should be angry. But you should not be bitter. Bitterness is like a cancer. It feeds on the host and doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it, you paint it, you dance it, you march it, you vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. You never stop talking!”

  • glass grapes


    If you’re interested in Mormon kitsch, you might want to check out my recent post at SunstoneBlog.

  • LA Story**

    This is a must-watch vid for you Angelenos out there. The rest of you who are knee-deep in snow and wishing you were in SoCal, well you might enjoy it, too :)

    Here’s Charles Phoenix’s Disneyland tour of Los Angeles:

    **And thanks to Brooke for turning me on to Charles Phoenix. For those of you looking for a clever Christmas craft, you should check out the Astro Weenie Xmas Tree vid.

  • without a foot to stand on

    Can I just say that I really dislike quotes like this one:
    “I complained because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.”

    Ahem, but what is that saying about men (and women) with no feet??? That they exist as morality lessons for all those shoeless joes out there? Or as objects of pity for all those folks whose closets are so full of shoes that they don’t have enough space to keep them in???

  • Make me smile…

    –coming home oh-so-late last night and finding a lone pearl earring perched on the nightstand. After losing it 2 days ago and thinking I would never see it again. (thank you, he-can-find-a-needle-in-a-haystack John!)
    –mailing out a slew of Xmas gifts on Tuesday–before December has even begun. Woohoo!
    –after my super-chilly-outdoor-pool swim yesterday morning (yes, the temps around here have finally dipped into the 60s), John warming up my shivery-cold body in his own particularly effective way.
    –cooking CatGirl’s favorite bean soup all day today in the crockpot. anticipating her squeal of delight when she comes in the door from school.
    –getting the garden bookkeeping caught up yesterday (I’m the treasurer for our community garden).
    –GameBoy and GatGirl’s ebullience about the upcoming holiday season. the care with which they unpacked the Xmas tree and decorated our apartment with all of the traditional Christmas trimmings. their pride in having done it all themselves this year, with just a smidge of advice from me and John.

  • Worth Dying For…


    This is the second in a series of posts that I’m writing about the years that John and I had conflict over religion. At this point in time John had recently voiced his doubts about LDS doctrine. I was a believing, active, Mormon. This experience below occurs a few months after this one. For those of you who can relate to the experience of having a spouse lose their testimony, I’d love to have you guest-blog your story on pilgrimgirl. Drop me a line: phddilly at yahoo dotcom.

    Saving John became my daily obsession. I would read articles on the Internet, in the Ensign, and in Mormon books. I was sure that there was some way to rescue John, if only I could find it.

    As a Christmas gift I made scrapbooks of our correspondence during John’s mission. I highlighted those moments where he shared his spiritual experiences. I cried many tears as I reread the letters from my genki elder. I was sure that he would be impacted from re-reading his own words about his belief in Mormonism. I wrapped the albums for him, sealing each seam with a prayer of hope, and placed them under the Christmas tree. He opened them and briefly thumbed through them, but soon put them away and didn’t look at them again.

    I tried to think of people from our past who had wielded spiritual influence on my husband. I contacted our former Home Teachers, mission companions, and Institute teachers. I poured out my heart to them, pleaded for them to help me help John. This yielded some sympathetic conversations, but no help for me in reaching John.

    I went to our Bishop and asked him to pray with me to reach John. I received several blessings at his hands. In one memorable blessing I was told that “I was the key that would unlock John’s heart.” I continued to search and pray to discover what that key could be, what the trick was to helping John remember his former faith in the LDS church.

    In the meantime, I was losing John. I could no longer handle the conversations where he voiced his doubts. I told him not to speak to me about his diminishing testimony. My inability to face his changes created a barrier between us that was growing taller each day. We were quickly drifting apart. I began to wonder if our marriage would last. Were we on the road to divorce?

    Then one night as I was kneeling beside my bed (pleading with God once more to fix my husband), I had an epiphany. I realized the one thing that would ‘reach’ John. It came to my mind that if something awful happened to me–something on the scale of my cancer returning—that John would step back into his Mormon role. I imagined myself lying pale and wan in a hospital bed, my husband sitting at my side. John’s hands were clasped together and his eyes closed. I could hear him pleading with God for my healing. Then he placed his hands on my head and gave me a priesthood blessing, a petition for my recovery. I imagined his change of heart as he regained his belief in the gospel. I felt an upsurge of joy and hope. Yes, I realized, it was worth it for John’s eternal salvation.

    I laid myself on the altar that night, a willing sacrifice. I told God that he could strike me with any infirmity—-even my death-—if it would bring my husband back into the fold.