Worst things heard at church ... Primary edition

I still remember a meeting where the speaker said "I was never part of your organization and knew nothing about it until I was called to be in charge of it, now I appreciate how important it is" followed up by a couple tone deaf comments about the organization.  She quite successfully got the point across that (a) serving in the organization was insignificant insofar as any leadership position in it mattered and (b) understanding the organization was not necessary either.

The only worse thing that happened was when one of the women complained about it, an elders quorum president said "You can ignore her, she is a woman and doesn't have the priesthood and so doesn't have any authority at all."

What is the worst thing you've ever heard anyone say?

My father died a year ago

Just finished up the one year anniversary of his death.  Now I can go to sleep.

The girl whose fire went out,

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B35A3CC0FZCV/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games)

This book finishes up the trilogy as the girl on fire becomes the girl whose fire went out. At the end, there are two children born to a thirty something woman who symbolize the human race guttering out as it fails to increase its numbers to a sustainable biomass.

I started reading the series because my ten year old was entranced with it. When it came in the mail from Amazon she grabbed it and read the final book through in one setting. I asked her how it was and she was more "meh, ok, but not as good as the first books." The collapse in direction into fading coals from fire is clearly handled. Perhaps Brokenjay would have been a better title.

Well written, tightly plotted, minimal sex (a few kisses on screen), the violence is not detailed or pornographic, the writing is adult (rather than the adolescent tripe that is listed as "adult") and mature.

Honestly, I wish Amazon had a filter to let me filter out books with excessive sex or overdetailed violence. I'd find more like this series, which has gotten press as teen literature, but which is actually more mature.

Regrets? I wanted to see the mayor revealed as a major resistance figure and his daughter, who insists that Katness take the Mockingjay pin as the one who would marry her "cousin." I hoped for an action scene where Katness rescues Prim and in the process has her Mockinjay armored costume destroyed. I wanted one last scene of fire blazing against the threat of dictatorship rather than guttering out.

So, the book and the series will end up at the used book store eventually, not quite a keeper, but very good.

At least this book (Mockingjay) lets me skip the movies ...

RIP John Tison

John was in a practice group with me in Wichita Falls.  He was 63 years old and used to come down once a year and stay with us while working at the Masters.  This year he wasn't feeling well, seemed like a touch of the flu, so he did not come down.  A month ago he contacted some judges and took himself off the referral lists.

He had some tests done because he seemed a little sickly and not recovering or snapping back.  They discovered mets cancer.  He was immediately scheduled to enter M.D. Anderson, which would have occurred Monday.  I attended his memorial this morning.

I need to share the story of how he heard we were digging in another french drain on our house in Wichita Falls and wanted me to hire his kids to handle it to teach them that they wanted to go to school and avoid lives of hard labor.  It was a success (and he tried to return the money I paid them).

So many memories.

---

I saw a lot of people that were dear to me, judges I respected and attorneys who I wish well.  One asked me why I left, I was honest.  We buried three children in four and a half years, just could not live there any more.

My wife remarked that everyone was older and they said the same about me (when I left, my hair was honey blond, now it is silver).

I also got asked about H. Deloyd Bailey, all I could suggest is the internet for those looking for him:

• http://www.lawlink.com/attorney/101331
• http://www.countyofupshur.com/2008%20CCourt%20Minutes/061608%20CCourt%20Minutes.htm
• http://www.martindale.com/H-Deloyd-Bailey/1714227-law-firm-office.htm
• http://www.scribd.com/doc/33984030/Texas-Court-of-Appeals-Chief-Justice-District-6-candidate-Hubert-Deloyd-Bailey-2010-ethics-form

But it was good to see everyone, and to think about everyone I missed. I got the discussion back on track and we talked about John, who left us so suddenly, his love of his children, wife and Chinese food, his playing golf and all of his kindnesses.

Surviving v. Recovering

I was recently talking with someone about grief and they said “Steve, you aren’t surviving, you are recovering.” What my friend meant was that I had passed the stage of being in grief and surviving the experience, holding on and weathering it, to healing. We don’t have good language for that part of the process, that transformation. But he recognized it.

Part of the problem is that recovering and healing are often seen as putting something completely behind us. I’ve deposed witnesses who broke a leg when young. It healed, they recovered, they can’t remember which leg it was now.

Survival is often thought of as “lived through” something. It is now often used to describe someone who experienced something, but refuses to let it make them a victim. There is strength to claiming survivorship. To say I’m a cancer survivor, not a cancer victim; a rape survivor, not a rape victim – that empowers people.

Survival is important. It is the stage of not being a victim, of realizing that something might be happening to you, but it is not you, and that you will still remain when it concludes. It might be overwhelming, but only for a while, the event is history, not destiny.

Recovery is a different stage, a return path, of sorts, to normalcy. As a friend who survived Hodkins Disease expressed, it is what you do when you realize you have a life to live after chemotherapy is over. Rehabilitation is a good word for many in this state. Some things really do heal, some experiences are just history. Life is nothing but a series of adjustments and history.

But, some times it is more complex. When a child dies, there is a permanence to the grief, but not to the disability the grief creates. In the period of severe disability the grief causes, you survive. Then you rebuild. At some point you begin to make progress in an adjusted world.

I have friends whose grief is old, who told me about this stage long ago, and who are in it now. They did not have a good word for the stage of making progress while rebuilding. Neither do I, but I am experiencing it, just as they told me I would. I miss my deceased girls. I love them still. But I have something I can best describe as recovery, a sort of healing and progress, a sort of love.

Other links on topic

• Affliction (final post in the series)  
• Life and Affliction (part two with another to come)  
• Trials   
• Living Beyond Loss: an essay. 
  
  

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Note that coming up in Sunday School: the book of Job, or how in every tragedy you can expect people whose idea of “comfort” is to come tell you it is all your fault, that if you were just as holy as they are, God would not have needed to punish you and misfortune would have missed you.

When they do, remember that at the end of the book of Job, God shows up and tells the “friends” that they are wrong, in strong terms (Job 42: 7-8). When you meet people like that, Christ’s comments should come to mind, see Matthew 23: 13, 27-28; 32-33. Feel free to circulate both for the lesson.

A great post on beggers

Below is a short clip.  Click on it to read the entire essay.

[I originally wrote this when I was then in the throes of bipolar disorder, on the depressive end of the poles, unable to function without leaning hard upon my dear husband.]

Letter from a child to a parent

This was shared with me and is the best father's day present I have ever seen. Used with permission.

Reflecting on my roots, my blog posts from 1997, what I had to say at Sunstone

My blog, as blogs are now understood, began in 1997.  My first posts are at:

http://adrr.com/living/one.htm

Back in the day comments were not like they are now.  My comment thread for my posts is at:

http://adrr.com/living/guest1.htm

I got to thinking about that when I spoke last night. I really do not write the same sorts of posts any more.  I've shied away from that ever since I dealt with someone who was constantly attacking me over posting about my life and experience.  Changed my topics, changed my sub-title to my blog, and withdrew.

I admit, they succeeded in causing me personal harm, in withdrawing not only on my blog, but in my life from dealing with grief and recovery. 

But speaking in public last night on the story of my life got me to thinking and realizing that I still have a long way to go.  Last night I was asked to introduce the topic and the other speakers, which I did (of all things it was a panel based on a blog post I had written:  http://mormonmatters.org/2009/10/22/the-stories-we-tell-2/).  I was then asked to tell my own story, so I did.

So, what have I learned from my personal story?

I have learned that for me, in my patience I keep my soul.

I have learned to keep the commandments because it pleases God, with no other expectation.

I have learned that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. I have learned that nothing can separate me from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ.

So, how in my story did I learn these things once again?

Hmm. I have to admit that I began blogging in the 1990s (first on paper people spread around, then on-line), before it was called blogging, in order to avoid talking in public. But here I am.

So, my story.

About Christmas our six year old came down with the flu. Her last night at home I held her all night so she could sleep. Then she was admitted to the hospital, spent thirty days in various ICUs and died on January 26, our wedding anniversary.

Eleven months later, just before she turned two, our youngest daughter died on December 26. Again we were left with unopened Christmas presents, neighbors who took down the decorations for us and a home teacher who avoided us.

But, we remained engaged in the community. Win went back to school for a second degree and graduated as co-valedictorian. I rebuilt my legal practice.

I was approached by a group to run for office against an incumbent they were desperate to beat. Since it was a tipping point seat they were willing to spend a million dollars or so. The current office holder responded by announcing his retirement.

My wife spoke at the BYU women's conference. She was seven months pregnant and I had promised myself that with the birth of this child, who we decided to name Robin, that we would heal.

I had also continued to publish, and unknown to me there were groups who would be contacting me in a couple of years to interview for tenure track positions.

Edited that way it sounds like a triumphant happy ending, doesn't it.

So, Robin was born, my dad beat the skin cancer that was going to kill him in six months.

But. Robin had a heart defect. She survived the surgery when 40% of the children with the problem die. She reached a safe place and we took her home. Then she developed a hidden arrhythmia.

If you know us, you know the rest of the story. Win came home from work to see an ambulance and the first responders. They took over from me, but the CPR still failed. Four and a half years, three burial services. We also had some miscarriages as well during and after.

And here I am. I have two children I adore and a wife who is my life. My youngest has Tourrette's and needs time. Instead of a thirty-something guy who was in windsurfing focus groups and building a reputation in a breaking academic area, I'm in my mid-fifties with an interest in a new area that is, honestly, dead stone cold.

But, I have learned lessons because, much to my surprise, God sustained me. I've learned that in life or death that Jesus is the Christ. That life is in Christ, not in other things. That virtue is its own reward because virtue itself is the true goal -- we seek God, not to trade God in for the things of this world.

That is my story. Now tell me yours. The floor is open to the audience to share with us your stories and ask any questions you might have.

08/04/2010 -- funny comics

08/04/2010

I liked this one. 

This one too (it is an advertisement for a web comic -- but one that fits ADR)

Class, politics and modern America, looking inward

I was reading a post at Mormon Matters that linked to the following:

in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.  

That is a fascinating observation, that the Republicans and Democrats have become less different from each other as they have again become more strident. 

I know, I should make a political point from this, but the truth is, my interest is in conflict resolution, and the most emotional conflicts are ones where the difference is not about methods or goals, but about control and power.  One would expect that if the core governing members of a party are becoming more alike, that the dialogue would become more emotionally driven.

Emotionally driven clashes are a way to work backwards to what conflicts are about, though not an infallible one.  I need to think more on the specific conflicts we have now, but the general rule is one that you can apply to your own life. If it applies to the United States is a different question, and not one I can answer.

Win's camp recipes

Win wanted to put her camp recipes on-line so people who were asking for them could just download them.

They are now up at: http://adrr.com/recipe/

An interesting trend line analysis of a diet

http://www.astrocyte-design.com/shangri-la-diet/

I am quoting the core of the post below.  Well worth a visit to the original (above) if you are interested in dieting or losing weight.

The graph covers the 321-day period ending on July 6, 2010.

Two-month pre-diet baseline:	Aug. 22 to Oct. 21, 2009
Shangri La diet:	Oct. 22, 2009 to July 6, 2010
Weight immediately prior to start of diet (ten-day avg.):	222.4 lbs. (100.9 kg.)
Weight as of July 6, 2010 (ten-day avg.):	193.6 lbs. (87.8 kg.)
Total weight lost during this period:	28.8 lbs. (13.1 kg.)
Average weight loss per week:	0.78 lbs. (0.35 kg.) / week

Summary

I lost about 29 pounds / 13 kg. (as of July 6, 2010) by following a diet that was developed by psychologist Seth Roberts.  Briefly, the Shangri La diet involves appetite suppression via the ingestion of flavorless calories in the form of oil and/or sugar water.  The diet is described here and here, among other places.

Background

I first heard of the Shangri La diet when I read this article in the New York Times back in September, 2005.  The diet seemed so bizarre that the idea of it stuck with me—until, about four years later, I finally decided to try it.

Being 5' 10" tall and weighing 222 lbs. (1.8 m / 100.7 kg.), I wanted to lose weight, and I was looking for a diet that would satisfy the following five criteria:

1. It wouldn't require me to change the types of foods that I eat.  I'm a vegan for ethical reasons, and I did not want to stray from that philosophy.  (Note, for example, that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to eat a low-carbohydrate diet without consuming animal products.)
2. The diet wouldn't depend on willpower, at least not heavily.  Knowing myself, I would not be able to adhere to a diet that could be sustained only by exerting an iron will (which is, essentially, almost all diets).
3. The diet did not have any obvious characteristics that might cause one to believe that it would be harmful to your health.
4. The diet wouldn't require regular exercise.  I've hated exercise my whole life, and I don't have time for it, anyway.
5. The diet could be continued indefinitely.

The Shangri La diet met all five criteria, so I tried it—to some success.

Enabling comment moderation

I hate to do this, but the spam comments from Chinese child p-rn sites has gotten too heavy.  I can't think of another solution, so I've now enabled comment moderation.  My apologies to anyone whose comments get delayed.

Three Rules

I came up with my rules after reading about mission statements that work and those that don’t, and trying to communicate with small children, but wanting rules that would be ones that can follow-through as children become adults and my peers and friends.

My three rules are:

• Be honest
• Work hard
• Love others

There are a number of different types of rules to give children.

First, guidance or mission statement rules. Those should be direct, action oriented, simple and clear. You have my three.

Second, safety/practice rules. Don’t talk to strangers. Look both ways before you cross the street. Take your medication daily. These are obviously circumstance driven (if you don’t have medication you are taking, then you don’t need a rule about taking it; if you are diabetic, food rules are much more strict and important).

Third, procedural rules. We often don’t have enough of those. My wife bought our youngest daughter a book about the rules of friendship. Suzette Haden Elgin has pointed out a number of times that in talking, you should limit yourself to three sentences and then stop (there are two kinds of conversationalists, those who will break in at three sentences, those who expect you to stop at three sentences so they can speak if you want to. If you stop at three sentences you will make both types comfortable). They are all things you need to know.

Fourth, boundary rules. Don’t call your eight year old friends after 10:00 p.m. to invite them over to play. Only twelve hours a day on the computer. Don’t leave the house without your clothes on. Dress in a way that does not bear false witness by the messages the clothing communicates about the community you belong to.

Sometimes a rule crosses several realms. I’ve never drunk alcohol, but I’ve had relatives with serious problems. I’d advise my children to avoid alcohol as a boundary measure (the WoW is a marker of our community), as a safety issue (a genetic prediliction to alcoholism is a risk), etc.

Some times a rule changes meaning over time. If your culture has wine that is 2% alcohol and that you mix 4-1 with water (so that the final drink is 20% wine, or less than .4% alcohol) your risk from alcohol is much less than a society that has (a) much more wine and (b) wine that is 11% alcohol. You have to drink about ten or more drinks of the primative wine flavored water to get about the same alcohol as a modern glass of wine.

My post I linked to above had to do with how there are different sets of rules that have come with the gospel at different times. Ours are different from those of other times.

Why rules are significant, how they are significant and when we are “better” than the general society that needs to follow those rules so we don’t have to, that is a huge question.

After all, at 2:00 a.m. at an open intersection where you can see for miles in every direction, how complete of a stop you come to might be different than at 2:00 p.m. with a hedge blocking your view.

Anyway, this is the applied version of the same thoughts I had at http://mormonmatters.org/2010/05/17/sets-meta-sets-and-an-incomplete-world/

Son, he said, with pity in his eyes ...

"Just how many coats of paint has that wall gone through?"

Well, it was painted when we bought the house last year, painted bisque with the rest of the house, then light brown, which really worked, but needed some constrast.

"Yes, and you were in earlier this week matching and buying paint ..."

Ok, the pale blue-green, and the pale greener blue-green, the yellow, and the salmon, but this bolero red will be the last paint of coat.

The salesman looked at me. "Son, if you don't mind some advice ... " You will need to give it to my wife, I said with a twinkle, she is the one who has been doing all the painting. Suddenly he smiled. "Nevermind, you don't need any advice after all."

Ok, the furniture needs to be moved back, the paintings straightened out, but that is how the wall looks, you can see the original brown to the right (with the picture that was so bland with the bisque and just pops out with the light brown). The artwork is either some pictures by Suzette Haden Elgin or one by Rachel (our ten year old) that we really liked (depending on which of the three pictures on the now red wall you are looking at).

But I'm very pleased with how the house looks.

Truth and Treason movie trailer

Obviously I'm going to see this when it comes out. I've got the play in my bookshelf, had a photocopy of the Lawrence of Arabia play (and had the author as a guest once). Tom Rogers was an incredibly spiritual man.

There was a lot of concern about the play causing trouble in Eastern Europe; Communist readers theaters took it up for a while; it remains with us. I'd love to see the play undergo a revival now.

Margaret Young's comments




Sunstone article: http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/024-20-29.pdf

One of the survivors died, late last month. I saw a link to this trailer in an article about him.

God bless them all, may we draw courage from them.

We can't all be Jeff Green

Not too long ago a person I knew well expressed trouble about an issue they had. It turned out their model was Jeff Green, who once sent out seventeen resumes and got thirty job offers. My response was "We can't all be Jeff Green."

My second was to discuss the thousands of hours of preparation he had put in, the years of effort, the attention to obtain crucial certifications and the breadth of knowledge he had at that point in time.

Which means if someone is willing to take the time, do the work, pray the price, they may not be able to be Jeff Green, but they can be like him in the ways that matter. The person I was talking to decided to try harder and smarter and to be like Jeff.

Adversity, evil and metaphor

For a time I designed myth structures and commented on them, worked on heroquests, was published a little, have some credits. I worked on developing metaphors for evil and for adversity.

Saturday morning I came up with another one: tangled. In fiction and simulations things were "incomplete" with the emotions, patterns and motivations twisted. But too often, in real life, things are tangled.

Much of what we deal with, much of what afflicts us is tangled and misdirected. Not so much our evil self as our real self, only misguided, with cognitive shifts warped around the misdirection.

Loving ourselves is essential to unraveling these tangles that block and bind us. To allow self preservation to preserve us rather than harm us (as it does when it goes wrongly directed or focused) we have to accept it.

So, we acknowledge and accept what we currently are. Our strengths and our weaknesses, our inventory of what we are, how we have come together in a pattern of coping and survival that has flaws -- defects -- that make our lives unmanageable. Then, if we accept and love ourselves, we can look at how each defect interacts with our motives and lives, what it seeks.

At that point we can seek God's help to do what we can not do for ourselves, and untangle one more knotted area, unwinding, untangling and releasing. I had started thinking of tangled fishing line, but tangled muscle knots being massaged out also fits.

Stretching, trigger point release, massage -- all of these are efforts to restore a muscle that has knotted up by mistake to proper function. Releasing a muscle knot does not make you any less, it merely lets you do more with what you are, with less pain. But the muscle that is knotted up is not a part of you to reject or cut out of yourself, instead it is something that just needs release to function as a better part.

Anyway, that was my thought, my metaphor for the day.

so I just picked up the baby and told them to go back to bed, stating that he was only four days old and had not yet read the book

Recently read books:

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson (Paperback - Mar. 2008)

Buy new: $15.00 $10.20

And

The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse: How to Spot Moral Meltdowns in Companies... Before It's Too Late

Also, just having been reminded of it in a thread I just read, an important book:

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (Hardcover - Sept. 3, 2009)

On the movie 8 (better, see Facing East)

Better than the movie, I would recommend Facing East as this report discusses.

However, because it is topical ...

You would never know from 8 that many famous Mormons — Harry Reid, Steve Young, Bill Marriott — spoke out against Prop 8 publicly. There’s no hint that many faithful Mormons created activist groups and websites against Prop 8.

For more, visit this review:

http://www.patheos.com/community/mormonportal/2010/06/28/

Add these all together and you have a package designed not just to NOT attract faithful Mormons, but deliberately offend them. Even the Mormons who can (and should) consider the secondary theme of the film about charity and Christ-like behavior towards gays aren’t going to watch 8: The Mormon Proposition because they’ll hear about it being merely an anti-Mormon polemic.

And for the most part, they’d be right. Unfortunately, it seems the filmmakers of 8 think “tolerance” is something only other people need to do.

and his conclusion:

It’s really too bad that the important messages here are going to be lost. If I was asked by another Church member if they should see 8, I would say, honestly: “20 minutes of it should be required viewing for all Church members…and the other 60 minutes are an intellectually dishonest framing of a serious issue that is probably a waste of your time to watch.” You can decide for yourself how many members would end up seeking out the documentary based on that “recommendation”.

For comparison:

THE advertisement warns of speculative financial bubbles. It mocks a group of gullible Frenchmen seduced into a silly, 18th-century investment scheme, noting that the modern shareholder, armed with superior information, can avoid the pitfalls of the past. “How different the position of the investor today!” the ad enthuses.

Enlarge This Image

Mary F. Calvert for The New York Times

It ran in The Saturday Evening Post on Sept. 14, 1929. A month later, the stock market crashed.

“Everyone wants to think they’re smarter than the poor souls in developing countries, and smarter than their predecessors,” says Carmen M. Reinhart, an economist at the University of Maryland. “They’re wrong. And we can prove it.”

This time is different

Taking a class in two months

I was thinking of how hard it would be to finish a class like statics (two hours of credit) in two months when I thought of a group of post-graduate students that finished a three hour class in two months. That meant six hours of lecture a week, projects and a comprehensive final.

http://adrr.com/smu/health/index.htm is a link to the class notes and other materials.

I was lucky enough that the group of mixed professionals (including M.D.s, hospital administrators and others) gave me a higher feedback rating than anyone else teaching in the program, and I survived putting the class together on about ten days notice. I was working full-time, down town in the city when I taught the class.

But the key point is that the students were also all working, 50-60 hours a week much like I was, in demanding jobs, and they all finished the class and earned As (admittedly, the projects were more important than the final, which was a test of concepts vs. application).

They read hundreds of pages of material, participated in class intelligently, completed projects and passed oral and well as written exams. Without significant prior academic exposure to the focus area of the class.

Think what they could have done if they were working fewer hours or had more preparation.