Deserving Better
One summer day when I was about twelve, my mother asked me to make tuna sandwiches for my father's and brother's lunch. I can't remember what I was doing at the time, probably reading a book, but I bitterly resented having to stop and go do a stupid chore. So I stormed into the kitchen and opened a couple of cans of tuna fish. I drained a little of the liquid out, dumped the tuna in a bowl, added a huge glob of Miracle Whip, smeared the resulting goo on slices of Wonder Bread, and smashed a second slice on top. I piled the sandwiches on a paper plate and set it in the middle of the kitchen table, stuck my head out the back door to yell, "Lunch is ready!", and headed back to my book.
Just then, my mother returned from her errand. She took one look at the sorry stack of sandwiches I'd produced, turned to me and said, "Your father and your brother have been working hard all morning. They deserve better." She went on to demonstrate that it really didn't take much effort to prepare food that was appetizing and attractive. Literally, it only took her a moment to properly drain a can of tuna, chop up a bit of celery, and add a dollop of pickle relish. It was easy to tuck a lettuce leaf in each sandwich, and to cut them diagonally. She put her plate of sandwiches on the table next to mine. "Which would you rather eat?" she asked.
It was an important lesson. I remembered it this week as I worked on binding an RRCD quilt. The Round Robin Charity Drive is a program on the Quilting Passion Forum to which I belong. Together the forum ladies have made nearly 1400 quilts for Project Linus; so far this year we've completed nearly 100. The quilt I was working on is an attractive enough green, white, and red star pattern. But when it was quilted, the backing must have slipped, and so one corner and about 12 inches along one side had no backing. After consulting with the RRCD director, I managed to come up with a fix that isn't too terribly noticeable and will hold up to being washed as often as a Project Linus quilt generally must be. But when I first described the problem to Peggy, she echoed my mother. "Oh dear," she said, "they deserve better."
And again, last night at the temple, as I worked in initiatory, it occurred to me that when we are performing the ordinances for someone who has come to the temple for the first time, we take special care to speak distinctly and with feeling, and we do everything we can to make their first temple experience a good one, pleasant, meaningful, and inspiring. When doing proxy work, though, it's easy to slip into automatic, rattling off the words as the patrons go round and round. Yet, if we believe the rationale for temple work in the first place, each one of those pink slips of paper represents a very real, individual woman who is also attending the temple "for the first time". She deserves better.
Just then, my mother returned from her errand. She took one look at the sorry stack of sandwiches I'd produced, turned to me and said, "Your father and your brother have been working hard all morning. They deserve better." She went on to demonstrate that it really didn't take much effort to prepare food that was appetizing and attractive. Literally, it only took her a moment to properly drain a can of tuna, chop up a bit of celery, and add a dollop of pickle relish. It was easy to tuck a lettuce leaf in each sandwich, and to cut them diagonally. She put her plate of sandwiches on the table next to mine. "Which would you rather eat?" she asked.
It was an important lesson. I remembered it this week as I worked on binding an RRCD quilt. The Round Robin Charity Drive is a program on the Quilting Passion Forum to which I belong. Together the forum ladies have made nearly 1400 quilts for Project Linus; so far this year we've completed nearly 100. The quilt I was working on is an attractive enough green, white, and red star pattern. But when it was quilted, the backing must have slipped, and so one corner and about 12 inches along one side had no backing. After consulting with the RRCD director, I managed to come up with a fix that isn't too terribly noticeable and will hold up to being washed as often as a Project Linus quilt generally must be. But when I first described the problem to Peggy, she echoed my mother. "Oh dear," she said, "they deserve better."
And again, last night at the temple, as I worked in initiatory, it occurred to me that when we are performing the ordinances for someone who has come to the temple for the first time, we take special care to speak distinctly and with feeling, and we do everything we can to make their first temple experience a good one, pleasant, meaningful, and inspiring. When doing proxy work, though, it's easy to slip into automatic, rattling off the words as the patrons go round and round. Yet, if we believe the rationale for temple work in the first place, each one of those pink slips of paper represents a very real, individual woman who is also attending the temple "for the first time". She deserves better.
posted by MLEH | 12:22 PM
1 Comments:
Absolutely Amen.
Did you hear the comment in conference about the woman who'd done work for 20,000+ people? When I heard it, I turned to Jo and said, "I hope she really DID the work, y'know? not just showing up?"
MWAH
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