Night at the Recording Studio

Last night my friend Nancy and I went to hear Jack R. Christianson present a lecture entitled "She Loved Me First" at the recording studio where they recorded it for CD. They are planning on releasing it around Mother's Day. It was free and open to the public so I thought it would be full. He speaks at Education Week sometimes and is very popular so we left early to make sure we had good seats. It started at 7:00 so we arrived around 6:30. There was only one other person waiting and the doors were locked. They finally opened the doors less than 15 minutes before it was scheduled to start. A few of us went in and sat down.

A few minutes later, Jack Christianson and his wife walked in. They were very friendly. There were about 20 of us and they said that it was more than they usually have for a recording. I was amazed! His wife sat next to me and told me a funny story about Brother Christianson's parents. One time they came in for a recording and the dad is hard of hearing and didn't notice that he was making so much noise by kicking the back of the seat in front of him. The mother knew that it was noisy for the recording so she tried to quiet him down, but didn't really help since she kept going, "SHHHH!" They had to re-record part of the lecture after they left.

The lecture was about honoring women and womanhood. I really liked it, but definitely left wanting more. He said at the end that he had more, but we ran out of time. I wished that they would just stop the recording and let him talk to all of us there. I was excited that I was allowed to take notes, even though I plan on getting it when it comes out. Here are two of the quotes he used that I wrote down. I didn't get to write the first one down all the way, but looked it up online. This is what I found, but I'm not sure how much of it he used last night or when Elder Cowley said it.

"To you sisters: You belong to the great sorority of saviorhood. You may not hold the priesthood. Men are different; men have to have something given to them to make them saviors of men, but not mothers, not women. You are bon with an inherent right, an inherent authority, to be the saviors of human souls. You area the co-creators with God of his children. Therefore, it is expected of you by a right divine that you be the saviors and the regenerating force in the lives of God's children here upon the earth." Elder Matthew Cowley

"The illusion of perfection in the partner will not last. And that is why the essence of marital love is not romance but forgiveness…Forgiveness as the truest form of love means accepting without bitterness the flaws and imperfection of our partner, and praying that our partner accepts our flaws as well…Mature marital love sees faults clearly and forgives them, understanding that there are no perfect people, and that an imperfect spouse is all that an imperfect person like us can aspire to…If we cannot love imperfect people, if we cannot forgive them for their exasperating faults, we will condemn ourselves to a life of loneliness, because imperfect people are the only kind we will ever find." Rabbi Harold S. Kushener, How Good Do We Have to Be?, New York, Little, Brown Publishing, 1996.

One of the points that he made that is important for me to learn is that when we chastize, we need to not only do it with love, but to uplift and edify at the same time. Wow, do I need to work on that! I won't share anything else since you might get to listen to it and I don't want to spoil it for you. I have two of Jack Christianson's CDs (Heaing the Wounded Soul and Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled) and have enjoyed listening to them. I just checked out one called A Constant Companion: Keeping the Spirit with You. I listened to it while dashing around the kitchen, cooking for the missionaries, so I didn't get to take notes to share. I'll do that soon when I listen to it again. I was so glad that I was able to go and it was fun to be with Nancy. She is great!