Some thoughts on Christmas.
Please listen to our family’s musical gift starting at 36:56.
Merry Christmas!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to a special Christmas edition of 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy. Next week, which will be um, New Year’s Day, I will release the second part of my, um, interview with Carolyn Pearson. But today I wanted to share some thoughts and have a little discussion about Christmas. I hope you are all having a wonderful day and thank you for joining us. Merry Christmas. This episode is being released on Christmas Day, and so it’s, I don’t know how many of you will watch it today or in the following days, but, um, but I wish you a wonderful, happy, beautiful holiday season. And for those who I, I know that the expectation that Christmas should be such a beautiful, happy, joyful, love filled season. Um, the expectation that it should be can make it that much more painful when it isn’t for anybody who is struggling with loneliness and depression and some of the other things that come around during Christmas time, especially when there are challenges and sorrows and hardship and people that you are missing. Um, I just want to also express my love and my prayers, and, um, I want to Share my insights throughout my life, my experience has been that the best way, the best cure for me for loneliness, depression, hopelessness has always been when the Lord. Inspires me with something I can do with someone I can love, with some action I can take to bless somebody else or to give my life more purpose and meaning. And so I hope that anyone who is struggling this Christmas season can hopefully reach out to the Lord and be filled with some measure of inspiration and direction and purpose to help make this season more joyful for yourself and for others. And um, anyway, I want you to just know that. I know the pain that can sometimes come along with this season, along with all the joy and love and the lights and all of the goodness. So I just wanted to reach out to give a message. My original intention for the Christmas message was going to be to share some pioneer stories of our ancestors at Christmas time, but my sweet state president and bishop invited me to speak in church today, Sunday. Christmas Sunday, which, which, um, is such a kind, sweet thing for them to, um, give me the opportunity to do, and also a lot of responsibility, right in this already very busy season. So instead of preparing a separate episode, I thought I would just share the musings that I have had as I’ve been preparing to give my talk in church. It will be very much shorter version of what I’m sharing here, but, um. But that’s what I’ve decided to do this Christmas to share a little bit of my thoughts this Christmas season, and hopefully they will be helpful or inspiring some of you. And, oh, I hope that you’ll stay, um, till the end or at least skip to the end, because my,

[00:03:13] um, as I mentioned in the last episode, my son’s mission farewell was last week. It’s been busy around here and, um, and my family was able to do a musical number that, that we recorded again at, um, my mom. Mom’s house and that I’ve, I’m going to attach to the end of this video, and I, I want you to hear it if you would like to. It’s, I, I have to say I’m so spoiled in this way because, um, my older son called and said, Hey mom, go tell it on the mountain would be a great missionary Christmas song. And I was like, Oh, great idea. But I didn’t feel like it was quite enough. Um, so it’s really repetitive and I wanted a little more um something to it. So I Found another song that I thought just blended beautifully with it, and I was in my very amateur way, put, you know, creating this medley that we’d probably be singing a cappella, but I just, on a whim called my mom, who is Janine Brady, a brilliant musician who’s composed music her entire life and um. And I was like, Mom, do you want a project? And she was so sweet and spent 3 days, she has to wear, she’s 88, so she has to wear a back brace to sit up to her piano and for that many hours and she created this beautiful arrangement for us. So, um, If anyone would like the arrangement, I have it available for you, um, fresh from Janine, Janine Brady. So anyway, so that was a fun thing to be able to sing it to sing in church together and we were down at our Christmas party at my mom’s, my family, the, um, other day, and we recorded it. So I, um, I will share it with you. But anyway, I just wanted to share some of my musings as I already said, forgive me if this is a little bit. rambling or not put together perfectly. I’m doing my best and I hope that there will be some value here. But I, so I did an episode, um, I don’t know, a few months ago with my two oldest daughters, um, Emma and Kate, and I was talking to Kate one day and she just, uh, can I just tell you what a blessing it is to have in my life, people who see the world differently than I do and who have different experiences and who help expand my perspective in such beautiful ways. And we were talking, this was several months ago, and Kate said to me that I, she, she doesn’t know what she believes in Jesus, right? She, she’s like, I, what she told me was,

[00:05:29] I know that I don’t believe in the Santa Claus Jesus. And that really struck me and took me back. I was like, I had to think about that. And then we spent some time talking about it and she helped me understand what she meant, which I thought was a brilliant way to express it. And she said, she said, I know this, if everybody Listened to the teachings. If everyone followed the teachings of Jesus and tried to follow his example, this world would be a much, much better place. I want to follow the teachings of Jesus. I just don’t know if I believe in the Santa Claus Jesus. And, um, and as I thought about that more and more, it was just so, it really, really helped me see a new perspective of I really have come to believe that Jesus cares so much more about who we are, who we become, what we do than about what we profess, what we claim to believe, right? And, and I, I think that those aren’t necessarily always the exact same thing, right? It’s very easy to argue with somebody in a very unchrist-like way about the reality of Jesus, right, which is such an ironic, um, Way of expressing our Christianity, right? Our, our submission to Jesus Christ and our belief in Him. And so as I thought about that, like, I, I, I, it’s, it’s made my thoughts go so many directions. So I’m gonna take it in a couple of different things that I’ve been thinking about. But I know as a young mom for so many years, maybe some of you will relate to this, and maybe some of you will just think I’m insane because I take things way too seriously and think way too deeply about them, but I struggled for so many years at Christmas about how to make it about Jesus in a way that felt really good and that felt good to my children. And, you know, I, I struggle with the materialism that Jesus taught us to give and this and Christmas really is all about for children. What did you get for Christmas? What do you want for Christmas? Write your list, right? And And so, but, but the years that I would try to focus more on giving than on my kids getting gifts didn’t seem very happy for them. And, and when I tried to bring elements of the Savior in, if I would do it in really fun ways, then it could just become silly. I didn’t feel sacred enough. If I tried to make it sacred, then it felt like, when can we get past the Jesus part so we can have the Santa Claus part, right? And I, and I just always felt counterproductive and like I couldn’t figure it out in a way that felt good to me. I have looked up, I mean for years,

[00:08:03] every idea, every book, every, you know, and I couldn’t make it work and I know it’s because I’m a little too serious about things like I think about things too much and it was just like If I let my children believe in Santa Claus and they grow up and learn that Santa Clause is just pretend to make them happy, when are they going to grow up and learn that Jesus is just pretend to make them happy, which is part of what I think my daughter was talking about, that we kind of in some ways have Santa Claus who sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake and, and he knows if you’re good or bad. He watches what you do and he rewards you based on that, and, and you, you know, you tell him what you want, and he grants your wishes and I can see what she’s talking about. And then we have Jesus who sees you and knows your actions and knows if you’re good or bad and will bless you with what you pray for if you have enough faith and like that, that kind of idea. We also have Santa Claus who lives at the North Pole and who, um, you know, has this like we have this whole mythology build up around Santa Claus and we have Jesus who was born in a manger and who the wise men came and you know, I, I, I could see what she was saying and it was really insightful to me. I’m kind of blending things about how I’ve tried to teach my children about Jesus and what my daughter was, was saying cause it felt like the same thing. So I’m first going to answer, I’m going to share the answer the Lord so kindly gave troubled little me that that thinks about. Take things too seriously. And, um, and then I’ll share some of the thoughts that I, that my daughter and I talked about. But for me, one year as I was kind of trying to plan Christmas and what I’m I going to do, you know how as a young mom, you’re just really invested in teaching your children truth, right? And, um, and the Lord just gave me this like, aha, that, um, it was so profound and joyful and simple and a lot of you will go, well, duh, you know, but, but the Lord just like showed me that. Christmas in reality really isn’t about Jesus. Let me finish. Don’t, don’t, don’t let me lose you yet, but you know, December 25th isn’t Jesus’s birthday. It was the celebration of the winter solstice, which was celebrated throughout time with so many. Different peoples who were much more connected to nature than we are today with our artificial lighting and our, uh, you know, everything we have, we don’t have to be as connected to it as they were, but it is the day that the sun begins to return, so they always would have different celebrations that were. Big celebrations around the solstice, and I know there are different stories and versions that were taking part at different times. But in Christianity, the Christian fathers

[00:10:49] tried to incorporate Christianity into the traditions that the people already had because it’s way too hard to change these deeply invested traditions. But what they could do is instead turn them to be about the new faith, right? And so they made the winter solstice celebration be about Jesus and Let me, let me clarify for myself. I love Christmas. I love the lights and the carols and the songs and the joy and the spirit of giving and all of that. So I’m not saying anything against Christmas. It was just the Lord helping me see. That Christmas actually isn’t about Jesus at its core, and the other half of that that came at the same time that was more important is that every day is about Jesus, every day is the celebration of the Savior, and, and I’m teaching my children about the Savior, or at least these principles of what the Savior wants us to learn. I’m teaching my children that every single day, so it is just fine to let them just have a fun holiday. And of course, I want the carols and the Jesus elements brought into it, but I don’t need to have this like, I don’t like, I don’t need to worry about this war between Santa Claus and Jesus and whose holiday is this and what should I teach my children cause Like we kind of do this weird thing where we blend Santa and Jesus, but they’re also kind of. At odds, you know, like, like, it’s, it’s just this weird thing in my mind that I couldn’t solve to my satisfaction. So it was so beautiful for me to have the Lord say, Look, Christmas can just be a fun holiday, and every day is about Jesus. So you don’t need to worry if Christmas isn’t about Jesus enough on that particular day. A similar way, I guess, in a similar way, Halloween, like, I, I don’t love. Halloween just and so many things about it. Like it’s starting to be winter, so let’s fill our kids up with all of this candy and let’s teach our children to go knock on people’s doors and ask for candy and, you know, all of it. And then, and then just all of the elements of death and blah, blah blah that come into it, you know, but at the same time, I love letting my kids dress up as Pirates or astronauts or, you know, you know, um, princesses and, and have fun carving pumpkins and so I can let my kids have a fun day on Halloween without worrying too much about, um, about what it has to mean. I know some of you may disagree with me on that and think, no, we should completely eschew Halloween, but for me, like it’s kind of these are the kind of the answers I’ve had. I want my kids to have fun things in their culture, but to not make them mean too much. So anyway, that’s That was the piece that the Lord gave me was that Christmas can be a fun holiday, but it doesn’t, it is not actually the culmination of our family’s perspective on Jesus throughout the year, right? That happens every single day. And so,

[00:13:51] so that was a good thing for me to, to realize, to be able to really chill out, which is something I think is a theme in my life. I need to chill out, you know, and just let my kids have fun and And, you know, have a fun holiday that isn’t really the core of our celebration of Jesus throughout the year. But anyway, so I think that was part of going back to what my daughter was talking about that it’s made me think so much that, you know, she doesn’t believe literally in Um, in the manger and the virgin birth and the wise men coming like that’s not. Um, she, you know, I, I, I, I, I’m speaking for her, but what I gathered is that she doesn’t know if she believes in that literally, and I kind of felt like that’s not what’s important about Jesus, right? I guess that’s what I’m saying about this Christmas thing with my children too. It’s like, I don’t, if you incorporate the best you can, the teachings of Jesus in your life, which I believe my daughter is beautifully doing, then I think that is what matters. I think that Jesus so much more. He just like Jesus wants our help so much more than our proclamations of belief, right? Jesus wants our hearts so much more than our Declarations and um and I, I really think that that is the important part and and that was an important realization for me to have as we’re bringing together all of these family members and different people that we love who have different beliefs. I think that we can unite on the good of goodness, right, on how we can be more like the savior in our lives and cling more or incorporate his teachings more into who we are as people every single day of the year, and, and Christmas can be a wonderful fun time to get together with our family and to be so thankful for all that we have been giving all of these teachings in this beautiful season. So I hope that makes sense that um what I was trying to express, but um. I think also, so as I’ve been thinking about the topic I was given to speak in church is what the birth of Jesus means to me. So those things I shared with you aren’t necessarily what I’m going to talk about, but it has made me think so much because all of these thoughts have been mingled together as I’ve been pondering and really I I know that all of this is not new, right, but, but it’s what’s been on my mind. So just the birth of Jesus is not the important part of Jesus’s life. Just as I was saying, Christmas is not the important part of our belief in the Savior, and the birth of Jesus is only important because of Jesus’s life, right? And so, So really, as I have thought about the birth of the savior, I find myself wanting to put a little less focus on it and less attention on that part of Jesus’s life because that is part of the The myth of Jesus. And, and then when I say myth, that’s a troubling word because I’m not saying that it’s not true, right?

[00:17:00] That it’s not reality, but as my daughter was expressing it, that she was seeing the myth of Santa Claus and the myth of Jesus, right? That like a myth is kind of just a system of belief on on which we Build a life or build a society and, and I’m not so myths can be true, but they can also become part of our stories of who we believe how we explain who we are and what we believe, right? And so, so that that part of Jesus’ life, I just, it was good for me to see it as something that I don’t need to make bigger because I need to make Jesus’s life every day bigger. So the question I found myself asking and what what I found the birth of the savior meaning to me is. How um. How can the Savior be born in me a little more each day of the year? How can I let the birth of the Savior be present in my own heart, in my own life, in my own self? How can I seek that and how can I, um, receive that and accomplish that each day? I think of like there’s so many aspects of the Savior, but one of the things that really Just I guess convicts me to use Christian language is how the savior saw the worth of each soul in every face the savior beheld the worth and the love and so many people that society was content to not see, right, the people that were thrown away because just society throws people away that can’t make it in society the same way and We tend to not want to see them right in society. We don’t want to see what we throw away, but Jesus went to them and saw them, and that is amazing and profound, and I am so aware of how, how much I fail at that, how I’m just focused on what I’m doing and where I’m going and what I, you know, their life is so busy and so full and so stressful sometimes and Um, and so I know that the thing that gives me peace is that I know that I, I, I am not the savior and I’m not expected to do what the savior did, to do all of it myself, but I really want to be open to doing my part to always have my heart open to say, Lord, who can I bless today? Who can you help me see through your eyes that maybe someone else isn’t seeing? How can I? Have that aspect of the savior be born in myself each day a little bit more. That’s something I really want to, um, continue to have grow in myself. Another thing is how the savior teaches us to forgive. And that has been a tricky one for me these past few years. I, with everything that I have gone through, I know that I have, like, I so wish I could go back and do some things differently when you realize later on how things you said or did affected others, you know, and And so I really am so thankful for the teaching that those who forgive are worthy of forgiveness because I’m so desperately in need of forgiveness and I so want to forgive and trying to figure out again, as I discussed in the episode on family estrangement, I didn’t get very much into my situation, but what is that fine line between between forgiveness and pretending everything is fine, is that, you know, is that the only way to go forward is to pretend that everything’s fine or to have some level of what feels like unforgiveness? Like, I know, I know, please don’t,

[00:20:34] I, I mean, I am very aware that forgiveness does not mean putting yourself back in bad situations. I’m so aware of that. I’m talking about my own situations, how to measure what is a bad situation, what isn’t, what can I. have more power to endure or what do I need to keep myself separate, separate from? I just need inspiration every single day and how can I be more like the savior as I navigate these challenging, difficult paths of Of forgiveness and what that means and what that looks like in my own situations in my own life, right? And the savior healed and loved and blessed and gave, and that’s what I want my life to be about every day more and more, and the savior also completely submitted to his father in the most painful ways and I want to, I’m so thankful. I am. I’m thankful for the experiences I have been given to teach me submission on a much greater scale than I knew it before. And I want to continue to always trust that what God does is perfect. What God does is right and perfect, and it’s good. Reality is good, and that I can submit and just seek guidance of how to navigate whatever challenging, difficult situations, um, I’m given. I The savior had hope and love and selflessness through all of the trials, and so that’s been those have been things that I want to know how that’s what I want to focus on on Christmas is how the savior can be born in me a little more each day in whatever way that may look. And so another thing that I think is just beautiful to recognize is how we, I talked about my perspective of the atonement in an episode and um. And how I think that the savior saves us in multiple ways, right, that as we are going forward struggling with our weaknesses and our temptations that have not yet been healed, have not yet been taken from us, how the savior continually, regularly, always forgives us and heals us from each time we err, I think, as I said, I think that The adversary uses sin as a means to an end, right? I don’t think the adversary really cares as much about what we do as that we feel worthless and hopeless and filled with shame and fear and blame and resentment and all of those things. That’s where this, the adversary wants us, whatever he has to do to get us there. And I think that that is what the savior frees us from and saves us from, right, is that Even in our weakness, we’re not stuck in that place, that dark place where the adversary wants us. We can continue to know that we are loved, that we have worth, that this world is better with us in it than without us, despite our weaknesses and our stumbles and our errors that we can keep going forward. Being loved and giving love because of what the savior has done for us and the example that is set for us, I think that that is a beautiful, beautiful part of the life and the story and of uh the gifts of the savior, and I think that as we are struggling with that, it is so easy to feel like.

[00:23:53] Our, our things are too awful or we’re too worthless, or our problems are too small to, to worry about, you know, to expect the Lord to care about. We’re too low to pray, right? We’re too worthless. And I think How beautiful it is to think of the humble circumstances of the Savior’s birth that he was born in the most humble of all possible settings in a, in a barn, right, the Son of God born in the in a barn in a stall and laid in a manger which is a trough, right, that the animals eat from the and I think part of what as I’ve been thinking of this, part of that’s what that’s meant to me is that. There is no, um, there is nothing too low, too dark, too small, too bad for the Lord to be born in us, right? We are never too like the shame is a lie. We are never too bad to pray, too worthless to be loved. The savior was born in those humble of such that humble setting, so no matter how. Lowly and worthless or dark or small we may feel that really the smaller that we are, the more humble humble we are, the more perfect the setting is for the savior to be born within us, right, cause that’s, that’s why he exemplified in his life and in our lives. And so those are some thoughts that that I’ve had that no matter. No matter how broken our hearts are, I can see this from profound experience, the Lord. has the power to heal and to be born within us, and to heal us at all times and in all things and in all places. It’s true. So, so those are um some of my thoughts about the birth of the savior at this Christmas that sorry it’s so rambly, but, um, but I have a couple of other things that I have been thinking about and that I want to share because as a mother, The birth, you know, the word birth is a meaningful word to me. So for me, my thoughts also very much turned to motherhood, to Mary, to this girl, willing to take upon herself this. Infinitely courageous act to to bear the Son of God and really I think that what she did is what all mothers do, right? We take it. Just as Eve and Mary were willing to have the courage and the faith to take upon themselves their mortal stewardship to bring children into this fallen world, that’s what we all do when we accept the call of motherhood. And, um, I think again the, the warning God gave to Eve that in sorrow she would bring forth children was not about the pain of pregnancy and childbirth. It was about It was about the pain of this fallen earth every time you have a child, you, they have a piece of your heart,

[00:27:08] right? A piece of you goes outside of you to go into this world in their grand adventure where you don’t necessarily have the power to protect them, to save them from. The harms that are all around them and the dangers and the evils all around them, you may not even get to keep them with you on this earth in this life, and yet you go forward and you choose to have them. That is, that is a profound act of courage and of faith where I feel like we are saying. We believe it’s worth it. We believe that the beauty and the joy and the goodness outweighs the pain and the sorrow and the loss and the suffering, and um, you know, cause part of Mary’s bargain, I don’t know if she knew it, but part of her bargain of having this perfect beautiful Christ child was that he would be crucified. That he would be tortured and crucified and scorned and mocked, and she would lose him in that way. Part of Eve’s bargain in having her children is that she would watch one son who she loved murder another son who she loved. She would lose both of those sons in horrible, horrible ways and And I think that it is a. You know, it can be a hard case to make to say it’s worth it. It’s good, the good is going to outweigh the bad, but I really think that. That is what we are willing to put our faith in when we have children. We’re willing to have the faith to make that bargain that the good is going to outweigh the bad, and I think that because of Jesus, our faith is going to be validated absolutely 100%. I, I think that mothers in a very special way are in direct partnership with Jesus Christ if If no, no, nobody can be born again unless they are first born, right? Maybe I’ve said that before. Jesus couldn’t have died for the sins of the world if, if Mary hadn’t given him birth and But because she did, and because we do, this earth is able to fulfill its purpose to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, right? That’s, that’s what we are doing. I also, I, I can’t leave fathers out of it because I think of Joseph willing to accept this stewardship and just as You know, babies aren’t born of fathers, so it’s a different relationship, but if it’s not one tiny ounce less important to a father that is willing to protect his family and take care of them and see that their needs are met and raise their children in love and truth and be that. Influence in their lives that they need that’s that they need and deserve, which is why children deserve to have a father that is just the father of their family, right? Not, not a little tiny pieces of a father here and there. It is so beautiful to think about what Joseph took on and how he raised, how he raised Jesus as his own, and I think it is such a beautiful, beautiful story for each of us to seek to emulate. And so I really think that. Because we are willing to participate in this act of faith to bring forth children, we are saying that we believe in Jesus Christ, that we have faith, and I think that the amazing thing is that the birth of Jesus Christ and the life of death of the Savior justifies our faith.

[00:31:00] We can know that the Lord is big enough. To turn every negative to a positive, to bind up every sorrow, every hurt, every wound, right, and to transform it into something that is beautiful. I, um, want to read. Isaiah 25:8 and 9. He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of His people shall he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it, and it shall be said in that day, lo, this is our God. We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him, and we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. I love how it says that the Savior swallows up death. He consumes the pain and suffering of this world. He doesn’t just erase it. He doesn’t just destroy it. He actually takes it into himself to transform it into something magnificent, right? It’s not just that our suffering won’t, doesn’t matter anymore. It’s that the things that we suffer if we Give them to the Savior if we are allowing the Savior to be born in us. They become something great. They become the power and the learning and the understanding of the compassion and the knowledge and the love that fuel us to go on and be more like the savior every day, and I think that is profound and beautiful because of the savior. The pain and suffering of this world is not the end of the story. It’s not even the, the main theme of this story, right? It’s just one element of this story where this beauty and joy and love and goodness is the main. theme and um and I think that that is a profound thing to focus on on Christmas Day, right, is what the birth of the savior represents for all of us, for the birth of each of us in this world that really The story is about victory over pain, victory over suffering, victory over darkness. That’s what I, I do love elements of the winter solstice being with Christmas cause it is the return of the light, right? The victory over darkness. We made it through and the light is coming back and, and yeah, as I said, I think that because of the savior, the amount of suffering we experience doesn’t really, how can I express this what I’m trying to say. It doesn’t really matter in terms of you have a worse life if you have more hardship, right? That’s not the point of the story because it’s not true because the savior has the capacity to help us within ourselves turn all suffering into light, into goodness. So in some ways, just like, what, what is it, Gandalf? I’m sorry, Lord of the Rings, um. Um, reference on Christmas,

[00:34:07] is that OK? But how Gandalf has to go to the bottom and fight for those all of those years to become the white wizard, right, because he faced the greater darkness, he became more powerful for the good, and I think that that is what the savior does with us in our lives. And so we never need to fear, right? Because everything will not just be washed away. will be swallowed up, digested, turned into something as profoundly good as it was hard, and I think that there is great, great power in knowing and understanding. So my hope for all of us this Christmas and going forward is that we will all courageously and faithfully filled with faith and courage, step into each day. Knowing that the savior is big enough and strong enough to take care of all the hurt and pain and every bad decision and every painful direction that somebody goes that we or our children will do every clumsy thing we do that offends someone or that hurts someone and or any clumsy thing that someone else does to us or really profoundly hurtful thing that someone does to us that we can continually. Strive to put our trust in the Savior that it’s all worth it, that we will courageously have our children and bring them up in as much love and light and truth as we can every day regardless of whether we make Christmas be strictly about Jesus or not, cause it’s cause it’s about this faith and this trust and this courage every single day, and I think that that is. A profound thing to understand, and for me my understanding is based. In the Savior, the birth and the life and the death and the resurrection of the savior, that’s where my understanding of these principles are based. And if my daughter has the same understandings, but they’re based in something else, that’s great as long as we share this beautifully faithful, courageous understanding of the beauty and the value and the goodness of this opportunity we have to have this life on earth to. Do as much as we possibly can to create the greatest work of art as we can on this great adventure that we are able to have where we can spend as much of our talents as we possibly can, right, referring back to the, the parable of the Savior where we can give as much love and joy and Compassion as possible and so those are my thoughts this Christmas Day as we get to celebrate the birth of our Savior in our mythology that I love and that I hope that that each of you love, and I wish you all the most wonderful joyful, Merry Christmas, and I will see you next time. Yeah. Uh my. Right. But. is mountain. Oh. my Um