Untitled Poem

The mind is a battlefield

A chess game of sorts

White seeks for truth

Black, to distort

Strategy, study, discipline all required

In defeating the black

Let it back you into a corner

And it's hard coming back

Bishop, queen, castle

Same tools, black and white

Greatest strengths turn to weakness

Depending on the color of knight

For virtue, for vice

For good or for ill

To save and to heal?

To hurt and to kill?

It isn't enough

The white king to defend

Let white sweep black off the board!

That's when it will end

Who wins the battle

I will decide

For here is the secret:

I play both sides

Hiking Y Mountain

    Let's get one thing straight right off-this hike wasn't just to the "Y" on the mountain--that hike is a drab bit of walking with nothing to speak of in the way of natural scenery and valuable only for its group activity possibilities and its scenic overlook of Provo.  The hike Nat and I went on was to the top of the mountain (the summit).  Ok....

     If you want to see the topo map to get an idea of where the hike went, click here.  You'll need to click "Trail Map" at the top of the menu on the left part of the page.  There was still a good amount of snow on the south side (and a lot on the east side) of the mountain, so we lost the trail and ended up just forging our own up the south side.  We were both glad we did!  It not only saved us some time, but we found a neat grove of trees that had been burnt, their charred trunks and stumps sticking out of the snow.

Beautiful, no?

    That last picture is from the east side of the mountain facing south on the way back down.  We followed the "trail" (covered in snow, obviously, but the general idea of it) back down.  This was definitely one of the funnest parts of the hike.  The snow was quite deep and sometimes you'd fall through almost hip deep.  Good times.  Timp, here I come.

On the philosophical side, it is so true that we desperately need to reconnect with nature.  We seem to be hiding ourselves from it--trying to convince ourselves we're not as mortal as the world around us.  Going out into nature is finding yourself, finding God, and finding others.  It's beauty you just can't manufacture.

Thoughts from a plane...

Those who know me best know I am at heart a dramatic, if I can nounify that adjective.  Thus, in my “thoughtful states” I tend to get bombastic and didactic all at the same time.  I recently saw a quote pinned up on a wall at school from Abraham Lincoln that says, “Die when I may, I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower where ever I thought a flower would grow.”  A powerful quote, no?  It goes right along with my other favorite quote from Henri-Frédéric Amiel that says, “Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.”  The cruelty of man to man always sickens my heart, especially when I myself am the perpetrator of such acts.  When acts of violence and cruelty are witnessed, too many of us shrink, thinking, “I’m glad I’m not like that,” forgetting that it lies within all mankind to become so depraved!  Kindness, gentleness, and love are those healing virtues so desperately needed by man, and also so difficult to cultivate!  With all of this in mind, I include an entry made in personal journal while in a plane (one of the places I get most “thoughtful” I think due to the wide vistas available to view) on the second day of January, this year.  Remember my flair for the dramatic; I can be a little verbose, but read through the fluff for the emotional content, for it was written from the heart.  As always, my most immediate audience—i.e. the one who needs it most—is myself….

I sit on a plane with my fellow human beings, and the silent, dark earth passes on beneath us.  We float over innumerable souls, evidenced by lights, grouped and huddled for fear of the lonesome dark-a mirror of the most basic of all desires, deeper than that of sustenance and pleasing environment, inherent in their creators—that of companionship.

Below me, countless scenes of the same kind play out on the human stage.   As the lone lamp in the forest shines inconsequential and irrelevant when seen against the vast blackness from above, so the earth moves on its course through the cosmos.  Scenes of love, scenes of villainy (whose heart is always fear), scenes of no consequence alike play and replay in their various forms, played out by their various actors, heeding the voice of one director or the other (love or fear), time and time again as they have been since man became man.  And still we grasp and moan and cling!  Still we fret over the torturing objects and circumstances that we ourselves have created and willfully submit ourselves to!  Oh humanity!  Open thy eyes!  Do not grovel in the dust of ignorance!  Arise!  Ascend to the spiritual heights like the literal heights I now enjoy, with all the perspective it offers!  So inconsequential your daily dealings, and yet you grasp after worthless money, fret over mere mortal matters, and grow indignant over trifling, petty dealings with those you ought to call brother and sister, for such they are!

Few are the things which shall endure and which we can thus cal “real;” all else must pass away and vanish—even the heavens themselves, though immortal they seem!  How few are our days!  Should they not then be spent in bringing about all of the happiness-happiness that is the only reasonable drive for man—that we can to our fellow beings, who, unaware, wallow in mortal mire?

“Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.”

Shared emotion (be it what it may), shared experience, shared wisdom, and most of all shared love—man, these by thy treasures!  All else, but shadows and counterfeits!  Place your hearts, your hopes, your passions upon them and your life shall not be in vain!  Cling to any other prize, and dark shall be thy days and thy eye!  For such shall vanish as smoke and your precious few days shall be spent in fruitless pursuit of that which you cannot obtain!  Cross yourselves in these things!  Arise, dear friends, and be men!

Self-image

Honesty affects all aspects of life.  

This is not an overstatement or over-generalization.  This is truth.  The more one ponders on this truth, the more evident it becomes, and the more one is empowered to use it in his life.

If I cannot look at myself honestly, I will never be able to look at others honestly.  Said another way, my refusal to look fully at myself becomes my refusal to look fully at others.  I will never fully know, love, or appreciate others until I fully know, love, and appreciate myself.  "Love thy neighbor as thyself," said the greatest Teacher in the world.  It was not only a mandate, but a statement of truth.  We cannot love our neighbors more than we love ourselves.

How do you feel about yourself?  Are there parts of you that you hate?  Then there are parts of others that you hate?  Not until we can look at ourselves fully in the mirror, completely naked (this is true both in this metaphoric sense and also in a physical sense--if you hate your physical body, you're still hating yourself) and love that being completely, blemishes and all, will we be able to do this for others.  Do not pretend to say that you have patience for others weaknesses, but not your own.  Let that be the first sign that you are lying to yourself and will be damned until you fix it.

So what is to be done with weaknesses?  Especially those ones we just cannot seem to immediately fix.

The alcoholic is a great example for us.  The alcoholic who has learned to deal with his problem does not hate himself for his weakness.  He understands it is merely a part of him and adjusts accordingly.  He avoids alcohol, but that does not mean he is paralyzed--sitting, wringing his hands at home, hoping that a bottle of alcohol doesn't sneak up on him and surprise him.  He accentuates the things he can do and the things he can enjoy.  It is the same with us.

We must learn to accept our weaknesses as part of ourselves and love ourselves notwithstanding.  This does not mean we do not seek to change; it means we are patient with change and keep ourselves away from situations that would put us in a place to hurt ourselves and/or others because of that weakness.

The practical applications are endless.  The man who struggles with pornography makes sure to stay away from the internet when he is alone until he has truly beaten the problem.  The overeater avoids eating alone until the weakness is conquered.  We all have them--what's yours?

Once acceptance has taken place, solutions can be found for avoiding hurting ourselves and others, and we can then move past the weakness and accentuate the positive.

Before going on let me state that those things which are our greatest strengths are, or can be, usually also our greatest weaknesses.  This topic deserves its own entry, but let that suffice for now so that we can use this truth as we move on.  This ties directly into accentuating the positive and overcoming the weakness.

Perhaps the porn addict finds that his weakness is driven in part by his love for and curiosity about the human body.   This is a great thing!  He can take this and apply it as a strength.  Perhaps he takes an anatomy class and develops a tremendous respect for the body.  His passion drives him to learn all he can and excell, and the learning educates the mind as well as the soul and passions.  Perhaps the alcoholic (putting genetic factos aside, which obviously play a large role and are the reason why many alocoholics simply never touch alcohol again) finds that his excess is caused by a desire to relax and escape.  This, too, can be turned for good.  He simply needs to find another positive way of doing the same thing.  Perhaps it is exercise, playing music, cooking, who knows?  But the truth of the matter is this: we are all good at some things.  We can find things that we love about ourselves.  Then we must focus on those things--expand upon them.  We will find satisfaction, joy, and confidence as we do so.  And avoid situations where we know we may fall until our weaknesses become our strengths and we are ready to handle them appropriately.

As we do this, we will find that we begin to see others differently.  We will be less critical.  People will enjoy our presence, even hunger for it, for we will help them do what we have done--that is, see what is uplifting and strong inside them.  And we will help them accentuate it.  We will find that we truly begin to love others.  But it must start at home.  If that home is one you hate and find ugly, do what you can to change it or to change your attitudes.  

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

the courage to change the things I can, 

and the wisdom to know the difference.

If the garden is ugly, find the flowers that seem to be growing best and uproot the other weeds and allow more of that good flower to grow.  And focus on that growth.  Little by little, you will make the changes to the other parts of this "house" and become more and more pleased.  But if you cannot accept it and love it for what it is, good luck even getting started.  

Learn to love yourself.  

The "naked in the mirror" thing might be a good place to start......

A post-script: I would be dishonest if I did not include a few thoughts of my faith, for I believe it is the only way real growth occurs.  A man may change his actions (stop yelling at his children for example), but real change occurs within the desires of one's heart (this man's problems with anger and patience may not have changed).  Only God can give us a new heart.  It is incredible to me that as I have turned to Him in prayer and pleading, seeking help with some weakness, I have seen those weaknesses dissappear.  Suddenly, I do not even have a desire for them.  My heart changed.  By a power outside myself.  "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” (Ether 12:27)  We can struggle and try and fail and feel like we accomplish little; or we can turn to the source of all goodness and turn it over to Him.  His grace truly is sufficient.

A 400 dollar staple...

It all started one fateful Tuesday when I was running out the door for my temple shift. I was staying with some friends, Russel and Trish Wilcox, while I was in-between housing, and they have an...interestingly...placed shelf right at about head height [see picture] on the wall of their kitchen in the pathway between the wall (obviously, since that is what it is attached to) and the kitchen table, meaning you have to kind of move your head to the side to avoid it. No problem if you're a normal person moving at normal speed in normal frame of mind. I am none of these.

So I'm looking for Saydee, their chihuahua-ita, to put her away before I go, and she runs into their bedroom so I go after her and then she runs back out into the kitchen. Well, I'm such a fun uncle, I run after her to play, but am trying also not to step on her, so I'm looking down. You can probably guess what happened.

WHAM! I ran into the corner of the shelf (I didn't realize it until later, or maybe even the next day, but just that alone gave me a good little cut and a HUGE goose-egg), and immediately ducked my head like you do when you hit it on something, and crouched, stopping. Everything happened so fast. I heard the contents on the shelf rocking. I heard them fall. One of the vases miraculously stayed on. The other two did not, but I broke both of their falls (and one of their falls broke me...). The large, square, heavy, ceramic vase (farthest left) came careening down and landed on one of its points in my head. Yes, IN, not ON. I yelled, but did not swear (yes, I am quite proud of this). It was quite the man yell. Although its fall (and my head) had been broken, it hit the ground and shattered. I somehow managed to catch the other smaller green vase with my right foot/leg and it rolled off that onto the carpet and didn't break. I might be a ninja, but I'm not sure. This of course all happened in, say, 1 second. So I'm down on all fours, trying to take in the pain and assess the situation. The first thought I had was about the broken vase and needing to replace it. Then the blood started to fall. I was a little confused at first. Is this blood? From my head? Will there be a lot? I sat there for a minute, watching it drip onto the kitchen floor. The longer I waited, the more I realized it wasn't about to stop anytime soon. I also had to pause to admire the beauty of my rich, deep and dark red blood--my it is some beautiful stuff! Admire with me:

Next thought: go see if the cut is huge-big. So I run into the bathroom, catching blood in my hands so I don't get it on the carpet, and try to get a look at the cut. Here is what I see:

Cool picture, no?

I can't see the cut because it's on the back of my head, but I decide I'd better go get it stitched up because I'm sure bleeding a lot (I dumped the handful of blood I had caught on the way into the sink and had been filling the sink up with my blood while I looked at the cut), and who knows how long I have before I lose enough blood to where it wouldn't be safe to drive. So I run and grab a cloth and now I have to find Saydee (who had run off when I yelled my man yell and when the vase CRASHED! to the floor). Saydee is nowhere to be found. Not upstairs, not downstairs... Somehow, I've felt very calm through this whole ordeal and felt less in a hurry than I had be to get out the door to the temple (I mean, I had the presence of mind to take pictures during the whole thing...). Finally, she comes out from under a couch, tail tucked between her legs, eyes downcast like she must be the culprit of all this mayhem. I get her put away and head out the door, cloth to my head.

So now I'm driving to the hospital, cloth to my head, trying to

drive, trying to call the temple and tell them I won't make my shift, and trying to text Russell to tell him that if he comes home and finds a shattered vase and a pool of blood on the floor and in the sink to not be worried. I got some funny looks from other drivers. Who can blame them? I was a sight to see.

So I get to the hospital and the lady behind the desk is with an older couple and she's checking them in. I wait patiently (no pun intended), and suddenly the old couple stops talking and they just look at me. She looks at me and doesn't say anything. Her mouth just kind of hangs open for a second. I say something helpful like, "I cut my head," and she asks, "Are you ok?" I reply that I think I am and she can tell that I'm pretty composed, so she just asks me to fill out the form and she'll be with me in a minute. She checks me in and then, of course, I get to wait. Before I leave her little office, she says, "Oh! The bleeding may have already stopped, but you can have some of these, and she hands me a little stack of gauze pads."

So now I'm in the waiting room, sitting across from this old couple looking like this:

Ok, so I wasn't wearing that exact facial expression, but they probably thought I was...

This old cowboy is thoroughly disgruntled about the waiting and says, quite loudly, "That's why I hate comin' to this damn place, you always gotta wait so damn long." The emphasis is not added by the author. I thought that was great fun, but tried not to laugh. Mostly, they just looked at me like I might be dying. But they still wanted in first.

Finally, I get in, and everyone looks at me with those same wide eyes as I pass by. Maybe because I have blood running across my face, maybe because I'm walking around just fine and smiling at them and that just looks funny, maybe because its American Fork and they mostly see the old folks like who I was sitting across from. I pass a large group of staff around a computer (5-6 people), and their conversation stops and they all just look at me, same wide-eyed stare. I say, "It's not as bad as it looks," and they laugh and go on with their work (this is important because most people don't think I'm very funny, but apparently those who are in the medical field DO think I'm funny and this just makes me want to be a doctor even more...). The next few minutes involve my head getting a good cleaning by the nurse and me getting to retell the story a dozen times to her and all the other people who come by wanting to know what happened. My guess is these people don't see much in their emergency room. Probably a lot of Jake's and Bertha's who want some damn medication for their damn aches. The doctor comes in and says he's going to put one staple in my head. I, being the tough, perhaps-ninja man that I am, refuse anesthetic and he takes out his little staple gun and POOM! staples my head.

Me. Staple Head.

[it turns out that your scalp has very few nerve endings {this is probably why, besides the fact that they're so darn huge in comparison to the rest of their bodies, little babies and kids are always banging their heads into everything} and so the stapling really didn't hurt. [For all of you who are thinking what I was thinking, the answer is yes, scalping actually wasn't all that painful.] The first staple didn't go in right apparently, so he had to get that one out, and put in another one. Finally, I was set to go. I could shower and all that and was to come back in a week and get it out.

The aftermath: The good news is that I got the vase back together. Look at this skill!:

Before........

....a bottle of super glue and 30 minutes later..... BAM! ......After!

I got the staple out a little while ago. I had tried to tug it out myself, to no avail. I tried a pair of scissors, to see if I could cut it in the middle and then pull it out--also fruitless (though not painless). It took 5 seconds for the lady at the hospital to get it out with her special staple-getter-outer tool, and I got to keep my staple, complete with the pee cup she gave it to me in.

Here's the kicker: my parents just called me to tell me they got a bill for $400 from the hospital! $400?! That was sure an expensive staple!! Good thing I got some gauze and a pee cup out of it!

Other thoughts: I'm SURE the procedures done did NOT justify the million years that doctor spent in medical school training. I'm pretty sure he could show me how to staple a wound in 5 minutes and forever more, I would be a proficient head stapler. I AM sure, however, that all those years in medical school is why that bill was $400. (all the insurance mumbo-jumbo is to blame as well, but I won't get started on that. This has been long enough) My point is that it sure seems that so much of what we do in such a SPECIALIZED industry (medicine) could be better taught and trained through apprenticeship. Like in the old days. You want to be a blacksmith? Well, you become an apprentice to one, and when he feels you're good and ready, you get a little certificate or whatever and you get to start your own business. Why can't things run like that now (I know the answer to that question, and there's good reason, but it's just too bad)? You want to be a hand surgeon? Well, let's skip years and years and thousands and thousands of dollars, and get you to help out some surgeon for eight years. You can learn everything from him, read lots of books on that specific discipline and you'll come out ready to go. Sigh... Oh well. Maybe someday I'll be the one charging that same doctor $400 just to give him some damn medication. :)

To my friend Evan...

I have a great friend named Evan.  Hey, look there he is now just off to the right there...

Evan is a great man.  There are many reasons I love Evan; one of the reasons is that somehow Evan has the ability to make everything more fun.  I don't know what it is or how he does it, but he does.  Everything is more fun when Evan is around.  

He has a great wife named Jackie.  There they are together below.  

Yup.  Rollin'.  Albuquerque style.

This is them on their happy day off to the right.....

So I speak Vietnamese and there's a tongue twister in Vietnamese that goes like this:

Bà ba béo

Bán bánh bèo

Bên bờ biển

Bả bị bắt bỏ bót

Ba bốn bận

Evan loved hearing this little tongue twister.  The tongue twister is a little story about a fat woman selling bread on the seashore and getting arrested and thrown in jail three or four times.  In honor of him, and for the benefit of all, I post it here... Enjoy!

On Making Mistakes and Improving

I am a deeply religious person; however, I had originally considered trying to keep this page merely philosophical in approach, but am abandoning the idea, because I really can't separate the two: my philosophy grows out of my religion. Those of you who would accept philosophical ponderings, but are unwilling to read religious material (whether having a belief in God or not) lack wisdom and therefore can suffer in it. For the rest of humanity...

I work at a place called the Missionary Training Center where LDS (Mormon [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]) missionaries are (surprise) trained before going to some spot around the world to spread the good news about Christ and His living prophets. My department helps missionaries become better teachers that they might more effectively share the important message we have. Part of how I do this is called the "training model", which entails explanation, demonstration, practice, evaluation, re-practice, and the evaluation again and conclusion. My good friend Rebecka Ronndahl asked me about a month ago how to apply this pattern in our own life for growth. She felt what Neal A. Maxwell described in his talk Notwithstanding My Weakness: "Now may I speak, not to the slackers in the Kingdom, but to those who carry their own load and more; not to those lulled into false security, but to those buffeted by false insecurity, who, though laboring devotedly in the Kingdom, have recurring feelings of falling forever short....The first thing to be said of this feeling of inadequacy is that it is normal. There is no way the Church can honestly describe where we must yet go and what we must yet do without creating a sense of immense distance. Following celestial road signs while in telestial traffic jams is not easy, especially when we are not just moving next door—or even across town." Rebecka felt that distance acutely and wanted to bridge the gap and was frustrated, I think, with what seemed like slow progress and frequent mistakes.
I have long pondered about how we can apply the pattern for teaching from the Missionary Training Center in our lives in a way that can lead to growth as it does for the missionaries, though in different arenas. In pondering I have come to feel that it really is no different than in the MTC. At times we do not even know we are "missing something" (for the missionaries this might be not asking questions or asking questions poorly; for us it might be doing something wrong or not doing it at all when we ought to be); it often takes someone to point it out to us. This is most effective when done through the scriptures and accompanied by demonstration (seeing positive examples). Then we have opportunity to retry, or try to do it for the first time. Even when we know what it is we want to do, sometimes we lack the experience or knowledge of how to do it or our bad habits get in the way of doing it. It often takes repeated practice (and failure [opportunities to learn]) to make it happen. We get feedback, we re-evaluate, we set goals, and we try again.
What are the dangers? The same as for the missionaries: discouragement or thinking they aren't good or can never do it. And what is it we tell missionaries? We emphasize the good – the improvement each time. And tell them to focus on that and not to get too caught up in it all. Because we know they will be all right. They just need time. So we help them remember that in the end they are the Lord's missionaries and that their effort and desire are really the most important things and that God will make up the rest and to trust that.
Is it any different for us? My inability to ask good questions as a missionary is an imperfection to be corrected, just as a problem with vain thoughts or anything could be. (And perhaps the issue with questions is even more detrimental to others and to their salvation [due to how critical they are to teaching] than just some stupid vain thoughts.) So why are we so patient with one and so impatient with the other?
Learn the doctrine, see good examples, try, get feedback (which is why we must find those we can trust and share our burdens with them [the things that we struggle with as well as our successes, hopes, desires, etc.] – so we can get feedback from close friends!), and re-practice with perspective! My sins have been paid for. Holding onto them or being upset by them does me no good. In fact, it gives Satan power and makes God angry! (see 2 Nephi 4:26-29 [sometimes we see our weaknesses as our enemies] and Alma 33:16) So I just need to get over it. I try my best; I feel bad when I make mistakes and use that emotional energy to impel me to do better; and then I move on. I let go of the mistake. It doesn't define me. I'm still a king or queen in the making (see Revleation 5:10) just learning my lessons. God has such things in store for us; we cannot comprehend! The Atonement is there for use! It helps us both remove negative weeds and cultivate flowers of character (see The Atonement: All for All by Bruce C. Hafen). And thus I grow, remembering Christ suffered so I don't have to(see D&C 19:16) if I would do my part, which is to offer a broken heart and a contrite spirit (see 3 Ne. 9:20) and the heart and a willing mind (see D&C 64:34). Our very desire to improve and be godly defines our broken-heartedness and becomes our key to justification and sanctification by the Spirit. So we don't need to worry when we make mistakes – they are paid for! No, we don't want to sin or be callous towards the Atonement. There are those who need to be worried about being too callous, and there are others who will need make sure they are not so concerned with "hurting the Savior" that they really end up hurting Him by not fully taking advantage of His gift bought at so great a cost (a price already paid – a hurt He's already done and finished). When we look at our mistakes this way, our gratitude for the Atonement and our Savior increases, and we truly begin to grow. Christ has paid for our sins – let us "rejoice and be glad" (Psalms 118:24)! I am going to make mistakes; it's just going to happen. In fact, it's part of the program. God knows it and knew it and that's why He sent His Son. Like a missionary learning a new language, getting caught up in the mistakes doesn't help. With a humble, penitent, but well-perspected chuckle --knowing that such actions are not worthy me - that I'm better than that and that I'll do better than that - knowing that I'm a king and I'm going to live like it and that I'll make it – I'm just learning -- I then go off with a smile, grateful for my Savior, and determined to do better and try again.