Happy 2008!

I like New Year's. I like the new beginnings part of it and I like the party part of it and I like the burning-things part of it, which doesn't always happen but, let's admit it, is always a good idea. Last night I had one of the coziest and best New Year's celebrations in memory. Because as good as it should be, New Year's can really bite. With such high expectations, it often falls flat.
I hung out with Amanda and KFish and Matt and friends at Cheers. We played cards and mostly speed scrabble and may or may not have scandalized my other friend who just got back from her mission. Which was delightful of course. We bantered and talked about the Word of Wisdom's evolving role at BYU and other nonsense.
Midnight found us outside with a small but potent collection of fireworks which ended too soon for our tastes and so we burned their shells and boxes and then finally the lighters that weren't working. The scene was this: Matt (I think) dropping a lighter onto the tiny flames and us all running frantic from the epicenter in case of flying plastic/20-foot fireball (I've heard stories from boy scout camp and didn't want to lose any body parts). It didn't work the first time, so we got some paper and another box of matches and built the fire up teepee style and dropped the lighter and ran again. Whoosh. It was a lovely and surprisingly satisfying 2-foot little fireball. Delightful.
Then we popped in Jane Eyre, party animals that we are. The cover copy promised heaving bodices, but there were few to be found (5 I think we counted) Matt lasted about an hour, Katherine two. Amanda and I were in for the long haul and went all four hours and then set about pulling the film apart. I never liked the novel (I'm more of a Wuthering Heights girl myself, and had just read Fountainhead when I approached it the first time) and the story itself is just kind of problematic--he has to break and she has to become perfect for them to work. Ick. But then, and this was really the highlight of the evening, Amanda and I had this great conversation. Highlights (for me):
1. The rules that we have for ourselves (read the scriptures everyday, go to church, the word of wisdom) are much less essential than we like to think. I think of them as these tiny projects that Heavenly Father gives us to help toward our salvation. Just because they're tiny compared with his enormous grace doesn't mean they're unimportant, they matter, but only because they are projects that we can handle. I think Heavenly Father sees us as tiny kids, right, and just like toddlers imagine that they know everything that the adults they hang out with because they can't comprehend the difference, and just like we are so glad for every new word and button buttoned, and just like we don't get mad at them for spilling juice or whatever because their fingers are so fat, Heavenly Father is infinitely patient with us and proud. So he gives us small duties that prove us and as we get more responsible he gives us more.
2. What we choose to do with our lives, profession-wise, is secondary to what how we choose to live our lives. If we seek always to do good, we can do that anywhere, in any profession. The key isn't making only right decisions but consecrating our efforts.
3. The precepts of the gospel are very rarely black-and-white. We'll be judged according to what we know/believe, and that varies a lot even within families and definitely within the church. The implications of this for me are a) we don't have to judge. We shouldn't. Everyone is getting truth at their own pace and doing their own thing. b) Church meetings are not a matter of teaching right from wrong, but of inspiring people to live up to what they know and to expand their vision of the gospel. c) We obey and seek to understand more and better and to share the gospel because the better we do it, the more happy we are here and now. We try and help each other understand to help them be more happy. So the gospel should be shared through love and a humble offering of happiness. Never through pride or force (which I have done myself and am not proud of).
What a brilliant way to start the new year: with a new understanding and new motivation and that deep satisfaction that come from understanding divinity and coming closer to it.
Happy New Year All! ke