More Holiness Give Me: I need a wagon circle...fast!

Monday, September 20, 2010

I need a wagon circle...fast!

Did you know when the pioneers were traveling west and they went in wagon trains, that at night they would put their wagons in a big circle with the butts of the wagon facing out? They did so for protection from Indians, marauders (okay, I admit it, I got that off the Internet. I don't know what that word means) and from other dangers. Sometimes the children would play inside the wagon circle. Protected. Can you imagine how much safer you would feel being engulfed in that circle versus just out there in the open? The support of the other wagons must have been life saving. Mentally and literally.

This is the lesson I taught my children tonight. I was inspired by my friends blog who said that when her family is in times of crisis', "The family steps in and steps up and the wagons are circled".

I taught my children that we need to be doing that for each other. That we needed to be each others circle. And when times are troubling we support one another. I gave them several example of times we would need to be doing that for each other. I don't think we are very good at that. Sometimes the kids are just looking for the opportunity to jump on each other and with criticism.

So that is our newest family creed... In times of need our family steps in and steps up and the "wagons are circled".....

(Thanks Kelly)

3 comments:

Unknown said...: Nice post.. I like the metaphor a lot!; September 21, 2010 at 12:15 PM
Anonymous said...: we have always used this in our family....I bought my sister this same picture when I came to visit this week......;); September 23, 2010 at 4:25 PM
Susan said...: Jeri said...Love you blog Susan- Thank you.

Linda said...Love that!!!!

Heather said...That is a great picture :) You are awesome!; December 1, 2010 at 2:16 PM

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I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." — Marjorie Pay Hinckley

When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses? When the surf of the centuries has made the great pyramids so much sand, the everlasting family will be standing, because it is a celestial institution, formed outside telestial time. The women of God know this. --Neal A. Maxwell

I know it is long but it is life altering!

C.S. Lewis- Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning...It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. But it is immortals who we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption, and our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."

"Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are course; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fotune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity." Margaret D. Naduald

" Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. -Nelson Mandela-

More Holiness Give Me

Monday, September 20, 2010

I need a wagon circle...fast!

3 comments:

Hello, my old friend.

Where are you visiting from?