This past week has been quite memorable. Maybe not in the same realm as baptism, being called as a missionary, or going to the temple, but our family experienced some important events.
Let me digress and name my family:
My wife: Goodlookin'
Oldest son: Bear
Flyboy's wife: Photogirl
Oldest daughter: Miss Priss
Youngest daughter: Kiddo
Kiddo's hubby: Red-Tux
Youngest son: Scooter
Now back to memorable events. In chronicological order:
A week ago Saturday, Scooter received his Eagle Scout Award.
This week, Goodlookin' and I celebrated our 24th anniversary.
This last Saturday, Kiddo graduated from college.
As Goodlookin and I were driving back home last night, we talked about the events we have experienced as a family. I continued thinking about these and other events during the drive. It helped me to understand the importance of families. These events may not be crucial to our eternal salvation, but they could be. These more normal events also are the kinds of occurances which shape us. They are the kind of goals which motivate us to do better, to stretch and strive to improve ourselves, and to work to accomplish a difficult task.
When I think about marriages of our children, graduations, and other accomplishments. I believe that Heavenly Father wants us to work to grow and improve ourselves in normal, daily, seemingly non-eternal ways because it makes us better as people, as children of our Heavenly Father.
All three of these events represent a lot of work and effort to accomplish. None of them were completed in a few hours, days, or even months. It required years of work, sacrifice, tears and joy in order for these events to occur. We celebrate the accomplishment, but really, we are celebrating all the work and effort behind the accomplishment.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Miscellaneous
I had an interesting discussion with a coworker. He is Christian, and so our discussions tend to involve religion. We discussed the intolerance in our society. As a society, we have worked through racial and ethnic intolerance pretty well. But when it comes to religious or moral issues, we are very divided, and typically quite intolerant of someone with a different view.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I have beliefs which differ from the politically correct, as well as main stream, positions. I concluded a long time ago that I cannot judge someone else based on my beliefs, particularly if the other person does not have the same beliefs. For example, I do not use tobacco, and do not drink alcohol, tea or coffee. This practice is based on the teachings of my church. However, I am surrounded by people who are not members of my church, and do not have the same beliefs. There are a few ways to deal with this:
1. Call everyone to repentance, call them sinners, and treat them like they have leprosy.
2. Treat them like friends and neighbors, let them know how I live my life, find common ground, and work towards a common goal.
3. Ignore what everyone does and let them live their own lives.
I try to follow approach number 2, but sometime I lean towards approach 3. It depends on how well I know the person, and therefore how well the person will respond to me. I have concluded that I WILL NOT be a religious bigot. If the situation is appropriate, I will explain my beliefs and why I do what I do, but often it is nothing more than letting them know that I am LDS. This will often lead to more discussion. But not always.
Back to the discussion with my coworker. He has some neighbors who are a gay couple. He and his wife have gotten to know them, and have gotten to like them. They disagree with their life style, but have decided to focus on the positive.
A few weeks ago, my coworker and his wife were having dinner with their Pastor. Their neighbors saw them at the table and came over to say hello. My coworker was embarrassed by the response of his Pastor towards his neighbors.
My intent is not to make a statement about this Pastor. I believe this type of response is common among all walks of life. We saw the protests that occurred in front of the Los Angeles Temple because members of the church worked against the proposition to legalize gay marriage in California.
All around us, we see where a person or group accuses another of intolerance, bigotry, hatred, etc, and yet the person or group is as guilty as anyone of the very things they criticize others about. Pretty soon, we have a tit-for-tat situation and it gets louder, meaner, and angrier. All this because we have decided in our society that louder is righter. We have decided that we have to be RIGHT, and the others have to be WRONG. At the same time, we have a moral relativism thing going, where we say that people can believe and do what ever they believe (of course if they agree with us).
In my opinion, the I'm-right-so-you-are-wrong, louder-is-righter, you-must-be-tolerant-of-me attitude is hypocritical, divisive, and will only lead to more of the same. Since I am RIGHT, if you don't agree with me, you are WRONG! (see how it works?)
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I have beliefs which differ from the politically correct, as well as main stream, positions. I concluded a long time ago that I cannot judge someone else based on my beliefs, particularly if the other person does not have the same beliefs. For example, I do not use tobacco, and do not drink alcohol, tea or coffee. This practice is based on the teachings of my church. However, I am surrounded by people who are not members of my church, and do not have the same beliefs. There are a few ways to deal with this:
1. Call everyone to repentance, call them sinners, and treat them like they have leprosy.
2. Treat them like friends and neighbors, let them know how I live my life, find common ground, and work towards a common goal.
3. Ignore what everyone does and let them live their own lives.
I try to follow approach number 2, but sometime I lean towards approach 3. It depends on how well I know the person, and therefore how well the person will respond to me. I have concluded that I WILL NOT be a religious bigot. If the situation is appropriate, I will explain my beliefs and why I do what I do, but often it is nothing more than letting them know that I am LDS. This will often lead to more discussion. But not always.
Back to the discussion with my coworker. He has some neighbors who are a gay couple. He and his wife have gotten to know them, and have gotten to like them. They disagree with their life style, but have decided to focus on the positive.
A few weeks ago, my coworker and his wife were having dinner with their Pastor. Their neighbors saw them at the table and came over to say hello. My coworker was embarrassed by the response of his Pastor towards his neighbors.
My intent is not to make a statement about this Pastor. I believe this type of response is common among all walks of life. We saw the protests that occurred in front of the Los Angeles Temple because members of the church worked against the proposition to legalize gay marriage in California.
All around us, we see where a person or group accuses another of intolerance, bigotry, hatred, etc, and yet the person or group is as guilty as anyone of the very things they criticize others about. Pretty soon, we have a tit-for-tat situation and it gets louder, meaner, and angrier. All this because we have decided in our society that louder is righter. We have decided that we have to be RIGHT, and the others have to be WRONG. At the same time, we have a moral relativism thing going, where we say that people can believe and do what ever they believe (of course if they agree with us).
In my opinion, the I'm-right-so-you-are-wrong, louder-is-righter, you-must-be-tolerant-of-me attitude is hypocritical, divisive, and will only lead to more of the same. Since I am RIGHT, if you don't agree with me, you are WRONG! (see how it works?)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Here we go...
I guess this is how it starts. I was talking to one of my sisters yesterday, and she pointed me to a blog my parents are doing. I read that blog, and found some blogs by some of my sisters. So far, I have found 4 sisters who blog.
Inspired by my family's literary prowness, I decided to give it a shot. I will admit, I would feel more comfortable explaining how to solve quadratic equations, and I have forgotten how to do that in the 20+ years (yikes!) since I left college.
I am impressed with ability my mother and sisters have. The creativity, insight, and ability they have to make normal everyday life interesting to read is amazing. Not sure how I fit into this, since I am more the engineering type, who am prone to short, noncreative notes and sentences.
Maybe I am doing this because I have felt in recent history a need to connect with my family more. I have lived a long way from my family since 1985 (except for 8 months when my youngest sister stayed with us). It was really cool to read the postings my family members have put up. I got to know each of them better from the observations, thoughts, feelings, or even silly meanderings. Maybe they will get to know me better too. Of course, that exposes the fear I have... I will have to actually open up and share ME with the world.
Inspired by my family's literary prowness, I decided to give it a shot. I will admit, I would feel more comfortable explaining how to solve quadratic equations, and I have forgotten how to do that in the 20+ years (yikes!) since I left college.
I am impressed with ability my mother and sisters have. The creativity, insight, and ability they have to make normal everyday life interesting to read is amazing. Not sure how I fit into this, since I am more the engineering type, who am prone to short, noncreative notes and sentences.
Maybe I am doing this because I have felt in recent history a need to connect with my family more. I have lived a long way from my family since 1985 (except for 8 months when my youngest sister stayed with us). It was really cool to read the postings my family members have put up. I got to know each of them better from the observations, thoughts, feelings, or even silly meanderings. Maybe they will get to know me better too. Of course, that exposes the fear I have... I will have to actually open up and share ME with the world.
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