Thank You Steve!

They say a friend is someone who knows your song and sings it for you when you've lost your way. Something like that anyway.

Yesterday, my good friend Steve was such a friend. I've been a bit discouraged about my new job. Without going into details, the past two weeks has been challenging. After one brief orientation my supervisor went on two weeks vacation. My other coworkers have been nice and helpful, but too many things were out of their control. Frustrated, I was about ready to quit.

Then Steve came along. He was at the house on another errand and offered me a ride to work. On the way, he sang me my song, so to speak. In just a few short minutes he turned me right around and reminded me of what I am about. That brief moment in time changed my whole attitude.

My new job is perfect for me in that respect. I wish it paid more, but it puts me in a position to make a difference in the lives of young people. Few things give me more fire of passion than these wonderful, vulnerable, lovable youth. I am truly blessed to be able to serve them, in any capacity, but the one I have gives me so much opportunity that its overwhelming. I'm a Deputy Probation Officer for the Juvenile Court. My assignment is to run the work crew that enables the kids to work off fines and community service hours. I have an amazing amount of latitude with regard to how to accomplish that task. I even awoke in the middle of the night imagining creative ways to help them.

I hope, somehow, I can learn their songs and spend my time singing them back to them in their troubled hours.

Thanks again, Steve.

Growing Up in Himni Utah - Episode 6

Sometimes Things Don’t Go As Planned

All my life I had watched the Deacons pass the Sacrament at church with a measure of awe. They always deported themselves with dignity and respect for what we Mormons consider a very sacred ordinance. As I approached the age of twelve, when I expected to become a Deacon and have the honor of passing the Sacrament myself, I watched the Deacons with keen interest. I wanted to learn exactly how it was done so I wouldn’t flub up and embarrass myself when I first participated.

I turned 12 just a couple of weeks after we arrived in Himni and moved into the Himni 3^rd Ward. Bishop Merrell interviewed me and found me worthy of ordination. My Dad conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon me and ordained me to the office of a Deacon. I think he was relieved to have actually been there. Four years earlier, when I was baptized things hadn’t gone so well. On the morning of my scheduled baptism my Dad and Grandfather had gone golfing. Grandpa had a heart attack on the third hole. Of course, Dad and Mom and Grandma went right to the hospital. My baptism was scheduled for 5:00 P.M. When the folks weren’t home by three I started to get nervous. When the clock struck four I was really concerned. I got my Sunday clothes on so I’d be ready when the folks rushed in. They didn’t. I had been left in charge of the kids. Todd, my brother and the next oldest was just six and a half. He thought he was big enough to take over and the neighbors were close, so I grabbed my recommend off of Mom’s dresser, left Todd in charge and rode my bike over to the church. I presented my recommend to the Brother in charge and got myself baptized. You can imagine my parents chagrin when they discovered their little boy had been baptized and they hadn’t even been there.

I was baptized by Richard F. Waters. To this day I have no idea who he is. Dad’s name did make it on the Baptismal Certificate as the man who confirmed me. That happened at church the next day. Grandpa recovered too.

So now we come to that fateful day when sitting on the front row in Sunday School I was nervously anticipating my first attempt at passing the Sacrament. (In those days Sunday School was in the morning and Sacrament Meeting was in the evening. The Sacrament was served in both meetings.)

I was prepared. I had learned exactly where I was supposed to go and exactly what I was supposed to do. The Deacon’s Quorum President had assigned me the easiest route, right down the side pews behind where we had been sitting. Just as the Priest finished the blessing on the bread a tickle in my nose produced a sudden and unexpected sneeze. I covered my mouth with my right hand. As I removed my hand I discovered an enormous glob of mucus in the palm of my hand. It was time to stand up and take the trays from the Priests. Panic! I had no handkerchief. What do I do? What do I do?! As I went to stand up the only thing I could think to do was scrape it off on the front of the wooden pew. Thinking of the words…”he that hath clean hands and a pure heart…” I felt so guilty taking the tray into my polluted right hand. I felt as though I had lied about my worthiness. Somehow I got through the passing of the bread. We filed back to the table, two rows of us. First the guys from the other side of the chapel returned their trays. They then backed up to allow my side to approach the table. The water was blessed and we took those trays. As we were filing out to distribute the water I followed one of the boys from the group that had backed up. There oozing down the back of his pant leg was my logie. He had backed up to the bench and gathered it up for me. I nearly fainted.

God has often re-reminded me of my humanity since that day. Thankfully, I have finally learned that my flaws, weaknesses and imperfections are the very reason we have the Sacrament in the first place.

Waste Your Many Blessings?

I awoke from a dream in the middle of the night. I hope I can report accurately, the wonderful discovery that dream held for me.

As with most of my dreams, it was somewhat abstract and my waking view of it doesn't seem as clear and clean as it felt as I was waking.

I can't recall any story to the dream, only a concept and how it made me feel.

The concept is that when God grants us blessings, too often we waste them by passing judgment either upon the blessing or upon ourselves and our capacity to receive them.

The illustrations I offer, are not, so far as I can remember, from the dream. I wish they could be. Still, I hope they illustrate what I somehow discovered in the dreams of the night.

So very often, the blessings of which I speak come wrapped in seemingly unpleasant packages. Once, when I was younger, I awoke and found myself unable to urinate, though I had a very, unpleasantly full bladder. After two hours of such suffering, I called in sick and determined I'd better get some medical attention before I ruptured something. On the way out the door I grabbed a book I was reading at the time, The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. As waiting is part and parcel of the Emergency Room experience, I hoped to distract my self from the pain I was suffering by reading. I did have to wait. So I read. I was at the place in the story where Corrie and her sister Betsie had been imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for hiding Jew's in their Holland home. Betsie had a Bible and read it to the women crammed in their barracks. One evening as she read, she commented on the importance of thanking God in all things and interpreted that to mean that they should be thankful for the fleas. Corrie couldn't imagine being thankful for the miserable wretched fleas! Prayerfully, she sought the ability to do so. And finally, still lacking any logical reason, she was able to express complete and heart felt gratitude for the fleas. She discovered later, that the guards molested women in other barracks, but stayed away from hers precisely because of those fleas.

I sat the book in my lap and wondered if I could be thankful for my inability of void my bursting bladder? Prayerfully, I sought that gift. Somehow, it was granted. I expressed sincere and heartfelt gratitude for yet another of life's many afflictions. I'd lived long enough to know that affliction is often a great blessing. Shortly after my prayer, I was invited into an examination room. On the way, I saw my aged friend Slim Hardy pass by on a bed bound for a room in the hospital. He'd come to the Emergency Room and they were going to keep him.

As for me, the doctor determined that my urethra was blocked by a kidney stone which had become stuck as it tried to escape my bladder. He suggested more fluids. That treatment seemed frightening as I was already miserable enough, yet the alternative was something akin to a Roto-Rooter. I chose the water method and began to drink in earnest. Soon the pressure had built to sufficient a crescendo as to force the plug on through. It was instant relief, if you get my drift.

Cured, with no collateral damage, my thoughts turned to Slim. I stepped down to his room. He wasn't conscious. His daughter Fae was sitting beside him. She asked if I'd give him a blessing. In that blessing Heavenly Father praised him for the good, fine life he'd lived and invited him to come home. Slim passed away in just a few minutes. Fae thanked me and then asked if I'd speak at his funeral; an honor I'll always cherish.

As I headed home, I glanced down at the book in my hand. I pressed The Hiding Place to my heart in profound appreciation for the gift it held for me. How thankful I was for my kidney stone. Were it not for that little obstruction, I'd have likely not even known Slim had passed away until I read his obituary in the paper, which came out the day after the funeral. I'd have been at work and oblivious to what I consider a great gift and tender mercy.

It would have been easy to judge my affliction as a curse, a punishment, an underserved annoyance. It would have been so very easy to have wasted a magnificent blessing.

I'm so grateful for this morning's reminder of that great principle. Even, in affliction, God is blessing us. Especially, if we don't judge the blessing to be a curse and God to be unkind.

Now, personally, I'm not as apt to misjudge my circumstances as I am to misjudge myself and my own capabilities. Too often, God offers me a blessing I don't feel qualified to accept. Too often I waste the blessing out of fear and apprehension. I'm not near as apt to think a blessing is not big or good enough more me; more often I think I'm not big or good enough for the blessing.

I'm wrestling with that right now and hence, perhaps, the dream. I have long, longed to be a writer. Since my unemployment I've done more of that than I've ever had time to do before. Yet, every day, I fight a battle with myself over whether I deserve such a blessing; whether I can measure up. I read other writers I admire and think I could never approach their level of performance. Time after time I find excuses to excuse myself from what my fears tell me is a foolish quest. This has been a pattern all of my life. Still, as I pray, my confidence is restored, accompanied by encouragement to carry on. I don't get to know if I'll ever be published or if my writing will ever touch anyone beyond myself. But I do get to know that a blessing is being offered me and, if I can just believe, it might not be counted to me as a waste, but a blessing.

I'm thankful this morning for the refreshed realization that I must neither pass judgment on the adequacy or desirability of God's blessings, nor on my capacity to receive them. He can make my circumstances big enough for me, but better than that He can make me big enough for my circumstances. What a blessing.

Book Review - Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The second The Hunger Games series, Catching Fire is even more compelling than the first. I ordinarily take my time, savoring as I read. Not so with Suzanne Collins' books. They are captivating and so thoroughly engrossing that the sensation of my eyes scanning a page of words vanishes from my consciousness.

I can't ever seem to predict where things are actually going to go with these stories. The actual outcomes seem too impossible until the entirely credible solutions resolve before your eyes.

A master of the twist and turn of story and a genius of inventive imagination, Collins has blown me away again! Once again Katniss and Peeta are placed in the most awful of predicaments. Situations that commonly provide the Capitol with much amusement and predictable, controllable outcomes. The Capitol, is still attempting to clean up the mess these two, unpredictably created in The Hunger Games. But these two are not cast from a predictable mold and what the Capitol previously deemed a "situation" now turns into impending disaster. Never underestimate the strength of loyalty, integrity, devotion. If you have, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, will convince you otherwise.

It's going to be a long wait for the final volume of the trilogy!

Growing Up in Himni Utah - Episode 5

1938 Harley

Lew Hopkins always rode a motorcycle. I knew nothing about them and am a little fearful of them even to this day, probably because of hanging around with Lew.

Lew lived up the Canyon on a nice little farm nestled against the Dry Fork of Omner Creek. The creek ran in the spring and early summer, but most of the year was just a strip of cobble rocks. His dad rarely got a third crop of hay because the water petered out. Funds were tight for the Hopkins’ and 12 miles to school didn’t help. Mostly Lew rode the bus. After his sophomore year though, he got a job at a Winslow’s Auto Parts and bought a Honda 350 to ride to school and work. Even then he didn’t have a lot of pocket change.

School lunch was 25 cents and often Lew would offer to do loony stunts for a quarter so he could eat with us. One time he said, “If I lay down in the middle of the crosswalk to the Seminary building and using my shoulder as a pivot, spin a full 360 in the road with all the girls watching, would that be worth a quarter?” “Sure.” Or, “If I jump off the folded up bleachers in the gym, onto the, six foot in diameter, push ball, would that be worth a quarter?” “Sure.”

Heck, now I’m going to have to tell you about that one. Lew was a big kid even then. The top of the bleachers had to be 12 feet off the floor. That’s a six foot drop to the ball. I feared the huge canvas covered ball might pop. Or what if he missed? He stood there calculating a moment and leapt. He did a seat drop and landed slightly forward of top dead center. He sank deep into the ball and then shot at a 90 degree angle out across the gym floor, where he gracefully slid to a stop against the bleachers on the other side of the gym. I gave him a dollar.

Often, after work on a Saturday, Lew would pick me up on his Honda and we’d head up the canyon for some exploring. One evening we were coming down the canyon and we spotted a doe running beside us on the opposite side of the fence that paralleled the road. Lew decided to race her. We’d nearly caught her when she decided to jump the fence and cross the road in front of us. She landed right on the front fender and was gone, as quick as that. We stopped and shook it off. Examining the bike we found deer fur jammed between the fender and the front shocks.

Early one summer Lew got word that his friend and hero Billy Wainwright had been killed in Viet Nam. They were neighbors and Billy had been the big brother Lew never had. Lew was devastated. After the funeral Billy’s mom took Lew aside. She assured him that Billy loved him. Then she explained that she wanted Lew to have Billy’s old 1938 Harley Davidson motorcycle. “Billy would have wanted it that way.” Lew was thrilled.

He worked on the old worn-out beast for a month. One afternoon I was up there helping him try to get it started. Nothing seemed to work. The Hopkins’ lane had a nice downhill slope to it. It ran along an alfalfa field to the bottom of the slope then made a hard right and went out to the main road. We decided to try to push start it. The Harley had a foot clutch on the left side and a hand shifter on the side of the fuel tank. Lew put it in second gear and depressed the clutch pedal. I started pushing him down the road. The first couple of clutch pops had no results. We still had some momentum though so we kept going. On the third attempt she fired up and the old hind wheel started churning. Lew was way too close to the corner though, and was forced to cross through the hay. Flames were shooting six feet out of the exhaust pipe and a 20 foot rooster tail of green alfalfa was spraying into the air. I laughed so hard I had to step into the bushes.

Now she was running, we had to go to town and show her off. We put our ball caps on backwards and headed down the canyon. There was no second seat so I had to sit on the back fender. We got down to the intersection of Himni Avenue and Main Street and stopped at the light. We were in the left turn lane. While we waited for the light to change Mitch Warner pulled up next to us in his rod. He rumbled the engine. Lew responded by wrapping up the Harley. Just then his foot slipped off the clutch and the bike pulled a wheelie, through the red light, right out into the intersection where it dumped me smack dab on top of the manhole cover in the middle of the street! Lew went on to careen over the curb where he finally got control in the parking lot of Hanley’s Department Store. Aside from a sore rear end and singed eyebrows I was no worse for wear, just a little smarter.

I rode home with Mitch.