Heat of the Moment

Share

Las Vegas temperatures are in the news around the country, although I don’t know why. Those of us who live here in the summer know that it’s hot, and what’s more, we expect it to be so. The funny thing for us while most of you make a mountain out of this molehill is the realization that we get that hot every year. What’s abnormal in my experience is that it’s three weeks earlier than previously, and while annoying, it’s not necessarily odd. I have no idea why it’s newsworthy that the desert is hot.

Mostly, I think this is media hype, potentially driven towards assisting the tripe known as “global warming”. The fact that we didn’t break the record for Saturday means that this has happened before. This means it will happen again. In fact, rather than thinking about breaking records, we should think about the notion that fewer annual records are broken now than in say 1890 when, after only a decade or so of records, an off year could easily skew things. Add to that recent articles about solar activity being different than expected or how the sun is responsible for warming the earth, and you enter the realm of Captain Obvious. Thank you for that duh moment.

The summer temperatures really revolve around water. Take Europe for example. Parts of Europe are so wet that they are still cold, and some of them may not even have a summer due to the extended winter precipitation. Contrarily, Las Vegas is running behind on its annual meager precipitation, and so we have higher temperatures earlier. In fact, I would like to see if the hottest years and if the earliest onset of high temperatures correlates with drought years, because I have a theory.

Most of the temperature changes on earth are modulated by water vapor. Water molecules absorb 4.184 calories/g, and you get more molecules per gram than many other more massive substances, and so it means that most of the heat absorbed on earth is absorbed and released by water. In other parts of the country, when the temperatures rise, water evaporates and raises the humidity. The water vapor modulates the temperatures and keeps them from reaching 117F like they predicted in Las Vegas or 129F like predicted in Death Valley, which has 1% of our total rainfall annually. Since the desert southwest saw very little precipitation this year, there is very little to modulate the heat, and our temperatures may be hotter longer than normal.

On the other hand, it’s possible that this is a shift in when the high temperatures occur. If the desert cools down three weeks earlier than normal, will the news register and realize that? If we manage to get a significant amount of regular albeit small thunderstorms, it could drop the temperatures and keep us in the mid to high 90s, which is where most of the rest of the nation sits in July. Besides, tomorrow is the first of July, which is typically our hottest month. So, is this really newsworthy, or is it only news in the moment of the heat?

Canned Communication

Share

All of us seem to prefer certain phrases when we speak. Perhaps you have noticed that I often employ assonance and alliteration in my posts. I remember back in college being held after class by my professor because he was absolutely certain I plagiarized my essay after I used rhetorical and literary techniques uncommon to the student body. They could not possibly be spoken by a student! When he learned about my upbringing, origination, and education, he realized that I was not like the kitten caboodle, but I do have my preferred way of doing things.

To some degree, my communication comes from my religious upbringing. Just this morning while reading scripture, I reread some of the phrases that I love to use like “unjustly ascribed to God” or “expressly repugnant” or even “nevertheless”, all of which are accurate albeit archaic applications of the English language. Some of our phrases bother me. It seems like all too often in church, when members rise to pray it’s as if we open up some canned phrases and let the contents spew into the room without much thought. This kind of “vain repetitions” is not limited to words; it is evident in our cadence, our tone, and the rhythm of our communication. It got so bad at one point growing up with one of my brothers that my parents asked him to change it up. As an adult, I still see that people get up and apply the same phrases without giving it much thought, and when I say things to which they are unaccustomed they grow uncomfortable.

Partly, this is why I can’t listen to the president for more than a minute or two. He overexercises the same tired phrases without knowing it. Perhaps this is because he doesn’t seem able to articulate anything without a speech writer or a teleprompter present, and the person who puts words thereon for him to read is certainly into canned phrases. Even when Obama speaks his own mind or speaks at all, he almost always speaks in a consistent manner. His tone and meter are very ingenious; he tries to talk from his throat, which gives the appearance of control and calm and reason, and he ends with a rise in pitch, effectively lifting up his voice. This has the effect of rendering him as if he is a reasonable and uplifting individual. It appears to me that someone taught him to speak this way intentionally, because it can be effective, provided you don’t do it all the livelong day. Since he does it all the time, he wears it out, and it became something that I frequently mock when I impersonate him because it’s all he knows. It has become a sort of sing-song spectacle, in which you can count on the president to repeat tired phrases, sort of like listening to Sheriff Barney Fife. Some media pundits in other countries have noticed that he tells dignitaries the exact same things sometimes. Apparently, all NATO nations except Denmark are close and strong allies, but even Denmark, like a dozen other nations “punches above its weight class”. He looks like it’s earnest, heartfelt and unique, when it is anything other than that- it’s generic canned phraseology and isn’t worth the breath it takes to utter it. That indicates to me that it’s a “vain repetition” and that he doesn’t really mean what he says.

Vain repetitions evince a lack of forethought or meaning in what we say. So maybe I surprise people when I ask God to help us properly process our poop, but I really mean it, and people pay attention. When I visited a high school biotechnology program four years ago and spoke to the students, one of them pointed out that I said “saved my bacon” in lieu of “saved my a**”, and I pointed out that perhaps my colorful metaphors were more effective because they registered and resonated regularly with the audience. I get tired of listening to what amounts to a long extension of jejune, ruderal, asinine banalities as people blah blah blah through their blah blah blah lives.

Words offer the means to meaning. Most people do not appear to know how to use words. We know how to form our mouth and make sounds, but all too often we don’t mean what we say or communicate with any degree of effectiveness. I have noticed that many people only know one definition for a word or one instance in which it’s applicable, but some politicians use a different one knowing that most of us will assume it means something else. For example, Governor Sandoval (R-NV) said he would “end the furlough program”; none of us thought when he promised this that he meant to “make your paycuts permanent in perpetuity”. We thought he would restore our pay with an end to furloughs. On a larger scale, Senators keep promising to “fix” immigration; they do not seem to mean fix as in “repair or make right” but fix as in “put in the fix; make it permanent in its current place”. It’s very clever, diabolically clever, to communicate with guile, but that seems to be what politicians do- throw words at us not because they mean them but because they know we do. Don’t even get me started about the words “love” or “friends”. When we use canned phrases or limit our rhetoric, we strip communication of meaning. Meanwhile, I learned how to recognize when people open up a canned phrase, and I hope that as you register that you will be better able to ascertain actual meaning from those who, although they still talk, have actually ceased to speak.

**The image in this post is proprietary, and the unauthorized use carries civil as well as criminal penalties.

Society and Substance

Share

Over the weekend, I reread a handful of Isaac Asimov novels. Most of them deal with robots, all of whom seem ironically enough interested in becoming more human. In fact, I can’t recall any story in which the robot does not desire more humanity; I actually grew tired of the focus on Commander Data’s quest for humanity. It is the desire of any automaton apparently to find increased liberty through life.

At the same time that science fiction and philosophy endorse enlargement of the soul, government applies greater constraints upon it. They ignore the notion that once constrained we will “yearn to breathe free” and break free and return to a greater degree of liberty. Politicians seem to wish we were robots- taking orders, accomplishing tasks, asking nothing, and allowing ourselves to be abused like the servants in stories that robots usually appear to be. Elitists want us going through life lame-brained, not asking any questions, not acting of our own volition, waiting for the government to come around and tell us what to eat and where to live and whom to take to wife (or husband or whatever). They educate you what to think rather than how, report half the truth without the other half to back it up, and fight every effort they can at self reliance.

I heard from a reputable source about a series of efforts taken against my Faith by the government that attest to this. I call upon my elected representatives to look into this. My Faith has historically shipped a huge amount of goods overseas to disaster areas as well as to domestic sites without any remuneration or assistance from FEMA. When Germany surrendered, George Albert Smith went to Harry Truman and offered help; Truman asked when it could be ready, and Smith told him it already was. Meanwhile, the government has attempted to force the Church to put the milk from their Missouri dairy into the general milk population. Meanwhile, the government has required that anyone working in the dry pack cannery go through a training and certification process. In fact, you can’t even touch foodstuffs anymore without showing certificates out the wazoo that show you have been trained to handle food, even if you’re sending it to war-torn Somalia. I used to work at the storehouse Friday afternoons in graduate school giving away food to people, but I don’t think the government will let me anymore. I used to give out food to the homeless at Owens and Las Vegas Blvd, until the North Las Vegas police shut that down (I don’t blame the police; I smell politicians). After the tornadoes in OK, the government came through and confiscated food from people who had more than two weeks’ supply on the auspice that they were “hoarding”. The church was able to resist that, but only just. One of the highlights of high school was when a dozen of us from my congregation traveled to hurricane-ravaged areas to help. I think those days may be limited because I’m not a licensed contractor.

The government does not want us to help anyone, including ourselves. They want us reliant on them. Their egos are so big that they want to BE gods. It reminds me of the woman I helped for a while in Vienna who went to Tibet with donations from good denizens of Austria and told the Tibetans that the gifts were from HER. She didn’t build that. Like that woman, too many people in government want you to pray to them. You can’t go hunt and fish to feed your family without a license, but you can vote and collect welfare without one, particularly if you speak Spanish. It’s right out of the dark ages of medieval Britannia, when John Lackland made it illegal to kill the “king’s deer”. I’m sorry, but before there was a Congress, there were deer, so the deer don’t belong to Congress. I’m afraid to stock up; if you look in my pantry, I have more than two weeks’ because I know that Las Vegas doesn’t produce enough of anything to be reliable in a disaster. So, I have toilet paper and canned goods and water and other supplies far beyond my needs so that I can help people I know. I had to fight the HOA to put a garden in MY BACK YARD, not because I want to live off of it but because I love the superior taste and quality of home-grown produce. I worry that keeping that produce off the market will “affect commerce”, which is another joke supreme court decision (Wickard v Filburn).

Instead of that, the government wants to waste and wear out my substance propping up losers. We waste an inordinate amount of substance and time propping up the weakest among us so that we don’t seem inhuman. Most of my students want to go into health care where their clients will demand the very best of care, even after some of them abused and neglected their own responsibility to care for their own health or in many cases actively wasted it away. It is however actually inhuman to take from a father the bread he stores for his own children and give it to those of a stranger. I remember growing up the story of the grasshopper and the ant; the grasshopper didn’t prepare, but nobody forced the ants to share. Moreover, as politicians profess their Christianity, I remind them of the Parable of the Foolish Virgins; the Wise didn’t give them of their oil; the foolish were foolish because they didn’t plan ahead. As a scout, I was taught to plan ahead with clichés like “failing to prepare is preparing to fail”, but I believed that and live my life so that I am prepared. With 76% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, I am appalled, but my savings would be gone in an hour if they took it to supplement my neighbors. This just delays the suffering of everyone else and makes mine immediate. This deserves careful scrutiny.

You would think the government would want people to be able to handle things without their help. The only way I can conceive that having us reliant on them is because it gives government power over us. It evinces a spirit of abject insecurity for one groups security to be dependent on the abject lack thereof in their neighbors. I have seen with my own eyes how long some people must wait without relief for the government to finally get around to helping them. You see, the government primarily helps the people who have means and materials to continue to prop up the politicians. Government has become a self-licking ice cream cone that is only interested in more of itself. Wrote the patriot Thomas Paine “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.” Government truly is a mode made necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world. Let us alone, and true Americans will fight any evil, right any wrong, feed the homeless, clothe the destitute and reach out and restore their neighbors and neighborhoods. That’s why you don’t hear about FEMA in “flyover country”; the good folks there don’t need government because they have the society and substance of heaven.

Cowardly Commentators

Share

Yesterday, I received an email from youreascumbag@yahoo.com that amounted to a personal insult. I found it illuminating that this person used a fake email and a fake name in order to share a real, albeit unfounded, opinion. As I share my thoughts and feelings online, I find it very common that people try to hide behind fake avatars and fake names and anonymous email addresses because, while they are unafraid to share how they feel, they fear desperately that anyone knows who they are and can confront them elsewhere. I believe that the consistent use of anonymous commentary and hiding behind fake information to be very cowardly, and it is also debilitating to discussion and crushing to character. Just ask Ta’O.

A few years back, one of my students said that she thought I was exceptionally opinionated. I quickly told her that I was no more opinionated than she, but that unlike me, she chose to keep hers quiet. I don’t feel the need to be ashamed or afraid of my opinions. After all, whose opinions should I have? Whose thoughts should I share? Whose words should I speak? If not mine, then why those of someone else? It doesn’t do the discussion any service when we are parsimonious with the truth. I speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve because a great man once taught me that this is the only way to arrive at truth and fulfill the great responsibility we have to God and our country.

God’s mouthpieces, which I do not claim to be, spoke forth the truth boldly and nobly. I have enjoyed reading about Moses this past month, admiring his courage, determination and fortitude in the recalcitrant wrath of Ramses and under the snivelling snide squawking of the Israelites. It is all too often that rather than face up to responsibility “great” men send lackies to do the work, but Moses took it upon himself to be himself, to own his Hebrew heritage, to speak directly to Pharaoh under threat of death, and to march at the head of the throng into the desert of Sinai.

From recent news, we know that there’s really no such thing as anonymity on the internet. The NSA knows what you’re typing while you type it in some cases. Even years back when I visited the National Archives, I realized that they keep almost everything sent to Congress or the President, and when the Archives announced they’d archive tweets, my response was to change from my avatar to my real name and say “Bring it on.” I said it; I own it. If I’m wrong, I will correct it. If I believe that I am right, with firmness in the right as God gives me to see it, I will go on, straight on and press forward until He tells me to change. My picture, my name, and the email address used here all go to me and are answered by me, and much as I may not like the hate mail and what not, I am willing to stand for what I believe. As for the cavalcade of cowardly commentators: back it up or back it off. When you attack the messenger, you show your argument to be weak, for if you could argue on substance, you would do so without the need to conceal yourself behind a mask. “To any of you who wish to die, come forward; I will take your names. To the first, I will build a monument.” –Cyrano de Bergerac

EDIT:  The email address was actually "yourascumbag@yahoo.com" which is misspelled.  Please do not spam this person back.  Obviously they have problems since they can't even insult me with correct grammar and punctuation.

Commemoration

Share

The calendar is littered with days that commemorate events. For most of us, these exist to remind us of good times and things, and so we gather together with people we love for an outing, a barbecue, or some other kind of party. We do it to remind ourselves of good things that happen in our lives or of good things that happened in our lives because of those dates. It keeps us thinking about things and people that mattered to us long after they fade into memory.

Our memory is a funny thing. Over time, many people forget exactly what we’re celebrating on Cinco de Mayo or why we care who Martin Luther King is. Some of the events are easy to remember because they coincide with other events commemorated by a wider audience albeit for different reasons. Most of the people on the planet think of 21 June as the longest day of the year or the summer solstice. For me, it has a different meaning as is the case with many of the other days I commemorate.

Holidays, or commemoration days as is more applicable, invite us to remember. Over time, sometimes the memories grow faint, which is why I take so many pictures and write prolifically. If nothing else, I can go back and flip through this blog and the posts will remind me however obliquely about things that were going on in my life when I wrote them. When I remember, of course I remember the good times, and when I am strong, I remember the good things that came from rough times too. Summer holds for me both many exits as well as many entrances, and for the most part the exits have led to better entrances.

Some of my friends comment on how magnificent it is that I have such a great memory. I remind them that it can also be a great curse. Owing to the fact that I write down almost everything that happens, even when my memory grows fuzzy, I can go back and read about it and remember anew. It also comes as a great curse because I know things that aren’t true, leastwise any more, and then I also grow sad. As a matter of fact, some of the holidays considered favorites by most people around the Christian world are the worst for me, because they remind me of things I lost or things I never actually had. You can actually find me alone on those evenings sometimes, because I don’t want to diminish the joy of others, and because I seek the company of my Maker to heal my heart. Due to the frequency of this, I duct tape all of my journals shut when I finish so that it’s too much work to go reread them.

Friday will be a long day for me in many ways. It will be the longest day of sun of the year, which means there may not be ANY shade when I leave the house to run a 10K at 5:30AM. It will be light when I get home for the first time in weeks. It marks the end of a 53 hour week at work. For one particular person, it marks something else, and if that person reads this, know that I’ll probably spend more time than I would like thinking about what it might have meant, but I will think of you.

Last week, I had a long chat with my financial planner. We were discussing my “goals” for my money, and he finds it harder to work with me than most because I don’t have the same goals. Most folks are planning family trips or to buy a bigger house or to pay off debt, and my goal is “growth of capital” with an eye towards retirement. I don’t have any specific plans because all the bigger my plans get are what I decide in my mind to make of them. On certain days that I prefer not to commemorate, I have regularly made plans to overwrite those days with different memories so that there’s always something I control that happened that day to positively affect my life. I didn’t have enough time to make plans like that for Friday this year, but if you have any ideas, send them my way. What we choose to remember tells us what parts of the past our minds prefer to view.

I keep almost everything of real value that I obtain. That doesn’t mean that I display everything or that I look at it with any frequency, but I know, if I choose to, where to look for sentimental cards or gifts people made me or souvenirs I bought or any other scrimshaw of relevance. All of these things symbolize parts of my life that were true for my part. There were good things in them or from them, and even if all I have left from those moments are a few pieces of bric-a-brac, I do have those. One day, I will have the satisfaction of seeing that the individuals associated with those items know I still remember what I knew, what I did, and who I was. I am unashamed of my past and unafraid for my future. Whether or not other people commemorate my life is not my concern. I commemorate their part in my life because they contributed to the person I am today, and I like that person. He has Seven of Eight still, and that is worthy of commemoration.

Losing Health Care

Share

Last night, I reached into the mailbox and pulled out a letter from the state health provider. Inside, the letter informed me that the company that has provided coverage to state employees in the PPO network has dropped the state as a client. I am honestly not really surprised. In fact, I’m surprised they haven’t cut our hours yet to save having to provide health care. I am not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing.

Many state workers are a huge risk. Under the new provisions of Obamacare, it would probably be prohibitively expensive to continue taking on this risk when so many other things MUST be covered under federal health law. They cover things for us that shouldn’t be covered and don’t really cover the things I need like optometry. Many state workers are in poor health, overweight, have bad habits, and I suspect that they seek state employment so that other people will take care of them. Our retirement benefits are enticing but outrageous, and if I owned a health insurance company, I would probably drop us too.

You see, the real problem here is getting care. Obamacare is a huge misnomer because it isn’t about care; it’s about coverage. We’ll eventually find someone to cover us, and the price will probably skyrocket, but that doesn’t mean they will cover us well or that we’ll get the care we like, want, or think we “deserve”. If they would allow it, because I’m in good health, I’d take the money and save it for a rainy day, but they are using young and healthy people like me to subsidize other people in state service, many of whom die or become disabled while still working. God only knows what the 70 year olds are doing who still work with us; many of them shuffle around and can barely see or lift anything, and so I don’t know why they are still here. Likewise, Obamacare “covers” the young to force them to pay into the health exchanges to cover the older people who need the treatments, but most of the money will disappear in the bureaucracy.

I laughed a little to read the letter last night because now I am part of the story. I heard stories over the past few weeks about companies dropping businesses or raising rates, and I wondered if and when we would see the same thing. It was really a question of when. Our bureaucracy is so bloated in Nevada with people we do not need or people who do not perform valuable work that perhaps this lack of “benefits” will drive people out into other fields. At least I can hope.

Most of my life, I have maintained that too many people draw on healthcare, but that’s not new either. Even in the days of “Pollyanna”, many people thought doctors were just pills and bills, and yet we go there for every sniffle, scratch and symptom, real or psychosomatic. I just read today that I’m in a minority because I’m part of the 30% of the population that uses ZERO prescription drugs. I have never been more thankful for good health than I am now as I move into my prime, because as it becomes less available I am less likely to necessitate a visit to a physician. Eventually, availability will become so low that they will have no choice but to tell you that you don’t qualify because the return on the effort is so low, and since it won’t be your call even if you’re willing to pay, you may suffer or even die. We are losing our health care. The money they are spending on exchanges isn’t even going to health- it’s a slush fund for liberal groups intended to help establish one party rule, as if life would be better if we all thought the same way. Apparently novels like Ender’s Game, 1984, and The Giver failed to resonate. Just take a pill and relax, it will all be over soon.

Daily Download

Share

A few years back, I started a daily evening ritual to help me handle the stresses of life. At 10:30, I turned off everything and spent the next half hour in meditation and prayer. I went over the issues of the day and downloaded them from my mind, since I was tired, into the mind of my Maker. He was going to be up all night anyway. Piece by piece, I explained what was on my mind and why, and then I left them with Him, trusting that whatever portions thereof were mine to handle would resurface on my mind when the time to handle them came. Somehow this helped me sleep better and made me less emotional about the issues in my life.

For many months now, the circumstances of my daily schedule had me busy at that time of day, and so I wasn’t doing it. Monday, a huge issue arose, and because of a change in circumstances, I was able to resume the Daily Download this week. It has helped immensely to keep my focus and spare my energy as I remain burdened by this particular trial.

The Daily Download came as an idea from a conversation with an ecclesiastical leader. One night, I asked him how he dealt with all the burdens ladled on him by other people, and he told me that he took them to God every night and handed them over, trusting that God would give him back the portions that were his to handle. So, I resolved to make it a habit of my own, and for years it has meant better sleep, better responses, and a nice evening ritual to settle down at the end of the day.

Many people go to bed agitated for some reason or another. We watch a favorite show or take in some news or we rush home to get into bed or we’re rushing members of our households into bed before we crash ourselves. Sleep is more than prone repose with our eyes closed; it is supposed to be a rest period to recharge the body, and if we keep the mind burdened while we sleep, we will find that we rarely awake rested. I have found that, since I endeavor to exercise daily, the rest matters even more because I need to recharge my body after the workout as well as have energy sufficient to get out of bed at 530AM, something that is not likely if I stay up late or if I go to bed agitated.

I enjoy the Daily Download because it gives me a cleaner slate and helps me declutter the Hard Drive of my mind. I clear out things that I may not need and then only take back up in the morning the things that are urgent, important, or both. I enjoy the chance to meditate and converse with God at the end of the day and think about how well I did that day as I give what amounts to a daily accounting of my activities and stewardship. Sure, I welcome having the distractions of children and a spouse, but since I have neither concrete family nor strong prospects at the moment, it becomes a time for reflection and introspection, something I think most of us could certainly make useful work.

Scouting Tragedy

Share

Like a group of LDS Boy Scouts, I went hiking on Saturday morning during the extreme temperatures. Unlike the scouts, we didn’t reach our destination before turning back. You see, the ultimate goal of every hike is to return safely back to the car, and I am more than willing to turn back before the goal rather than take the risk. Unfortunately for one of the leaders, this group made a different choice.

Scouting exists to teach boys how to make choices. Sometimes, it’s a better choice to do something else, go somewhere else, or turn back. My friend and I, after two miles, were down to half our water and turned back rather than regret hiking. Years ago, I quit running in a half marathon at 11 miles because my knee hurt, and I knew that if I pushed it I might need many weeks or months to recover. By June, my friend and I never go hiking down at Lake Mead; by July, we only go hiking at Mt. Charleston where the high is 85 and where you can get water at a resort or out of the creek if necessary. I only go to the hot springs in the fall and winter; it’s not refreshing or inviting when the air temperature is 112F. I learned to do differently my second summer in Vegas. We went hiking to this same hot springs in May but left too late in the day. I was the only person who brought a flashlight, and our progress meant we still had a few miles to walk in the dark. One hiker tripped and sprained her ankle, and I ended up carrying her the last mile on my back. Of course, I was the only one who had any water, so I shared what I had to keep the rest going, knowing that I was in the best shape of the group. I got lucky.

Over the past few years, I have seen a shift from scouting skills to entertaining the boys. The local troop based out of my congregation plans summer camping trips to the Valley of Fire or summer hikes in the Grand Canyon, both of which I find incredibly ill-advised. Years ago, another group planned a trip to Yosemite in May, unaware and uninterested in the fact that snow would prohibit their plans and that their delay in commitment left them unable to procure a backwoods permit. They go shoot guns and on high adventure without first teaching scouts the skills to successfully accomplish the venture. Some of these outings are very ambitious, and the boys come to rely on the expertise of leaders. Just because you make testosterone, grow a beard, and sire children doesn’t mean you are prepared or qualified to lead boys into the wilderness. Out there, it can become survival of the fittest, and the wilderness doesn’t care if you’re attractive.

It’s very sad to lose this leader, and it’s sad about how this will create backlash against congregational affiliations with the scouts. However, the BSA has gone far from where it was when Lord Baden Powell founded it, and I think we’ve lost more than electrolytes, the trail, and a leader. We’ve really lost sight, lost vision, and lost our way in what we mean scouting to mean. What is the purpose anymore? Back in my day, scouting was to “keep physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight”. It existed to teach us how to be self-reliant, prepared for eventualities, and plan well. Today it seems like everything is hasty and superfluously assembled and revolves around trinkets and beads; my dad told me about an activity organized out of his congregation where the focalpoint of excitement was that they were going out to Lake Mead (which is usually 5F hotter than Vegas) to make chili cheese fries. Excuse me? When did that become relevant to scouting? I’ve been around Lake Mead, and although I don’t know everything about it, I know these trails, these areas, and the risks.

One of the greatest lessons I learned as a scout was to stay within your means. As my skills and abilities increased, I was able to go further, traverse more challenging terrain, and visit things I never could as a beginner. This tragedy is tragic because it doesn’t look like they considered the risks and rewards and abilities of everyone involved. In an era of GPS, how did they not know where they were? In an environment such as this, why did they split up? Considering the age and fitness level of the scouts, why this hike at this time of year under these conditions? I am sorry for the loss of a leader, and I can only hope that the boys learn to be wiser when they become adults. The city had cooling stations up during the heat, and yet too often we try to be macho and end up six feet under.

Wanderings in the Desert

Share

For the greater part of my adult life, I have lived in the Nevada desert. I spend a great deal of my time exploring that desert, photographing its scenery, and sharing with people of its beauty and opportunities. The people who eked out a living here fascinate me, because they came here on the promise of precious things to be found in a place where nobody else wanted to go, and I stay here because I have found precious things in my own efforts. Mostly, I enjoy the desert because it is sparsely populated; most people don’t want to pay the price to come here and make something great.

Over the past week, I have thought a lot about Moses. I know this may come as a shock to people who don’t think I’m a Christian or that I believe in the Bible. I have come, over the last year, to appreciate Moses more as someone with whom I can empathize, not for the great memorable things he did but for the things he did that made those other things possible. You see, Moses crossed the Sinai TWICE. First, he was thrown out of Egypt and left to die in the desert. While there, as Cecil B DeMille tells us, he was purified like God purifies all of his prophets, from the man he was to the man God intended him to be, and I realized that, although I don’t see burning bushes and the like, my wanderings in the desert have done the same for me. The second time Moses crossed Sinai, it was after he did many mighty miracles before Pharaoh, and he must have been frustrated because the people still didn’t get with the program. Their plight escalated as Pharaoh forced them to make bricks without straw and then threatened to kill their firstborn, and it seemed all hope was lost when Pharaoh’s army caught them by the Red Sea. Even after their shenanigans, Moses said, “Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” He loved them. He is one of my heroes.

My life in the desert has not been easy, but it has been good for me. So maybe I wasn’t a slave, but I have had to buy my way out of bondage and trust in God for deliverance from troubling people with whom I once worked closely. I have been betrayed by friends and attacked by people who envy me. I’ve crossed the Nevada desert many times in my car, and I have seen the hand of God in mighty mountains and summer storms and blooming flowers. You need not suppose I have seen great manifestations, but then again I am not called to be a prophet or perhaps ready for it even if that is my destiny. I have learned that life is made rich, not in the accumulation of large nuggets, but in the patient accumulation of tiny flakes. I have learned that wandering in the desert is made useful not at great speed but when we get out of our cars and take single steps into a larger universe of possibility. I thank God for this education and for His deliverance as I have struggled in the wilderness that we call Nevada.

While those around me are prospered, I have struggled in faith and fidelity to the things my parents taught me. I have learned that compensation doesn’t always come in the paycheck or when I like or even in this life, I have learned that the Law of the Harvest applies, and that we truly reap what we sow. Many of those who resist my rise are themselves miserable, and every advantage they gain by their miscreantism has not sufficed to make them happy or whole. Perhaps it frustrates them all the more to see that they are unsuccessful in bringing me down, and that in some case I rise as a consequence of their attacks. I remember that the Egyptians relied on centuries of slave labor to build that over which we drool as tourists; I also remember that when Israel left Egypt, they spoiled it and took their wages in cattle, food, and other trinkets. In the end, although they didn’t get Egypt, they did spoil the land, and they inherited a wonderful Land of Promise so desirable that neighbor nations still envy them today the bountiful land of israel they came to inhabit.

I thank God for scriptures and the experiences contained therein that help us make decisions that build in us a better character. These people learned that they can accomplish difficult things, and they learned that it is the Lord who is the difference, that no matter what they do or how poorly a modern Moses may exercise God’s power that God’s work will be done, that it will be done well, and that it will be done on time, and that those who help His work will inherit the good of the land. Scripture teaches us that, even if you are forced to “make bricks without straw”, those who trust in God will be led to a Land of Promise. The simple secret is to trust God and do your best. No matter how much we fear it, if we are actively engaged in doing our honest best, we can’t screw up God’s plan or His will for us. Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, but in the end they conquered when they trusted God. I look forward to learning, when He leads me from the desert, where my Jericho will be, knowing that, if I follow His counsel, my shouts of Hosanna will make me triumphant as it did for the men of Joshua.