Just $160 Gazillion Short

On March, 2008September, 2012 By Peter WatkinsIn 2008Leave a comment

Dear Will:

My children have the misfortune of being raised by a guy who doesn’t have a clue how to become wealthy. The making money part I can do. It’s the accumulating of money that has always baffled me.

No one is more upset about this fact than my son Luke, who now finds himself just weeks away from high school graduation. Luke is scary-smart, and except for a pathological distaste for math homework, he does very well in school. He also has the good fortune of doing very well on standardized tests. Add to that the fact that he has spent six years at the Orange County High School of the Arts (where he receives 10 hours each week in after-school creative writing classes) and you get the idea that he shouldn’t have too much trouble getting into college.

To validate that theory, Luke applied for admission to Claremont McKenna College, the ultra-prestigious private university about a half hour north of here. How prestigious is it? It’s generally regarded as one of the top 15 liberal arts schools in the country. There are only 1,150 students there—TOTAL—meaning that it admits only around 260 students a year (maybe 10% or 11% of those who apply). Needless to say, if you can get admitted to Claremont McKenna, it’s a big deal.

Well, Luke got in. I don’t know if I have ever seen him more excited. And I couldn’t have been more pleased. That is, before I got the letter from the Financial Aid Office. It will cost roughly $50,000 for Luke to attend CMC, they say, including tuition, living expenses, and incidentals. But not to worry, they told me. They would throw in $9,300 to help us out.

Ninety-three hundred dollars. A generous offer, perhaps, but it still leaves me $40,000+ short. And that’s just in Year One.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t have $160,000 set aside to send my kid to the college of his choice. In fact, I don’t have $16,000. I tried pleading my case to the school, but they weren’t about to contribute enough to make it possible. Luke, of course, is devastated; and I feel as though I arrived at one of those critical dad-moments and was completely unprepared.

But not just unprepared. Inadequate. Helpless. Having fallen so far short of the mark, I found myself unable to conceive of a solution to help him out. I want so badly to send him to this great school, but I can’t pull it off. It is not within my power to do so.

In the many hours of soul-searching I have spent over the last few weeks, I have more than once reflected on the incomprehensible miracle of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. In this life, we cannot begin to approach our Heavenly Father’s divine nature. No matter how hard we try, we will be so unholy that we could not dwell in His presence. Christ, in his infinite love for us, makes reconciliation possible, enabling us to overcome that which we could never overcome on our own. It is as if he came along and paid the $160 gazillion for me. Not because I deserve it (perhaps, in fact, because I don’t). It is His free gift to me—to all of us—which he grants in exchange for our best effort to live the gospel and show our faith in him. No amount of hard work and effort will make us worthy of that gift—rather it is through grace that He makes His Atonement available to us.

Perhaps that analogy is a little strained, but it seems very real to me. This painful, disappointing experience has deepened my understanding of and gratitude for that Great Act of Love. And for that I am grateful. It doesn’t help Luke pay for college, but it does help.

We Will Miss Him

On February, 2008September, 2012 By Peter WatkinsIn 2008Leave a comment

Dear Will:

As you may have heard, Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died last week. He was 97. His funeral was on Saturday

I got a phone call a couple of Sundays ago from my mother who was calling to share the news of his passing. When I got off the phone, I told my wife and son Seth what I had just learned. Now Seth, who is almost nine, has always been a tender-hearted soul, one who feels deeply the suffering of others (including, or perhaps especially, all types of animals). Upon learning of President Hinckley’s death, Seth began to sob. We held him close, of course, and asked him to tell us what he thought of our dear prophet. Through his tears, Seth said simply: “He was a really nice man.”

As you might guess, Seth has never met Gordon B. Hinckley, but such was the power of this aged man that even a child such as Seth could feel the warmth of his love and sense the true Christian spirit which he possessed. The thing that I always admired about him was that he was so good and making people feel good even as he was admonishing them to try harder, stand taller, do more, be better. He was not the sort to shame you into changing your ways. Rather he made you want to be better than you are.

As it turns out, I was privileged to hear one of his last sermons. On Sunday, January 13, just two weeks before his death, he spoke via satellite to all Church members throughout Southern California. I sat with my family as he counseled us regarding our relationships with one another. He identified four cornerstones which should secure the foundation of each family:

1. Mutual Respect
He reminded couples to respect one another’s differences, which are not necessarily undesirable. Those differences make our companionships more interesting. He pointed out that we would all be better off if we expressed an “anxious concern” for one another. He encouraged us to look for virtues rather than faults. He said: “Love sees more, but chooses to see less.”

2. The Soft Answer
We are told in Proverbs that “a soft answer turneth away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1). President Hinckley reminded us that when we talk to one another quietly we are speaking the language of God. God spoke to Elijah in “a still, small voice” (1 Kings 19:12) We should follow that example.

3. Financial Honesty
The Prophet reported that money causes more trouble in marriage than all other causes combined. He encouraged us all to pay an honest tithe so that God might open up the windows of heaven. Couples, he said, should provide one another freedom and independence on most day-to-day expenses but come to an agreement before making any large expenditures.

4. Family Prayer
When we pray together, President Hinckley told us, we will have peace in our hearts and joy in our lives. Family prayer in particular will strengthen our love for each other while providing our children with a greater sense of security.

After that meeting concluded, Dana and I typed those four cornerstones onto a piece of paper and gathered our kids to discuss their importance. We have a long way to go before we can pretend to live true to President Hinckley’s good counsel, but we’re now trying harder than before. As I said, he was always the sort of person that had a way to make you want to be a better person.

We will miss him.

How to Fill Your Home with the Holiday Spirit

On December, 2007September, 2012 By Peter WatkinsIn 2007Leave a comment

Dear Will:

Since I have a model family, I feel it my obligation to share with you some straightforward advice on how best to fill your home with the holiday spirit. I suggest you start with the decorations. . . .

A. Put Up the Lights

You might think that it is still the Thanksgiving weekend—a time set aside for gluttony and football—when you discover, much to your delight, that the otherwise terrific guy next door has already festooned his abode with bright and cheerful electric doodads. “When are you going to put up our lights, Beloved?” your eternal companion might sing, filling your heart immediately with Christmas cheer. “Oh, I don’t know, Pumpkin,” you’ll say, “I was hoping perhaps to do it tomorrow during the UCLA-Oregon game.” Overjoyed that you have already embraced her vision, she’ll skip into the house with a fa la la la la.

You’ll start with great brio the next day because putting up the lights is always a highlight of the year for you—especially when there’s a big game on. We suggest the following essential steps:

Untangle the lights. Or not. Throw away the ones that inexplicably become more tangled as you untangle them. Hum happily to yourself.
Put up the first strand with brisk efficiency. After you discover that you have wrong end toward the outlet, take it down and redo it. Give the guy next door a friendly, high-spirited wave.
Bang your head on the roof overhang, opening a gash which casts a Christmassy red across your pale, bald head. Chuckle to yourself as you ponder your amusing misfortune.
Put up the second strand of lights. Replace the bulbs you break when you step on them. Then when it becomes clear that the plug cannot reach the socket, take it down and redo it. Whistle with contentment.
Bang your head on the roof again. Just for the fun of it.
Plug in the lights to check your progress. When half of the lights in one strand won’t come on, spend an hour or so trying to figure out which bulb is responsible for the broken circuit. Give up and rip the entire strand from the eaves with a merry “Ho Ho Ho.”
Continue hanging and rehanging lights until dusk. Fall off of the ladder only as frequently as necessary. Pretend that you really didn’t care about the football game anyway. Think lovingly about your children who sit inside playing video games and texting their friends.
Invite your sweetheart outside to admire the finished product. Give her a warm, affectionate squeeze when she says, “Tomorrow we start on the inside of the house.”

B. Decorate the Tree

Much to the consternation of your eldest children, the tree comes in a box. Since it consists of three distinct parts, erecting the tree is a lot easier than, say, putting up the lights—which, we realize, does not explain the split lip and the chipped tooth. Be that as it may, the tree goes up in a relative jiffy.

Now comes the fun part: As the ornaments come out of the box, the time has arrived for the traditional, festive colloquy between the strident eldest children, who miss the days of yore “when we shopped for a real tree” each December, and the mom, who reminds them each year that, since we live in California, the trees that are trucked here from Oregon have been dead since Labor Day. The substance of the discussion might go something like this: Kids: “Tradition!” Mom: “Fire!” And so on. Until Valentine’s Day.

C. Deck the Halls

You may not have boughs of holly, but you should have an array of baubles and oddments with which to make the season bright. As you distribute them where once you could find the remote control, observe in particular the stupefying array of snowmen which quickly establish a beachhead in your family room. (Should time allow, you may also wish to ponder the prominence of frosty décor in a place which hasn’t seen snow since there were wooly mammoths hot-tubbing in the La Brea Tar Pits.) As the kids scurry about with their favorite bits of bric-a-brac, notice how the mood has somehow shifted.

When each piece is in its place and the ancillary detritus has been stowed, ditch the yeti and go around the corner to the living room, where instead of elves and reindeer you’ll find shepherds and sheep of various varieties. Take a seat, and perhaps you’ll notice for the first time the holiday music that now fills your home, or the laughter (can it be?) emanating from all three children simultaneously. Cast your eyes about at the scene: On the wall hangs a picture of the Jesus, beside it a favorite print of timid shepherds stealing a glimpse of Mary and Joseph’s newborn son. There might be a wonderful paper crèche from Mexico City or one your son made many years ago out of aluminum foil. And if you’re lucky, you’ll spy a simple display made of olivewood which gets an honored spot on the table in the middle of the room. Notice also that in each crèche all eyes are on the baby. And who knows? You may find that yours are on the baby as well.

And so they should be at this time of year, tangled lights and plastic trees notwithstanding. It is, after all, the time of “peace on earth, good will to men”—provided, that is, that you don’t ask about the split lip.