(Still) Finding Purpose

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I grew up religious. I was taught by good parents to be the best man I could be. The church infused us with a sense of purpose. It was clear that God gave us families and that God, as our Father, expected us to participate in that, to marry, multiply and replenish the earth. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out so well. It was not however because I drank lots of booze and drove wild. It was not because I was a philanderer or addict. It was not because I was lazy or did some terrible dark thing. It did however lead people to think that either I was doing things wrong or that I was lying about my intentions. Not succeeding and not attempting may look the same in the end, but they take very different paths. All I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a dad, but that requires you to decide how you're ok with having kids and then, if you want to do it God's way, finding someone interested in having children with you. That's a more difficult proposition than anyone ever taught me. Here are some obstacles of which the prognosticators of posterity conveniently seem ignorant.

Dashed by divorce

I followed the plan. I married at 23 in the faith, in the temple to a woman I met a religious classes (Institute). We went on dates to church things. I'm convinced now that she's the most consummate actress I ever met, engaged in the most elaborate charade ever conceived against me. After only a few months, it was clear that her interest in me was near zero, and she opined ad nauseum that I was not what she built me up in her mind to be. Rather than build me up, she tore me down, because being a wrecker is so much easier than building. Eventually the church leaders aceded to permit me to get divorced and a court took 90% of my assets and gave them to her because she was an "oppressed minority" essentially (my words, not theirs). So, everything I built, including every shred of confidence that survived the hellscape of high school, was dashed to pieces and I moved away to start over from scratch. The church provided no safety net for me, but when she fell on hard times and accused me of not keeping my end of the bargain, they investigated me. I satisfied their concerns, so she turned to the court again, which ordered me to pay half of her graduate school debt, all of which she incurred after divorce.

Dashed by defeat

I moved forward. I found a job in my career field. Soon afterwards, I found that, whereas I had started at the bottom, others were hired at the top of the payscale. Since then I have clawed and scratched my way upwards while others had the skids of their careers greased in grift. Despite their best efforts, my wages rise because the legislature controls my base pay, and because legislators, who automatically assume that the professoriate is left leaning, keeps giving me the same raise as everyone else. Meanwhile, I tried to date, first at church, then through acquaintances, and finally via the internet. Obviously none of that worked out or you would have heard about it. In fact, ever since my divorce, I have watched in dismay as nothing I did bore any fruit I wanted.

Distracted by other endeavors

Along the way, other challenges arose, distracting my gaze and sapping my strength. I went through financial crises at work, false allegations, a pandemic, an oppressive HOA as well as a series of grifters who mostly unsuccessfully came at me. Eventually I lost taste in doing anything because no sooner did I start something I wanted to do than some complication arose and took me off course. I used to have a neighbor who chided me on a father's day for not having any children, as if he was superior to me because he managed to impregnate women for whom he did not care or provide, and I learned to go far out of my way to avoid certain encounters and conversations that painted me as antagonist and the sole arbiter of my fate. An enemy hath done this.

Knocked down but still standing

Fortunatley for me, the Lord has actually had my back. If I look back to where I was 20 years ago when I was married still, I'm happier, healthier, and wealthier, not to mention wiser. Without a mentor or any coaching, I successfully naviated the siren song of many pitfalls, refused to acquiesce to the grift of corporations or romantic incorporation, and gained some sense of self respect. I spent some time in Alaska alone reflecting and found that, although I don't like the way I look per se, I like the person that I am. I speak my mind and don't worry about if it helps or upsets others, and I'm blessed with parents who support me even when they think I took a bridge too far. They are pleased with their articulate son and the way that he is self reliant and stable, despite the best efforts of the world to crush me underfoot.

While it bothers me to read stories and see videos of people who are less worthy proudly proclaiming their parental privileges and ascribing that accuractely to the assistance of the Almighty, I know that's not necessarily the end of my roles and responsibilities. I learned since getting divorced that the real purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is in lifting up our fellow men. For most of us, this applies in our families, where we have specific people for whom responsibility and affection are expected and obvious. If we don't love them, then our love for others is largely imaginary. However, for those who cannot have a family, either because of things that happen to them or because of things that don't happen for them, the real purpose is to love our neighbors. Jesus made that very clear when he explained which commandment is the second greatest. So, if you dont have a family, you can still succeed. I won't pretend that it's as rewarding to teach and train other men's kids. It's not. However, each and every one of them is one of God's children, and He has promised that whatsoever we shall do to the least of these our brethren we have done to Him. Consequently, even if I never see any fruits or know if I made any headway into their outcomes or even their thoughts, every worthy thing I do counts, if not for them then for the God I love to serve and to whom I am eternally grateful for all that I have and am. He feeds me by the Brook of Cherith and validates my words, and one day He may save my life again. I hope.

Good Men Don’t Spoil Their Wives

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We have all heard the cliché tripe “happy wife, happy life” because women like to use that as a standard for what makes a man good. However, women don’t understand that good men do not look for marriage in order to spoil their wife. They are looking for a partner, a help meet, and not just someone who hopes to mete his help. Most men are looking to start a family and not just to find someone to help them spend their money. Most men who are interested in marriage are looking to build a legacy that is not a business or a brand, because they know that 100 years from now almost nobody will remember who they were and what they were doing. What they’re really leaving behind is their family.

Modern women talk incessantly about princess treatment and about what men have to do before they will marry them. Those same women talk very little about why a man would want to marry them. Some of those same women don’t want kids or already have them with other men, and they seem shocked when men do not want anything with them long term. They have only to look at real princesses for their examples.

Real princesses are spoiled only by their fathers. Modern women demand a man who will spoil them and treat them like a princess. However, they have no idea how princesses were treated in antiquity. Historically, princesses were put into arranged marriages in order to advance a political or commercial alliance that advanced her family, her father in particular. Contrary to popular belief, men do not marry in order to spend lavishly on their wife. Some men will do this in order to woo a woman and lure her in, but that’s never been the actual plan.

Princes desire real princesses, not as means to burn through their wealth but as a way to extend the lineage. A prince doesn’t search for a woman, particularly a peasant, so that they can disburse their wealth to the lowly villagers. A prince may choose a peasant because he wants to have children with her. Compare Prince William versus Prince Harry. William wisely chose a woman who would one day make a potentially good queen and mother (and got several children from her) while Harry chose a woman who looked good in photos and has lost his title, his income, his position in the family and didn’t even get any children (yet). Say what you like about Henry Tudor, but his obsession with wives was not because he was a whoremonger. What did he want? He wanted a son to carry on his line, and the wife he spoiled the most and beside whom he was buried was Jane Seymour, the only wife he had who gave him a son who outlived him (although not by long).

There is only one man who is going to spoil a woman, and that is her father, because he is spoiling his DAUGHTER, which is the intent of nearly all men who reproduce. They work and slave so that their CHILDREN can have a better life and inherit what they build. In antiquity, a son was particularly desirable for purposes of inheritance, since male heirs carried the rights to land, titles, and responsibilities under the Carolignian system established under Charlemagne and propagated into the 1800s. If you didn’t have children, your estate was taken by the crown and divided, often amongst your enemies, and if you had a daughter, you strove to make a smart match so that, if you couldn’t keep all that lovely money in the family, you could at least keep it in a family of whom you approved. However, all too often liberated modern women eschew a suitable male companion of whom their parents approve and pursue the rapscallion furthest therefrom.

This does not mean that men do not care about the mother. Men care about a family, so if a woman gives him children, helps him raise them up well, and takes care of the estate, she will benefit from his efforts to elevate the lives of his children because she shares the household. She will benefit by association because she shares a household with her husband and the children that she gave him. Contrast that to the expectations of women in divorce who demand alimony. The court has to FORCE men to pay her money because she no longer shares the household, and men who pay do pay because they care about the children over whom she probably has custody.

Men are not looking for a wife or a partner or a woman to spoil. Men desire a family. A wife and mother is part of that, but that’s not the ultimate goal to provide her with a lifestyle after he dies. The ultimate goal is to pass on what a man has, what a man is, and what a man acquires to elevate the lives of his children when he is gone. Even a poor man tries to leave some “legacy” to his children, even if it’s just a compass (Albert Einstein) or some other token. In the movie “Hook” Robin Williams’ version of Peter Pan reveals that his happy thought was when he became a daddy. It was not when he became a husband.  Scripture also reminds us that “I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in truth” and that “children are an heritage of the lord and happy is he who hath a quiver full of them”.

Even biologically speaking, the entire purpose of life is the perpetuation of life. From single celled organisms up to and including man, everything that happens in cells occurs so that, when the time is right and situations favor it, you can make a copy of yourself and preserve life. When organisms come into opposition, the preventive measures most develop was to preserve them against their greatest predator. However, in humans, the greatest predator seems to be the unrealistic and skew expectations of what makes a man worth marrying and all the women who bear children with men who don’t stick around and who make poor fathers. In fact the greatest bane on modern society may be the absolute deluge of fatherless children, not to war or disease that made them orphans, but to abandonment because the men who sired them didn’t want children and because the women didn’t want men who wanted to have and raise offspring.

If you want a good man, you have to understand what a good man really wants. He does not want to become a husband. He wants to become a good father. A good man will sire children within the bonds of marriage for moral and practical reasons, because a family is best served when two parents love each other and are committed to the success of the family. Good men will eschew most modern women for this reason, because too many modern women seek only their own success. Go read the dating profiles and watch their tiktok videos, and you’ll just hear laundry lists of what women demand and almost nothing if anything at all about what they bring to the man. It’s just assumed that a man’s life is made better because a woman is in it, as if Delilah never made Samson low, as if Jezebel never led Ahab into an ignominious death. Most modern women are not even interested in finding out what a man wants let alone providing it. They are strong independent women who don’t need no man.

Ironically as the world becomes more radical, some men are becoming more traditional. The men avoid dating and marriage, not because they don’t want it, but because they can’t find women who would make suitable MOTHERS. Ultimately, a man who marries is looking for someone who will be a good mother to his children, because only rarely when physically coupled do man and women not create new life. A man who decides to keep a woman has decided he wants to have children and raise them with the woman. A good man will sacrifice whatever it takes for his family. However, modern women will sacrifice their family for whatever it takes to get attention and validation in the era of likes, comments and subscriptions. And men are done.

A spoiled woman is not a good thing. Most things that are spoiled are avoided. Spoiled bananas are discarded. A girl spoiled by her father all too often expects to move from her parent’s house to her husband’s with no diminution in her standard of living, and if a man cannot do that, he is considered unworthy and undesirable. A woman who has been spoiled by previous relationships or by a codependent relationship with government largess typically punches far above her weight class and finds ways to disqualify all men. The modern world is a pandemic of spoiled brats, and the women in almost every living generation have been rendered poor wives by years of unbroken success for women.

So what’s the solution? First off, women need to understand what men really want out of them. Secondly, women need to become what men would want so that men will commit to them. Finally, women need to behave in a way that women will believe that they will stay. No fault divorce, inequities in custodianship, and unbalanced alimony/child support have made even men who would like to have a family cautious of taking the risk. “Just have faith” rings hollow to those divided by zero in a divorce proceeding, and with the assumption being that divorced men deserve it, men walk around with black eyes earned by other men. Until and unless women behave like women that men would want to keep, the birth rate will continue to drop, marriage industries will collapse and women will find themselves over 40 and unwanted.

The worst thing is the notion of “recreational use” for women. Too many men, unwilling to risk any commitment, will lie to women, use them for fun, and then discard them, thus committing the crime for which all men now serve the sentence. Most men are not players; but most women seem to assume that most men only want one thing. We do. We want something that outlives us; we want children. Because at the end of the day, while there’s no guarantee that your children will mourn your passing, tend you when you’re old, miss you when you’re gone or pass on what you were to their children, there is a 100% guarantee that nobody will if you don’t have any children. We remember Henry VIII because he did have children. We remember him because he was obsessed with having them. We may not agree with his methods or mania, but we can understand the desire he had and the excitement he had for Edward VI. As Christians, we can all understand a Father’s love for His Beloved Son. That’s the title that most good men truly desire: Daddy.

Pearl Harbor and the New American Experience

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You probably didn't hear anything about December 7th 1941 this year even though it was a day that will "live in infamy". I have a theory as to why. I flew my flag and I thought about it, but that's because my paternal grandfather was in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, served in the Pacific, and told us only one thing about WWII, that he was glad he never had to kill any Japanese people. We have a changing perspective with each generation in America because being an "American" changes as our population changes. Luxembourgers work hard to retain their Luxembourg identity and are proud of their heritage because it has been the same for centuries before America ever became a nation. And America changes frequently. Sometimes our political leaders swap every four years. Certainly the interests of Americans shift. Almost nobody cares about Black Friday anymore. We have Americans who were not in America 25 years or even 5 years ago. And over time, some things are lost that should not have been forgotten. So is the case with the realms of men.

Government is partially to blame. The government, state, local or federal, does much better when people don't know things they can use to push back. I'm not supposed to know certain things, and it's clear when I push back at politicians, regardless of party, that they view us all as shrupshire sheep who need to be led. Here in Vegas, the government doesn't reward or recognize scholastic achievement. I have students who earn as much as I do working in bars, as valets for cars, and in clubs or casinos, so why should they get an education? If the government values it, why isn't there a pronouncement? WHy isn't it still on the calendar? Just after THanksgiving, I made a reference to a 19 year old student about 9/11 and he said, "What's that?" SO much for Remember 911.

Migration is partially the cause. We have Americans who came her from elsewhere who, because things happened before they came, never heard about it in school. So, if it's omitted from the curriculum or counter to THEIR narrative, it doesn't make the cut in family conversation. For better or worse, they teach the history of their ancestors more than ours, and so American history becomes in part more of a highlight reel than anything else. It's natural. Not many people living in Reid im Innkreis Austria have ever had to explain the statue of Dietmar Brunner in the town square, but I was curious, and I asked, so I know, but if you aren't from there it's just a strange statue unless you care enough to ask. They have cares enough.

Selfishness is partly to blame. In our commercialized world, if it won't make you money or bring you fame, people don't bother. Influencers are out there trying to get clicks, followers, and likes. This they do for money, and talking about old historical things doesn't rake in the dough like makeup tutorials, streaming video games or risque content. Truth doesn't go down easily, and so it's harder to sell or get people involved. Plus, we have a short attention span. When I was a child, I heard and learned things that, only because as an adult I care to revisit them, now make sense. When watching THe Music Man as a kid, I was admonished to remember "the Maine, Plymouth Rock and th Golden Rule" but it wasn't until I came of age and cared about history that I learned anything about The USS Maine. I bet you know very little too because it's not on your radar of favorite topics, and that's ok. You can't know everything.

Time is partly to blame. With rare exception, most of the men of WWII are gone. There is almost nobody alive anymore to make it real. Time erases things, and if we don't make an effort to remember, things cease to exist, not because they never were but because people forget they were. When Saving Private Ryan came out, people flocked to Normandy. You can't walk on the grass there anymore because they cordoned it off, but when I went in summer 2023, it wasn't anywhere near as bustling. The hype is over; the time has passed; the people are gone, and soon it will be like most cemetaries. Empty.

Our past tells us about ourselves and our direction. When we forget enough of our past, we risk losing some of our direction. I like to tell the story of a woman who, after cutting her turkey in half before cooking it for Thanksgiving, is asked by her daughter why. She doesn't know and asks her mother, who tells her it is because it was too big to fit in her oven back then. It's a silly story, but it shows that in a few generations the rational and reason for a thing are often lost on a generation separate in space and in time from the origin. We have a new America with New Americans, some of whom have no connection to the past. Some of them have no connection to America. Some of them don't connect to anyone but themselves, and some are helped to disconnect by the government. Americans are as diverse in their interests as in their origins. It makes us a rich nation in some ways and impoverishes us because we lack a common frame of reference. We don't have the same legacy as other nations, and we haven't ever figured out how to secure it for ourselves and our posterity, and so I am sadly certain that I will live to see the day when 7 December is for us the way 5 November is in the UK: sadly no longer remembered. That's the sad thing about being an American. Too much change and not enough hope.

Saturday Night Conference

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The church announced that they will no longer have a Saturday night session of General conference. This follows many changes over the last 15 years to the structure of general conference. First, the priesthood only session was broadcast so that anyone could see. Then, they alternated conferences between a priesthood session and one for women, which was odd because they still had annual woman’s conference but no annual conference specifically for men. They changed the age of attendance down to age 8. At some other time they changed age at which you received the priesthood to age 11. Then they just made it a general session. All of these changes surprised me.

Growing up, this was a tradition, and it was a special time and treat. I remember fondly gathering together with brothers, my father, and sometimes with grandfathers to attend this meeting together. Since you had to go in person, it got us to dress up and attend a church meeting on a Saturday night. Afterwards, we would go get a treat or dinner or ice cream and talk about it, first with ourselves, and then with my mother and sister as she came of age. It was a wholesome “boy’s night out” with a religious flavor that I enjoyed and miss.

Growing up, I believed that this was a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Since you had to attend it live, unlike other sessions which you could watch online in some fashion, only those truly available and committed tended to attend. I found it interesting to note who came, who missed, who paid attention, and who was only there for the sake of appearances, and eventually I noticed that people came very late if the church offered ice cream afterwards. Clearly some came only to sup on milk and sugar and not on every word that preceedeth forth from the prophet’s mouth. I even got my maternal grandfather to go once after he lost mobility because I went with him and he wanted to make an effort for valiance one last time to support a grandson.

Growing up, I expected the Priesthood session to be a session where they would announce special things and, because it was not broadcast, only those who actually attended faithfully would know. So, I attended faithfully eager for the further light and knowledge and sharing of predilictions from the prophet that would only come to worthy priesthood holders. Boy was I wrong. Nothing noteworthy ever came down about gathering in Jackson county or selling all our stuff and getting cabins or special instructions for the faithful. IN fact, most of the time, the brethren would lecture us on how we needed to be better husbands and fathers, which didn’t sit or resonate well with me since I got divorced and have no children.

This week’s announcement killed forever my expectation that this was a special time for me, for men, for fathers and sons, for special instruction for priesthood holders from the brethren. Of course I should have seen this coming. When Dieter Uchtdorf came to Vegas a few years back for a regional meeting I attended because I was in a bishopric, his counsel could be distilled down to “Pray, use the handbook and follow your own personal revelation”. I wanted to ask, “Then why do we need you if that’s your direction?” Although lots of things change, I expected the Church to be more of an anchor in the storm, and then I realized that the anchor is Christ. Does it really matter to whom the speakers address their thoughts if they are inspired by and talk of Him? Will I miss out on His will if I’m trying to hearken to His words through His servants? Will He cheat me out of something because I wasn’t there for Saturday Night live to hear it as it was delivered? If we talk about the sessions afterwards anyway, can we still get together and share a treat or a meal? It’s the end of an era, and I’m glad I got to experience and share it with older male family members. With the exception of my father, they’re all gone anyway, and since I have no posterity there’s no passing it on to my son.

I found a way to make it meaningful ips post facto. I simply go through each Monday night for “family” home evening and reread and reflect on one talk from the last conference. Generally speaking, there are about the same number of talks as there are between conference sessions, except for the fifth session. Now that there’s no fifth session on Saturday night, I can reread one each week and give it some study and go back to my new normal. And afterwards, I can share a treat or a meal with my new family, because my beagle Courage knows it’s Monday night, and he looks forward to everything except the part where I play the piano and sing. So, I have a new tradition, and the change fits it better anyway.

A New Yardstick For My Life.

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Tuesday night after class, a struggling student stopped me to talk. She asked me, knowing a little bit about my personal Goliaths and Sinais, how I manage to find meaning and keep going. My answer surprised me and helped her, so I decided to share it. I had an older yardstick for living, which was kind of pedestrian, but when I answered, I suggested the following paradigm. First off, don’t try to “have a good life” all at once. Take every day as a single day and try to make each one a good day. You may not build toward anything grandiose, but if you try to live each day the best that you know how, how can God be displeased with that? Then, I suggested four instruments to make each day a good day: do something that you enjoy, do something that’s good for you, do something that’s good for others, and ask God what He would have you do that day.

Do something every day that you enjoy. Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy. We have enough work to do, trials to face, and responsibilities to handle, that it’s always nice to have something to look forward to that we enjoy. For many years, I have told students that I disagree with advice to “do what you love for pay” because, after 30 years of having to do it, people stop loving the thing they have to do for pay. Instead, I suggest they do something they like that pays well enough and then reserve some joyful things for their free time. That way, when you don’t HAVE to work, you can go do something you enjoy for no other reason than that it brings you joy. You can garden or sing in a chorale or read that book you bought four months ago and never got to or get a pedicure. You can treat yourself to a milkshake or go through old photo albums or binge watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy (just not EVERY day). Do something that actually brings you joy. The devil tries to counterfeit joy and rob you of the pleasure of living, but it is actually part of our purpose to have true pleasures. Play with a baby and listen to him laugh. Feel the wind on your arm as you drive a mountain road. Conquer that mountain you wanted to climb. Visit a friend you trust and who supports you. True pleasure comes from wholesome things.

Do something every day that’s good for you. This can vary widely, and it’s a simple way to enhance your life. Study a language. Take a class. Exercise. Eat more protein and less candy. Drink more water. Pray. Meditate. Play with your dog. There is absolutely nothing wrong or selfish or evil about doing something that’s good for you each day. First off, you are responsible for the care and nurture of the body in which God housed your soul. If you neglect to take care of it well, you will reap darkness and unhappiness. Maybe you can’t run a marathon or knit a sweater, but you can be more fit and find a constructive hobby. The journey toward better health is a series of small steps, as many as you like. Secondly, you cannot share any of your oil and meal if you don’t have any. It is important to take care of your own needs so that, when others appeal to you, you’re in a position so that, if you share goodness with others, they do not deplete you or hurt your well being.

Do something that’s good for others. They say that “doing good is a pleasure” and that sometimes the best way to lift yourself from the doldrums is to serve others. In fact, Jesus himself “went about doing good and increased in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man”. Well, scatter sunshine. Pay it forward. Treat someone well without any thought of reward. One of my favorite things about travel is outing myself as an American by helping strangers. It’s well known that, although Europeans are helpful, they don’t usually volunteer to help. Americans, because we are overt, on the other hand will offer. I love helping strangers lift luggage, find a train, get directions, navigate the airport, and save money by interjecting when they need help and surprising them that there’s an American in that country who knows the language and can help them. Visit someone who is lonely. Help a stranger. Share your cart. Put your cart in the return. Change a tire for someone. Offer to buy lunch for the person behind you. They may seem like things of little moment, but moments are the molecules that make up eternity. And Jesus taught us that when we do things for the least of our brethren, we did them for and to Him.

Ask God if there’s anything He’d like you to do THAT DAY. I started this about ten years ago, asking God what He wanted of me that day. Sometimes, I get my answer after I say a kind word or do something I procrastinated and then He says, “That’s what I wanted you to do today”. When my dog was dying, many days He said, “Go home and love your beagle.” This is important for two reasons. First, it opens you up to divine correction and direction. Far too few people involve God in their daily decisions. While He might be part of the bigger picture with life goals and outcomes, He plays a minor role in their day, typically relegated to morning prayer and the blessing over dinner. Secondly, it gives you a chance to know that, even if it’s not every day, there are days when you pleased God because you sought and then DID His will. Many days it’s simple. Call someone. Visit someone. Be nice to someone. Give your students a pep talk. Offer up your extra loaf of zucchini bread to the department secretary. Say thanks. God knows us and watches over us, but it is often through another person that He meets our needs. You are His hands. You can also be His eyes, His voice, His ears, and His feet. One of the most important things you can do in this world is find out what God wants YOU to become, and do THAT wholeheartedly.

I cannot say that life is always easy or that I feel a sense of clear outcomes in these decisions I made and ideas I shared. I can however say that I sleep like a rock at night because I try to have a good day every day, and I can say that I look back and, despite not having an Instagram reel full of exotic adventures and amazing nights, I have a lot of good days that I feel good about. I have no clue why God asks certain things or doesn’t reward others. I run a 5K every morning starting 1 July 2023, and you can’t tell, but I feel better even though all that got skinnier was my wrists. I do things I like. I do things God likes. I do things I ought to do, and I help other people with things they need to do. If that’s not what Jesus did with His life, I don’t know what else He did. He asked us to follow Him and feed His sheep. This is my way of doing that.

It is a canard, in my opinion, that the only way to a satisfying life is to have a family. Family makes it easy. It provides you with a specific group for whom you are responsible and accountable, people you know well and with whom you can see long term results. But Christ never taught that. He taught us to love God with all of our heart, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. If you have a family, serving and loving them satisfies those two commandments in a very obvious way, but you do not have to have a family to keep those commandments. People are brought into our lives often only for a season. Often the season is very short, and sometimes it’s shorter than we like. But there are no accidents. God does not play dice with the universe. He creates opportunities for us to demonstrate our discipleship. I also think He is not so much concerned with the outcomes of our actions outwardly as He is with the outcomes our actions have on our own souls. If you do good things, for yourself and for others, and you seek and act on His will, then your soul cannot help but be nourished, enlarged, and prepared for His presence. Maybe He doesn’t care if you get a PhD or promotion or a wonderful partner or a house full of children. Maybe all He cares about is that you come follow Him. And this is how you do it. This is how you cope with the storms and vicissitudes of life. Go about doing good, as much as you can whenever you can, and God will bless you ever the more.

Fridays

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Most people look forward to Friday. It marks the end of the work week and, as soon as work ends, the beginning of a weekend doing more of the things you choose to do and fewer of the things someone makes you do. As a child, I loved Friday because I often had all my homework finished, so I could play more and spend most of Saturday morning with cartoons. As an adult, it meant that I could go home, and if I was exceptionally tired I could crash, and if I achieved nothing that night I had two more days. I abused that sometimes. However, in 2019 something changed, and for many years I hated Fridays. Until now.

On a Friday in 2019, I came home from work to find that my beagle had finally lost his almost two year battle against testicular cancer. He was 16, so I was not shocked, but I was devastated, and that Friday became a terrible day. That weekend, I don't think I accomplished a thing besides burying him and cleaning up the spots where he had slept. Each Friday after that marked another week since he died, and although the weeks became enough that I could not count them without effort, I continued to wake up Fridays slightly saddened that another Friday passed since my best friend in the world died.

Despite this, I had a new beagle, and although I also brought him home on a Friday, it wasn't until this month that I registered that. I was singing "Amazing Grace" and came to the part 'Was blind but now I see' and I suddenly realized that Fridays were also a beginning. For my new dog, a Friday night had been our first together, and yet I had let four years of Fridays pass embroiled with sadness rather than recognize this wonderful change.

So, now I wake up and thank God for helping me realize that Fridays also include new joys. It's a special kind of joy for me. Yes, Courage and I spend other hours together, except on nights when I teach late where he gets about 90 minutes between my return from work and bed time, but Friday is special. It's when friends get together, and now rather than get together with pictures and memories of a dead friend, I share some of those wonderful things with a new one.

I am grateful to have Fridays restored to me this summer as a day to which I can look forward. Courage is a good friend too, and it doesn't distract from Indiana to spend time making joyful moments with a new dog. I think the worst tragedy for a loss would be if they knew that when they died you stopped living.

Gaston The Hero?

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In "Beauty and the Beast" Gaston is painted unfairly as more villainous than he deserves. Sure, he's selfish, brainless, and impetuous. He's not the only one. In fact, it's a very grim fairy tale wherein perhaps nobody is the hero. Have you ever stopped to question the prince? To think about his back story? To wonder how he transformed? Gaston didn't transform, because he was in that small provincial town with small minds and small pleasures and small reason to change. The beast had much more incentive to change, and even then, he almost didn't. Consider some other facts in evidence that show that, even if Gaston isn't the hero, he's certainly not deserving of the title: villain.

People mock Gaston's character but rarely question the prince. The prince is turned into a beast because "there was no love in his heart". He refused to let a beggar woman stay in the castle for a single night. Even after Belle arrives, he continues to berate and belittle his servants (whose loyalty is herculean in my opinion). His servants have to persuade him to invite Belle to a room. He knows that he has to find a woman to break the spell, and when a beautiful woman comes, he's too self absorbed with his own pity to even consider this as fate's hand outstretched to save him. His manners are terrible. His patience is thin. He's still in every way beastly except for how Belle transforms him. Who are we to presume that she could not and would not do the same for Gaston?

People quickly question Gaston's motives but rarely question the prince's. What does Gaston want? Yes, he wants the most beautiful girl in town, but to what end? Gaston wants a FAMILY. "We'll have six or seven." "Dogs?" "No, Belle, strapping boys like me". Gaston is looking for a wife. Yes, he probably won't suborn her interests and aspirations, but how is that a worse motivation than the beast? What does the Beast want? He wants to be restored to his human form. For Gaston, it's about family. For the beast, it's all about the beast becoming "human again".

People judge Gaston's decisions but rarely question the prince's. Yes, Gaston tries to force Belle's hand to marry her by carting away her father to an asylum, but when the father returns with tales of a beast, the asylum subplot disappears from the story entirely. All interest in manipulating Belle goes away as Gaston decides to go FREE HER FROM THE BEAST and win her hand. It's the same plot as Shrek without the jokes. Even when Belle shows him via the mirror, the beast appears angry and threatening. So, to preclude any MORE young ladies being imprisoned, Gaston goes off to slay the dragon and rescue the fair maiden. As far as he knows, she was trapped in a dungeon in a tower because that's what her father tells Gaston. As far as he can tell, she got away. Why would a beast let her go? It only makes sense to us because we know the other side of the story. Based on the information he knows, Gaston views himself as a rescuer, a dashing and debonair knight off on a quest. Of course it feeds his ego. What about the Prince? He decides "it doesn't matter, let them come". He doesn't care until Belle comes back. Only at that point does he care one wit for the future of his servants who are selflessly protecting his home. What an ingrate.

Maybe there is no hero in this story, but it's unfair to caste Gaston entirely as the villain. The Beast is beastly too. He's also selfish, brainless, and brutish. When Belle comes into the west wing, he overreacts, and he has to rescue her because she was afraid of him. Gaston was willing to fight for Belle and put his life on the line too; he just plummets to his death from the parapets. Without his servants, there's no way the beast would have wooed the fair maiden. Without them, he would have been just as bad of a choice for husband as Gaston, whose only advisor was Lefou. For me, Gaston is more heroic than we give him credit, and his death is just as senseless a tragedy as the beast's would have been. And Gaston is the only one who didn't survive to live happily after happily.  There is no redemption story arc for him.  He falls to his death and our scorn and never gets a chance to be a better man.  That's a tragedy.

Fruits of Faith in Christ

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Sometimes people ask what the benefit of faith is. Sometimes it’s easy to understand why. In some of our trials, as life’s storms rage about us and we remain tempest-tossed, it seems like having faith makes no difference. For many, years go by and nothing changes for the better in terms of the circumstances that first led them to faith and to their knees. It has ever been so. During his earthly ministry, Jesus ministered to many, including one woman possessed of a blood issue for many years. She believed that, if she could but touch His robe, she would be healed, but it was not an option until the day He finally passed by her way. Was Christ ignorant of her or ignoring her? Did He not care about her plight or hear her prayers? Sometimes the fruits of faith look different from the reward or rescue or the healing for which we pray. Consider these four among perhaps many others.

1. Faith in Christ gives you perspective
The world obsesses about fame, fortune, and fun. However, we all know that Instagram reels highlight only the rosiest parts or the darkest parts of the lives of people around us. Most of life is routine and responsibility, peppered with tender moments and difficult obstacles. Some of us enjoy more prosperity than others; some endure more abiding troughs. Faith in Christ reminds us that Christ came not just for the things of the world that burden us but to lift ALL of our burdens. During His ministry many complained that He did not throw off the yoke of Roman oppression; His sacrifice in Gethsemane and triumph over death on the cross throws off the yoke of EVERY oppression. Eventually the Jews would be free. Maybe not today; maybe not tomorrow, but soon enough and for the rest of all life.

2. Faith in Christ gives you hope for a better world
Because He lives, we know that there can be better things. When we think about His miracles, we know that Christ CAN heal any mortal travail. He didn’t heal everyone everywhere, and even many of those who were in his immediate vicinity were not healed in the timing or way they might hope. It was ever thus. Naaman was upset because the prophet told him to wash in the river Jordan when his homeland had better rivers. If he had refused to follow the prophet’s command, he would have not been cleansed. Too many people get upset when God refuses to follow our commandments after we spend a lifetime refusing to obey His. Even those who were healed were told to “show themselves unto the priests”. Some still chose to disobey Christ. When we think about the greatest miracles of Christ, we know that Christ came to overcome all travail, not just those of the moment in this world. In reality, many of those are of little moment or no moment at all. Yes, it sucks to be sick, but a resurrected and glorified being in the presence of God need never worry about being sick or hungry or halt or mute ever again. The real rescue and the truly better world is not here, but back in the presence of God, and Christ’s life and atonement make that possible where it was not before He came.

3. Faith in Christ opens you up to recognize and act on inspiration to benefit your life
Among the first principles of the gospel we find faith, but not just any faith. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the faith God expects of us. The things God asks of us help us purify ourselves so that we can hear His divine guidance and be willing to act on the uncomfortable suggestions He makes. When God commanded Israel to enter Sinai, it was not easy, but it took them to a land of promise. Sometimes we may wander in the Wilderness of Sin for forty years, but for those who will see as He sees and hope as He asks us to hope will inherit a land of promise. It wasn’t easy to build an ark. It wasn’t easy to go before Pharaoh. It wasn’t easy to accept the need to go to Ninevah. It wasn’t easy for the Disciples to trust that Christ would rise the third day. It is easy to be a doubting Thomas, but the miraculous thing about Thomas is that He went forth and preached that same Jesus because Christ opens the door by which we gain access to the Father. Only in and through Christ can God’s power truly access us, enoble us, inspire us, edify us and lead us to our own individual land of promise. Maybe it’s not where we like or what we like, but it will be of benefit to your life to follow Him.

4. Faith in Christ prepares you to receive any Divinely Initiated Assistance He decides to send you
It is only the faithful who can actually receive the blessings Christ promises. Jesus asked the man whose son had palsy if he believed; the man admitted he needed help with his unbelief, but as soon as that happened, Christ was able to manifest His power to the blessing of the man. Whenever we receive any blessing, it is predicated on our faith in Christ, not just believing that He is or what He said, but living as He asks. We show our faith not in blind recitations but in the way in which we act, and as we act, all men know we are His disciples and cannot, if they truly are Christians, deny the blessings are divinely appointed. Without faith it is impossible to please God or to receive any blessing from His hand. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no blessing comes to us from the Father save by Him.

It is difficult sometimes when we pray, obey, hope and live as we are asked and the blessings do not come. Do you think that Israel did not pray in bondage for release from Pharaoh? Do you think Daniel said the wrong words when in Persia and got thrown in with the lions? Do you really think as Job’s terrible friends did that he wasn’t good enough and that God was punishing him? Job was nearly convinced of this. Most of the people who talk of hope and joy are in a place of hope and joy, so if you are still in the wilderness their words may rightly ring hollow. You haven’t failed until you quit. So, if you are not there yet, keep trying. Put one foot in front of the other. Take two steps forward, and even if you then take one step back, you’ve made a little progress. Fear not to do good, little flock, for He is with us. And His promises while not always swift are always sure.

For those of you who wonder how much longer, consider this song. Hold on; there will be light. That is the promise of Easter. The King is coming. Long live the King.

Dodging Dogs and Danger

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This morning on the way to work, I watched a guy hit a dog and drive away without checking on it. I was out front driving, and I saw the dog and stopped to avoid hitting it. He was behind me, speeding like a banshee, and went around me to pass and just smashed into the dog. I will be haunted for a long time by the sound I heard of him hitting the dog. There were two; maybe he hit both, but they were both young and none of us needed this enroute to work.

I don't really know what more I could do. I suspect that, because they were young, these dogs had never seen a car before except for riding in one. I suspect that they broke out and were just out "having an adventure" and had no idea that the day would go badly for them. I don't know who owns them, and aside from paying money out of my own pocket for a stranger's dog, I don't think there's much I could do. I don't know if the police even care about things like this. Did I do wrong? I second guess myself all the time.

It made me think about life in general and grateful for mine. I have outlived many people I know, and although my life may not be sunshine and skittles, since I am still alive there is a chance for a good day tomorrow or next month that will be worth sticking around for. Many children suffer; they hunger, they get cancer, they get aborted, they get abducted, they get diseases, and some get hit by cars too. Even adults can go at any time. I had a friend who was murdered in 2013 at the age of 41, and two years ago a guy I knew died of cancer at 37. Every day is frought with danger for us to dodge, and sometimes with dogs.

When my beagle was dying in 2019, I knew it was final. He had cancer. He was 16. If I took him to the vet, they would have just told me to euthanize him and "end his pain". I wasn't ready to intentionally kill something that loved me, so instead I tried to make every day as good as I could to make it worth him sticking around. Sometimes I wondered if, looking at his face, he was thinking, "Life keeps getting better and better. What will tomorrow bring?" Some days were blase; some were memorable in sad ways, but in the last seven weeks I had him, we had some tender moments that I treasure, and so I am glad for all the good times.

Any day could be our day. It's when it's avoidable or when young things die that we find it most tragic. However, any life not fully lived is tragic. We have so many opportunities. We miss so many opporunities. We dodge dogs and danger, but we also dodge hope and love and opportunity, not intentionally sometimes, but because we don't feel worthy or energetic or confident or like we can succeed. The dogs this morning looked happy when I saw them. I don't think anyone that saw them after the crash is as happy as they were. It was a wake up call for me to use today differently because it might be all I have left.

Before I left for work, as I have done for nearly two years now, I spent a half hour playing with my dog. We played fetch and tug of war. I scratched his belly and wrestled with him. I want so much to fill his life with good things so that, when he is gone, I have good memories on which to look back. I think all of life is bittersweet, but it is the sweet sometimes that adds savor to the bitter. I miss my other beagle a lot. But I also have a lot of good times on which to reflect where I did a good job at giving him a good life. I need to do the same thing for myself.

Today I dodged a dog and some danger. Today I am sad because a dog did not dodge danger and because some dolt in a Dodge ran over the dog and drove away. I am grateful that I was watching, but I am sad because the other driver was not. Today's tragedy was avoidable. I'm not at fault, but I feel angry and sad and empathy for anyone who knew that dog and loved him. I know how much I love mine. And I know that he loves me too. A dog's love is the closest I have ever known to God's love in this world since I left home, so there will always be a soft spot in my heart for dogs, especially the innocent ones who didn't deserve to suffer.

Remembering versus Regretting

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I give one piece of advice when I attend a wedding. I tell the married couple to go home and make a list of the reasons why they like each other, why they chose each other, while it's fresh and they are happy so that, when the storms come, they face it together and weather it well. I think that if more people kept in mind the reasons they made a decision, we might lose a lot fewer people, to divorce, to suicide, to other jobs, to other religions, to bad options of all kinds. You see, no matter where you go, there are pros and cons, and it is a human thing to do to focus on the negative aspects when confronted with a horror or struggle. In those moments, when we lose sight of the past, it is easy to bloviate the bad and use that as justification to throw out the baby with the bath water. If we had a means by which to reflect and remember on our rationale for making a choice, it might help us hold to the original decision rather than just trading an old set of struggles for an unknown.

They say that the grass isn't always greener on the other side, but even if it is, it still must be mowed. All too often, we trade known things for POTENTIAL things that we perceive as possibly superior. I am old enough to know that those promised things rarely come, meaning that we are trading a guaranteed thing for something that is unlikely, and more often than not we end up worse off than if we just held our course. As bad as the known world can be, it is also a known world. It's very easy to romanticize another possibility when we grow weary of our current distress. However, there are still going to be bad people no matter where we go, so we must decide if the potential returns, if they ever come, outweigh the known outcome, and if we're actually willing to take the risk.

When I took this job, I took my own advice and wrote a list of things I liked about the job. Some of them, like the promotion potential, turned out to be lies. There is no promotion potential, at least not for me. I work in academia. However, it has some other things that I really like that turned out to be true. There is a pension. I get to teach, and it's OVERTIME. I get to use the degree I earned in college at work every day. I get to see "ah-hah" moments when students make connections. I don't have to take work home or go in for holidays and weekends. Unlike regular faculty, I actually get paid time off to use whenever I like. I have benefits. I get free internet and toilet paper and all I can drink water (and coffee if I wanted it). Parking is free. I could take six credits per semester for free if I wanted. And I get to address my work whatever way I wish as long as it's 1. legal, 2. safe, and 3. sufficient to cover the learning objectives. It's wonderful. No wonder people love government jobs.

There are struggles. It was hard to learn just this January that I will never be promoted unless I do what administration wants me to do (become a regular faculty and take a 10% pay cut and go to the bottom of the pile as faculty). If some of the things I listed in the previous paragraph went away, I might seriously have to reconsider if this was the best option. However, there are serious advantages to staying.

There are serious advantages to staying. Remember them. I know the storms will come. Marriage can get tough. Suicide can get tempting. Other jobs can be alluring. Other preachers may sound convincing. Are these other persistent persuasive voices promising you a potempkin outcome? Are they doing it for thee or for them? You can't "have it all" but you can want what you have enough to find satisfaction. There are serious advantages to staying.

If we all sat down and wrote out the reasons why we made the decisions we made, I think we might stick to them better. Whether it's jobs or marriage or conversion or what have you, there were reasons we took the steps we took. If those things were true and right then, they are right now, and they are happening to us right now. Other adversarial voices want us to focus on "what could be" rather than what is. It enflames hope but also fear, and decisions made on emotion are usually less wise than the alternatives. I know it sounds like a "pro and con" list, but really is asks us to do what makes all the difference in our minds. Remember.