2019 Highlights

As I look back at this year and compare to where I was last year, it is refreshing to realize that I am doing better this year.  It was a good year.  It had its ups and downs, but I feel like the future is brighter. 

A couple of reasons for that.  First, my health is better. Leila made me take a sleep study.  I told the doctor how tired I was, but that I didn't have sleep apnea.  I was wrong. I totally had sleep apnea - probably for years and years.  During the sleep study, I stopped breathing on average 40 times per hour.  Getting a CPAP was like one more step into middle age, but it is nice feeling awake and with more energy.  Even from the first night I could feel the difference.  I also kept swimming and running this year. Although I haven't lost any weight, I was in shape enough at the end of the summer to swim 2.5 miles in an open-water swim event here in St. Louis, do a small triathalon, and long runs during all my travels.  Leila also kept me supplied with business and self-help books and I really enjoyed the Happiness course from Yale I took on Coursera.

Most of this year and the end of last year, we were on again and off again about moving to Scotland.  In the end it did not work out for this year, and it was frustrating to be on the verge of making that big change, and then not doing it.  However,  it looks like we may be on track to really move next summer.  Hopefully Scotland doesn't leave the UK and Brexit doesn't throw a wrench in the whole deal.  Cross your fingers. I will be working still with Bayer, but at the University of Edinburgh  - you can take a short course with the new institute members (including me) in April! 

Some things are the same, but feel more manageable somehow.  I still have struggled with my faith this year, but have really enjoyed reading what is left of the mormon blogosphere (ldsblogs.org, ByCommonConsent, Wheat and Tares, and Times and Seasons) and the New Testament this year.  I taught Elder's Quorum and directed the choir.  The Elder's quorum lessons I used a bit of a formula to make teaching based on a conference talk interesting and informative for me breaking down each talk to the principles behind the talk, the scripture background of those principles, stories or examples to illustrate the principle, and the potential applications of the principle with the chalkboard divided into a square for each.  So that as the lesson progresses I can take notes in those areas and direct the class where I think we haven't covered. I have done kind of a terrible job directing the ward choir.

At work, I need to do a better job at juggling my many responsibilities and calendar that overflows with meetings, but I like the new members of the team and although I traveled quite a bit felt like it was manageable.

I still worry about too many things like climate change with effects on continued habitat loss, extinction of so many species, ocean temperatures, coral bleaching, etc. I worry about immigrants and refugees.  I worry about the oak trees in our neighborhood.  I worry about my job and whether I am doing the right things.  I worry about my kids and about Leila. Our politics are still a mess.  I hope we aren't looking at 4 more years of Trump, but am resigned to it if it happens.  But, I look at people and the world around me and I see things that make give me hope.  We found four turtles in our yard this year.  There are American Chestnut trees now resistant to disease.  More farms are growing cover crops. The economy is pretty good.  Electric cars are more common. Oysters are making a comeback with help around New York.  The Chesapeake bay is getting cleaner.  If we can keep wild places - nature will find a way.  Look at all of the wildlife in the demilitarized zone in Korea or around Chernobyl.

A lot going on with the rest of the family. For a snapshot:

1. Emily - now a sophomore at Truman state and well on her way to full grownup-hood living off campus in a house with four friends, her cat (Baby), and girlfriend (Celia - who totally won over the sisters by teaching them to play Magic the Gathering), This year she loved making a 30 inch coiled pot in Ceramics, her photolithograph her watercolor still life of ingredients to her favorite breakfast (grits, spinach and eggs) in Printmaking.  She worked at BP gas station and TacoBell this year. Book recommendations:  "Neither wolf nor Dog". Media recommendations: Narcos, The Expanse (with her dad - because he is so cool), and My Hero Academia.  
2. Aleah - is in 9th grade at Central High and also growing up too fast.  She will always remember her first debate and has enjoyed the climbing team. Her favorite thing this summer was walking with Grandma Brenda and her cousin Eliana's play.  She has been interested in house plants. Her strawberry plants keep dying, but has a prolific ivy, two spider plants, an avocado tree that made it almost all year, and cactus. She looks forward to getting her driver's license next year and is glad finals are over. She also has mastered making pancakes, hot chocolate with Pero, chocolate cookies and snickerdoodles 
3. Colleen - Sixth grade at Central Middle School where she has been busy in student council, makeup crew for the plays, started playing the french horn in the band, and is proud that she can do her own fancy braids. On swim team this summer she got faster in the older age categories with tough competition and really excelled at all her events. Her only regret is that one front flip off the diving board that went wrong and ended with a back flop. She also started taking tumbling and rock climbing - lots of cart wheels and hand stands.  She is almost done with Personal Progress. She is looking forward to all the fun summer things - girls camp and swimming. Book recommendations: Dragon Slippers - sooo good. Media: Dr Who, Monk, Studio C - but they haven't been posting much she says, and Dragon Prince. 
4. Kate - Fifth grade at Riverbend this year.  Her Granddad gave her a chess set when we went to visit this summer and she has enjoyed beating us all and joined chess club at school. Emily was her last victim today and lost twice in a row.  She did great in swim team this year learning butterfly and racing multiple events. She loved visiting grandparents this summer.  Scotland was not her favorite because it was was too noisy and made it hard for her to sleep.  Book recommendations - Harry Potter, Wings of Fire, Percy Jackson, Magnus Chase. Media: Doctor Who, Dragon Prince. 
5. Becca - First grade at Riverbend and has loved making new friends in Kindergarten and again in first grade - especially Cindy, Navea, Mika, Natalie, Lydia, and Bruce the dog. Becca's favorite things about school are meeting Natalie and learning to read. She lost her front teeth and is a little bit toothless right now.  She was in heaven when we visited the wolf sanctuary to see real wolves. She wants a pet dog or wolf soooo bad. She also started gymnastics, climbing and progressed a ton on the swim team this summer learning freestyle, butterfly, backstroke, and and butterfly. Recommended books: Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling's books are magic - it has been so fun to read them with fresh eyes with her and see Becca fall totally under their spell.) and Red - the True Story of Little Red Riding Hood. Media: Dragon Prince, Wild Kratts - to whom she wrote a letter and got a signed postcard and picture in return.    
6. Leila -  Leila launched her new website: Leilagardunia.com, started selling patterns, and a popular newsletter.  She also went to quilt market, took courses on making web pages, InDesign, and quilt conferences.  She loved visiting Scotland over spring break with the kids and I. This summer she returned from Girls camp energized, learned to play the ukulele, started exercising and ran a mile for the first time since 9th grade, and is training for a Tough Mudder race next summer. She is looking forward to moving to Scotland and doubling the size of her business, designing the 2021 block of the month for Michael Miller Fabrics, and the Tough Mudder race.  Book recommendations: so many audiobooks. Media: The Good Place.
7. Brian - I already wrote a lot about me but if you have made it this far, I put on some miles this year travelling: Scotland (2x),  Nigeria, San Diego, France, London, Georgia, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Idaho, and Washington.  My first patent on Haploid chipping published.   I kept swimming at the YMCA, did two open water swims - 1.25 miles and 2.5 miles in Simpson Lake, and took 2nd place in our neighborhood mini-triathlon, even with accidentally, maybe, probably, possibly running an extra lap. I was in a car accident this summer - totalled my Nissan Leaf, and decided to not replace my car and to instead bike to work or take the bus on days when it is icy and slick.  Book recommendations: Murderbot - by Martha Wells. I reread the novellas all over again this year.  Ancillary Justice.  The huge biography of Stalin I read for my book club with Greg. The Chosen again. The Binti novels.  The Adventure of Hermana Plunge - A mission memoir. I also read Dune and four Harry Potter books in Spanish. I read Rough Stone Rolling about Joseph Smith - but mostly came away upset at the complicated mess that polygamy made of the early years of the church. Media: Yesterday, Knives Out, The Expanse - Season 4 is awesome. The VlogBrothers and all things Nerdfighteria including CrashCourse, Into the Microverse, Poetry reading, the Anthropocene, and SciShow. The Radio Ambulate podcast, Reply All podcast, Levar Burton Reads podcast, Bon Appetit Youtube videos, and am back reading more blogs on an RSS reader to cut back on other social media and internet time wasting. 

Easter Sunday Talk

When Br. Layton asked me to speak on Easter, I immediately thought of this painting called the "Light of the world" that hangs in St Paul's Cathedral in London. 

Then when the roof of Notre Dame caught fire, I haven't been able to get it out of my head.  I first learned about it from Connie Willis' four time travel novels about WWII. She obsesses over the efforts of the Firewatch to keep the 700 year old wood roofs from catching fire during the Blitz.  

"The Light of the World" is an allegorical painting made by William Hunt in the 1850's.  Jesus stands at an overgrown door - without a handle, holding a lantern and his other hand raised to knock.  A visual metaphor for Rev. 3:20:

"Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me."

The characters in her books comment that the tone and character of the painting seems to change each time they look at it.  As if the message it conveys is different each time.  I think the scriptures can be like this.  You can read the same stories at different times with different needs and get a different message.  This year's study and focus on the New Testament has been a good one for me and I have noticed different messages as I have struggled some with my faith throughout this year.  It has felt like the scriptures seemed tuned to that frequency.  Many of the stories that leapt out to me seem to each had a focus on faith/doubt.

For example, Mark 5:30:

"He asked, What is the kingdom of God like or with what may we compare it?  It is like a mustard seed, which when it is sown in the earth, it is the smallest of all the seeds of the earth, but when it is sown, it sprouts and becomes greater than any of the plants, and it grows great branches, so that the birds of heaven are able to rest under it's shade."

It intrigues me because mustard seeds are not the smallest in the world - that probably goes to orchid species that have seeds that are like dust and blown in the wind they are so tiny. Mustard plants aren't even the largest plant - that certainly are trees that are larger than that.  Mustard species are winter or spring annuals so they require reseeding each year, although they may survive over winter.  This parable I don't see as simply as I once did.  Faith like a mustard seed might need to be replanted to grow enough to sustain the birds of heaven.  

And again, just a few verses later, they are in a boat and a storm rose.  The apostles were afraid and Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat.  They woke him because they thought they might die - He rebuked the wind and it stopped.  The storm listened to his words and obeyed.  Then he kind of rebuked his disciples. " Why are you fearful? Have you no faith?" And they were afraid.  

It is not as easy for us to believe as it is for the wind that knows its creators voice.  Even the disciples that walked with him and saw the miracles seem riddled with doubts and sometimes even deny that they knew him.  Peter did three times, because he was afraid.  Did his faith falter at that moment as well?  I think it must have.  I think even Jesus must have been frustrated and alone when people didn't seem to understand his teachings.  Either the writers of the gospels intentionally used the disciples incomprehension as a narrative device to explain to the reader the meaning of parables and teaching, or much of Jesus' life he taught students that didn't understand him.  He certainly felt alone and abandoned in his last moments in life.  

 I am not sure that as Mormons we are that good at Easter.  I attended my friend's Easter Vigil on Saturday and it was striking how important this religious holiday is to them. I once was in a ward where we planned out the topics and speakers for talks a year in advance.  But Easter is not a fixed date on the calendar and somehow we missed it.  The topic that week was from the Family Proclamation, not a word planned for Easter.  The last speaker kind of paused, realizing that she was the last speaker and no one was going to address it if she didn't - put down her prepared remarks and bore her testimony of Easter and the resurrected Christ.  

Why is Easter a wandering holiday? It is based on a lunar calendar to align with the commemoration of Passover an even older holy day that has double meaning for Christians during Easter.  We on this day remember:

The miraculous deliverance of Israel from slavery of the Egyptians. 

1. The night where the Angel of Death took the firstborn from all the houses in Egypt without the doorposts marked with the blood of an unblemished lamb. 
2. That they had to leave so fast that they had no time for leaven bread and ran for the sea.  
3. That the lord stood between them and the pursuing army like a pillar of smoke and fire. 
4. And that coming to the sea, the Lord parted the sea and the passed on dry ground with the walls of water on either side, which crashed down and drowned the pursuing Egyptian army.

The last days of Christ's life and his resurrection

1. On this week is when Jesus blessed bread and wine and told his disciples to remember his blood and his body.  He reminded them that he was like the Paschal lamb, unblemished and with the power to deliver them through his sacrifice. 
2. On this day we remember that he was betrayed and delivered to his enemies to be falsely accused, beaten, tortured and killed by crucifixion. 
3. We commemorate on this day that he knelt in prayer, wanting to know if the bitter cup could pass, but willing to do his father's will and as described in D&C 19:16 "For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all that they might not suffer, if they repent. But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I.  Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore and to suffer both body and spirit and would that I might not drink the bitter cup and shrink - Nevertheless, glory be to the father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men."
4. And this day we remember that the women that loved him came to anoint his body and finish the hurried burial arrangements, but the tomb was empty.
5. We remember Mary Magdalene in the garden, crying, "Where have they taken my Lord" to the two angels that sat where the body had been and that Jesus appeared, asking her " Whom do you seek? Women, why do you weep?  She thought he was the gardener and said to him, " Sir if you have taken him, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her "Mary" She turned and knew his voice and called him "Teacher"  He urged her not to hold him back because he had not ascended and she came and told the disciples, " I have seen the Lord!"
6. We remember that he returned and walked and talked with his disciples.  That he urged them to teach each other and the world about his doctrine's and history.  That he did overcome death.  
7. And for me, I remember Thomas and the other disciples that did not have a perfect faith in even the words of their friends and fellow apostles, but needed to see Christ for themselves, to hear his words, to see him eat and drink, and to touch his hands and feet.  

This brings me back to the "Light of the World." This is what we celebrate this day.  That the lights that went out on that terrible Friday afternoon came back brighter than ever on the Sunday morning.  In the painting the door is overgrown with weeds.  It is not in prime condition.  Christ waits and knocks even if we have struggles, especially then.  If we feel like we are alone or full of doubt.  He still stands at the door.  On the darkest nights, or our most depressing days, he stands with his lantern bright, waiting for us to hear his call and open the door.

Memory vs memoir

I saw this book on Bill Gates' reading list and was intrigued for two reasons: one because he raved about it and because it was the story of a Mormon woman from Eastern Idaho - which in my heart is still my home.  Leila rightly teases me a little because when someone asks me where I am from I almost always say that I am from Teton, ID, but I have not lived in Teton since I was 11 years old.  I spent my teenage years in Boise, and my grandparents both lived in Nampa.  My mom and siblings still live in Boise and I am sure that if you ask them where we are from, it is Boise.  But for some reason I can't articulate, in my heart, I am still from Teton, ID.  

I haven't lived in Idaho for over 20 years.  In 1995, I moved to Provo, UT to go to school at BYU, like the author of the book.  Unlike her though, I was not raised in an isolated homeschool environment. I got a superb education at Boise High - we had many teachers with PhDs, took all the AP courses I could handle, and lived on campus of BSU when my mom was a student.  I was most comfortable and happy in a classroom.  We moved from Provo to Texas where I worked on my PhD after finishing my masters at BYU.  Then we moved to Indiana, then Iowa, and now St. Louis.  

My life was very different from Tara Westover's - although there are some connections. Her brother Travis was in our stake in Indiana where he was working on a PhD and we were friends with some of the same people.  I am pretty sure that I met him at some point, but don't remember any conversation we would have had.  She went to BYU, but long after I graduated and our home life was not the same at all. I felt reading this book though some kinship with her - maybe because we both leveraged education to build our lives, and also because even though my life is very far from that of my childhood in Teton I can't really shake it.  Somehow, for the rest of my life, no matter where I move or what I do, I will still be the kid from Teton.  

Her writing in this book is compelling, and I appreciated her treatment of memory and its complicated relationship with the truth.  She has some pretty strong memories of the time when her brother was burned severely helping her father in the junkyard.  She remembers him alone coming to the house and he does not.  He remembers their father helping him and the entire event is different from her telling.  I tell a lot of stories to my kids about when I grew up and I bet if my siblings were here they would contradict many of the details.  I don't know why memory is so malleable, but I really do believe that we must have grown up in alternate realities.  That was driven home when I met my Dad in Hawaii after not seeing him for years and years.  His memory of what happened when he left us, was contradictory to mine.  It hurt to hear a version of the past that absolved him of some of the blame and put it on us.  

I have thought about writing a book - part popular science and part memoir about quinoa and my short time in Bolivia and studying quinoa and pairing that with the rise of quinoa as a superfood and an international household word.  But I worry about the reliability of my memory - not that I have any neurological problem, but that it is affected by the telling. That by building a story that is compelling and rich that I am overwriting the more complex reality and that once that story is told the original memory is deleted.  I think it is a compelling story to tell, but it does change with the telling.