Organization

Tonight I went to a RS activity for the women at church.  Since it was January the theme was on organization, organizing finances, organizing your home, organizing yourself spiritually.  It wasn't quite what I had expected, but I really liked what I heard.
The bishop's wife is a CPA and was asked to talk about organizing your finances.  Instead of talking about how to pinch every penny until it screams or how to audit your grocery receipts, she talked about provident living.  There is a lot of emphasis on this in the church.  In fact there is a whole website dedicated to the idea.  The way she defined it was "joyfully living within your means".  I liked that.  If you are doing it grudgingly it won't stick.  You have to live.  What that "requires" is different for everyone, but you have to at least meet basic needs and be able to sustain it for the long haul.  Within implies that there are constraints.  Even if incomes are high there are still limits.  Some people with very high incomes also have very high debts.  It is YOUR means, not someone else's.  You have to do what works for your family and keep your family circumstances as the guide for what you do. 

She also talked about the idea of the Lord's storehouse.  In areas where there are a lot of members there is a Bishop's storehouse that provides food and clothing to members in need.  The Lord's storehouse is something quite different, a principle rather than a physical place.  "The Lord's storehouse includes the time, talents, skills, compassion, consecrated material, and financial means of faithful Church members."  Then she applied this to our families and the idea of living within your means.  Means is not just money, but also time, talents, compassion, etc.  It reminded me of conversations I have had recently about social capital.  Social capital includes our relationships, and our educational and social resources.  So much of what we become in life if because of the social capital we have, the connections to others around us.  We not only need to be good stewards of our financial capital, but of our social capital as well, to come to the point that we can have a surplus to share with others.

Another woman from the ward was asked to talk about organizing our homes.  She didn't tell us that we needed to alphabetize our picture books or set up a rotating schedule for cleaning our homes.  Instead she talked about wisdom.  It relates, really it does.  Wisdom is her word for the year.  When we are wise about that we bring in to our homes and our lives and also wise about what we get rid of we can reduce a lot of the chaos that is a natural part of life.  Entropy is a powerful natural force at all levels.  A friend once referred to his kids as little entropy engines.  I agree.  It takes a lot of energy to resist the tendency to disorder.  Some days I do better than others.

I guess this brings somehow me to my word for the year, Enjoy.  For the past two years my word has been engage.  I felt the need to make an effort to be more engaged with the kids and family, to engage in good work.  This year I don't feel that urgency.  I feel like I need to take the time to enjoy where I am.  I have great kids and a wonderful husband.  I need to take the time to enjoy them, play dolls, read more books with them, talk to them, listen to them.  (The doll thing is a tough one for me, but I've found if I just sit there with her I don't really need to do much.)  Just enjoy them and include them in the things that I enjoy as well.