After teaching school for one year she realized that she wanted to spend her professional life writing. She wrote for the New Era magazine before moving to Chicago in On the line was a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times, who explained the paper wanted to publish a story about Mormon women. When Proctor responded that she was a Mormon woman and a writer, they had her write the story, then hired her to write many subsequent pieces. She also began writing for McGraw-Hill magazines. Proctor continued writing when she returned to Utah in , including for the Mormon Tabernacle choir program Music and the Spoken Word, for Tabernacle Choir Christmas specials, and for the radio program You and Your World.
Dunn and wrote three on her own. After a divorce, Proctor married Scot Facer Proctor in , bringing together their eleven children. Scot and Maurine are partners both at home and at work. Together they edited This People magazine from to They also added six hundred footnotes and one hundred fifty photographs. In , the two founded an online magazine called Meridian, a popular source for LDS news, commentary, and special interest articles. Looking back on the circumstances under which she gave the following talk in , Proctor reflected that often she writes about something in order to work it out in her own mind.
One night several years ago, we had an older teenaged daughter who did not arrive at her We did what any good parent would do. We made those awkward middle-of-the-night calls to her friends. Our imaginations were flying with the dangers she could be in. I cried with worry. The minutes seemed like hours. The world was asleep, but not us—two parents so concerned about their precious daughter. At last, at 3: We had decided on a plan to divide and conquer.
My husband, Scot, stayed up in our bedroom and prayed for me while I went down to greet our daughter. The conversation was just as you might expect. I pounced on her—not literally, but there was an edge in my voice. I reminded her of her curfew, told her of the dangers and temptations abroad in the late hours of the night, described our painful worry. She told me she was too old for a curfew.
The more she resisted my teaching, the more tension you could feel between us. I badly needed help to turn this divisive conversation into a sweet moment of love and teaching. I had been praying much for this daughter of ours whom I had been worried about, and just a few days earlier the Spirit had whispered something about her to me.
I stopped my lesson on curfews for a moment. I was still and knew that this was the moment to tell her that message. It was the first time she really heard anything I said. She believed that God had heard my prayers and answered them. She believed that he knew her and loved her. Our conversation became sweet as I told her of the confidence that God had in her and of his personal knowledge of her heart and goodness. Before, she had been eager to escape my presence and lecture. Now, she was all ears and we talked until 4: I count it as a treasured hour in my mothering experience.
Our life is like the journey the Jaredites anticipated across the stormy sea, where the mountain waves would dash them, they would be carried here and there by the winds, and they would be tossed by strong currents. Was there anything really wrong with the way I began talking to my daughter? Given the situation, I was fairly calm, I was clear, I was also right.
The problem was, until the Spirit stepped in with his light, I was also totally ineffective. The brother of Jared sought a remedy for the darkness. What kind of grueling labor in those times was required to create a heat source that can melt stones, sweat dripping from your brow? Yet still, after all the brother of Jared could do, after hard labor and effort, and the best solutions of his own mind, still he had only sixteen dark stones. They were only able to shine when they were touched by the finger of God. So often we are troubled and hurried, wearied and overworked. We create the equivalent of sixteen stones in our lives, and that is where we leave it.
The world is so much with us 11 that we do not take the journey to the mountaintop and let the Lord touch all our dizzying effort with his finger and fill it with light.
Until he does, however, we are still traveling in the darkness. The scriptures have a phrase for this hurry in the darkness. Paul, before his conversion, had this kind of blindness. He went around with great zeal doing the wrong thing, spewing out anger and persecuting Christians.
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Then after his vision on the road to Damascus, he literally lost his sight. He was blind until he received a blessing and the scales fell from his eyes. Then there was the man, blind from birth, whom the Lord healed on the Sabbath. Of course there was a ruckus and the Pharisees called the man before them, wanting to know how he had received his sight. Alma says the Spirit enlightens our understandings and expands our minds. He comprehends the answers to every question we have. He knows how to spring us from our limitations and lift the roadblocks. How can I love effectively and open my heart to bless those whose lives touch mine?
How do I choose between all the possibilities and make the best use of my life? How do I find sustenance for the dry times? What is the song I came to sing? How can I overcome the things that hurt? And dear Lord, who art thou? How can some of that light be shed into our own minds? The scriptures reveal a pattern for receiving enlightenment—and it is not one we usually talk about: Serious reflection precedes revelation. Lehi tells his sons about his vision of the tree of life, and they have vastly different reactions. Laman and Lemuel went into a tent and fought about its meaning, but Nephi turned his mind to serious reflection.
His mind became a fertile field in which the Lord could plow. Smith received a glorious vision of Christ coming to the host of the dead. In this vision he saw the joy and gladness of the innumerable company of spirits who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus Christ.
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What opened his eyes to receive this powerful experience? It is focused and concentrated thought, like sunlight through a magnifying glass that will burn a hole in paper. It is not superficial. It does not flit around from one distraction to another. It does not leap off course or waver like the waves of the sea.
And how often we wish they were not that way. When I think of a wild bird of passage, I remember the day that a bird flew into our office through an open window. It could not find its way out, and in its panic it flew from one side of the room to the other in useless flutterings. We watched it swoop from corner to corner, dashing about and making no progress.
Prayer and spirituality demand mental discipline and focus. Is it any wonder that this kind of prayer does not lead to revelation: I have so much to do. And please bless … Is the party Friday or Saturday night? Distractions are the enemy of pondering and serious reflection. Enough little things that turn our heads will do. Lewis captures this idea in his book The Screwtape Letters. The premise is that these are a series of letters from Screwtape, a senior devil, to a junior devil, teaching him the best way to tempt the mortal to whom he is assigned. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way.
He had a moment of serious reflection about the divine and eternal. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. Not only are our lives riddled with distractions, too often we think the distractions are what life is all about.
We stay on the shore playing with plastic beach toys instead of wading into the deep water where so much waits to be discovered. Thy mind, O man! We cannot understand the answers to questions we have not asked. God cannot share his deep knowledge with those who are not interested in the elementary curriculum. In the journey to understand the vast expanse that God would teach us about our own lives and the universe beyond, vista leads to another vista. Impressions come to minds open to be taught, not those already rattling with trifles. But, we want to cry out: I cannot help it.
We are the people of God. He has things to tell us that are only accessible to a mind that can often be given to serious reflection. We did not come here to forget our divine destiny under a clutter of random thoughts. This native Midwestern plant thrives in damp, acidic, and rich humus forest floors in eastern North America.
Colorful Combinations
To create this habitat for Jack-in-the-pulpit in your garden, amend the soil in an area of full or partial shade with compost or an acidic fertilizer. It doesn't need a well-drained location as many other plants do, making it a wonderful option for wet, boggy areas of your garden. Jack-in-the-pulpits are poisonous, especially the corms, so exercise caution when planting these. See more wildflowers for shade. To plant, dig a 6-inch-deep hole and place the corm as you would a crocus or other small bulbs—root side down.
These are ephemeral plants: Once they have bloomed and stored enough energy for next year, the foliage dies back. Plan to fill bare spots with annuals. To prevent slugs from damaging Jack-in-the-pulpit, place a small bowl or container filled with a few inches of beer near the plants. The slugs can't resist the smell, crawl into the container, and drown. Another way to deter slugs is to keep landscape tidy: Slugs like to spend their days under things, where it's nice and moist.
Sprinkling diatomaceous earth, eggshells, grit, sand, gravel, and pine needles creates barriers slugs don't want to crawl over to reach your Jack-in-the-pulpit plants. Jack-in-the-pulpit is resistant to deer, too! It is a large species, sometimes growing 30 inches tall. Plant it in a grouping for best effect.
Jack-in-the Pulpit
Red berries in fall extend its season of interest. Please try again later. Share your take on this idea! Upload your photo here. Colorful Combinations Jack-in-the-pulpit blooms in spring.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Heart-Leaf Brunnera In spring, a cloud of tiny blue flowers hovers above brunnera's mound of fuzzy heart-shape leaves. The plant prefers partial shade but can grow in full sun in cool climates provided it receives adequate moisture. Variegated forms need more shade; in full sun they're likely to scorch. It is sometimes called Siberian bugloss.