Utah to Idaho...via Nebraska

   When opportunities cease to seek us, it divulges upon us to seek them...especially opportunities to serve. Some project pop out of nowhere like irksome mosquitos while others issue a beckoning challenge from afar. Thus, upon departure from the mountain hemmed smog of bustling Salt Lake City, Kimball and I made straight to Idaho like hounded jackrabbits, that is to say in a slightly zigzag fashion, hiding in a Nebraskan hole before darting the rest of the way up. In Nebraska Betsy and Seth were subduing work projects of their own. For instance sheet-rocking three rooms in a good friend's basement, and four extra hands I think were not unwelcome, but then I would not have and unbiased opinion about that. :)

   It was not all sweat and sagebrush for us there. Betsy played with a genuine down-strum, pickup riding, homespun, talented bluegrass band. We went to a festival where this band had won the competition last year and this year they were guest performers. If I said I enjoyed it, no one would be surprised to hear that, and therefore I will throw some weight into my little self-evident truth and declare that the audience also visibly enjoyed their music. You should have seen their CD sale afterwards!

   However, if you were to ask the band members what they liked best, this picture would probably be their reply. Jamming, jamming, jamming like they believed the world was created solely to accommodate their string fraying frolics! I doubt they care whether anyone listens or not. That is why I do not feel bad falling asleep after the clock silently signaled midnight and methodically pursued its measured tread toward the unattainable tomorrow, while the band obliviously chased their own goals.

    After the festivities were finished it was back to work! In addition to the sheet-rocking and all, we removed a great scraggly semblance of a tree on the church-converted-into-a-performance-hall property where we were lodging.

   When we took down this tree it took me back a few years, too, to when I had lived in Nebraska and worked for a company that did this kind of work all the time. Those were good days, and after all my experiences and the places I have been since, the days are still good. Unfortunately, sometimes I think my memory is kind of like this poor dismantled tree. It is there in its entirety...just not the same shape.

   Anyway, with the completion of our tasks there were 20+ hours of pavement between us and paradise. Did I just say 20+ hours; let me correct that, that silent unimpassioned clock gave me that statistic, but I think it must be attempting some kind of poor mechanical joke. Still, when I think of that trip it racks my mind into stretched out images. Everything about that trip was long: long hours, long mountains, long roads, long detours, long faces, long yawns all along the way.

   But did we end the journey as soon as possible? Of course not, we prolonged it just a little longer with a drop in on the contra dance in Missoula, Montana where Betsy and Seth infiltrated the band, upon invitation, for a couple of sets and then we were set and continued on our looong merry way "over the mountains and through the woods to..." our house!! Three cheers for the beautiful state of North Idaho and the nest in the mountains that we call home!
   I am always glad to be here, no matter how long it takes. Such are the words from our long absent Post Host, David. Hopefully, it will not be criminally long before we hear from him again.

It's Just Not Fair

    If I had earned a dollar every time I said that phrase growing up, I probably could have retired before I ever started working. Still, sometimes even today I find myself thinking that. Our society today is all hyped on "fairness", treating everyone equally, as if that was the ultimate goal and therefore gives license to stomp all over freedoms and agency in order to press everyone down to the same level of "equality."
    Going back to this oft repeated phrase of my childhood, just as often the answer I would receive to my aggravated plea was, "life isn't fair". To my young mind that explained nothing, soothed no hurt feelings, and only fueled the frustration over unfairness. My question was always, if life was not fair, why should we not try to change it instead of being content this frightful injustice? Should we not try to make it fair? But then again, I never did anything either to amend this tyrannical characteristic of life. After a prolonged season of acquiescence it was I that changed. My view of life in this respect has been modified. Some, including myself, call that repentance.
   This changing process took time and started with subconscious questions. One question was, if life is hopelessly unfair then does that mean that God is unfair?! Eventually, I discovered, and this was the best part, that yes, He is! And thankfully so! Only recently I have come to understand the blessing of inequality. Life is all about unequal exchanges. When you do a job well and do not get recognized or adequately compensated for it, is that fair? Most of us would say no. Flip it around and what would you say if you were recognized and rewarded more than enough? Again, I think many of us would feel we somehow deserved it, even if we expressed ourselves otherwise. Few would say that was unfair, but it is unfair, it is an unbalanced transaction. For that same reason God is unfair. How fair was it for Christ to create this world, work with us everyday, and suffer an infinite agony that we might have eternal joy if we sacrifice our tiny wills? What kind of inequality is that? Why is it that when we get the short end of an unequal exchange that we call it cheating, unfair, and down right piratical, but when we are on the sweet end of the deal it is okay and even commendable and noble of the other party. We call the person that "ripped us off" a jerk or something worse, but we praise the generous as examplary. What is the difference?
    Now, I am not saying it is wrong to accept gifts and that we should reject every generous offer on the grounds that it is unfair. If that was my message, we would have to devise a means of annihilating ourselves both physically and spiritually to escape the unfair bounty of God's ubiquitous blessings. It is my suite that we just take a second look at the life that we label unfair, and see how it is unfair in our favor more often than not.
    This semester at LDS Business College has heightened my awareness of God's unfair dealings with me. There have been many times when I have been overly blessed. For the first month I was using public transit and my own two feet to move from home to school to work and back home, and it was fine. God worked it out that I was given stewardship of a car. I call that an unfair deal! I did nothing to deserve it, I pay nothing close to what it is worth to me, and yet it is here at my disposal. Do not espouse the idea the blessings of God, though undeserved, do not have strings attached. All blessings are tools, as Elder Bednar explains in his book Act in Doctrine, for us to progress, do His work, and become like Him, which outcome is for our own joy and happiness. There again, it is all lopsided, the whole thing is skewed. God gives us a blessing/tool, which He helps us learn how to use, for us to become like Him, to the end that we might be infinitely happy as He is happy. "It's just not fair!" Thank goodness! King Benjamin expressed this thought most eloquently when he proclaimed these words in a General Conference of the Nephites.

"I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may do according to your own will...if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants. And behold all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments" (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 2:21-22).

    Because of an unfair God our existence has meaning, our lives have purpose, and happiness is at all possible! Next time you feel that life is unfair, remember it is a good thing. Our unfair "God will work all things for our good" (When I Pray for You, from Wissman's CD He Is Faithful).  

The Pursuit of Jefferson's Meaning

In the Declaration of Independence, why did Thomas Jefferson use the phrase “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”? Often today, we speak of the three most fundamental rights as life, liberty, and property. Thomas Jefferson was a highly intelligent man and the phrase life, liberty, and property was not an unknown term to him. Was there something deeper he was trying to express by saying “pursuit of happiness”? I think there was.

First of all, what thoughts come to your mind when you think of happiness? The thoughts that come to my mind are contentment, satisfaction, fulfilled. Grammatically, happiness in a state of being; it is what we are and not something we have. Also, I think of happiness as being pleased with your state of being, feeling like life could not be better, or feeling free. This last idea of happiness, feeling free, is an idea used by many people especially in the advertisement industry. The featured products or philosophy always promises freedom from this problem or that condition or what not, which in turn will make you happy. The point being happiness is the feeling of being free. This all brings me to the subject I want to discuss.

For the sake of clarity in this essay, a few definitions should be established. Liberty is the ability to act and choose. Freedom is the state of being unrestricted or not being controlled. For my purpose I will adopt the definition of happiness as feeling free or unrestricted.

Being happy and pursuing happiness are two different things. I am sure glad he did not say being happy was a fundamental right, enemies of liberty would have loved that, because it would give them an excuse to try make government the provider of happiness, just like they have been trying to do with health care. It is just infeasible and completely contrary to the proper role of government. Anyway, Jefferson did not say happiness was a fundamental right, but “the pursuit of happiness” is.

Being free to pursue what you think will make you feel free is a pretty broad idea. However, it is wonderful because it includes property and a whole bunch of other things as well. Most people thing the acquisition of material things will bring them happiness. They assume it will make them feel unrestricted by hunger, want, lack of resources or whatever limitation they are trying to escape. Others think that certain objects are necessary to attain happiness, other feel that an organization like a specific church or club is essential to happiness. Believing what you want to believe is important to our “pursuit of happiness”, and still other feel that nothing will make them happy so they should be free to have or do nothing. Being free to move or stay in one place is involved in pursuing a feeling unrestricted, and ownership is vital as well because it provides an opportunity feel uncontrolled in how they use what they own. If anything ownership is necessary even to just provide for the basic necessities of life, which to some is crucial to pursuing happiness, others could care less. However, like all fundamental rights, the right to seek happiness in no way permits one to trample on the fundamental rights of others.

Basically, my object was to dig deeper into the denotation and connotations what Jefferson was trying to say. At least, I hope to have encouraged my readers to ponder more deeply into this important issue.

This was David, hosting and posting as usual. “Feel unrestricted” in sharing your opinion or insights with me, but be nice, because you never know when I may post again.

Singular Seagull Story

   Laying on my bed listening to gospel music in my uncle's home, I raised my head off the pillow and looked around. Now, looking up is not an uncommon practice to humans, in fact its ubiquity makes it an almost unacknowledged gesture, except when something exciting or unusual comes of it, as in my example. Well, when I looked up my eye immediately noticed a small blue hardcover book packs tightly between other bigger books on a full book shelf. The title written in silver and it read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I had read the book maybe 8-9 years before

and remembered it being kind of strange. However, the thought of reading a book appealed to me at the moment and my eyes started to graze on the other titles presented to my view. None of them really caught my attention and I came back to Jonathan, but I did not really want to read it. The thought that kept crossing my mind was the that often when a random object or thought catches your attention it is a message for you. I finally decided that if there was a message for me in J.L. Seagull then I wanted to know what it was. I arose and retrieved the book and opened it in the middle at the part where Jonathan Seagull was having a deep discussion with an older seagull about heaven. The older gull, Chiang, told Jonathan that heaven is not a place or time, but rather a state of being; you cannot go to heaven, you have to be heaven. These kinds of discussions interest me and before I had given myself much time to think I read to the end and started back at the beginning of the book and read to where I had initially commenced. I did not agree with all the author's philosophy, but I appreciated the point he was trying to teach through the story. 

   In case you have not read the story, which I would recommend you read, I will summarize the plot briefly. It starts with a seagull, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, who wants more in life than to fight over food; specifically, he wants to master the art of flying. Because he dared to be different he was banished from the flock, which turned out to be a blessing for it allowed him to explore and perfect his skills without feeling the restricted by traditions, customs, and sneers. Eventually, he left this world and enters a higher world where, with similarly minded gulls, he attains greater ability and achieves more an ever before. Through the book he wonders were the limit is. In this higher world Chiang helps him understand there are no limits...none. The only thing that can limit him is his unbelief. With Chiang's help, he came to understand this principle and learns that he is whatever he wants to be and unlocked his ability to fly at the speed of thought, and with more practice he could travel to any time and any place in an instant. Having discovered this potential in himself Jonathan quickly developed the ability to see this potential for perfection in not only some other seagulls, but in every gull. He felt a strong desire to return to his home flock and there help some other outcasts learn to unlock the perfection inside. He attempted to give the flock a chance to see what they have missed out on and join the journey. Many did, but the vast majority preferred to live their miserable life of survival rather than venture on some strange path to perfection. At the end Jonathan Seagull encourages his students to continue their personal quest to unleash the perfection inside as he then moved on to help other gulls in other places. It is a very short story but was enough to bring the point home.

   In my mind Richard Bach, the author, is trying to help us understand our true divine nature. To do this he used wonderful analogies. I thought the use of seagulls was a powerful metaphor of us. I have lived many years in Utah, where seagulls rule the skies, and in Maine, where these birds are so base and bold they would even attack and eat young lambs. Never would I have thought of seagulls being more than bickering, squawking, noisy, and selfish garbage birds. That is why I find the comparison powerful because many people in the world view the rest of the human population the same way, and because a few or many or even the majority of people we meet may act no better than squabbling, self-centered seagulls, it does not prove that that is what we were meant to be and can never change. People change all the time, because they are in control of their lives. 

   Also, probably my favorite part is how he shows that you are what you want to be. Some gulls only wanted food, they just lived to die and that is it, but they had everything necessary to become perfect like Jonathan. Some preferred not to be different from the crowd and they never did become different, though they liked the thought of doing cool things like Jonathan. Some just wanted to be beautiful flyers. Some wanted to be perfect and made all the sacrifices and effort required to make it, and make it they did. We are all like that in a very real sense, everyone decides their own life. We have the power to become what ever we prefer to be, and you will find that everyone reaches the true dreams of their hearts. 

   Another powerful concept was that you are already perfect inside. You are already divine, already made from eternal material. Accepting the true you takes time and consistent effort, and by true self I am not alluding to the earthly unrefined mortal you that you see and hear everyday, but the special being that came from the presence of God and has the all the potential to be just like God. This ability to see your real self can only come with God's help because that self is what He sees, knows, and loves. When you, through Christ's grace, unlock that truth your mortal body will follow, and physical limitations fade away like the the illusions they really are. Before the world was, we "are" spirits, literal children of God the Father with a developed character and potential to be just like our Heavenly Father. When we were born He combined mortal substance with our immortal being and working with this earthly tabernacle is like nothing we had ever experienced before. The flesh draws a veil over our spiritual memories and we tend to think that this weak handicapped clay is who we really are. I think Richard Bach should have stressed the vital ingredient of God's grace in the transformation from imperfect to perfect. His philosophy appears to lean more towards Buddhism (with multiple consecutive lives couple with your own efforts will lead you to eventual perfection) and not toward Christ the true source of change and perfection. 

    Nevertheless, Richard Bach's point was good; we are not our flesh, it is a part of us, but it is not us. We are children of God possessing the attributes and qualities necessary to become like God. Jonathan had to work at scraping away the false beliefs that he was limited and could never be anything more than a miserable seagull like the rest. Society, traditions, and customs had a powerful influence on the way he viewed himself. Sound familiar? Sounds like our day and age; governments, schools, fades, movies, movie stars, magazines, newspapers, etc. teach us to fear, tell us we limited, try to confine us to just being cool instead of helping us discover our true eternal selves. Like J. Livingston Seagull, this mirage, this restricting façade has to be peeled away and rejected so that we can access and accept the true soul inside each one of us. 

   All in all, this was basically what I gleaned from reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach. His perfect depiction of humankind through seagulls set of the theme beautifully. Only our unbelief and desires can limit us, because we alone decide our destiny. We truly are unlimited beings, with unlimited potential, even children of an unlimited God! Though we are housed in a mortal imperfect body we must not mistake that for our true identity. Again, this is what I gained from the story of Jonathan L.S. and I encourage you to read it and draw your own conclusions from it.

    Thank you for perusing this post from our Host, David. We hope you get the most out of it until next time for you never know when I may post again.