What is a JayDiva?

JayDiva (noun) a writer of blogs who is an attorney, feminist, New Englander, child advocate, reader, hiker, cancer survivor, Mormon.



Friday, April 14, 2017

Q1 Report

Quarterly Progress Report for Q1 of 2017:

Because it is too hard to remember things from Q1 when I am trying to reflect on the entire year in anticipation of New Year's, here are some stats…

  • 1 Executive Director job—look out, world!
  • 30 years old (birthday!)
  • 2 political protests
  • 9 appointments at the hospital
  • 548 miles run/biked/swam (in past 6 months)
  • 6 blog posts on alikeuntogod.wordpress.com
  • Donated to NPR like a real adult.
  • Donated to the ACLU like a real liberal.
  • 1st business trip ever!  + mini Seattle trip with Mom and Grandma C
  • Went to Disneyland!  With Gwen!!  Three days in a row!!!
  • Book finished: Short Stories by Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine; Love and the Light, Orson F. Whitney.
  • Books currently reading: Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman; The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Jill Lepore; All God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Emma Lou Thayne;  Mormon Feminism Essential Writings; Rachel Hunt Steenblik and Joanna Brooks and Hannah Wheelwright. (I have a big problem with not being able to wait to start another book before finishing my current read, and thus taking forever to finish any one thing…)
Not too shabby for the dead of winter!




Sunday, April 2, 2017

Seattle + Disneyland(?!)

Now that I'm a big (small) shot executive, I went on my first ever business trip out to Seattle and was joined by Mom and Grandma in the city they love so much!


I look big-time, right?  Right??






We went on an unexpected visit to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and it was incredibly moving and inspiring:



Pioneer Square glass blowers- a Seattle favorite since my childhood:




We had a marvelous time, but the best part of all is that when three days straight of my flights home were projected to be cancelled because of the East Coast blizzard, my amazingly persuasive husband convinced the airline to fly me down the coast to California for free so I could stay with my parents and not have to pay for continued hotel fare.  (Love him!!)

So, the best kind of vacation ensued!  One that required no stress to make sure I had the vacation time, one that required no airfare, and one that required no hotel fees.  And to add to it, my brother, #1 sister-in-law, and #1 niece were down at my parents at the same time to go to Disneyland!

You guys!  I got to go to Disneyland with my niece instead of endure the blizzard out east!  I could not have planned this better if I had tried!








God is good!  And so is my family!


UP WITH THE MATRIARCHY

Sunday, February 12, 2017

O Death, Where is Thy Sting?

Another funeral. Another one. I selfishly loathe that, yet again, our leisurely Saturday morning is robbed.   We are practically in the back yard of my husband's large side of the family, and their connections run deep in this community. Although it defies reason, I swear that every single person to enter the local morgue is somehow my husband's god-parent. Seeing a corpse in a casket practically every weekend, we talk about death all the time.


Perhaps I am still numb to funerals, even of close family members, after attending the third one in so many months when I was a fifth grader. I hated my fifth grade teacher, but even she felt sorry for me after #3, and gave me a genuine hug in front of the whole class.

Numb, perhaps. But certainly not indifferent. In our home, we talk about death all the time. Hubs has spent the last couple years professionally counseling people about death taxes, death benefits, etc. He freely admits that his job his hard because "nobody wants to think about their own death." 

Maybe that is why my first doctor was adamant that I didn't have cancer, not wanting death to enter the conversation. Whereas the oncologist he passed me off to, after hearing me flippantly throw out, "but I don't actually have cancer, I'm only here as a precaution..." looked at me, troubled, and staring squarely into my face said, "I don't know why someone would have told you that. Yes, you certainly do have cancer." I was literally in an oncologist's office scheduling my radiation treatment, and nobody had bothered to admit that I was a cancer patient until that very moment.

As a natural necessity to our complicated lives, we talk about death all the time. It is an omnipresent threat. My husband saw his mother choke and die right in front of him without any warning. His sister, a nurse practitioner, was present, but nothing could save my mother-in-law. Whether one is good, bad, or indifferent, my husband and I understand that when one's number is up, there's no hiding from it.

All this sounds very dark and full of pathos, enough to make someone hardened to the harsh reality that this life is temporary. But I think that our abundant exposure to death and its threat, have redirected our mindsets from fear of death to acceptance of death. Not acceptance in a resigned sort of way, but acknowledging its necessary, and even blessed, purpose to life.

President Nelson, himself abundantly familiar with death because of his profession as a surgeon for whom he admitted, it was not a good prognostic sign to be his patient, characterizes death as neither necessarily positive nor negative, but simply as a doorway:

Returning from earth to life in our heavenly home requires passage through—and not around—the doors of death. We were born to die, and we die to live. (See 2 Cor. 6:9.) As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on earth; we fully flower in heaven.
...
Scriptures teach that death is essential to happiness: “Now behold, it was not expedient that man should be reclaimed from this temporal death, for that would destroy the great plan of happiness.” (Alma 42:8; italics added; see also 2 Ne. 9:6.) 


I recently finished Orson F. Whitney's epic novel in verse, Love and the Light. Near the end, the couple whom we have followed are aging and approaching their lives' ends:


Loyalty and zeal continued,
And with faithfulness unflagging
Side by side they strewed and gathered
Through their mortal years remaining.
Till the final call, “Come higher”;
When her soul—then his—responded 


Last year I took a fabulous yoga and medication class taught by a very dear friend I met at the Jerusalem Center. At one point, we sat for a guided meditation session where she encouraged us to imagine we were floating up, up, up-- higher, higher, and higher. I imagine that the moments after death are like this. In a conduit of light, we break physical barriers and cross space and dimension, floating up, up, up until we enter God's realm. We answer the call, "Come higher" until we reach pure light and true peace.

With such a vision, of the contentment that surely exists for the souls of the deceased, can you see why it is neither scary nor morbid that we talk about death all the time? We see it as an inevitable transition, our universal heritage, our only way to find rest from mortal strife. It is anything but taboo in our home, as it motivates us to be our very best while we have today to live.

With that assurance, brothers and sisters, love life! Cherish 
each moment as a blessing from God. (See Mosiah 2:21.) 
Live it well—even to your loftiest potential. Then the 
anticipation of death shall not hold you hostage. 


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         Russell M. Nelson, Doors of Death, April 1992

Russell M. Nelson, Decisions for Eternity, October 2013

No Scrubs

Today was a Snow Day for church, so I'm getting a kick out of reading some old Conference talks.  I had a good chuckle listening to the humor of President Hinckley in a talk given in April 2000 specifically to the young women at General Conference.


"For you, my dear friends, the sky is the limit. You can be excellent in every way. You can be first class. There is no need for you to be a scrub. Respect yourself."1
I actually do remember hearing this talk for the first time as a middle schooler.  At the time, TLC's song No Scrubs was very popular, so President Hinckley was certainly on-trend, and I'm sure his words connected with many young women, as they did with me.
The Church generally holds traditional family views, but President Hinckley was savvy enough to state that, "In this day and time, a girl needs an education. She needs the means and skills by which to earn a living..." and in this same talk, he heartily praised a female nurse whom he met at the hospital, a highly skilled woman with three children who had also followed her career goals. 
We need more people like President Hinckley to encourage our young girls to be everything that they set their hearts upon.  No woman and no mother should ever feel guilty for pursuing her heartfelt education and career goals.  With our skills, our voices, and our virtue, we can change the world.  Our girls need to know it, and our boys need to know it, too.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf: "Brethren, I pray that we as priesthood holders—as husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and friends of these choice women—may see them as the Lord sees them, as daughters of God with limitless potential to influence the world for good."2
 The sky is truly the limit for each of God's children!


#AsSistersInZion
#SmartGirlsAsk
#ShePersisted
#HeForShe
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