Month: March 2014

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http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/prepare/ready.php

This website is set up to help you go through the preparedness process especially for hurricanes. If you are in a hurricane prone area, you especially want to be familiar with NHC–the national hurricane center and how you can check it for all hurricane related warnings, etc.

Also, a NOAA radio is particularly helpful to receive all weather related warnings and alerts at any time of the day or night. These can be purchased in many different places and for different prices. Some are like alarm clocks. These will warn you of weather conditions even if you are asleep. Check them before you buy. For some, they may not warn you at all if they remain unopened in your kit or if they need batteries and run out, etc. Know what it is you are purchasing and how to keep it working.

Link to National Hurricane Preparedness site

Link to National Hurricane Preparedness site

This website is set up to help you go through the preparedness process especially for hurricanes.  If you are in a hurricane prone area, you especially want to be familiar with NHC–the national hurricane center and how you can check it for all hurricane related warnings, etc. 

Also, a NOAA radio is particularly helpful to receive all weather related warnings and alerts at any time of the day or night.  These can be purchased in many different places and for different prices.  Some are like alarm clocks.  These will warn you of weather conditions even if you are asleep.  Check them before you buy.  For some, they may not warn you at all if they remain unopened in your kit or if they need batteries and run out, etc.  Know what it is you are purchasing and how to keep it working. 

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Homecoming

The familiar landscapes
Catch my breath
And reel me in
Toward home.

The palm-shadowed
Sky frames my way
And I taste the beauty.
Was it always this sweet?

The house is the same,
But I feel the changes
That distort my memory.
What was I expecting?

That I could come home
To a world frozen in the place
I left it, or that because I
Feel the same, I would be?

Rip Van Winkle’s shadow
Plays tricks on me as I see
That time and family
Went on without me.

Will I have a place?
What will be my role?
I left a child,
But I don’t know yet

Where I belong.
I’m back from Neverland
Impatient to be grown.
But for now, at least,
I’m home.

–2013 dsh

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The battle of Bedford Falls

Drama.  Excitement. 

I am very human in the way I love to feel alive.  See the excitement in life all around me.  I love to find it for myself by trying new things, asking questions, searching for answers.

But, what I struggle with most, I think, is the very common, everyday life that is incredibly monotonous.  Wake up every morning.  Still need to make breakfast, dishes, laundry, whiney or fighting kids, dirt, sadness, meanness, decay, things that break and need to be fixed. The mundane.  The predictable.  The incomprehensibly never complete-able. 

It is one thing to be out on a horse conquering some big dragon out in the universe.  It is still another to stay home and fight ingratitude, boredom, and normal resistance to progress. 

It is like fighting gravity.  You want to be in outer space, above it all, doing something grand.

But, the fact is, life is happening on earth.  That is where it is.  Life is dirt.  It is a cycle of dirt.  It is hunger.  It is a cycle of hunger.  When you are winning, you don’t have something new and wonderful, you are just free from something distasteful. 

It takes a keen sight to find the glory is working hard to get rid of something unwanted that relentlessly comes back.  And, you know, if you quit, you will lose.  But if you work super hard you can never win.  It will always come back.

The weeds will come back, the dirt will come back, the hunger will come back, the bills will come again, the clothes will wear out, that thing will break.

Which war is harder, I wonder?  They are both necessary. 

But, it takes a very courageous person to carry on knowing it is a doomed mission.  It will never be finished.

But, perhaps that is the glory of it? 

The challenges are necessary to life, like gravity.

To win the war, we have to win the daily battle in Bedford Falls. 

(I’m just noticing how fitting that town name is.  Here is where we sleep.  Here is where we fall down.  Here is where we help each other keep getting up again.)

dsh

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Everyday Courage

I was walking out of Walmart the other day and happened to see an elderly man at the check out counter.  A hanger fell to the ground and he was struggling to bend his knees and hips enough to pick it up.  I paused and watched him for a moment.  This, in all the commotion, caught my attention and I paused. 

He could have ignored it.  No one may have noticed or cared.  Someone else could have picked it up.  Doing it was so difficult it attracted attention and could have been very embarrassing to him.  

I’m sure my stopping to stare may not have been helpful.  But, if he could have read my thoughts, he would have heard several things.  I teach yoga and would have loved to be able to gently help him improve his range of motion over time.  I wondered what his circumstances where that made such a normal movement so challenging.  Maybe he had arthritis or a joint replacement.

But, most of all, I call it courage.  His example burns in my mind as a triumph.  He would not avoid trying it even though it was incredibly difficult, even though he had a big audience, and even though what was hard for him would be easy for most other people.

He had the courage to do it anyway.  And he did it his way.  Speed was less important than trying and succeeding at long last. 

And he did succeed. 

I don’t know what conditions he may have that limit his movements, but in most cases movement improves movement.  Trying makes possible what was not possible before.  And, even if physically he is no better off for reasons beyond his control, I am better off–

because he dared to do it –Anyway. 

dsh

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Why prepare (religious)

Why Prepare?

D&C 38: 30  but if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.

  1.  The Righteous Love the Truth

2 Nephi 9:40  I know that the words of truth are hard against all uncleanness; but the righteous fear them not, for they love the truth and are not shaken.

 

  •  Truth is, major, adverse conditions and experiences occur in every Life

    • ·          Matthew 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

    • Job, Joseph Smith, and even Jesus Christ himself were not immune.

    Righteousness brings blessings but it does NOT make us immune to the challenges and dangers of life.

    • Every single stripling warrior was injured, some very severely.
    • Pick any amazing person you know.  Why are they so amazing? 

     

    1. What, then, is our protection?  Why do the righteous continually prepare?

    It isn’t that our food will save us.  It might float out to sea in a hurricane. 

     

    Alma 48: 15 And this was their afaith, that by so doing God would bprosper them in the land, or in other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of God that he would prosper them in the land; yea, warn them to flee, or to prepare for war, according to their danger;

     

     D&C 123: 17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us acheerfully bdo all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the csalvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

     

    1.  We know and trust God

    Enos 1:6 And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away.

    1 Nephi 17: 50 And I said unto them: aIf God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done. 51 And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot ainstruct me, that I should build a ship?

    May the Lord bless you as you build your ship of preparedness and peace.  Let’s build together. 

    Love, Your Sister, DarEll (Sis. Hoskisson)

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    MARCH OTA #1

    March 2014:  Opportunity to Act

    • Trust yourself.  These are suggestions.  Do what you know is best for you and your family.   

    Group Goal:  All group members will have enough water appropriately stored for 72 hrs (at least 3 gallons per person) by the end of April.  72 hr kits for all members will be complete by the end of August. 

    Beginners (Greenies):  Set aside a regular time each week to think about preparedness.  Consider how you will store water and begin to gather and fill water containers.  Get at least 1 gallon of water appropriately stored for each member of your family by the end of March. 

    Maintainers:  Evaluate your water supply.  If the containers are adequate, empty and refill them.  If not, make the adjustments needed.  Set a time once or twice a year that you will evaluate, rotate, or empty and refill your water supply.  Many people choose Spring and Fall as reminders for 72 hr kit evaluation and maintenance.

    EXTRA MILERS: 

    When you are finished getting or updating your water supply for 72 hrs, help others do the same.

     Ideas:  THESE ARE JUST IDEAS

    1-Give a bottle or gallon of water to someone else along with the challenge of the month. 

    2-Give extra water to a group leader who can gather them to distribute to those who confide a need for assistance. 

    3—Give water to your neighbors for their hurricane preparedness

    4—store more water than 72 hrs.  Get 1 weeks worth or more

    5– buy a high quality filter, a large water barrel, or a rain barrel