Message of Zarephath

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For almost all of my life, Elijah has been one of my favorite prophets. When I don’t know what else to read in the scriptures, I read about him, because I empathize with him the most and because it gives me hope. You see, I feel a lot about myself like Elijah felt about himself, and God blessed him despite his personality and self-deprecation. I hope that God will do for me what He did for Elijah, and moreso I hope that Elijah’s promises to us will be true for me as well.

Elijah appears suddenly and dramatically from nowhere. He immediately has a courageous conversation with King Ahab and comes under duress for commanding this wicked king to repent. Last Sunday my father asked me to consider that I am stonewalled in life directly because I also challenge the GOBNet. It is possible that they are doing things on purpose to make sure that I make as little progress as possible. This is where the promises of Elijah begin.

Like Elijah, I have said hard things to people who believed themselves to be the moral and legal authority. Men in positions of earthly power may not know my name, but they know that I stood up to them when they tried to do things that were without virtue. Each time I go do this, I pray that God will help me after I put what I have at risk to tilt at windmills of the world. Usually, the consequences are paltry, and although I am not elevated, I am at least not punished. A woman I know asked me yesterday why I would do this, and I told her “people always say that someone should do something, and that’s what I’m doing. Rather than wait for someone else, I’m doing something” and then I trust that God will sustain me too.

God provided for Elijah and for all of those who sustained the prophet. Having risked everything to witness for God before a wicked king, Elijah was homeless, penniless, and friendless, doomed to wander about in a land beset by dearth and famine begging for sustenance. Enter the widow of Zarephath. God commands Elijah to go there and find a widow woman from whom he can gain sustenance. Although the scriptures tell us that God commanded this woman to provide for Elijah, when Elijah arrives she seems unaware of this commandment and resists him. Elijah then gives her this challenge with a promise: Make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. In other words, if you give to God first, He will make sure that you always have enough of what you actually need to live a good life.

My very first month as a missionary in Austria, I was left with a single Austrian shilling to my name. I keep it on the bookshelf in the living room to remind myself that God has always given me enough. He always makes sure that I have what I need and in a manner that it cannot be taken from me. God’s promise of Zarapheth is not that we will be wealthy or have enough with which to glut ourselves or that things will be peachy keen but that there will be enough to give us an abundance of life.

From there the story continues with the same promise. When the widow’s son dies, Elijah goes before the Lord concerned for this surprising turn in the life of the widow woman. Elijah brings the son back to life and restores him to his mother before going on his way. We may not always have what we like when we like or the way we like, but if we give God first, He always restores to us life. God constantly commands us to prove and trust and exercise faith by giving Him something. The promise comes that He is bound when we do what He says, and that when the time is right we will have all that He promised. The Law of the Harvest teaches us that we reap what we sow, and so if we have not reaped today what we sowed, some day we must.

I sometimes find it difficult to trust God. He asks me regularly to sacrifice something dear to me or simply allows the adversary to take it away from me. I try to remember in those moments that that is my lesson- the lesson of Zarapheth. Give God first, and there will not only be enough, but I will not have to worry about it when there is room enough to receive. Make me a little cake first, and I promise you in the name of God that He will sustain you. Like Abraham tells Isaac, the Lord will provide. There was no logical way to keep Elijah’s promise, but it was kept, and Elijah ate until the famine subsided. If we go and do as the widow from Zarapheth, there will be oil and meal in our cruse enough to sustain us and give us an abundant life.

Despite the miracles he saw and wrought, Elijah struggled after that widow woman. Eventually he would ask God to kill him and take him home because things just weren’t turning out well for anyone. He probably blamed himself and felt a poor vessel to do these things for God. Neal A Maxwell wrote in “Deposition of a Disciple” that “God gives the shovels and picks to the chosen because they are willing to roll up their sleeves and get dirty. They may not be the most capable, but they are the most available” and that’s why they are chosen. I don’t know why things happen. I don’t pretend to have the ability to conceptualize God’s plan. I have seen Him bless me that my oil and meal sufficed. Somehow I find the strength every day to keep moving forward and not quit despite disappointments and setbacks. For some reason, He chooses to ask me and allow me to talk about Him with all who will listen even when they lose things they love in order to comply with His commandments.

The message of Zarapheth is to trust God up front and the promise will come. Everywhere Elijah went, he was taken care of and those who supported him had their needs met too. When God inspires you to do something, be something, or say something, you should go and act on that inspiration knowing that He sustains His servants. When we try to run like Jonah, all we do is postpone possibilities for the blessings God promises. When we resist like Ahab, eventually we meet with ruin and rejection by those mortals or idols on whom we rely instead. Eventually, every man must make the leap from the lion’s head and first make a cake for God, because only those can drink from the cup of eternal life who learned to listen to Him who fills it. The message of Zarapheth is clear- if you want to really live, trust God, patiently wait, and follow the direction of His servants.

Love and Addictions

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Many people when they fall out of love fall into a dreadful melancholy. Bars fill regularly with patrons who go there to drink away the pain of lost loves and to find a partner for the night. I have seen and heard people talk about how they're in a relationship with alcohol, and some of them reach a point where they cannot function without it. I know the feeling of loss, when something you love is taken from you, and I know the confusion that results when suddenly part of you vanishes. I think that these two phenomenon, drugs and love, are related, because I know a little about chemistry. I think there is a scientific basis for substance abuse when our affections are abused by people who claim to love us only to vanish and redact their representations.

Our bodies don't really recognize anything other than matter and light. Our eyes pick up on light, and our cells pick up on compatible chemistry. I sometimes joke with my students that it's actually true when you say "there was no chemistry between us", because we know that taste and smell are chemistry and a matter of preference. Our type might be nothing more than the pheromones another person produces being highly compatible with the receptors on our own cells. This would account for and literally justify the term taste, because it shows that based on chirality or other kinds of isomerism one person likes different things than you do. I believe there is a chemical basis for relationships. It would explain some couples that make no other sense to me. They are literally chemically compatible, and that's all there is to it.

The trouble with chemistry and receptors is that we eventually build up tolerance for exposure. To maintain the response, we require more and more in order to elicit the same response or the same degree of response. This might be why people turn to affairs and fantasy as a way to restore the heightened sensations. It certainly is why people turn to drugs- to get high. In fact, I suspect most people get into drugs as a compensatory mechanism for a lack of love in their lives. Years ago, I told my students that you don't really enjoy anything that you do. You like those things because they lead to an increase in dopamine and serotonin, which are perceived by brain receptors as "pleasurable". Falling in love causes biochemical changes affecting the levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is also increased from a dose of cocaine, an exciting sporting event, eating a food you really enjoy, or a myriad of other experiences, and our brains get addicted to it. The difference is that love does it without harmful side effects. What you feel when you're in love is the sensation of euphoria.

When relationships end, our brain still craves the euphoria. So, we binge eat on "comfort foods" that create the dopamine release, and we desperately engage in activities to include rebound relationships to selfishly "get a fix" of "love". Some people turn to drugs, because they know that some of them as aforementioned can give them the high that they seek without the pain of a lost love. Others continue to seek opportunities to "couple" because it simulates the chemical release. They must go from stranger to stranger, damaging them in their wake too, in order to slake their lusts. We are addicted, and we don't know how to handle it.

In my experience this is most common when the relationship ends unilaterally. Although the other person took time to wean themselves off you, they have not given you the opportunity to walk yourself back from the chemical connection. In fact, this is probably why God advises man and women to cleave to each other, because the physical association between a couple strengthens their bond until it finally grows enough strength to sever the bonds between one spouse and their parents. We build a new chemical association, and when our significant other suddenly cuts off the supply we go into the same type of withdrawal as we might coming off any other drug because we are addicted to them.

Perhaps it is intended this way to keep people together. This tends to create a stable environment for kids, a consistent environment for finances, and a place of comfort for each member of the couple, finding comfort in each other during times of trial and exponential increases in euphoria when we have good news. We make a new chemical connection, and if it remains strong, nurtured, and consistent, we are supplied with the stimulus our cells demand and continue striving with one another. Almost every couple I know that failed as a couple failed when they stepped back intimacy in one way or another and switched it to another person. We are supposed to get attached to one another because that stabilizes the basic unit of society- the family, husband and wife, chemically, legally, and lawfully together and regularly so. I know there is experimental evidence for attraction. I suspect that's how we stay in love too, by consistent chemical reactions that reaffirm our physiological need for one another as well as the esoteric. We are addicted to love. May we learn to look for it in the right places- the places or persons rather to whom we commit ourselves when we admit to them and to ourselves that we love another person enough to be with them always and in all ways.

Happy Accidents

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After the first three miles hiking yesterday, my friend and I took a wrong turn. Rather than an additional two miles after the summit towards which we thought we were headed, we ended up on a path that took us another six miles up to the peak at Mt. Charleston. Since the weather was nice and we were making good time, we decided to press on anyway and see if we could do it. It turned out that we were able to make the 18 mile round trip hike in about seven hours, which is less than another gentleman said it took him, and as a consequence of this happy accident I now know that my pioneer progenitors would be proud. Not many people can do that in a day.

Many great things were discovered by accident. America, velcro, and just how much I love eating figs were all things that people found while looking for something else. Most of the people I know insist that I will "find the right woman when I'm not looking", which seems kind of paradoxical, but most of the women who dated me found me before I found them. I told many of my one-time acquaintances that we only met as a happy accident of the fact that my life hasn't turned out how I planned. Many people think that I'm stupid to plan, but I think that's mostly because they don't like to make plans, to make promises, and then be tied to those things.

Contrary to popular belief I am spontaneous. Although I hike 44 Saturdays per year, and this trip was planned, we didn't really decide on a trail until we were within striking distance of any trails. Even once we got on the trail, we decided to go further because we weren't tired and because we made it up 3 miles in an hour on the roughest part of the trail- the initial uphill switchbacks. I once told an ex-girlfriend who detested that I wasn't sufficiently spontaneous that "I like to have my spontaneity planned well in advance." We played it by ear and went where we never had been before under spectacular weather and accomplished something that made everyone we passed on the trail swoon in awe of the speed at which we made our ascent.

We even learned a few things we didn't know. We learned that we were hiking too fast for our bodies to compensate. With the change in oxygen and pressure, we actually started to bruise as the contents of our blood vessels leaked into our tissues since it wasn't kept inside the vessels anymore. We learned that the speed at which we made the ascent put strain on our epithelium, and as we came down my nose began to bleed. We learned that even when it's 95F in the valley, there's a reason why there's still snow up on the peak, where it was below freezing. We wore fewer clothing than anyone. We learned that most people don't do this in a day- they camp. We learned that it was something we could do- go 9 miles up and down again and change elevation 3500 feet, and still drive home without crashing. We learned of what we were capable.

Most of life's events aren't that dramatic or impressive, but they do show us of what we are capable. I can recollect many happy accidents that were mostly happy because they taught me impressive things about myself. At 35, I look handsome, athletic, and successful, and in almost every way except age I am better off than at any other time in my adult life. I remember my first hike and how much it almost killed me to go 5 miles with a backpack on up 1500 feet in elevation, and now I think back and realize just how far I have come since the age of 13. I tell my students that sometimes the unexpected things are the most interesting, because we do know many things by happy accident. Robert Frost wrote of the road less traveled. Lots of people think they are on it, but most of them are not. The road less traveled is obviously less traveled, just like we could tell a change in the path up near the peak.

If you do today what others won't, tomorrow you'll be able to do what others can't. There are consequences to our choices, but we often find that good things happen by accident when we do what we are supposed to, when we attempt that of which we might be capable. Most people in national parks don't go far on the trails even if they leave their cars, and so they don't have happy accidents like last year when we hiked to Emma Matilda lake in the Tetons. It's not that far away, but most people don't even find out, because they aren't willing to do what it takes. Sure, they may claim to be spontaneous, but most of the youth who talk about being spontaneous are actually doing the same old things every day hoping for different results. Happy accidents occur when you push beyond and test yourself. You find out who you really are by going a little further, doing a little more, trying something a little different. It's not usually found in radical reformation but in gradual modulation. When Jay and I went up the trail, I remember saying, "Let's go to that outcropping and see how we feel", and it was piece by piece, yard by yard, that we ascended the peak.

There is no easy way to ascend the heights of life. They take work, dedication, and sweat. They require you to actually put your best foot forward time and time again and go where others refuse to go. The best happy accident of life for me has been in discovering things about myself that please me, finding out that I can do things and that I am things considered praiseworthy by others. Although there may be no easy way, there is the path in which you are true to what you desire most. If you choose that, it will be worth it. How long halt you between two opinions? A large part of Christ's incarnation appears to have been this message: when a choice is placed before you, choose love. Do what you love. Choose whom you love. Be what you love. Show love. One of the best pieces of advice a stranger gave me was this: "spend your life doing what you love, and let God bring your mate to you". When you truly do what love requires, that's when the happy accidents come.

Appearing to Care

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Those who do things to be seen of men usually do things to be seen of men. Sure, they tell you that they care, but most of the time they are more interested in appearing to care than doing things that actually provide care. They want credit for compassion without having to sweat to earn it, and most of what they do doesn’t amount to much. People who really care will try to keep it secret, because people who really care don’t care who gets the credit.

I remember helping to build the Grapevine Springs Park in 89121 in Vegas. At the time, I was too young to use a chainsaw, so I went around trimming trees with a hand saw. Some local politician showed up, not to help, but to appear on camera, and when the cameraman found me and watched me instead, she inserted herself into the frame to take the attention. I never actually saw her DO any work, yet she wanted credit for making the park, and I think she was very disappointed when it wasn’t named after her. You see, it wasn’t about us having a park. It wasn’t about the people. It was about her getting the limelight for something other people actually accomplished.

“At least she cares,” they will cry when politicians endorse a project “for the public good”. Yet, most of their efforts are relatively vacuous and ineffective. Despite the hashtags, the girls in Nigeria are still captive. Despite the benefit concerts, AIDS still kills people in Africa. Despite the number of likes on Facebook, children are still hungry, nations are still at war, and people are still unemployed. If they really wanted to do something, the people who champion these causes could do something immediately and powerfully. They want to get credit without doing work, and they want you to do the work so that they can unjustly take credit for things they didn’t actually do. Many of these people are rich enough they could do something for many people. No matter how much they say they care, their bank accounts tell another story.

The true measure of a man is how he treats those who can do nothing for him. Well, most advocates go out and promise pelf to people who prop them up. Politicians do it with votes; employers do it with raises and benefits; monarchs do it with land and titles; parents sometimes do it with candy. Whatever the situation, it’s all bribery, because most of the people in power are their own favorite constituent, beneficent and beneficiary. We love ourselves more than we love our neighbors. I know this because we will give gifts to strangers while we rush at the option to stick our grandparents in a retirement home. I know this because we rush to do favors for coworkers and groan when our kids need our help. I know this because we flirt with other people and yell at our spouse. All of those validate OUR worth.

Most of the people who need help do not receive it because they can’t do anything for the giver. What can homeless people or sick people or unemployed people do for politicians? Besides voting, they don’t usually have any money, and most of them aren’t really important outside their meager sphere of influence. If politicians really cared about people with autism, muscular dystrophy, cancer, or about people who can’t find a job or afford a home or can’t get care in the Veteran’s Hospital, they would spend time with them and know their names. Instead, they care about nameless faceless hordes and put illegal aliens over citizens, because the aliens can make sure that the politicians permanently retain power. I know people who suffer from these things, and not to toot my own horn, I do things for them.

Rather than posting to facebook and twitter or putting on benefits, these people should get in the trenches. They don’t because there are no cameras at the shelter or in the trauma ward or at the family dinner table. They want to be seen, they want to get credit, and they want to be able to say “what a good boy am I!” When they do give, they do so as the rich men decried by Jesus who cast in of their abundance in a manner that people noticed, so people would recognize them as great and noble and wonderful. If hashtags really worked, I’d just post things to twitter that I wanted much like children wish on stars, write letters to santa, etc. If these people really cared, they have power to do something. The first lady could have called her husband to act rather than holding up a placard with a hashtag. The celebrities could go donate money rather than holding a concert to collect donations from you. They have the power, but they want to have the credit and keep their power too (there are some exceptions).

Rather than give money through organizations that draw attention to charity, be the miracle in your neighborhood. We all have neighbors and friends and family who could benefit from our help. Yes, strangers may need new dentures, a job, or rescue from Special Forces. However, we also have family members in poor health, neighbors in financial duress, and strangers on the road who might need rescue, even if they just need their spare tire installed or a jump. When I tell you about times I do these things, it’s because the only examples I have are my own. I didn’t do them to get credit or because those people had something they could give me. I was there, and they needed my help, and I do not believe in coincidence. Beware when politicians speak of principles of faith and charity, because they do so usually not because they really mean it but because they hope you do. I hope you do too. Some poor sailor, temptest-tossed, trying now to reach the harbor in the darkness may be lost. Let the lower lights keep burning, send a gleam across the wave. Some poor struggling, fainting seaman you may rescue YOU may help save.

From King to Queen’s Pawn

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When I tell stories about the women I dated, people ask me “where do you find these women?” Truth is that for the most part I don’t; usually they find me. I have only pursued one woman who consented to date me without being interested in me first. This is one major reason why I don’t go out and why I don’t ask for numbers and why I am not sure I’ll go bowling tonight. You see, even women know that people make time for things and people that matter, and eventually I get the message when they ignore my messages and avoid me.

Perhaps some of them do this to see just how interested I am. Well, I don’t have an infinite amount of time, and even if I’m not doing something more important, I prefer to do other things than continually fish in an empty pond. Women who want you to woo them make efforts to encounter you, so if they ignore me, I write them off. I’m not a pawn. I’m a King, and if they want to be treated by their mate like a Queen, then they need to treat me like a King. I don’t want to be someone for whom anyone settles, and so if I’m not your primary interest, I’m not interested in playing the game. I am certainly not going to stick around as your last resort.

Most of the women I attempted to date made it clear to me that they were interested in me before I ever asked them out. Although they might not have acted consciously to get my attention, their actions evinced an interest and a willingness to welcome my affectations. The problem I had with this was that since they decided when and if a relationship started, apparently they felt like it lay within their power to decide unilaterally when it ended. They told me what I wanted to hear, and then they took it back when they decided to change their mind. However, this proved true in the case of the woman I pursued as well. She was persuaded to date me after her sister and mother laid out the case for me, and when different siblings and her mother sang a different song, she was convinced to part ways with me too. Although men may pursue, ultimately the woman chooses.

Dating is like a game of chess. The Queen is the most powerful and diverse piece, able to do more than any other piece in the game, but the King is the piece on which the game ultimately revolves. Although the Queen may seem to have all the power, when the man vanishes, the game ends. Far too often, women want to play games and see if we’ll chase them or test our love or see if we’ll sacrifice things, not because they want those things but because they want to test us. Usually, they don’t even tell us that it is a test until it’s over, and most of those are tests I apparently failed.

More often than not in my observation, flirtation is less about you than it is about the person flirting. I constantly hear women say “I still have it” when they don’t want the guy, they just want to be desirable to the guy. Maybe this is why so many men become jerks, because they get tired of being led on, shat upon, and left behind and lash out to get even. Maybe this is why so many people have affairs and NSA situations, because they don’t care about anyone’s value except their own. Well, I’m not going to do that, but I’m certainly not going to be a pawn just because you’re a queen.

The comparison to chess has to do with the reaction of the man involved. If you are devalued from your actual worth in the game, many men withdraw from playing. Most women are not pretty enough to be as mean as they are, particularly since I have nothing to do with the menstrual cycle. Most women are not sufficiently worthy of wow for me to subjugate myself to them all the time for any reason they imagine. The king may not be the most important piece, but he is critical to the game, and so if you’re not going to treat me as important, don’t be surprised when I don’t want to play. Whatever game you play, no matter what you bring to the table, and no matter who you are, if the man leaves, the games end.

We are important too. We are no more meant to be pawns than women are to be less than men. I tell women that I date, not that it matters, that I follow the following guildeline:

Woman was not taken from the head of man to be above him or from beneath his foot to be trampled on by him. She was taken from his side to be equal to him, from under his arm to be protected by him, from near his heart to be loved by him.

In my forthcoming book “Men Without Chests”, I explain why there are “no good men left”. Some of them got lucky and found a good woman, so single women can’t find them. The rest remove themselves from the pool of good men. Most of them become jerks because they watch women pick men that use and abuse them, and the rest give up trying and do their own thing because they can’t find a real life partner. Treat others how you want to be treated. If you want to matter, treat me like I do too. If you want the royal treatment, you must also give it.

Motivated to Learn Spanish

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I went to the DMV this morning on my state mandated furlough day to register my newer car. After standing in line this morning, I finally have motivation to learn Spanish. Until now, I resisted it because I felt that I was enabling them if I didn’t encourage them to learn English. Now, I feel like I’m enabling them because they use it clandestinely for purposes contrary to civil society, and I want them to know that just because I’m Nordic doesn’t mean I don’t know what they’re doing.

During most of the half hour I stood there, I listened to the two women behind me comment on other people in line. Although I know barely any Spanish, I know enough Italian and enough about laughter to know that they were mocking and commenting on everyone and everything around them with a derrogatory aire. When I turned around to take a closer look, I couldn’t figure for the life of me how they get off condescendingly judging everyone around them. They don’t look healthy or pretty or successful. I guess they’re just bitter and like most bullies find it helpful to lift themselves up by putting others down.

Shortly before they finally let us in, a woman came down the line repeating the same opening line asking if people spoke Spanish. True to form, when she came to me, she walked right on by. I was profiled, and I felt it somewhat racist that she just assumed that the fellow in front of me and I didn’t speak Spanish because we were white (he looks like Irish ancestry to me). I didn’t catch much of it, but it was canvassing, which I’m pretty sure is not allowed on public property like that, but she didn’t care because it was in Spanish, and none of us complained. If I did this in line and only spoke with people who spoke English, they would decry it as profiliing and racist. Apparently it’s compassionate to balkanize people as long as you’re not white.

After many years owning three levels of Rosetta Stone for Spanish, I’m finally motivated to start. I want to know what they’re doing, and I don’t necessarily want them to know I understand them. Like these women, they will probably assume I don’t speak Spanish because I’m white, sort of like the French tourist in Innsbruck figured he could avoid talking to me by saying in French that he only spoke French. Unfortunately for him, I spoke some French.

How can we be one people if we continue to do things that draw lines of separation between us and our neighbors? How can this people expect to coalesce around the common civil good until we have things in common? How can we possibly be equal if we continue to allow these things to render us anything but equal? I find it expressly repugnant that so many of our leaders talk about inclusion while practicing policies that lead to exclusion instead. My Faith may add a second Spanish ward to our building. While I understand for the elderly patrons of the Faith, most of the youth are bilingual and don’t need it. There are no Danish congregations or Gaelic ones or German ones in this nation, because my ancestors became one with their neighbors rather than setting up enclaves.

When I lived in Austria, I was motivated to learn German so that I would not have to depend on others who spoke my language. Unlike this country, there aren’t as many native English speakers in Austria, and so it served me well to do so. President Gerald Roth of the Salzburg Stake paid me a great compliment by speaking to me in German because he knew my German was fluent enough that I would understand, something I never saw him do with any other missionary from America. I find it sad that these people refuse to join us but have the benefits of our society, and I was offended to listen to them mock others openly thinking that nobody saw them in secret. Be warned. El gato no manejah el carro.

Using Time Well

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Each of us has a finite and fixed amount of time to live, and that is probably for the best. When the movie “In Time” came out, I eagerly went to see it, to see how they handled the fact that we trade our life to do things. Perhaps that’s what annoys me about so many disappointing episodes of my life, because they appear to be nothing more than wasted time when I look back. It’s not usually my fault, and so in essence someone else wasted my life. That is my right and responsibility to live my life as I decide, not theirs.

Since coming to work in academia, I have seen two hiring committees waste everyone’s time and money. The first was the search for a new president for my institution. I recall hearing one of the candidates irately ask that if they never intended to hire someone besides the temporary person in that position, why did they list the job? He and another fellow wasted time and money flying out for tours and interviews, when ultimately they were never really going to be considered. Even I received a rejection letter two years ago that I now understand essentially says “We’re sorry you applied, because you’re the best candidate, but we always intended to keep the temporary incumbent”. They got my hopes up, wasted days off I took to go for interviews, and ultimately chose someone who was not necessarily the best for the position. This will waste the time and money of the community and the students whenever we do not provide people who do the best job they can for the pay we offer.

Friday night, I actually got stood up for a date. As I put away things that I put together in preparation of this event, it annoyed me even more. I took time to ask, I took time to prepare, and I got emotionally invested in hope only to reverse my preparations and render twice the amount of time as useless work. When I sit down to waste time, that’s one thing. When you make a decision that renders my work useless when all things being equal it should have been productive, you essentially stole my time. For this reason, I continue to nurture relationships I already have in favor of fishing expeditions for new friends or lovers, because I know that it will bear fruit rather than speculate in “what might be”.

Unfortunately, much time and money is wasted because of fear and inadequacy. I think the GOBNet in academia is afraid to hire someone who makes them look stupid, who doesn’t play by the rules, and who shakes up the fiefdom they built for themselves. I think that many relationships fail because people fear and decide to abandon what they built. I just told another professor today something I told the last woman I dated: “Do not let fear of what might happen prevent you from discovering what will”. It might not be good, but if you quit then you have accomplished nothing at all.

I try to carefully use my time investing it in things that I think will make my life richer. I try to share things because enjoying them with someone is greater than doing it because I can. I cannot go back, and I cannot do things over, and I cannot change what has been. Time marches onward, and it became what I made of it. Some of you are special to me, and some of you still are. The fact that things change is what made spending time with you special, memorable, because it brought joy to living and meaning to time. Each time I felt it was well spent, it enriched my life. I thought I was investing more time in my future than appears to be the case.

For this reason, I rededicated my life and my time and my blog to the philosophical. There are things that are quite frankly not worth our time and effort. Matters of faith always have been for me. They buoy us up when we feel weak, and they give us courage when our hope grows dim, and they comfort us when we hurt. I lay in the other room just a while ago and felt the presence of my God reassure me that things will be ok, that I will reap what I sowed, even if it doesn’t happen until after I die. “Also it is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation and to all the pure in heart, for there are many yet on the earth among all parties, sects and denominations who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of man, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it. Wherefore that we should waste and wear out our lives bringing to light the hidden things of darkness wherein we know them, that they are truly manifest from heaven…”

I returned from a mission to Austria in June 2000 feeling very much a failure, that those two years had been a complete waste of time. In speaking with my cousin this Saturday, I realized that if nothing else it showed me that I mean what I say and live what I believe. I went forth with faith, served with valour, and returned with honour. Everyone at the airport, although they could tell I was worn out, when I walked off the plane knew that a valiant warrior had returned home having done everything in his power to do what he ought. I hope, despite my mistakes and weaknesses and laziness, that when I return home to the presence of God He will consider the time I spent a valuable investment. I hope that in continuing to do this and be me I will end up magnifying what few talents He gave me when He asks for a final accounting.

When you come before your Maker, each of you will have to account for the use of time, talents, and gifts given you by God. At that time, you cannot say that virtue was inconvenient at the time, that someone else made you do it, or that someone else is at fault. Even when the people who move you be kings or men of power, your soul is in your keeping alone. Fads and whims change, and so they do not give virtue to choice. Virtue comes when we do what we ought. Until you move yourself, you are playing another man’s game, living another man’s life, using your time to serve another man’s plan. Unless you are living your own life and living it well, you are wasting the greatest privilege given to you- to exist. Remember that many unborn children never have this privilege and that many more never become cognizant of their existence before disease or hunger claim them. You have a gift of time. Use it well.

Paid What We're Worth?

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Several times this week, I heard people assert that you are worth what someone is willing to pay you. I have several problems with this false premise. I bet you do too. For some people, I think this is used as a crutch, and for others, I think it's a grouse, but whatever camp in which you fall, I think it misunderstands the fact that things are not equal. There is really only one way for men to always be equal, and that is to be miserable, poor, and enslaved. The contest that animates life is one of struggle and work. That's what God told Adam to expect- by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread all the days of thy life.

If we buy the premise that pay equates with value, we ignore history. Besides the sordid episode in American history during which the British instituted slavery in what became the United States, slavery has existed for millenia. Even last week, some Nigerians kidnapped young girls intending to sell them into slavery. They will sell for a small and probably paltry price, and by this faulty logic, that's all they are worth. Historically, most money was concentrated in the aristocracy and with the powermongers because they were willing to pillage and raid in order to take what others had. Pirates might have been rich, but they are not the most worthy of us. The crusades enriched the Vatican, but many of those who pillaged Jerusalem became godless by committing atrocities. Highwaymen are not noble or sexy, and as much as women wanted to sleep with King John Lackland, it was more about power than about virtue. Your wage has never really equated with your true value.

If we buy the premise that pay equates with value, we ignore the present. Many of you probably fall into the camp that insists that CEOs don't deserve that much money, that they should pay higher wages. However, many CEOs are paid because they enlarge the value of the company, which is actually their job. The rest are paid because they are part of the GOBNet. People rise to positions of power and then reward their friends for helping them get there. I was rejected two years ago for a job in favor of a man of lesser demonstrable ability and credentials who now earns more than I do. Almost all of my coworkers outearn me. If I assumed that my paycheck equated with my value, then I would have to conclude that I am not worth very much. We still have slavery today. How asinine to assume that if I can buy someone for 12 pounds sterling that they are worth only that, particularly in a nation such as this.

If we buy the premise that pay equates with value, we ignore the future. You have value because of two things beyond your control. First of all, you have value based on what influence your life leaves on other lives, and secondly you have value because you are the child of a God. When Thomas More encouraged Richard Rich to become a teacher instead, he did so on the persuasion that his students and his Maker would be influenced by him. Ultimately Rich still went into politics and testified against More at his trial for treason, but I found something last summer at some eatery I forgot that said, "Teachers are in it for the outcome rather than the income". Yesterday, I read that the moral of "Breaking Bad" is that teachers are underpaid. Yet, women continue to choose firemen and doctors and stock day traders over me because they earn more than I do. They bought the false premise that people are valuable based on their wages. Christ taught that the laborer is worthy of his hire, and at the end of the day, every man receives wages according to his employ. That day is not today for most people; for most of us, it will come when we metriculate to the next plane of existence and return to God's presence to reap what we sowed in this life. Justice will have its day, and if you enjoy today things you did not sow, you will eventually have to pay for them.

Milton Friedman discussed on the Phil Donahue show that society does not reward virtue. Society rewards cronyism. This world rewards people according to the world. It's a quid pro quo arrangement most of the time. You have all heard that 'it's not what you know but who you know', and if that's true, then you are not paid based on your worth. You are rewarded based on your associations rather than your accomplishments. At the same time, many of us talk about the Law of the Harvest and Karma, insisting that we deserve rewards while our enemies deserve punishments. If you rose with the GOBNet, you rose by accident of your birth and associations, not necessarily on your accomplishments.

Almost everyone I know entering today is "settling" for someone or something because they can't seem to get what they want. Faced with a poor job market and rising home prices, most young people cohabitate and "live in sin" or with multiple roommates because they barely eke by. Far too many young people are accepting whoever will have them because they think that's all they deserve. Perhaps you feel that nobody will want you because you are used, because you have failed, because you made a mistake. This is inconsistent with the principles espoused by Christ during His incarnation. Maybe you aren't worth ten cows, but you shouldn't have to pay someone else ten cows to take you. There are people who are still worth ten cows to me because I know who they are, what they offer, who they can be, and what they could deliver. I wait patiently in promise of future rewards. I trust people because I know their divine nature. You have value because you are you, because you are a child of God, not because someone else thinks they can squeeze golden eggs out of you. What you do with your life will return to you, and so if you don't like what you're sending out, now is the time to change it.

Even in science we teach that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you send out good, good returns. If you punish the virtuous in favor of your cronies, do not be surprised when a different person with different cronies punishes you. Historically, it has always been the wicked who punish the wicked, because the wicked gather up things worth stealing. I have very little worth taking or that is for the taking, and so I think people mostly leave me be. Then, I go to work and try very hard to help my students make something great of themselves. However well I may be doing financially, the numbers tell a different story. Nobody seems willing pay ten cows for me. I don't ingratiate myself with them and validate their worth. If you need it from outside, from a paycheck, from a trophy spouse, from a fancy car, or from a lofty title, then it isn't real. If you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it. Do something worthy. The universe will pay you even when men fall short. God will restore, repay, replenish, and reward. No matter what you do, for evil or for good, He who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Stupor of Thought

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This past week, I sat down several times intending to write only to have nothing to say when I started. I even had some “great ideas” that vanished completely from my mind as soon as I sat down to type them out to you. Previously when I felt this, I recognized that sometimes now is not the time to mention things even when you think them. Sometimes, in order to protect me and/or other people, God gives me a stupor of thought, and I forget what I intended to say. I know that if it’s important, I will remember it later.

Shortly after moving to Vegas, I tried to date a woman whom most would consider out of my league. Although persuaded initially to welcome my affectations, later on she decided to look for someone else, someone better, because I didn’t earn enough and wasn’t skinny enough for her. Even after she dumped me, she wanted me to continue to pay to take her out without any expectations, and every time she insisted that doing so was “charitable” and “noble”, I hung up the phone. Several times, I remember being upset, wishing I’d said something that only came to mind after we hung up. One night, she asked me if I had anything else to say, and the phrase popped into my head. “Yes I do,” I announced. “I know I will make a good husband and father. If you think you can do better, good luck and goodbye”. I waited until she hung up and then I hung up, knowing that this was finally the opportune moment.

I attended several events from a particular nincompoop congressman on campus. Before each affair, I prepared my thoughts and wrote down notes only to attend the event without any kind of scripted remarks. Each time I went, the congressman recognized me and opened the door for me to speak, and the things that I remembered were things I decided that needed to be said. Sure, after the fact we all think of things we could have said or ways we could have articulated ourselves better, but I felt pleased because only the things relevant to the moment and subject to inspiration came to mind.

By telling these stories, I’m not implying I have anything in particular to say to anyone, just that you will know when it’s time to say something. In fact, even as I write this, I cannot command the things to return to mind that I forgot! They are still things I should not share apparently. I sometimes ignore promptings to open my mouth, and sometimes I try to force things before their time. However, when the time is right, you will know because it will come to mind and because you will be calm. Far too often, we plan our lives and our conversations so much that we do not leave much room for inspiration and direction. We want to stick to a script, but the other person doesn’t have it, and so we end up deviating anyway, usually to ad lib on our own.

While serving as a missionary in Austria, I remember how Elder Gene R Cook challenged us to allow God to lead our conversations. He asked us to prepare and then leave our notes behind so that our plans didn’t get in the way of what God wants for us. You see, in our arrogance to stick to the crutch of prepared comments, we hush the whisperings of the Holy Spirit when He tries to inspire us to open our mouths. God promised to give us words, to tell us what to say and when, to guide us to our Land of Promise, and when we are about to do something stupid or at a stupid time, sometimes He gives us a Stupor of Thought to protect us. We forget the thing that is not right and cannot recollect it frequently even when we try.

I know it’s hard to trust in something we cannot see, and I also know that it’s much more common than we think. We have never seen our own brains or hearts, but we trust that they are there because we are alive. We have never actually seen the sun because it would burn our eyes if we looked directly at it. We have never seen China, but we buy things made there and worry about military threats from there constantly. Most of us have ever really seen a plague or famine, but we sent money and other aid to people suffering from them. We take many things on faith. We say that "everything happens for a reason" only to discount and dismiss those who declare some divine design. It’s time to trust when God stops up our mouths as well that the things that vanish probably ought to remain forgotten. Like CS Lewis, “I believe in God as I believe in the noon-day sun, not that I can see it, but that by it I can see everything.” I do not have to see the sun to know that it is there, and I do not have to see the Son to know that He is too.

One of the most important words in all of scripture is the word “remember”. If you remember it, it is important. I tell people all the time that people remember things and people that matter. This is why we take pictures, buy souvenirs, post to Facebutt, reminisce, and thank people. We all know that it is nice to be remembered. The early Christians were urged to keep a record of the membership to keep in remembrance all those who declared themselves disciples. Things we forget are things that do not matter. Some things that do not matter ought also to be forgotten. The rest, well, those things really matter, and those are the things we share and the things we ought to cherish. God left them in your mind for a reason.

Clean Slate

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Change is in the air for me this week. My hiking buddy insists that in order to move forward with a new phase in life you need to clear out the old and make room for the new. To support that notion, when he moved to Vegas, he moved here with nothing at all and started over. In defense of people who are more normal, he still has a lot of stuff in the house he owns in which his eldest daughter lives, but he didn’t bring any of it with him. Old things, while reminiscent, do tend to weigh you down. Last time I reached this point, all loose ends were tied up, and I found myself uprooting and moving to Vegas. It’s possible that I have completed what I was sent here to do as well as I was able.

Often we miss the chance for a clean slate because we fear to start over. We fear to ask people for a chance. We fear to take the plunge and dive into a new albeit unknown situation and trust God. Comfortable with the tranquility of the familiar we sacrifice other opportunities. Afraid of loss, we jealously hang onto what we have. Sometimes, this is wise. Sometimes it’s otherwise. You don’t really know until you take the leap from the lion’s head and trust that a clean state offers a chance to start over and do better.

Out with the old

This past week, an era ended in my life. I’ve now lived in Vegas longer than anywhere else as an adult. Some things are clearing themselves up. I donated the last of my late friend’s stuff to goodwill, and rumors started to fly that my congregation at church will be reorganized, meaning that I may end up at church this next month with completely new congregation members. This summer I will celebrate four years since my ex wife last harassed me, and I consider that money well spent to buy my freedom. The state is supposed to vote to finally end the furlough program, and I may finally get a raise after six years of pay freezes.

In with the new

I finally decided to buckle down and get my household in order. For my birthday I filed paperwork and cleaned up the rooms, hung drapes, and wrote out a materials list to finish up the back yard landscaping this year. Then, I went out and bought myself another car (picture pending). I know I told myself that I’d wait until I had someone special, but it now seems that if I wait for that I may wait forever. Every now and then I buy something for myself, and even my dad was impressed with both the price I paid as well as what I got for my money, and this car should serve me 20 years like Car2D2 has. Next weekend, my dad’s coming to help me install a new AC unit, design new master bedroom closet shelves, hang cabinets, and hang blinds in the vaulted front entry. I’m planning trips to Maachu Picu, to Mayan ruins, and to Miami. I’ve slimmed up enough again that the clothes I bought back in November 2013 are loose. I continue to improve as I go into my prime.

Yet to come

Unfortunately some things remain the same. I just pulled the wage stats for last year, and the usual suspects at work were awarded raises for no justifiable reason I can imagine. The dean, who was supposed to step down in June, is staying for another two years because no qualified candidate was selected to replace her. I still hope that a wonderful woman, my geautiful birl, will choose to be with me after all, despite a dearth of prospects and signs supportive of that eventuality. I continue to work on my waist loss and waste loss goals so that maybe next year the state will ignore my weight. Everything I control is under control, and I’m trying to decide at which windmills to tilt and what things are worth risking in order to make a statement. I keep hoping that in the prime of my life I will have the opportunity to have the life I really desire to live and become a dad. We will see.

The story of Spring and the message of Easter is that we may all through Christ start with a clean slate. Although we remember what we do somehow God remembers our sins no more when we truly repent. The same thing comes of people. While I no longer hold any grudges against my ex-wife, I do remember what happened and use it as a bailiwick against repeating the errors that led to that resolution. As much as I hope that things with people I love may yet lead to happy endings that involve me, I really hope that their lives turn out well wherever they go. Looking back at the last decade of my life, I realized that I have learned to love myself, my fellow men (for the most part), and my Creator. Going to Alaska last year showed me that I am self aware and that I know who I am and that I like who I have become. Like Abraham Lincoln said, “I do the very best I can, the very best I know how, and I mean to go on doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to much.”

I don’t really know what I would do if I had kids or if things changed. I know very little about how to survive in the world that has come to be. My morals and values and interests are uncommon and unappreciated by people in my peer group. As I get older, I sound more and more like an old, boring fuddy dudd, and I find I have more in common with people over fifty than people within ten years of my own age. I don’t know if I have any peers, and I think I may be bred out of the population, but that’s ok. This isn’t really the world for which I was born anyway. When I get there, I expect to fit in, blend in, and belong, because I expect in God’s presence I will be average at best. I hope that before that day He truly has granted me a clean slate there like He has here.