Tag: Seth

Solving for X

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2012Leave a comment

Dear Will:

We’re doing geometry. Or I should say, Seth is doing geometry. His old man, meanwhile, is staring at a page full of triangles and barely familiar symbols (AB||CD, anybody?) and thinking to himself: “Did I really know this stuff once?”

Probably not. I do remember enough about the ninth grade at Goddard Junior High School to recall my teacher’s name, and I may even have received a reasonably good grade. But I also remember that even before I left high school it was clear to me that I hadn’t really managed to catch the geometry wave. So it is with no small amount of trepidation that I respond to Seth’s desperate request for help with his homework.

I stare dumbly at the page. Nothing clicks. I resort to the standard parent fallback ploy of reading through the textbook in a vain attempt to relearn what once I must have known, but I’m missing the foundation necessary to make the examples comprehensible. So I take to asking Seth questions of my own, and suddenly it is as if Seth were helping me with my homework. His patience wanes.

Then, a breakthrough: I review Question 22 and it occurs to me that it can be solved using algebra. Algebra! I remember algebra! I think I can even DO a little algebra! Clearly more excited than Seth, I set to work, cross-multiplying happily and even deploying something I think we used to call the FOIL method. I proceed a little awkwardly, with uneven jabs and starts, but before long it’s clear that I have calculated my way to the right answer. And I can prove it! Alas, Seth has long since given up on me and headed off to get ready for bed. I consider high-fiving myself but think better of it.

Still, I’m amazed. I learned my algebra from Mr. Burgess almost 40 years ago. Nevertheless, there was the FOIL method (or whatever it was called), tucked somewhere in the folds of my brain, waiting to be teased out of hiding during an hour of father-son bonding over homework. And the rules that applied when I was learning algebra in 1973 or 1974 still apply today. If I had been given that same problem by Mr. Burgess, x would have equaled 14.5, just as it does tonight.

That’s the singular beauty of math—or, at any rate, the kind of math that an English major like me can understand. There is always a right answer. In just about every other discipline there is an element of subjectivity, so that personal preference or judgment or opinion play an important role in determining what’s right or what’s true. And that truth might change as new theories are tested and new facts established. But with math, 2+2 will always equal 4, today and tomorrow and for generations to come.

There are other absolute truths much more important than those that govern algebra, of course. The existence of God, for instance, and our divine relationship to Him. The eternal purpose of life and the Plan that governs all human existence. The divine Sonship of Jesus Christ. These things are absolute, unchanging and unaffected by one’s personal opinion or belief. And just as the laws of mathematics can be proven, so can the eternal truths I’ve mentioned.

Years ago, Spencer W. Kimball gave a discourse (highly recommended) in which he said the following:

We learn about these absolute truths by being taught by the Spirit. These truths are “independent” in their spiritual sphere and are to be discovered spiritually, though they may be confirmed by experience and intellect (see D&C 93:30). The great prophet Jacob said that “the Spirit speaketh the truth. . . . Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be” (Jacob 4:13).

The prophet Moroni put it even more simply: “And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5). All things. Absolutely.

Except for maybe geometry. I’m still not so sure about that stuff.

PW

To Be Honest, It Was Up To Him

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20121 Comment

Dear Will:

My grandparents lived in a large home on a quiet street in a small town in western Wyoming. It was the home my mother grew up in. It had a lovely front entryway which opened into a spacious living room where you would have found the first piano I ever played.

One of my sisters taught me a simple song on that piano (you might know it yourself). It’s played with the knuckles of one hand, only on the black keys. To play it requires no training and even less talent, but I remember how magical it was to produce music from that big, grand piano. I immediately told my mother that I wanted to learn to play.

To be clear, this was not a historic moment in the annals of music. Although I could more or less keep a beat, I wasn’t much of a prodigy. And like any normal, low-talent kid, I didn’t like practicing. I liked the idea of playing the piano, of course; I just didn’t care for the work required to play it well. Although I can still play to this day—and even have come to enjoy it—I never learned to read music well enough that I could ever perform for anyone but myself. Forty years removed from five brief years of lessons, I still play like an eighth-grader who needs to practice more.

Come to think of it, I have just such an eighth-grader right here in my own home. Although we don’t have an entryway and our living room is much more modest than my grandparents’, we do have a grand piano where Seth slumps each day to suffer his way through 15 or 20 minutes of unenthusiastic practice. Occasionally, he might even give off a subtle hint that he would really rather be doing something else. He might pause mid-song, for instance, and say, “I hate the piano” or “I HATE the piano!” or maybe even “I HATE THE PIANO!!” In fact, he goes so far as to set a timer lest he play even one minute beyond his prescribed time. All of which makes him a pretty normal eighth-grader, if you ask me.

Except for this:

On Saturday night my wife and I were sitting in the Carpenter Center during intermission of Musical Theatre West’s production of 42nd Street. (Highly recommended, by the way. Our friend Zach Hess plays one of the leads and he is fabulous.) As we waited for the show to resume (it was around 9:30 p.m.), my phone rang. It was Seth.

“I just realized that I forgot to do my practicing,” he said. “Do I have to?”

Excuse me? What sort of eighth-grader, left home alone on a Saturday night, calls his parents to admit that he has not gotten around to doing the thing he hates the most? A lesser 13-year-old—which is to say, just about any other 13-year-old on the planet—would simply have watched a little more TV and then slipped off to bed, knowing that no one would ever know whether he practiced or not. But not Seth. Throughout his 13+ years of life, he may not have become a concert pianist, but as you can see he has become something much more remarkable than that. Actually, I misstated that. He hasn’t become anything. Rather he has remained that which he has always been: a model of integrity and honor.

As for Saturday night, I was so impressed by his honesty that when he asked Do I have to? I told him it was up to him—at which point he promptly hung up and went back to watching TV. Proving, I suppose, that for all his integrity, he’s still a pretty normal kid.

Makes you kind of proud, to be honest.

PW

“I’m So Sorry”

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2012Leave a comment

Dear Will:

There are these three boys next door who think my son is the coolest. They stand at the wall between our houses and call his name; or sometimes, if they’re feeling brave, they come to the door and ring for him. There’s nothing unusual about any of that except that Seth is nearly 13 and the boys next door are six, five, and three. It’s a strange friendship, to be sure, but Seth is the sort of good-natured fellow who takes genuine pleasure in creating fun and adventure for the kids next door.

Were they brats, Seth might not be so enthusiastic, of course, but the truth is that the half-pint neighbors are delightfully charming. They’re around frequently enough that they and I have even developed a standard greeting: “Hey,” I’ll bellow, as I climb out of my car, “what’s the big idea?!?”

“Nothing!” they respond in perfect unison, grinning each time at the familiar ritual. In fact, it’s gotten so that when they see me they’ll often yell “Nothing!” even before I have a chance to say my line. Irresistible.

These are very little boys who nevertheless show few of the tendencies you and I might otherwise ascribe to three so young and so, um, related. They do not squabble. They do not tease. They don’t even show any open resentment toward the youngest for always tagging along and asking the sorts of inane questions that tend to drive older brothers crazy. And recently it occurred to me that, in spite of all of the play and competition and backyard sports in which they and Seth engage, I had never heard any them cry.

Had never. A couple of weeks ago, I was summoned to the backyard by Seth, who was in full-blown panic. I came out to discover water gushing out of my automatic sprinklers. The little fellow in tears—heartfelt tears—was trying to explain that it was all an accident. They were playing some sort of incomprehensible game involving the bocce balls, and one of those heavy wooden spheres had come down hard on the sprinkler mechanism and cracked the main. They didn’t mean to, he kept insisting. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I had to shut off the water completely in order to also shut off the tears.

As it turned out, the automatic sprinkler array had to be completely rebuilt because of the precision placement of that crack. I had to ask for outside help, and the grass went unwatered for days until the work was complete. I don’t know what that’s going to cost me, but you can rest assured that the project was not in the budget.

Nevertheless, I am neither angry nor annoyed. How can I be upset at a little boy for an accident? In truth, I’m not even a little upset. If he had been defensive or belligerent, or if he had denied responsibility, I suppose I would be grumbling about the whole thing. But the fact is that he was genuinely contrite, remorseful in a way that leaves me still feeling sorry for him. I found myself wanting to comfort him, reassure him, make his pain go away. I wanted him to feel deep down that there was no real harm done, that I had forgiven him even before he had asked for my forgiveness.

In light of those very real, very human, very familiar emotions—his desperation to be forgiven and my heartfelt desire to reassure him and forgive—is it even somewhat difficult to believe that God will forgive us of our misdeeds? If we mortals are capable of such compassion, imagine how much more profound is the love of God directed toward those who come to Him with broken hearts and contrite spirits. Imagine how willing He is to lift our sorrows and heal our pains. “Come unto me,” Christ says, “all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Believe it.

PW