INVENTORY INITIATIVES (LIVING IN LOVE)

“Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God” (D&C 109:8).

Each spring my storeroom is almost empty.

SPRING INVENTORIES  

The cycle of harvest is about to again fill the freezer and the empty jars lining storeroom shelves. It's a continuing cycle of living and loving.

As fruits and vegetables from the garden or nearby markets become available what do I need to do?

Washington cherries mature soon, followed almost immediately by apricots, and then peaches, plums, pears, and apples. How many jars or packages of each should I prepare and store?

How can I know?

It is time for inventory.

As the months march along, bottles and shelves are depleted
unless constantly refilled.

What resources are available and which are depleted?

First I need to clean, wash and dust; sort and organize; and if necessary dispose of outdated products.

Invariably, it seems, a dated jar has been lost in a corner or accidentally mixed with newer goods.

Yesterday, I found two jars - of what? 

These jars are dark in color with a somewhat reddish-purple cast, and labeled July 2012. Labels can help. I should have also identified contents! In July I am usually canning cherries but these are a puree and a juice of some type. I am sincerely puzzled. Whatever they are, they are seriously out of date, of little or no value, and best dumped into the compost. 

I also found 2 dated cans of fruit cocktail! WHAT?

How did those get out of rotation?

We didn't like this brand.
Some of the fruit seemed woody,
and other parts quite tasteless.
Lesson: Try different things! 

ESSENTIALS

Inventories can also help us understand our relationship “storehouse;” what has been, what now is, and what focus is needed for the future.

My spring storeroom inventory may focus on family home production and storage, but relationships need balance in all aspects of well-being: family finances and education, health and employment, and especially spiritual strength (see “Catching the Vision of Self Reliance,” lds.org).

Imagine the storehouse of your marriage, or other vital relationships.

What is essential?

Water is essential emergency storage.

PLENTY OF PRAISE

Patterns of daily diligence, kind consideration, and appreciative praise—when repeated persistently—repair, refill, replenish, and restore essential resources.

“Those who consecrate themselves to their marriage by bringing their whole souls …to the everyday events of a relationship are building a storehouse of sweet memories. They are building an eternal relationship …” teaches Dr. H. Wallace Goddard, Professor of Family Life for the University of Arkansas, in his book Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage (2007, p.104).

 “[H]appy marriage partners throw open the doors of the storehouse and give kindness, help, and goodness” (Goddard, p. 102).

When my husband observes that dirtied diapers make me gag, and offers to take over—all the time—because it doesn’t really bother him, he is replenishing our relationship. I am so grateful! I wonder what I can do to help him that would ever equal such a gift.

Goddard pointedly asks, “Have you … given your whole heart to your spouse? What can you do to make a more complete offering? … Are you willing to invest your whole soul in the hope [of] … eternal joy?” (p.106).

He teaches there is a better way than “the inevitable score-keeping” accompanying attempts to equalize shared responsibilities.

Seeking equity encourages people to think about and value their own contributions, [and] … under-notice and under-appreciate the efforts of others.

…

      We can gladly offer our best efforts.

      We appreciate all that our partners offer.

…

      We give gladly and we receive graciously” (p.102).


ROTTEN

Sometimes a nasty smell emanates from a store room. The offending item (or items) must be carefully investigated, and disposed of properly.

Have you ever smelled a rotten potato?   You’d rather not!

Sometimes a jar may ferment or spoil.

It is dangerous. Its contents can kill.

(See Identifying and Handling Spoiled Canned Food).

In The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (2015), New York Times bestselling author Dr. John M. Gottman proposes there may be destructive habits or practices in relationships that cause stress, trigger damaging interactions, or scar emotions (p.157).

Thorough inventories, although at times uncomfortable when feelings or customs are involved, may  reveal what is outdated, or perhaps ‘rotten,’ and help to determine ‘cleanup’ procedures.

In previous generations physical punishments such as spanking were common. While raising our family, a Marriage and Family Relations course was offered in our local ward (congregation in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

It helped us inventory our relationship habits and expectations.

CLEAN-UP

Our older children experienced some of the poisons of compulsion, but we decided spanking is an outdated toxic practice. Our younger children escaped the coercions of corporal punishments. We learned better options. Nevertheless, fallout from the past remained.

Even when relationships move past problems, Dr. Gottman teaches, “emotional injuries” may be causing “residual damage.”

If these are not “addressed” they “become constant irritants—like a stone in your shoe” (p. 157).

“The past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past,” quotes Gottman from William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun (p.187). “Negative emotions hold important information about how to love each other better” (Gottman, p.157).

Every store room is different, as is every relationship.

Gottman reminds marriage partners that “some difficulties are inevitable,” but just as we can avoid aggravating physical ailments such as a “trick knee, bad back, irritable bowel, or tennis elbow” we likewise can foster “strategies and routines” that alleviate relationship difficulties (p.139).

PACKAGE DEALS

Dr. Goddard emphasizes that different opinions and viewpoints are not “wrong or bad, they are just different from our [own] experience and preference,” and although such differences may cause frustrations or become irksome, it is possible for the “more spiritually mature” to accept their spouse [or others] “as a total package” (p. 106)

Issues are more about how things are handled than any specific action, lack of action, or circumstance. Gottman explains, “No one is right. There is no absolute reality in marital conflict, only two subjective ones.… Acceptance is crucial” (p. 157).

Saying “I’m sorry,” is a courageous start. One day, my husband took a public stand on Facebook against corporal punishment, and we apologized to our children, publicly and privately.

When another “person understands, respects, and accepts” someone “for who they are” with all their feelings, including those that are not positive, they facilitate freedom to change, forgive, and return compassion with “fondness, and admiration” (pp. 157-158).

It is also possible to learn to “mellow about …faults,” and “although … every emotion in the spectrum [is communicated], including anger and irritability, disappointment, and hurt … [a] ‘warts and all’ underlying regard and acceptance is also conveyed" (pp. 158-159).

LOOK AHEAD

Elder Boyd K. Packer, a Latter-day Saint apostle, directs attention to an often overlooked Book of Mormon declaration that we “are instructed sufficiently that [we] know good from evil” (2 Nephi 2:5). Packer instructs:

It is critically important that you understand that you already know right from wrong, that you’re innately, inherently, and intuitively good.

When you say, ‘I can’t!
I can’t solve my problems!’

I want to thunder out, ‘Don’t you realize who you are? Haven’t you learned yet that you are a son or a daughter of Almighty God? Do you know that there are powerful resources inherited from Him that you can call upon to give you steadiness and courage and great power?’…

When you have a problem, work it out in your own mind first. Ponder on it and analyze it and meditate on it. Pray about it. I’ve come to learn that major decisions can’t be forced. You must look ahead and have vision … (See Proverbs 29:18).

Ponder on things a little each day, and don’t always be in the crisis of making major decisions on the spur of the moment. If you’re looking ahead in life, you can see major problems coming down the road toward you from some considerable distance. By the time you meet one another, you are able at the very beginning to take charge of that conversation.

Once in a while a major decision will jump out at you from the side of the road and startle the wits out of you, but not very often. If you’ve already decided that you’re going to do what is right and let all of the consequences follow, even those encounters won’t hurt you.

I have learned that the best time to wrestle with major problems is early in the morning. Your mind is fresh and alert. The blackboard of your mind has been erased by a good night’s rest. The accumulated distractions of the day are not in your way. Your body has been rested also. That’s the time to think something through very carefully and to receive personal revelation (1975/1978).

REFILL, REPAIR, REPLENISH

In contrast to the early morning peace described by Elder Packer, during the chaos of evening meal preparations, with multiple meetings and activities looming, if I pause (while working at the kitchen stove, naturally) to pray for patience when I notice my spouse or child hovering about or in the way, hoping for unidentifiable attentions, then I invite them to stir a bubbling pot, chop vegetables, lick a beater, or sit close enough that we can chat.

Listening, making meals, keeping a tidy home, and doing laundry or dishes may seem mundane, yet all store a harvest for future enjoyment.

A full storeroom after the harvest: photo by Mandy Court

Goddard probes, “Do we bring our greatest generosity and richest forgiving to our marriages?” (p.102). Do we “invite” (p.101), or demand? “No partner on the face of the earth can meet all our needs” (p.100), but “[w]e can follow Christ’s example and act to serve and redeem our partners” because “[w]hen we have the mind of Christ, there is no one we cannot fully love nor gladly serve” (Goddard, p. 101, quoting James Farrell’s The Peacegiver).

Goddard reminds us that marriage is “an ideal [place] to practice the law of consecration, giving “everything we have and are” and then asking “God to increase our capacity so we can give yet more” (p.102). 


References:

Goddard, H. W. (2007). Drawing heaven into your marriage: powerful principles with eternal results. Fairfax, VA: Meridian Pub.

Gottman, J. M., and Silver, N. (2015). The seven principles for making marriage work: a practical guide from the country's foremost relationship expert. New York: Harmony Books.

Boyd K Packer 1975 https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/boyd-k-packer_self-reliance/

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1978/04/solving-emotional-problems-in-the-lords-own-way?lang=eng

A STRANGE COMPANION

I love waffles. I made some for breakfast today!
I love blueberries, too!

When I bake them I use the timer on my microwave to let me know the perfect time for a perfect waffle. EASY - except -

I have this strange companion, named Habit, that keeps getting in my way.  When the microwave beeps, and I have wandered away and gone on auto-pilot, I tend to open the empty beeping microwave - and look inside BEFORE remembering my waffle.

 (I know myself well enough to plan for the contingency of an irritating continuing beep to ensure my kitchen has no smoke damage and that I eventually get breakfast).

How many things do you do on auto-pilot? I have tried to open my front door by clicking the remote for my car - weird, I know!
Make your own list.  You know you have one - or more.

A few years ago our kitchen floor was replaced.  As is often the case, there was a 'hitch-in-the-get-along' and instead of taking a couple days my frig stayed in the garage for 2 weeks or more.  When it returned to its rightful domain my sons would come home and go straight to the frig - still in the garage, right? NOT!

One day one of them stuck their head into the kitchen and asked me, "Mom, do you have any idea what I came out to the garage for?" I laughed and pointed to it.

He had built a strong continuing habit in a only a few days!

Since that time I notice habits more - my own and yours.  Some are funny (taking a bite of something because it is in your hand - or trying to write with it - icky either way).  Some are down right scary - have you ever driven somewhere and realized after you got there that you set out to go somewhere else and that where you arrived is where you usually go on a regular basis? One day I needed to pick up my child and drove halfway to town (in the opposite direction) before I realized I was on auto-pilot.  Scary to think other drivers are paying that same amount of attention or less ...

Prophets tell us regular scripture study and prayer are beneficial habits. My 2 year old grandchild gets 'her' scriptures and demands our nightly routine if we miss it. She opens an inexpensive copy on her lap, points at pictures, and recites a verse as it is read slowly for her to parrot. She wants to take a turn like everyone else in her world is doing.  This habit will print the rythmns and nuances from God's words onto her very soul.

Now she is learning reverence in prayer as her family bows in a circle together. She is just beginning - she will learn that jumping on or yelling in the face of someone kneeling with closed eyes or hitting them will not help her (or those around her) find real happiness. Kind example with gentle teaching and guidance will change her more quickly than any scolding or punishment ever can. For now I imagine Heavenly Father smiles at her naivety.

I hope he smiles at mine. I pray he will patiently and gently help me learn the things that will help me and others find genuine joy - here and now as well as more enduring and lasting happiness - help me build beneficial habits of obedience and diligence.

All his commandments are intended to lovingly guide me and assist me to that end. Prophets tell us that his work and his glory are to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man - our joy and our happiness.

I learned, as a child, many things that I habitually take for granted.  I know the reality of a supreme being - a loving, kind, generous, devoted Father in Heaven. I know I can talk to him and with him. The habits of my parents and grandparents, influenced by the habits of generation upon generation of their parents and grandparents, are now passed to a new generation.

Yet each generation must chose for itself its own habits - its own companions.

What companions of habit walk by your side? compassion or addiction? generosity or gluttony/greed? thankfulness or ingratitude?

Each of us have a few strange companions.  I seek good companions - habits that are better practices. We can know and define them easily. Service and kindness were the practice and repeated examples that Jesus Christ lived.  His actions brought light and life to himself and all people at all times.  He lived the perfect example.  As I read about it, learn from it and study that example I find habits that are not such strange companions at all.