Second Interlude

When I moved to Provo, there was no question in my mind that I would be leaving singles wards behind. I didn't want the awkwardness of being a BYU professor in a ward with BYU students, for one. But I also wanted leaving the singles ward to be my choice, and not the result of reaching an arbitrary age barrier. But of course I worried. I worried that I wouldn't know how to form a new social group (which proved kind of true, but I'm not friendless and I'm learning that being social can take different forms). I worried about being stereotyped by my single status (which hasn't proved true - most people in my ward who don't know me assume I'm married, which makes for occasional awkward moments, and most people who do know me don't really seem to care that I'm single). And I worried about getting lost in the crowd, because I've known, and known of, lots of single people who made the transition to family wards and have gotten lost.

But that hasn't been my experience either. Maybe I can take credit for some of it. After all, I really, truly do believe that you can't expect to be reached out to if you're not reaching out yourself. I'm not perfect at this reaching-out business, but I try to stay involved, to be friendly, to talk to people, to make it known that I'm willing to do what I can do.

But mostly it's my ward that takes the credit. They've never been anything but welcoming to me, and have never made me feel like a lesser person for not having a spouse or children. I'm not saying they are good about overlooking my singleness - I'm saying it's a complete non-issue, which is different and exactly as it should be. I feel like I am needed and wanted for the person I am, and I'm grateful that I landed here.

Of course, being visible comes with consequences. Not negative consequences, just consequences. One consequence is that I've been put to work. I was asked to play the organ almost as soon as I moved in the ward, and then was asked to be the Girls Camp director, and they didn't even wait until Girls Camp was over (only until it was pendingly over) to ask me to teach the 10 and 11 year old girls class in Primary. Even though I had to teach my first lesson during the craziest of camp preparation weekends, I am still thrilled about the calling. 10 and 11 year old girls are really fun to work with.

Fortunately, as if to make it easier on me, today's lesson had a nice math connection: proportional reasoning!

Here's a proportional reasoning problem for you.* I'll make the gospel connection in a minute; I just want you to know what I'm talking about.

A gardener plants two small trees. Tree A is 2 feet tall to begin with and grows to be 5 feet tall by the end of the summer. Tree B is 3 feet tall to begin with and grows to be 6 feet tall by the end of the summer. 

Which tree grew more?

    a. Tree A grew more.

    b. Tree B grew more.

    c. Both trees grew the same amount.

Answer that yourself first before you go on.




Really do answer it.




I hate the term "trick" question, because I don't try to trick my math students, just to make them think. But if you really want to use that term, this is a trick question, because all answers could be valid in a way. C is true because they both grew 3 feet. B is true (but I think it's the biggest stretch) because Tree B grew to be taller than Tree A. But A is also true, because while B grew twice as tall as its original height, A grew more than twice as tall. Relative to its original height, Tree A grew more.

Proportional comparisons are not necessarily the first place people go, especially children. But in many quantitative situations it's a much more meaningful comparison than an additive comparison (e.g., that both trees grew the same amount because they both grew 3 feet). The difference is more striking if you imagine that the second tree was, say, 20 feet tall to begin with and grew to 23 feet tall.

And proportional reasoning is exactly what makes the story I taught today in Sunday school meaningful. We talked about the story of the widow's mite. From an additive perspective, the widow's mite was far, far less than what the wealthy were giving to the treasury. But relative to what she had, her contribution was far, far more.

Maybe you think the math connection is a stretch, but I don't. I think proportionality is right at the heart of the meaning of the story. While it was fun to introduce a little math into my Sunday school lesson, just because that's what I do, I like the gospel principle behind proportionality. Our lives are not lived and evaluated in additive comparisons with other people. The work I'm doing as a camp director right now, for instance, is not "this much more" or "this much less" than the work of the previous camp director (who, I hear, did an amazing job before she moved out of the ward). Rather, my work and my contributions are taken, at least in the Lord's eyes, and hopefully in my own and in others, relative to my own abilities and background. So it is with camp, so it is with many, many other aspects of life.

* I may or may not have actually had my girls do this problem in class.