Focus on Living

We had a staff meeting this morning followed by lunch and bowling at the Dinah Bowl.  There were seven of us.  None of us had bowled in years.  I can't imagine how long its been for me; 30 years I suppose.  I seriously considered skipping that part.  It was, after all, optional.  I knew I'd be a lousy bowler and embarrass myself and seriously considered the silliness of even making the attempt.  I wasn't that bad.  I rolled a few gutter balls and made a few strikes and even a couple of spares.  We all had a good time and the food was right respectable.  I came away with a better sense of who and how my co-workers are.  I clearly gained a better fondness for each of them.  A couple of people who seemed quite intimidating were just as clutzy and insecure about their athletic prowess as I was.  Good experience.

When I got a chance later on I picked up a wonderful book I'm reading, and in the course of my reading encountered this observation:

"...I have become better at writing than living...:"  (Juliet from Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

That little statement hit me right between the eyes!  I spend a lot of time writing - observing and writing, and it is easy to substitute that for actual living.  Writing by nature invites me to become a spectator of life rather than a participant in it.  And it seems the more I write the more I lean in that direction.  Today's experience reminded me that I've got to concentrate on observing while I'm living rather than doing it instead of living.

Another factor is that it is to easy to live virtually rather than literally these days.  I've become a orchard virtuoso of sorts with my Farmville farm on Facebook.  It is so satisfying to harvest all those crops and build my virtual empire.  Meanwhile, my literal empire is dwindling.  Clearly another case of sitting on the sidelines of life instead of actually participating in the game.  Some of each is probably appropriate but I've simply got things out of balance of late.

I wonder if age has something to do with it.  Bowling never actually hurt before.  There again, it may actually be an outgrowth of the sedentary nature of writing.  So making a new year effort of living more may make me more active and less likely to suffer when I am.  So off the sidelines I go.

A Wonderful Christmas Time

Christmas was significantly pared down this year, what with the economy and all.  That is the material part of it.  The spiritual, joyful, grateful, together part of Christmas seemed greatly enhanced as a result.  I think it was one of the most pleasant Christmases in memory.  There was nothing spectacular, nothing even remarkable.  I think it's beauty lay in it's simplicity.  That and in it's little sacrifices. 

One daughter drove eight hours to be here for two days, just to turn around and drive home again.  Another daughter, concerned that the little ones might have to do without much this year made enormous personal sacrifices for her neice and nephew.  Another daughter, whose budget was tight, still motivated us to reach out to folks less fortunate than we.  Our youngest, who still lives at home, did all the decorating and ran so many errands. Mom chose to give a gift of livestock to impoverished third world recipients in our name.  We couldn't have been more pleased.  A niece and nephew who've been strapped by enormous medical expenses and much illness during the year were recipients of a cash gift given in Grandmother's name.  What wonderful choices, to recognize our own abundance and share it with those in very real need.

My brother's family all gathered too.  Seven couples and 19 grand children.  To take a little pressure off the house they went sleigh riding and then reserved the recreation hall at the church for a meal, games, singing and mingling.  We were included.  I'll never remember the names of all those neices and nephews.  It was so good to meet them though and observe their wonderful little personalities.  Their parents are raising them so well.  With a generation like these growing up we have the prospect of a bright future indeed.

We have so very much to be thankful for.  Sweetie and I were quite dependent upon the others for rides to and fro as our car is still in the shop from last week's collision with a deer.  Every one has been so helpful and gracious in our time of incovenience.  We never had to miss a thing.

I was so impressed with one of the local radio stations.  For the past couple of weeks they've been running a spot reminding us that Christmas is about our Savior Jesus Christ and encouraging us to love and care for those less fortunate than ourselves.  How refreshing that was amid all of the advertisments encouraging us to spend our money on this or that commercial, must have.

More than any Christmas in my recollection, this year, I have felt Peace on Earth.

Of Nephi's Broken Bow

Last evening, on the way home from Grandmother's house, we hit a deer.  It smashed up the front end of our SUV pretty badly.  We have friends who operate a body shop not far from the accident scene.  We limped the wounded Yukon over there and parked it.  The kids gave us a ride home and offered us their truck for meetings in the morning.  We've been a one car family for years.  Now, for the time being at least, we're a no car family.

Things might appear to be pretty bleak.  We still haven't recovered from our flooded basement of two years ago, I'm mostly unemployed and debts are mounting.  Now this.

I experienced this new set back in relative calm.  No one was injured, except the poor deer.  We were rescued in short order and as I write this I can still think of myriad blessings to count and be thankful for.  I have no idea how we're going to emerge from all of this.  Maybe we won't.  Not at least for a long time it appears.

As I ponder these things I can't help but think of Nephi's bow.  The story tells us that Nephi broke his bow.  It doesn't tell us how.  That part would be interesting to know.  However it happened Nephi's brothers were furious with him.  Anyway, it was a major setback as they now had no means to provide food for themselves.  It had to have been discouraging.  They were, after all, on the Lord's errand.  They were bound for the Promised Land as they had been commanded.  Everyone murmured except for Nephi.  Instead, Nephi went to work making a new bow.  He didn't blame the Lord, in fact he took the blame.

Now, my circumstances are far from being as bleak as Nephi's.  I still have a comfortable, warm home, food to eat, a comfortable bed.  I have no cause to complain.  I am not perfect, in fact I think I required some humbling.  I get a little stiff-necked now and then.  This incident certainly has made me think about that.  The decline of my prosperity has been continuing for quite some time.  It may not be finished yet.  Nevertheless, the answer is not in money, or things, or relief from obligation.  The answer lies in humbly trusting the Lord and submitting, with cheerfulness, to whatever He sees fit to inflict upon me.  I have lessons to learn in mortality and God seems determined that I learn them.  That alone should be cause for great rejoicing.  I have a Father in Heaven who desires to teach me what I need to learn in order to return, not only to live with Him, but to become like Him.  What a great and marvelous blessing that is.  My task is to trust Him through the thin as well as the thick things of life.  My task is to be submissive and thankful in all things.  My task is to remember Him, not only in the hard times but in the good times.  The thing is, I don't always remember and  last evening's little experience has served as a reminder.

I've been having a pity party of late.  I've spent an inordinate amount of time feeling sorry for myself - murmuring, if you will.  That is such an ungrateful, graceless thing to do.  Not only must it offend a kind and generous God, it is self destructive and incapacitating.  No wonder my prosperity is in decline.  God does not sustain us in our doubts and fears and complaints.  He sustains us in our trust and love and gratitude.  I am clearly in great need of sustenance and need to remember in whom I have trusted.  Nephi's creation of a new bow, was not the solution to his dilemma.  God was the solution to his problem.  The fact that Nephi made his bow was simply an indicator that he still trusted God and was willing to do his part in finding a solution.  I must more earnestly seek employment, but in the end it is God who will provide.

My wrecked vehicle can serve as a reason to re-inflate the balloons and spike the punch of my pity party or it can remind me of my dire need for a loving, providing, forgiving, sustaining Savior.  Today, I choose the latter.

When the Means Becomes the End

Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve has likened the fullness of the gospel to a piano keyboard. He has told us that a person could be “attracted by a single key,” such as a doctrine he or she wants to hear “played over and over again. … Some members of the Church who should know better pick out a hobby key or two and tap them incessantly, to the irritation of those around them. They can dull their own spiritual sensitivities. They lose track that there is a fullness of the gospel … [which they reject] in preference to a favorite note. This becomes exaggerated and distorted, leading them away into apostasy” (Ensign, December 1971, pages 41–42).  ...Beware of a hobby key. If you tap one key to the exclusion or serious detriment of the full harmony of the gospel keyboard, Satan can use your strength to bring you down.  (Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, BYU 18 Stake Fireside, June 1992)

Now, I'm going to get some flack for this, but I'm going to say it anyway.  I think Elder Packer and Elder Oaks, quoted above are right on in their assessment of a tendency that is quite common in the Kingdom.

My first real exposure to is was as a Scout Leader.  Typically, men go into Scouting reluctantly, if not kicking and screaming.  Getting them trained is like pulling teeth.  Still a goodly number do get trained, go to Wood Badge and catch the fire of the program.  It gets in their blood.  Round Table Meetings and return trips to leadership training as trainers add fuel to the fire.  For some Scouting becomes everything.  I was called to various Scouting positions much of my adult life.  What I've described happened to me to a large degree.  I still love Scouting, it is a good program, good for boys and good for men.  The problem becomes when Scouters play only that key on the gospel keyboard.  It is not only annoying to others it is spiritually dangerous to the person.  I knew one man who was seriously struggling over whether to be buried in his Temple clothes or his Scout uniform.  A clear case of the means becoming the end in one confused mind.  These brethren were often heard criticizing the Church for corrupting Scouting or not allowing it to function as it was designed.  They seem to have forgotten that the Church selected Scouting as a means to their own ends, not to become the end in and of itself.

When I was called away from Scouting, I was treated, by this type of Scouter, as traitor to the cause.  They repeatedly approached me with attempts at "guilt tripping" me back into the program.  "You're a Silver Beaver*, for crying out loud, how can you turn your back on Scouting?"  They never seemed to understand my explanation that while I gave 100% to Scouting when I was there, I am now giving 100% to my new calling, which is also an important facet of the true church.  It has been ten years now, since I last served in a Scouting position and I still detect bitterness among some of my brethren for abandoning my post.  I did not abandon it, I was called away from it.

What I learned in Scouting has enhanced my performance as a husband, father, grandfather and in my current church service.  I'm thankful for that experience.

Now, I've seen this same sort of single keyed focus among people who serve in other corners of the Kingdom.  Genealogy, Temple Work, Missionary Work, food storage, and Word of Wisdom, to name a few.

Last night I discovered it again at my LDS Addiction Recovery Meeting.  My regular group has become more and more disconcerting to me.  I couldn't put my finger on the problem.  I just have become uncomfortable there.  I haven't attended for a couple of months.  Not that I think I'm cured or anything.  I expect to need support in my recovery, for the balance of my life and perhaps beyond.  I've just been traveling and had other obligations so I haven't been as faithful as I ought to be in my attendance.  Anyway, I think my long absence made the changes more obvious and last night it became apparent to me why my heart has been unsettled at the meetings. For too many, especially the leaders, the program seems to have become the end rather than the means.  I can see why this might happen.  Anything that has made such a big difference in someone's life attracts a great deal of loyalty, even adoration.  Perhaps this is what blinds us to the danger of singling out that one thing and ignoring the rest of life.

Like too many Scouters became more loyal to BSA than to the Church, many at ARP appear to be more loyal to AA than to the Church.  Like the Scouters who concerned me; too often I hear ARP participants, complaining and criticizing the way the Church operates the program while praising Alcoholics Anonymous.  They too, seem to have forgotten that the Church chose the 12 Steps as a means, not as an end.  More and more meetings quote from the Big Book and less and less from the Scriptures.  It was not always thus.  Last night, for the first time in my recollection, the leaders didn't even get the scriptures out of the library.  For some, the program is becoming more important than recovery.  I can't help but wonder if they're not just switching addictions.

I said before that I expect to need support from a 12 Step group for the remainder of my life.  But, I don't expect to be defined by it.  I am an addict.  But, I am also a husband, father, grandfather, servant of the Lord, friend, employee, lover of life.  I am not about to let my addiction define my life.  I'm getting flack for this.  Warnings that bordered on threats were issued at last night's meeting.  That's only going to make me more reluctant to attend.  But worse, it makes me worry about my friends who've been doing so well.  With Elder Oaks, I pray our strengths don't become our downfall.

Now, let me say, that while these things worry and concern me.  I'm talking about people I love and admire, who've overcome enormous affliction.  I don't want to seem critical of them, just concerned for the direction they seem to be going.  I wish I knew how to call it to their attention without causing more harm than good.  Any advice?

*An award that was premature, undeserved and unsought

Growing Up in Himni Utah - Episode 12

Miss Cornelia Green and Ronnie Hulet

The Omner Valley Jr. High, had been the High School before the new one was built. Before it was the High School it had been the Omner Valley Stake Acadamy. It was built in about 1915 and showed it’s age. It was a three story brick structure. Holes had been drilled through the walls and long pipes installed with large plates on the outside of the brick. These were intended to bolt the whole place together. A large tube had been retrofitted to the northside third floor as a fire escape. The upper entrance was always locked to keep us from horsing around in it, so we’d climb up from the bottom and slide down anyway. We always wondered if the person with the key would be there if a fire ever occurred.
OVJH had a combination auditorium/gymnasium. The gym floor doubled as a stage. The auditorum seating, including a large balcony, accomodated the entire student body and half the town. If you sat too far to the left though, the curtains hid the basketball bankboard on that end. Same thing on the right. Butch Farley’s gang loved sitting in the balcony with pea shooters during basketball games.
It was in that auditorium that I saw the second most amazing athletic feat of my life. My pal Ronnie Hulet was probably the greatest, natural born athlete I ever met. He never went out for sports, to the dismay of all the coaches, but the things he could do were legendary. In Omner Valley Jr. High, he was fastest up the rope, impossible to hit with a dodge ball and could do triple the pull ups of anyone in the eighth grade. One day I walked into the auditorium just in time to see him standing on the rim of the basketball hoop. He dived, and I mean head first, on to the bare hardwood floor. I thought I was watching a suicide attempt! When he reached the floor though, he completed the slickest roll you ever saw and came up standing on his feet, a broad grin spread clear across his face. The coaches forbade Ronnie from ever doing it again; but secretly they bragged about him every chance they got. The funny thing is, he never played sports because his Mom didn’t want him to get hurt.
The school got a new English teacher that year. Her name was Miss Cornelia Green. She was reported to have been an accomplished journalist with the Chicago Tribune. No one could ever explain though, why an accomplished journalist would leave her career in Chicago to teach brats at Omner Valley Jr. High. She was a big boned, manly woman. She dyed her hair blonde. The dark roots of her coarse tangle of shoulder length mane were always showing. She had little cosmetic talent and her make up looked like it amounted to weeks of layers. It was often caked on so thick it cracked, as did her bright red lip stick. She had a black mole right on the tip of her nose which always managed to shine through by noon. Quite frankly, looking back, I honestly wonder if she wasn’t really George C. Scott hiding out in the Witness Protection Program.
Miss Green managed no degree of classroom discipline. This was not for lack of effort. One time she went to smite me on the back of the hand with a ruler. I managed to catch the ruler and we shook it between us for a few moments before she let her end go and retreated to her desk. She would storm from commotion to commotion feigning fury but wasn’t a good enough actress to pull it off. Her storming was amusing to watch though. You could see the frustration building up, then she’d rock way back on her heels as if winding up and would launch her enormous body forward in a thundering charge. More than once the teachers on the floor below had sent up delegations to plead for less commotion from our room. Their, biggest complaint? “It sounded like a herd of cattle stampeding across the floor.” We soon learned that there wasn’t a mean bone in her body and instead of loving her for it we took horrible advantage.
Finally, about half way through the year, she gave up on trying to teach us anything and resorted to reading stories and books to us. She hoped at least to pique our interest in literature. Mostly, she selected wonderful stuff and I for one, sat in wrapt attention as Sherlock Holmes or Robinson Crusoe or Jean Valjean’s adventures paraded across the stage of my imagination.
Ronnie Hulet, on the other hand, had a very hard time sitting still in any situation. To do nothing but listen to Cornelia Green read for an hour was torture for him. He’d have gladly taken P.E. seven periods a day, where he’d surely have received straight A’s. Sometimes he’d cope by drifting off to sleep. Along about the end of April though, when the weather was warming up nicely, the compulsion to be outside running overtook Ronnie. Right in the middle of Red Badge of Courage, he stood up and screamed, “I’ve had it, I can’t take this anymore!” Whereupon, he dashed across the room and dived out the second story window!
Miss Green staggered, her eyes rolled back and down she went. It was not a pretty sight. For one thing women and girls wore dresses to school in those days. When she came to, it was Ronnie who was fanning her face with a file folder. She thought she’d halucinated the whole thing. And I realized that this was the premier athletic accomplishment I’d ever witnessed.
Ronnie Hulet moved away the next Summer and I never heard of him again. Cornelia Green never returned to Himni after that year either. They say she went back to Chicago and journalism. I keep hoping someday she’ll write her version of the story. I’d like to close my eyes and listen to her read it.