We have been thinking of Emily this week. She starts the New Year off with the adventure of her new Primary calling. One of her challenges is setting a standard of reverence. We can all probably identify . . . either with the ones causing the problem or the ones looking for solutions. I thought it would be fun to share these stories tucked deep into family lore.
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I remember Mom directing the choir in the Flanders building when President Doxey was the Stake President and Von Freeman was the Bishop and I can not remember who was the choir pianist some 20 years ago. We were singing our song in sacrament meeting and all of a sudden we heard a very large and big sound coming from the organ as someone was walking on the pedals. I knew that Darren had come up on the stand and walked along the back row and generally was giving himself a self guided tour of the stand while free of parental over site. It did not take but a second to realize my darling son was creating these multi-layered fog horns of sound but it seemed like weeks passed before I lifted him off the pedals and in the safe confines of my arms while we finished the choir song. President Doxey never got to excited about the incident and joined in the laughter when recalling the moment.
On another note, Mom still maintains the reverence problem of our ward was solved when they called one of the men to be bishop and relieved him of his duties with the family so they and the surrounding members could worship in silence. It took 17 years and all the kids leaving home to finally teach me reverence.
My freshman year at college I became the stakes official reverence child. Aaron Moss, myself and another friend showed up to a stake conference a little early in the Smith Field House. For some reason now a mystery to even myself, we decided to go stand at the stage/pulpit and be reverence children. We folded our arms, put on our reverent faces and silently watched as the hundreds of college freshman filled the bleachers. The stake president came over to say hello and investigate our behavior. We informed him that we were the reverence children for the meeting. He smiled and returned to his seat. When the meeting was about to get started he stepped up to the mic and acknowledged the good example of the reverence children up front then invited us to sit up on the stand. We did and it was a great meeting. Afterward we tied our ties to our heads and took a picture to commemorate the occasion. Mom can post the picture if she likes.
Thanks for the picture, Christian.
I honestly can't remember any thrilling or worth telling details about me being a reverence child. Probably because I was just that: reverent.
I remember different reverence problems in our row growing up. some came up because we were just having too much fun playing with did, other times I found that Preston's plethora of toys were more exciting than the speakers, but what I remember the most is playing the arm-ticklishness game with Kaylene or dots or hangman. For the first game one person would hold out their exposed forearm while the other would slowly tickle them moving up to the place where your arm bends. the goal was to avoid laughing, and look down just when they arrived at the bend. that and the multiple drawing-type games kept us busy for many years.
I have a reverence problem, even today; though I have gotten over bring toys. Last semester I was sitting with my girlfriend and talking to her and my roommate during sacrament meeting. We had the privileged of having the stake presidency there that week. Eventually I was shushed and left to talk to my roommate. A while later I had my head moved to face her and was shushed again. I rolled my eyes and then started focusing on the meeting. At the end of the meeting the stake president was asked to talk and he talked about a couple in the audience having trouble focusing on the talks, he even described all the shushing and head moving and eye rolling. I can only say that I was glad to be a point of inspiration for a talk by the stake president, even though I didn’t know what his point was.
Well I don't recall if I was reverent or not. But we have a serious reverence problem in our primary now. I tried teaching a lesson on reverence which was difficult with the kid screaming his head off in the back row and the two new sunbeams who would not give up on the tug-a-war fight with me over the chalk. So guess what... We will officially have our first "reverence child" in opening exercises today. Thank you for the wonderful ideas.
In our primary there is always the "reverence Child" that stands quietly in the front of the room with there arms folded and mouths closed. Today there were two reverence children and they were each holding a feather. I myself don't remember any of these antics being played on me.
I think the reverence child fad started when children such as Christian, Daniel, Aaron, Rich, Brian, and company all became old enough to need reminding about reverence. Before that there really wasn't a need. :-)
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