A Child's Prayer

Ok ok, I don't want to sound super cheezy...but I recently had a spiritual experience and figured I would blog about it.

I was thinking about a recent conversation I had about returning home from a mission and how life isn't quite so meaningful, and how personal progress seems an insurmountable task. I was thinking about the high goals I had set for my personal progression and good desires. I was also thinking tonight about a new little nephew I have, and what that little boy has lying ahead of him in his life. I was thinking about these things as I went running tonight.

I felt very overwhelmed--like all the goals I had set and every good intention I'd had, were just poorly laid bricks in a poorly-constructed "road of life." I paused from my run, laid down on a parcel of grass, and waited as these kinds of thoughts settled down next to me.

It may not seem like a huge revelation (but honestly, the good revelations are the ones that open our eyes when they're too tightly shut to see at midday) but after uttering a prayer, I had the calming reassurance that it wasn't all dependent upon me. I learned a little something about the Atonement tonight. I relearned the exclamation of the Savior to "take [His] yoke upon" me. Regardless of the burdens and doubts (and inadequacies), the Atonement of Christ exists as the end of all suffering.

With General Conference coming up, I'll end with a quote from Elder J. Reuben Clark and others:

"So as I conceive it, we must stand adamant for the doctrine of the atonement of Jesus the Christ, for the divinity of his conception, for his sinless life, and for, shall I say, the divinity of his death, his voluntary surrender of life. He was not killed, he gave up his life. It is our mission, perhaps the most fundamental purpose of our work, to bear constant testimony of Jesus the Christ. We must never permit to enter into our thoughts and certainly not into our teachings, the idea that he was merely a great teacher, a great philosopher, the builder of a great system of ethics. It is our duty, day after day, year in and year out, always to declare that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ who brought redemption to the world and to all the inhabitants thereof."

"Man unquestionably has impressive powers... But after all our obedience and good works, we cannot be saved from the effects of our sins without the grace extended by the atonement of Jesus Christ... Man cannot earn his own salvation."
--Dallin H. Oaks

"This life is not so much a time for getting and accumulating as it is a time for giving and becoming. Mortality is the battlefield upon which justice and mercy meet. But they need not meet as adversaries, for they are reconciled in the Atonement of Jesus Christ for all who wisely use Today."
--Lance B. Wickman

"Each of us will taste the bitter ashes of life, from sin and neglect to sorrow and disappointment. But the atonement of Christ can lift us up in beauty from our ashes on the wings of a sure promise of immortality and eternal life. He will thus lift us up, not only at the end of life, but in each day of our lives."
--Bruce C. Hafen

Sometimes laying alone in the dark on a patch of grass can be the perfect place to be taught that we are never alone, and that God provides us that little bit of knowledge we need when overwhelming thoughts threaten to settle down next to us and stay awhile.

Utah State Fair

I paid $8 last night to enter a big grass field, covered all over by booths and attractions that costed additional money: fairground grass had never been so expensive.

I saw some of the weirdest, saddest things last night. First, there was the 'smallest woman in the world' from Haiti. They kept her in this half-box as people filed through and just looked at her. I immediately had regrets for entering the attraction as I saw the sad, lonely look on her. How barbaric! Aside from this little woman, there were billboards for: "The 5-legged sheep", "The Beautiful Head of A Woman on the Ugly Body of a Snake", "The 2-Snouted Cow". The whole carnival atmosphere just reminds me of one of those old disney movies, that teach young people some morally prolific lesson (ex:Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride).

We walked through the 'tent of informercials' (as I'll call it) where there were old men selling: knives, George Foreman Grills ®, Hair Removal Kits, and my personal favorite, 'The Super Shammy'. They old guy with the super shammy, poured an entire bottle of root beer on a piece of carpet, and cleaned it all up with a shammy! Incredible. If it hadn't cost $15 for a 2x2 square of the stuff, I might have splurged.

We also rode a ride called the Zipper, which was designed to make your 'insides' want to be 'outsides' and vice versa. Not only was it like a miniature ferris wheel, circulating around a central point, each individual cart also spun at torrent speeds. It was a highlight of the night.

While I was at the Carnival, though, I thought about the lives of the people who travelled and worked at the Carnival. I mean, I entered this insane, freakish world for a night to somewhat escape reality and feel alien for a minute. I wondered if the "Carnival people" perceive their world as an accurate portrayal of reality. A world of flashing lights, bouncy music, and stuffed animals. It is legitimate to assume that those people have a very skewed view of reality. We all live in our own personal Carnivals and mistake it for reality.

reality (n) - something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.; the world or state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

Sometimes, we have ideals that are important to us--so we create worlds that have no actual ties to reality. Like the man who loved giant mice and pizza so much, that he created Chuckie Cheese. Or the man who loved candy so much, that he wrote about a character named Willy Wonka. More important, is when we experience the reality of the world and then form ideals and notions about that literal actuality!

i Love that Hummus

I recently helped someone write a paper about what the word “love” means to them. After stumbling around some boring premises to the paper, we stumbled upon something I think about, but have never really thought deeply about. My brother would talk a lot about ‘5 Dollar Words’ right when I got home from my mission. Words that we use when we don’t want to explicitly state what it is we mean.

So for this paper, it was decided that we should write out what it is we really mean when we say love in various contexts. I think it is interesting to think about what love really means to us when we say it--is it superficial or sincere? Deep or shallow? Understood or just negligently used? What does love mean?

I was prompted to think about this today while I was eating my homemade tacos and really enjoying the secret hummus sauce I put on them, when I said to myself, “Man, I love that hummus.” I stopped and thought, “What does that even mean?” So, I thought I would write down some common usages of the word love and describe what they literally mean in my opinion.

I love that hummus = Hummus tastes really good and compliments the meat, onions, tomatoes, sour cream, lettuce, and wheat tortillas of my fresh made tacos.

I love Autumn = The weather is perfect in the Fall and I can comfortably wear pants and a long sleeve shirt.

I love that shirt on you = that material really compliments your body type perfectly.

I love this song = this song makes me want to dance / this song reminds me of that one time… / this song really inspires me.

I love the Gospel = The Gospel teaches me truths about my Savior, the purpose of life, and the things I need to do to return to live with God, and I feel the Spirit when I hold to its precepts.

I love my family = I have known and spent tons of time with these people who know me and appreciate me for my good and bad parts, and I feel more at home and comfortable when I am with them than I do anywhere else.

When I really think about how unabashed I abuse the word love, I come to the solid conclusion that I don’t understand it much. I think we hide behind that word more than any other, and use it so we can avoid saying what we really mean. Only when you think you really understand it, do I think you should use it as a verb. I think those last two examples I used are the only two times in my life where I can use the word love appropriately, because I do love the gospel and my family…very much.

Small Acts of Kindness

So, I'd like to just relate a small story that has impressed me lately. I'll start out in the past.

A little over two years ago, I was living in the freshman dorms, doing freshmen laundry in our freshmen basement. The laundromat was organized roughly so:

I put my dirty shorts, shirts, and under garments into an open machine, inserted the appropriate coinage, and was on my way. I planned accordingly and arrived back in the laundry room right before my wash was finished. I used one of those convenient MTC, wire "basket on wheels" to transfer my clothes from washer, to wire basket on wheels, to dryer. I loaded the dryer, added coinage, and once again, left the washroom. This time, however, I was not as deliberate in my planning and timing. Unregulated hours passed before I remember that my clothes were well past "tumble dry". Several hours later, I entered the laundry room, and found an untidy pile of my undies on the ground next to the "what is that?" goop in the corner of the room. I claim full responsibility for my actions (I was young, though) and took the young man's clothes, who had dumped my clothes on the floor, and spread them neatly into all 4 corners of the room. Retribution never felt so good.

Let's jump back to the present. I was leaving for 'saturday afternoon football with the guys', when a roommate said, "Hold on, I'm just going to throw a load in before we go". I realized that load might be sitting in the dryer for quite some time, an 'unregulated' amount of time, if you will. I recalled the events of freshman year, but couldn't risk being late for afternoon football. So, he started a drying cycle, and we left for many hours. Upon arrival home, I was taken aback to find my roommate grinning, with a pile of folded laundry in his hands.

The words, "They just made my day, and I don't even know who they are...I love BYU" left his mouth. There were so many opportunities for this anonymous person to have done the least amount of service possible. They could have left the dryer and chosen to do laundry at a later date. They could have simply dumped his laundry into the basket he'd left next to the machine. Heck, they could have chosen to dump them next to the nasty pile of "what is that" in the corner of the room. But they chose to do the most that they could. One by one, they folded his shirts, his pants, and his nice, white, underskivves and place them neatly in his basket. So insignificant, but yet so kind. I was impressed, and looked up kindness in the scriptures:

"...the desire of a man is his kindness." Prov. 19:22

A very small thing, but for me, it left an impression. And the most perfect part is that I'll never know who did it.

Life Goals

I was rummaging wednesday through my mission things and found my first mission journal. It runs from approximately February 2007-March 2009. On the last page, I would periodically write down life goals that inspired me between those dates. They still inspire me; I still plan on fulfilling each of them and find them very realistic.

Goals:
-Chop down a tree of 30 feet or more.
-Start a "Boy Meets World" (or other wholesome show) club at BYU
-One summer of my life, work a crazy job...somewhere far away.
-Learn the piano...MASTER the piano.
-Plant a garden and sustain myself.
-Be more active in community/national/global service.
-Consider these thoughts when deciding on a vocation bzw. everything I do:
->Will that, which takes the majority of my time, help other to live a better life?
->Will it inspire me to be an inspired man?
->Is my motive money? Or is it LOVE, in any of its forms?
->Will it teach me continually? Or will it lead my life to repetition?
->Will it help me become exalted?

-Buy a bike. Ride it.
-Don't be an energy, money, food, time Waster.
->Do your part for the environment/world.

-Do 100% Hometeaching, every year of my life.
-Keep especially these commandments:
->Keep Sabbath Day Holy
->Tithing
->Deal Honest with my Fellow Man
->Live always within my means.

I have not made severe changes here to what I wrote in my journal. This is a very honest, clear look into my mind. I hope it didn't frighten you. Would life not be fulfilling if you did all those things? Especially the tree one.

this i like.

I feel already as if I will waste this post failing to adequately express a feeling I'd really like to convey. I am going to write this post while listening to Us by Regina Spektor , so if you want to read what's entering my ears while I write, check that out.

Basically, I have had a couple days of self-rediscovery and enlightenment. I didn't really realize the process taking place over the past couple days until I had a few minutes to quietly sit and think. I really treasure that activity. I was thinking about becoming a good person, while also becoming the kind of person that people enjoy being around. Luckily, I have a few good people whose company I enjoy surrounding me, so I can take notes from them. For instance, all my siblings and siblings-by-law. The more time I spend with them, the more I really learn about living well and doing good. I've been able to learn a lot from Bryce and Christina in the past week. I am consistently instructed and edified when I read about Hilary, Tyler, and the Lores.

Don't you like it when you feel like a part of you that's been sleeping for awhile is awoken by a beautifully written word or perfectly portrayed image? I've been reading some inspiring things and saw a fairly well done film today that have awoken my better slumbering parts. I bought a book called The Book of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley and saw the film 500 Days of Summer by director Marc Webb.

What is Simon Critchley's aim and direction in his book? Here's an excerpt that I value as a thesis:
"The main task of philosophy is to prepare us for death, to provide a kind of training for death, the cultivation of an attitude towards our finitude that faces-and faces down-the terror of annihilation without offering promises of an afterlife."
I mean, I obviously DO believe in an afterlife and a loving God that desires our obedient return to Him..but, if death is a transition and meaningful, then isn't philosophy's instruction on overcoming our fear of death, and ascending above our slavery to it, a good thing?
"To philosophize is to learn how to die".
"He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave".
It isn't a morbid or grim book at all. It really has inspired me for some reason. A paragraph in the author's introduction might explain it best:
"Very simply stated, this is a book about how philosophers have died and what we can learn from philosophy about about the appropriate attitude of death and dying. My hope, to echo the epigraph from Montaigne, is 'to make a register, with comments, of various deaths'. My wager is that in learning how to die we might also be taught how to live."

It is just refreshing to awake. It is a fulfilling process and really the only pursuit that matters: becoming who you want to be through constant evaluation and reawakening.

Kalai From The Grassy Knoll

I went to a concert tonight to watch Kalai, while sitting on the grassy knoll at the Springville Amphitheater. It was not so much a celebration of music or art, as it was a celebration of the LIVE Music scene. I pulled out the blanket while standing on the slope of the grassy knoll, looking out over a solid crowd of 200 strong. Kalai was sitting, center-stage, with his bass guitarist to his right (our left) and his drummer to our right (his left). The stage was huge and seemed negligently un-used by Kalai and his cronies. There was good purpose though, his stage presence mirrored his artistic style: simple and thoughtful.

He spent a majority of the performance not playing music, but talking to the crowd. He had the crowd rolling (although I found some of the sacrament meeting jokes a bit off-color) as he put on a candid comedy sketch for his avid emo-looking fans. Hence my labeling of this event a celebration of LIVE performance, and not necessarily music. BUT, when he did sing, boy could he sing. He graced us with such songs as: "Divide Me, Where the Wild Things Are" and others. He is a LIVE performer, no doubt about it.

Although his songs are meaningful, they can be rather tiresome, especially between ballads of jokes and rambling. We got to the point where a nice game of Blackjack, with background accompaniment from Kalai, would be preferred. Instead of betting chips or money, we bet dares. I lost a dare and had to start a "slow clap" to the rhythm of the song, and other stakes included skipped around the audience, offering Goldfish to a stranger, and harassing fellow audience members. What would a community event be without the immature BYU students? It was enjoyable and although it wasn't necessarily edifying in content or nature, it was uplifting in performance and community involvement.