Benefits of Vigilance

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Back in 2015, I noticed water running down the sides of my driveway. When the bill came, I registered that almost 1000 gallons extra useage beyond what I usually use. It took a few weeks to determine that the leak was BENEATH the driveway, and I was worried about earth being worn away from beneath the driveway. The guy who installed the sprinkler system in my front yard ran tubing under the driveway that CONTAINED A KINKED SECTION which eventually failed. Ever since then, I have paid attention, nearly daily, to the water meter.

Tuesday morning when I left for work, I noticed that according to the water meter I had used 70 more gallons than I expected. When it happened again Wednesday morning, I went out to check the yard and found that a feed line had been detached from the valve, spilling water into the middle of the yard. So, some plants suffered for two days, and I wasted some water, but I got it repaired and didn't have to spend any money on a repair or a professional. If I were not aware, who knows how long it would have been before I noticed the water waste?

Periodically, unexpected useage piques my interest and gets me looking for a problem. Since the initial leak, I have caught neighbors using my water to fill their swimming pool, squatters (in that same house later) using my hose bib to fill their carbuoys, found a leak in a valve in the front yard, and tracked another useage to a cracked section of pipe at a corner. That last one was a huge pain to fix. However, since I pay attention nearly daily, I caught the problem early on, within a few days, and minimized the water waste.

We take a lot of things for granted in our modern life. Many daily conveniences create massive problems because we just assume things are running fine. Back when you had to haul your own water, nobody ever ended up with a flood inside their house unless there was an actual flood. When you had no electricity you went to bed when it was dark or hung out by a fire/candle. When you didn't have netflix, you had to entertain yourself or get together with friends. Now, a lot of things go without oversight and, unwatched, often end up out of wack.

The world has changed a lot in the las 23 years. Politicians, unwatched, have run rampant. People, obsessed with watching their phones, have often run into me while walking. A lot of things are not getting the attention they ought, and some things, like tiktok and other social media, get far more attention than they deserve. Are you watching what they teach your children? Are you watching your bank account? Do you check your utility bills to see if they make sense? Do you pay attention to people in your neighborhood? I recently spent 10 days in France, and none of my neighbors even noticed. Everyone seems obsessed with what I'm eating online, but nobody seems interested in actually getting together.

They say that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. Our conveniences and opportunities came, often, due to no sacrifice or work on our part. For the most part, people simply pay money and the conveniences of modernity are provided BY OTHERS. When crisis arises, we are then beholden to those professionals to repair our state at whatever price they demand. When crisis arises, we often don't notice before things are far beyond our poor power to affect change. People don't really seem to notice what goes on around them, and then they piss and moan when something goes wrong, badly wrong, and a large price is required to repair the damage done.

Like I said, because I watch my water meter, I caught the problem within two days and paid nothing to actually rectify it. If I waited for a professional, in all likelihood he would charge me a service fee to "take a look" (which I could also do) and then probably has a minimum fee even though no expense was required. If we pay more attention to what happens around us, we can save ourselves from irreparable disaster sometimes as well as from being beholden to the often unethical business practices of those who would hold us at ransom. Years ago, I had a flat tire that was irreparable (so they say) and they refused to let me leave. I put on the spare tire, drove home, put on a FULL SIZE SPARE that I had in the garage, and waited until tires were on sale to buy a replacement. Vigilance provided me with freedom. I didn't have to bow to their demands, pay their price or act on their timing. I was ready and free to act upon my own. You can be too. Not everything is simple and not everything is cheap, but if you are paying attention you can often end up paying a lot less down the road when things go wrong. Catching a problem early may cost you for the repair, but you wont stack up months worth of excess water useage because you didn't notice the back yard was flooded every morning. Be vigilant. In this there is savings and peace.

Long Time Passed No Posts

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I learned yesterday from a follower that people miss this media. I abandoned it because during quarantine I was making videos, and they are easier to make. However, I do get a lot of shade for how I look, which I don't get here. I've just been frustrated, distracted, and discouraged, and so I have opted to do other things with my time, because I thought that nobody read this or cared anymore for blogs, especially mine.

So, now that I know you care, so here's the skinny. I've been in a bishopric now for about two years, and it has been the most frustrating thing in my life. I took this calling knowing that it would require sacrifice, but I had no idea as to the width and bredth of sacrifice it would actually exact of me. Whether we're talking about my job, my health, or my other private concerns, this calling has cost me in many avenues of my life, and may culminate in me losing my membership or at least some privileges thereof.

First off, it hurt me professionally/vocationally. I had to take a significant pay cut to be in the bishopric, and that staffing option has been filled by someone else who was willing and AVAILABLE. As soon as I was no longer willing to do whatever it took, the administration started looking for OTHER PEOPLE to put into my slots. For the first time in a decade, they took a class from me last term and gave it to a new hire who is a member of the HDTV+ community. Students were upset. Administration was aloof. Meanwhile, the other bishopric counselor has been promoted twice, and he's unlikely to be at weekly activities, summer camp, or stick around very long after church. His career is far more important than the Lord.

Secondly, it has hurt me socially. As a member of a bishopric, I'm supposed to work with the youth, but there are also a crapton of widows and widowers, and I have adopted them and cared for them. So, my friend circle is predominantly filled with septa- and octagenarians, who are old enough to be my parents. On the other end of the spectrum, I work with teenagers, who are young enough to be my children. Some of their parents don't like me because the kids listen to me and not to them. So, I ended up in a social no mans land where the people my age are married already and/or hate me.

Finally, it has hurt me psychologically. I find that church leaders are reticent to help with or dismissive of my concerns. Yesterday in church a Stake Leader used abusive language toward three youth and although the Stake President and Bishop were there, I was the only person who pushed back or pointed it out. I was so ticked off that I was about to punch the dude for mocking teenagers, so instead I tripped over my chair and left. My pulse was 117bpm. I was angry. Church leaders expect me to "plow and sow and reap to glut the avarice of those who would riot in my blood and hunt me from the face of the [ward]". They expect me to get these kids to seminary and prepare them for missions and then allow other adults to mock them publicly in front of their peers. I told the Stake President that I expect him to back me up if the youth matter, otherwise I'll surrender my temple recommend and resign from the bishopric.

At the end of the day, none of these kids are mine. Nobody will make much mention of lessons I taught or times I stood up for them if other priesthood leaders drive them away from the church. If stake leaders aren't going to stick up for the kids and push back against the Adversary's methods, what good will my feeble efforts achieve? I am only one man, and half the time I'm sure I'm overreacting and being over the top because I lack a female influence to calm me down and temper my reactions. I don't know if God talks to me, if I hear Him at all, or if I misinterpreted His messages. Plus, what do I know about raising children? Nobody seems to want to have any with me, so what do I know about raising them? I just about attacked a priesthood leader who was bullying the youth. Imagine what that might have cost me if I physically assaulted him in a church building!

I don't know why, but I care about these kids. I know that five to ten years from now, if past is prologue, most of them won't remember me, talk to me, or talk about me even though in the digital age keeping in touch is easy, even for someone sans social media such as myself. Two years ago, I attended wedding receptions for two young men I taugh back in 2018, but I haven't heard a peep from them since. I know God sees what I'm doing, and He hasn't struck me with lightning yet or closed my mouth so that I cannot speak, so I keep being me because that's what I was told to do was be me. Yet, I feel so often like I am the 506th Parachute Infantry, surrounded in Bastogne, and the Allied leadership is dickering about helping me while I give ground and lose confidence. I know that paratroopers are supposed to be surrounded, but we also rely on other parts of God's Battalion to come to our relief. Nuts!

Maybe I'm just complaining. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this job. Maybe I'm not supposed to win. I mean, sometimes God sends people to proclaim repentence knowing they won't actually repent, but I hoped that I might be able to make a difference. Now I have to go spend six hours this week doing damage control with vulnerable youth because some high school football star continues to bully those who are weaker than he and gets away with it because priesthood leaders "believe in God's mercy". I refuse to let the kids be bullied, and I refuse to put my arm to the square to sustain men who think there is virtue in using the adversary's method to achieve the Father's plan. I managed to walk away, but I cannot do that forever, and I don't know how else to respond. I don't have time to raise other men's kids, and why would God trust me to do that when He gave me none of my own?

Letting God Prevail

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You hear the inspirational stories from time to time, how people trusted in God and arrived at their own Land of Promise. They followed promptings and got the house, the job, the fiancé, the pregnancy, or the healing blessing for which they richly and righteously yearned. You may also know other people who, despite faithful service and devotion to the gospel of Jesus Christ and their covenants, still feel like they are wandering in the Wilderness of Sin unsure when they will arrive at their own Promised Land. They remain single, sick, poor, uneducated, unemployed, or childless, despite faith, prayer and fasting. Both of these stories have one common theme- the people in them are trying to let God prevail in their lives. They are seeking righteous things in their lives and blessings from the Lord. Not achieving and not attempting may look the same in the outcome, but they take very different paths.

I lived what most would consider a faithful and devoted life as a youth. My mission president described me as the most prepared missionary he had ever met. My maternal grandfather was upset at first to not be able to pay for my mission until he learned that I intended to pay my own way. I married in the temple. I attended university and earned on a PhD in Biochemistry. Then my life went to hell. None of this happened because of me. It happened because of the agency of others.

You see, sometimes the things we think of as a Land of Promise depend on the agency of others. No matter how hard we try, we cannot mess with free will and have a happy ending. You cannot force someone to marry you, promote you, have children with you or the Lord to heal you. Sometimes other ends are God’s will. Virtuous ends come only from virtuous means, and that’s why God doesn’t mess with free will either. The stories of faithful Christians who follow promptings and have their dreams and hopes realized occur because of free will. So did mine, and so do the stories of others who are denied the blessings of family and posterity because of the agency of others.

Acquiescing to agency of other people is a way in which we let God prevail. God knows us and watches over us and wants us to be happy. He also allows other people to reject Him when they reject us because that is important to their growth and honest outcome as well. Elder F Enzio Busche once taught that “When you are forced to give up something or when something dear to you is taken from you, know that this is your lesson to be learned right now. Know also as you are learning this lesson that God wants to give you something better.” When my marriage fell apart and my vocational aspirations faltered, I falsely presumed that God would give me a better wife or a superior job. However, it was not something better in that way or even for me. God had a better work for me to do.

In the intervening years, the church has made some changes in its organizational structure to accommodate men like me. For many years, I sat in the overflow on the SWorD bench (Single, Widowed or Divorced) with other men in my ward who had nobody with whom to sit. There are many single WOMEN in the church in similar circumstances who also feel like there is no place for them because they don’t fit the stereotype. All I contributed to the kingdom was my tithe and as a statistic for purposes of the ward budget because several bishops used their agency to avoid asking God what He would have me do in their wards. Then, in 2021, a change occurred, I was put into a bishopric, and I began to hold down two jobs, three callings and raise my new beagle puppy. I am a counselor, a Sunday School teacher and a ward single adult representative for the stake. I have a work to do. It is “something better”, but it is not a family of my own or a fat paycheck.

Not all lands of promise look the same and not all lands of promise come in this life. Not all promises are for us. Despite his faithfulness, Moses did not get to enter the Promised Land. That was for Joshua and Caleb and those born in the wilderness. It seems that, for many of God’s faithful children, they must first spend some time wandering in a wilderness before receiving the blessings He has for them. So if you feel like you’re trapped inside a never ending night, then maybe you should take that as a sign that you are one of God’s favorites and that, when the time is right, He will lead you across the River Jordan into the land He prepared for YOU. Trusting God is difficult but always the right choice. When Midian invaded, Gideon pared his army down to only a few hundred souls who, because they trusted in and followed the Lord, drove out the invaders as they chanted “The Sword of the Lord and Gideon”. You can also be the SWorD of the Lord even if your life doesn’t fit the stereotype or have the happy ending for which you yearn. You can help God’s will and kingdom prevail if you seek His will, follow the promptings and trust in His grace, love and timing.

If you presume to know about how I live from the outcome of my life, I appear to be a dismal failure. I served a mission in a nation that underwent apostasy while there, a nation that no longer has its own mission and is an appendage to another mission. I have been divorced now for more than a decade. I have no children. I have never been promoted at my job. I have not had any friends since my friend moved to Ohio in 2017. I drive a 1995 Saturn and live in a modest but comfortable house. From all the metrics measured by man, I am a failure. However, talk to the youth of my ward, the bishop, my parents, and parents of the youth, to some of the septuagenarians in the ward I have taken it upon myself to shepherd, and they will tell you that I am anything but a failure. True, I didn’t find a lofty pay increase or the love of my life, but I know that God has taken me to a Promised Land, something better even if it’s not a land that holds promise for me. Like Nehemiah wrote, I know that I am doing a great work and cannot come down.

Elder Dieter Uchtdorf spoke in conference many years ago that the promises of the Lord are not often kept in the ways and timing that we might hope. The work of patience is this- to live diligently and faithfully, to trust God, and to never give up. In the end God will prevail, and if you let Him lead your life, you will prevail too, even if not in the way or timing that you expect. I don’t know if I’ll ever find anyone with whom to share life or want to. I doubt I will ever have children. I don’t know if any of the children of other men will take what I teach them in word and by example and change their lives for the better or give me attribution. I know that they have their agency. I know that I am giving young people the tools to a good life and teaching them how they work. It’s up to them to use them in the way God intends, to let Him show them how to build a better life.

God will prevail. He prevails upon all of us to trust Him. I may not be rich or married or be living happily after happily, but I have a dog who absolutely loves me absolutely, food in the fridge, money in the bank, marrow in my bones and strength in my sinews. And God gave me charismata, a myriad of spiritual gifts to use to bless others of His children outside my family. I have not achieved anything you can see, but it is not for lack of trying. It’s for lack of agency, but I only control mine, and I am choosing to do what I think will help God prevail and listening to Him when He tries to prevail upon me.

Courage Chose Me

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 Many things have changed since I last wrote on this blog.  Most of them have been challenges or blessings disguised as trials.  One of them, however, was not.  After more than two years grieving my dog, last August, God helped me find a new one.  His name is Courage.

His previous humans were allergic to him.  Turns out I might be too.  Courage licks me more than my other dogs, and I find that I develop a rash sometimes, but when I went over to meet him before committing to bringing him home, he came over and sat between my legs as comfortable as can be, and I took that as a sign that this was the right dog.

Sometimes Courage sits in my other beagle's spots, but he has not taken his place.  I wonder sometimes if he knows that there was another dog here once, that some of those spots are his.  At first, he sniffed around looking for  my other beagle, despite the fact that he'd been dead for two years.  Now, he has his own places and we have our own things, and I reserve some places for the dog who was my best friend.

I brought Courage home over a year ago.  I would have written on the anniversary, but there was a fire at my house, and I just moved back in this week.  It was tough sleeping on a couch and leaving him in a crate, but we have shared some tender moments.  I am determined to show by the way I treat Courage that I have learned to be a better dog dad.  Sure, I wish I'd done that with my other beagle, but at least it shows that I have learned and that his sacrifices brought forth fruit.

This morning, I awoke to find Courage laying on his side, his head resting on the pillow watching me sleep.  I left the light on all night, and he was there for me.  Courage chose me, and he continues to choose me.  I know that he'll be over the moon that I'll finish class early this week and be there with him a little bit longer before bed.  I will be too.

Although God still sees fit to introduce me only to humans who will not be meaningful to my life long term, He has granted in His mercy to bless me with dogs.  I wrote in the book, which I still have not finished three years later, that my dogs are a reminder that God has not forsaken nor forgotten me, that He has good things for me, and that He loves me.  Courage's humans named him after Courage the Cowardly Dog, but he's not a coward at all.  Instead, I kept the name when the words of a hymn came to mind:

Fear not though the Enemy deride.  Courage, for the Lord is on our side.

He has been and continues to be on mine, and Courage is a tangible reminder that God loves me, even if it's a canine companion.  After all, Courage knows the truth about me too and is still excited to be with me, warts and all.

Mauthausen Moments

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Many Americans seem surprised to discover how many Germans deny the existence of the Concentration Camps during World War II. We trust those who tell us about the atrocities they witnessed, particularly when those people are grandparents who helped liberate the camps. We marvel that the locals could deny the existence of camps in their own backyards. However, at the same time, many of us have no idea that German and Japanese citizens (Korimatsu v United States) were interned in the United States or that after the war German civilians were housed in camps under atrocious conditions (Rheinwiesenlager). Perhaps we feel this way because we just weren't taught any better, because the time we have in school to learn is limited to the amount of information we could absorb. Perhaps we feel this way because we do not want to know any better. At some point, each of us experiences a Mauthausen Moment, where we decide if we want to only see the land of our nativity through only rose colored glasses. Despite evidence to the contrary, despite experience, and despite the duplicity that exists when some atrocity of that scale looms in our own back yard, we lionize ourselves and paint all others in caricature. You see, acknowledging the true purpose of Mauthausen means acknowledging that some of what we believe and value and "know" is based on half-truths and whole lies.

Experiencing Mauthausen

While working as a missionary in Austria, our mission zone opted to use one of our monthly activities to visit the Mauthausen main camp near Linz, Austria, which was the center of our Zone. The approach to Mauthausen is mostly clear, but on the path we tred, shortly before you spot the main camp, it is obscured from view. Before you see the buildings still extant, the stench assaults your nasal cavity. You can smell death. At least one of our company vomited at the smell. Even if you've never smelt burnt human flesh, you know that's what it is, because you know where you are going, even though this was not an extermination camp. Many of the prisoners here, since most of those sent to Mauthausen were Polish and Soviet POWs, were shot for failure to salute their captors or died in accidents. Only 25% of those interned in Mauthausen survived the war. Mauthausen had one of the highest rates of death of all the KZ Lagern. Mauthausen is centered around a stone quarry, with its infamous stairs of death, from which a fair few number of prisoners fell. In subsequent visits to the towns between Wels and Linz, Austrians with whom we spoke denied having any idea there was a camp there. In some cases, they deny the existence of the camp even now. I think they didn't want to know. You see, in order to have a Mauthausen Moment, you must deny things that you know because to acknowledge them means that many of the things to which you desperately cling as virtues in yourself, your nation, your dogma, or your world of view must wash away because of the sandy foundation on which they are predicated. You see, if Austrians admit that Mauthausen existed or what happened there, they would have to admit everything complicit in their own actions that made it so.

Evidence of Mauthausen

Every psychological attempt to conceal the Mauthausens of our lives ignores the evidence of its erection. Whether we're ignoring our own flaws or duplicity or we weigh our strengths against another's weaknesses, Mauthausen Moments are preceded by a campaign of misinformative propaganda. Imagine the scope of building the camp, the construction in a time when employment in Austria/Germany were very low, when jobs were few and when the people were poor. Nobody noticed? Imagine the nationalization of industries and how the industries ran but the employment rolls never decreased because they were worked by slaves and prisoners. You stand on the train platforms in Attnang-Puchheim and see freight trains full of people roll through and never bother to ask where they went or who they were? I mean, it's not like the passenger trains; these people were shipped as FREIGHT. Yet, they were "deplorables" and not worth the time and attention necessary to really worry about their disposition. By the time the war ended, greater Mauthausen stretched over hundreds of miles, dotting the countryside with camps in places like Ebensee, Gusen, Amstetten and Melk, all of which are places I walked as a missionary. People living there today act as if nothing bad ever happened there. You can be sure that locals participated in the erection of the camp, its staffing, its supervision, and its supply. You know that because some of the people living there were good National Socialists. I know; I met a few, including an Oberscharfuehrer whose rank I recognized when he brought his uniform to the door. And just who did the Germans think built their Messerschmidt fighter jets that came from caves under the camps? The smelters and industries ran, and the allies bombed the steel factory outside Linz, but American bombers didn't bomb Mauthausen. Why not?

Deciding to believe despite duplicity

People will believe a lie for two reasons. Either they are hoping that it's true or they are afraid it might be. IN the modern world we see the same trend, whether with politics, religion, economics or even romance, people delude themselves into thinking that what they hope is the same as what they have reason to think is true. Reasonable thoughts come from evidence; hope persists despite its absence. Life is then full of Mauthausen Moments, where we commit to something either believing it or ignoring it despite evidence to the contrary. We hold onto beliefs despite evidence to the contrary and we imagine evidence for other ideas where none exists. You come to believe in a thing, a person, or an idea, and you commit to it, because if you admit you are wrong you must admit that effort and energy and belief has been cast behind a fraudulent or corrupt thing. You revere it, see only it's virtues, and you throw your weight behind it to make it possible and sometimes even to help it succeed. Then, you learn that the rosy parts aren't the only parts or worse that the rosy parts are not even true. At this point, your Mauthausen Moment requires you to admit that you were wrong and that you helped or at least sat by while something atrocious went on right under your nose. Every German had to endure a Mauthausen Moment. Many of them realized that they had been fed a lie. Those Germans greeted me with open arms, grateful for the ancestors of my countrymen who treated them kindly, offered them food, and helped rebuild their shattered cities and world view. Denying Mauthausen means denying yourself the ability to move on, to move forward.

At one point in your life, if not more, you'll have a Mauthausen moment, the moment where you have to decide whether you are going to admit Mauthausen exists or keep pretending that it doesn't. You can acknowledge the signs or you can ignore them. You can see the virtues only or you can see something warts and all. You can help things fail, you can help evil things succeed either by acting outright to assist or by inaction against it. When we do not protest the establishment of Mauthausen, we essentially allow Mauthausens to be built in our lives, our minds, our communities, and our nations. Only you can make the decision about whether or not you acknowledge Mauthausen exists, and the people who know it's there will not understand you if you deny its existence. For those who deny the existence of Mauthausen, they cannot expect ANY common ground with those who recognize it; for those who recognize it, they must accept there is no convincing those who reject it. For the True Believer, they will either prove their ideology true or die trying. You see, admitting that Mauthausen exists means admitting all the thing that made it possible and admitting, even if you played no part in establishing it, you were complicit by inaction. In the end Mauthausen Moments are invitations to acknowledge truth, admit mistakes and seek correction and direction. Admitting Mauthausen is the first step in correcting the problems that it created and in redeeming those hurt by what happened there. The quote oft attributed to Edmund Burke seems prescient: "All that is necessary for the success of evil in this world is for good men to do nothing." The fact that good people didn't act allowed the Mauthausens of Hitler's Germany to be built, to spread, and to commit the atrocities for which they are known. When your Mauthausen Moment comes, you will learn about yourself, but more importantly the world will know you as you really are.

The Thirteen Particles of Faith

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At General Conference, President Nelson made reference to the notion taught by Alma to “exercise a particle of faith (Alma 32:27)”. As a scientist I teach classes about subatomic particles, or the smaller parts of which an atom is comprised. I submit therefore for your consideration the following particles of which Faith is comprised. This is only an initial list, and it is not to be construed that it I speak in any way for the Church or the Prophet. This list comes from personal revelation following that presentation. For inspiration for each of these particles I include a reference verse from Alma 32.

Particles of Faith Version 1 4 April 2021

1. Desire (verse 27) People make time for the things that match their true desires. If you can honestly no nothing more than desire to believe, to exercise faith, you will make time for the things that feed faith and for the fruits of faith to form. This is often the first particle of faith.

2. Decide (verse 28) Often the only option available in any situation is to decide what response you propose to propagate from here on out. The second particle of faith is to choose, to decide to have faith. Life is full of tough choices, and if we can choose the choicest things, we can enjoy the choicest consequences.

3. Trust (verse 31) With our limited perspective, faith is difficult to keep. Trusting in the Lord however is one of the essential elements to help faith grow and blossom. Without trust, people do not keep faith. So, one particle of faith asks us to trust in the grace, wisdom and timing of the Lord.

4. Effort and Action (verse 37) Faith is a principle of activity. We talk of “exercising faith” which means that movement and activity are essential. Nephi said he would Go and do, not sit and stew. We find that if we start exercising faith, it grows, just as if we exercise a muscle it does too.

5. Study (verse 12) It is almost impossible to maintain faith in something we do not really understand or know. Study is however twopart. In the first part, we must learn about that in which we have faith. In the second, we must come to know Him in whom we place our faith. You cannot love or trust someone you do not actually know, and that knowledge comes from study.

6. Prayer (verse 5) Given that faith is a belief in things we cannot actually empirically define, it belongs to the realm of philosophy. Prayer has always accompanied worship, and prayer affords us an opportunity to seek answers and clarity. On the road to salvation, let questions arise, but never doubts. If something is wrong, God will give you clarity. Doubts come from the devil.

7. Repentance (verse 13) Faith is killed by wickedness. So, in order for faith to grow, repentance is required. In terms of exercising faith, this is often the easiest particle of faith for people to exercise, and it is exercised by people of many faiths, including those beyond and tangential to Christianity. Repentance involves a reformation and a resolve to be a better person, and since that exalted state is part of our Faith, repentance is a particle of faith. As we trust Christ’s mercy and repent, we qualify to once again participate in ordinances once worthy, and these holy ordinances set up circumstances in which the Spirit can come and witness that our faith is real.

8. Commitment/Endurance (verse 13) Far too many people think that faith is an event. It is not only a process but a life-long journey. Faith is not attained all at once or in a single instant. That is knowledge. So, in order to press forward along the covenant path and continue in faith, we must commit ourselves to the principles and ordinances of the gospel. We must commit to keeping the commandments to show our faith and gratitude are real. Just as when you plant a vegetable seed, you must commit to water, weed, and nurture those seeds, you must commit to nurture the seed of faith.

9. Submissiveness (verse 16) It takes a great deal of faith to move mountains, but it takes a great deal more faith to not allow your mountains to move you. In your life there have to be challenges. You can break down or you can break through, and we break through by submitting our will to the Lord. It takes great faith to accept a disappointing answer or outcome, to acknowledge that His ways and thoughts and purposes are higher than ours, and that sometimes an unanswered prayer or a rejected request are actually for our benefit.

10. Humility (verse 6) Many people reject faith and religion generally, and many people use disappointments in the growing of their spiritual garden as rational to abandon the garden completely. Here in Vegas where the desert threatens to constantly destroy all life, it takes humility to do the work, to get on your hands and knees to dig and plant and dung and weed and nurture and, if necessary, to invoke the blessings of heaven on your feeble efforts. The proud do not plant the seed of faith, and the haughty do not persist long enough for it to grow. It takes a great deal of humility to make a man of faith, time and patience and practice, and for those who are too proud to do the work, their seeds will never grow.

11. Patience (verse 41) Sometimes the seed does not sprout as quickly as we like, and often there is no fruit in the first season. Every seed that grows in a garden, every little spark or new leaf or tiny node of growth is an increase that rewards our faith. Even fruits, if removed too hastily, may not be ripe and yield the rewards. Just because it has not happened yet does not mean it never will.

12. Respect for agency (verse 39) Some of the seeds of faith that we plant involve the agency of other people. We can have faith that others will accept our invitations, but we must respect their ability to govern themselves. If as part of our faith the outcome relies on the agency of another, it may not happen, not because our faith failed, but because their seeds have not grown yet if they ever will. God does not mess with free will, and all the faith in the world will not allow us to do so either.

13. Service (verse 1) How knoweth the man the master whom he has not served, who is a stanger to him? If you want your faith to grow, then you must follow the first admonition of the master to his disciples, the first and great responsibility we have to each other. In service, you get to know the master and the family of man. As you get to know others as they really are, your faith in the goodness of man increases. As your understanding in the goodness of man increases, you become more open to the goodness of God, and the fruit that service bears will blossom in you and cause your faith to increase.

As Alma taught, if you can only exercise one of these particles, do so. It will be enough. Part of faith is some faith, and it is exponentially superior to no faith at all. Some of these particles, like the subatomic particles whose existence inspires this list, will attract other particles due to their magnetic, electric, prophetic, or philosophical nature. All life has balance, and so, when one of these arrives, it will attract others that are like it. One major principle of chemistry is that like attracts like, and so once you have one particle of faith you can only get more. When or how many, I cannot say, but if you can only exercise and maintain one, others eventually will follow.

Of course this is only an initial list, but these individual ideas, which are particles of what Faith in Christ requires of us, will help us establish, nurture, grow and reap from our Faith. If you want to have faith you must have faith, but we learn that it takes only a little part to get more. From small things proceedeth that which is great. As the living Messiah, Christ compared faith to a mustard seed because it is a tiny particle that springs forth to a mighty tree. From any of these tiny particles of faith your faith can grow, and the more you spread the more likely you will have a mighty harvest, a healthy vineyard and the satisfaction of soul that comes only to people of faith. No matter your circumstances, if you can manage even one of these particles of faith, God will be able to magnify your blessings.

When They Own the Information

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Summer 1999, I arrived in Neumarkt am Wallersee Austria as part of my missionary service. President Roth of the Salzburg Stake met with my companion and me and tasked us to perform what he dubbed Operation Ammon (referencing this story). In conjunction with this assignment he told us about how, during the Austrian Imperial time, the Emperor sent his soldiers into the Flachgau region of Austria to ask the residents a single question- what their religious affiliation was. Anyone who failed to give the correct answer (Catholic) was immediately executed. Consequently, he believed that many of the people living in Flachgau were secretly protestant but identified as Catholic. Then, as now, the powers that controlled the wheels of politics and the dissemination of information did whatever it took to silence their opponents. The morals of this story are simple. First, it is dangerous to establish a society in which there is a central authority that decides what people can say or think or believe. Secondly, it illustrates the fact that people will seek peace at any price and that tyrants know this. Finally, it illustrates that a government that is willing to silence critics by whatever means necessary can and will continue to do so and occupies any place besides the moral authority. 

The information companies are generally either biased towards liberals or outright owned by/allied with them. Although most of these are technically publically traded entities, they only consider public property to be property to which they don’t own the deed, so they generally only tolerate the public disseminating information through their venues as long as it doesn’t affect their agenda or hurt their potential profits. Most profit is actually made in the public sphere, by securing grants, preferential treatment or exclusive contracts for YOUR platform/product/publication in a political manner, i.e. by convincing a politician to pass laws that favor YOU. The ties between media companies and a particular political philosophy are well documented, and while people like to point out Fox News, as if it’s somehow biased 180 degrees completely, is only an attempt to address an outlier as if it were representative of the entire information climate. With the election of 2020 ceding control of every branch of the legislature and executive to a single party confederate with the companies and the information they disseminated, we now live in a country where a single authority will decide and possibly dictate conscience and expression. 

To this day in Flachgau, or at least in 1999, if you asked the people their religion, they will still answer “catholic”. It became automatic for the people, in order to continue with some semblance of a life, to help maintain the status quo. For generations, the easy answer was to say “I agree with whatever the central authority says”. The people go through the motions of a life. In this way they think they have peace. Talk to them about other things, and you find it is anything but. They dislike oppressive taxes as much as we do. They just don’t vote against it because, particularly in Austria, the defamatory titular association with the Nazis drives their decisions. Any “right wing” entity is associated with the fascists of yore, and even in this nation, starting this month, we have a president elect making direct comparisons between his political opponents and the nefarious villains of that wretched stain on history. Of course, history is written by the victor, and they are already slandering and libelling their opponents in order to establish a peaceable flock of sheep they can herd this way and that. Tyrants learned long ago that if you provide people with food and entertainment, the great majority will simply go through the motions. Whether in the Napoleonic Era, the Crusades, or the Plandemic of 2020, the tyrants give people enough to satiate their immediate needs (like sufficient toilet paper), distract their minds, and know that they will comply. 

Like President Trump or not, he is correct about one thing. HE once said, “They are not after me. They are after you. I’m just in the way.” If you disagree with him, fine, but the bigger issue here is what they did to him. At least as of today, Donald Trump is the sitting president of the United States, and he has been censored by and banned from a slew of social media platforms, including ones of which I was not even aware until today. If they can shut up the President, then they can shut you up too. Maybe it won’t be today, but if the day comes that you don’t give the correct answer the Gendermerie of Political Correctness will ride through the countryside and ask you one question, what your political affiliation is. If they don’t like your reply, they will censor you; if you refuse to be silent, then they will silent you PERMANENTLY, just like they did in Austria centuries ago. Like Trump or not, the fact that the media companies censored him carte blanc means that they feel empowered enough to silence anyone anytime for any aberrant or divergent opinion. For them, the ends always justify the means. For them, a docile population is the easiest one to manipulate. So, they will stop at nothing especially in the absence of pushback to force action, and I would not be surprised if they killed Trump just to end his influence once and for all. Despite the fact that yesterday Trump called for unity, conceded the election, and asked us to look forward to and work towards better days, the only place you will hear that is HERE until Youtube deletes the video as part of their purge. When it goes away, know that they have escalated it to the next order of magnitude. 

Tyranny and deception are the rule of governments. It has probably always been this way, and it will probably always be this way. Politicians like to promise that they will change it, but people in power rarely keep power unless they maintain the status quo. In order to maintain the status quo, you must control the information and control the people who resist or denounce the information you choose to disseminate. When they own the information, they can bend it all they like. In order to bend the information to their wills, they must silence anyone who publishes any information that defies their political wills. If they must, eventually, they must put those critics to the sword. For now, it suffices to simply put them to the censor. Elsewhere, I have written ad nauseum that Liberalism is the philosophy of hell. It will eventually create a world where everyone is preoccupied with himself, with his own survival and advancement, because although it promises cooperation and fairness its fruits generate everything but what it promises. They shut up and shut down a sitting president. They will try to shut up anyone and everyone who opposes them. In a village near Lambach Austria in 1998 an old man told me about his own capitulation sixty years earlier to the SS. The Waffen SS ordered his company to execute a group of naked women and children (probably Jewish) standing in a field, and when his Lieutenant refused, the SS officer shot the LT on the spot. He looked at me and said, “To my everlasting shame, I shot those people. God will never forgive that.” I cannot speak for God, but that man speaks for many who wish they had done something other than fold. Eventually our time will come to decide if we let the British march on Lexington, if we let the Gendermarie ensconce political Catholicism in America, if we let our own government dictate our thoughts and conscience. At that point, we will discover who we really are and what we really deserve.

Hope and Faith in 2020

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Like many of you, I found 2020 to be a difficult year, but I think I found it difficult in different ways. Astoundingly, this was a good year for me in ways where other people struggled. I remained employed all year, and, because older adjuncts decided to opt out of teaching for personal safety, I got extra work AND extra pay to fill their shoes, meaning that I had work to do and money aplenty. Fortunately too, I stayed healthy. However, I struggle to figure out God’s will, why what I hope and pray doesn’t happen. I also don’t understand why what I know and learned and believed did not transpire this year. In unexpected ways, this became a year that tested my faith. Granted, I went back to church, and eagerly so, but I sat there today in a congregation of only 17 people and wondered where everyone else was. I am starting to wonder if I am the problem, if God is silent because of me. Without other people or distractions or activities, I’m all that remains that I can actually affect. 

The pandemic continues, much to my shock, awe, and dismay. Back in March, I expected it to blow over soon and that we’d return to normal for fall term. I was wrong. In November, our moron governor increased limits on gatherings, and all of our classes were pushed online, and I was sequestered alone in my house again. During April, the prophet asked us to pray and fast for relief from Covid, and yet the virus continues, or at least the fear and panic does. I look at the data, I remember what I learned about the Coronavirus family when teaching Microbiology, and I think of how months passed before I even knew anyone infected. I see them fudge numbers to count Covid deaths and marvel how Covid cured everything except cancer. Nobody dies of heart disease, diabetes, gunshot wounds, car crashes, or even old age enymore. It’s all Covid. Why is it still here? Even the election didn’t end the covid hysteria.  

All year, my personal hopes have been dashed. Even before Covid, I was passed over for another promotion. The message seems to be “Hitherto art thou come, but no further.” I watch people around me who are less qualified, capable, virtuous, or motivated treated better, and I watch as the governor cut everyone’s pay equally, without regard for the fact that some of us were “essential” and continued to work for our pay while others sat ahome and watched Jerry Springer in their pajamas. I pray, and I ask God for things, and even last week, the message came as ‘I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request”. Why do I bother to pray? If I don’t pray, I “receive not because [I] ask not” but when I pray and say “Thy will be done,” it’s as if God says, “Good, you weren’t going to get that anyway.” Plus, this summer, our last family dog died, and I couldn’t be with her when they put her to sleep because of Covid. I watched the last of our family dogs die, and I couldn’t be with them at their end. I finished the remodel I started back in January by the end of June, but now there’s nobody here with whom to enjoy the new house. It’s a pretty place that nobody may ever see. 

My sister thanked me last week for “always reminding [her] to inquire of the Lord”, but I wonder how adept I am. Does God talk to me or do I hear what I want to hear? Did I misunderstand Him? Did He talk to me at all? This is not a new phenomenon; I have at other times felt adrift and alone. In truth, 2010 was the worst year of my life. I took a paycut then too during a budget crisis, got accused of crimes I didn’t commit, got in a car wreck, lost more money to my ex wife, had to give up on a house I really liked and cover for a coworker when she took 15 weeks off and didn’t tell us why, without any increase in pay. Back then a friend suggested that I start my own church, “with beer and hookers”, and when I told him I would not, he told me that this made my faith more noble, continuing to believe without any evidence that I was in the right. Another old and dear friend told me that it impressed her that I keep on doing what is right no matter what. Am I just some crackpot? Or is God just too busy with essential workers and dire circumstances to bother with my first world problems? Does He love me? I used to have this amazing dog in my house as a tangible reminder, but it is not good for man to be alone. 

That’s exactly my problem. What happened to hope in the "season of perpetual hope"? Now as before, I’m not sure what’s right or if I have any idea. I’m alone, not just literally but figuratively speaking. Over the last decade, I pursued job opportunities, relationships, causes, friendships, and recreational activities, and in the end, even a pandemic wasn’t enough to make any of those people desperate enough to reach out to me. I teach other people’s kids in Sunday School, and they move on with their lives, and now I live alone in a house where I am forced by command of the governor to stay except for “essential trips”. I determined myself that for my own psychological well-being that bimonthly hikes on the mountain were “essential”. But nobody I meet there or at work or at church seems to be significant to my story, and so 2020 has been an isolating year for me like none other. I don’t know if God talks to me, or if He cares about me. I don’t have anything obvious to evince that like I used to. I don’t know why I pray when the heavens appear to remain silent. Just now I went and knelt anyway, knowing that it’s possible God will deny my requests. At least that way I can say I tried. At least then I can say I fought a good fight, finished my course and kept the faith. Hopefully it will keep me.

Voter Fraud Part I

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I haven't posted here in a long time. I've been busy making videos for class and consequently posted videos there instead of writing my thoughts here. To catch up with my thoughts available in videos hosted there, please go to my Youtube channel.

In this current election, for many reasons, I believe the vote to be rife with fraud. This is part 1 of a multiple part series I'll release over the next week or so as I amalgamate my thoughts and the evidence associated therewith. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's address my opponents, the nay-Sayers who claim that there is no voter fraud whatsoever. The odds that there is no voter fraud are zero. People cheat at UNO, at Snakes and Ladders, at Chess, and in Casinos. Why would they not cheat in elections, with stakes as high as they are there? I digress. 

Today's post is courtesy of one of these detractors, one of those "true believers" who believes that there is no case whatsoever for voter fraud. I am going to address the Nay Sayers first, with this line of points previously returned to him on Youtube. 

I refuse to accept the premise of your argument that the onus is on me to prove there is corruption, but for the benefit of those who may read my response, I will provide the following: 

1. The onus is on states to prove that the election is legitimate. In 2016, I served as a certified elector. When we turned in machines at the county records department, we certified that the machines were in good working order, delivered directly and not tampered with in any way. To this date to my knowledge, no state has certified its election results, at least not one currently in contestation. Prove me wrong. 

2. The states certify elections. The Associated Press and campaigns do not decide elections. Until and unless the states declare winners, it doesn't matter what your favorite reporter says. Since they are talking, they are at the very least lying to viewers. 

3. In a court of law, which is where this will likely end up, the burden is not to prove something but to create a reasonable doubt. There is plenty of evidence available to create reason to doubt the election is legitimate, but you have decided to simply dismiss, discount, ignore it and discredit any who proffer any evidence. 

4. You are already convinced that you are right. When they choose jurors in a trial, they specifically look for individuals who do not already have a conviction with respect to the matter at hand, people who will look at all of the evidence critically as presented and weigh the facts accordingly. You are already decidedly in the tank for your side. You would be eliminated from the jury selection for your obvious bias as evident in your profane ramblings. 

5. Your counterblast is wrought with duplicity. Did you demand proof that Kavanaugh was a sexual predator? Did you demand proof that the officers killed George Floyd without provocation or cause? Unless you can prove that you were skeptical of those and also demanded proof, you are not a principled person. You are a partisan. 

6. It is common human action to lionize your side and paint all others in caricature. This is intended to breed fidelity with close associates, but politics amplifies the wicked aspects of this tendency, amplifies the bias and makes villains of saints. Are you the kind of person who can think critically about your own side or do you strain at gnats from the GOP and swallow camels from the Dems? 

7. Truth is not in you unless you first admit you might be wrong. You are not open minded. You are unwilling to admit you might be wrong. I suspect that little short of a divine manifestation, you would simply dismiss any information I presented or result to ad hominem, as previously demonstrated in your profanity. Even if God himself appeared and declared the election a fraud, you would claim that any who believed that suffered the effects of a deranged mind. 

8. I will waste no more time on this, but I will post it elsewhere, because this is the rational argument you claim you want to foster. 

In subsequent posts, I will address the notion of fraud generally and then provide a list of evidence and scurrilous activity that evinces a closer look is necessary, even if it does not change the results. My contestation with the results of the 2020 election extends beyond the presidency. it's about the veracity of the vote and the value of your individual voice. If the election is won by a cheater, those who should have won have been essentially disenfranchised and their votes do not count, no matter what the candidates say. Any serious candidate therefore who truly cares about the people would want to look into it, because any serious representative cares about the people they are elected to represent, but more on that later.

Eat Right, Exercise, and Deny Your Genetics

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People claim all the time that their physique is not their fault. Sometimes they are correct. If you have an ablated thyroid, or a tapeworm, then you are definitely not to blame for the way you look. At the same time, entire industries rake in money hand over fist trying to sell you on a magically transformed body. Everywhere you look, people are trying to sell you on a better body. It's easy to understand. The better you look the better your options. As the play "Wicked" taught us: "It's not aptitude, it's how you're viewed." Consequently in our material world, people want to look better. They turn to fad diets, some of which are supremely dangerous or to exercise regimens despite the risks posed by those and ultimately miss the purpose of both of those, which is to be healthy. Far too many people do this to get dates or to get money, and it's not good for those who don't get chosen until they understand that the point of all the nutritional suggestions and PE classes was not to make everyone attractive but to help us learn how to live better lives because we're healthier than we would be without making those changes.

Like it or not, it begins with diet. You are what you put into yourself. It is impossible to make a good cake with spoiled ingredients, and so unless you put good foods into yourself, you probably won't look or feel good. Lately, however, some outlandish claims appeared on the internet. YouTube keeps featuring a 51 minute long advertisement that starts with the premise that a tomato is bad for you. Compared to what? Or you might notice all the supplements like super beets or whatever. These are not new, but some old ones are gone. Remember Tahitian Noni? Or pomegranate? "The Doctors" is pushing Elderberries, but you can't eat elderberries raw, because raw elderberries are bad for you. So you have to buy their pricey supplement. Seems like most of these diets consist of nothing more than ways to separate fools from their money. A few years back, one of my students, widely devoted to veganism, preached that veganism would cure all my ills. I discovered that Oreos are vegan and told her that if her premise held, I could just eat oreos and lose weight. Of course she had nothing to say. As a biochemist, I know a little about cells and health, but I am no professional. I can say that there are some basic principles that will help. Drink more water and less sugary beverages. Cut foods out that are likely to be contaminated with fungus or byproducts. Reduce your consumption of "bad" foods as much as you can and replace them with as many healthy options as you can manage. You're not probably going to hire a chef even if you can afford one, and you're probably want to indulge, so don't think that diet alone can get you there. There is no magic pill or shake or supplement or diet that will work for everything.

Exercise is a two edged sword, and it's a law of diminishing returns. You will notice that the more you do an exercise, the less it helps you. As you become accustomed to running or weights, you must continually raise the bar (pun intended) and increase the resistance or it stops helping you get better, and it might not be enough for you to get fit. You also tend to eat more when you exercise, because you burn more calories. Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps reported the year he won like six gold medals that he ate 6000 kcal per day. If you ate that, you'd pork out like a blimp. So, if you quit working out but keep eating, you'll get fat, and that's what happens to many people when they get older and their chest becomes their drawers. You can also exercise TOO much. People get hurt all the time. I had a student a few years back who damaged her hemorrhoids at the age of 27 lifting weights. If you exercise too much or without a spotter or incorrectly, you may damage something rather than improve it. Nobody seems to know what exercise is "best" but everyone has an opinion on what exercise is better. You may also notice people selling regimens like boot camps of CrossFit or P90x or expensive machines. I can tell you that the Treadclimber from Nordictrack probably works, not because I own one, but because I hike almost every weekend, which is the equivalent of walking an incline, and although I didn't lose weight, I sure lost waist. However, you don't need to buy gym memberships or fancy machines or a workout program or a trainer. You do need to get up and start walking.

Genetics ultimately dictate some limits. Everyone has different genetic makeup. Taller people can gain weight and show it less than shorter people. Different cultures are adapted to metabolize different foods. However, in our "diverse" world, we have a new admixture of genetic makeup but a uniform distribution of food options. Last December in Germany, after observing that the people eat a LOT of bread and chocolate, the Germans told me they keep from getting fat by "walking a lot". Well, isn't that special. I walk about 100 miles per week, and they look skinnier than I do. A friend of mine drinks a fifth of scotch every day and doesn't gain a pound. We are all slightly different, which is why no diet or exercise regimen works for everyone. In fact, none of them may EVER work for you. If you want to know what you're going to look like, look at pictures of your ancestors. Chances are daughters turn out like their mothers and sons turn out like their fathers. You can fight it, but the best advice I can give you is to work on getting the best body that your genetics make possible. You probably know someone who eats like a garbage disposal and looks like they are very fit. Skinny does not mean healthy or the starving people in other countries would be healthy. Of course, America is one of the few nations where poor people are fat, but some people don't have the genetic disposition to be top models. We all vary a little bit from perfect at least, so stop trying to force your body to some arbitrary standard. The purpose of life is to enjoy your life, and stressing out because you don't comport to someone else's standard when they have different circumstances will countermand your efforts to be healthy because stress will hurt your health.

You're better off healthy. So, if you can find a diet or exercise regimen that works for you, you ought to. Be active. The Kashi cereal company years ago featured a guy in his early 50s who said that he never ran until he was 50 and that getting healthy was a series of small steps, as many as you want. That is a great pun, because it's true. You don't need a guru or a life coach or an advertisement or even this article to tell you what you ought to eat. You know what you ought to eat. If you want to know my advice, I'll tell you, but it's very simple. The best things for you are things found on the periphery of the grocer; those center aisles contain processed foods high in fat, salt and sugar. It's not done to hurt you. It's done because salt, fat and sugar added keep things from spoiling, so they last longer on a shelf. Ultimately, they'll only help you last longer on a shelf, but since that's not where any of us ought to live, unless you want to live there, eat foods that are things you can actually find outside in nature. And then get out in nature. go for a walk or a ride or a run or whatever, but just get out. Enjoy your life. Don't let your genetic looks dictate whether or not you live well and live happily. Be you; do what you do; and, if you really want to, drink Dr. Pepper (that was their slogan once). All this has been made for the benefit of man, that they might have life and have it MORE ABUNDANTLY.