Sunday, January 19 2003:
Stake priesthood, then stake conference, leaving us with lots to discuss. We start with a messy family room, and how it makes us feel. We talk about the second law of thermodynamics, and how the world tends toward entropy and increasing disorder. We illustrate the principle by dropping barrels of monkeys and spoonfuls of yogurt from great heights and watching them explode. We illustrate the principle by discussing incidents of drug abuse and premarital pregnancy at the high school, and of the stages of alcohol abuse, as partly manifest in our own family.
Moving from entropy to biology, we talk about the mammal families we’d seen in a recent doc, and about the budding bodies and preening postures that one sees at swim meets. We come to eggs and sperms, to physical responses to proximity and stimulation, to how our bodies, when it comes down to it, want to have sex, and have babies. Yes—there are little ones in the room, but slightly ambiguous terms hopefully insure that each person is hearing and absorbing according to what each person knows, and needs.
Now we suggest that, actually, God wants us to have sex, and babies, too, but on his terms. We’re not just bodies, but spirits too. So, there are challenges, and there are joys. We apply rules and safeguards, humour and humility, love and repentance.
Because things go wrong and we feel anxious, we tell the girls some pretty specific things about patterns and sequences in the world of girl and boyness, and some does and don’ts to help navigate through. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, we discuss some goals. Clearly this epic family-home-sermon bordered on the cruel, for all the concern and affection behind it. But they sat there! For the moment, then, a little less disorder.
At this point, a little free time seems appropriate. Later we have scones. Later we play games. How sad it will be when all these kids are gone.