My daughter Heather just spoke in Sacrament meeting.

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The first time I was asked to give a talk, I said no. I was very firm but it did not matter; I was told I had to give a talk anyway. I was sick and I was upset and I really did not want to give a talk. When I finally gave the talk, I was scared and unhappy and it was painful, but when it was all over, everything was fine.

When I was asked to give this talk, I did not want to. But I knew I had to, and I knew that I could do it, so I finally forced myself to work on it, and now I am giving this talk to you.

Missionary work is like giving a talk in Church. The first time we are asked to do missionary work, almost everyone says no. Even if their lips say yes, they really do not want to do it. They feel a funny feeling in the pit of their stomach, they are unhappy underneath it all, and they wish they could just say “no” and do something else.

But, eventually they force themselves, or they should force themselves, to do something, and the more they do it, the easier it is and the better they feel about it.

They realize that it is possible to do missionary work, and that like giving a talk, most of the time everyone is happier as a result.

The keys to missionary work are the same as the keys to giving a talk.

First, you have to decide to give in and do it.

Second, you need to prepare to do it,

And third and finally, you have to actually do it.

My talk is about the things you can prepare to do, once you realize that you can do it and that while missionary work may seem hard and difficult, but that it isn’t as bad as it seems.

The first thing to do is to be humble. That doesn’t mean being timid or nervous, but it does mean not acting “holier-than-thou,” harsh, or judgmental. It means acting with God’s love, and doing what God wants. You should be doing missionary work because you love and care about other people, and you should do it the way God wants you to do it. Not just because you are asked to at church. It is kind of like being patient without being passive, or being forthright without being pushy.

The second thing is to realize that all missionary work consists of steps. You don’t just walk up to someone and baptize them. Missionary work isn’t grabbing people and forcing them to do anything.

Instead, missionary work consists of many small steps. Just like you would not do your laundry by tossing all the dirty clothes into the dryer, you shouldn’t start doing missionary work by skipping the steps.

Before you can share your testimony with anyone you must first have one. Before you can testify of the truth of the Book of Mormon or even the Bible you must have read it for yourself and pondered on the principles therein. Otherwise how can you answer the questions of those you would teach the gospel.

Next, you should live the gospel.

That is a big concept, but the part that applies to missionary work is that you need to live the parts of the gospel that have to do with being kind to others and loving them. Some of the strongest testimonies of the gospel that I have ever heard have come from inactive members of the church who have fallen away due to some trial in their lives with which they are struggling, but have never stopped trying to be kind to others and have maintained that Christ-like love of mankind.

True missionary work comes from loving others and is the kindest thing you can do. It is the attempt to aid another person by sharing the most precious thing you have.

If you start being kind to other people, loving them and caring for them, then sharing the gospel becomes as natural a part of your life as feeding them when they are hungry or listening to them when they are sad. As stated in D&C 64:34 “the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind”

If we do not put our heart into our task or are unwilling to prepare for missionary work we rob our friends of the chance to learn. We refuse to give a treasure that will last for all eternity. Just as true missionary work is the kindest thing you can do, grudging or false missionary work is among the cruelest.

But, by finding yourself in service and love for others, you increase the amount of love and peace you feel in your life. By doing missionary work, by caring for others, you will become happier and have more joy in your own life. You will find the things you need to be at peace and to be closer to Jesus Christ.

So, no matter how you feel about missionary work, if you take it one step at a time, you can do it, and share the love and joy that should be in your life and that God has for you.

It is a matter of starting, one step at a time. Reading your scriptures and praying. Being kind to others and paying attention to them. Caring for your friends and neighbors and those you meet so that you can both be an example to them and so that you can know when they need help.

Finally, it is a matter of sharing the gospel with them, a piece at a time, just as you would bring them food when they are hungry or give them a ride when their car breaks down. It is the process of letting the love of Christ work in your life to heal you and to heal others.

I leave you with my testimony of the importance of true missionary work. I leave you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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Win was called in to cover an emergency at work. Jessica would have turned twenty today, but life goes on, even if we wish it would not.

Funny. Most people do the most of their blogging on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I do most of mine on the weekends, especially Sunday evening before I go to bed, but after everyone is quiet.

It is so quiet now.

"But Daddy, it is in this book!" .....................................................

Ok, Heather was sick as a dog, and not eating (that kind of sick) so we put her back in bed and took Rachel to the movies.

On the way home, Rachel starts giving us the most unusual natural history lesson I've ever heard and tells me I'm wrong when I disagree with her.

Finally I can hear her voice in a pout and she says in exasperation: "But Daddy, it is in this book. Right here. Look!"

You guessed it, Rachel had a book of Gary Larsen Far Side comics which she had been reading. We had a little talk about humor, fiction and reality right then.

But until I saw which book it was, I was really starting to wonder about what they are teaching her in school...

It was late September and life was good. It had been a very long hot summer, everything was dry and we were ready for rain.

My husband and I both had lucrative careers and I was finally on the cooperate ladder I wanted to be on. Work was demanding and I was spending a lot of time away from home. We had put off the whole idea of having children, so many things we wanted to do or better yet “experience” first. But life had other ideas for us, and our baby girl was born in May and was a bouncing bundle of energy. Beautiful golden curls and a round pudgy face dotted with the freckles I had spent my childhood wasting every birthday wish on. Aurora was funny, full of quirks and had somewhat slowed us down a bit, but not much.

Two years later we got a very unexpected surprise, my sister gave us custody of her two boys. They were 4 and 2. So we quickly had three children under the age of four. A nanny later and we were back to the plan. Work had taken over almost every aspect of our lives. My husband was had just finished dental school and had started his own practice, and I was working my way up to VP.

We built a home in a rural area, welcoming the privacy, hiring the acreage out to have hay planted. My husband had always wanted dogs and horses, and so we delved into that investment and tried to find the time to devote to our animals, children and church. Life was simply beautiful. Or so I thought it was.

It had been a brutal summer. But the clouds rolling in on the horizon were swollen and full of promise for the much needed rain. I was on my way home in the mid evening. I stopped and took pictures of the bold and daring lightening strikes. It was a pretty amazing display of energy, and among the beautiful fall foliage it was simply spectacular.

I saw the lightening hit. The boom about knocked me over. I was on the last switch back heading up to our home. I couldn’t actually see the ground, but I could tell it had hit in the field behind our home. It wasn’t seconds later, as I was frantically getting into my car, that I saw the smoke.

By the time I got to the house, the field and barn were engulfed. The fire was so hot. The flames just ate up the dry wood and weeds. I am not sure I remember exactly when I realized that Aurora was in the barn. Megan was screaming about the kittens... and the fire trucks got there..and I looked around the boys were there...and slowly... it sunk in.. Aurora was in the barn. She was teasing those kittens we had recently discovered. Up in the loft.

The rain came later. Long sheets of cold moisture. Pounding against my skin. I don’t remember feeling it. I do remember being wet though. I remember screaming, kicking and clawing. Its like an old movie that was taken with a wide camera lens, the kind that has the crackles in it, that seem not so clear and maybe yellowed.

The next three years are a blur. Pain and darkness over came our house. The kids were sullen and the walls were dark. I couldn’t look at my husband nor he at me. The quiet ate us up almost. When it wasn’t quiet there was yelling. Blame can take on the form of many ugly monsters. I felt cold inside. Cold, confused, disoriented and numb.

I couldn’t tell you the date he left. He couldn’t bare to look at me anymore, for the pain in my eyes and I couldn’t see past the self inflicted guilt. He tried. I know he did. Tried to reach inside of me, to that place that I had retreated, but I shoved him away, is SO many different ways... push and pushed. I wouldn’t let him touch me, I wouldn’t open up and talk to him, I mean doing that would indicate that I wasn’t alright, after all. I quit living.

I sat in my bed, slept, took sleeping pills, everything I could do to avoid thought. My sisters and parents were forbidden from coming to my home, except to pick up the boys and take them places. I missed birthdays, Christmas, Easter everything.

It would be three years and a little, before I came “to.” When my son looked at me with those huge blue eyes and said, “Momma, won’t you please take me for a walk. I miss Aurora so much, she used to walk with me, remember Momma...?” That is what it took. The flood gates opened on that walk. And...it didn’t close for a very long time.

It hurt. Everything hurt. Remembering still hurts. I have raged at God, screamed, hollered, and accused. I have taken solace and comfort in the peace the spirit affords, and then raged again.

I took her pictures down, locked her things away, hid from her existence. I can finally look at them again. Finally.

Its been years, and years. My sons are now eighteen and sixteen. Five years ago, I finally let someone in and met and married someone new. He has been incredibly gentle with me, and has helped me find the peace I have longed for.

The guilt is incredible, I don’t know if I will ever get past it. My life is so different now. A smaller home, I wouldn’t work for a dime. I went through a long period when I wouldn’t let my other children out of my sight. I have a different view on what is important, and dear to me. I am softer, more sensitive, I “feel” everything, from the pile on the towels to every little word said to me.

I don’t know that I will ever think, “Oh, I have learned so much from this experience”, I can’t even glance down that road. I won’t ever be grateful for this experience either. No matter what people say, there is very little solace in that line of thought for me. Yes, I have learned a lot, yes, I know myself better, yes I have been blessed. But grateful? Not yet.

When I unexpectedly got pregnant two years ago my husband and I were terribly taken off guard. He nor I thought I could have another child. We had been told that, by a couple of different docs. I shifted into a downward spiral. I didn’t really want to have this baby. The thoughts were over powering to me. In a lot of ways, I raged at the Lord again.

And then Ethan entered our lives, and new pain as well as clearer understanding and blessings have ensued.

Ethan is a whole other story... He is the most amazing gift. At two, after multiple surgeries, brain damage, deaf/blindness and global developmental delays, a tight rope of not knowing if he would survive or not, he is a full of life child who takes my breath away. Ethan, our beautiful son who I know beyond a shadow of a doubt dances between the Veil that separates this life from other ones. Every once and a while...he looks off into the blue and laughs out loud and wiggles his toes, and I know... he is with her.

Aurora’s life and existence seem a lifetime away, but in the summer afternoon or when I see the grain dancing in the wind, I can’t help but remember, and I am transported back again, to her freckled face smile and light blue eyes and sometimes I can even smile.

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This is a guest post from a friend.

How do you go forward when you pray and it seems as if no one hears you or cares? What do you do when the universe betrays you and your child dies? Countless parents have faced that bleak wall, and the core of many groups is that they are comprised of people who have come through that dark valley to the other side.

What is interesting about twelve step programs is that they all confront this issue, over and over again each time someone new comes to a meeting. The people in a twelve step program (such as AA) have already prayed and it seemed as if their prayers fell on deaf ears. As a result, while they have an intellectual belief that God can do anything, in their hearts they have learned to have faith that God will not help.

Yet, twelve step programs work because people find that God does help them after all, once they surrender themselves to God and begin to develop a new relationship with that higher power greater than themselves.

While current success rates are low, before Courts started ordering people to attend programs, the success rate was about seventy percent -- and almost all of these were people who had learned that God was deaf to them before they learned to approach God again in a way that involved faith and trust and surrender. By changing their heartfelt concept of what God was, they found help from God.

They found the truth of the promise that when we take upon ourselves Christ's yoke, the burden is light. But to do that, they had to admit that they could not succeed without God and that they did not know God the way they needed to know him. Much like Joseph Smith taught, to reach God you must know some true things about God and must realize that you truly need the Holy One.

So yes, I think that the scripture means it when it says:

Matthew 11: 28 - 30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

I also believe that learning that lesson is one of the mysteries of the gospel, along with faith and love, and I hope everyone who has suffered unbearable pain finds that rest for their souls.

Sometimes it seems that Philosophy spends much of its time passing the blame for bad ideas to Religion.

Take Natural Philosophy, for example. If you read the world view of Jewish works such as Enoch or The Apocalypse of Adam, you get a vision of worlds without number, filled with life. Then Greek philosophy comes along and it is all science and logic and the Earth as the stationary center of the universe, the only place where life is to be found -- a far cry from the vision that makes a man ask "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?"

Fast forward, science changes its mind (though it still believes that all orbits have to be perfect circles) and it blames Religion for the false perspective.

Or consider how philosophy dealt with men and women. The great discussion about love lost my attention when Plato and the boys started explaining how women were so inadequate that they weren't capable of really being loved, men had to reserve that for each other as higher beings. Compare that to Eve as a "help meet" or a "companion equal" to Adam and Proverbs 30:10 that illustrates the ideal women as one who is in business for herself, taking her own counsel as she buys and sells and sets others to work. A wave of kings, a wave of scientific philosophy, and suddenly the Norse women who were full equals become chattel to chattel and women all throughout the western world are reduced in status.

A few, like Brigham Young (who kept preaching sermons pointing out that women made as good of lawyers, doctors, politicians, accountants and business types as men), pushed for equality and the franchise. But the enlightened Federal government took it away and scientific men rejected women as lawyers or other professionals. Move forward a hundred years and suddenly Philosophy has reversed course -- and blamed Religion for what went on.

It should surprise very few that almost every time in history that Religion has given way to Philosophy or Science that the passage of time results in the position being rejected and Religion taking the blame for it. Which gives me pause.

But I remember: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus". (Galatians 3:28) and "And he inviteth them all to come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God." (2 Nephi 26:33).

May we all remember that, regardless of what science or society or philosophy would tell us.

The Relief Society was asked what lessons they wanted the most. The number one request was for my wife to teach a class on how to make rolls. The class was held tonight and had record turnout, much to my wife's surprise. As Win told me "Steve, those rolls are good, but that good?" Well, after years of having them at various activities, I guess everyone thought they were "that good."

Here is the recipie:

Pretzel Shaped Yeast Rolls

Demonstration by Win Marsh

2 tablespoons yeast )

2 cups warm water ) Stir together

1 can evaporated milk )

1 can warm water ) Stir in

½ cup sugar )

2 tablespoons salt )

½ cup oil )

1 egg ) Stir in

Stir or beat in 4 cups of flour. Beat it smooth. Keep gradually adding flour until dough starts to come away from the sides of the bowl. Total flour will be about 8-9 cups. The dough will still be very sticky.

Dump it on a flour covered counter. Start kneading until it feels good, but is still a VERY SOFT dough. Expect to knead in 1-2 cups of flour.

Put the dough in a large greased bowl. Plastic is better than metal. Turn the dough over so that all sides of the dough are greased. Cover the bowl with plastic or cloth and put it in a warm place.

When it is raised, punch it down and split it into 4 parts. Cut each part into 12 pieces. Roll each out on a lightly floured board in to a long piece and tie it like a pretzel. Tuck the ends underneath and place on a slightly greased cookie sheet.

Put a glaze on each roll: Beat together 1 whole egg and ¼ cup of milk. Paint the top of each roll and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Wait until the rolls puff up .. about 30 minutes or less. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes.

Baste them with melted butter while still hot from the oven.

Modify for Cinnamon Rolls

Pat or roll out dough, spread soft butter then sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon and a light dusting of nutmeg. Add nuts and raisins. Roll dough up and cut in one inch pieces. Put 12 on a greased cookie sheet. Let them rise for 30 minutes. Bake them longer than the rolls. Quickly frost with a white frosting. One recipe makes 24 large rolls or 12 huge cinnamon rolls.

Resentment is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Anon

Trust in God is, in part, acknowledging that not trusting God does not create any change. Acceptance of life means to live life, and trust in God is a part of accepting life.

Another Anon

It is not where we will be next week, but what we become now. To "take no thought for the morrow" means to be alive now, accepting life and the present.

One more Anon

Thinking about those things I realized that resentment anchors us in the past with our pain, and a lack of trust holds us away from the future, in fear. By finding trust and acceptance we are able to live. Not that giving up resentment is easy, or that trusting is painless, but they both make life worth living.

Myths attempt to explain why the world is imperfect and what we should do about the problems we face because of an imperfect world. An interesting part of some faiths is the doctrine that the world is not imperfect any more than an obstacle course or a golf course is imperfect.

My own beliefs include some explanations of some things that everyone can observe and that many find painful:

(a) The almost universal condition of women being subordinate to men is not a celestial pattern but is a direct result of the world being imperfect, which means that we do not emulate it, but seek to escape it.

(b) Women need only listen or hearken to men to the extent that they know that the men are following God. Men may end up in charge because the world is imperfect, but women are not obligated to just follow them around, (but instead should follow God and only listen to men when the men are listening to God as well). We all escape the consequences of imperfection by working together as partners.

(c) In the heavens, things are binary, as it says: "in the image of God created God humanity, meaning male and female." That is, God is not alone in the heavens and that women have as much divinity in them as men -- when Eve was created it was as a "help meet" or a "companion equal" to Adam.

I find it interesting how some people naturally find that message and how others do not. There are similar messages all around us, some enlighten us, some we miss. Some times we miss because we lack the right metaphor or language, sometimes because we are blinded by experience, some times it is because life is overwhelming.

But it is life, an experience for us rather than an end.

Her attempt to castrate him was the hidden issue in their divorce. It was a second marriage for her, a first for him. As a white haired, older diabetic, he had impotence issues. As a woman whose only other experience with a man was a twenty-something in the prime of life, she took that problem as a personal affront. She could see and accept no other exploration and refused to do anything that could lead her to any other conclusion that he had to be made to pay and had to be rejected in turn.

So it is with many people and God. They lose a spouse, a job, a child and decide there is no explanation for what has happened other than that God is unworthy and must be rejected. Sometimes the issue is obvious, such as a parent who has buried too many loving children, sometimes hidden, like a man's anger at God after losing twenty pounds did not reduce his triglyceride levels.

I finally found out about the secret when we were at the end of the property division. The knife was old and battered and obviously her separate property. He would not give it up. I and the other lawyer wasted hundreds of dollars of time before I finally offered to buy a better knife for him if he would turn it over -- and then he told me the truth.

I saw the two of them together, six months later, happy, remarried, embarrassed to see me, but wanting to tell me too. She had finally found the truth, complaining to other friends who were her age, and realized that he loved her, that the physical realities they had to deal with were not a reason to leave her husband or her church, and that there was more to life than the bitterness she had embraced.

Everyone experiences the harshness of life at some point, in ways that are either real or imagined. Sometimes the hurt we feel can not be avoid, either because our perspectives are too blind or the pain is too great. Sometimes when we cry out to God, if we cry out to God, the only response is that the feelings and pain we share with him are true, and do not offend, and that the Holy One knows we are suffering and does not condemn us.

It is what comes next. Do we let those feelings blind us, do we hold to them until they drive us to harm others or ourselves, or do we decide to find reality, beyond our human perspective.

In mediation, in law, in my profession, over and over again I deal with people who have locked themselves into false perspectives. Like someone who has fallen into a hole in the dark, they have a moment of disorientation and hurt, but they have stayed in the hole and made things worse when they could just walk out if they only would.

On this blog I am really writing only for other parents who have buried children. Especially at this time of the year, following the anniversaries of December 26 and January 26, when Courtney died and when Jessica died, with Robin's death date to come, the feelings are with me.

I know that the feelings are intense, that the experience seems to offer only one lesson -- that God is false or unworthy -- and that so many find it a terrible time, especially in a culture that in a very neo-Calvanistic way sees any tragedy or loss as proof of failure and God's disfavor (we have not come very far from Job's friends and they way they treated Job until God reproved them).

But over, and over and over again I meet people, I have experiences and I feel the greater truth. In this life, nothing is perfect and all die. The gospel makes us more aware of how unfair life is, not less. As Paul noted, without the resurrection, our knowledge would make us "of all men, most miserable." But there is more, and there is a peace that people find, if they don't hold on to the mistaken perspectives they find. In the end, nothing can separate us from the love of God but ourselves. As it says: "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" - Romans 8:38-39.

I, too, have been persuaded that if we do not refuse to heed, Christ stands at the door and knocks, and nothing other than our own will can separate us from the love of God. May each of you find that peace.

In memory of Jessica Christine Marsh; February 12, 1986 to January 26, 1993. She was almost seven and I miss her today as much as ever.

I should note that I read a lot of posts today on other blogs from people writing about how life is unpleasant and even God cries. But it is life, and there is so much good as well, which can take us home again. May you each find your way in peace and grace.

We celebrated our twenty-first wedding anniversary by going to Hot Springs, Arkansas. A co-worker of my wife goes to the Arlington every year and just loves it.

The town was charming, the land is beautiful, the history (including Al Capone, Mae West and others) was entrancing and the historic baths were really fun. First time I've done that sort of thing, I'm going to have to do it again.

Best of all was the time Win and I were able to spend together.

As a general rule I would suggest a different week-end. We didn't know it, but this is the week-end that the race track (dating back to 1890) opened. Luckily, Hotels.com found us great rooms at a great price (though not at the Arlington). We got a discount from them and an additional discount from AARP. Who knew turning fifty would get me a discount at hotels?

Had some wonderful meals, though Win and I ended up splitting a lot of meals and leaving food behind -- servings just keep growing. Much to my surprise I lost another half pound over the week-end. With the rain, we came home a day early and I just finished a great morning making breakfast for the kids and walking my yougest to school.

I still have today off, and I plan to spend it with Win.

I'm so glad to have had her in my life the last twenty-one years. May anyone reading this share the best of life with someone they love.

In the middle of chaos I turned fifty. Instead of a birthday party, I attended a work function for my wife, wedged between emergencies. The Church Christmas party and program had blown up, mostly because the person who was doing the program broke her back in a rollover accident. While she didn't have a choice between the two, now that she is recovering she has commented that all-in-all it wasn't such a bad alternative. You know the drill.

But, as I look forward to this year, it is almost as if I had turned thirty-six again. My weight is almost to where it was then, I have a six year-old in the house again, the weight training I started three years ago actually has me stronger than I was hoping to get then, and I'm back to being my natively cheerful self, feeling real emotions. I'm thinking about writing projects, probably the same ones (more or less) than I was then, including a book on mediation and a book on negotiation.

I've even quit snoring.

It is almost as if my life has started over. Given the number of long lived people in my family, I've probably hit the mid point and am starting over in a lot of ways. It is tempting to treat this entire year as a birthday celebration -- but I'll skip the cake. After all, I'm enjoying having lost weight.

I'll write another post when I get back in town, but we are soon to be off to celebrate our wedding anniversary. As always, a compromise date, so not everything is starting over, but everything does have hope and joy once again.

One thing that surprises me about life is just how happy I am. As Rachel has gone through the stages of getting older and reprised her sisters a bit, bringing to mind a certain baby, a certain almost two year old, and a certain child who almost turned seven, I have had to re-encounter a great deal of emotion. In addition to the Christmas season and going through it with a six year old one more time, I've started Seth Roger's diet. Weight loss aside, food no longer serves to insulate me from emotion. I feel emotion much more strongly.

The funny thing, so to speak, about it all is that the dominant emotion that I feel, day in and day out, is happiness. It makes sense. Before everything, my native state was being happy. Now, I really enjoy my job (my secretary has finally adjusted to the fact that I respond to new files with cheerfulness, as if I'd been given a present -- we are in house and she is used to attorneys groaning when they get difficult work). There is a nice blend of repetition and variety in what I do -- and I win a lot.

A co-worker once referred to my family and I as "the Stepford bunch" -- because with the sickness and the other problems we still like each other, and it is still a joy to walk Rachel to school, talk with Heather and just be with Win.

Sometimes things catch me by surprise. Burying three children will do that to you, even now. But just as often they are good things, like just how steadily positive life has been. Sure, life has annoyances (we just had some kids out on a lark drive down the street bashing in windows and they got Heather's car), but they just don't seem worth getting riled up about (our insurance had a guy out to replace the windows first thing Monday and Heather's Volvo is as good as new again, or will be once she gets it waxed and polished).

I hope that anyone visiting my blog finds joy in life as well.

A friend of mine, AnneGB, really has a lot to say.

This guest post is by her, and it says things that I think are important for each of us in the new year.

Post, by annegb


I've made a big deal out of the fact that I am an alcoholic and also attend Al-Anon, an organization for people who have friends or relatives who are addicts/alcoholics. It's a character defect, I think, because it makes me different, ie special, in this traditional LDS Utah town where I live. And I live to stick out, for some cruel quirk of fate.

There is another reason, also, though. It doesn't bother me to admit I'm an alcoholic, I'm not embarrassed, and I want to empower others in my position to get help, to abandon the shame. So I am not all ego.

However, the purpose of this post is not my hubris or iconoclastic tendencies. I have learned something from my inconsistent attendance at AA and Al-Anon meetings. I have grown from applying those principles.

I want to share here a couple of things I have learned which have blessed my life. One is not more important than the other, but one is my main point.

First, I have never heard anything in a meeting, (which is similar to a blogging "meeting" where the "chair" will introduce a topic, share on that topic and open it for discussion) either from the chair or those who choose to share, that is not in harmony with the restored gospel. Never. I have never read anything in all the literature, and it is considerable, and I've read, and re-read most of it, that is not in harmoy with the restored gospel.

I listen carefully to the conference talks and am delighted when I hear speakers talk in a way that is in harmony with Al-Anon principles, like turning our will over to God. I assume these men are not members of AA, so I also then conclude that this is a principle from God.

Which brings me to my main point today. Turning our will and lives over to the power of God. This is the third step of AA, Al-Anon, every 12-step group: "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the CARE (note that important )of God, as we understand Him."

How a person does that, the process, is different in each person. No one tells us exactly how to do it, it's predicated on working the first and second steps, which I will not dwell on today.

It is basically an inner process. Some people do it more formally, a formal prayer or written process, then continue to follow up daily, or at least regularly, with a re-commitment to turn it over. These are the lucky ones.

Some do it less formally, but still consistently. Some, like me, do it great for a week, then forget there is a God, get defeated and come crawling back once in awhile.

It is work, that daily turning over of my will to God. I have to get down on my knees (this is my own condition, I do not believe it is necessary to always have formal prayer, indeed, I think it takes many forms), and say the words "God, I give this day to you. This is what I want/need to do today. But if you have other plans, I surrender. I will act as if I am going to do these things, but if other things come up, I will assume they are from you and I will RE-act accordingly."

Then I tell Him about my needs or responsibilities for that day. I pray for my family. I used to ask Him for specific things for them, like "let Jared stop drinking" or "let Sarah not get in a wreck" or "let" something. "Let" seems to be a word I've adopted.

But now, more often, I ask Him to guide my words and actions. I ask Him to help me respond in a way to my children and loved ones that will bless their lives and ask that His will be done in their lives. I've structured my prayers differently. Less control issues, more surrender.

Now, again, I say, for me, this is work. A long prayer for me is about twenty minutes. A normal prayer is about five minutes. But then, I talk fast, as you could imagine. The attitude I approach my morning prayer is the same attitude I approach cleaning my oven.

"Oh crap, it has to be done. I will watch the news first. Maybe a glass of juice. Oh, yuck it is so dirty. Maybe tomorrow."

Same with praying. I think about it. I don't jump out of bed and get on my knees. I talk myself into it.

However, and this is the punch line. It works every time. That doesn't mean my days go perfectly or I do everything I want to do, or I am nice all day. It just works. That's the only way I can say it. I work. Things work out well on those days I turn over to the Lord. Things get accomplished in an almost miraculous way.

So that at night, my prayers are just "thank you for the help today." My night prayers are almost always very short prayers of gratitude.

After all that hemming and hawing and putting off, taking that 5-20 minutes to turn things over to God makes the rest of the day flow. I might even take a couple of hours to decide to do it. To pray and turn it over. Then the real miracle happens.

I don't do it every day. I don't even do it every week. I am a work in progress and very much flawed and lazy.

My New Year's resolution this year is to pray every morning. I urge you, as well, to try some type of regular "turning it over" as opposed to whatever you might think a well-behaved latter day saint should do. There is great power in giving control, will, and power to our God. It is a quiet and wonderful thing, though, and it is a slow, daily process, not a big "blessing-of-you."

I hope this has made sense and in my awkward way. I fought this concept for many years because I didn't trust God to do the right thing, which would be whatever I thought should happen. I had to struggle with and learn that only God's will can ultimately bring peace to our lives.

God bless us, every one this year.

Mohawk philosophy lessons

In Memorium, Courtney Kathleen Marsh, February 16, 1992 to December 26, 1993. She was our baby.

Had a friend.
He married his high school sweetheart.
The year he turned 38, his first child started college, the second high school.
"Feels so empty" he said
"You'll understand."

I married later,
To someone I wish I'd known from childhood.
The year I turned 38, buried two children, lost another from miscarriage.
Feels so empty
I understand.

---

I wrote that, obviously, before we had the rest of the miscarriages and had buried Robin. I think I'll go listen to Felicia whose music is sadly out of print.

But I remember her this day, in joy and in sorrow, always a part of my life, always with a place in my heart.

---

The hundred dollar Christmas -- how someone did all of Christmas for under a hundred dollars and had joy in the holiday.

My daughter Jessica had a problem with compassion. She just didn't have it. So, once a month, we would buy, cook and serve dinner at the homeless shelter in Wichita Falls -- a meal for about seventy people. The service and experience touched her and taught her the compassion we weren't able to convey by just hoping and talking. Doing was what she needed.

At this time of year I think of her. Especially as I read about all the people who go out to homeless shelters once a year (on either Thanksgiving or Christmas), listen to cynics ask "don't the homeless need to eat during the rest of the year?" and miss her, I think of her.

Our hearts couldn't take returning to the shelter without her after she died, though our congregation took over. Thinking about the experience again, I remembered the importance of finding things to do with children -- and with adults -- to teach them when other methods fail. Sometimes talking is just not enough, though many things we do communicate better if we explain or label them.

We continue to do things with our children, and to explain the things we are doing, but my heart still remembers, especially this time of year. It is, after all, a season of hope and of the heart.

---

I was visiting at Wolf Angel again. I always have liked the blog's name. For some reason I can't get the comments to display. I've been thinking and reflecting a great deal. I'll post as I have concrete things to say, but there is more to say on many things, including more on the difference between spiritual, religious and social issues.

The differences are often important in churches from a conflict resolution viewpoint and in health care from a patient and family care perspective.

May this season nourish you in all areas, and may the differences in it give you joy and delight.

Stephen

Come, Thou fount of every blessing,
      tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
      call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
      sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
      mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
      here by Thy great help I've come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
      safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
      wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
      interposed His precious blood.

Oh to grace how great a debtor,
      daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
      bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
      prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, Oh take and seal it,
      seal it for Thy courts above.

John Wyeth

This time of year has so many emotions for me, both good and difficult.

This week I had to leave work to get Rachel from school with flu-like symptoms. Both Courtney and Jessica's final illnesses started that way, so that sort of thing has an emotional resonance. The call about my five-year-old brought all those memories to the top. By the time I got to her school, she had recovered and they had sent her back to class. She bounces back so quickly that it is surprising (I was only fifteen minutes away, especially at that time of day when traffic is light).

Of course she had been in the nurse's office longer, they hadn't been able to reach her mother or her sister. In their minds, of course a dad is called last, which when I'm in court or teaching a class is probably the way my wife thinks it ought to be. I no longer have the emotional load I once had, but the ghosts of memory are still bitter sweet.

A friend's son had a kid who had lived in the Wichita Falls area in one of his college classes. He told his mom that he told her that he knew someone who had lived in Wichita Falls and she told him she had been one of Jessica's friends at Church. In the middle of his mom telling the story, it seemed to suddenly hit home to her that Jessica was real.

Perspective is a funny thing, the way it comes upon us.

The means by which we live our lives are the ends that our lives serve. We may hear the old saying "the ends justify the means" but the reality is that the means become the ends that our lives are about. Even more for those who believe that there is a God and that we are passing through this life for many reasons, including judgment, the ends that we seek are the means by which we seek them.

That a life will be spent in the pursuit of means that make life better off not having been lived is the great peril faced by those who feel that the end justifies the means; they lose track of the reality that the means we use are the ends we are seeking, no matter what we may tell ourselves.

Understanding that the means we use are the ends we are seeking is the key to recognition and will. If you've read what I've written about acceptance and forgiveness you will recognize that both acceptance and forgiveness requires, at some point, a recognition sufficient that it causes a change.

Without a change in the manner of action, we have not forgiven ourselves, we have not found freedom, we have not accepted. It is the change that recognition creates that becomes the end that our life serves, which means that the way we act and the means that we use when we act remain the true ends that we seek.

There is a reason that peacemakers are blessed, and are called the children of God.

---

Yes, I mean that whether or not we support or suborn torture, that whether or not we are kind to those who we judge not to deserve it, that whether we overcome despair or are swallowed by it whole, especially in this season, in some part rests on recognition, will, acceptance and forgiveness.

I mean all of those things, because I mean that a key lesson in life is learning that our means are our ends.

For some interesting links, intended to create thought, not provide answers, death penalty discussion and more on the topic, trolls (who need to learn this lesson), ethesis, perseverance and torture.

And, as always, ozarque, a living saint.

May your means and ends be peaceful in this season.

The diet is working. I'm amazed at how differently I think and feel about
food.

The sixteen pounds I've lost in about thirty days are a nice side effect,
but what has been very interesting are the mental changes.

For more information, see:

• Calorie Lab
  
  
  • A long discussion with a lot of comments following afterwards.
    

• Taste Celibacy
  
  
  • The blog of "Seth's friend Tim" (Timothy Beneke) who lost 100 pounds.
    
  
  
• Blogjack
  
  
  
  • One man's four posts on the diet. After he lost weight he went to brute force methods (lots of exercise).
    
  
  
• Annie's Diet Blog (with specific details and advice).
  
  
  
  • Tidbits
    
  • Current comments by real people using the diet
    
  • "How to"
  • Archived comments from 2005
    

[Update: I lost sixteen pounds the first thirty days, then ten pounds the second thirty, and four-five pounds the third thirty days. I'm now losing about a pound a week, which fits with the total calories that I'm eating. I no longer feel like I'm on a diet, what I eat is just the food I eat normally and I'm happy with it. I'm also in an OA group, which has really helped me deal with the emotions that eating was submerging. It got me through the holidays and the memories of my three dead children.]

BTW: Seth's book at Amazon.com.

In the rising of the sun and its going down,
We remember them.

In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter,
We will remember them.

In the opening buds and in the rebirth of spring,
We remember them.

In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer,
We remember them.

In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn,
We remember them.

In the beginning of the year and when it ends,
We will remember them.

When we are weary and in need of strength,
We will remember them.

When we are lost and are sick of heart,
We remember them.

When we have Joys we yearn to share,
We remember them.

So long as we live, they too shall live,
For they are now a part of us,
As we remember them.

Traditional Jewish Prayerbook remembrance, Candle Lighting Ceremony for Journey of Hope.

In memorium

Jessica Christine Marsh, February 12, 1986 to January 26, 1993
Courtney Kathleen Marsh, February 16, 1992 to December 26, 1993
Robin Elizabeth Marsh, July 6, 1997 to August 31, 1997

I remember them.

Linguistics; propaganda; "Dad, I need 80 bucks...."

I don't know what you think of that "Dad, I need 80 bucks.." Ameritrade commercial running on CNN and the other news channels right now; I know what I think of it. It turns my stomach.

When the teenage girl tells her Dad she needs 80 bucks for a pair of jeans that she has to have because everybody has them, Dad asks her who the designer is, runs to his laptop and orders 100 shares of the designer's stock, and turns over the 80 bucks -- which, needless to say, he has right there in his pocket.

Not even one of the dialogues below takes place [and should be what really happens].

(1)
TEEN: "Dad, I need 80 bucks."
DAD: "You don't need 80 bucks. You want 80 bucks."

(2)
TEEN: "There's these jeans....."
DAD: "And you have to have them."
TEEN: "Yes."
DAD: "You don't have to have them, you want to have them."

(3)
DAD: "Do your friends have them?"
TEEN: "Everybody has them!"
DAD: "Then shame on their parents."

(4)
DAD: "Like you don't have enough jeans."
TEEN: "So, can I have the 80 bucks?"
DAD: "Absolutely not. All the kids in this world that don't even have clean water to drink, and you want 80-dollar designer jeans? No way. Go wash your mouth out with soap."

Quoting Ozarque.

Do you ever worry that your kids will grow up spoiled? I fear it.

BTW, for a good charity (when you are looking for something to remind yourself of why you are grateful):

Donations for the Pine Ridge problem would go to the Link Center Foundation, P.O. Box 2253, Longmont, CO 80502-2253, with the check or money order marked "Elders Heating Fund."

I can't vouch for the charity personally. The information comes from a Native American source. There's a website for the Link Center at http://www.LinkCenterFoundation.com.

Direct Link to the project.

____________________________________________

BTW, I do have a teenage daughter and when I talked with my wife about this commercial it was more on the line of but gosh, that is a funny thing to see on TV.

A lot of it is relative. My current boss used to work in men's clothes. He just can't bring himself to pay retail for clothing. I've lost a fair amount of weight, but I buy my non-work clothes from Wrangler ($15.00 a pair for pants) and my dress pants from Lands End. But, I know that sometimes, if you want fit and appropriate clothing that is going to last, you can end up paying money. Might be $20.00 for a dress at Nordstrom's Rack, might be ten times that (or more). I know that things I think of as essential are someone else's luxury.

I've read Shantaram and my parents served most of one of their missions in Tanzania. But, the issue, of how not to spoil your children, is significant to me.

We used to share our chapel with a ward that had pro sports players (active and retired) in it and others at a similar income level. People that buy the $200.00 jeans and think of the $80.00 ones as the cheap ones. Some of the people were great, but some walked out on their turn to do the dishes at girls' camp. I don't want my children to be like that, especially now that we are better off than we were.

Anyway, just thinking on the topic of kids wanting things, "needing" things, and being a parent. My teenager is preternatural. It is the five-year old (almost six) who worries me, who always asks for things. I worry about raising her.

I realized I had robbed so much by looking to criticize in everything ... That is the way I guy in my men’s group began before he did a reading:

Acceptance is the answer to my problems.

I can not find serenity until I accept that persons, places, things or situations that are unacceptable to me are as they should be at this moment.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I accept my weaknesses, I can not overcome them. Until I accept life completely, on life’s own terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed int eh world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

The more I focus on defects, the more they grow and multiply.

The courage to change is the courage I need from God to change myself, to learn to accept and to focus on what is good to watch it grow and multiply.

Active acceptance is th key to my relationship with God today. I never just sit and do nothing while waiting for Him to tell me what to do. Rather, I do whatever is in front of me to be done, and I leave the results up to God. However it turns out, it is His will for me.

I found it striking, as I did his discussion and what I learned from it.

Acceptance goes hand in hand with forgiving yourself of the pain that you have sufferred. We forgive others in order to be forgiven, by ourselves as well as by God, in order to accept His love for us and the hope that is in Him.

Especially in this season, may you find acceptance.

Holiday seasons are always hard times with grief. Mother's Day can be too much to bear for some, but most enter what is almost a tangible valley for the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

One of the keys to surviving such periods is forgiveness. Forgiving yourself and your spouse. It is hard because emotions drive one deeper into being hard and because every event brings with it the echoes of every prior event. History compounds itself into a terrible weight.

But, forgiveness also offers more. It is a way past recrimination and the past. It is a tool to avoid the crushing pain of the present. Forgiveness is a guide to the future we wish to create in the light of what is best in the past.

Combined with the Jewish version of the Golden Rule ("Be Kind"), forgiveness is the star of hope in every season. We draw close to what we can become with each other in a marriage and others who are dear to us in our grief by finding kindness and forgiveness in each step of the day. It has helped me survive the losses of the past and I think that forgiveness and kindness is much of what has made my present something I am grateful for and my life with my family such a source of joy.

May the world be kind with you this season, and may you find forgiveness as you need it, both in giving and receiving, with others and with yourself.

We are not recommending this diet. On the face if it, if you had to cook up the ultimate stereotype of a wacky fad diet for use in a comedic novel or film, the Shangri-La Diet would fill the bill.

Basically, you don't eat anything (other than flavorless water) from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. and then you have either a quarter cup of sugar in a liter of water or a half tablespoon or so of extra light olive oil (without the water). Then nothing with any flavor until 12:00 noon when you eat lunch. Repeat at 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon and listen to what your body tells you.

Often done in connection with a twelve step program.

The batscience is interesting, but batscience at present. On the other hand, for some people it really works.

At this time of year, I need to express gratitude for the love of my life, my wife, and for my children who have given me reason to live.

There is a great working poem on prayer at the blog of my favorite saint, Ozarque.

At Must Love Books, there is a great metaphor.

I've been meaning to write about the negotiation class I taught recently. It reminded me of how grateful I am for many things.

I'm curious what others are grateful for.

The Church exists to help its members, the members do not exist for the Church. That seems so simple. The Church is not the way, but it is the guide and support on our way, and the key to it. Much like the Sabbath day became for some, I worry that some people have replaced the goal with the tool. That is why Christ had to point out that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The same is true of the Church.

We have Church, like the Sabbath, as a gift from God, not a prison or a taskmaster.

Though, thinking of the Sabbath I remember looking at graduate school materials and reading how Harvard's MBA students were encouraged to take a "sabbath" of sorts, half a day off on Sunday to relax from their labors.

We need surcease and respite, desperately some times. It is so very important that we find it, as a part of survival.

We had a lesson on service today and got into a discussion of some people and things they had done. A friend paused, then said "that reminds me of my wife." I thought, that reminds me of my wife too. We both smiled.

Service is very important, and that is a feeling my wife shares, and one that makes me so very happy to be married to her.

When couples lose a child, they usually divorce. Last number I saw was over 90%. The experience is just so destructive, everything falls apart.

To survive it helps to keep moving forward. A good friend told me that, before Jessica died, that you had to remember those who were still living and decide if you were going to lose them as well as the one who died. If not, you had to keep moving forward.

For many, moving forward means not only staying in motion, but finding goals, "to do" lists. At times "to do" lists slowly evolve into "to fix" lists which can become "things to be unhappy about" lists.

Gordon B. Hinckley, spoke about that recently, reminding people to be grateful for each other rather than to spend their time finding fault and reasons to change each other.

It is an important lesson, especially for those who are overwhelmed by grief. By being grateful for each other they can strengthen each other when they need it the most rather than adding to each other's burdens and pain.

We can be grateful for each other, and reflect on the reasons for that gratitude, like Dave and I did about our wives this day.

My wife pointed out that in our community, pet dolls have replaced baby dolls as the toy for kids who want something to nurture, much as pets have replaced children for many. It is probably a significant moment of some sort, and appears to be more than just a local trend.

I'm curious if anyone lives in an area where that change was not complete this year -- there are baby dolls, but the prime promotional space goes to the pet dolls instead of the baby dolls as you walk in the store.

Comments and feedback welcome.

One of my co-workers remarked that in every marriage there are terrible problems that are caused by silly things, and that all marriages have to survive those to flourish.

I realized that in my own life, the terrible, real, things had somewhat overshadowed the other problems. The long string of deaths and attempted recovery and death and attempt and death ... that all blended in together to usurp many of the normal problems.

After all, I was a typical undomesticated man, married for the first and only time at age 29. My wife was a marvelous creature from another planet (or so it seemed to me in so many ways).

A friend of mine blogged about her own life, where she truly felt like someone from another planet.

Ah, youth..... and culture shock
My brief life as an extraterrestrial, part 1
part 2
part 3
The husband question.....

In any situation of severe trauma, change or grief there are things to live through, times where we find ourselves strangers in a land that seems familiar. One of the most common experiences for those who have lost a child is to feel alone, strange and no longer a part of the culture of their birth, divided by the experience, dealing with people who can not understand, in spite of good will (or the lack of same).

I think that Suzette's experiences provide some perspective, a different way to look at things, a way to understand that somehow helps to fit and hold and sound and see through the fog. I would note that while she doesn't mention it in these posts, she has also buried a child and a husband.

Not much else to say, except I love my wife all the more now.

I was asked to judge a negotiation round again this year and enjoyed it. It is interesting to watch people who have not been changed by practicing law, but the best part is the discussion that occurs after the self-assessment -- watching the students as they suddenly "get it."

While I was there I was asked to guest lecture in a class and to address a dispute resolution group and saw a large number of old friends and students. It is rewarding to see people I've taught in successful careers.

I have always found it valuable to teach people across levels. From post-graduates with multiple degrees to business clients to junior college students and even kids (meaning five and six year olds) I've always enjoyed teaching, and learning from those I am teaching. I'm looking forward to both the junior college class and the professional association. I will learn from both.

Irrational Ideas -- #1 -- just think of this next time you see an irrational essay or person.

The 12 Irrational Ideas -- the original essay about Albert Ellis that prompted #1.

BLieter points out:

DSM-IV-TR says the most useful way to distinguish the personality disorders for differential diagnosis is this:

Histrionics are coquettish
Antisocials are callous
Borderlines are needy
Schizotypals and paranoids are socially withdrawn
Narcissists are grandiose
Oh, both Narcissists and Obsessive-Compulsives are perfectionists, but only narcissists believe themselves to be perfect

Useful for considering the various types of problems some clients can cause and how to deal with them.

Funny, the week my Mom suggested this is what she was going to do, a web site shows up to help you calculate the numbers.

Anyway, some random posts, ones that might help someone learn something.

Interesting non-LDS essay on abortion

One more.

Sometimes you can't decide if it is good news or bad news. On the one hand, the diagnosis of Heather's condition appears to have been wrong. From a condition defined by symptoms and with a known progression and resolution, but with a still undetermined causative agent, she has gone to "nope, not that" -- but getting better quicker.

I think she learned a good deal from the experience of being a 10% or so, and appreciates the recovery. She has always been empathic, but being so sick she couldn't even shoot, had to drop some classes and realized that she might miss graduation from all the days she missed from school, I think that taught her something.

Luckily I was ahead at work before this all started, but it gave me some rough days too.

My wife always thinks of me as minimizing the bad or the chance that something will go bad. I don't, really, but I always tend to downplay the seriousness of things from both ends. I've noticed that most people tend to inflate a little, and that means that until people get to know me, and just assume that I'm inflating a little, much of what I say gets a double discount, once from me, once from the listeners. I'm still learning to overcome that, something I was taught as a kid (and was a good lesson then).

I'll say I'm relieved at how my oldest is recovering, and you can all understand that I'm understating how I feel. I'll leave it at that.

There are three types of true stories. Unfair, fair, and irrelevant.

Unfair stories always cost someone who does not deserve. Take a friend of my daughter's who met her current boyfriend years ago, when other boys put a chair against a door and began to beat him up. The girl stood up and intervened, screaming and shaming and otherwise making them back down. No wonder my daughter loves her friend, and the story is neat, but it hurts the poor guy all over again, so they've all resolved not to tell the story about him.

Irrelevant stories are great stories, but they don't do anything for whatever dialog is involved. Like my poor neighbor forgetting to put her husband's car in park and having it roll across the alley and hit our garage door. The story can be charming and funny (when I called to explain why I was going to be late to work my secretary laughed so hard I had to explain it all over again to the office manager who was walking by). But there isn't any point to the story.

Then their are stories that are fair and fit in with the theme. Given that Saturday I attended a meeting, helped on an elder's quorum move, attended a temple wedding, a trunk or treat my wife and I were in charge of and a ring ceremony (as well as a few other things) it was a busy day. But, the wedding was of a kid I had in primary.

When we first met, I was sent out in the hall with him since he was a boy and I was a guy, and they felt he needed discipline. I didn't see it, he just needed a moment to collect himself, so I told him to stay calm and pretend that I had punished him and that should do it. Everything was secret until he told his parents (luckily, they approved).

He was a great kid then, and he has been a great kid since. This last year a lot of things have worked out for him and it was so good to see him in the Temple, along with a number of other people I hold dear. Almost as if I was seeing my own kids.

That story is fair to everyone involved and is the happiest kind of truth as well.

I used to work out about five o'clock every morning with Ashley Gothro. From Ashley Gothro's favorite artist (Stan Rogers):

And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart
and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

Rise again, Rise again
Though your heart it be broken and life about to end
No matter what you've lost;
Be it a home, a love, a friend
Like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again!

Too often we forget that we can rise again.

Advice from Folk Singers and his lyrics.

And of course everyone knows what a middle-aged moralist of my type warns his juniors against. He warns them against the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. But one of this trio will be enough to deal with today. The Devil, I shall leave strictly alone. The association between him and me in the public mind has already gone quite as deep as I wish: in some quarters it has already reached the level of confusion, if not of identification. I begin to realize the truth of the old proverb that he who sups with that formidable host needs a long spoon. As for the Flesh, you must be very abnormal young people if you do not know quite as much about it as I do. But on the World I think I have something to say.

Which is:

Snobbery is not the same thing as pride of class. Pride of class may not please us but we must at least grant that it reflects a social function. A man who exhibited class pride – in the day when it was possible to do so – may have been puffed up about what he was, but this ultimately depended on what he did. Thus, aristocratic pride was based ultimately on the ability to fight and administer. No pride is without fault, but pride of class may be thought of as today we think of pride of profession, toward which we are likely to be lenient.

Snobbery is pride in status without pride in function. And it is an uneasy pride of status. It always asks, “Do I belong – do I really belong? And does he belong? And if I am observed talking to him, will it make me seem to belong or not to belong?” It is the peculiar vice not of aristocratic societies which have their own appropriate vices, but of bourgeois democratic societies. . . .

The characteristic work of the novel is to record the illusion that snobbery generates and to try to penetrate to the truth which, as the novel assumes, lies hidden beneath all the false appearances. Money, snobbery, the ideal of status, these become in themselves the objects of fantasy, the support of the fantasies of love, freedom, charm, power, as in Madame Bovary, whose heroine is the sister, at a three-centuries remove, of Don Quixote. The greatness of Great Expectations begins in its title: modern society bases itself on great expectations which, if ever they are realized, are found to exist by reason of a sordid, hidden reality.

From Lionel Trilling’s 1947 essay “Manners, Morals, and the Novel.”

My thanks to http://mthollywood.blogspot.com/

and to Tolstoy, for his writing which inspired C. S. Lewis to warn:

The lust for the esoteric, the longing to be inside, take many forms which are not easily recognizable as Ambition. We hope, no doubt, for tangible profits from every Inner Ring we penetrate: power, money, liberty to break rules, avoidance of routine duties, evasion of discipline. But all these would not satisfy us if we did not get in addition the delicious sense of secret intimacy. It is no doubt a great convenience to know that we need fear no official reprimands from our official senior because he is old Percy, a fellow-member of our ring. But we don't value the intimacy only for the sake of convenience; quite equally we value the convenience as a proof of the intimacy.

My main purpose in this address is simply to convince you that this desire is one of the great permanent mainsprings of human action. It is one of the factors which go to make up the world as we know it-this whole pell-mell of struggle, competition, confusion, graft, disappointment, and advertisement, and if it is one of the permanent mainsprings then you may be quite sure of this. Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life, from the first day on which you enter your profession until the day when you are too old to care.

The entire essay is at http://www.limbicnutrition.com/blog/archives/025484.html

I was looking over my teaching evaluations from when I taught at SMU. The first class I taught, my so-called "normed" evaluations (think of figure skating or gymnastics -- subtract the high and the low score and average the rest) came to 8.3 on a scale of 1-9. The second class came back at 8.6. The best part about the second class's evaluations is that the raw scores were 57% nines and there were no evaluations below an eight. As a result, my overall average was about 8.5.

The key was that I made adjustments. Even with only two weeks to prepare and an accelerated schedule (I was teaching six classroom hours a week on the second class) -- and even billing 42+ hours a week as an attorney at the same time -- I was able to teach health care dispute resolution to a class including hospital administrators, Ph.D., MDs, JDs, health care consultants and graduate social workers. Viewed against a program faculty that averaged 3.5 on evaluations (a topic that came up at the last faculty meeting I attended before the program retrenched), I can look back and still be pleased.

The class outline is here: http://adrr.com/smu/health/index.htm

One thing that evaluations drove home to me, and that was highlighted in discussions about evaluations with other people teaching in the program, is that if you listen to feedback and adjust, you will get better. If you don't listen, but discount it as wrong or misunderstood, you will not improve. There is always a reason for the way people react to you, and usually it is something within your control (at least to change). The big thing for me was the number of people who felt my organization was only "ok" (well, 7 out of 9) in the first class. That class was tightly organized, but I obviously did not communicate the organization. I let the structure display itself a little more in the second class and was rewarded by the class responding.

The important lesson that reminded me to learn again was that when there is a problem, even if only a relative one, the right response is to ask yourself what solution will work rather than fighting with the message. Learn from the message, don't fight with it.

Next post I might talk about http://www.adrr.com/adr4/ppp.htm and related matters, but I need to spend some more time learning right now.

I was talking with a friend of mine, Nyle Smith, about life and the things it does to you. Nyle has survived a number of strokes. He was on the faculty at Lewis & Clark Law School before the strokes derailed his life. Nyle is now disabled, but still wise. I try to drop by to see him when I'm in Portland visiting family and we talk from time to time. I'm hoping that some day he will be able to blog.

One thing that I realized while talking with him is that I've always had good things to say about places where I've worked. He suggested that much of why I find good is that I do my best to make places better.

That came up as we discussed last firm. Before I came on board, it used to have more than 100% turnover (mostly staff and associates). Yet, for the almost four years I was there, turnover was down to about 10%. Talking to one of my ex-partners after I left, I discovered that turnover was at 100% or so the year after I left.

Nyle suggested that perhaps my job history of dramatically slowed turnover in each job I've had was not just my good luck in being in the right place at the right time my entire life, but perhaps something I was bringing to the table as well. He snorted at me and suggested I take credit for making a difference.

What he had to say reminded me of my first secretary at my employment when I brought another summary judgment back in and I passed it off as just more good luck. She snorted at me and suggested that luck might have made the difference once or twice, but after five or six I ought to consider that part of it might be me. I thought of her when I talked to Nyle and he said the same thing.

Nyle gave me some good perspective, which he always does. I appreciate his faith and endurance and good example. Not to mention, what he had to say was a good remember to give myself credit and to remind others to do the same -- to give themselves credit.

After all, much of life in recovering from grief is owning life and giving yourself credit, accepting joy and sharing it. Owning life and accepting the good things in it is a lesson to be learned and shared over and over again, and yesterday was a good reminder.

Thanks Nyle.

One thing I really admired about Roark, besides his choice of wife, was the grace, love and kindness he showed his mother.

Too often families fail to follow God's advice to honor the relationship. I was glad to see that he did.

Too often grief and loss only feeds the divisions we feel rather than causing us to heal them. That is why so many couples divorce when a child dies, instead of surviving together.

picture

I've probably blogged more than enough about Roark. I'll respect his privacy to the rest. Much like I do with my co-workers (I like them, I like my job, I've had a great year, but nothing there fits within the scope of why I am posting) or my ward (other than the fact that everyone in our congregation likes our bishop -- which is a little unusual -- there isn't much to say about going to Church that is different for us than anyone else) there is little that fits within the scope of grief, loss and recovery that touches any of those parts of my life.

Picture of me at maintenance

Not the best, part of a bunch of photos we took of my daughter having fun with a large shipping box.

But, it is how I look on maintenance.

I've aged the date so I can import the picture to share, without it clogging up my blog.

I'll smile next time (I usually do, I was just, you know).

Roark and Katelynn had a wonderful marriage in Soquel, California. I've always had a fond spot in my heart for Roark (he's one of my nephews). He and Katelynn have been together since they were thirteen, he's now in grad school at MIT, and, as his brother Ben pointed out, it was time. And a wonderful time it was.

Win got called in to do a liver transplant tonight, so as I sit here just back from vacation, thinking about weddings and I how I love her, she is at work and not here. Speaking of Win, I've now gotten to see her brain (via watching a cat scan in real time) and it is as pretty as the rest of her. She was pretty bad off, but it was just food poisoning, potassium driven down below three, and an inner ear infection, all coming together. Gave us all a scare, but the ER folks were kind, though they sent me an orderly the size of Rachel. Luckily Win doesn't weigh that much, so I picked her up and put her in the wheel chair to take her in. She was clamped up and unable to walk at that point.

But, this visit to California was a good one, though we are all glad to be back in Texas and to have our house back from the Wichita Falls refugee who stayed in it last week.

Too much to write about.

But who we marry says a lot about us, and who Roark married says good things about him.

Though California is a funny place. Met a Seminary teacher out there who defined a student who really "got it" as one who decided against going on a mission and became completely secular. They have different goals and ideas out there.

Guess two more notes.

In Africa, some of the wards had the sisters blessing and passing the sacrament (the men tend to delegate anything that looks like work). It was pointed out to them that the sacrament is a priesthood responsibility. Next visit, the women handled the sacrament again. When the visiting authority asked, the bishop assured him that it was ok this time, they had ordained all the sisters to the Aaronic priesthood. Nothing was done at the time, I don't know if anything has happened since. Interesting that ordination to the priesthood was treated as a step down in status, rather than a step up for the sisters.

In one of the temples there was an effort to have the position of sealer restricted to only those who had been stake presidents. The only comment that was made was that perhaps the position should be restricted to only those who have served missions.

So many ways to look at things, so little time.

I am off to a wedding in California. If you need me, call the house, once again we have people staying here for a bit. I should be blogging again by October 15th or so.

For the newsletter I do, visit mediation newsletters.

Everyone has my best wishes.

I have a guest post at Millennial Star: What do Prophets Teach Us.

I hope people like it.