If Reverence Begins at Home, Obviously We Live in a Zoo

Church on Sunday was hilarious, in a way. I had one of those Sacrament Meetings that was awful to live through and then just funny once it was all over and everything had calmed down. In the morning, we had the normal chaos going on. For anyone who tries to get a bunch of kids ready for church, you know that the Sabbath is anything but a day of rest from your labors. Terence was gone to his meeting while I was running through breakfast and the bathtime/hair washing torture session, and though it is usually not a pleasant experience, it was even worse this Sunday. Several weeks back, our ward music coordinator had asked me to play a piano solo on the last Sunday of the month, but then she moved out of the ward the very next week. Nobody ever called to confirm it with me, but still, I had taken the precaution of practicing a fairly easy hymn medley just in case. But by the morning of my planned musical number, the nerves were starting to kick in. In between tracking down missing church shoes and combing through tangled masses of hair, I kept sitting down at the piano to practice, only to realize that I wasn't really getting any better at the song. It looked like I was going to play a very jarring piece with lots of "interesting" wrong notes.

Needless to say, my stress level kept rising by the minute. And the more stressed I got, the worse I played. I began to desperately hope that Selina had not remembered to tell anyone I was going to play. After all, she had been in the middle of packing and getting ready to leave. Probably she had a million things on her mind. It wouldn't be too unreasonable to hope that my solo had gotten overlooked somehow.

When we finally herded our family into the chapel, I snatched a program to find my name stuck in between the two youth speakers and the two adult speakers. So much for getting overlooked. In resignation, I led the family up to the second pew on the piano side, figuring I would be able to sit with the kids and dart up to the piano when it was my turn. Terence thought I was nuts, even though I pointed out that we were right next to a door. (Escape routes are necessary. It's not a matter of if but rather when you will have to take a child out in our family.)

Unfortunately, Terence had to get up and leave with K not five minutes into the meeting. I spent the next 35 minutes with increasing rowdy children adding to my now insane levels of stress. I think I threatened my kids with every punishment in my arsenal with no real success. B was having a very loud play session with her toys (since apparently her ponies all have to "talk"). M and J were having a kicking, pinching, poking fight that just wouldn't end. I had just resorted to plonking my kids on the head to get them to quit fighting and be quiet when the topic of the youth speakers finally penetrated my awareness.

They were speaking on reverence. Nice.

Terence came back in just before my solo, but K right away started to wail so he had to take him out again. That left me with three completely unruly kids that I was going to have to leave alone for a few minutes. In answer to my desperate prayers, another sister in our ward got up and sat down with my kids just before I had to go up. Thank goodness!!

My piano solo went more or less OK. I was tense and feeling anything but spiritual, but I managed to fudge my way through the more challenging passages without making anyone's hair stand on end.

Then I had to return to my even-less-behaved gaggle of children and listen to the next two speakers talk about teaching your children to be reverent. Well, the timing couldn't have been more perfect, I guess. Obviously, this topic was directly applicable to me. Alas, between J and M's squabbling and B's loud whimpering, I couldn't hear the talks.