In Salt Lake City

 What a week! We left our beloved Idaho Monday to descend to the state of Utah.  I cannot believe I have again separated myself from the free virgin pristine clean domains of North Idaho that I have been honored to call home. It almost like separating myself; part of me was left behind. Somehow this seems a reoccurring difficulty. Asheville, North Carolina claimed its "pound of flesh", as of course did Brazil, and not least of all Germany, with characteristic determination, retains it's willing piece of my heart. But then...it was Germany, what else could I do!! I have loved living on land lavished with the almost mundane masterpieces of God's handiwork. I should be back again. (Thanks Isaac for these pictures of Idaho)

 Leaving our palace of pines we dove a couple hundred miles south into a spreading sea of civilization. Urbanization is spreading over the Salt Lake Valley like a disease. In the middle of the chaos stands the Salt Lake Temple, a beacon of "Holiness to the Lord" (as is written on its front). I find it interesting to compare the incomparable glories of nature to the edifices erected by man for the worship of "Nature's God". Both are beautiful, both praise the Lord, in both God may come to dwell. It is wonderful.  I love this House of God. (Thanks Kimball for the pictures of the Temple)
  Anyway, here Kimball, John, and I are in Salt Lake and we did not loose too much time in getting to business. Kimball is moving down to the area, John is looking into moving down here, too, and I...I...I know I am supposed to be doing something. Ah! Yes, I am enrolling in a college down here, a couple blocks away from the Temple. A job and place to live would be nice for me, too. I just made my life interesting, though, because I decided to go to Nebraska for the Christmas season with my fellow Germany travelers, Betsy and Seth. I would not miss that opportunity...but afterwards I will be back for school in January.
  This week we went up and down, to and fro, back and forth, here and there, looking, finding, coming close, loosing, recovering, going again, here, there, and...do not get the idea that we overworked or anything, because half the week things were closed for Thanksgiving, giving us plenty of time to relax. Success was achieved in several ways. We are a week closer to finding jobs, and Kimball has found an affordable decent place to live. This next week will welcome the arrival of more family from all over the country. John and BreeAnna will be married in the Salt Lake Temple on Thursday. We are all excited for that day, and then it is off to Kenya, after a visit to Idaho.
  This is what has engrossed David the Post Host this week, and what is next will be next but when the next post comes, who knows? Stay with us...because you never know when I may post again. (It feels good to write that again :)

Only Beginnings

  Endings seemingly pose a cantankerous obstacle to the continuation of happiness (though at other times it appears in most opportune manner to assuage the anguish of apparent affliction). However, the greatness of God's goodness persuaded me to take a second look and see if I am not mistaken. The attitude we assume towards life determines our reaction thereto. If we perpetuate a pattern of pessimistic presumptions we find ourselves overwhelmed by the evil and harshness of our experiences. A glance through the glasses of grace can clarify the confusion of our condition. Let me share with you such an experience though seemingly slight and insignificant to some was a comfort to me.

  It was dingy drizzly day, not much demanded our time and attention, my mood mirrored to a degree the sodden atmosphere, and everyone else evidently entertained similar emotions. There were no hard feelings, only melancholy musings. Such days effectively interrupt the fast paced redundancy of fair weather, and invite us to reflect inward for a moment and figure out where we are. In this mood I yielded to the impulse to meander through God's beautiful handiwork surrounding our tents and allow my mind to converse with my Father above. Always enjoyable.

  Little of what I was thinking has stuck with me except the my rumination over endings. I have often wondered, especially having traveled many places, met many people, and experienced the few years of life why there were so many endings. It seems like something is always ending. The idea that came to my mind was that there really are no endings in mortality. To declare that something has truly ended is to presume to posses the power of perfect foresight.
  Optimism and the manifest mechanics of mortality seem to suggest that there are really only beginnings. Each epoch and episode of existence is exceeded by the beginning of a new era or experience. It is true that time forbids the reenactment of any period of life, and those experiences whether happy or sad cannot be relived in body. However, few if any experiences truly end for they live on not only in our own minds and hearts but in the minds and memories of many others. One key to this viewpoint of beginnings lies in the fact that past is open to us, whereas the future is mostly impenetrable. Always, there are memories flowing behind us and always there is the unknown awaiting us.  If the opposite were true and all we knew was the future and none of the past, I would be giving this disquisition on endings instead of beginnings, if such a task were even possible in such a world.  

  You can think of it this way: one second does not necessarily end (it is for convenience that we say that, and justly so), but the second is superseded by the beginning of another second. The beginning of one hour is overpowered by the beginning of the next hour, one day melts into the beginning of another day, and a year is swallowed up in the commencement of yet another year. A newborn grows into the beginning of childhood, and childhood into adolescence, and so on inexhaustibly. None of these phases are actually lost when a new phase starts, but each contributes to the next and thus lives on. Even the Bible starts with the famous phrase "In the beginning..." This idea basically functions as an encouragement to optimism. Look at life as a executioner's agenda of endings and it can prove deeply depressing; view is as a spring of new beginnings and you can even smell aroma of hope! 

  While writing this, I pondered on the practicality of extending this idea of continuous beginnings into the immortal realm around us.  It appears to me that if you carry this principle into the immortal eternal world of God, it essentially evaporates. God sees the end from the beginning and vice versa; all things past, present, and future are before Him, completely annihilating beginnings and endings alike. Time is a mortal commodity and not found in an eternal environment.  As spirit children of God we lived with Him before this life forgetting all when we began our earthly life, and death is neither an ending or a beginning but rather a continuation of that immortal life and memory.
  To summarize, time is only found in mortal life and because we are blessed with memories nothing really ends; and because we are blessed with the inability to see the future everything is always beginning, always a new adventure! In the world God knows and to which we will soon return, there is no end, no beginning, only the present.

   This is what the Post Host, David, supposed...on walk in the misty rain, on a twisty path, in the pristine woods of Idaho. These are the beginnings of my developing thoughts, please share yours! If you disagree, that is even better, for I am interested in hearing your thoughts.