A Double Christmas Miracle by Marissa

Yesterday morning I was awakened around 8:30 by the sound of scraping. I jumped from my bed to see what was the matter. As I glanced through the front door glass I could hardly believe what appeared before my wondering eyes--Marissa dressed in her snowboarding pants and shoveling the walk and driveway. I dashed for the camera to record this Christmas miracle, calling for Delys to be a second witness to this remarkable event. Upon seeing this miraculous sight for herself, Delys exclaimed profoundly, "It's a double Christmas miracle, actually, Marissa shoveling the snow AND being up before noon on a holiday!"

Ward Christmas Party Miracle

It was the afternoon of the ward Christmas party, and the ward activities chair, Delys Snyder, still didn't have a Santa's helper lined up for the Primary children to visit. She had a great dinner, some music, a nativity, and a slide show of ward activities all ready to go--but no Santa. Delys had done everything she could, but nothing had worked out. It looked like the Salem 12th Ward was destined to party without the big man.

Then suddenly she had some inspiration. She knew that the bishop, being born on Christmas Eve, might have some special connections to Santa Claus, so she asked for his advice on how to get one of Santa's helpers to come to the party. The bishop, ever wise and inspired, counseled her to look toward Payson for help, and, sure enough, she got her Santa, a relative of the bishop. He arrived not a minute too soon and gathered his own posse of Santa's helpers to keep the Primary crowds at bay for the 90 minutes he was there spreading Christmas cheer.

It was a Christmas miracle.

I wanted to visit with Santa myself, but by the time I got finished with cleaning up the cultural hall, he was gone. As I stood there in the Relief Society room about five minutes too late, a half-dozen Primary children ran up to me all breathless, saying, "Bishop, Bishop . . . Santa Claus just left with your wife!" I started to panic a bit, but then they added, " We think she had to take him to the airport."

And that's how the ward Christmas party was saved.

Delys and Marissa Ride J.D.

This fall Delys and Marissa took some time out from their Saturday chores to do some riding.

J.D. needs more of this sort of thing, and so do Delys and Marissa. I had a good trot around the corral myself, trying to teach J.D. to be more supple and responsive.

There's nothing like being horseback on a beautiful fall day.

Revisiting Ben's Last Ride

Matt and Kerry Wickman and their daughters, Hadley and Elena, have enjoyed coming out to the Snyder place for barbeques and horse riding. The girls are especially fond of horses, especially Ben. One Friday afternoon a few falls ago, Matt brought Hadley and Elena over for a ride. It turned out to be Ben's last ride.

I noticed that he wasn't breathing well and took a long time coming in from the pasture when I called him. After the girls rode, I called my friend Jon Hunter, who's our vet, and he came over early the next morning. He examined Ben and told me Ben had pneumonia. Jon gave him an injection, and Ben seemed to perk up a bit that Saturday, but when I checked him before I left for bishopric meeting Sunday morning, I found him lying dead in his stall. He was 27 years old.

There's a Western tradition that everyone gets a horse of a lifetime--one that's better than all of the others. I was fortunate enough to have my very first horse be that horse of a lifetime. If there ever was a horse who filled the measure of his creation, that horse is Ben. It wasn't until I owned and rode other horses that I fully realized how truly remarkable Ben was--and how well he always took care of me. He always made me look to be a better horseman than I was. I still don't understand everything Ben taught me. As J. Frank Dobie once observed in The Mustangs ". . . a man who has had a good horse in his life . . . will remember him as a certitude, like a calm mother, a lovely lake, or a gracious tree, amid all the flickering vanishments."

It was sweet and fitting that Ben's last ride was with children. He gave many children their very first horse ride. I'll always remember Elena (who's pictured in the saddle) cradling Ben's drooping head in her arms as she told him goodbye that evening. They both seemed to sense what kind of parting it would be.

Cowboy Class Cowboy and Horse

Here are two photos of me and J.D. leading a class discussion of horses and tack at the Snyder Spread in idyllic Salem this past September.

Notice the custom-made, award-winning (2nd place at Elko) Mike Keetch saddle I'm riding. My goal is to become worthy of that saddle.

I've taken advantage of the beautiful Indian summer we've had this fall to do some riding with J.D. He's not Ben by any stretch, but he's good with kids and is learning to rein better. He remains stubborn and lazy, but is not at all jumpy like Ricks.

What I Did During My Summer Vacation: Part 2

This is a photo of our youth conference group at Camp Williams where we did rappelling and also divided into teams to go through the LRC (Leadership Reaction Course or something like that).

We stayed at Tracey's palatial estate just minutes away from Camp Williams and dined on gourmet food catered by Tracey herself. Everyone was impressed especially by Tracey's fine art collection. I am particularly fond of the tile work in the shower of the master bedroom. I spent some time there admiring it. I found that hot water coming from two different directions enhances the rich colors of the tile.

Cowboy Class

This semester I taught a senior seminar course entitled "The Great American Cowboy." We went on some exciting field trips, including this one to Western Unlimited where we learned all about cowboy and cowgirl dress, as you can see in the photo. I'm the only one who owns everything I'm wearing, although some of my students walked out of the store with the hat they're wearing. Everyone looks good in a real cowboy/cowgirl hat.

Survey Says . . . Under 24 Hours

It's all over but the celebration, folks. I checked my blog in under 24 hours. I also changed the template. Now if I can only figure out how to add books and music to my gadgets. Stay tuned.

Post Check.

This is Travis posting as an experiment to see how long it takes Buckaroo Phillip to check his own blog. I was helping him load in some music and book selections and thought while here it would be nice to try this out.

Please select a choice from the survey buttons to the right.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Part I

Me climbing up to the ruins at Frijole Canyon in New Mexico.



Delys at Taos Pueblo in New Mexico.



Me in front of some ruins in Frijole Canyon.



Marissa at Arches National Park.



Delys and me at Navajo Arch.

July Message from the Bishop

Several months ago, Casey Peterson of the stake high council gave a great sacrament meeting talk in our ward on the significance of the Savior and His atonement in our lives. What I remember most about his talk is the personal experience he used to frame his remarks.

Casey grew up on a ranch and, like all cowboys and cowgirls, enjoyed round-up and branding time more than anything else. When he was younger he looked forward to the day when he wouldn’t be wrestling calves on the ground in all the dirt and the sweat but would be mounted on his horse roping and dragging the calves to the branding fire. In the pecking order of branding, the mounted ropers are the ones on the top.

He spoke of the first time he made it into the saddle for a branding when he was nine or ten years old. He made his first catch just fine, but soon realized that the calf he had in his loop outweighed him and would probably pull him out of the saddle if he didn’t do something. Then, he heard his father, who had seen his predicament, call out to him over the sound of the milling cattle from across the corral, “Dally up, Casey, dally up!”

Immediately, he took a couple wraps of his rope around the saddle horn, which secured the calf on the end of his rope, and, using the strength of his good horse underneath him, Casey dragged that calf over to the fire to be branded—something he couldn’t have done relying on his strength alone. Dallying up linked his relatively meager strength to the tremendous strength of his horse and made the two of them more than a match for any calf (or cow, for that matter) in the corral that day.

Casey compared the action of dallying up to coming unto Christ and using His atonement to increase our individual strength and capacity in dealing with our challenges and trials. He pointed out that the Savior, like his horse, has the power to help him do things that he couldn’t do on his own. Or, as President Weight is fond of quoting, “Two people can do anything if one of them is the Lord.”

Casey’s dally analogy here reminds me of the Savior’s own analogy of the yoke, a carved wooden piece which fits over two oxen, binding them together as a team to pull a cart or plow a field or do other kinds of work.

28. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11)

When we are yoked (or dallied up) with the Savior, we unite our meager human strength with the infinite divine strength of God. We need to remember that we’re never working alone if we choose to take upon ourselves Christ’s yoke. Instead, we pull our burdens alongside the Savior.

So whenever we find we’ve lassoed a problem that threatens to pull us out of the saddle, we need to remember the simple command Casey’s father yelled to him when he was a boy: “Dally up!”

It’s our constant prayer that all of us in the 12th Ward will have our burdens lightened by choosing to come unto Christ and be yoked with Him in everything that we do.

Catch

Last Sunday after dinner, Travis asked me if I wanted to have a "reverent catch" with him. ("Reverent" means that whatever we're playing we must wear flip flops and can't break a sweat.) He had even brought his glove (a back-up A2000 he used in little league because he couldn't find his first-string A2000) in anticipation of a quiet Sunday game of catch with his dad. I couldn't refuse. Plus, I knew exactly where my softball gear bag was located in the closet.

As the evening light mellowed out the slightly clouded sky, we threw and talked for about 45 minutes, although it's hard to say for sure just how long we were out there. I had had a busy Sunday and was feeling tense, almost as if I were still in a suit and tie, but I found that loosening up my arm started to get other things loosened up for me as well.

I'm not going to claim that we had anything Zen-like going on out there or that we were engaging in some self-satisfying Freudian for-da game or that Shoeless Joe Jackson was about to pop out of a cornfield we don't have, but I am going to affirm that throwing with Travis was truly, deeply relaxing. I could feel my body's muscle memories awaken as we fell into the easy rhythm of catch and throw, catch and throw.

My Rawlings softball glove cost me $50 in 1975, the summer Kate was born. Our rent was $165, so that glove what quite a serious investment for our young family. I don't know what it would cost now in 2008 dollars, but I do know that it can't be replaced at any price. It's a Joe Rudi model, named after the A's left fielder from the championship Reggie Jackson days in Oakland, which made me, a life-long Angels fan, feel somewhat like a turncoat for a while. It has a beautiful combination of light and dark leather, with a special "bellows" web perfect for catching softballs. I've always kept it well-repaired and oiled. It's so soft that it practically catches the ball all by itself.

My glove has served me well over many softball seasons. That first year, our ward, the Placentia 2nd Ward, won the stake championship, a big deal in those days of full ward uniforms and regional and area playoffs. I still have the trophy. I batted over .400 and hit my first and only home run the day after Kate was born because my line drive hit the gap in right center perfectly and I beat the throw to the plate. In the championship game I caught a deep fly ball right at the fence for the third out of a late inning with two men on base.

Monday evening Travis had his first double-header with the city league team he, in his own words, "begged" himself onto. Delys and I walked over to the ballpark from their house with Heidi and Luke to watch him play. For some reason, he still hadn't been able to find his best glove.

Can you guess whose glove he borrowed?

Carolina--Final Four and Everything After

I wanted to get a good month between this blog and March Madness to ensure some perspective on the NCAA Tournament and the Final Four, especially Kansas's blow-out of the Heels on Saturday night. Here are a few random observations:

* Since I've been a rabid Carolina basketball fan (starting in 1981 with my acceptance into their Ph.D. program in English), I've had three seasons end happily: 1982, 1993, and 2005. That's just 3 out of 27 seasons. I've seen them upset a number of times, the most painful of which was the opening round loss to Weber State in 1999, which I watched in a Cedar City motel room during a cowboy poetry festival. I've seen them lose in the final four, the most painful of which was the loss to Utah in 1998, which I watched in a hospital room with Lu Ann who was recovering from surgery. (For the record, she was a Utah Ph.D. candidate at the time, so she may have given Utah some extra luck.) All in all, this was a great season: Final Four loss to the eventual national champions, ACC regular season champion, ACC tournament champion. It also makes the Worthy performance and Jordan jumper against Georgetown, the total no-stars team effort against the Fab Five of Michigan, and the all-star egocentric team win against Illinois all the sweeter in my memory.

* I have no idea why they came out so flat against Kansas. Thank goodness General Priesthood Meeting saved me from having to watch the first half. If they hadn't had all those turnovers during their second-half comeback run, they would have tied the score and given themselves a chance to win the game.

* I thought it was classy of Roy Williams to show up at the championship game in a Kansas shirt. He gave them 15 good years as their coach. To see Kansas get the championship he couldn't give them must have been bittersweet for Roy, but he took it well and stayed out of the spotlight. Any Kansas fan who still has negative feelings toward him will now go to hell for sure. (I'm not even going to get into all the Carolina-Kansas connections.)

* I knew Tyler Hansbrough would stay for his senior season. He will go down as one of the greatest college basketball players of all time.

* Neither Ty Lawson nor Wayne Ellington is ready for the NBA. I hope they come to their senses before June 16th. (I'm not even going to get into Trent Plaisted or Lee Cummard. They should spend the summer working out with Hansbrough instead of indulging in their delusions.)

April's Message from the Bishop

Lately we’ve been blessed as a ward with some excellent talks from members of the stake high council, who are doing their best to refute Mormon folklore about how terribly boring “dry” council talks can be.

(Have you heard the joke about the high counselor and his wife who are kidnapped by terrorists and given a last request before they’re to be executed? The high counselor asks to give just one more talk before he dies. The poor terrorists, not being LDS and therefore not knowing what they’d be in for, agree to his request. Then, the wife takes a long, hard look at her husband, turns to the terrorists, and calmly says, “All I ask is that you shoot me before he starts his talk.”)

This week, I’ve been pondering one of these recent high council talks in particular, the one given by Alan Mcintier from the 3rd Ward. I’m sure many of you remember this talk, too.

Brother Mcintier used the analogy of a building foundation to discuss the significance of prophets, seers, and revelators to the foundation of Christ’s Church, the Savior himself being the chief cornerstone. As he said at the beginning of his talk. Brother Mcintier usually isn’t very big on analogies because they can sometimes be trite and inadequate, but, in this case, the analogy really works, especially for him, because he’s the stake’s physical facilities representative and also works full-time for the Church in a similar capacity. In short, Brother Mcintier knows Church buildings.

His central example for the necessity of laying a firm foundation involved the Mexico City Temple, the construction of which was complicated by the fact that Mexico City is built on a dry lake bed. As a result, many of the buildings in the city have settled unevenly, compromising their foundations and causing serious damage to their structures. Of course, because the Church architects and engineers attended primary and remembered singing “the wise man built his house upon a rock,” they knew that they had to find some innovative way to lay down a surer foundation for the Mexico City Temple, which, like all latter-day temples, is supposed to last through the millennium.

They came up with a brilliant and successful plan. First, they drove huge pilons deep into the lake bed. Then, they built a structure on top of these pilons onto which they mounted huge jacks, which would support the temple’s foundation and could be adjusted as needed to keep the temple balanced evenly—no matter what kind of shifting occurs within the dry lake bed.

Like the foundation of the Mexico City Temple, the Church’s foundation of prophets, seers, and revelators has the capacity to support the ever-growing Church membership as well as the ability to adjust to whatever shifting occurs throughout the world. We’ve witnessed this foundation working in exactly this way during the recent General Conference of the Church, the first after the death of President Gordon B. Hinckley.

We had the opportunity in a solemn assembly Saturday morning of sustaining a new prophet, Thomas S. Monson, along with a new First Presidency and new member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, D. Todd Christofferson, as well as a number of other new General Authorities and auxiliary leaders. We in the Salem Utah West Stake should feel a particular closeness to Elder Christofferson because it was he, almost four years ago, who reorganized the stake with the release of President Green and the calling of President Silcox and his counselors.

As the conference moved forward, it became clearer and clearer that the mantle of the prophet had settled firmly on President Monson and that the Church would move forward as it always has, from the calling and death of the Prophet Joseph even until today, under the direction of the Savior, whose Church this is.

As a bishopric, we are deeply grateful for our testimonies regarding the sure foundation of this Church. We are also deeply grateful to be able to serve with all the members of the Salem 12th Ward in this great latter-day work and pray always that each one of you will be blessed abundantly in your lives.

Love, Bishop Snyder and the 12th Ward Bishopric

Reflections on Birth Order

Recently I've read a number of newspaper and magazine articles reporting studies on the importance of birth order. As I could have predicted, these studies show that first-born children are superior to their siblings in IQ, education, earning power, sense of responsibility, good looks, sense of humor,and so forth. Supposedly, first-born children gain their advantage because parents lavish so much more time and attention on them as opposed to the siblings who come later. Being a first-born myself, I felt both vindicated and humbled by my position.

Then I started thinking about the possible effects of birth order in my own family. Big mistake. Now everything's all complicated and confusing.

[Political Aside: Thus, we can see why the Bush Administration considers thinking to be counterproductive to their policies.]

For example, I'm the oldest in my family, with two younger sisters, Tracey and Mary Ann. Tracey, however, is not the middle child. Because Mary Ann was born when I was 17, Tracey spent 14 years as the youngest child, being spoiled by her parents and her older brother. Then, by the time Mary Ann was 2, I had been off to BYU and then off on a mission to France and Belgium, so Tracey had become the oldest child in the family by the time she was 15 or so. Mary Ann, of course, has always been the youngest child, but she shows no negative signs of having been spoiled by everyone. Also, I'm not ashamed to say that my sisters are both smarter than I am. My mom always gets after me when I say this, but it's true: I'm the dumb one in my family.

Kate, the oldest of my children, takes after me quite a bit, but she doesn't think she's superior(just bossier as the "game master" in the sibling hierarchy) to her younger brothers. Travis, the middle child, takes after his mother, another middle child, but he, again like her, has an emotional and empathetic IQ that's off the charts with a drive that won't quit. Jack, the youngest, came along 9 years after Travis, so he got the undivided attention of four people. For example, he crawled and walked late because he could always get someone to carry him around. Now he's the family expert on classical and early British literature.

In short, when it comes to my family, all these birth-order studies get turned on their heads and their privileging of the first born gets undercut.

And don't get me started on scriptural precedents and how many times the oldest son forfeited the birthright to a younger, more deserving brother. In fact, for the past ten years I've been rotating the birthright yearly with my sisters, thinking that it's better to have it every third year than to lose it altogether because of unrighteousness or incompetence.

Now, with Clarkwell on the horizon, I'm starting to worry that he won't get the same attention that Luke received. However, I'm encouraged by two things: 1) Luke's relationship with "Baby Hamilton," as he calls him, is warm and attentive and quiet and gentle, so I assume it'll be the same way with his little brother, even though there may be a little jealousy. 2) Heidi says that Clarkwell is even more active in utero than Luke was, so I'm thinking he'll hold his own once he's born.

Nevertheless, I'm planning on spoiling him not one whit less than I've spoiled Luke, birth order theory be darned. (Sorry, but I didn't want to write "damned" in case Hamilton reads this post).

Restitution Is the Second Step in Repentance

It took practically the whole day, but I've gone back and commented on every blog from DaSpjutes, Treidi, Bees Knees, and you don't know jack. Now, I've got to keep on the blog and narrow.

Right now I'm listening to Rufus Wainwright's cover of "Across the Universe." It's not bad, but, again, he's no John Lennon. Jack is educating me on the "I Am Sam" soundtrack. It's not bad, actually. I think my favorite is Eddy Vedder's "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away."

Easter Blog: The Resurrection of "Squared Away"

It seems I've been blogging like some people go to church: every Christmas and Easter.

However, my children have been hard at work reactivating me, and I've promised to repent of my backsliding starting now.

Yesterday we had a traditional Easter dinner: leg of lamb, Easter (aka Funeral, Relief Society) potatoes, green beans, homemade rolls, and strawberry shortcake (thanks to Heidi). We had Tracey, Jack, Kristin, Travis, Heidi, Luke, and Kathryn in addition to Delys, Marissa, and me. Because a number of us are watching our diets (Travis and Kristin leading the way), we didn't have lots of Easter candy (although Travis did smell himself a few truffles, giving new meaning to the phrase "aroma therapy").

Luke ate a good dinner--he seemed to like the lamb especially well--so his mother gave the two of us permission to have an Easter egg hunt. I put little wrapped chocolate eggs inside some plastic eggs and then hid them for Luke to find. On the second round, I put some green beans inside one egg instead of the chocolate just to see what he'd do. We all watched with curiosity as he opened the egg hiding the green beans. He took a look and then exclaimed, "Hmmm . . . green beans," and then just popped them in his mouth and proceeded to eat them. Tip for getting little kids to eat their food: put everything in Easter eggs.