No Coincidences

Tag: soul

  • Ivy, Sage, and Wren Thoughts

    Ivy, Sage, and Wren Thoughts

    A lot has changed since Ivy and Sage thoughts was posted in June of 2024. Since then, Wren has joined the family.

    Sage is very much forming full sentences now (callback to last post). She has a lot to say. A really neat thing to see is Sage’s adoration for her big sister. She follows Ivy around everywhere she goes. She’s started wearing Ivy’s slides to school, even though they’re way too big for her, because they’re Ivy’s old shoes.

    Sage is still shy. She’s getting better, but still has her moments. She’ll open up to people rarely. If a stranger is around she becomes super coy. She’s gotten especially better with family and people she sees regularly. But once she knows you and trusts you, she is full Sagey Sunshine. She is a linchpin in nursery at church. She walks in and gets other kids toys. It’s weird because despite being shy she likes to sing as loudly as she can during sacrament meeting in church. The only way to get her to be quiet is to tell her everyone is watching her because she’s being too loud. She immediately quiets down and starts looking around. I hope I’m not irreparably damaging her psyche.

    Ivy’s growth and transformation since Wren was born is extraordinary. She still has her toddler moments. but overall she seems like a new person. A new maturity has immerged. She is smotheringly loving with Wren.

    Ivy and Sage are constantly asking to hold Wren. They love her.

    I’ve been telling people the oldest child has to grow up fast, the middle child has to learn to survive, and the youngest child will be the toughest. Wren has been mauled since the second she got home. If you look closely at her eyes you can’t help but see a, “I left heaven for this?” Look on her face.

    It’s interesting watching this dynamic develop between Ivy, Sage, and Wren, and then think about myself and my siblings. I think about how quickly I had to grow up, how Adie followed me around, and how much I used to beat up Garrick and Dresdan.

    Recently Garrick sent me a video. It was a guy talking about his older brother. He was saying how he was grateful for his older brother because he watched his older brother take all the speed bumps so he didn’t have to. That meant a lot to me.

    Now I’m seeing Ivy already start taking the speed bumps that Sage and Wren won’t have to.

    Transition into a heartwarming sister story.

    Bedtime is of course an adventure/disaster/struggle pretty much every night. Ivy and Sage share a room. Most nights they lay down, all seems quiet, then Sage gets out of bed, turns on the light, climbs onto Ivy’s bed, and they start playing. This would be okay, except that it turns into tears and pain almost 100% of the time if left unchecked.

    One night we put Ivy and Sage to bed a little earlier than usual. I watched on the monitor as Sage turned on the light and got into Ivy’s bed. I went upstairs and opened the door. Sage immediately reacted by starting to frantically scoot towards the edge of the bed, as she was used to me angrily coming in to tell her to get back in bed. This night I decided to give another message. I told Sage she could stay with Ivy as long as they did calm and quiet activities like read and tell stories. Sage got so excited. The smile on her face. She scooted back toward Ivy and started quietly clapping with the biggest grin on her face.

    Ivy said, “Okay, I be just a little crazy.”

    I told her no crazy at all. She said, “Just this much crazy,” and showed her forefinger and thumb pressed tightly together indicating a tiny bit of crazy. I reiterated that there was to be no crazy. I left them to quietly play. They ended up peacefully going to sleep.

    Bedtime, sitting and playing quietly together, turning on the light, I’ve learned every so often it’s okay to just let it go. It eventually ends up in Sage crying, but at that point she’ll just get in bed and go to sleep. Ivy will usually lie down quietly facing her lamp going through her books and audio sleep stories.

    We recently moved. The days during the move were…hard. It was difficult for the girls. I could tell. It’s interesting how our personalities, the things people don’t see, get passed onto our children. I could sense my girls feeling unsettled because I felt unsettled.

    I didn’t recognize Ivy and Sage during the move. They were not themselves. In the midst of this chaos, after they went to sleep, I had to write as I do every night. I came back to this post to continue on it.

    Writing about them was just what I needed. I re-read this in progress post and it reminded me of the normal disposition of my girls. This wasn’t them.

    I came back and read this –

    I was in the car with Ivy on a long drive. I was zoned out, in my own head.

    Suddenly Ivy said something to me. I just responded automatically without even thinking about what she said, “Yeah, Ivy.”

    Then I processed what she said. “The moms on the bus go beep beep beep.”

    Once I processed it, I realized Ivy was making our classic joke, saying something on the bus does something it doesn’t actually do.

    I cracked up and told Ivy she got me, and that it was really funny.

    She was silent so I didn’t know if she was over it because I took too long.

    I looked in the rearview mirror and she was sitting in her car seat with a smug grin on her face.

    “I made Dad laugh,” she said just loud enough for me to hear.

    Gosh I love these girls so much and I’ll try not to turn this Ivy and Sage moments post into a parenting post but… parenting is so hard. All the cliches – there is no playbook for this, I don’t know what I’m doing, etc.

    I am an apprentice parent. And who am I an apprentice to?

    The Father of the universe. What an honor. I know I’ve written about this before but how could He possibly entrust me – so incredibly flawed and faulty – to care for these precious souls?

    Anyways, back on to the positive, funny, and uplifting moments of parenting two amazing girls.

    Sage is crazy in the pool. Ivy as a baby had a semblance of this behavior before she got old enough to know better, but it was nothing like Sage. If we’re sitting on a step in the pool, Sage will repeatedly walk to the edge of the step and dive out into the water as far as she can. She’s not just stepping off the edge, she is diving. She’ll do one of two things at this point. She will either curl up into a ball or she will stretch out completely like she’s trying to reach the other end of the pool. It goes without saying we watch her very closely in and near the pool.

    My family likes to go cliff jumping at the lake. It’s one of our favorite activities. Looks like Sage is going to be my cliff jumper. Ivy will too, but Sage seems to have an innate desire for danger.

    As a kid I hated roller coasters. Hated. I would be peer-pressured to go on rides, and I would hate it. I remember my cousin Sarah loving roller coasters and having the feeling that I needed to toughen up. My parents now say it was Adie getting old enough to ride roller coasters that made me start embracing them. Now there’s nothing I love more than thrill rides and thrill activities. Roller coasters, sky diving, cliff jumping – these are my favorite things to do. If you told my 8-year-old self I’d grow up and my three favorite things would be roller coasters, jumping out of an airplane, and doing a gainer off a 35-foot cliff, I’d probably have thought that unlikely. It’s interesting how those around us influence us so much, sometimes for the better.

    Like I said, I think Sage is going to be a natural cliff-jumper. Ivy may see that and become a cliff-jumper as well.

    Ivy does already love the lake, though. Let the record show.

    There’s a mini battle Beth and I have had the last two summers when we visit Las Vegas. Beth doesn’t want Ivy to go to the lake with me and my family. I always think it goes without saying that she’s going.

    I kind of understand Beth’s reservations.

    I understand that Ivy is little, it can be the slightest bit dangerous if we don’t watch her closely (which we do), it’s hot, open water, etc.

    On the other hand, Ivy has to come to the lake with us!

    Beth’s main concern I know is that I’m not fully engaged in parenthood when at the lake. Hard to watch your daughter while you’re leaping off cliffs. That said, when I’m not jumping off cliffs, there’s nothing I want more than to be sitting with Ivy on a boat, a kayak, or swimming with her.

    When we finally did take Ivy to the lake for the first time, she loved it. She spent 8 hours at the lake, took a little cat nap in the shade while cruising around in a boat, went home, drove to St. George, and proceeded to stay up all night. Ivy’s a lake girl.

    One last funny Ivy story and Sage story to conclude this post.

    Ivy the other day started to say, “We’re going to do Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and Christmas.” As I was starting to think to myself, ‘Wow, how’d she know the order of holidays? My girl is growing up..’ Ivy concluded, “We’re going to do it backwards this year.” That made me chuckle.

    As I mentioned, we moved. The new neighborhood is full of little kids under the age of 9. Coming from essentially a retirement community at our condo, that’s been great.

    The other day Ivy and Sage were sitting in the grass playing with a new friend. Ivy was talking a lot, telling this new friend stuff. Sage, still her coy and quiet self at times, was repeating everything Ivy was saying, just extremely quiet. So Ivy would say, “This is how you make rock people” and Sage would whisper, “how..make.. rock people.”

    I love these girls.

  • Wren Sonora Quackenbush 1/20/2025

    Wren Sonora Quackenbush 1/20/2025

    It’s interesting considering what you can glean about a soul in the signs they give before their arrival.

    On Monday 1/20/25, someone asked me if I wanted to play basketball that night, I said I probably shouldn’t because Beth wouldn’t appreciate that. He asked when the baby was coming. I said, “Any day now. She’s being stubborn.”

    Maybe because Ivy and Sage both came a week early, maybe because Beth was extremely done with this pregnancy, maybe a combination of factors, but for 14 days leading up to Monday 1/20 we were thinking it would be any day.

    That led to a lot of anticipation. WHY AREN’T WE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL?

    Friday 1/17 Beth and I spent the night on the couch as she was having irregular contractions most of the night. We were ready at any moment to pack up and leave.

    Flash forward to 1/20 and I was at basketball practice when Beth called. She thought it was really happening this time. I told the team and was off, not super optimistic that it was actually happening. Once I arrived at the house, I knew it was happening.

    We quickly gathered our bags and were out the door. Ivy and Sage waved with Grandma and Aunt Jane from the front door. I’ll probably always remember that image. My two girls, my world, not fully realizing how their worlds were about to change – in challenging but amazing ways.

    I’m writing this from the hospital and I’m so excited for them to meet their new sister.

    What Wren lacked in initiative pushing us to the hospital she made up for once we arrived. We got to the hospital around 5:00pm and she was born at 6:05pm.

    Ivy and Sage’s births were fast and felt whirlwind-like. This had a whirlwind feel given the pace, but it really didn’t feel frantic at all. It felt very under control. Of course, who am I to say? Beth would probably say it was a complete whirlwind of chaos.

    When Beth and I were planning to get married our Bishop at the time had a sit down with us. I remember him commenting on how Beth came from a family of five children and I came from a family of six. He made a statement that I’ve remembered ever since. It was something like, “You two will have no problem having children.”

    I’m not sure how he meant it at the time, but with how Ivy, Sage, and now Wren have come, I can’t help but feel like it was a Bishop’s blessing. That’s how I’ve taken it ever since.

    Wren’s coming could not have gone any more smoothly.

    It felt like a blessed and sanctified process.

    It felt guided and protected.

    Again, Beth might not agree, I’m ultimately just a bystander to the process. I think she would agree though. Maybe we should ask her.

    This isn’t to say that difficult pregnancies or deliveries are any less special. On the contrary, challenges sometimes make the blessings more powerful. We all have our own experiences with this miracle. And that’s what each and every birth is: A miracle.

    I am grateful for a strong and capable wife that can do this unimaginable thing. We are blessed that this process has gone well for us three times. I do not take this for granted.

    So Wren arrived with a lot more hair at 6:05pm.

    I’ve described this process before. See Ivy and Sage’s welcome to life posts. I’ll try to put it into words for a third time.

    My heart didn’t split, it expanded. As I looked at Wren, Ivy and Sage flashed before my eyes. I thought about how I loved each of them so powerfully. I can’t remember if I was brought to tears immediately with the other two. Maybe I should go back and read their posts. I wanted to write this before reading Ivy or Sage’s so this could be completely original.

    But as I looked at Wren I had to hold back tears. Not sure why the third hit me so hard. Maybe it was the pace of things. Maybe three is a special number, and when your heart expands that third time, something special happens.

    I don’t know.

    All I know is I love her so much.

    It’s crazy, you know. I can’t believe I’m here, on earth. I can’t believe I’ve been given the power and ability to create life. The greatest gift of all existence, the power to create life, and it’s been entrusted to me. I can’t believe I have three daughters. I can’t believe I have a wife that is so special and such a great mother. I can’t believe I’ll get to be with them forever, for the rest of this life, and beyond. I can’t believe Wren was born into a covenant, ensuring that as long as I do my part she will be mine forever. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I often think about what I did to deserve all this. And I can’t for the life of me figure it out.

    But I’m anxious to say thank you one day.

    So, welcome to this life Wren. It’s hard but rewarding. It’s scary, but if you know why you’re here, there is peace. It is overwhelming, but you’ve been given a family to help with that.

    I love you baby girl and look so forward to seeing how your personality shapes and develops to add to our family. Thank you for coming to join us. We love you so.

  • Ignorance and Spontaneous Generation

    Ignorance and Spontaneous Generation

    Do you know what spontaneous generation is?

    Spontaneous generation is the outdated idea that living organisms can spontaneously come from other living organisms. For example, it used to be believed that a horse was how bees were created. People used to observe that a horse would die, and bees would “spontaneously generate” from the corpse. Crazy huh? Of course, now we know better. I wrote the below for a discussion post in my Science 301 class, Understanding Formal Processes.

    The once prevalent fallacy of spontaneous generation goes to show that we can be extremely wrong about simple and obvious things by relying on what our eyes tell us. When I initially started reading about spontaneous generation in Bondeson’s book, The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History, I could hardly believe that spontaneous generation was debated into the 1800s (Bondeson, 2014, p. 248). As I thought about it more, though, I understood how this theory took hold of observable logic and persisted for so long. An animal decays in the sun and maggots appear. Where did they come from? An obvious conclusion was the decaying flesh of the animal created the maggots.

    Scientific progress is filled with examples of people being sure of something that ends up being absurd. The relationship between observable scientific knowledge and the scientific method is that as the scientific method is improved upon, meaning, as theories and ways of experimenting on those theories improve, scientific knowledge grows in proportion. It’s interesting to note what Herman van Booerhave said of the brilliant mathematician Girolamo Cardano, that he was exceptional when correct in his theories but, “When he advocated erroneous theories, he surpassed them all in folly” (Bondeson, 2014, p. 197).

    Often, we see how outlandish proposed experiments can become. Take Paracelsus’s proposed experiment to create a human being by mixing excrements, semen, broth, and nutritious fluids (Bondeson, 2014, p. 196). While seemingly absurd, scientists have always been ridiculed for outlandish theories, and those theories only go the direction of proven or disproven by what Paracelsus proposed: an experiment. Even the most outlandish experiment using the scientific method is an improvement on assumptions based solely on simple observations.

    When I was in 7th grade my science teacher gave us a very simple assignment. The assignment was to take something, anything that we could test, and observe each day, make a hypothesis, then keep the data and see if our assumption was correct. Many of my classmates repeated a couple simple observations. I wanted to be more creative. I chose to check the thermostat in my home each day and monitor the fluctuations in temperature. My hypothesis was that as it got hotter outside during the summer, the temperature would go up in my home. This seemed an obvious assumption to a 7th grader.

    I was shocked when I learned, from checking the temperature every morning, that it was 72 degrees in my home every morning, no matter what. My hypothesis was foiled by the scientific progress of a simple thermostat. A device I always assumed to simply tell the temperature, I learned, was actually monitoring the temperature and turning on cool air as it got hot, or hot air as it got cool, to always keep our home at a consistent temperature. I learned from this how something that can seem obvious can be so wrong when ignorance exists. The ignorance here was a 7th grader who didn’t yet understand the simple workings of the things around him. We see in society every day how detrimental ignorance is. Ignorance exists in science, religion, everywhere around us. As we experiment and try new theories, our ignorance is lessened as we come to better understand the world around us.

    What seems so ridiculous now, spontaneous generation was an obvious observation given the tools available to science at the time. In a world that debates all things spiritual – the after-life, the soul, and all things we can’t see – science ridicules theories that can’t be proven. Because science can’t prove the existence of the soul, it says there is no soul. Like those who could observe that maggots spontaneously appeared but couldn’t know how because they didn’t have the tools and capacity to do so, one day all things we still don’t understand will be proven. This includes premortal existence, the soul, spirits, resurrection, and the after-life.

    There’s this secular belief that spiritual things inherently non-scientific. Those with faith understand that one day all these spiritual concepts will be proven through scientific methods. It will all be so clear to us one day, when our eyes are opened and we are given additional knowledge and understanding. What a day for science that day will be.

  • Purpose and What Did You Eat Last Week

    Purpose and What Did You Eat Last Week

    I recently did a meditation that I couldn’t get myself into, I disagreed so much with the premise. I can usually go with the flow with any guided meditation, at least the ones I’ve done. Often the guided meditations lead to spiritual thoughts. This meditation led to a spiritual thought, but not in the normal way.

    The voice leading the meditation stated, basically, that we are on this big rock floating through space. None of us know why we’re here or what the true purpose of all this is. The meditation continued advising to set that aside for a moment and focus on your breathing, etc.

    I stopped right there. In my mind I thought, but I do know why I’m here, I do know the purpose of all this. I couldn’t get behind the premise. It’s a common theme of my writing. Where we come from, why we’re here, where we’re going. It hit me that 99% of people listening to that meditation probably don’t bat an eye at that statement. Most people probably gloss right over it like, “Yeah, I don’t know what the meaning of all this is.” That makes me sad.

    I just started a new book that talks about the temporal nature of this life and how silly it is to one, not believe in the things we can’t see, and two, put so much stock into the things we can see, even though they’re so temporary.

    The book asked what I ate 2 weeks ago. I had no idea. It made an interesting point. Food and water are the most critical thing to our survival. We can’t survive without them. Yet, what did you eat 2 weeks ago? You don’t even remember. What about the car that you love then 8 years later is a clunker. Or the house you cherish but inevitably becomes dirty, beat up, and cluttered with other stuff that is inconsequential. The book talked about how much stock we put into these things.

    How many of us consider why we’re here or where we’re going? How many in the world live in complete ignorance, not wanting to consider these great questions? It amazes me.

    We can’t see or describe heartache, fear, doubt, love, the wind, and yet they exist. Faith exists. Our soul exists. Eternity exists. God exists. These are the things that matter. I wish our society could spend a little less time with a Netflix special they won’t remember a year from now and consider more the purpose of this life. 

    The purpose of this life is God’s plan to make us stronger, better, and more like Him. We knew God before we came here. We will remember Him when we leave here. This life is so important. Not for food, or water, or cars, or homes, or Netflix, but for the faith we build, the experiences we go through, and the families and relationships we cultivate. I wish this is something we could all remember more.

  • Are Stupid Decisions Sins?

    Are Stupid Decisions Sins?

    I was listening to the story of a guy who was riding his motorcycle 140mph when he lost control and crashed. His body skidded across the pavement at an unknowable speed when he hit a pole. I won’t go into the details of his injuries or how he survived. I’ll only say that he survived, and his injuries were extensive. He’s missing parts of his body, can’t use the restroom, his body is destroyed.

    This led me to a thought: was it a sin for him to drive his motorcycle at that ridiculous speed?

    What separates sin and stupidity?

    Let’s break down that first question a little more, was it a sin to drive a motorcycle at an unsafe speed? Is it a sin to break the speed limit? Is it a sin to break a law? The answer is no, it is not necessarily a sin to break the law.  Men and governments make laws and men and governments are corrupt. I could elaborate on this, but I think we all agree. There were some “laws” in WW2 Germany that were evil. Enough said there.

    So it wasn’t a sin to speed on a motorcycle.

    But was it stupid?

    I think the answer is a resounding YES. It was stupid to drive a motorcycle at 140mph.

    Was it a sin to put his body, a gift from God, in such a dangerous position? His decisions that led to destroying a gift from God, were those sinful decisions?

    When I had my ATV accident was I sinning? No, I don’t think I was…and yet… Yet, was it stupid to be on an ATV without a helmet? In hindsight, of course. Most would say of course even without hindsight.

    Is it a sin to do something stupid, knowing it’s stupid, and not caring? I don’t know… I think I knew it was stupid to ride on an ATV without a helmet, and I still did it. Am I stupid or was I sinning? Or both?

    I return to the question, was it a sin for someone to make decisions that he knew were dangerous and ultimately led to destroying a gift from God?

    I think the answer is no. I think that’s the answer because he didn’t know he was going to destroy his body and that wasn’t ultimately his goal. I didn’t know not wearing a helmet that day would actually risk my life, even if I knew there was a chance, I didn’t know it would flip and I would get seriously injured.

    Here’s where an important line is drawn. Sin is knowingly doing something wrong, knowing that what one is doing is wrong, and still doing it. Sin is conscious, intentional wrongdoing.

    An interesting point to make is that sin is always stupid. This is true on so many levels. Sin is knowing an all-loving Father who only wants your best has advised you of something, and you ignore it, whether due to a belief that you know more than Him or simple disobedience. This assumes a person understands that God loves them and wants the best for them. If the person doesn’t understand that, it makes their decisions less likely to be sins. This is where the principle of: with added light and knowledge comes added responsibility, comes in. More light and knowledge means more awareness of how decisions are sins.

    I believe this is why some in the church feel an overwhelming feeling of guilt that they often blame the church for. Blaming the church is kind of like blaming God. They are mad that they know what they’re doing is wrong, they still want to do it, and this causes a conflict in their soul. This is why many might leave the church.

    Back to the topic.

    Stupidity is not always sin.

    This led me to thinking more about sin. Sin is always stupid. No matter what, sin is stupid. Sin leads to hurting yourself or others in some way.

    Stupid decisions aren’t necessarily sins. Sins are always stupid decisions.

    This is why God has given us this life. It’s a training ground. It’s a chance to prove ourselves worthy of more. If we can’t handle the trials and challenges of this testing ground, how can we be trusted with more in eternity?

    I’m grateful for the life and the opportunity it gives me to be tested, with less at stake. My soul is safe because it is in the hands of Christ. All my mistakes will be paid for by Christ, they have been paid for. I just need to turn to Him. I’m immensely grateful for that.