Book Review - He Restoreth My Soul by Donald L. Hilton Jr. MD

There has long been a debate as to whether pornography is addictive.  Dr. Hilton's book clearly puts the debate to rest.  The book is replete with scientific evidence to back his claim.  As President Gordon B. Hinckley claimed many years ago, pornography is indeed addictive, pernicious and destructive.

The book focuses it's attention, however, on recovery.  Addiction is heinous in it's devastation and allure.  It is nice to visit the subject with such a positive, hopeful, realistic expectation of emancipation from the clutches of this horrible vice.

If you or a loved one has fallen into this horrible trap, I recommend this book as a great place to start toward leaving the devastation behind.  If you are a Church Leader may I suggest it as well.  It is important to realize that abstinence is not the same as recovery and such an assumption is a dangerous one.

Dr. Hilton makes it plain that this problem exists at epidemic proportions and must, though uncomfortable, be addressed broadly among the population.  The book was recommended to me by a General Authority in connection with the LDS Church's Addiction Recovery Program.  I in turn recommend it to you.

Me And Bobby McGee

Last night Sweetie was playing a selection of Roger Miller stuff on her iPod and up came his version of Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson.  I've heard so many versions of it and supposed that Janis Joplin's was the first one recorded. Up until now, hers was my favorite.  I had always thought I was prejudiced by first recordings.  Nobody seems to do them justice after the original.  My supposition was that I have a resistance to change so every first recording, therefore, becomes my preference.

Much to my surprise, I discovered that Roger Miller was the first to record that much loved song!  And his rendition seems to be my favorite!

According to Wikipedia 55 major artists have recorded a rendition of Me And Bobby McGee.  I wonder if that is a record, no pun intended.  Janis Joplin's version took the song to the top of the charts, but not until after her death.  It was her only number one single.

Whose version is your favorite?  I'll compile the stats in a couple of weeks.

Book Review - Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Holy Cow!  This was a long time coming.  I've been busy in the "thick of thin things" and sure enjoyed getting back to more reading.

Gaiman and Pratchett were amazing in this collaboration!  A story of the end of the world featuring an angel and a devil who rather botch things, or do they.  You might say the Apocalypse comes off with a hitch.  Or was it a glitch, or several. We humans have a tendency to mess things up, but occasionally, we do things right as well. Blame it on Heaven or blame it on Hell eventually, the buck stops with us.

Good Omens is a glorious romp through the meadow of human nature.  We are so funny and these guys have made it their millennial mission to point that out.  I laughed out loud on page after page.  Mostly at myself.  There is a bit of me in every character in the book; all fodder for funny.  I learned to take myself and life a little less seriously and realized that humanity and the human experience is a joyous blessing to be celebrated!

The Trouble With The Biggest Loser

I like The Biggest Loser.  I've watched it regularly for years.  There is something very inspirational about watching the successes of people you grow to love.

A friend called me last night.  He was looking for someone who'd recorded LOST.  I hadn't.  When I asked him why he'd missed it, he said, "I thought I had set it to record on the DVR so I sat down with a bowl of ice cream and watched The Biggest Loser."  My friend is morbidly obese.  I went to bed wondering what is it that appeals to him watching that show.  I have several friends, including myself, who do the same thing.  Week after week we cheer for our favorite contestants from our comfortable sofas, while eating and loafing ourselves into oblivion.  We don't seem to have the slightest inclination to let the program affect our behavior.  We seem to enjoy the show without the slightest personal discomfort.  There seems to be a huge reality disconnect, when it comes to watching this particular "reality" show.

I'm not finding fault, I'm just trying to understand.  While I wouldn't qualify to be a contestant, I am overweight and have other issues that I'm not addressing either.  Are we vicariously letting someone else lose our weight for us?  I think maybe we are.

Eating disorders are so closely aligned with other addictive behaviors.  To me there is little difference between running to the bottle or the fridge for a fix.  We don't like ourselves, or how we feel and so we seek something external to ourselves to help us feel better.  Be it alcohol, narcotics, hallucinogens, Twinkies, gambling, porn or adrenalin, if we are looking for a way to escape our discomfort, we are looking in the wrong places.

That was apparent in last night's episode where Darris ran all day and then stayed up late stuffing his face.  Home for a month, running daily, completing a full marathon in 4 hours and 2 odd minutes, he still gained two pounds.  What's up with that?  Why would Darris "sabotage" himself after all that effort?

Here's what I think.  While there is so very much good about The Biggest Loser, the program has some fundamental flaws.  One of them being the Ranch.  Now don't get me wrong.  These are generally people who won't get better without a major, even institutionalized intervention.  The Ranch is literally saving their lives and there is no getting around that.  The problem lies in the fact that in that artificial environment many are not learning to deal with real life.  Bob and Jillian seem to be very aware of this and the program makes great effort to prepare the contestants for reality.  Still they often fail.  Here's why.

The Biggest Loser deals well with the physical and emotional side of addictive behavior, but they entirely neglect the spiritual aspect.  The 12 Step model established by Alcoholics Anonymous is so uniquely successful because it does not neglect the spiritual component.  The "higher power" AA includes in its approach to recovery is essential to every recovery.  God and a spiritual connection to Him is a vital component in obtaining and maintaining sobriety.  There is no getting around it.  A higher power is part of Biggest Loser's success, don't get me wrong.  Too often though, that higher power is Bob or Jillian or $250,000.00.  This works, until you no longer have Bob or Jillian to serve you.  Or until you no longer have the financial carrot dangling before your eyes.  Here again, Bob and Jillian recognize that the contestants need to be weaned from the trainer's influence, but they try to introduce self as the alternative and self is the absolute worst higher power they could choose.

Darris was clearly struggling without his higher power, while at home.  Absence from Bob and Jillian and his friends at the Ranch, left a painful void in his life and automatically he went right back to his old "go to" remedy to fill that emptiness.  Koli, had the same problem, so he went to Vegas and found a substitute for Bob and Jillian in another trainer.  Even Sam was not enough to keep Koli going at home. That rather surprised me.  But then on reflection, Sam has his own life to live and surely couldn't devote his whole time to Koli.  That's the way it is for each of us.  Our lives are inconsistent.  Our relationships are inconsistent.  We are inconsistent.  The only thing consistent in our lives is God, if we'll let Him provide.

Bravo!  To all the contestants on this inspiring show for their courage, effort and success as they shed the physical and emotional baggage of their lives.  I just hope that in the process they discover what I am discovering, that spiritual emptiness is what got us in our predicaments in the first place.  I am a physical Schmiegel inhabited by a Spiritual Golum when I neglect to connect with God.  I am quick to feed my body while starving my Spirit.  We all recognize physical hunger, but most of us have not been taught to recognize spiritual hunger.  We experience the discomfort, but not realizing what's causing it, seek to satisfy the pain with things that cannot satisfy.

The answer is not knowledge.  Darris knew he was hurting himself.  Koli was embarrassed too.  My friend knows there's a better way than to eat ice cream on the couch.  The same goes for me.  Why are we failing amid so much success?  Because we are climbing the ladder of success, sometimes with Herculean effort only to find it leaning against the wrong wall.  The goal that will make us happy is not weight loss, it is not a quarter of a million dollars or a title or record or a good job.  The goal that will make us happy, fulfilled, satisfied and ultimately successful is a healthy, well fed Spirit that is constantly connected to God.

I Don't Believe In Coincidences

It was the fall of 1969.  I was still a Greenie Missionary having only been in the Mission Field for three months (I had eaten Balut by then, so maybe not - depends who you ask and how you measure such things).  The church in the Philippines was in a great expansion period directed by President Paul S. Rose.  Elder Daniel Johnson and I were given the blessed assignment of opening the city of Dumaguete on the Oriental side of Negros Island.

President Augusto Lim was a Counselor to President Rose.  Dumaguete was President Lim's home town.  He graciously accompanied us to Dumaguete to introduce us around and help us get established.  We stayed in his parents' home for a couple of weeks until we were able to rent a place to live and hold meetings.

There was one member of the Church in Dumaguete, when we arrived; President Lim's sister Dalisay.  Not too long after our arrival, his sister Beverly was our first baptism in that wonderful place.  Elder Johnson labored in Dumaguete for five months and then was released to go home.  I stayed another month or so.  We were blessed to bring four souls into the Church in those precious days.  Beverly Lim, Loline Valero, Grace and Virginia Llego.  We had some disappointment that the numbers were so few after having labored so diligently.

We were comforted by a promise we'd received from President David O. McKay.  In the Mission Home in Salt Lake City, we were given a promise from the prophet that there would one day be a convert baptism for every Book of Mormon we placed.  In Dumaguete, Elder Johnson and I placed over 1200 Book of Mormons.

I lost track of Elder Johnson.  I made several attempts to find him but was unsuccessful.  I even visited his hometown in Washington on a couple of occasions and checked the directory and asked around among the locals, all to no avail.

About ten years ago, my nephew received a mission call.  I was invited to attend the Temple with him when he recieved his Endowment.  I was seated in the Temple chapel, waiting for the session to start when, to my great surprise and inexpressable joy, in walked Grace Llego, one of our four converts from Dumaguete.  We recognized one another imediately, but were unable to converse until we found one another in the Celestial Room.  What a joyous reunion is was.  What a joy to introduce my nephew to the flourishing fruit of my labors.  Grace had met and married an American working in the Philippines.  A member of the Church named Greg Frame.  They had moved to Grand Junction, Colorado which was in Vernal's Temple District.

What a blessing it is to have reconnected with Grace and to learn of her life and joy in the gospel.  Additionally, I learned of her sweet sister, Virginia and even some about the others.  I was replaced in Dumaguete by Elder Beecher.  As Grace's parents hadn't joined the church and weren't much support, Elder Beecher had arranged for Grace to be a pen pal with his sister back home.  They wrote consistently for quite a while and became good friends.  Then, somehow they lost track of one another.  Years passed and Grace moved to Colorado.  Shortly after their arrival she received a visit from her new Relief Society President.  As they got acquainted it became apparent the Grace was from the Philippines, so the visiting sister mentioned that she once had a pen pal from there.  Sure enough.....it was indeed they, who'd been pen pals. 

And, now she and I were also reunited after 30 long years.

A couple of weeks ago I was surprised to get a letter from Daniel Johnson.  He too had a desire to reconnect and was a bit more able than I in his ability to track down an old pal.  He had another amazing story to report.  He'd gone to visit a daughter who is now living in Maryland.  While there he and Sister Johnson went to church.  In attendance that day was Loline Valero Lim, married to Ismael Lim, Augusto's brother.  They too, were visiting children abroad.  That connection led to the Johnsons making a trip back to the Philippines and to Dumaguete.  There they found a warm welcome and several Branches of the Church.

We had been counselled in those days to avoid keeping contact with our converts.  The thinking was that we wanted them to be weaned from the missionaries and to depend upon God.  I had often mourned the fact that I had no idea how anyone was doing.  Now, God has miraculously brought them back into my life and I can't express enough, how grateful I am for that great gift.  Some folks might call all of this a coincidence - I do not.  These remarkable events, against extremely long odds, have been orchestrated by a loving Father who grants such tender mercies in abundance to his children.  Children of whom He is obviously very fond.

I haven't yet spoken or corresponded with Beverly or Loline but that day shouldn't be too far hence.  Just yesterday I got a CD from Dan containing photos from 1969 and from his recent visit. The flood of memories those pictures restored to my mind is overwhelming.

 Now a whole new generation is emerging from those four sweet daughters of Zion.  Among them, missionaries, who are continuing to share the blessed truth.  Grace, even had a son who went to France?!  They say there are close to 1200 members of the Church in Dumaguete today.  A prophecy fulfilled; one for every Book of Mormon we placed.  Another promise was also fulfilled ... "how great shall be your joy with them in the Kingdom of my Father."