Musings, and a search for truth

Heartening Realization

2012-02-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

If "love is a battlefield," as the 80s song suggests, then I have recently suffered a rather crushing defeat. Off balance, I and my subsequent attempts at romance have been... awkward.

I was feeling down about this; it became the preoccupation of my prayers and the subject of my most recent fast. It has prompted a paradigm shift and a serious review of my character, spirituality and focus.

Against this backdrop, I was watching an "I'm a Mormon" video today, the one for Athelia (fashion designer, business woman, former dancer.) It resonated with me - perhaps because I am also an entrepreneur, and a former singer, and because I harbor a hidden dream of one day designing attire myself.

Her comment, though, about worth struck home: "God sees me as a soul with worth, even when I can't accomplish anything." She was referencing an illness which rendered her unable to do many things, but I find it applies to my situation: no matter how compelling a young lady may be, my value is independent of her opinion.

Moreover, I have value and, despite my current lack of success, am an attractive individual. I am an entrepreneur. I speak two languages, understand a third, and am learning a fourth. I am a writer, a photographer, and a visionary. I am intelligent, well read, and very well-travelled.

I am chaste. I respect people. I do not steal kisses, and I don't usually need to. I have been told many times that I am very romantic, and (irony aside,) one former girlfriend described me as (I quote) "the perfect boyfriend." I have loved intensely, and have been loved just as intensely in return.

Nor am I ugly. I have elicited romantic interest from women of every description and profession: models, dancers, singers, actresses, doctors, engineers, and athletes, from every race and from many nationalities. I have been whistled at by women on multiple occasions (though I admit this may only be a half-compliment), and I have been told that I have beautiful eyes.

In sum, I was reminded of who I am, and of the fact that I like very much the man I have become. I am happy the Lord has led me here. Though I have not been perfect, the Lord has yet made my life beautiful.

And, perhaps best of all, He will continue to do so.

I was reminded that "what you see and experience now is not what forever will be. You will not feel loneliness, sorrow, pain, or discouragement forever. We have the faithful promise of God that He will neither forget nor forsake those who incline their hearts to Him" (President Uchtdorf, "You Matter to Him," October 2011 General Conference).

I will not be ashamed of who I am or of my (righteous) behavior. I will publish. I will be successful in business, in many businesses. I can admit that I wish to design clothing, and that I will have an art kaleidoscope of my design and production in a museum before I die. I enjoy interior design, and have already designed and built rooms with which I and others are most pleased. I enjoy the aesthetic. I will travel, I will teach, I will learn, I will create. I will make a positive impact on society. I will one day have a family and accomplish all that the Lord would have me do.

And if a woman, or many women, or all women, aren't interested in joining me in those endeavors, so be it. It is their loss at least as much as it is mine. Moreover, someday there will be a woman who finds all of those things incredibly attractive -- who finds ME incredibly attractive -- and about whom I will feel the same way.

Until that day, and after it, I will go forth rejoicing in this wonderful life.
I have embedded the video I found particularly inspiring; another video I enjoyed can be found here. Pictures from the Ice Festival follow below the video.

Rff-wrff; Frwheeee!

I believe this was my vote for the winner, or the cupid and heart above.

Pictures: medicine for melancholy

2012-01-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

Winter in Missouri

La Mezquita, Cordoba, Spain

Also.

Walls of the Jewish Quarter, UNESCO Heritage site.

Medina Al-Zahra (if I remember correctly), outside of either Cordoba or Granada

The Alhambra

Also.

Proof that I really was there.

An attempt at scale. The place was, and felt, massive.

100th Post!

2012-01-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

My first and biggest announcement: I have launched a new company! Our website is live at www.btmppublishing.com, though I intend to change that to www.tmpublishingllc.com very soon. Either way, each address should, in the very near future, take you to the same homepage.

The last two weeks saw me cloistered in my bedroom office, learning how to create such a website. It was definitely a blessing; I didn't (don't) have enough capital to pay for website design, so getting one up was, to me, miraculous. I feel like I had a lot of divine help there.

And, from there, things have kept going more and more quickly! An artist signed onboard as our art director; one of my editors volunteered to be the magazine lead, some local publicity events in St. Louis have come together, we've started editing our first manuscript. The ball is rolling!

My next main event is to go back out to Utah for the LTUE Writing Conference at BYU/UVU, where we'll pitch our publishing house to authors. Hopefully, I'll be able to set up a booth at another Utah Conference as well.

In sum: many blessings, all the time.

Happy 100th post!

Launch

2012-01-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

I have spent the past three days in a whirlwind of recruiting personnel, applying for and receiving business licenses, establishing a website, and preparing a company for "launch" - that magical (?) moment when doors officially open for business for the first time.

For those of you who are wondering what I am talking about, a synopsis: my business venture in Ghana became untenable due to unanticipated market conditions (we weren't going to make any money on it). Therefore, I have shifted my focus onto my second idea (Project 2 in my Twitterfeed), which is a publishing house: TM Publishing, LLC. We open for business officially before the end of htis month, and hopefully within the next week. The website still needs work, which is all that prevents us from accepting manuscripts; when I have something professional prepared, I will post a link here.

In this whirlwind of activity - amidst interviews with employees and potential employees, meetings with bankers and government officials, and all the other activities necessary to create a publishing house - I have by far most enjoyed three events only peripheral to my commercial work.

First was an evening spent with family. I had come from another meeting where I behaved much as I often have before - somewhat garrulous, comical but not careful - but not as I would prefer to be. Spending the evening just talking with family members helped me come back to the path of the person I am trying to, and feel God would have me, be. It was edifying.

The second was a corporate meeting, actually, though the corporate aspect of it was not particularly important. What made the interaction so positive and uplifting was that I was starting a professional friendship. The meeting was with my banker, it is true, but, as he is to be my primary contact with the bank and we are to interact often over the life of this business, I felt comfortable getting to know him as a person. As a result, our interaction was human, rather than bureaucratic. I would not invite this gentleman over for social events, of course - ours is a professional relationship. Even so, it was gratifying to develop a friendly professional relationship, rather than simply experience professional interaction. I intend to imitate that example, actually - I have been tempted, as this company has formed, to become increasingly distant in order to appear "professional." I am very glad to know that such is not necessary. One can be human and professional too.

Finally, and best of all, was a conversation with a dear friend whom I greatly respect and admire. Our interaction is, and has nearly always been, very uplifting; I am very grateful the Lord has continued to put us in each other's paths. Without His divine intervention, I believe I would have lost contact with this person several years ago, or one of several times thereafter.

Perhaps these events all seem small to you, and maybe they were. To me, they were an answer to prayer and an imporant reminder that God does lead us in green pastures, that He restores our souls, and that "surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (Psalm 23).

Importantly, these interactions all came on the same day, the only day this week when I have not worked for more than eleven hours on a project. I intend to get a full-time job soon in addition to my entrepreneurial and authorial activities; I expect to work twelve hour days consistently for some time into the future. Even so, as I was reminded in the course of these experiences, it is the people, not the work, that satisfies. Relationships are what make life worthwhile.

I work to accomplish things I feel the Lord expects of me; it was at His prompting that I began to explore opportunities in publishing. These three experiences, though, were a divine reminder that in the course of my work, I need to prioritize those people I love. Twleve hour days are still appropriate and expected, especially for the next period of my life, but the rest of my time, I feel, should be devoted to people. There is no time to waste on things that are not of value; every moment spent in idleness is a moment spent not strengthening one of the relationships that make life worthwhile.

And, as that day demonstrated, relationships -families, friendships, even positive professional interaction, are deeply satisfying, a great contributor to happiness, and a wonderful blessing.

Christmas

2011-12-24T00:17:00.000-08:00

The wintry day, descending to its close,
invites all wearied nature to repose

and shades of night are falling dense and fast

like sable curtain drifting o'er the past.

Pale through the gloom the newly fallen snow

wraps like a shroud the silent earth below
as though 'twere mercy's hand had spread the pall
a token of forgiveness unto all.

Hymns no . 34: "The Wintry Day Descending to Its Close"

When we say Goodbye, I say Hello

2011-12-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned before, I'm leaving Provo; this week, I went and personally bade my friends goodbye. (At least, all those I could get ahold of - if I didn't say goodbye to you personally, you are still my friend, don't worry.) This was extraordinarily uplifting - I have been blessed with wonderful friends while I have been here, and seeing them again, and feeling their love for me, even as I part from them, was a wondrous experience.

This chapter of my life is in its last few paragraphs, and I'm excited for the next one. I am starting to get an idea of what I am supposed to do while in St. Louis, and roughly how long the Lord would like me to stay there. If all goes well, I'll be back in Africa in seven months or so -and that will be a great blessing as well. My last experience in South Africa was very difficult; I look forward to remaking my memories of the place into happy ones this next time around.

The sweetest events since the last post have been ones that occurred in prayer. I am not ashamed to admit
that I am in the middle of the repentance process; one of the epiphanies I've had this week is that I always should be. It has been sweet relief and sweet comfort to understand more fully how the Lord truly does love me despite my frailties, failures, and follies. He is far more concerned with my happiness and eternal welfare than I could have known.

I'm a firm believer that the Lord has specific things he wants each person to do; I do believe we each have fore-ordained callings to specific responsibilities in this life. But, I am discovering more fully that we are valuable to the Lord apart from those callings; His love for us seems to be independent of how well we fulfill that which He would have us do.

Don't get me wrong - the blessings He can give us are limited to what we accept at His hand - our Heavenly Father doesn't force-feed us blessings. He will lead us to green pastures, but he won't make us eat. We need to do what He asks us to do in order to be blessed as He wants to bless us. But - and here is the part I've found encouraging- He never stops wanting to give us the joy and happiness and richness of eternity and exaltation.

In the Bible and Book of Mormon, there are repeated references to the Lord prophesying destruction of a people; these verses often conclude, "For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." (Isaiah 5:25, but there are a LOT of verses that use this phrase). I have usually interpreted that scripture to mean, "God is punishing people, and all of these punishments don't satisfy His wrath."

That is true, I think, but only for the first part of the phrase. The Bible Dictionary explains that the second half, "But his hand is stretched out still" corresponds to what I am reading in the Book of Mormon right now:

"O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me.

Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. … And as many as have received me, to them have I given to
become the sons of God; and even so will I to as many as shall believe on my name, for behold, by me redemption cometh, and in me is the law of Moses fulfilled. I am the light and the life of the world. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. … And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost … Behold, I have come unto the world to bring redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin." (3 Nephi 9:13-21, emphasis added, complete text in link)

This is a happy conclusion to my chapter in Utah; it is an appropriate lesson to have learned with my time here. I am content and at peace with these last few years, and that, too, is a wonderful blessing.

So, goodbye Provo! When next we meet, I will only be passing through. Thanks for everything! Until we meet again!

New directions

2011-11-22T16:54:00.000-08:00

Now that I have, hopefully, cleared the air from my last two blog posts, I think I can sum up the experience in a few words: don't write blog posts in the middle of fever and stomach flu delirium.

That said, I am moving in new directions. The texting service I am putting together for an international market is proceeding apace, and that is a great blessing. Yesterday, I was able to listen to the founder and CEO of EcoScraps. He had some good advice, the best of which was probably this: measure everything. If you do not measure it, you don't know what you are doing.

This is the next phase of my life; I've finally finished my degree, and can now turn my entire attention to more important matters. This is a time for goal setting, diligent work, and intense evaluation. How many people am I going to talk to this week? How many pages of my business plan will I edit? How many chapters of a novel am I going to outline? How many words am I going to write? And, most importantly, how many did I speak to? How many did I outline? How many did I write? And what are the consequences of that?

For the record, my farewell to my Utah friends was not a precursor of death or dismemberment. It was simply the acknowledgement that the Lord has a lot of work for me to do at the moment. He would have me begin my professional career, He would have me strengthen my bonds with family, and He would have me more intensely study His words and live His Gospel. I can do nothing else.

All pictures today come from the grounds of King's College, Cambridge University, on the same magnificent evening.

Clarification

2011-11-09T12:30:00.001-08:00

An apology:

Apparently, my last post frightened a lot of people. I got a number of phone calls from family members who were extremely worried that I was contemplating death, coming out of the closet, or (in the best case) getting engaged. I guess I didn't realize how melodramatic my post had been.

I also didn't consider how this post followed directly after my last one; another close friend called and was worried that I had dropped everything and begun a trip to Everest.

Fortunately, none of these are correct. I am still romantically interested exclusively in women, I am not contemplating death (either by sickness or suicide), I am not engaged and do not anticipate becoming so in the near future, and I am not embarking for Everest.

I am simply changing my focus and many of my behaviors in extensive ways. I believe these changes will help me draw closer to God, and will help me to become a very different person than I currently am.

And so, I apologize if I have alarmed any of you. I hope this clarification has put your mind at rest concerning me.

By way of apology, I am attaching two posts' worth of pictures. (Of course, if you don't enjoy my photography, the apology will be more effective if you stop reading now. :-) )

These were the gates I walked through every day to get to class this summer. Ahh, King's College...

Cambridge Botanical Gardens. Phenomenal.

I do love macro floral photography... this is also from the Cambridge Botanical Gardens. Definitely worth a visit if or when you're in Cambridge.

From a trip to Southern Utah, to run in the Red Rock Relay.

Also. I loved the clouds that day.

Also. As you can see, these were taken through the window of our team van.

Also.

Me being silly at the British Museum in London. This place was incredible, though - I was super excited to find, in real life, the artifacts I loved in history books as a child. The Greek hoplite helmet in my "Stories of Freedom" book? Saw it for real.

Also. Cool statue though, no? I think this one is Babylonian; if I remember correctly, it comes from a pair of city gates. I have no idea how the British managed to transport this intact back to England.

That's the Rosetta Stone. The crowd parted for a moment, allowing my friend Jennifer to snap this picture. I was VERY excited to see this in real life; in fact, it's one of the big reasons I wanted to come to the British Museum in the first place. The foundation of modern archeaology: right behind me.

A New Voyage

2011-11-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

Being very ill the past day, and the events immediately preceding my illness, have given me new perspective. I believe I will go on a journey of sorts, and I expect to be gone for some time. I imagine that my friends in Provo won't see very much of me over the course of the next few years.

It's exciting, this journey. I feel I'm currently crossing the Rubicon; once I'm over it, I'll burn the bridge behind me.

Metamorphosis is a change in form and nature; it is to literally and irreversibly become something different. I wonder how often creatures in the animal kingdom choose to change; caterpillars either become butterflies or die. There's still a choice, I guess: just one with permanent consequences either way. So too is it with me. I've been resisting this change for years; now I select it of my own free will and choice. I choose to be a different man than I have been, and that involves going away for awhile.

I'm still very weak, so I will let this entry suffice today. Farewell to my friends here! I love you and will miss you when I am gone.

The pictures below come from a very enjoyable trip to Mirror Lake with the Harmers about two weeks ago.

A warning

2011-10-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

I am currently editing a travel essay written by a friend of mine. As I am also in the process of reading Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air," wanderlust has been on my mind. Krakauer, in describing the most lethal summer on Everest to date, was trying to warn away further attempts; I find in his writings both the certainty of danger on that mountain, an inescapable dread, - even more powerfully - a sharpening of the relentless longing for Everest, and the sure knowledge that someday I will make the attempt.

My friend's essay, coupled with Krakauer's account, reminded me of a poem by Robert Service. I've only ever read the first stanza before, which is a romanticized description of a - apparently my - race of people. The rest of the poem speaks the truth, though. Heaven help us all.

The Men Who Don't Fit In* -Robert W. Service

There's a race of men that don't fit in,

A race that can't stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,

And they climb the mountain's crest;

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;

They are strong and brave and true;

But they're always tired of the things that are,

And they want the strange and new.

They say: "Could I find my proper groove,

What a deep mark I would make!"

So they chop and change, and each fresh move

Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs

With a brilliant, fitful pace,

It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones

Who win in the lifelong race.

And each forgets that his youth has fled,

Forgets that his prime is past,

Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,

In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed;

he has missed his chance;

He has just done things by half.

Life's been a jolly good joke on him,

And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;

He was never meant to win;

He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;

He's a man who won't fit in.

Doctrinally, there are some amazing points here too: those who seek to become "a law unto themselves" suffer misery eternally. But my question is this: what if one feels that God calls to the field? To the mountain? Or to travel? What then? Where is happiness for these?

Here I am no longer speaking of the Gospel - I believe travelers can serve the Lord. Maybe not as much or as well as someone who is stationary, but still they can be put to use.

I guess that the answer is to serve the Lord first - wherever He calls one to go, and regardless of the wanderlust one feels.

I wrote mistakenly earlier. Doing whatever the Lord instructs us to do, even calls to the field - IS the only way to find happiness. Again, though - Heaven help those He calls to travel, to struggle, to be hurt and change, to climb a mountain.

Krakauer wrote that he left in Seattle a whole lot of little things - his wife, his children, his job - that together added up to something a whole lot like happiness.

He includes a quote that sums it up nicely: "Then I felt, sinkingly, as if my whole life lay behind me. ... At times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find out that what I really sought was something I had left behind." - Thomas F. Hornbein, The West Ridge

But I can't stop either. I know it - I can look this fact full in the face, and still - I have to go the way I am called. The "fitful struggle" Robert Service described is the only open to me.

Yes, it is the "quiet plodding ones" who generally win the race of life - those who have the courage to face every same day. But I push onwards in response to a divine call that will not let me rest, and if I freeze to death (metaphorically speaking now) with the banner "Excelsior" in my hand, so be it.

What I got from General Conference:

2011-10-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

http://lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2011/10?lang=eng

Simply this: I need to try and do that which I feel I ought to be doing.

So, feeling divine reassurance for this very unknown career path:

I am, as of Monday, 3 Oct 2011, a full time entrepreneur.

I am a writer.

I am an educator.

I am a professional student no longer.

And, in accordance with divine instruction, things are already coming together in those regards. For one of my entrepreneurial endeavours, I already have a team together. Meetings for those endeavours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and hopefully Friday. Other important meetings: Thursday and Saturday.

To this schedule will soon be added mentoring, Social Venture Academy (an extra-curricular BYU program), Utah Entrepreneurship Council, (hopefully) Foundry entrepreneurial training, writing short stories, and compiling a family history.

I will also pursue a social life.

I do not know how long I can survive while self-employed, but we shall see.

If you have a belief in God: pray for Pres. Monson to have help and lead the Church. Pray for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached in all the areas of the world. After that, I could also use your prayers at this time.

I stand here looking into the darkness of the unknown, completely uncertain as to what lies ahead, but filled with an eagerness and anticipation that draw me onward.

Whatever happens, God is in it. And if God be for me, who can stand in my way?

A change of plans

2011-08-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

"How long can rolling waters remain impure? What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints." - Doctrine and Covenants 121:33

I think the river of my life may have just been turned upstream temporarily. More to come.

Morality

2011-08-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

I've made a lot of friends here in Cambridge, and I have been happy to share their company. It has been intellectually stimulating to return to an environment that is not predominantly LDS, and to discuss various topics - including morality, faith, the role of women and men in society, intimacy, and relationships - with people from backgrounds very different than my own.

Today, I was struck by the truth of Pres. Monson's words from the last General Conference:

"We have come to the earth in troubled times. The moral compass of the masses has gradually shifted to an “almost anything goes” position. ... Where once the standards of the Church and the standards of society were mostly compatible, now there is a wide chasm between us, and it’s growing ever wider."- Priesthood session

Indeed, I am somewhat amazed by how very different we are. This was impressed to me the other evening at a formal hall; some friends and I began to discuss the role of sexuality in relationships. Many of my friends here - wonderful people with whom I enjoy spending time - don't seem to value abstinence or virginity very highly; rather, sexual experience and skill are held as more important than sexual purity.

I can understand where my friends are coming from, of course; I have passed puberty myself. Still, I am grateful for the law of chastity. I do not wish to imagine the sorrow I would feel were I to engage in the frequent sexual activity that seems, from conversations here, to be completely socially acceptable.

I look forward to sharing sexual intimacy with one woman, with whom I will also share my entire life. I look forward to consummating, physically, an already-developed emotional union of hearts and a previously ratified social union of lives.

Some have said I can achieve this outside of marriage -- I disagree; I believe that I can only fully give myself to someone when we are both committed to each other completely: socially (marriage), spiritually (marriage in the temple), emotionally (best friends), financially, and physically.

I think that premarital sexual activity blunts my ability to connect emotionally and physically with the person I want to spend forever with; uncommitted sexual experience makes sex more of a skill than an act of union. I don't want to practice that - I want to practice becoming one with my spouse, and that requires a lot of premarital, NON-sexual work - getting to know each other, establishing a relationship, and deciding to commit to that person for ever (in Mormon doctrine, marriage is not till death, but even after) - and, perhaps most importantly, discovering that those feelings and efforts are mutual and equally strong.

How wonderful, then, to have the law of chastity! How grateful I am that I was taught to abstain from sex before marriage!

Forward, then: though I walk through paths I do not know, I shall fear no evil - for God is with me. - Psalm 23:4

"Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils - for wherein is he to be accounted of?" - Isa. 2:22; 2 Ne. 12:22

"Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever." - Doctrine and Covenants 122:9

Existential Religion

2011-08-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

The big question that has been on my mind, of late, is this: what is the nature of God? More specifically, does He create the law or does He obey laws that supersede Him?

At one level, this really doesn't matter: either way, if I follow God, I will come round right. But in another way, it matters very much: should I be striving for a Greek-philosophic "universal ideal" - that applies in the same way, to all people, everywhere? Or is perfection individualized?

I've been battling this back and forth in my head for a long time, but it came up again today in a debate on Facebook. Sunday, I finally came to the conclusion that I would never know unless I prayed; how better to find out the nature of God than to ask Him?

I did. You should too; I am certainly not a reliable enough source on my own for this topic.

Since praying about it, though, it seems clear to me that God pre-existed this mortal realm in which we live. Joseph Smith taught that intelligence is eternal, and I believe that; we are co-eternal with God, always having and always continuing to exist. Our Heavenly Father organized us, rather than creating us ex nihilo.

For everything else though - the laws by which our reality operates, the "laws" of nature, what we observe and deduce, and read in our scriptures, were given by God, not forced upon Him as some sort of necessity. God is not, for example, bound by the law of gravity - even and especially if He was the one who put it into place.

If God were God simply by virtue of knowing all the rules by which the universe operates: 1.) He wouldn't have to be a good person; he would just have to know a lot and be effective. There would be no need for God to love, unless the laws of the universe are based on love. 2.) Ostensibly, God could be replaced, someday, by technology. Once we get sufficiently far advanced, we don't need our Heavenly Father anymore. 3.) The answers to our problems are not unique; rather, they are just the interactions of a large number of variables.

I don't believe any of these things. I don't believe that God looks up the solutions to our problems in a large book of answers. Rather, I think He simply acts, and reality corresponds to what He does.

Thus, He said "Let there be light," and there was light. He did not push the correct button which, according to celestial law, forces light to appear.

This has a huge number of ramifications for our personal religion. If God were essentially a being who "doled-out" bits of eternal law to us as we became ready for them, there would be no need to have God be a person. A computer of even our mortal processing capacity could perform the very routine monitoring of what we do and/or think, and then dole out the appropriate bits of information - like a scavenger hunt, where the clue for the next item is found at the site of the item before. There's no need for God there.

If, instead, God is a living, emotional, perfected person - then we try to be like Him, and follow what He tells us to do because it helps us to do so. It's obedience for obedience' sake, vs. obedience as a means to become like our Heavenly Father. And that changes everything. We still obey - more strictly than before, in some ways - but that obedience has a higher goal. And that higher goal is God.

In pursuing my Facebook debate, I found a quote from Joseph Smith. "Hear it, all ye ends of the earth —all ye priests, all ye sinners, and all men. Repent! Repent! Obey the gospel. Turn to God; for your religion won’t save you, and you will be damned." It's not the law which saves us: rather, the law points our minds to Christ, and He saves us.

A note here - this does NOT mean that we can do whatever sin we want, and God will take care of everything. God's grace is sufficient for the meek; God does not force-feed us salvation. We have to be humble enough to accept it, and accepting God's mercy means changing our lives so that our wills are in harmony with His.

The person who is trying to become like God through the grace of Christ thus has a lot MORE responsibility to seek out and follow the will of the Savior than someone following only a code of rules; without that following, the one who knows that Christ's way is the best and then DOES nothing is under more condemnation than the unknowing. As the Pharisees demonstrate, rules themselves do not produce righteousness. Christ produces righteousness, and He produces it in us BY inviting us to follow Him.

Righteousness is produced when we do so, and only when we do so. There isn't some kind of magical change that suddenly turns us from bad to good - rather, the Lord exercises His power to give us chances to change, and then we act upon those for good or ill.

The point of all this is that God is not a machine, nor a set of tablets made of celestial stone with commandments carved on them. He is a living, loving, personal Being, who invites us to learn of Him by following Him and His ways and His Spirit, praying to know what He would have us do. Then, the Savior helps us to do it. It's personal, it's individual, and so is HE - He is personal and individual as well.

Pictures: Ireland

2011-08-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a more full spread of the famine figures from Dublin. They were amazingly evocative. I don't think I fully understand how much the potato famine affected Ireland - apparently, 1/4 of the population died or emigrated. I saw and heard references tot he famine - a hundred years later - everywhere. It feels almost as if the potato famine was as defining a moment for Ireland as the Second World War appears to have been for England.

Queens University in Belfast was beautiful. I got up very early one morning and took some picture just after dawn; since my computer is having trouble resizing them, this is the only one I'll post for now. These gargoyles especially caught my attention.

In the Queen's University Botanical Gardens, I found an interesting example of globalization. The other side of this billboard was another lion, with more of an English/Irish flavor. When I walked around the bend and found myself face-to face with this artwork in the garden, I was so arrested by it I decided to "share the beauty of this graceful moonlight."

This begins a series of photos of what I consider one of the most beautiful places on earth. I believe this is Sheep Island, which is the island next to Rathlin. Rathlin, as I saw it and heard it described, completely captured my imagination; I want, incredibly much, to go there and stay for 6 months or so.

Here is the famous Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge. I'd heard a lot about this place, and I was really glad I came; as I said, it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. That said, the bridge was NOT scary in the slightest. It's made of high-tensile steel cable, plastic and metal slats, multiple wire guidelines, and

More of the coast at Carrick-a-rede.

One of the shoes of the giant Finn MacCool's wife scared off. According to legend, he was so frightened through a ploy Finn's wife used that he ran back across the causeway to Scotland in such a hurry as to be unable to stop and collect his shoe, shown here. He was also so worried about Finn that he tore the causeway up behind him, leaving the current gap between Scotland and Ireland.

More of the Causeway. I'll eventually crop this image. It was made up of amazing hexagonal stones, in layers like steps or some kind of surrealist landscape sculpture. You can see here how the ground ripples rather than flows.

And two great friends from the trip! I met them both on our trip over and around the causeway, and we had a lot of fun together, and talked for hours.

A scene from Belfast.
Here is an example of the long-standing Irish conflict. Even the name of Derry is in question - those with Catholic ties refer to the city as Derry; those with Protestant or English ties, Londonderry. Actually, the British built a wall around the city for the Irish in exchange for the Irish using the Londonderry name. That said, the English all seem to call the place Derry because of a recent vote on the matter. But the NOrthern Irish I met IN Northern Ireland were very insistent as well. So, when in Derry/Londonderry, use the term "Maiden City" (which is only slightly better, as it too has British connotations) or ask someone's religion at the VERY beginning of the conversation.

Our friend here had worked in a Mars factory; our female friend had never had a Mars bar. So, he gave us the breakdown on European and Australian chocolate. We enjoyed his demonstration, and asked him to pose for a picture.

Narrative: Spain

2011-08-07T10:37:00.001-07:00

A Summary of the last of my Pre-England travel... as my time in Cambridge draws to a close.

Granada was phenomenal - the Alhambra was itself worth the trip to Spain. Although I liked Cordoba better and could see myself living there, Granada still gave me a great feel for Spain. It's also slightly more mountainous, which plays into my story better. After hiking around the Alhambra for about six hours - pictures, I promise! - I sat and talked with a lady I toured with; we had a great conversation about life and God.
That night, I climbed the mountain behind the Alhambra and, although I did not make it to the ruins of the Islamic aqueducts that lead into the palace, I did manage to get back to the Alhambra gardens. I was VERY tempted to hop the little fence on top of the wall I was walking along (technically, it's not trespassing if I don't cross the fence, right? So I walked along the outside edge, along a three inch ledge over a thirty foot drop. Yeah, I'm pretty stupid sometimes.) I decided that I didn't want to be deported for trespassing on a national monument and World Heritage site, though, so I turned back around and climbed back down the mountain.

So, this trip I managed to ALMOST climb mountains in Ireland and in the original Sierra Nevadas. I would have made the attempt both times, but felt like I needed to go back down the mountain - in Ireland, that allowed me to BARELY catch my train (with some divine intervention and a lovely family that gave me a ride to the station), in Spain, that allowed me to not fall while climbing through the woods at night. Moral: Follow your intuition, even it does mean you don't summit.

And then, the next morning, I was on a bus bound for Malaga, chatting for three hours in VERY broken Spanish (but hey, my friend didn't speak English, so I thought it was an accomplishment) about physics, sociology, second language learning, Spain, and the national stereotypes of Spain, France and Germany. We came to a good question in our discussion: is it better to be considered kind (Spain) or effective (Germany)?

And now, the pictures. One final note: for reasons I will relate in greater detail, I will NOT post my designs for a new school here. I can send those of you who are interested an email describing my specific plans, but I won't post my invention to the World Wide Web, especially not if I'm going to try and sell it this fall.

Summary Post

2011-08-05T18:31:00.000-07:00

I have missed a lot of blogging whilst I have been in Cambridge. Let me sum up;

Germany was a lot of fun. I finished the research I needed to do there in a single twenty four hour period, and caught an earlier train than I intended to Italy. The Germans in my hostel were friendly and courteous, and orderly almost to a fault: as I was climbing into my bed as evening approached, ready to simply wrap up in the duvet, one of them had me get out of bed, and then had me help him make my bed. It was kind, and very unusual to my American sentiment, but the other two German men in the hostel seemed to find it the expected or understandable thing for him to do. I was grateful that they would be so helpful to a stranger, and puzzled that they would take the trouble to have someone else's bed made – with hospital corners, no less. I presume that German culture emphasizes order.

On the train to Italy, I found a friend in a half-Swiss, half American girl who had a lot of questions about the Church. We had a very enjoyable conversation. In Italy, the trains moved unbelievably slowly west from Milan; I didn't arrive in Torino, near the French border, until nearly 11, after getting into Milan at 7. In Torino, due to a mix up, I spent the night trying to sleep in a train station. It was very hot, and a lot harder to sleep than I thought; I would have pulled it off, but a beetle thought that I was providing it dinner and so managed to bite me every time I would almost drift off. I don't think I even managed to squish it. I also discovered that calling cards are absolutely worthless from pay phones. This strikes me as very odd, as phone cards are for when one is traveling, as are pay phones.

That morning, I was dead tired of course, so I caught another incredibly slow train into Nice, or Marseilles, or somewhere that began with a P along the southern French coast. Actually, all of those places. The countryside was beautiful, and our train usually looked out over the sea. In that last place, I finally found a grocery store in a mall connected to the train station, and bought fresh fruit, bread, cheese, water, and carrots, and supped on them with relish for the next few days. It was a LOT cheaper, and I was very tired of train station food, no matter how good the Panini had been that morning in Italy.

In this location, our train broke down, so I rode with two Swedish girls to Barcelona on a bus replacement. We got in VERY late, and so I went with them to their hostel where – fortunately – there was another bed available in one of the men's rooms.

The next morning, I bade them goodbye and traveled, through Madrid, to Cordoba on a fast train; sadly, I didn't have time to stop or sightsee in Barcelona, though my hostel there was amazing. I will post a picture, blurry as it is.

Cordoba was amazing, and I had a blast there. My hostel, Senses and Colors, had a great atmosphere and was right in the heart of La Juderia, the old Jewish quarter; a few of the buildings dated back to the time was Cordoba was the capital of the Western Mediterranean. One of the restaurants nearby was actually housed in the ruins of the Muslim baths from Al-Andalus that I wanted to research. I visited every Muslim site I could find in preparation for writing one of my novels: the Tower Museum of Al-Andalus, the Caliphate baths (both the restored, museum ones and the ones converted to other uses), the ruins of Medina Al-Zahara (the governmental/administrative city built as palace community for the Caliph during the height, and then decline, of the Caliphate. It only lasted 70 years or so, or about 30 years after it was built). Also, I went to The Mezquita de Cordoba, which should rank as one of the architectural wonders of the world. Imagine a forest of columns, in perfect rows on both the horizontal and diagonal axes, in different colors, leading up into arches of alternating white and black or red marble, under a high ceiling with latticed skylights. I couldn't take a picture to do it justice. It was incredible.

The Tower and Medina al Zahara were probably the most useful for my research; the Tower was a testament to the advances, tolerance, and philosophy of the Islamic Renaissance as centered in and led by the city of Cordoba. I don't doubt that a lot of what I heard was historical propaganda, and that many of the messages from ancient Islamic philosophers had been adapted for a modern, Western, primarily Christian audience. Still, as long as the information presented wasn't an outright lie (and I sincerely doubt that) both the doctrinal and technological advances documented there were very impressive.

The Muslim sites were loaded with story hooks – huge sewers under amphitheatres, a succession of leaders murdered by slaves, and an empire that rose on the back of an orphan washed ashore and then fell in two generations under his great-grandsons deserve more literary attention than that which Cordoba has as yet been given. I made more friends in Cordoba, too, including a Thai student studying Spanish in Seville, and a Cuban gentleman with whom I discussed Kierkegaard, Stoicism, Hedonism, and becoming agnostic in a Calvinist paradigm.

More on Spain and the transition to England tomorrow. Also, a justification for not putting anything about education in this post. This post may be edited as well, probably to add pictures.

Success!

2011-07-22T17:13:00.000-07:00

Two successful pitches of my educational model, two successful sets of questions and answers, and two sets of references for future work! Steps in the right direction, indeed! AND, a new contact in LA.

That gives me four potential locations: St. Louis x2, Provo, and LA, with a possibility in Mississippi. I'm hoping for a number of locations in five domestic (i.e. within the continental US) cities; if Mississippi comes through, that will be four.

I currently also have two options on international locations - one in Belize, and one in China. For international franchises, I am willing to entertain any number of locations provided there are enough people passionate about it 1.) on the ground, OR 2.) Already planning to be on the ground in Sept 2012, for an extended period of time.

If any of you would like to be involved, or know a teacher, principal, school district official, private school instructor, or parent who would like to be involved in the formation of a new type of school, please contact me.

If you are confused about what I am talking about, check out my next post; I'll provide a general description of what these readings in Cambridge are for, and what I'm doing with my future career. I will also provide more information, and snippets about the project, as time goes on; they will probably be interspersed with my travel info, when I get around to posting it.

Exciting times!

Discontinuity

2011-07-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

After reading a few friends' blogs, I was inspired to write a little about something other than my travels, just for a change of pace. I'll post more pictures and a travel related narrative this week as well.

This week has been very interesting and eye opening. I must admit that since coming here to Cambridge, not everything has been rosy. The environment is wonderful of course, and the people are fantastic - I simply had a lot to do with correspondence course and my work here, and I was exhausted and burnt out. Add to that the end of a relationship - and the process of coming to the decision to end a relationship - and I became very stressed, somewhat sick, and most unhappy for a few days.

I deal with stress in terms of nerves, usually. When things get really bad, it feels like pain (and illness was a part of this particular experience) - but normally, I just get a little weird; my social grace leaves me stranded as my own confidence plunges.

Fortunately, there are things that combat this: good friends who are patient and still treat me like a socially competent person even when I don't act like one. I'm lucky to have friends in that category. Exercise does as well - it's hard to feel down when you set goals and achieve them. I'm training for a half marathon now, and I've run more this week than I have since I was training for my brother's and my 275 mile bike ride. It feels great.

Also, it feels wonderful to have the Gospel as part of my life. As much as being with friends helps, it has a negative side as well - when I make a fool of myself, sociality doesn't help my attitude. Fortunately, you cannot make a fool of yourself studying the scriptures and praying to God. I take that back, but at least it's a LOT, LOT harder. :-D My patriarchal blessing is a good check on a poor self-image as well - it reminds me of who I am, how God sees me, and what I have the potential to become. It also reminds me, perhaps more directly and powerfully than any single other thing that springs to mind, how much my Heavenly Father loves me. (For my non-Mormon readers, a patriarchal blessing is a kind of personal chapter of scripture, written for each individual. Mine has my name on it, and was pronounced over my head and recorded by someone called a patriarch, who is called to receive and record this kind of scripture. You might think of it as a personal letter from the Lord to a person, telling them about their life, about some of their personal gifts, giving warnings and instruction, etc.)

So, despite managing to make a tool of myself in front of every unmarried woman in our group in the short space between breaking up with my girlfriend and now (Of course: when you are in a relationship, you don't care about other girls' opinions as much and you are able to be yourself. As soon as you are out of a relationship, even if you aren't looking for another one, you proceed to shove your foot down your throat time and time again), things are going great. I really am enjoying myself here, I'm starting to get into and enjoy my studies, my first paper is coming along, and I'm getting great support, encouragement, and feedback concerning the schools I will begin to set up in September.

In fact, I am assembling a group on Thursday to discuss ways people who want to be involved can help. I'm going to make a practice pitch of the model and get feedback on it at that session.

Exciting times. Oh, and after eight days of being a vegetarian, I'm still going strong. To be honest, I haven't really missed eating meat. I am allowing myself good steak or any sushi in the future- so it's not a complete vegetarianism, but I think this may go from an experiment-prompted-by-unsavory-meat-at-dinner-on-the-same-day-as-a-breakup to a lifestyle decision.

Exciting times indeed.

40 Shades of Green

2011-07-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

As an introduction, I believe I will begin two string of posts here. I'll comment on the story of my travels in these textual blocks. However, there are too many pictures I want to post for me to get back up to date. So, for awhile, I'll publish "life" posts every so often, with "photo" posts in the middle. I'll add explanations to those photo posts in the meantime, though, so they will be somewhat more interesting.

I think I left you prior to Ireland and somewhere in Switzerland, on an overview story. First, a few words about Ireland, and then about writing.

I loved Ireland. I loved the people, I loved the feel of the place, I loved how friendly everyone was. I loved the hostels there, the people I met in hostels, the people I met at Church, and going to Church there. I loved the history of poverty and rebellion. I loved the singing and dancing in the pubs. I loved the accent, I loved the sunlight and the rain, I loved the castles and the ruins and the countryside.

Northern Ireland was, to put it simply, one of the most (if not THE most) beautiful places I have ever seen. My pictures simply could not do it justice. It wasn't a grand sort of pretty, nor was it spectacular. Instead, the region swept me up in a kind of quiet magnificence that I could breathe in and breathe out again. It was the most brilliant kind of green.

One place in particular called out to me, which is strange considering that I only saw it from a distance. There is a particular island in the middle of the crossing between Scotland and Ireland at its narrowest point; it's visible from the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. I felt like that would be a good place to live for, say, six months, in order to write a book. It's secluded, its beautiful, and if I ever encountered writer's block, I could simply walk outside to the end of the island, sit down, and surely, something would come to me. The whole island is about 6 miles long and a mile and a half wide, which is, if I remember correctly, roughly the size of Rhode Island. Rathlin Island, the place in discussion, has about 90 permanent inhabitants, which would be about enough, I think, for a six month stint, or however long it takes to write and line edit a novel or two.

Speaking of writing, I promised readers in my last post to discuss that subject in greater detail. As I rode from Hannover to Milan, somewhere in central or southern Germany, I read part of a novel for my novel writing class, The assigned novels were all examples of good writing; the first was a stream of consciousness piece called "After You'd Gone," the second was a study in the first person narrative titled "Never Let Me Go," and the third was an example of multiple, complementary first-person perspectives titled "The Great Lover." Although none of these three were harlequin romance novels per se, each had far more sexuality than I am able to accept. For the first two, the sexually explicit scenes were somewhat minimal and I was able to skip them with relative ease. The third, however, included increasingly graphic descriptions of sexual behavior woven throughout the narrative. To some degree, I felt the sexuality WAS the narrative, and I closed the book, unfinished, in disgust. (Alas, to be an amateur photographer! I didn't quite straighten this horizon line. But I like the picture nonetheless.)

I had been pondering, earlier that day and during the previous days, why I wanted to write. I was sketching plot and character arcs and listening to a podcast on the craft of writing; to large degree my entire trip through Europe was an information gathering exercise in preparation for writing a series of novels (as I will discuss in greater detail when we arrive in Spain). But I am not planning on writing becoming my primary profession; indeed, I have long considered education reform to be my primary calling.

On that train in Germany, however, it struck me that if these were the novels my writing professor was prescribing me to read, sexuality must be such a common element in modern literature and fiction as to be unimportant. The treatment of sex I read in these novels was trying to allow the reader to experience life through a character's body; though that is a great means of establishing empathy between the reader and the character, it is also intensely immoral - even pornographic - when describing sexual behavior. (This probably also extends to many kinds of violence, and descriptions of violence).

Sex is one of only a few universal human activities. I came to the conclusion that authors seem to believe sex - graphic descriptions of sexual activity - are necessary to make good writing. And that is when I had my epiphany: I want to write to demonstrate that books can be powerful, important, enjoyable, and meaningful WITHOUT forcing the reader to compromise their moral integrity. I felt a moral imperative: whatever skill I have as a writer, I need to use it to counter the impression that good writing requires the reader to participate in sin.

As a moral crusade, this requires a few things of its own. I need to become good enough to make the point; shoddy writing will support the opposite cause. So, I need to become better as a writer, and I need to continue becoming better as a writer. The only way I know how to do this is through consistent practice. 10,000 hours of writing, to use Malcolm Gladwell's rule of thumb. Also, my writing has to be focused practice on getting better; it is not enough to write the same tripe over and over again. There are prolific authors whom I will not mention by name, who I feel write the same garbage repeatedly.

Second, when writing, I have to make sure that I am writing morally. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (which I am still enjoying and finishing) has been called "a moral story about immoral people." THAT has to be my model. The Bible describes sexual behavior that would be abhorrent to nearly anyone (incest, bestiality, etc.); it remains a moral document, even in the passages described. I take it back - the Song of Solomon may be an exception. But the sections in Genesis and Exodus and Joshua and Judges describing sexuality, from procreation to incest, allow the reader to understand what is happening without requiring the reader to personally experience it or support it. (A note here - I'm not against sex in general. I AM against pornography, including graphic descriptions of sex tucked into literature.)

So, I am going to write on the side. It will take me a long time to get to 10,000 hours; I'd better start now. I'm currently working on a re-telling, or series of re-tellings, of the Pied Piper story, on a detective novel, and on a piece of historical fiction set in Morocco. (For the record, that last one is one I intend to go to Morocco for about six months to research and finish.) I've also charted out beginning plot lines for a story about cultural imperatives, and another about love (including sexual love) and forgiveness and patience set in early Catholic or Lutheran Missouri.

You've been very patient, so I'll provide some pictures on this post as well. Again, expect the next few posts to move through pictures of Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and Spain; I'll pick up the narrative again somewhere in Hameln.

I happened to be in Dublin during the World Outdoor Performance Festival competition finals. As a result, the streets of Dublin, especially certain parts of downtown, were teeming with different street performers. Human statues, clowns, musicians, and even a man juggling machetes on top of a thin, freestanding ladder were all part of the show. This man was the only bubble-maker I'd seen, though, and his creations gave the best photographic opportunity. But it was all a lot of fun.

I was reminded many times in Ireland that it was a poor country; apart from a brief stint as a "Celtic Tiger," it returned to it's impoverished status. One young man in an airport even told me that thousands of young Irish are again emigrating, this time to Australia, to find work.
That said, Ireland is incredibly rich in a lot of ways. One of those ways is in its architecture. Don't get me wrong: Cambridge is a place of stunning architectural wonders on every corner, and I will devote an entire post to the amazing architecture here (eventually). That said, I LOVED the architecture in Ireland. If I remember correctly, this was a Church on a street corner in Belfast, one bright morning.

This is a sculpture on the grounds of Trinity College in Dublin. Trinity was originally intended to be like Cambridge and Oxford - a collection of independent colleges together forming medieval university. However, unlike Cambridge and Oxford, no other colleges developed, so Trinity grew on its own. It's apparently quite prestigious, though it's primarily Protestant student body seems to have been historically a bit contentious in the middle of a Catholic nation.

The reason I came to Trinity was not, however, for this interesting sculpture. Trinity is also the safekeeping site for the Book of Kells, which is one of the primary reasons I came to Ireland. The Book is an illustrated copy of the Four Gospels written on vellum; I think it is one of the finest pieces of medieval art in existence. The detail work on the book is incredible - individual letters, on both primarily textual and primarily pictographic pages, would often be ringed by a series of dots, each the size of a pinprick. To provide some perspective, a person with 20/15 vision needed to lean relatively close to the glass to see these dots clearly.

Most impressive, though, was the general level of artwork in the Book. The art page open on the day I visited (they change a page each day) was of Christ sitting on a throne, in the middle of four quadrants of the picture. Alas, I couldn't take any picutres! - But I think you can get a general idea from this link: The Book of Kells. (In fact, I may have been looking at Folio 32, the second picture down on the right. Now look again, I think it may have been a similar picture rather than this exact one. But you get the idea.)

The Book was all I had hoped it would be. I think my trip would have been worth it just for that. I grew up hearing about this document, and I've imagined all my life that it must be wondrous. And it WAS wondrous to see.

This was part of a collection of tragic statues in a park near the river in Dublin, commemorating the Irish potato famine.
My guide for (free!) walking tour of Dublin (which was EXCELLENT, btw. I recommend the Sandeman's New Europe Walking Tours- fun guide, highly informative, tips only, great.) explained to us why this was such a central event in Irish history: fully one-fourth of the population starved to death. This statue, who seems especially emotive after the light rain, is carrying a dead child on his shoulders. Even more sobering is the claim that there apparently WAS enough food to go around, but the tenant landlord system allowed English-Irish landlords to withhold grain from their tenants and ell it at higher prices abroad; mismanagement and greed rather than a natural disaster appears to have been the primary problem. Little wonder, then, that some in the population became revolutionary. Though I didn't see anything about "Captain Moonlight" (as per "Far and Away,") I DID visit where that was filmed (future post) and that type of story was corroborated essentially everywhere i visited in Northern and Southern Ireland.

This is the entryway of the Irish National Archaeological Museum. Again, I state my case: grand architecture. I sadly only had time to literally run through parts of this museum; I would love to come back here and take an entire day.

A brief word about this picture: this was an Irish pub called St. Oliver O'Gougherty's (I think - I know the last name is right), and one recommended to me by several locals as a place with more than JUST tourists. I wasn't disappointed; there were lots of Irish people there as well. I tried Dublin coddle, a type of white soup with sausages, corned beef, and potatoes in it. I found it excellent, to be honest, though I was quite hungry.
More than that, though ,was I felt like there actually was a sense of community here, despite the corwds of people moving in and out. The live band took requests, people sang along for some of the songs, there was dancing in a corner (sadly, I didn't get to any of that because I didn't - yet! - know how to dance to Irish or Scottish music), and in general it seemed like a connected group of people. I'm not a drinker, but it seemed like the alcohol was primarily a means of connecting with other people, no matter what quanitities were imbibed. That said, I don't think alcohol was necessary to get that effect, but as an outsider, I felt welcomed here.
Some of this was certainly in my head - I was feeling very "outsider" until I made a conscious choice to relax, let things go a bit, and enjoy myself, at which point this place became happy, warm, friendly, and homey. But that's an Irish pub for you - I think those feelings are the point, and one of the big reasons people in Irish communities come back to the pub every night.

Journeys

2011-07-05T10:02:00.001-07:00

These past two weeks have been a wonderful blur. I had hoped to post more often up until now, but my internet connectivity was very limited until I arrived in Spain, and then my time was very limited until I arrived in Cambridge.

I've been surprised, though, by how much my travels have become a spiritual journey. I had expected to go through Europe as a tourist, visiting sites for writing inspiration, and working on stories and settings as I went. This all happened, but the vast majority of my time feels like it was spent in missionary work.
In Ireland, for example: on the flight across the Atlantic, the gentleman sitting next to me (a Puerto Rican living in Ireland) and I had a long discussion about education reform, politics, and the Gospel. We discussed his questions about the Gospel, and about religion in general, and I was able to invite him to learn more about the Church as a way of answering those questions.

This was NOT an isolated experience. On the train through Switzerland, a Swiss-American young lady found out I was a member of the LDS Church and proceeded to ask me a lot of questions that she'd wanted to ask before, but hadn't had a chance. Again, I was able to invite her to learn more. Similarly, in Ireland, on my bus tour of Northern Ireland, I made two good friends – Steve and Laura; Laura had seen and really liked the Book of Mormon musical, and had lots of questions for me about that. We discussed them for three or four hours while clambering over Giant's Causeway, culminating in her asking for and me offering (essentially simultaneously – it was a neat experience) a copy of the Book of Mormon. Steve was interested in one as well.

It was amazing to me: in all of these conversations, I was just put in a place where I could answer questions people already have. I didn't have to push any points on people, or make things uncomfortable – just in the course of talking, the Gospel came up and I was able to explain what I believe and, sometimes, bear testimony of it.
There were less dramatic opportunities as well – a young woman from Amsterdam at the Alhambra; a Swedish girl in France, an elderly Cuban gentleman and a young Thai woman in Cordoba, a girl from Yale here at Cambridge. That last one may not have been good – I'm supposed to be very tight-lipped about the church here, but a discussion of philosophy and the Book of Mormon musical got away from me and turned into an explanation of doctrine and testimony of it.

Anyway, there has been a lot more to this trip than the tourism. Incidentally, that research tourism has been far more effective than I expected as well: when I've needed specific information, I've gotten it quickly and enjoyably. But it feels like the travel between, and meeting new people and sharing the Gospel and making new friends has been my primary purpose in all of this.

Which brings me to Cambridge. I am having a lot of success here and in general in moving forward along my career goals. Today, for example, I found another individual who shares my enthusiasm for education reform; we had a long and enjoyable discussion about it over breakfast, and we may collaborate on setting up a charter school in China. I was given, in a very short period, a novel to write, and far more importantly, WHY I am to write novels. (For details on that, see a future post.)

Similarly, my plans with my friend Jeffery got a boost in Ireland when I was blessed, very specifically, to be up ridiculously early in an attempt to catch a bus that didn't exist. That attempt, however, caused be to bump in to Akinbode, who was in a similar situation; our meeting developed over breakfast and a few hours' discussion into a future business partnership in an import/export business I am currently trying to develop. Akinbode has the contacts in West Africa I lack; I have the contacts in America he lacks. It was a great example to me of the Lord taking care of me.

This entire trip, in fact, has been that way. I have felt the Lord at my shoulder, directing me in the ways He would have me go. It has been a spiritual journey, and one for which I am truly grateful.

PS - Due to some internet constraints even here, I will wait to upload photos until later this evening.

life

2011-06-11T02:58:00.000-07:00

I am very,very happy.

Picture Post

2011-05-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

Springtime has been a ripe field for photography. Along with pictures taken on campus, such as the flower photos here, I also went on a photography date with a friend of mine. You can see my attempt at portraiture.

Along those lines, in very good news: I have been asked to do my first photoshoot! A friend of mine is also an amateur photographer, and she would like someone to take pictures of her (using her camera). This is excellent for two reasons: first, I get to practice portraiture, and second, I get to practice using a digital SLR.

I'll post more pictures in my regular posts, as you would expect. Since I will be leaving for this trip soon and I have a lot of Spring pictures I'm proud of, I may increase the number of pictures and/or posts in the near future.

Observations

2011-05-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

I know of no other sight so painful as that of a woman's tears.

Dawn

2011-05-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

It had been getting brighter so subtly that he hadn't recognized the light until he opened his eyes again, and saw the fingers of the sun already reaching across the sky. He willed himself to keep looking, and then in a moment there appeared an orb of ichor on the horizon, dripping gold and red and purple onto the earth below, rising swiftly so that he could almost mark its passage as it climbed. The landscape before him seemed to open to its vitality, drinking in the liquid of life and blossoming into a thousand colors. His skin, too, came alive: the blue-white chill of the morning rapidly turning into a rosy blush.

He looked heavenward, and saw his nighttime guides waving and fading goodbye, until at last even the moon gave him over to the water flashing in the distance, to the trees bending upwards, and to the cliffs shimmering underfoot in red and gray.

- Selections from Songs at Daybreak (Ju'zi's Song)

"Time to begin again," and, "Writing as a tool of repentance."

2011-05-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

This past semester, I took an English course called "Wilderness Writing." The course itself was interesting - we hiked through Capitol Reef, went snowshoeing, and the rest of the group went skiing (I went to Seattle). The class itself was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed the friendship and association with the people in it. (The pictures for this week are either from Seattle or Capitol Reef)

As part of the class, I wrote a series of personal essays. My professor told us, on the first day, that essay writing involves a degree of risk; I responded to that rather negatively and wrote in extended metaphor throughout the semester.

I was truly trying to work on my narrative ability, but mostly, I didn't like writing what I felt. My first draft usually reflected something of which I was ashamed. Please don't think me guilty of any great sin; I was and am not. However, there are certainly things in my life that ought to be better; there were more at the beginning of last semester.

I found a theme running through my writings. Don't worry, I'll spare you the details; they are completely beside the point right now anyway.

The point, in fact, is that writing, the subject of my writing - what tumbled out of me, the only thing I could think of or work into an essay - was my thorn in the flesh - my elephant in the cupboard, the swelling patch of my macular degeneration that I would not see, but which was making me blind.

In some sense, everything I was doing reflected this one major stop- a mental block, a dam to my progression. By writing, I couldn't help but come to face the problem. Patricia McKillip wrote a story once in which a man obsessed with his mistakes writes a book while trying to forget them. In the book, behind every word lies the phantom - he writes stone and means shadow, he writes water and means shadow. When others try to read it, it is only detrimental; when he reads it, his phantom confronts himself.

When I finally sat down to write something "risky" - in which I admitted to myself frankly what was going on - I had to face myself. And change.

And, oh, what wondrous joy! What a relief to no longer "kick against the pricks" (Acts)! What a blessing to have the opportunity of introspection! What an opportunity to know that the losses and mistakes and ills can be made up!

In the words of Tolstoy, that which had been paining [me] dropped away from one side, from both sides, from ten sides, and I could only feel relief (The Death of Ivan Illych). It changed everything about my life - not in obvious ways, but ways which made, literally, all the difference.

It became a change of paradigm, a change of self, the opportunity to begin anew. I'm still working my way into it - like a snake shedding its skin in reverse, wriggling into a new and better form. Not without snags, and lingering stupidity, but moving forward again, at long last. It's a blessing: to have once again my eyes on the horizon, instead of the mud on my feet.

And one more poem...

2011-04-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

This one, I think, sums up everything I was trying to state with the poetry:

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

-William Cowper, God Moves in a Mysterious Way

Round 1

2011-04-21T23:46:00.001-07:00

Winter Semester v. Brett Peterson: Brett 1-0.

Round two: Spring term v. Brett Peterson.

Fight!

Selected Poems

2011-04-19T16:55:00.000-07:00

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

- William Blake, from Milton

-----

The shades of night were falling fast,

As through an Alpine village passed

A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,

A banner with the strange device,

Excelsior!

...

And from the sky, serene and far,

A voice fell, like a falling star,

Excelsior!

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Excelsior

------

Sail forth--steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

- Walt Whitman, from Passage To India

Race to the Finish

2011-04-17T23:23:00.000-07:00

It's the last sprint to the end now: 7 pages before 8 am this morning, two more finals, 30 page portfolio to finish and turn in, and then an Honors Thesis proposal to write and turn in.
Then, I move out of my apartment, and then it's one week to write the final Honors Thesis and half of an independent study course.
Then eight weeks of the equivalent of 22 credits (11, during the spring term) plus two independent study courses. Free Fridays are for finishing the first correspondence course and then starting and finishing another. Six finals, and then I fly to Europe for a whirlwind two-week tour. If I have any stamina left, then it will be eight weeks in Cambridge, writing 25-50 pages a week.

Then, THEN, I will be graduated; I will be able to sleep, to rest, to renew.

And then I start applying to grad school.

Don't get me wrong: this will be an intensely joyous and happy time. It will also be intensely difficult. This is my refiner's fire; an academic and spiritual fuller's soap. I can't get through this without a lot of divine help, which is what has enabled me to write 25 pages in the past five days, and which is what will enable me to finish the additional 37 I need to turn in during the upcoming five.

So: I apologize in advance for a reduced number of posts. I will try to use writing - blogging - as a break from other writing projects, if that helps me continue with my other work.

I will also use this as my travel blog again, so look for posts from and about Europe in the near future.

Until then, I'll see you on the other side.

A different kind of post

2011-04-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

I have just completed my application to the Cambridge PKP supervision course. In the course, a students works directly with a Cambridge professor on a topic of their choice; as a result, students must first submit an application enabling Cambridge to match students with appropriate tutors.

Since I suspect that someone I will soon go on a date with may read this blog post, I sought something that would introduce me to them in a positive way. I believe that this application describes me intimately: for their sake, and for yours, I post it here.

Briefly describe your proposal. 250 words.

Through interaction with a Cambridge tutor, a personal ontological perspective will be developed, codified and refined during the first two weeks of instruction. Ideally, discussion will focus on the works of Georg Simmel, Emmanuel Levinas, and Soren Kierkegaard; however, it is expected that the tutor will include their own ontological perspectives as elements of the discussion.

During the following three weeks of instruction, the student’s ontological perspective will be developed into an educational model and described in written form. In this process, a range of pedagogical practices and theories will be evaluated and selectively incorporated into the educational model, based on the degree of fit between the pedagogical practices and the ontological perspective. Where available, empirical data on pedagogical
practices will be reviewed and incorporated into the pedagogical-method evaluation process

In the final three weeks of instruction, a general model for translating ontological and phenomenological perspectives into educational systems will be developed. Specifically, a series of questions will be formulated; the pattern of questions, and their corresponding answers, will serve as a guide for developing multiple systems of education based on varied ontological foundations.

The written products of all three stages of instruction will be gathered into a paper describing a model for the development of ontologically appropriate systems of education. To guide the supervision, a tutor with expertise in educational philosophy and/or sociological theory would be preferred; however, any tutor or number of tutors comfortable with the process described would be able to provide the desired assistance.

Why do you want to pursue this independent study option and what benefit do you hope to gain from it? 250 words.

I will eventually pursue a career in education reform; specifically, I believe that the philosophical foundations of the American system of public education do violence to the moral and active nature of individuals. As a result, I wish to explore and develop educational philosophies upon which to base more acceptable systems of instruction. To develop my own educational philosophy, I intend to first explore and develop my own ontological perspective.

The independent study option attracted my attention because it provides focused opportunities to develop my ontological perspective and educational philosophy. I hope that the supervision will provide an environment which will intensely refine my ideas by testing them against the expertise and knowledge of the tutor and selected texts. This process will thereby improve the efficacy and internal consistency of the school system I eventually develop. I recognize that many other individuals do not share my ontological perspective. Thus, I hope to also develop a generally applicable model or starting point for individuals wishing to establish philosophically and culturally appropriate systems of education. After identifying my own ideas and realizing them in a school system, I wish to provide others with the same opportunity. I anticipate that assisting religious, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic groups in forming appropriate systems of education will form a significant portion of my future career.

Thus, I am attracted to the supervision option in order to directly pursue the intellectual and practical preparation I desire for my future work in educational reform.

Briefly describe any relevant work you have already done in the area.

In the past year, I have taken two courses on classical and contemporary sociological theory. Each course was designed to familiarize students with the general ontological perspectives of well- known theorists; the theoretical survey began with Plato and Socrates and concluded with the works of Michel Foucalt, Judith Butler, and Jurgen Habermas. Another course taken simultaneously examined the life and philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. Previously, I completed a philosophically-grounded tutorial on the sociology of international development which provided additional insight into various systems of thought. I am currently taking a course in organizational theory; my research in the course applies organizational theory to educational institutions.

During the sociology of international development course, I discovered that my ontological perspective was insufficient to account for my analysis of the theories I was studying. As a result, I began to explicitly formulate my own ontological perspective through writing. As I have explored additional philosophical and theoretical positions, I have continued to refine my ontological position.

In education, I have studied the sociology of education in four courses, including a course providing an overview of the subject, a course on the production and reproduction of social inequality through education, a tutorial on the limitations of schools as agents of social change, and a research course examining the impact of religious institutions on educational outcomes. Following the research course, I conducted a qualitative field study in South Africa on the educational consequences for students of varying degrees of religious involvement. After returning to the United States, I conducted a similar study using quantitative data and presented the findings at the 2011 Pacific Sociological Association Conference. I am currently preparing a paper detailing the findings for publication.

I am currently co-authoring a study describing the distribution and evaluating the effects of various expressions of educational philosophy in e-learning systems in Utah; the study is slated to conclude in December of this year.

Please list below any books or other sources which may be relevant to the topic.

Totality and Being – Emmanuel Levinas
Otherwise than Being – Emannuel Levinas
Twilight of the Idols – Friedrich Nietzche
Archaeology of Knowledge – Michel Foucalt
Being and Nothingness – Jean Paul Sartre
Truth and Existence – Jean Paul Sartre
Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Freire
How We Think - John Dewey
De Magistro – Saint Augustine
The Philosophy of Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas – Mary Helen Mayer
From Childhood to Adolescence – Maria Montessori
Various books of Christian scripture
Various commentaries and explanations on non-Christian scripture

As an added bonus for those of you who scrolled down:

A brief post

2011-04-07T21:21:00.001-07:00

I apologize for the lack of posts recently; perhaps I will have more time in the near future. Indeed, I know I will: this is going to again become my travel blog in a series of weeks.

I prepared a photoessay today; I believe I may post highlights of it here. Also, my first short story is nearing completion, and will be submitted for (hopefully!) publication in the next few weeks. I will update concerning the project as time goes on.

Until then, adieu; good luck and long life to my Swedish friends, and to all of you as well.

A quick dip

2011-03-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

As all of you who follow this blog have noticed, the vast majority of my posts tend to be long. While in Africa, the posts averaged about three pages (if I remember correctly) - other posts before and since have been even longer.

I am about to start a project combining three essays I've written over the course of the semester using the fourth one as a frame. The end result should be thirty pages or more. I admit I am a little apprehensive about this undertaking; this will be, by far, the longest piece I've ever had to write. Ten pages, on a relatively dry academic or philosophical subject, don't frighten me; thirty pages explaining my worldview to an audience is a little more intimidating.

Exciting, too, though: this is what I want to do. It's part of the journey I want to take. It's practice for the kind of creative non-fiction and creative fiction I eventually hope to produce. Maybe I'll post it in installments here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Go eat corned beef and wear Orange!

2011-03-17T10:28:00.001-07:00

Or green. I simply forgot green last year, but was wearing orange, and so decided to support the Protestants in Northern Ireland. Either way, both parts of the island are supposed to be wonderful.
BTW: I'll be visiting there for the first time soon, and I have no idea what I should do. I may just go and explore. If any of you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

From my personal essay writing class, I was informed that one purpose of writing is for meditation: write to work through what you are otherwise unable to work through. Inexpensive self-therapy. Following that noble tradition, I begin to blog today. Why share such a meditation with the world at large? I'm not JUST meditating; I'm also trying to improve my descriptive and narrative ability. Since I am going to be writing a lot in a very short period of time in the very near future, practice now will help me to develop the ability to write quickly and well. I hope. Please post comments and critiques.

Alice in Wonderland meets the Cheshire Cat: in an oft-quoted-in-Mormon-circles exchange, Alice asks which way to go. Rather than butchering the quote, I will simply transcribe it here:

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect. “Cheshire-Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—,” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. “
What sort of people live about here?” “In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Sadly, the end of the quote is often left off. Please excuse the second portion: not that I consider myself insane, but it is a bit nice to remember that we're all in this together.

Anyway, I feel this is often the way God works with us. Again, not that God is insane, but that He answers the questions we put to Him in order to help us grow. He is a little more loving than the cat (i.e. infinitely) but His responses are very often conditioned on our questions. Take now, for example: if you don't know which way you want to go, it is harder for you to get there, and you have to keep moving to get anywhere, so as long as you keep walking, you go somewhere, and God changes the path around your feet. Imagine Alice in Wonderland as a gameboy game, where the character always stays in the center of the screen, and everything else changes around him. THERE's a lesson ins subjectivity.

Anyway, I'm off to a scholarship meeting. I feel meditated. So much for practicing narrative and descriptive ability. Hope you enjoyed it too.

Lightning

2011-02-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

Lightning

I found no solace in Capitol Reef. It was a beautiful place, with stunning moonlit vistas of the maze of canyons and mesas. Striking red dust and red rock were everywhere thrown into sharp contrast by unyielding light. But it was not a place of peace for me; I found no movement in my soul, no stirring inspiration, no deep insight.

Perhaps I lacked because the place was peaceful. Nature in my home is a nature of conflict. Though it was cold, the sky was still in Capitol Reef. My memories of nature are of the sky riven with flashing light; midnight blue, celestial horizons afire with electric brilliance all across my field of vision, rippling over the plains. The scene from a distance is beautiful and majestic; the scene from within the storm is stirring, gripping, and invigorating. When the rain pours down in waves that roll across the ground; when you can see the thickness of the rain break towards you; when your bones and blood shake with the cacophony of thunder; when, because of the rain you can only see blinding flashes all around you: then nature speaks, then, I feel something in my soul.

Friends from more peaceful parts of the country mistakenly think I feel fear. Not at all. After my first tornado in a tent, I could not feel fear of storms anymore; if I die, I’ll die, and that’s the end of it. No. The storms of my home are a witness of God moving in His majesty and power. A silent being? See the Missouri in flood; watch a flash of light crack the sky down to the earth; hear His voice in booming tones roll across the plains. Even I cannot mistake that.

But in Capitol Reef, He was silent. Thankfully, the God of nature speaks more than in thunderstorms; the tempests of the heart and mind seldom yield such satisfying or cathartic external displays. But there was no communication during that trip.

I knew why He was silent – I had gone into the desert. For reasons I do not know, my pursuits of the opposite sex are not currently approved by Heaven. There I was, in blatant disregard of such a mandate, pursuing a classmate in ways that, in other climes, would be perfectly acceptable. Even the desert dwellers of my company could detect no improper behavior; by every external standard, especially the standards of the Church, I should have been in the right. There was water in Capitol Reef; but I could not drink. I had gone into the desert, and until it rained, I could not slake my thirst.

When I got back home, back into a snowstorm, I called the girl I had been pursuing. We decided to just be friends, and I had glass of water. The following Sunday, as I partook of the Sacrament – water, in our church – God spoke; great, drifting flakes outside the window, springs of joy in my soul.

Nature cannot provide what God withholds. I could only be thirsty in Capitol Reef.

Mormon culture preaches a domestic ideal – celestial marriage - that promises personal happiness. As I stated earlier, by divine decree I am closed out of such an ideal at the moment. Not by lack of effort- mind you. I have on countless occasions thrown myself down from grace, and found a willing partner on the ground who came up to meet me in the air … until we struck each other, and nearly broke from the impact; both of us returning, charred, to our respective elements – she to the friendly earth, and I to thunderheads in the sky.

Not all of those meetings have been wicked; Heaven opened pathways for me to travel through, else I could not have gone so far as I did. I have loved, and have been loved, with an electric intensity and a pure light that I thought were the ultimate expressions of my soul. But I was wrong. Heaven never finished my course; there was no final connection; Heaven did not give the third flash linking sky and ground.

But lightning is far more than romance, and God does not speak to me in stillness, but in conflict. Though I struggle even now to admit it, I have not been called to lakes in the desert, or to smooth, flowing rivers that gently and sleepily roll into the sea. I was born, and I live, and I will die, in storms.

Sparks are upper-atmospheric bolts of energy that travel great distances across the magnetosphere before discharging in the sky below. Before I admitted my call, I wondered if I could stay low to the ground, stay close to my lightning rods, and have Heaven accommodate me. But the motion of charged particles is not determined by the particles themselves, or by the energy transferring between them. Chaos theory teaches that random chance picks the path of a lightning bolt; that random chance determines the journey of a spark. Sailors witnessing Saint Elmo’s Fire attribute it to God.

St. Elmo’s is the name of an electric fire that dances blue and green over masts but does not consume them. Like a bow in the heavens, or the shimmering greens and blues of skies over northern seas, this beacon in the rage of storm is a witness that God is on the ship; that God is nearby, that God is watching and with sailors in their moment of need. If God is on the ship – showing forth His power in the storm before He commands it to be still – then He is also in the sky. And if He is, then my paths across the upper atmosphere to lands and climes I do not yet know are Heaven opening a way.

I had hoped to touch down here; to be carried into a home, to charge lightbulbs and ovens and baby monitors. But that is, apparently, not my way. God doesn’t call me to the stillness; he calls me to where air is rent by rain.

Lightning is a call from Heaven. The terror is in striking, not in being struck. The beauty is Heaven flashing through you, not something that others observe. The effect – the thunder that ripples outward for miles, the light that blinds and illuminates – is God moving in His majesty and power, not chance. And I feel the pull of charged particles upward, away from here.

Writing.

2011-02-25T12:24:00.000-08:00

I recently attended a lecture reading by Ander Monson. His essay, "Long Live the Jart" was interesting and useful, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, the introduction given him as an artist leaves me wondering: is there really meaning in everything? Should we find meaning in everything?

My initial reaction was that we should not - some things are more important than others, and though there is some value to the unheroic, claiming that all things have meaning is very near to rendering all things meaningless. Granted, that is a relational view of meaning; meaning is meaning only if it is more important than something else. And that's not quite fair - there is some type of intrinsic value, even from a subjective perspective; all things can have meaning to me, even if they are not all heroic.

That perhaps is the key - all things can have meaning, but meaning is not a guarantee of quality. Whether I like it or not, every moment of my life has meaning for me - has an impact. I've heard it said that it is imprinted on our bodies- the Bible talks about the word of God being written into the fleshy tablets of our hearts; or about the show of our countenance. At a conference I attended recently, someone speaking of those in combat gave the idea that what one thinks about all the time is what one becomes. And, apparently, it shows.

Perhaps that's why I have an interest in dreams- Jung is fascinating for me, though I don't hold too much truck with the 'collective subconscious.' I don't think we are connected in quite that way; if we are, it's a reflection of a shared past, seen through a glass darkly, and not face to face.

I've woken from sleep and felt renewed, recharged, coming out of dreams remembered only as passing. Other times, I've awoken furious based on dreams simmering below the surface of my memory. My own religion - vindicated dozens of times by my experience! - teaches that dreams are one route of communication between God and man.

So my thoughts, even my sleeping thoughts, show whom I am, whom and what I am becoming - that I am known by God as one day I hope to know. - Face to face, no longer in part, knowing both Him and Me as I am known.

Life, then, is impact control. If I want to live in a way that is common and low, those moments have meaning: they make me common and low. And should I become a writer and could draw the meaning out of a single raindrop, paint a landscape in a garbage can, see the universe in my empty bag of potato chips: even so, my life would consist of garbage cans, single raindrops, and empty mylar bags. Meaningless meaning; impact, but no ennoblement; change, but not improvement.

Again, I mistake - the writers journey is like repentance; it's not satisfying unless one comes away with some victory, growth, or improvement at the end. But I don't want to live for and in single raindrops and empty bags. I want a life of thunderstorms and feasting and fasting, not one of fast food.

In a rat race, even if one wins, one is still a rat. Describing my prison cell - seeing the beauty and joy and terror in it- is a good reaction to being in prison, but how much better to burst the bonds?

Self-Definition and Love

2011-01-31T20:46:00.000-08:00

In sociology, we are discussing and critiquing modern society. One particular statement concerning identity construction stands out to me: We are, we define ourselves, by what we consume. Not only are we what we eat, but also what we buy, what we wear, what we choose to pay to experience.

Although the Gospel does instruct us to be "neat and comely" - to look good and to take care of our appearance - that is far more open-ended than is found in most of our cultures. I am as guilty as almost anyone; I make snap judgments about people by the clothes they wear, by the music they listen to, by the television they watch. The latter two are probably more defensible than the first; books and movies/television are essentially available for free, to almost anyone, in my community; websites like Hulu and Netflix, along with the public libraries, mean that selection of written and visual media is more a matter of choice than of social constraint. I ought to judge someone based on their choices (judge: evaluate, consider, weigh, orient myself in a particular way towards, NOT condemn) rather than their wealth.

However, what I or others choose to consume, especially in media, has an immense impact on the type of person I become. If I continually watch crude, raw, or vulgar material, I will eventually become raw, crude and vulgar, by sheer force of association if by nothing else. Unfortunately, most of what we define as normal in society is codified and learned through material that is coarse, crude, vulgar, and raw. Consider the relationships depicted on television: does anyone actually want to live in a soap opera? Does anyone actually want to live like Edward Cullen and whatever-her-name-is, forever staring into each others' eyes in a lifeless relationship of lust? Art and entertainment take extreme, even ridiculous positions to capture our attention (South Park and Family Guy, for example) and hold our interest, but as we are socialized into the entertainment culture, entertainment has to take ever more extreme positions to remain provocative. The pornography industry offers an example in microcosm: people begin by looking at pornography and often acclimatize, and so seek more and more intense visual (or written!) stimulation. Similarly, once you have seen Iron Man, or movies like it (Transporter, for example) enough times, three explosions are no longer exciting. Five are necessary, or ten, etc. The second Transformers film, I am told, is an example.

Either way, if entertainment and social norms lead us to withhold love from others based on their refusal to participate in cultural events, alternative selections of entertainment, differing interests, etc., then following Christ requires being socially unusual (for Christ's sake, and not for it's own. Kierkegaard has a wonderful critique of people who are weird to get attention, as does the Savior: those who are strange to be seen of men have their reward already, and miss the Heavenly rewards for those who just follow the Savior without thinking about how other people will react to it, and without trying to create a stir.) Additionally, where social norms of humor, for example, require putting down other people, Christ requires us to be more like the people we otherwise wouldn't associate with, "dorks" who don't "take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for [their] neighbor;" and so forth (2 Nephi 28:8).

The Savior seemed to make it a point to seek out the weary, the downtrodden, the rejected, and the unpopular; or rather, as the parable describes, He seeks all, and is accepted by those who are humble enough to heed. Consider the parable:

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage." But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests. - Matt 22:2-10.

Especially thinking of heaven as a state of mind - a divine harmony of the thoughts and soul with the will and love of God - rejecting others is excluding ourselves from the blessings of Heaven.

The difficult option is to evaluate someone based on their choices and behavior, rather than on their social skill or lack thereof. The quality of someone's laugh, or a particularly quirky sense of humor, even somewhat obnoxious conversation, is still the expression of a divine daughter or son of God. Bearing that in mind, I find no justification for my own exclusionary behaviors based on ascriptive traits. In other words, if it's outside of someone's control, how can I judge (condemn) them for it? With what right do I have to withhold love or service from someone?

More than that, even if it's something in their control: what right do I have to withhold love for that? I must act wisely, as the Lord directs - I am not suggesting opening savings accounts with known bank robbers, for example - but where is the justification for a lack of love?

I have at various points in my life been considered popular and considered a loser, and most of the spectrum in between. I feel somewhere on the lower end of that spectrum now; I suspect that I am not highly thought of. Fortunately, the requirement to love extends even to those who treat us poorly or with apathy or disrespect; I say fortunately: how many people have I treated poorly or with disrespect? How often has that same condescension, which I loathe crept into my own voice? How often have I deified humor at the expense of a human heart?

As a result, I cannot complain; justice craves that I reap what I sow, and I have sown the east wind and justifiably can reap the whirlwind. The Atonement provides redemption and forgiveness, and God and my Savior provide comfort and strength, but I have no right to claim love from others. I have no right to demand or expect it.

Returning to sociology, the alternative to defining ourselves by what we consume is to define ourselves by our relationships with others; I am who I am because of how I interact with those around me. In terms of self worth, I think that quickly becomes, "I am valuable because others love me." However, as discussed previously, that human love is imperfect, fallible, and cannot be craved. This is perhaps my biggest contention with "Through a Glass Darkly" - faith in the possibility of "mänsklig kärlek" (human love) is not a sufficient "anchor to the souls of men." Human love is beautiful and inconstant.

So I critique that sociological perspective. Relying on human relationships is like trying to find footing in quicksand; when the rains descend, and floods come, and the winds beat upon that person, they are swept away (Matt 7:26, 3. Nephi 14:26) Even reliance upon the self (a la Descartes* - see footnote) is uncertain - again, based on my own behavior, what claim can I make to love? Or what claim can I make to compel myself to love myself?

As far as I can tell, the only solid piece of anything to which one can attach is the choice to believe that God loves us. If we start there, and receive confirmation of that love, and feel it, and grow in it, and share it, and express it to others, we can have a firm foundation. The ultimate expression of that love is the Savior's Atonement; that's also the ultimate foundation for the soul.

With that unshaken and un-shakeable foundation of God's love, we have a reason to love ourselves. God loves us, we want to be like God (because we enjoy His love, because we feel it, because we want to emulate it, feel more of it, be a part of it) - so we love ourselves. We love others, even those we otherwise shouldn't or wouldn't. (Again, I am not speaking of love as permissive behavior here- I am speaking of the emotion and motivating power of love).

A great theological debate continues over whether or not God's love for us is unconditional; I will not take a position on that here. I can say this: I know that God wants what's best for each and every one of us, from the vilest sinner to the purest saint to the purest saint who has become the vilest sinner. That is an unchanging source of His motivation; even Hell is a merciful alternative to dwelling in the physical presence of God while one's mind is racked with guilt. He wants us to succeed, to be happy. He loves us.

Why? I don't know. I just know He does. I feel it. I choose to believe in it.

That is what has to be the basis of my self-definition. God loves me. I recognize that in these ways. This is who I am.

Ordet vs. Through a Glass Darkly

2011-01-26T20:49:00.001-08:00

I've spent a few days this week watching Scandinavian films for a class, two in particular: Dreyer's Ordet (The Word) and Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly. Ordet takes it's theme from Kierkegaard, one of my favorite authors; Through a Glass Darkly references one of my favorite verses from the New Testament.

I ought to warn potential viewers: The Bergman film does include references to incest; nothing is shown, but the subject matter may be objectionable. I found it disconcerting, perhaps because I knew it was coming; the foreshadowing filled me with dread.

That aside, Ordet discusses the quest for God through the metaphors of physicality, life, death, insanity, and faith; Through a Glass Darkly explores the search for God through insanity, physicality, and love. As I'm currently writing a kind of sermon-essay on physicality, I found both films eerily appropriate, though Ordet takes a position on faith with which I much more definitely agree.

I won't ruin either film for those who have not yet watched them, so to discuss the issue, I'll reference Bergman's Wild Strawberries. The seeker in the film quotes a famous Swedish poem: "Var är den vän som överallt jag söker?"

I'll provide a bit of translation here, alongside the original Swedish text. For my Swedish readers, I welcome commentary and suggestions on the translation. "Var är Den Vän som överallt jag söker?" av Josef Olaf Wallin.

Var är den vän som överallt jag söker?
När dagen gryr, min längtan blott sig öker;
När dagen flyr, jag än ej honom finner,
Fast hjärtat brinner.

Where is that friend, whom everywhere I seek?

When the day dawns, my longing only grows;

When the day flees, I still cannot find Him

Though my heart burns.

2.
Jag ser hans spår, varhelst en kraft sig röjer,
En blomma doftar och ett ax sig böjer.
Uti den suck jag drar, den luft jag andas,
Hans kärlek blandas.

I see his traces, wherever power moves,
a flower blooms, or a leaf bends.
In the breath I draw, the air I breathe
His love is mixed.

3.
Jag hör hans röst, där sommarvinden susar,
Där lunden sjunger och där floden brusar;
Jag hör den ljuvast i mitt hjärta tala
Och mig hugsvala.

I hear his voice, where summer winds whisper,
where groves sing and where rivers roar
I hear it best in my heart speaking,
and me keeping.

...

5.
Ack, när så mycket skönt i varje åder
Av skapelsen och livet sig förråder,
Hur skön då måste själva källan vara,
Den evigt klara!

O! When so much beauty in every vein
of Creation and life fail,
How beautiful must the source be,
The eternally True!

I've tried to stay with the literal translation here, though I admit some artistic licenses.

This is one of my favorite poems in Swedish, and if you read the whole thing, it's fairly inspiring; comfort and evidence of God's hand, and reason for hope, in the world around us. Bergman doesn't quite get so far as hope in God, though, I think: in Through A Glass Darkly at least, the title character only gets so far as the possibility of goodness. Granted, the goodness he finds as comfort, both for him and for his son (that his daughter rejects in favor of a more... tangible? God) does provide some measure of hope.

That's a far cry, though, from Ordet's reassurance of a living, active, human God. That, I think, is one of the most comforting aspects of Christianity - not just that God exists, not just that there's the possibility of redemption, but that there are living, thinking, loving Beings who WANT us to succeed. It's the difference between an indifferent universe and a friendly one; between mortality that is only dreary and bitter and mortality with meaning; between a long, mechanical grind through life and a joyous journey of development and understanding.

So, of course I prefer Ordet. I ordered it online, actually, the night I saw it. I've never done that with a film before. If you haven't taken the time to see it yet, check it out.

Through a Glass Darkly is something I'll recommend if you choose not to believe in God. It provides a perspective on God that perhaps is easier to swallow. In my experience, though, what Through A Glass Darkly offers is not enough of a support in my journey through mortality; Ordet describes something that is.

Travel to Europe

2011-01-19T22:14:00.000-08:00

A post for my international audience especially. I hope to travel to Europe this summer. Which places would you recommend? Which countries? Let's assume I'll be within striking distance of anywhere on the continent.

Thanks in advance!

.Lyrics

2011-01-19T19:52:00.000-08:00

Everybody plays the fool, sometimes
No exception to the rule:
Everybody plays the fool.

AND CAMBRIDGE!

2011-01-18T06:49:00.000-08:00

And I was accepted to go to Cambridge this summer! What an amazing twenty-four hours!!!!!!

Teacher's reply

2011-01-15T16:26:00.000-08:00

Since my research is taking an eternity to compute (ahh, statistical software) I thought I'd post a follow-up to my email to my professor.
My professor was quite considerate, and addressed my concerns; he actually summed up my worry as a concern about priestcraft, which I thought was an interesting take. He reassured me that my grades would NOT be based on coerced risk, and also conducted a class discussion on the topic. As it turns out, what I was worried about is not only unethical, it is also entirely illegal. Anyway, I was more than satisfied - impressed, even - with my teacher's response, and am enjoying the class.

On a side note, I have submitted a poem to a BYU creative writing journal, and will this evening submit the same poem to "Third Coast" creative writing journal. The poem is rather edgy; I intentionally used some imagery that some find offensive or disgusting. I think the overall effect can be uplifting, however, and that was the point.

I think it fits on the last part of this post, by Cassandra Barney, on art (specifically, her quote that one must expose something vulnerable for art to happen). Like her painting, my poem is a little edgy for an overall benefit; though I must admit this type of art (both her painting and my poem) pose something of a problem for me. I had a long discussion with a friend about the poem; she called it "harsh art." My question is this: is there a place for a painting of a naked woman in modern LDS art? I think so, but the tougher question then becomes: where is the line between nude art, or harsh art, and pornography?

Response

2011-01-06T18:18:00.001-08:00

Having received more response to my blog post and email than I expected, I thought I'd write a brief follow up.

Several people have been surprised by my characterization of learning as repentance; some of these responses have been more coherent than others; I will respond to general thoughts, and let other arguments stand, or fall, as they may.

The Bible Dictionary in the LDS edition of the scriptures defines repentance as:

"Repentance. The Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind, i.e., a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world. Since we are born into conditions of mortality, repentance comes to mean a turning of the heart and will to God, and a renunciation of sin to which we are naturally inclined. Without this there can be no progress in the things of the soul’s salvation, for all accountable persons are stained by sin, and must be cleansed in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Repentance is not optional for salvation; it is a commandment of God" (http://lds.org/scriptures/bd/repentance?lang=eng&letter=r)

Forming a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world is exactly what learning is. As someone studies chemistry, they form a fresh view of the world; as someone does math problems, as one of my detractors used as an example, one forms a fresh view of logic, or math, which is part of the world. In other words, any real learning is a portion of repentance. LDS doctrine teaches that God is the source of all truth. Thus, learning any truth is a means of coming closer to God. Joseph Smith taught that members of the Church should accept and act on all truth, from whatever source they could find it.

I suppose that one could learn something that is not true, and thus be deceived and not come closer to God; learning falsehood is not repentance. But with the positive connotations associated with learning, I believe that I can successfully call learning "discovering truth." If learning is a positive thing, it is repentance. Every good thing comes from God, from Christ.

One of the least coherent critiques I've received is the remark made by a commenter accusing me of not thinking of this is as a religious issue. On the contrary - my point is that EVERY instant of life is a religious issue, especially learning.

An important note here - some learning is more important, and brings us closer to God more powerfully, than others. A knowledge of the reality of the Atonement of Christ is necessary for our salvation and exaltation; a knowledge of particle physics is not. Or rather, is not initially; if we are to become like our Heavenly Father, a being who knows EVERYTHING, then yes, we do "come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23) by virtue of our ignorance. This is a possible explanation for Joseph Smith's statement: "No man may be saved in ignorance." Similarly, the scripture in Ephesians 4:18: "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart".

Fortunately, we don't have to learn everything in mortality; since we are "born into conditions of mortality, repentance comes to mean a turning of the heart and will to God, and a renunciation of the sin to which we are naturally inclined" (Bible Dictionary). This repentance is not optional.

In direct response to a previous commenter, yes - we all do sin, and so yes, we all do need to repent. And until we are like our Heavenly Father, we need to turn to Him - through "religious" repentance, and by "seek[ing] learning by study, and also by faith" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118). Original sin has nothing to do with it, nor do sins of omission. A failure to learn is an example of a sin of omission. We entered mortality, partly, because we didn't know everything our Heavenly Father did and we wanted to learn. The requirement to learn, and therefore, repent, does not only apply to errors we have made and want to correct. Repentance is much larger than that.

In my professor's response, he questioned whether running a mile and breaking down muscles so that they can be built up again could be classified as repentance. From either view of repentance, they can be. If one is living for God and striving to serve Him with all their might, mind, and strength, how can exercise not be part of learning to be like God? How can improving physically NOT be a part of His work? If one is exercising for selfish reasons or without an eye single to the glory of God, then yes, one is not repenting. But one also does not learn. If a person is not moving towards God, they are not discovering truth. Again, God is the source of all truth (interestingly, the devil the father of all lies or falsehoods); moving away from God is not learning.

From the perspective that any (true) learning is repentance, running also qualifies; I believe in an embodied, and perfectly embodied, God; physical learning brings my perspective closer to his in the same way that intellectual learning does - again, as long as I am uncovering truth.

Turning the heart and will to God is far more than simply saying one is sorry for every bad thing one does or has ever done. It is changing everything about ourselves to be more like our Heavenly Father. Hence, the enabling power of the Atonement: not only do we need the Christ's forgiveness and mediation, we also need His help to do anything. We need His help to improve. As Ammon stated, "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things" (Alma 26:12).

One word in a comment stands out to me: sadistic. Someone called me sadistic for wanting to beat myself up about learning. Apart from the misuse of the word (masochistic would be more appropriate if I were beating myself up), and the misunderstanding concerning my intention (I was not beating myself up in the post at all, but objecting to institutionalized coercion), the emotional charge is clear and appropriate. I am preaching hard doctrine. Everything you do either brings you closer to God or takes you away from Him. There are decisions that we make upon which the Lord doesn't see fit to give us guidance: He doesn't direct me to buy a particular can of tuna, and most or all of the cans of tuna at store are probably acceptable choices. But I am accountable to Him even for that decision.

Nothing in life is free or unconnected to our spiritual growth. Not work, not recreation, not relaxation, not renewal, not sleep, not eating, not sex, not love. Not learning.

Luckily, just because things are connected to our relationship with God doesn't make them unpleasant. Generally speaking, quite the contrary. But that is another topic entirely.

As a side note, although I strongly disagreed with one of the responses I received, I am slightly surprised and rather pleased to find that I have a broader American audience. I knew that I had a few readers in Germany, Russia, Brussels, Israel, and other places around the world (thank you all, by the way); I didn't know the extent of the American response. It makes me glad to write - even if I disagree with someone, we can both learn ( :-) ) something from the exchange.

First emotions

2011-01-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

Anger. Inexplicably, as my outdoor experience teacher was describing effective learning, all I felt was a rising displeasure. The man was dead-on in what he was describing. "Learning is meaningful if there is personal risk involved which puts us outside of our comfort zone, breaks down some of the lesser things about us, and allows us to rebuild ourselves in a better way." My professor was echoing a sentiment I've held for a long time - learning is repentance. Incidentally, I saw a video clip in a class the following day in which Hugh Nibley says almost exactly the same thing: to learn is to repent over and over again. I wasn't angry about someone sharing my opinion, or apparently having claimed it first.

The smile slid from my face, my posture straightened, and my brow went taut. Real education is repentance, that is true; but why was my professor claiming that as a goal of the course? Or as a particular insight of writing or outdoor survival?

True, writing and outdoor activities both push one outside of their comfort zone; true, both activities encourage an individual to reflect on their experiences and come to greater internal understanding. But repentance is between man and God; except in cases of specific need, no other individual should be involved. The effects of repentance ripple outward through social networks, but there is a reason prayer is usually private. Even in cases of excommunication, members of the Church are not required to describe their expulsion in gratuitous detail; an adulterer simply explains that he committed adultery, gives details necessary to gain help in the repentance process, and moves onward. The repentant sinner does not write a romance novel about their affair.

Again, back to my anger. Repentance certainly ought to be a goal of the course; it should be the goal of every teacher and student, in everything they learn and teach. But I do not trust my professor to provide me a repentance-environment, or to grade the risks I take in my writing. Creating a repentance environment sounds, to me, sadistic: mortality is our risk environment, and the only reason it works is that God is perfectly loving and does not inflict an iota upon us more than we have to go through or than we are able to bear. My professors are not as capable. Will I earn a better grade if I risk a limb? Or my life? Or my sanity?

Similarly, in writing: a professor may grade my ability to communicate, but not the degree to which I am willing to take risks. Whatever "risks" I take that are, truly, risks are the ones that either bring me closer to God or take me away from Him. The bleeding edge of my character construction ought to be revealed to God alone. Why should a professor expect to see my heart? Or, on the negative side: Why should a professor expect me to confess to him my sins? Anything less is not really a risk; rehashing principles already learned and appropriated hardly shakes my perspective.

Perhaps this is hypocritical of me - I certainly have shared attempts at repentance on this blog, along with some rather personal insights. I have used writing as a means to come to terms with some of the personal demons I face. I have been criticized, in the past, for sharing too much with my digital audience. The difference, however, lies in the fact that I have chosen what to share, without penalty. Sometimes, I have chosen to reveal myself for the benefit of my audience. Other times, I have not. As I understand this course, now I will be pressured, through grades, to do so regardless of my feelings on the matter.

I felt similarly pressured in my South Africa Prep course; written "sensitivity training" is just as abusive and loathsome as that practiced by fraternities. I do not care to what institution someone belongs: if they attempt to coerce me to divulge the things of my soul, I will respond to their assault on my individuality with every means at my disposal. In practice, my deepest loathings - which have required the most difficult repentance -have been reserved for people and organizations that make the attempt. I cannot imagine a more effective means of earning my steadfast enmity.

So of course I was angry. My professor described an institutionalized attempt to gain access to my sanctum sanctorum without earning the right to be there.

I could simply leave the class. But I agree that learning requires risk, so here is the risk I am going to take: I will send this post to my professor. I will challenge the notion that degree of risk-taking in writing, that repentance in writing, is something that ought to be graded. I will give the professor the opportunity to respond. There is little risk to my character; I risk only my participation in the class. As a result, I learn only a few things about myself- namely, that I won't stand for this kind of nonsense again. But I will learn, and give the professor the opportunity to learn, how he will respond to my concerns.

A note of caution - I had to leave the essay writing half of the class a few minutes early, and perhaps I have misunderstood the purpose of the course. Perhaps risk taking in writing is only encouraged, not required. If so, then I will again look forward to the experience. This class is one of the first two I picked out of the catalog when I came to BYU; the course description influenced my decision to join the Honors program, and I've been working for three years to get into it. Even so, my privacy is worth more than my pleasure. If I have to drop the class...
So be it.

New Year's Resolutions

2010-12-31T15:49:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year's, everyone!

This is a short post, so I'll get right to the point:

1.) Read at least one book (for pleasure) a month. This is raising the bar, but will be most beneficial.

2.) Write one page a week on at least one of my extracurricular writing projects. This was a goal before, but I got bogged down in outlines. The stories I had all needed planning and research. I have some ideas now that will let me just write to practice my prose. Worst case scenario, I have 52 pages written by the end of the year.

3.) Never kiss until the fourth date or until the two of us have decided to date exclusively, whichever comes later.

4.) Finish all necessary dental work. After two-and-a-half years, that will be a welcome relief.

5.) Graduate with Honors. That only leaves an honors thesis and about twenty Great Works events, and fourteen responses, to go.

6.) Get out of the USA. England, China, Japan, Taiwan, Nepal, somewhere - I need to go.

This past year was an interesting one. It included many trials, some of them self-inflicted. All of them have flowed on by. I grew up in and around rivers, and I'm reading several books using rivers as a theme (Nine Ways To Cross a River, New Found Land); I find the idea of life as flowing water an apt metaphor. I've had successes, and those have flowed past, leaving me enriched and edified. I've made mistakes, and those too have flowed by.

Changing metaphors:
"And shades of night are falling dense and fast, like sable curtains drifting o'er the past. Pale through the gloom the newly fallen snow wraps like a shroud the silent earth below - as tho 'twere mercy's hand had spread the pall: a token of forgiveness unto all" ("The Wintry Day Descending to Its Close," Hymns no. 37).

And so, I continue my course. Upstream, I think; I am not sure I know how to steer with the current.

Anyway, Happy New Year's! I hope your holidays have been refreshing and edifying for you, and that you have the strength for the New Year.

Untitled

2010-12-15T01:50:00.001-08:00

Well, here we go again...

Summation

2010-12-12T22:57:00.001-08:00

As a writing warm up, before six hours of sleepless writing work, I present this summation of my semester and year.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Though preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." (Psalm 23:4-6)

This year has been, hands down, the hardest of my life. In ways I did not before believe possible, I have literally walked through the valley of the shadow of death. In every instant of those trials, the Lord has sought to help me, has blessed my way, prospered me, and defended me. As I have tried to turn to Him, He has blessed me a hundredfold and more - primarily in blessings I needed, but did not want to receive.

I feel like I am in a sort of personal, ongoing resurrection, where parts of me wither away and die, and then are restored more fully by the Lord. I think death must be that way when we pass according to the Lord's plan: a painful letting go of mortality in preparation for the Savior to renew us into perfect life, but then a sweet realization that it's alright, this is part of the plan, God loves me, and this too will turn to good.

This year has been one of letting go and being reborn. I am no longer an International Relations major, no longer intend to go to Indonesia for the next nine months, no longer have climbing the Seven Summits as a goal, no longer am the man I was before. Now. I openly study sociology, hope to go to England and China, and see new interdependence in my goals and plans. Now, especially, I better understand how much I need the Lord in everything I do - to breathe, to sing, to sleep, to eat, to be happy, to repent.

I have not yet left this "valley of sorrow" (2 Ne. 4:26), but I can see the trail leading upwards ahead, and this nighttime journey is drawing to a close. It has been a dark trail, but even so, "Eternity was [my] covering, and [my] rock and [my] salvation, as [I] journeyed" this year, and now the dawn of a new Sabbath is beginning to tint the Eastern sky.

"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts" (2 Pet. 1:19).

Even though I haven't yet reached the surpassing joy that I hope will become my daily walk, I have tasted it, and I feel it in Christ as I serve Him and pray in His name to my Heavenly Father. I am greatly comforted by the Book of Mormon passage below, in which a man of God follows Christ through the valley of shadow until the day dawns.

"And it came to pass that as I followed Him, I beheld myself that I was in a dark and dreary waste. And after I had traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that He would have mercy upon me, according to the multitude of His tender mercies. And it came to pass that after I had prayed unto the Lord, ... I beheld a tree whose fruit was desirable to make one happy" (1 Ne. 8:7-10)

"And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree...? And I answered him saying, Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things. And he spake unto me saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul" (1 Ne. 11:21-23)

And so, Merry Christmas - my God is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation (1 Ne. 22:11, Isaiah 12). This year, I have seen the arm of the Lord revealed in my life through the trials He has given me ands His help in them.

And so, in summation: I know that my Redeemer lives, that his name is Jesus Christ, that He loves me and that He is my Friend, and that He will support me as I follow Him, in every circumstance and emergency.

Feminism: Into the Fray

2010-11-23T22:44:00.000-08:00

Finding myself in an ever-increasing number of friendships with individuals (inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and out) who claim the "feminist" title, I feel impelled to enter the discussion concerning gender roles. I have noticed a wide spectrum of views concerning men and women, from both genders; some of these I have found interesting and uplifting, others I have found patently offensive and bigoted. (For the record, these are NOT divided along gender lines.

I do not and cannot yet claim expertise or even familiarity with the breadth, depth, and variety of feminist philosophy or literature currently available; my attempt in this post is not to survey the intellectual field or debate a specific position. I simply wish to establish three ground-rules for the discussion.

First, debate concerning gender-roles must be centered on cooperation, on the reconciliation of the battle of the sexes. I do not here imply that awareness of gender-differences are to be eliminated - indeed, although I personally intend just the opposite, I leave the specifics of that question to the debate itself. The goal of any discussion of gender-roles, however, should and must be to help both men and women live happier, more fulfilling lives. In religious terms, gender-role discussion must help individuals become more like the Heavenly Parents of us all.*

Therefore, separatist or supremacist arguments from either gender are here inappropriate. If the battle of the sexes is to become a "raw, red war" (Gordon R. Dickson, The Star Road) then discussion devolves into mere intelligence-gathering. A reader may have just that purpose in mind; if so, they may continue as they wish, but I have nothing to say to that individual.

*(As a point of background information, my conception of deity is a perfected union of a perfected man and a perfected woman; however, I leave open for discussion the definitions of "perfect," "union," "man," and "woman." Indeed, my attempts to refine my own definitions of the same are the reason for this post).

In a similar vein, views of both genders must be respected and evaluated based on their internal merit, not based on the gender of the speaker. Yes, the two genders probably do not understand each other completely. Yes, it may be impossible for me as a man to really understand how a woman feels when she is threatened intellectually/emotionally/physically/sexually/spiritually (though I will in the future provide a critique of this position). However, neither of these arguments contribute to more perfect understanding of gender roles. Statements to the effect of: "That's easy for you to say, as a man" or, "That's easy for you to say, as a woman" are somewhat deceitful tactics used to end debates, not to contribute to them. If we are to take the communication barrier seriously, no one woman or man can express anything to any other man or woman, barring a belief in telepathy. If we accept the imprecision of inter-personal communication, let us also accept the imprecision of inter-gender communication and at least try to understand one another.

Third, the purpose of the discussion is to help each reader live a better life, hopefully with a greater respect for and appreciation of members of both genders, and of the unique and wonderful differences gender yields human existence. We speak for understanding, but if that understanding does not change our pattern of existence, then we have not succeeded in our discussion. In short, contributors to a gender debate should love their audience; the purpose ought to be mutual improvement, not the satisfaction of vengeance, the vindication of pride, or the denigration of others. I anticipate that a good gender-role discussion should be somewhat life-changing - for ALL parties involved. Therefore, a plea: to myself and to us all, let us be humble enough to listen to another point of view.

If all involved (including myself!) can abide these rules, then let us "reason together" (Isaiah 1:18) concerning gender. What is a woman? What is a man? What is a perfect woman? What is a perfect man? And what is a perfect union of the two?

Well...

2010-11-17T23:45:00.000-08:00

BYU Book sale

2010-11-16T18:19:00.000-08:00

I discovered to my surprise today that the BYU bookstore was having a 1$ book sale.

With some difficulty, I limited myself to fifteen selections. My roommates thought they were a little silly. That's alright - they don't get to read them.

Principles of Political Economy and Taxation - David Ricardo. Ricardo is one of the top two or three founders of classical economics, and I've finally gotten ahold of his authentic text. If econ isn't your thing, I understand; if it is, you understand.

How We Think - John Dewey. Dewey is one of top three or four founders of educational and cognitive theory. If you want to know how and why schools run the way they do, this 1910 publication is a must-read. I'm actually doing a research project right now on the application of the big cognitive theorists on e-learning in Utah. Not just for the history majors, guys.

David's Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer - David Meltzer. That was probably a shock, I know. I wanted some poetry, this one was available. If he's awful, I'm only down a dollar. If he's as good as the back cover suggests (hmm)...

Manliness - Harvey C. Mansfield. One would hope not to have to purchase such a book, as a man. This text, however, is a critical defense of manliness, aimed at a feminist or post-feminist audience. A friend of mine keeps a feminist blog, and I've wanted to contribute on several occasions, but have not taken the time to put together a coherent, respectful argument against some of the things that make me angry about feminism. I'll write my first response, and then read the book and see if I can further refine my arguments using it. Incidentally, I received today the invitation to attend a Mormon woman's critique of Christian Feminism on Thursday, that I would actually quite like to attend. I think the entire feminist movement, though positive in some regards, is riddled with hatred and bigotry, and I look forward to contributing to the debate.

What are People For? - Wendell Berry. I've heard of Berry, and heard lots of good things about him, so I selected two compilations of his essays.

Into the Wilderness Dream: Exploration Narratives of the American West, 1500-1805 - Various. Edited by Barclay,

Maguire, and Wild. This book is in direct preparation for my Wilderness Writing class. Why not begin now? Besides, I like exploration writing as a form, and I enjoy the heady romanticism of some of the explorers.

The Writer's Journey (3rd Edition) - Christopher Vogler. I hadn't heard of this one, but picked it up in pursuit of my dream of becoming a writer. When I told my humanities class about the booksale before class started, and mentioned that I got this book, my teacher lighting up confirmed that I had made a good selection.

The Essential Nietzsche - Mostly, Nietzche. He's a nihilist or an existentialist; if the latter, then I can learn from him. A girl I used to date said that it had helped her refine her Christianity and life-pattern (by considering Nietzsche's critiques of religious hypocrisy, etc.). I've heard enough about him, I thought I'd give a Nietzsche sampler a shot.

Making a Poem: Some Thoughts About Poetry and the People Who Write It - Miller Williams. This is by a professor of poetry somewhere; I hope that with it I will be able to improve my prose.

The Contracted World: New and Selected Poems of Peter Meinke - Peter Meinke. Another book of poetry, hopefully for example and edification.

Unrecounted: Poems by W.G. Sebald and Lithographs by Jan Peter Tripp. Also. This picture book also includes lithographs of people's eyes with each poem; it's kind of fun.

Citizenship Papers - Wendell Berry

The Kingdom of God is Within You - Leo Tolstoy. I first read Tolstoy this semester, in The Death of Ivan Ilych. I loved it, so when I saw a chance to read Tolstoy's personal testimony, I jumped at the chance. Apparently, Tolstoy was a very pro-Mormon Christian; his anarchist ideals of widespread, personal moral revolution (to become more like God) certainly harmonizes with many LDS beliefs. (Tolstoy was only anarchist in the vaguest sense of the word - as people get better and better, government is needed less and less.)

Expression and the Inner - David H. Finkelstein. A critical analysis of the author-self in writing, with suggestions on how to use the assumed worldview as a writing tool. My friend at this blog did a whole field study on this topic; seeing the intensity of her interest in it, I decided to investigate the topic myself.

Well, there you have it. More than three, though when I am going to read them I have no idea. One day, a little at a time.

Gratitude, and the Counter-Offensive

2010-11-13T22:00:00.000-08:00

Inspired by several friends' gratitude lists, I post one of my own.

1.) My calling as a hometeacher. This calling, and the associated hometeaching-director calling that goes with it, give me purpose and responsibility.

2.) A developing friendship. I've recently met someone with whom I can discuss the matters of my heart without shaming either of us. I'm not talking here about a romantic gossip in whom I can confide; rather, I am developing a friendship with someone who understands the things about which I am passionate, and who largely shares similar passions (or similar types of passions.) It's someone with whom I share a language; it feels like we understand each other when discussing things that are important. More importantly, it is someone who lives in such a way that I can believe their passion isn't just words, and that they are also existentially familiar with the type of existential experience I strive to gain. In other words, I respect them, and they respect me, and we can talk about important things without feeling or being silly or ashamed.

3.) Time. I feel I have precious little of this, but I am grateful for the opportunities I yet have to change before graduating.

4.) Employment, now and previously. I have been blessed with the financial means necessary to do what I have needed to do and to prepare for the things for which I've needed to prepare. That alone provides an amazing degree of relief and security.

5.) A loving family. This item cannot be described adequately here.

6.) The temple. It is a place of refuge, instruction, and renewal.

That said, as a primer, brings me to the counter-offensive. You may wonder why I post the following; my hope is that one of you may benefit from my explanation of the changes I plan to make.

Here is a list of changes I'll be making in the next year.

1.) I will get into shape. Specifically, I will run a marathon in March, I will increase my chest press by 50 lbs, and I will increase my maximum number of pull ups in a set by 5. The body is a temple and an instrument of our Spirit, and hopefully of the Spirit of the Lord. That means it needs to work, and work well. I watched Dancesport tonight, and i was struck by the degree of control the dancers have over their bodies; I saw what appeared to be beautiful harmonies of body and spirit this evening. I imagine that such a harmony will be very difficult to develop in the Spirit world, when I won't have a body, until the resurrection, when things are to some degree set in stone.

2.) I will take time, on a regular basis, to hike, climb, shoot photographs, cook, write, and to dance (see 4). Renewal is not something that can be done in bursts - there is no life destination, until death. It's always a process in which one has not arrived until one dies. By the same token, ultimately, if a pattern of living is not joyous to the soul now, it will not become joyous simply by a change of circumstances; i.e. it can always be "the best of times" or "the worst of times" regardless of circumstance (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities). I guess what I am trying to say is that happiness is independent of circumstance; as Nephi wrote, "We lived after the manner of happiness" (2 Ne 5:27).

(Note - happiness is a pattern of living, not an emotional state. I distinguish here between being happy, and having happiness- happiness is a pattern that permits one to be happy, but it is not its guarantor "every, every moment" ("Our Town," Oscar Wilde). There are some who need medication to feel happy; although medication is not part of the happiness I'm describing, being humble enough to take it if one needs it, would be. Thus, happiness is series of principles that allow and encourage the emotional state of being happy, cheerful, glad, grateful, etc. even in the midst of afflictions.)

3.) I will read three books for pleasure. Current possibilities include Quiet Flows the Don, and the Don Flows Home to the Sea; Anna Karenina and Les Miserables. The Little Prince is another possibility, as is War and Peace, though both are farther down the list. Suggestions for other possibilities are welcome.

4.) I will begin to learn to dance. Dancing is wonderful and fun, and I love to dance. Like prayer or singing, dance is something that I believe should be able to be shared by everyone; dance-movement should not be an elitist privilege. Many do not regard me as being able to dance, and I do not necessarily regard dance party-dancing as the joy of movement; far from it, in fact. I want to learn to dance "before the Lord" (2 Sam 6:14). In modern scripture, dance is to be a form of prayer: "If thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, and with dancing. and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving" (Doctrine and Covenants 136:28).

I find it very difficult to do so at dance parties; I think social dancing comes a lot closer, so I will probably pursue more... defined modes of dance. However, even the samba or the cha-cha or the bolero or the waltz don't quite fit the bill; yoga comes closer. I'm looking for movement as a prayerful expression. Tai-chi and yoga are about as close as I can imagine.

The trick is not so much to learn a form as to learn to praise the Lord through movement, and that is a very different thing. Maybe any form would serve, but somehow I doubt it. Song certainly does not universally serve as a form of prayer - prayer connects a divine child with God, and some song´s weaken that relationship. Some dances do as well - which dances promote it?

What is a divine dance? And how can I learn it?

5.) I will discover and incorporate some means of keeping in contact with friends around the world. This has to become a change in my life pattern - something regular, something with which I can be consistent.

6.) I will incorporate family history work into my pattern of living. Again, consistency over time.

7.) I will begin to write; I will make writing part of the pattern of my life. This blog is a first step. This number terrifies me more than any other; just writing it on the list has made me somewhat short of breath. But, I must declare the evidence of God's hand in my life. What I write will be one of the ways I do it.

The fear comes from the departure from a sprinting lifestyle - writing, of the type I intend to do, can only be accomplished over a long period of time characterized by consistent and sustained effort. Karl Marx's family life depicts a sprinter's attempt at an alternative: starvation, death, and sorrow leading to bitterness of soul and a rejection of God. Even Kierkegaard, that great Christian existentialist, described his experiences writing intensely as something that enervated him - in the midst of producing his philosophical masterpieces, he became thin, weak, emaciated. As he described, walking was a burden that nearly defeated him since food, rest, and renewal were all subordinate to his calling as a writer. I have heard recently of the muse - like lightning - that strikes an artist, electrifies them, and burns them into a crisp. I've experienced some of the same in Africa. It's heady, and exhausting, and exhilarating, and passionate. Shelley's Frankenstein is another example; I feel far too much kinship with Victor. I know the thrill of creation.

Ingmar Bergman, a director-hero in my mind, gives me hope: though his works were productions of genius, his creativity was subordinate to his psyche. He ate, slept, and enjoyed life; he remained in control. Similarly, this woman especially, and to a lesser degree this man, (and to some extent this man) give me a lot of hope. Cassandra Barney is now linked here on my blog; she is a successful professional artist (as you can see); I've actually seen some of her work in galleries and at art shows. More importantly, though, she is a faithful servant of God and member of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Fortunately, the Spirit aids creation; unlike Frankenstein, our works do not have to rise up and become the elements of our destruction -IF we pursue passion through the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore, creation and the pursuit of righteous dreams is not a guarantee of madness. Quite the opposite, in fact: This clip , although less powerful out of context, is an inspiration to me. Similarly, this message released by Pres. Spencer W. Kimball suggests that not only are creative passions acceptable before the Lord, they may be pleasing unto Him and honor His name. J.S. Bach, father of twenty-odd children and composer of many hymns of God certainly provides an example; Carl Bloch, (who is on display for the first time in history, outside of Scandinavia, RIGHT NOW in the BYU Museum of Art - get tickets to see the display here-(for free! If you live within a ten hour drive of Utah, come see this exhibit before it leaves in May!)) certainly provides another.

The big change in all of this, of which these other goals are simply reflections, is that within a year, I graduate. I will no longer be a student, preparing to pursue my dreams; I will simply and directly pursue them. That is not something to be approached with irreverence or flippancy; I will suddenly be responsible for the entirety of my life. The man who faces eternity is forever changed by it, and agency and accountability are together the gateway of eternity.

My realization of this fact has confronted me with the question: what are my dreams, and am I brave enough to pursue them?

To large degree, the next year will tell. How my pattern of life has become, in that time, will be my answer.

The Truth

2010-11-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

In this case, it is the answer.
I've met some amazing girls lately, to whom I am very attracted. The truth is, sadly, that even a perfect girl couldn't solve my problem. I have nothing to confess - my slate is as clean as it appears to be - except this: I am not happy with who I am, and until I am happy with who I am, I cannot expect a girl to be happy with who am. There is no shortcut, no loophole, no exception. Until I change and become the man I am meant to be, I will not be truly happy. And no girl, no romantic relationship will change that.
I have to change.

Chopin and the Awakening of Responsibility

2010-11-02T01:21:00.000-07:00

In the first half of Chopin's The Awakening, Edna begins to discover her personal thoughts and desires through an inappropriate relationship with her friend, Robert. Robert, upon realizing the inappropriate intimacy, leaves, which further encourages Edna to seek herself in a rejection of her former pattern of existence. Although the end of the story may change the vector of Edna's course at the halfway point, a translation of her half-way trajectory into real life would result in disillusionment, sorrow, and ultimately despair. Edna's “awakening” comes too late; although her self-discovery is a necessary and good thing, her insistence to discover herself independently of her family relationships ensures sorrow and eventual loneliness.

Whatever the book, or the soap opera, or the television show promises, the Lord's statement in Isa. 50:11 stands supreme and unyielding above them all: “Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.” Edna does well in discovering how she truly feels; but inasmuch as she rejects her duties to God and man, she will eventually find that her new entertainments do not and cannot sustain her. The devil is the ultimate example of the path Edna has begun to follow; believing himself better than others, he rejected the counsel of God and the responsibilities of agency and mortality and instead followed his own path into damnation. Similarly, Edna will find no lasting salvation in painting, or in letting her household slip into ruin. Although she may find “joy in [her] works for a season, by and by the end cometh, and [she] is hewn down and cast into the fire from whence there is no return” (3 Ne. 27:11). Interestingly, Edna's rejection of duty eventually will lead her away from her full potential; lacking divine guidance or assistance, she will not and cannot reach her eternal capacity.

There exist at least two possible, acceptable alternatives to Edna's method of awakening. First, Edna could have involved her husband and family in her awakening. Far from being a “colorless existence” (Chopin 86), the interplay between her personal feelings or ambitions and her family responsibilities together produce a sublimity of existence unattainable by the one who acts selfishly. Edna's problem is not that she has a husband and children; her problem is that she does not love her husband or children, and sacrifices their well-being for her own. As she describes, she is not willing to give up anything essential about herself on their behalf; if what she sacrifices is no sacrifice, what has she truly given? Love is not characterized by such hollow performance. Love requires giving of oneself; by definition, she denies the possibility of loving her family. Interestingly, this also cheapens her relationship with Robert to mere infatuation – there is no sacrifice, for her, in giving up her husband and children for her romantic affair. Another possible and acceptable method for Edna to experience her awakening would have been to have sought it earlier, before she married. In the time when she did not have family responsibilities, she could have discovered herself, her wants, needs, and ambitions, and have incorporated them into her romantic pursuits. Though this would have affected her choice of partner and lifestyle, better to have effected a change prior to marriage than to inappropriately attempt to do so after.

In sum, following Edna's pattern and using self-discovery as an excuse to shirk personal and filial responsibility cannot be successful in reality.

As a personal post-script, I am grateful to the story for providing personal insight into something with which I have struggled. I have not yet married, though I have been home for a mission for two years. In many cultures, this would be considered normal and expected; in Mormon-BYU culture, this is a chafing-ly long time. However, in this time (and to large degree as a result of my search), I have come to learn many things about who I am, what I am called to do in life, and what my future life will probably entail. (Specifically, that I will travel a lot, and will live in many different places and at many different times.) As a result, unlike Edna, I have gained the luxury of being able to look for potential companions with whom I hope and believe I can be compatible. I consider this a great blessing, and one which I hope will allow me to avoid an “awakening” experience similar to the character of Edna in the first half of Chopin's story; instead, I intend to “awaken” continuously, daily, with the loving support of a family I am helping to “awaken” as well.

As the Proclaimers put it, more profoundly in context of the novel than I think they meant:
"When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you..."

The Death of Ivan Ilych and personal reflections

2010-10-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

I decided to write an assignment in blog-post form; here is the result.

I had the pleasure of first reading ”The Death of Ivan Ilych” immediately after reading the “What I Now Believe About a BYU Education That I Wish I had Believed When I First Came” selection. Perhaps because of their proximity in time, the two readings gained a proximity in my mind; as a result, I now view the impending conclusions of my undergraduate career and my current romantic relationship from an amalgamation of Ivan Ilych's perspective and my own.

Ivan Ilych's social weakness formed the core of his life. As Tolstoy describes, it was the foundation of “his professional duties, and the whole arrangement of his life and family, and all his social and official interests” (Tolstoy 40). Fortunately, I do not find myself in such a blasted state; however, Ilych's self-deception certainly has younger siblings in my university existence and in my romantic sphere. Without divulging too much information, I discover upon review that, in many cases, my romantic attitude has served to mask the questions of eternity in my dating and courtship. Although dating and kissing are fun and appear socially acceptable, and though I always remained in the bounds of spiritually and morally appropriate behavior, I feel that I have many times rejected the still, small voice in pursuit of flippant pleasure or general approval in my dating relationships.

Similarly, my attitude towards my university experience has often been to play the “game” (Richards 6) that Prof. Richards warned about. I have, on many occasions, danced through academic hoops at the expense of using my education to change who I have become. A course where I sacrificed learning to speed read for an “A” grade, and my current habit of skipping readings from the Doctrine and Covenants so that I can get better grades in my other classes, serve as two examples. The combination of Bro. Richards' text and ”The Death of Ivan Ilych” has helped me understand my BYU experience differently.

I intend to graduate in August of the upcoming year. Like Ilych, my time is running out; like Ilych, I have not achieved the moral and intellectual development or romantic success I intended. To some degree, I must confess with Ilych concerning my behavior, “Yes, it was not the right thing” (Tolstoy 42). I do, however, have the benefit of time: “though his [time at BYU] had not been what it should have been, this could still be rectified. He asked himself, 'What is the right thing?'” (Tolstoy 43). I have a few months left and a little less than two and a half semesters to discover and demonstrate the answer.

The quest for the answer, and the process of review itself, have been cathartic. Ilych's realized “what had been oppressing him and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides” (Tolstoy 43). Similarly, my introspection is causing the painful stress - to date, marry, and graduate with a high GPA, at almost any cost - to be loosed from my mind and soul. I still need to do all of those things to accomplish what the Lord would have me do, but I know also that “He whose understanding [matters] [will] understand” (Tolstoy 43). Again, this does not justify laziness; I am accountable before God for “how well [I have] used my time, talents, and energy to prepare [myself] to serve the Lord” (Richards 10) and “no mortal standard, no matter how rigorous, is high enough” (Richards 11). Even so, I find “in place of [fear], a light” (Tolstoy 43) in the knowledge that whatever my GPA or marital status becomes, my imperfect efforts to consecrate my life can be acceptable.

Autumn is here, and I love it.

One of the last two pictures taken of me before I got braces.

This little guy was really slow from the cold, so I was able to try and take a lot of pictures of him. This is the best result, though it's probably 1/32 of an inch away from what would have been an ideal focal length; I was almost literally a hair too close.

I was surprised at this one - not that it's a stunning piece of photography, but of how messy a rose is before it has blossomed. Zoom in on the picture, and you'll see what I mean: little random jagged bits, fiber-like threads dangling, poky looking things everywhere, and two little bugs crawling around. This gives me hope: if a rose is this messy when it has not yet matured, some of the messiness of my life is at least understandable.

In contrast, here is a rose that has come most of the way. Much smoother, much more polished, much prettier - but it had to start as a blossom.

Distant thunder, days ahead

2010-10-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

Que Sera! and no regrets.

First multilingual post.

2010-10-23T17:39:00.000-07:00

Det som det blir äntligen är detta: Jag är en viktig, utvald son till min Himmelske Fader. I SydAfrika, den positionen attakerades gång på gång på gång. Men det beror inte på andras tankar om mig; det beror på hur jag handlar. Och jag handlar för det mesta som en Guds son, och jag försöker handla som en Guds son. Jag gör fel, det stämmer. Ibland gör jag dumma saker – men det ändrar inte det jag har kallats till, det jag försöker göra, och den Guden i vilken jag har förlitat mig och i vilken jag kommer att förlita mig.

Min relation med mig själv och med andra är inte så bra just nu; jag handskar mig själv med råhet och vrede, och jag tillmötesgår andra med ovisshet och osäkerhet, en brist på förtroende. Men Gud är trofast, och Han har hjälpt mig, och ska fortsätta hjälpa mig, och genom Hans hjälp börjar jag se det goda inom mig själv, och inom andra. Lyckligtvis, har jag också en bra relation med mina föräldrar och systrar, vilken är en dyrbar ägodel.

Så, från mina studier: Om jag vill ha en indentitet som varar, måste det komma rad på rad, ett stycke här och ett stycke där. Det kommer inte från att bara gifta mig, även om att ta tid med någon som tycker om mig och påstår att jag är en bra och värdig person kan hjälpa det. Det kan fastslås genom att skriva i min dagbok dagligen hur jag har sett Herrens hand, i tacksamhet, och genom också att märka dagligen privata segrar. ”Idag, på detta sätt, var jag mer liksom ett Guds barn.” Med tid och dagligen återstärkning, kommer jag att organisera mitt liv på det sättet.

Alltså, som min grens president sade, skriv inte hur jag felar dagligen, utan skriv hur jag lyckas dagligen. Då lycka och lycksalighet och framgång kommer att vara min relation till mig själv, och inte hate och besvikelse.

Och jag tror om jag fokuserar på hur jag lyckas, kommer det att vara lättare att fokusera på hur andra lyckas. Och det kommer att vara en stor och viktig förändring.

It comes to this: I am an important, choice son of Almighty God. In South Africa, that thesis was attacked and ridiculed time and again, but its truth is not dependent on others' opinions. It is dependent upon my own behavior. For the most part, I act in the manner of a son of God, and I always try to act in a manner consistent with my divine heritage. I make mistakes and do wrong, it is true. Sometimes I do dumb things. But the things I do wrong do not change that which I have been called to do, that which I try to do, and that God in whom I have trusted and in whom I will continue to trust.

My relationship with myself and others is not at its best just now; I treat myself with rawness and wrath, and I treat others with insecurity and suspicion. But God is faithful, and He has helped me, and shall continue to help me, and with His help I begin to see again the good in myself and in others. Fortunately, I have a good relationship with my parents and sisters, which is a rare and precious possession.

So, from my studies, if I want to have an identity that lasts, it must come line upon line, a little here and a little there. It won't come from my getting married, though spending time ith someone who likes me and who claims that I am a good and worthy person can help. I can make that identity secure by writing in my journal everyday how I've seen the Lord's hand, in gratitude, and through recording daily, personal victories. "Today, in this way, I acted more like a son of God." My life will come to be organized in those terms with time and daily reinforcement.

In other words, as my Branch President once told me, "Don't record your daily failures; record your daily successes. Thus joy and happiness and success will become my relationship with myself, rather than hate and disappointment.

In turn, if I am focusing on how I succeed, it will be easier to focus on how others are succeeding, and that will be a great and important adjustment.

The following come from a small photoshoot and study titled "Beauty is Everywhere," which I did while walking to campus, Friday, 22 Oct. 2010. Since I've taken the liberty of titling this little series, I don't feel at all bad adding somewhat sentimental (some might say sappy) captions. If you don't anthropomorphize your photo subjects, that is your own affair - I, however, do. And if I don't, who will? We've already established that YOU do not. Therefore, bear with me.
All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small...

Jupiter, expressed as a flower.
An elderly couple. The woman was a little shy.

I don't have another caption for this one.

A young couple, a few months after their wedding, still glowing.

Conflict

2010-10-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

The diametric is a common theme; light and dark, health and sickness, etc. Zarathustra had something when he drew the divide in terms of light and darkness. Unfortunately, the conflict I find in myself is not entirely one of good and evil. Relax, reader: my post this evening has nothing to do with any relationships except two - that of myself with myself, and that of myself with God.

I find in myself two beings; not one of absolute darkness and one of absolute light, but rather a sober man capable of great love, pure joy, great sorrow, and grievous sin, and an idiot capable of nothing more than superficial pleasure and pathetic folly. The first faces the world in battle: ceremony, celebration, conflict, and conflagration. The second laughs at all things, makes poor jokes, wastes his life, and knows neither that which is sacred nor fearful. He dances where angels ought to fear to tread: not the waltz, but a fool's cousin to the Carmagnole. Deadness, dumbness, idiocy are his dominion, and unfortunately through him, mine. It is as if my reason were sapped in strength and cast before swine to be trampled under foot, while I am rent from before and behind by tusks that curve only inward.

I wish I knew to make my life only the first man - a life of symphonies and silences. This is the test; nothing stops me except my own perspective. What I would give to have those scales fall from my eyes! And yet the second man, misshapen fool that he is, did not spring into being fully formed from my cloven head. He grew, inch by miserable inch, as I sought a different approach to life. I did not bear the solemn, so now I must bear the obscene, the ludicrous, and the absurd.

It is reflected in how I spend my time. How much waste, these past days! How much laziness! How many words dropped carelessly, stupidly, without thought or effort! Rather than an examined life, I live a caricature. Though the better man struggles for egress and urges me to seek obedience and valiant effort, I stumble about blindfolded in the fog of my foolishness. My tools are blunted in the hour of my labor; I lack the self-respect that the Lord of the Vineyard and his servants embody.

"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (2 Cor. 6:16) Pursuit of God brooks no stupidity, no foolishness, no absurdity; I cannot serve the God of Counsel and Holiness and play the fool.

I speak not here of joy, nor laughter, but of mania, of nervous fear, of foolish pride, of vain ambition, and of setting the things of the world higher than the things of God. Let virtue garnish my thoughts unceasingly, that my breast may receive light and knowledge from the most High! Let the noise be silenced in praise of my Creator!

I find comfort in this promise, given by Elder D. Todd Christofferson in the latest General Conference:

"Elder B. H. Roberts once expressed the process in these words: 'The man who so walks in the light and wisdom and power of God, will at the last, by the very force of association, make the light and wisdom and power of God his own—weaving those bright rays into a chain divine, linking himself forever to God and God to him. This [is] the sum of Messiah’s mystic words, ‘Thou, Father, in me, and I in thee’—beyond this human greatness cannot achieve.'" (Reflections on a Consecrated Life, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, General Conference October 2010. ) http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1298-6,00.html

If I come closer to the Man of Holiness, the nonsense must be burned out of my life. Let that fire commence now; let its greasy smoke bear a petition to my God for forgiveness for my "levity, and for my [sometime association] with jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God" (Joseph Smith History, 1:28). Again, I do not discredit humor, but poor taste; not joy, but vapidity; not a smile, but a slack jaw.

I am sustained in this by the idea, felt and stated, my Father has communicated to me: "I know what you can be. I will help you become what you can be. I will help you be worthy of your self-respect. I will help you be more than you have become. I will lead you back into what is true."

I know He will. May my behavior demonstrate my belief. Amen!

Freedom

2010-10-02T23:45:00.000-07:00

Doubt is the strongest prison any man struggles within, and the walls of the mind are far more formidable than any structure of stone or steel. - Journeys

And enterprises of great pith and moment, with this regard, their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. Soft you now, Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons are all my sins remembered.
- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark III : i.

Doubt and fear are opposed to faith. - Preach My Gospel

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
- JST Hebrews 11:1.

Faith is a principle of action and power.
– Elder Richard G. Scott, October General Conference 2010

Therefore, let us choose faith.
Bishop Richard C. Edgely of the Presiding Bishopric, October General Conference 2010

O God, my help in ages past!

While preparing for sleep last night, I found myself singing a song of my heart. My roommates were all gone; my audience was primarily God. Fear had no place in me, and I was free.

Amidst the swirl of the previous week, I have found peace and power in the assurance of something not seen. This faith in the promises of God has made me free.

In years past, while serving a mission as a representative of God; while turning to God in preparation to serve; while seeking Him for forgiveness for my sins; while crying out to Him in fear as a child; while learning to pray: the powers of darkness have been dispersed from before me, I have been loosed from the chains wherewith I have been bound, and I have been released from oppression. Through Christ, I have been set free.

My hope for years to come!

There is hope, and help, and happiness ahead. Trust in God, and believe in good things to come.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland,

So long thy power has blessed me, sure it still will lead me on! O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent till the night is gone! And with the morn those angels faces smile … (“Lead Kindly Light” Hymns no. 97)

There will be family, and success, and joy, and love for all the years to come, if I but act in faith.

“I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

For it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him … but because of the faith of men he has shown himself unto the world, and glorified the name of the Father, and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift, that they might hope for those things which they have not seen.

Wherefore, ye may also have hope, and be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith. Behold it was by faith that they of old were called after the holy order of God. Wherefore, by faith was the law of Moses given. But in the gift of his Son hath God prepared a more excellent way; and it is by faith that it hath been fulfilled. For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.”
- The Book of Mormon, Ether 12:6-12

My shelter from the stormy blast!

I have witnessed this week, these past weeks, the power of the Savior to comfort. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give ye rest” - Matt 11:28. It's true – for wounds of the heart, and for wounds of the soul.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. but woman can inflict no torment greater than a man can give himself. A woman's tears teach men lessons of suffering they otherwise could not know. But there is a balm in Gilead, and it soothes the pain of loss and cools the fever of doubt.

And my eternal home!

For me, the ultimate promise of the Savior is to become like my Heavenly Father; parent of the heavenly host, Father of our spirits. My eternal home is with Him, like Him. I will not be alone in the eternities; this is the promise of exaltation.

And so, through faith I can say: Halellujah! The Lord reigneth; His hands are over my life, and blessed be the name of my God for it.

“O God, our help in ages past!
Our Hope for years to come!
Our shelter from the stormy blast!
And our eternal home!”
(“O God, Our Help in Ages Past” Hymns no. 31)

A birthday...

2010-09-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

Thy word is like a lamp unto my feet... (Proverbs)

Fog comes, not on little cat feet, but with the seeping vengeance of a flood. Awaking in the fog of a clouded mind and a stormy heart yields confusion; today was a long struggle to engage my world. The gears of my mind kept slipping off each other in the greasy humidity of the past few days.

The fact that today is my birthday did not alleviate so much as exasperate my struggle; ideally, birthdays are days of reflection and celebration and of faithful, hopeful looking to the future. I took the time to sing today as I have not done in a long while, and the hymns of Zion provided strength, support, and buoyancy in an otherwise sinking morning. Eating lunch with my roommates was fun, as were visiting some friends and helping a classmate. The greatest comfort was speaking with my family, who are ever a source of comfort and strength and loving concern. But despite the points of light, the fog in my soul remained.

Until:

I sat down to read the scriptures. Repeated attempts at prayer had devolved into uneasy sleep, but as I opened to 3 Nephi and read again chapter 22*, and chapter 11, I found surcease from sorrow**, and felt prompted to read my patriarchal blessing.

(For my non-LDS readers, a patriarchal blessing is a piece of specific communication from the Lord to an individual through a patriarch, who acts much like Jacob did while blessing each of his twelve sons. I personally hold this type of communication to be one of the great blessings of the Restoration; a patriarchal blessing like those given by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is quite unlike anything else I've experienced in the LDS Church or in the Baptist or Pentecostal congregations I've attended. It is not quite the same as a father's blessing, or any other blessing I've seen given in any Church - the language used is in intelligible words, but is only correctly interpretable by the recipient. It's a continuing example of how involved the Lord is in our individual lives.)

Reading the words of the Lord to me, in applied scriptures and especially in His direct communication, rolled back the fog from my soul. I could think clearly, my emotions were understandable and negotiable, the weariness fell from my mind and heart, and I regained the opportunity to be thoroughly enthusiastic. I did not burst with joy - but I was back in the present again, reconnected to my world.

Following a feeling, I found myself in a movie that skillfully, comically and interestingly dealt with my precise situation in a way that helped me to be happy, to have a proper perspective, and to gain hope for the future.

In short: The Lord knew my sickness today, and turned my tears into the tonic for my tribulation.

*(A similar passage is found in Isaiah 54: "O, thou afflicted, tossed about with tempests and not comforted! Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires." But the whole chapter is one of comfort and peace.)
**(Paraphrase from Edgar Allan Poe)

Addendum

2010-09-23T00:09:00.001-07:00

I had written a long, philosophical case incorporating Kierkegaard and existential Christianity. I may post it later; I don't have the heart for it now.

Instead, one more definition.

Love:

Verb, transitive: To do the correct thing in relation to someone, regardless of the cost to the person or oneself.

Definitions

2010-09-11T00:56:00.000-07:00

love:

v. 1 - to feel concern for, to seek the welfare of, to be willing to make sacrifices on behalf of

v. 2 - to enjoy, to find happiness in, to be uplifted by, to be cheered by, to be pleased with

v. 3 - to experience with, to share in or with, to feel alike

n. 1 - a state of being characterizing a mental and emotional attitude of friendship, well-wishing, happiness with, and compassion for someone.

n. 2 - a willingness to give without expectation or rejection of reciprocity

n. 3 - affection

n. 4 - a relationship between two individuals characterized by the above.

n. 5 - a girl with seafoam eyes, red hair, joy in her heart and hope in her soul.

A new man

2010-09-01T22:55:00.000-07:00

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day!
Earth's joy grow dim – her glories melt away.
Change and decay in all around I see -
O, thou who changest not – abide with me!
(“Abide with me!” Hymns no. 166, also the concluding quote)

While reading some of my sociological texts, I came across a description of some of the seeming paradoxes of our lives; the need for intimacy in an impersonal world; the trust of unknown strangers in lieu of personal relationships with each of the thousands of individuals who impact our lives. As I was reading, the author identified one of my heart's struggles:

“Our craving for 'deep' and 'wholesome' personal relationships grows in intensity the wider and less penetrable is the network of impersonal dependencies in which we are entangled. ... Everywhere I feel that only a small section of my self is present. I must constantly watch myself not to allow the rest of my self to interfere, as its other aspects are irrelevant and unwelcome in this particular context. And thus nowhere do I truly feel myself; nowhere am I fully at home. All in all, I begin to feel like a collection of the many different roles I play, each one among different people and in a different place. Is there something to connect them? Who am I in the end – the true, real 'I'?” (Bauman, Thinking Sociologically, 99 “Gift and Exchange”).

Bauman was describing the different people we are in the office, in the store, and at a political rally, but I find it describes my personal social movements. I recently told a friend surprised by my behavior that I am “multifaceted;” I ought to have uttered that statement with shame. It is unfortunately true - I act differently around different groups of people. My character varies based on my circumstance. I yearn for wholeness, for oneness, for reconciliation with myself; I long for the integrity I lack.

The Gospel answers Bauman's question. I am a son of God with the potential to become like Him. I wish to Heaven that I lived that answer! That I lived like a son of God in every instant! But I am not yet even a man for all seasons, far less a man for each moment. I saw that in a social event with some friends of mine from my old ward: I could see the history of my relationship with them in their eyes, for good and ill, and I felt myself struggling with the echoes of a man who died in Africa and who I cannot and will not revive.

Africa changed everything. It was a purifying fire. In agony, I prayed more earnestly, and was comforted. The residual and continuing effects of that same Spirit bring me closer to reconciliation. I am reminded somewhat of one of my favorite films, a portion of which I have linked to here. Though I fortunately do not carry the burdens of sexual sin implied in the linked video clip, I feel I too am being led to confront the demons in my soul. The translation is poor, but sufficient for this post, I believe.

Confrontation.

Thankfully – and blessed be the name of my God for it! - I do know that mercy exists through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and that it can be accessed through faith in His power and mercy coupled with sincere repentance.

The Lord promised Saul a new heart. Through the Atonement of Christ, we become a new creature – fitted jointly together, whole. Repentance and and receiving the forgiveness of God brings spiritual healing – again, being made whole. “Behold, He who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I the Lord remember [his sins] no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:42-43).

Repentance includes restitution – attempting to right the wrongs we - I - have done, including emotional injuries inflicted out of carelessness, selfishness, or fear. As a disciple of Christ, or as one who would follow Him, I can no longer start new and simply jettison my past lives. To allow Him to heal my heart, I must do my part and apologize to those I have hurt. I must face my shame and in humility apologize to girls I have led on, dated briefly, given false hope, and then dashed. Again, I do not speak here of egregious sexual transgression, but even so, to find peace, I cannot simply move on. I must work while the sun shines, before the night of darkness comes, to right as best I can the poor decisions I have made. “And we see that death comes upon mankind, yea, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek, which is the temporal death; nevertheless there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead” (The Book of Mormon, Alma 12:24). Though it is painful, this semester's associations seem to give me a chance to apologize, to repent, and to develop a different nature with the Lord's help.

This perhaps seems melodramatic; having not committed “great” crimes, why agonize? But what I am discussing here is the substance of a soul's relation to another, the expression of love or hate in daily circumstance. Lives are made up of exactly the types of patterns I describe, in the daily relationships and interactions that define who we are and what we stand for – “every, every moment” (Oscar Wilde, Our Town).

I need thy presence every passing hour!
What but thy grace can foil the tempters' power?
Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Thru cloud and sunshine Lord: abide with me!

The sand and the sea

2010-08-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

“I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force … Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty.
- Joseph Smith

"Small pieces of glass get caught in the surf, and smoothed and sanded until they are like clear, colored stones. Sea glass, it's called, and apparently it's quite valuable."
-My mother, in a conversation we had while I was in Africa

I guess the trick to life is to take the punishment patiently and with joy. In Africa, and at home as I deal with the consequences and remainders of my journey to Africa, I have been frustrated many times by the inconveniences, disappointments, requirements, and penalties I feel I am experiencing. Today especially has been difficult in that regard; not due to any great injury, but rather to a thousand small cuts.

In these circumstances, frustration at the great, apparent un-necessity of it all clouds judgment, obscures blessings, and gives anger place in the heart.
I have struggled with these feelings for a few days. The disappointment, frustration, and anger I felt in Africa but could not express came tumbling out of me here. Since I didn't resolve my feelings while I was there, I need to here; but I hadn't wrestled with those thoughts yet, and found only anger in myself when I attempted to do so.

Events of the past few days brought these frustrations to a head, until this evening I was fed up with the school, university, and organizations I'm working with. My sister warned me to reframe things positively, rather than run off on a Dutch sailing barque, as I was only half-jokingly considering.

My family, ever a source of comfort and love, again brought me the answer. My mother suggested that I listen to music.

It has taken me almost an hour and a half of listening to inspired musicians playing the most beautiful pieces of music in history, but the clouds have lifted; I have been able to let go of some of my anger, and I have come to a place where I can forgive.

"Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak." - William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (1697), Act. 1 Sc. 1.

"And it came to pass, when the evil spirit ... was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." - 1 Sam 16:23

It's true.