fhe, scripture study and hymnals

hymnal is a weird word.  hymn is a weird word.  where did it originate from?  The Greek word ὕμνος (hymnos) which means "a song of praise".  Give me a word, any word, and I will show you that the root of that word comes from Greece.  There are only two kinds of people, Greek and everyone else who wish they was Greek.  We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.  Yes, inside the lump was my twin.  That's the best I can do.  If you do not know what I am quoting, you need to get out more.  Or stay inside and watch a movie.  A big fat Greek one.

It's still Thursday, or I guess Friday now and I was laying there in bed next to Aaron all cuddled and warm with the breezy windows open and I left that comfortable spot so that I could sit in front of a laptop downstairs with the cold tile on my feet.  I have so much bottled up inside of me.  I know I need to write more.  In fact, you're going to think this is totally completely crazy, but my fingers actually start to HURT when I need to write but I don't.  They literally ache.  If I read a good book and want to discuss but have no one to call, my fingers will start hurting.  I have words bottling up underneath my fingertips that need to come out and most of the time, I will write, but sometimes I try to go to sleep instead and I will lay there, sensing that my fingers want to type, but won't listen to them because I know I have kids who will need me in the morning.

It's so unreal that I would have more to say than I already do, but I do!  I could talk to friends all day long.. in person, on the phone, via email and still not be sick of it.  I don't, but I could.  And when I am not busy talking, I am reading but then I HAVE to talk to someone about it.  Usually Jane is my go to girl.  She loves to read as much as I do and the same kind of books.  Not teenage trash.  No romance novels.  Books that change you.  The only problem is that after I talk to Jane and tell her about a book or idea that I love, she will recommend another that she has just read.  And then I have to check it out at the library and read it RIGHT away.. and sometimes if I am desperate, I will log onto Jane's kindle account and read it then and there.  Yes, I know the password to Jane's kindle account and opening it is like Christmas.  Jane spends money on good books.  I never do.  I am such a cheapskate reader.  I will wait for it at the library unless it's calling me.  Yes, books talk to me even before I've ever read them.

So back to hymnals.  The hymn book was calling to me and begging me to sing from it's pages.  Literally begging.  Let me back up and give you a little background on our family and the way we spend time together at night.

Probably about 2 years ago, we started taking scripture reading together as a family pretty seriously.  And by that I mean we started reading every night, without fail.  We've always tried to read consistently, but until about 2 years ago it was hit and miss.  2014 was a year of serious scripture study.  My Christmas card letter was kind of a joke, but it was actually a very accurate account of our year.  I was struggling with what to write about our year and nothing was there, my fingertips would not write it.  But then when the idea came to put it in scripture form, it was obvious to me that it was the whole theme of our year.  We read everyday of 2014 and we did not mess around.  We studied the Book of Mormon together and finished before the year was up.  There was a time early in 2014 when I got the impression that we needed to kick it up a notch in our scripture study and I was like, "How?  We read everyday." and the answer was, "it's not enough."  And then I knew that we needed to spend some quality time together reading and talking about what it meant and looking up other scriptures and just discussing.  It took about an hour or sometimes longer and it was pretty awesome.

2015 has been different.  I'm not sure why.  There has been plenty of reading, but not as much discussion.  Almost a numbness to our study.  We read through the entire BofM quickly (actually twice, once as a family and everyone did individually.)  But there was less power coming from the pages.  So then we went into the New Testament (and we are already doing Old Testament with Ben in Seminary and during Scripture Story Snack, an afternoon thing.)  So I mean, we are literally shoving the scriptures down our kids throats.  It's sick to think about reading as much as we are and getting NOTHING out of them.  Don't get me wrong, there is family time spent together and sometimes someone says something meaningful, but for the most part, it was becoming terrible.  I can't tell you what Aaron's experience has been, but I was feeling nothing from these pages.  Story of Jesus?  No biggie.  Prophets performing miracles.. cool, but not that cool.  People traveling in the wilderness for YEARS without direction?  Now, that totally pisses me off.  Why would God tell someone to leave a land and then just let them wander?  For years and years and years.  I don't want to believe in that God.  And if He is going to keep me in the dark for 40 years, I would rather shoot myself.  I honestly could not handle another scripture session that was going to tell me to have more faith in a God that wasn't answering some of the simplest prayers.  And yes, I realize that I have now entered into the Pride part of the pride cycle, but God forced me there.  I am doing everything I can to feel peace in my life and it's just not there.  I swear to you, it's not there.

But then we unpacked our old hymn books and they were speaking to me.  I thought it was so odd how there was an energy about them, begging me to pick them up and flip through the pages.  One of the hymn books we got for our wedding and it has our names inscribed on the cover.  I wish I knew who gifted that to us.  Whoever you are, this gift is still in great condition and it's one of the very few things we've kept over the dozens of moves we've made.  Your hymn book will come into the bus with us and that's saying something because not much else will.

This summer I read one of Emma Smith's biographies (Mormon Engima , I would tell you all about it, but I just can't because that would mean I would never go to sleep.)  It was a powerful read, but don't read it unless it's calling to you.  I love Emma so much.  I feel like she was actually telling me to pick up the Hymn book and sing from it, but that might just be my imagination.

Anyway, if this isn't enough, last week during FHE as a prep for General Conference, I made up a historical game for the kids with facts about the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  I came across this article that said Neil L. Anderson and his family sang a hymn each night together and the kids would do it alone, even when the parents were gone.  This struck me.  I mean, it jumped out at me.  And that was all I needed to get those hymn books off the bookshelf and start using them, every night.

It's been about ten days and we haven't read scriptures together a single day since.  In lieu of reading, we are singing.  The plan was to pick one song and stick with it until we have it memorized or until we could at least sing the first verse without looking at the book, but it's become so much more than that.  We can never stop with just one song.  And we have to do all of the verses, because the good stuff is usually at the end.  We sound pretty terrible, but we sing loud.  And, again, I cannot speak for Aaron, but I can pretty much testify he's not as into it as I am, but the kids are.  There is so much happy energy in the room when we sing together.  We have no music, but every once in a while we will pull up the accompaniment online (especially if we can't figure out the tune.) but for the most part we sing our little hearts out without worrying if we are on key.  We have three books and we share, but Simon, Ro and Eden cannot read so they don't follow along.  But they try to sing and then this beautiful thing started happening.  While we sit around and sing the little ones are dancing in the middle and having a complete blast.  This is so much better than scriptures because you are trying to get everyone to listen and toddlers do not listen.  But toddlers can dance and twirl and laugh.  And it's darling to watch.  It makes me feel like we're a real life pioneer family.  The happy kind.  Not that kind that freeze and starve to death.

So, tonight Aaron got home from the temple pretty late and Roma would NOT go to sleep.  And then she woke up the baby because she was being such a stinker (but Eden is never a naughty or grumpy baby, so it's okay if you wake her up.  She will go back to sleep when you want her to = perfection.)  But it was late and everyone was awake and we still hadn't had family prayer around 10:30, so we pulled out our hymn books thinking we would sing a quick song and head to bed.  But the dancing started up and the laughing and soon we were into our 10th song and everyone was hyper.  We were so hyper, in fact that I looked at Aaron and shrugged my shoulders and he said we all needed to go for a run around the block!  But it was 11pm now and other families were sleeping, so we decided to run across the street in the church parking lot.  It was cold and some of the kids weren't wearing shoes (just like pioneer children) .  We ran and laughed and then came home and said prayer and shooed everyone off to bed.  And then I laid in bed wondering if I should write about it.  So here I am.

My fingers feel better and my feet are now extremely cold.  I can't wait to crawl back into bed and stick these feet on Aaron's warm body.  He loves when I do that.  (Just like the pioneer men loved it on a cold winter night, I am sure.  Only they had a few more wives to worry about keeping warm.)  Aaron's lucky he only has one of me.