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<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n After a leisurely morning that included partaking of the sacrament, we drove over to the Kula district \u2014 where, by the way, most of the famous Maui onions are grown \u2014\u00a0 on the western slope of the massive volcano Haleakal\u0101.\u00a0 We had a specific reason for going there: We wanted to see the historic little Pulehu Chapel once again.\u00a0 My next column for Meridian Magazine<\/em> will probably center, to at least some degree, on Pulehu.\u00a0 We were disappointed to see the chapel fenced off and locked up this time.\u00a0 It seems that maybe some construction or restoration might be going on there.\u00a0 If so, that would offer some consolation.\u00a0 During our previous visit, we met a picnicking Polynesian Latter-day Saint family on the grounds, had a great conversation with them about the sacredness and the historical importance of the site, and actually went inside the humble little building.\u00a0 Alas, not so this time.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Leaving Pulehu, we drove to the summit of the mighty and magnificent\u00a0Haleakal\u0101, which rises to 10,023 feet (3,055 meters) above sea level.\u00a0 As before, we had to drive through dispiriting cloud and fog, wondering whether we would be able to see anything from atop the mountain.\u00a0 Also as before, the sun appeared suddenly, the clouds fell away beneath us, and the air was perfectly clear.\u00a0 To the southeast, we could see the Big Island of Hawai\u2018i, including its two great peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.\u00a0 There was more low-level cloud cover than on our previous visit, but we were also still able to make Moloka\u2019i out to the distant northwest.\u00a0 And Haleakal\u0101\u2019s vast crater, with its inner moonscape, is breathtaking.\u00a0 Photos don\u2019t do it justice.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s probably a good illustration for a talk in sacrament meeting in the climb up\u00a0Haleakal\u0101.\u00a0 Maybe material for a parable about mortality and what awaits us on the other side, or about striving to become more like our Heavenly Parents:\u00a0 You find yourself lazing around down at sea level.\u00a0 It\u2019s comfortable, and you see no real need to leave.\u00a0 After all, as the shirts and signs remind us, life\u2019s a beach,\u00a0 The breezes are gentle, the landscape soft and green, the temperatures are moderate both night and day, the air is slightly blurred with hanging humidity.\u00a0 But something calls to you, beckons you, to climb higher.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard, and you\u2019re tempted to give up.\u00a0 As you struggle slowly up the mountain\u2019s enormous flank, the landscape is less lush and friendly.\u00a0 It grows sere, barren, rough, harsh, even hostile.\u00a0 But you keep on going.\u00a0 Then come the clouds and the fog that almost always encircle the mountain.\u00a0 It\u2019s surprisingly dark.\u00a0 You can scarcely see.\u00a0 You wonder whether you shouldn\u2019t have stayed in the warm and gentle sunlight below.\u00a0 Nonetheless, you continue to climb.\u00a0 But you can\u2019t really imagine ever coming out of the fog.\u00a0 Suddenly, though, you do.\u00a0 Spectacularly.\u00a0 The air is rarified, but it\u2019s as clear as you\u2019ve ever seen.\u00a0 You\u2019re looking down<\/em> on the clouds.\u00a0 From above, they\u2019re even quite beautiful, nothing like the dark obscurity that they represented when you were actually in<\/em> them. And the sheer grandeur of the vista is beyond description.\u00a0 You seem to be able to see forever.\u00a0 The complexities of the terrain below you are suddenly clear when seen from above.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n On another note:\u00a0 Today has been Mother\u2019s Day.\u00a0 Not only in the United States of America but in other countries, as well \u2014 from Anguilla via Antigua and Barbuda to Venezuela and Vietnam and Zambia and Zimbabwe.\u00a0 I confess that, when I was growing up, I didn\u2019t think too terribly much about the holiday.\u00a0 Further, over the years I\u2019ve thought that it was (a) too commercialized and (b) often too sentimentalized.\u00a0 I\u2019ve changed my mind, to a large extent, about the second of those complaints.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So, now, a word about what I\u2019ve come to recognize about the mother of my children and about my own mother:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I marvel at the selflessness with which my mother cared for me and my late brother, for her brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, for her grandchildren, and for many others \u2014 until, finally, she was unable to do it any more.\u00a0 And I\u2019m continually stunned at my wife\u2019s thoughtfulness, at her concern and solicitude for her children, her grandchildren, her parents (now her widowed father), and her siblings, as well as our neighbors and our friends.\u00a0 Even when I\u2019m somewhat involved, she keeps at it long after I\u2019ve grown tired.\u00a0 I\u2019m astonished at all that she does for me<\/em>.\u00a0 Willingly.\u00a0 Of her own gracious, overflowing kindness and love.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ll put it context with some words about, well, about me<\/em>:\u00a0 I am, simply, not the callous and cold-hearted monster that certain of my most obsessive critics have labored to portray me as over the years.\u00a0 I\u2019m just not.\u00a0 And I think that few if any of those who actually know me personally would say otherwise.\u00a0 That said, though, I\u2019m plainly and undeniably and consistently inferior to my mother and to my wife in the vitally important area of caring selflessly, tirelessly for others.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t sentimentality.\u00a0 I\u2019m not putting them on unrealistic pedestals.\u00a0 It\u2019s the cold and clear-eyed truth.\u00a0 I\u2019m unworthy of the love and care of these two women for me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I admire them more than I can say, and I want to pay tribute to them at the end of this Mother\u2019s Day 2021.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I liked these two Mother\u2019s Day items from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou Are the Women He Foresaw\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a>