Tools are beautiful. Even the words for tools and their parts have a charm to them. Tang, ferrule. They are most beautiful when you know their use because you have used them, such that your hula hoe has some hint of ripe tomato in your mind.

Family home evening is one of those tools. it is not part of the eternal gospel for everyone. But it is for us. I can bear testimony of it. It was wonderful to hear one of the brethren bearing testimony of it.

I bear you my solemn witness, my brothers and sisters, that this is the work of the Lord, that these Brethren who instituted the family home evening program were greatly inspired.

-thus Brother Cullimore.

Yes, FHE is a tool. AS a tool, it is like Mormonism and even God Himself in being a hybrid. It is part earthy, part spiritual. It can be devotional, and should be devotional. But it can also be a scheduled family play. Bruce C.’s regular weekend walks with his family have much of the character of an LDS family home evening about them.

Here is an example that just happened in my own family home evening. We occasionally do a “family history minute.” We are doing one and it somehow evolves into discussing what names my son should pick for his own sons. He gets more and more truculent looking as he listens. Finally he interrupts. “I am going to name my son ‘Cookie,'” he growls.

Then, to close, you sing Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow. Your toddler puts on an icecream bucket for a hat, runs to the middle of your group, and starts doing a hip-cocking dance.

Strange and wonderful hybrid.

Other Posts from the Friday afternoon session of the April 1975 General Conference

• Using My Agency Wisely to Receive His Blessings by Jan Tolman
• We all suffer another loss by Marilyn Nielson