Not Yet. Here's Why.

So I asked myself how long it should take to get a letter from Salt Lake to Twin Falls.  Interesting question, I suppose.  The message we received from our bishop was that our call had been mailed out on October 8, 2012.  (The year might be important here.)  He said he thought we could expect our call as early as Thursday or as late as Monday.  That should be enough time to get a piece of mail from a couple hundred miles.

October 8 was a Monday, officially the celebration date for Columbus Day, so there would be no activity in postal matters on that day.  Seeing the calendar I decided that I would go for the Monday delivery date as more realistic.  We checked the mail every day, of course, and some of our kids were thinking of gathering for the big event.  But nothing arrived before the weekend so Gaye and I just settled in for the week.  It was actually nice to have the quiet house to ourselves for a couple of days.  We love having the kids and grandkids visit.  But it also takes a couple of days to recover, get things put back where they belong, unlock the doors and drawers where the little ones find their treasures, find the remote controls to various electronic devices...you know, that sort of thing.

Nothing on Monday, October 15.  Nor Tuesday.  Maybe Wednesday.  We have had Gaye’s final doctor’s appointment in Boise to follow up on the hip surgery scheduled for several weeks.  That happened to be on Wednesday, so we drove 2 hours over there for the 7.5 minute checkup, visited the Potters Center for some pottery supplies, and even took in a tour of the remodeled Boise LDS Temple.  (It is very nice, by the way.  The chandelier in the Celestial Room took my breath away.)  As we sat down to eat at the Chuck Wagon there came a message from Kim, the daughter living in Twin Falls.  She had gone to our house to check the mail, certainly with mischief in mind, but nothing had arrived.  So we did not hurry home.

Maybe it will come Thursday.  I’m trying to not lose sleep over this, though, so I lined up some projects for the day, including mowing the lawn.  I have put the garden to sleep, but the lawn will probably hang on for a few more weeks.  If it does not come today, I thought, I will call somebody to find out what is going on.  After all, I think I could walk to Salt Lake in 10 days.  Well, I would have to be in better shape than I am now, but it could be done.  So while I was out mowing the lawn the mail was delivered.  I just rode my little tractor over to the mailbox, with a little elevation in my pulse, and wondered whether we would be going to somewhere like Madagascar or somewhere like Butte Montana.  Only the usual 6 or 7 catalogues; nothing of even cursory interest was there.  So I called my bishop and he said he would check on it.  Meanwhile, Gaye called the Church Headquarters operator, was connected to the Missionary Department, and was informed that the letter really was sent out on October 8, 2012.  

She asked where it was sent.  That was when she learned that the zip code was wrong,  It was sent to 88301 instead of 83301.  With Google at hand we quickly found out that the letters (there will actually be one for each of us, or so I have been told) were headed for Carrizozo New Mexico.  I am not making this up.  It was a little hard to find on the map, but Google Earth brought it into view.  Interesting little place with a population of 840, down from 1488 in the 2000 census, majority of whom are Hispanic (I knew I should have taken Spanish instead of French).  It looks like there are a few young families there, the highest price for house sold in the past year is $120,000, average wage is $23,000, population density is 0.765 per square mile, cost of living well below the national average, a few hours drive from Carlsbad Caverns (I would actually love to go see the caves and the bats some day), and about mid-way between Albuquerque and El Paso.  Check it out.  http://www.city-data.com/zips/88301.html#b  Maybe we will be sent there for the next 18 months.  Maybe we should just hop in the car and drive down to retrieve our paperwork.  The Missionary Department said they would send out new call letters that should arrive at the correct address (how can 83301 be confused with 88301?) some time next week.  I thought about calling the postmaster in Carrizozo to see if he/she would open it and read it to us before sending it to the right place.  Maybe I’ll do that today.

Meanwhile, I think I will go out and make some more pots.  We will quite likely be here until Christmas and I need some pots to give as gifts.

That’s all for now.

Mission Call-Not Yet

I have been postponing another entry here because we have been expecting our mission call.  We sent in our papers in April.  Actually, none of it is by paper any more.  It is all online.  Anyway, we filled out the forms, answered all the questions, and forwarded it to our bishop. He added some comments and forwarded it to the stake president, who made some comments and sent it on to Salt Lake.  We were available after mid-September.  Two of our daughters were expecting babies in August.   (Both beautiful little granddaughters are safely here now.)

While we were on a trip to Vancouver and Seattle in early May, visiting friends there and taking in the breath-taking beauty of the rhododendrons in the Northwest, I received a call from our stake president.  One of the questions in the health history was about any surgeries that we had been advised to have that had not yet been done.  President said the medical people in Salt Lake were concerned about the hip surgery Gaye had been advised to have but was not yet done.  She had been experiencing increasing discomfort in her hip, the result from a horse riding accident many centuries ago.  One of our good friends had actually received his call and then had both hips replaced after his call was received, so we sent in our papers and scheduled the surgery.  July was the earliest Gaye could get in, so that was our plan.  So President wanted to know if we should consider an assignment that would not require much walking--in other words, a desk job.

I told him that we wanted to be out and active, that the hip was scheduled, and that we anticipated that we would be all ready to go with a healed new hip by our availability date in September.  He said he would call us right back.  Well, he called the medical people in Salt Lake back and they told him that we should get the hip done and recover for 3-6 months (months!  I was thinking 3-6 weeks based on our friend’s experience), and then the papers should be resubmitted.  Okay.  Fine.  We thought we might still be able to get out of here before Thanksgiving.

The hip replacement surgery went great and after three uneventful weeks of healing we were ready to reactivate the application.  President said all he would need to do is push a button and it would be rolling again.  So I told him we were doing great and he could push the button.  Two weeks passed and no word of any action going on with the application.  Then President said there was a problem.  The application had been cancelled!  We were not even in the system any more.  So we reviewed the previously filled out application form, sent it to our bishop who forwarded it to our stake president (sound familiar?) who sent it on the Salt Lake.  Bishop received a notice by email that the application was received on September 4.  I concluded that we would probably not be going by mid-September.

We had not heard anything more, except that there was another message that the application had been received September 12 (!).  We would need to be a little patient.  That is no problem because we are really not in a hurry.  Maybe we will be out of town by Christmas.  That is fine because none of our kids were planning on coming to our place for Christmas this year.  Our turn was last year.  

September ended and still no more information.  Gaye’s sister has been on two missions with her husband and has been through this before.  She had a number to call in Salt Lake that would connect us to the missionary department and we could find out where we were in the process.  So I called the number and the service missionary on the other end looked up our names.  Our application was ready to go to the Twelve.  We learned that the procedure for assigning couples is a little different from that for the young elders and sisters.  A summary is sent to each of the departments who compare the application to their needs.  They make recommendations back to the committee who forward that on to the Twelve, who make the assignments.  Then it goes to President Monson for approval, on to the mailing department for processing and mailing, and the call will usually be received by the missionaries the end of the week after the papers go to the Twelve.  So the man on the phone said we should get our call by the end of next week.  When I first called Church Headquarters, though, and was transferred to the missionary department, there was a message to leave a message.  I wanted to talk to a real person, so I hung up and tried again, that time making connection with a real person, who gave me the information.  However, I received a call back from another missionary in Salt Lake who was returning my first attempt.  He also looked up our information and said the Twelve would not be meeting this week because of General Conference, so we should not expect to receive our call before October 20.

I am retired now (am I enjoying it?  YES!), so we are really not on a tight schedule.  There are plenty of things to do between now and when we leave.  The anticipation has been getting a little old because we would like to be preparing in specific ways for our assignment.  And the problem of not knowing has been a little burdensome.  So now we can begin to make some plans.  We want to go to Yellowstone, visit the kids, put the garden to sleep, get the maintenance issues on the house, furnace, carpets, yard, etc, all resolved.  Maybe we will be out of here before Christmas, but we are not betting on it.  (Have you ever noticed how Mormons bet on everything, but never in a way that would exchange money?  You wanna bet?)  That is okay.  Whenever and wherever we go is fine.  Gaye and I are just happy to be alive, well, and moving on with life.  I hope you are, too.

That’s all for now.  The next blog will be with specific information of where we will be and what we will be doing for the next 18 months.

A very busy week

I arrived home Friday afternoon, exhausted.  Here’s why.

I flew out to Columbus Ohio last Thursday at 0600.  That meant I had to drive to Kendra’s Wednesday afternoon, after a hard day trying to get the yard in shape for a week of inattention.  Weeds don’t take a holiday, do they?  So I arrived at Kendra’s to visit for a short time because she would be having a baby while I was gone.  She said she would drive me to the SLC airport at 0400 because she couldn’t sleep anyway.  (I am really glad I don’t have to deliver babies.)  So I stayed at her house and I drove the Prius to the airport, she let me off, and Kendra drove back to her house.

The day of flying was not particularly stressful, but flying is always stressful.  Emily picked me up at the Columbus airport and I went to their place to help get things ready to move to Lehi Utah.  Keep in mind that Gaye and I were just out there in May to help the kids move from Athens Ohio to Columbus.  They were not planning on another move so soon, but so much for plans.  I took the trampoline apart, Grant helped me take the bunk beds apart (the boys thought it was a treat that they would be sleeping on the floor), and I was ready to crash into bed.  Friday was more of the same.  The truck would be ready to load on Saturday morning.

Spencer and I picked up the truck on Saturday morning.  I thought it looked a little smaller than the one that I drove from Athens, but we drove it back to the house.  Emily took the boys to a friend’s house to play while we loaded the truck.  She was gone from their house about 2 minutes when we got a phone call that Grant had broken his arm.  He was trying to imitate the Olympic gymnasts on the bar and fell off.  So Spence spent the whole day Saturday getting Grant’s arm set and cast. It was really a nasty break, but did not not require surgery, at least for the present.  Meanwhile, Emily noticed that this was not the truck she had ordered, so she worked all day on getting the proper truck.  People who were going to help showed up and we had to turn them away.  Finally Penske said the truck would be ready on Sunday afternoon.

Everything was already packed up except the big beds, so we slept on those beds one more night.  Sunday Spence and Henry and I went to church and then drove over to pick up the truck and go home and get started loading.  We were just getting started when the whole priesthood body of the ward showed up in their white shirts and loaded the truck.  It was done in just over an hour.  What a blessing!  We would probably still be out there loading if they had not come along.  Loading a moving van on Sunday is not a usual activity, but this needed to be done and everybody pitched in.  We were able to get on our way and drove to the Indiana border to stop for the night.

We live in a vast country.  Every time I fly over it I marvel at how big it is.  But driving brings it into greater focus. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, MIssouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah were the states we drove through.  Going at 60 mph allows the vastness to really sink in.  I was usually driving the van with Emily and Sam and Penny, the dog, in the morning while Spencer took the boys in the truck.  Then we would switch and I would take Penny in the truck.  We would drive until Sam couldn’t take any more and stop for the night.  All of us fit quite cozily into one motel room with two beds.  Grant and Henry enjoyed the adventure of camping on the floor, Sam would sleep in his portable unit, and the adults would take up the beds.  Then we would be up, eat breakfast, and be on our way.  We arrived in Lehi on Thursday afternoon, found the house they will be living in, and started to unload.  A couple of neighbors stopped by to assist and Emily’s brother Mason, Jeremy, and Tom came by.  It was all off the truck, the beds were put together, and we settled in for the night.  I don’t think I have ever felt that tired.  Friday I arrived home in Twin Falls.

So what did I learn?  This is a huge country with vast natural resources.  Driving takes time.  There is not much advantage in driving faster than the legal limit.  You might get there a few minutes earlier but then you just have to wait for everybody else.  Riding with a small dog is not so bad.  She just stretched out on the truck bench seat and slept.  Rest stops are good ideas.  Kids make the trip more challenging.  People are thankful when we help each other.  The portobello mushroom melt sandwich I had at the vegetarian cafe in Laramie was actually quite tasty.  My own bed is the most comfortable.  

Meanwhile, Gaye has been busy with new granddaughters.  Kendra and Ryan now have a lovely little daughter named Alyssa, born Monday, and Ashlee and Trevor have a  lovely little daughter named Aniston, born Thursday.  Girls are a minority among our grand children, but we are happy for either kind.  That they are whole and healthy is a great blessing.  Is there any greater wonder than the miracle of children?  I can’t think of any.

This has turned out to be too long.  Sorry.  I need to write more often and shorter.  No photos, either.  I will work on that next time.

That’s all for now.

Faith is Action

July is Pioneer time in the Great Basin.  There are several reasons.  Brigham Young and the first pioneer wagon train arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in July, 1847.  Johnson’s Army was on its way to the valley in 1857.  The last of the handcart companies, Martin and Willie, were leaving Iowa City in July 1856.  We remember the happenings of July 4 1776, too, but the big one is Pioneer Day throughout the Great Basin.

For the past four years I have been reading the Willie Handcart Company journals every summer.  (These are available as daily emails from BYU studies.  Sign up here. http://handcart.byu.edu/SignUp.aspx)  But each year I find new things as I read.  It is not that the words have changed, it is just that my perspective is different.  Sort of like reading the Book of Mormon and going to the Temple.  The words are the same but the experience is always new.

The entry for July 14 contains this story:

One of the faithful Danish couples was Peder Mortensen, age 48, and his wife, Lena Mortensen, age 46, who were converted to the gospel in 1855. Due to a desire to gather to Zion and rejection by their community, they sold everything they owned in anticipation of their journey. They had land and animals. Together with their eight children, ages 5 through 27, they traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, to stay at the mission home until they could emigrate to Utah. The Mortensens’ oldest son, Morten, was asked by the mission president to stay in Denmark and serve as a missionary. Morten, along with the rest of the Mortensen family, was concerned, but agreed. The mission president promised the Mortensens that every one of them would reach Zion in safety because of Morten’s willingness to stay and serve, along with the family’s willingness to do without his much-needed help. Peder was physically disabled. He and his wife had planned to buy a wagon so that he could ride in it to the Valley. However, after hearing the counsel of their Church leaders, they shared their money with other members of the company so that sufficient handcarts and supplies could be bought in Iowa City. Peder’s disability kept him from walking. He rode in a supply wagon until about September 6th, when the loads were adjusted due to a buffalo stampede. He had to be carried in a handcart from that point, until the company was rescued. Morten came to Utah after his three-year mission in 1858, two years after the rest of his family had all safely arrived in Zion.1

1. “Mortensen Family History,” typescript copy, Church Archives.

I am really boosted by this vignette.  Here is a successful family in Denmark who all join the Church.  Within one year they are on their way to another country far across the ocean.  They willingly, perhaps even eagerly, leave their traditional life, sell all their worldly possessions, follow the instructions of men they don’t really know to do difficult things, and readily give up their nest egg to help others not as fortunate as they are. 

These faithful Saints were promised certain blessings.  They acted faithfully.  They appear to have learned very quickly what faith is about.  Joseph Smith said that through the Atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel, and the that laws and ordinances are faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, etc.  The key here is to learn how to exercise faith, and the key to that is learning where to center our faith.  In the Mortensen instance, the promises made were fully realized.  Others were promised that the Lord would temper the elements and they would all be brought to the valley safely and in good time.  To our perspective, those promises do not appear to have been realized.  But all those people acted faithfully.

I have spent a lot of energy thinking about this.  I think the key is in where we put our faith.  We go to sacred places and are asked to exercise our faith in behalf of specific persons.  What does that mean?  Should we tightly close our eyes and say “I believe!  I believe!  I believe!”?  No, faith is a principle of action.  (See Bible Dictionary)  We exercise our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by keeping our covenants at all times and in all places and all circumstances.  Can faith be exercised on demand at a moment?  I think the closest we can come to doing that is to renew (remake, not just think about) the covenants and commitments we have made to be obedient.  Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego, and Daniel exercised faith.  They said, “We believe that our God will save us, but if not, we will be obedient and worship the Living God anyway.”  Their faith was not a barter of “We will do such and such if You will do such and such.”  They had faith in Jesus Christ, and it changed their very natures.

I am going to do an experiment as I read the Book of Mormon again.  I am going to take every reference to “the word” as a reference to Jesus Christ.  Here are a couple of beginning examples.  In Nephi’s vision of the tree of life he said the rod of iron was “the word of God.”  Is that the scriptures (words) or is it Jesus Christ (Word)?  Alma told his group of investigators to do an experiment and plant a seed.  If they were faithful the seed would grow to a perfect knowledge.  The seed was the word.  Is that the gospel message, or is it Jesus Christ?  We will not be saved by the Atonement, we will be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ.  We will not be saved by promises of our leaders who are doing their best to act as agents of the Lord.  We are saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, not by some abstraction.  (See Richard N. Williams, BYU Idaho Devotional, God of Condescension, God of Philosophy.) 

Pardon the preaching.  That’s all for now.

Another adventure

 

Have you ever been on a train ride? Four decades ago I arrived in South Africa and my first assignment was in a city 450 miles away.  Travel was by train and it would be an overnight trip.  I didn’t speak Afrikaans, I didn’t know north from south or east from west because I was in the southern hemisphere and everything was different in orientation from the northern hemisphere.  And I was traveling alone.  Well, I got there just fine and it was actually quite an adventure.  I had opportunities to travel by train a few more times, once for three days on a transfer from Salisbury, Rhodesia to Kimberley in Cape Province.  Each time it was a memorable and even enjoyable adventure.

Dr Patterson and the committee

In May Gaye and I flew out to Athens Ohio to cheer for Spencer as he defended his dissertation in communication at Ohio University.  The big school in Ohio is THE Ohio State University, but Ohio U was there first.  In fact, the other university with Ohio in its name has to pay OU for the right to have their marching band spell OHIO on their football field.  But I digress.  We left our car in Salt Lake and flew out for the big event.  The defense went very well.  Now there is another Dr Patterson, PhD.  (Good work, Spence.)

We planned the trip to include a train ride back to Salt Lake in stead of flying.  We enjoyed the visit with Spence, Emily, and the Three WIld Boys.  We helped them pack up their house and move to Columbus where Spencer has been working for a couple of months at the other Ohio university.  We got them all settled in and headed out for Cincinnati by way of Dayton.  Dayton is the home of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (no relation that I know of), home of The United States Air Force Museum.  It is the biggest such museum, and a week there would not allow enough time to read all the information plaques or even walk around every airplane in the seven huge hangers, but three hours was all we could spare.  It was exhausting but time well spent.

Then we went on to Cincy where we attended a Reds game.  

It was a great game with the home team pulling off a squeeze play in the bottom of the 10th inning to beat Detroit.  I have always been a NL fan.  I think the pitchers should bat.  The AL has designated hitters.  Wimps.  After the game we drove to the Amtrak station, said our good-byes, and Gaye and I checked in and waited for our train to take us to Chicago.  The ride from Cincinnati to Chicago cost us $38 each.  Not bad.

The run north was interesting. We were seated in the coach section, where the seats are bigger and more comfortable than the first class section on any airplane.  The train was a hour late, so we didn’t board until 0300 Saturday morning.  Sleeping on the train was difficult, especially with people walking past all the time, babies crying, and the newness of train travel.  But it was not bad.  Gaye will say that it was quite dirty.  Probably true.  

A single mom in front of us had two small kids and about a ton of baggage so we helped her haul it out of the station.  I was doing my Boy Scout good turn daily and she was very thankful.

     
























Chicago is an  interesting place.  We were right down town, practically under the Sears Tower, so we hiked a few blocks to get some Chicago style pizza at Giordano’s.  


We had some pizza in Athens that was really the best I have ever had.  Really thin crust and amazing flavors.  The Chicago style was a completely different experience, but it was also very tasty.  They put the sauce on top of the cheese and stuff, and the crust is sort of like pie crust.  I think I ate more pizza in that week than I have had in the past two or three years.

We finished in time to hike back to the station and await our train to Salt Lake.  The first class passengers get to wait in a nice lounge at the station.  Then we walked out onto the platform and Bob, our attendant, got us settled into our room. We had a sleeper berth on the California Zephyr. You can see the compartments at amtrak.com.  It was quite small but adequate.  There were two wide reclining seats facing each other.  

Three rest rooms and a shower were practically outside the door.  The car was a double decker, but we were on the lower level, so the sway from the motion of traveling was barely noticeable.  I had anticipated the click-clack  I remembered from my African excursions, so we were totally surprised when we found that we could carry on a conversation as easily as if we were sitting in our own living room.  The compartment had its own air conditioning, reading lights, speakers so we could hear announcements about stops, eating times, and other general information.  The windows were dirty but we cleaned them at the next stop and solved that problem.

Dining was a terrific experience.  I have not been on a cruise, but I imagine it is about the same.  The food was excellent, and it was included in the price of the sleeper.  We made reservations for dinner and were called when it was our turn.  Meanwhile, we could go up and sit in the lounge car with the huge windows or sit at the cafe-style tables and read or visit.  There was a cafe car downstairs for anybody who wanted a sandwich or soda.  At the dinner table we would be paired up with another couple or two singles.  We met a couple from North Carolina, a couple from Switzerland (he was German, she was French!), a Columbia University law professor, and three older ladies all traveling alone to visit or return from visiting their kids across the country.  The steaks or fish or whatever we wanted was excellent and the service was outstanding.

We slept across Nebraska.  I think that was good planning.  The seats make into nice bunks.  They were narrow but adequate.  I got the upper bunk, of course.  It had about 18 inches to the ceiling.  Plenty when I am sleeping.  In fact, I slept like a rock.  The safety strap was nice addition to keep me from rolling off the bunk, but I never noticed it.  

When we awoke the sun was rising over the eastern Colorado plains.  We had breakfast outside Denver, stopped for a few minutes to take on more passengers, and then began our climb up the steep foothills into the Colorado Rockies.  There were 29 tunnels along that stretch, the longest being 6.2 miles.  Gaye and I even enjoyed a nice nap as we continued westward.  Finally we arrived in Salt Lake at 11 pm, caught a taxi back out to the airport hotel where we left our car, and got a great night’s sleep before driving home Monday morning.

What did I think of the train ride?  It was a little slower than flying, but when considering all the airport security hassles and the requirement to be there hours early, plus waiting for transportation to and from the airport, the train was really not much slower.  The train was definitely more comfortable, quieter, the food was great, and we felt more rested when we reached the end of the journey.  The cost is comparable including the sleeping accomodations.  The main drawback is that the desired destination needs to be near an Amtrak terminal.  I hope we can do it again sometime.  

That’s all for now.

Thoughts about life and life

The TED series of talks and presentations has produced some absolutely brilliant and enlightening experiences.  Check them out at TED.com.  But today I am fascinated by this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fKyljukBE70

Life is such a wonderful mystery.  Just this week I have seen the miracle at both ends of what we call mortality.  We have a new grandchild on the way.  Tom and Lindsay have announced that a baby is due to be born on 1-3-13.  Hows that for a birthday!  This TED presentation shows some amazing photography of the development of the fetus from conception to birth.  The guy doing the presentation is a mathematician.  He makes a comment a couple of times that the process goes beyond anything he can express mathematically.  In March I mentioned an article that demonstrated the preposterously small chance of getting all the games of the NCAA tournament correct by a flip of a coin.  That was with only 64 variables.  Here is a human body, infinitely more complex than a two-way choice  (heads or tails) using 64 variables.  What a wonderful expression of God's love for us, His children.

The other end of this mortal experience came vividly to my mind this week as our neighbor and good friend, David Long, suddenly had a ruptured aortic aneurism and he was gone.  Suddenly changed from vibrant and healthy and interacting with his lovely family to an empty body being prepared to be put into the ground.  But that is not where Dave is.  I believe with all my heart and soul that he is just as alive now as he was last week.  He is now in the animated form of his spirit, which must surely look quite like the physical body.  He can think and talk and move and express feelings and be concerned for his sweet wife and five great kids who had to stay behind.  He will be put to work immediately, for there is surely a lot of work there that needs to be done.  He and all of us will prepare and wait for the resurrection, when we are called out of the grave into another dimension of life that will leave this one in the dark.

My belief in the resurrection is what keeps me sane.  There are numerous scriptural references to the what and when of that event, but the how is sort of left unanswered.  Finding out the answer to that one will be an experience I cannot now comprehend.  But we will all find out.  That thought gives more impetus to the importance of this phase of mortality.  Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, "In our eternal journey, the resurrection is the mighty milepost that signifies the end of mortality and the beginning of immortality."   (lds.org/general-conference/2000/04/resurrection?lang=eng)  It marks the boundary between mortality and immortality.  It gives us something to aim for and hope for and work for.  Without the resurrection this life on Earth just does not make much sense.

So watch the TED presentation and spend some time contemplating the purpose of life.  We are not here by randomness.  We have a divine beginning and an eternal destiny.

That's all for how.

Bears and Rx

I grew up 70 miles from West Yellowstone MT.  People came from all over the world to see Yellowstone Park, Old Faithful, and in the old days, the bears of Yellowstone.  We could comfortably leave our house early in the morning, drive to West for breakfast, spend the day at Old Faithful hiking and geyser gazing, feed some treats to bears along the road side in the Park, and be comfortably home in bed at a normal hour that night.

One day, literally one day, the bureaucrats decided that they would not allow the bears to feed on the garbage at the dump so they closed the dump.  There was also a sudden and forceful push to not feed the bears along the road side.  The bears that had been feeding there were suddenly shut off from their food source, and they didn't like it.  Some bears starved while others began looking for other easy food, like campers coolers, garbage cans, and anything else easy to get.  It took a long time to solve the problems that developed because of the original policy of letting the bears eat the garbage (a free lunch for them, at least at that time) and the sudden change to another policy of not allowing access to the "free" garbage lunches.

This headline is from a website on government freebies:

Free taxpayer money given to University of New Orleans.  Get in on the Big government grant handouts before it's too late. 
 

A dear friend was finding that her life was getting more complicated the older she became.  She had developed  hypertension, so she was put on medication for that.  That created a dry mouth, so another med was prescribed for that.  She developed other discomforts incident to getting older and new medications were prescribed for those ailments.  But the prescriptions were coming from different doctors who seemed to be focused on dealing with the malady related to their own realm of medical practice.  Every prescription has side effects that are often uncomfortable, so another artificial chemical plan of attack was engaged.  Finally she was just plain miserable, burdened with serious costs for the medications she was taking, and very discouraged.

So my friend went to another doctor who astutely diagnosed a different problem.  He had her bring every prescription and medicine bottle to his office and the two of them worked through every one.  The final plan was to stop all the old medications, under careful observation by the new doctor, and then deal with the problems that really needed attention.  She ended up going through a miserable few months, although never in as much danger as she had been when she was on the pharmaceutical a la carte she had been on. The pain was worth it.  Now she is on far fewer meds, she has control of her life because of some important life-style adjustments, and she has a lot more money to spend on doing things that she really enjoys.

Do you suppose our government could learn something from these real-life illustrations?  I hope so.

That's all for now.