"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
Our
friend Michelle Karren taught a lesson in Young Women this month that
has had me thinking ever since. She said that on Thanksgiving, her
family has a tradition of giving thanks around the dinner table for
101 things. They can be big things, such as life and love, or little
things, such as indoor plumbing.
I
think of indoor plumbing as a big thing, but I guess I’m in the
minority on that one.
Michelle
illustrated how easy it is to come up with 101 things to be grateful
for by giving the girls a bunch of areas. She went from girl to girl,
and each of them fired off something in that area that made them
happy. Some of the categories included these:
Living
relatives
Dead
relatives
Friends
Historical
figures you admire
Nature
Technology
Things
about home
Good
things to eat
Favorite
places
You
could add a whole lot of other categories, too. Once there’s a
structure like that, it’s easy to come up with things that you
consider to be blessings. I could come up with 101 people just in the
“friends” department. Ditto the “historical figures
one.” And when it comes to things of nature, I could go all
day.
Heck,
I could come up with 101 things I’m grateful for about Fluffy.
There’s a
lot of
stuff in my life that needs to be recognized and thanked.
Initially,
Michelle had me act as a counter. When she got ten answers in each
category, she went on to another one. But the girls got so excited
with their contributions that Michelle quickly stopped having me cut
them off when the tenth answer was spoken. After all, if the purpose
of the lesson was to show that there’s an unlimited number of
things to be grateful for, why limit people from expressing that
gratitude?
All
I can say was, the lesson was a wild success.
I
liked Michelle’s lesson, but even more than that, I liked her
tradition of expressing gratitude for “the 101.” I’ve
been focusing on gratitude all month, thanks to her. For a while, I
wondered what my 101 would be. Then I decided 1,001
would not be enough. There’s just so much in this world to be
grateful for.
There’s
a quote you’ve probably seen lately that I’ve thought
about many times since Michelle’s lesson. Here it is:
I
don’t know about you, but I’m not going to stop with the
101. That’s a good place to
start,
but I there are too many things to be grateful for that I don’t
want to risk leaving even one of them out.
Kathryn H. Kidd has been writing fiction, nonfiction, and "anything for money" longer than
most of her readers have even been alive. She has something to say on every topic, and the
possibility that her opinions may be dead wrong has never stopped her from expressing them at
every opportunity.
A native of New Orleans, Kathy grew up in Mandeville, Louisiana. She attended Brigham
Young University as a generic Protestant, having left the Episcopal Church when she was eight
because that church didn't believe what she did. She joined The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints as a BYU junior, finally overcoming her natural stubbornness because she
wanted a patriarchal blessing and couldn't get one unless she was a member of the Church. She
was baptized on a Saturday and received her patriarchal blessing two days later.
She married Clark L. Kidd, who appears in her columns as "Fluffy," more than thirty-five
years ago. They are the authors of numerous LDS-related books, the most popular of which is A
Convert's Guide to Mormon Life.
A former managing editor for Meridian Magazine, Kathy moderated a weekly column ("Circle of Sisters") for Meridian until she was derailed by illness in December of 2012. However, her biggest claim to fame is that she co-authored
Lovelock with Orson Scott Card. Lovelock has been translated into Spanish and Polish, which
would be a little more gratifying than it actually is if Kathy had been referred to by her real name
and not "Kathryn Kerr" on the cover of the Polish version.
Kathy has her own website, www.planetkathy.com, where she hopes to get back to writing a weekday blog once she recovers from being dysfunctional. Her entries recount her adventures and misadventures with Fluffy, who heroically
allows himself to be used as fodder for her columns at every possible opportunity.
Kathy spent seven years as a teacher of the Young Women in her ward, until she was recently released. She has not yet gotten used to interacting with the adults, and suspects it may take another seven years. A long-time home teacher with her husband, Clark, they have home taught the same family since 1988. The two of them have been temple workers since 1995, serving in the Washington D.C. Temple.
