Another New Year

As I reflect on another year passing, and another starting, I feel it is time to summarize some of my posts about choices and sticking to them.  Everyone is thinking about their New Years resolutions.  As we think about our lives and what we need to change, let's not set ourselves up for the usual failure of resolutions.

In Matthew 5:48 The Lord tells us to be perfect.  Of course this is our ultimate goal, but perhaps not tomorrow.  D&C 10:4 tells us not to run faster than we have strength.  So What do we do?  The answer may be in figuring out how fast we really are able to run.  The last line in the D&C verse I just referenced says, "but be diligent unto the end."  The Lord himself "grew grace to grace" (D&C 93:12-13).  Certainly, he doesn't expect us to get there any other way.  He tells us we will be given "line upon line: precept on precept: here a little, there a little"(Isaiah 28:10).

The road to perfection is a long one.  Most of us (certainly me) have just begun the journey.  As we decide what to set as our resolutions this year let's look at the tools we have to make decisions.  These were discussed in my earlier posts: "Making Right Choices" and "More on Choices" posted on November 9 and 15.  Particular attention should be given to listening with our hearts and asking "The Author".   Of course it does no good to ask if we don't listen closely for the answer.

Once we have figured out what the most important things are that we need to work on, look back at my post entitled "Baby Steps."   Break down our resolutions into steps that we are sure we can do.  If that means just doing something one day at a time until we have made definite progress,  that's what we do. It is important that we have someone to report our progress to.  This should be The Lord.  At the end of the day we tell him what we have done and ask again what we need to do tomorrow.  It could also be a psychologist or counselor  if you aren't comfortable with prayer.  As we take baby steps, and keep taking them, we will find that we can take bigger steps, and even bigger ones, until we master the principle we are working on.  Just remember, perfection is a lifelong project.

Let me caution everyone here.  When The Lord tells us not to run faster than we have strength, we need to understand He DOES expect us to run just as fast as we can.  No one knows how fast that is except us and The Lord.  Sometimes we don't even know what we are capable of, but He does.  This is why we must listen to our Hearts and find the answers He is giving us.  And don't take such tiny steps that we are making little or no progress.  One more caution:  This is a lifetime project, but we never know how long that lifetime will be.  I believe the prophecies about the end of the world are meant to scare us;  because the end of the world for any one of us is the day we pass from this mortal life.  We must prepare for that day as if it could be tomorrow.

To sum up,  we have the tools to make choices.  Ask (after we do our homework) and listen with our hearts.  The answers are there.  Once we make those choices, we take baby steps, or, if we are capable, giant steps.  Above all,  when The Lord said, "be diligent unto the end" He was telling us to KEEP STEPPING.

Stupor

I had a lot of ideas I wanted to put into this blog.  Lately I have either drawn a blank in my mind or just can't seem to organize these ideas into a post that makes sense.  Is that a "stupor of thought?"  Maybe the Man Upstairs doesn't want me to say some of the things I had in mind.  Or maybe it is just writers block.

I eventually want to write a book about the subject of this blog: choices and suffering and how to handle the bad things that happen in our lives.  I am using this blog to ramble and later I will put it all in some sensible order and put it all together.

If anyone has comments or ideas I would love to here from you.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I thought I would depart, for a moment, from the discussion of choices and make a Christmas message for the few readers I have.  In these times,when people seem to be afraid of saying Merry Christmas, for fear of offending millions of Non-Christians, I am reminded of one of my favorite Christmas songs.  The words were written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, during the American Civil War,  But the message is pertinent today.  I found two stanzas that are left out of the song we sing today because they referenced the war,  so there was actually more despair in the original version.  I actually like the modern version better because it ends in a tone of hope for humanity.  Here it is:

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet the words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good will to men. 

I thought how as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had roll'd along th' unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men. 

And in despair I bow'd my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men." 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

'Til ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men! 

As we celebrate this Holiday Season, let us all remember the reason we are celebrating.  It is a remembrance of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.  What message did He have for the world?  I refer to the passage in Mark where a scribe asked what was the greatest commandment. His answer is in Mark 12:30-31, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment."

"And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  There is none other commandment greater than these."

What a wonderful world it would be if we truly loved each other as He loves us.

And I for one will greet all my friends with love and boldness!

Merry Christmas!  And Love to all!!

A Caveat

I want to spend some time discussing other peoples choices and why they can cause us some pain and suffering.  I will do that, but today I have been thinking about how we often let those things cause us to make many more choices of our own that have a snowball effect.  Let me illustrate with a personal experience.

In 1971 I was drafted and had to spend two years in the U.S. Army.  I was married and had a child on the way so I was not thrilled to be serving my country.  My oldest son was born while I was in training.  Needless to say I was relieved when I got sent to Germany instead of Vietnam.  This relief was not as sweet as I would have thought.  When I got to Germany I found a very hostile environment.  It seemed we had a sort of "war" going on between what we called "lifers"(career soldiers) and draftees.  most of us draftees did not care for the whole idea of war and military service.

Since I was married and needed to be able to drive a car off base, I was able to test and received a POV (privately owned vehicle) license.  This license was difficult to attain because the Germans administered the test and we had to learn the German laws and a lot of international road signs.  It was an automatic assignment for young enlisted men who had POV licenses to become Jeep drivers because Jeeps were driven on the roads and highways off base.

My Platoon leader was a West Point graduate named Lt. Locke.  He seemed like a decent young man, but he and I soon had problems.  One night I was assigned to be the duty driver.  This is the guy who has to drive the duty officer and sergeant of the guard around to check on the battalion area and post guards for guard duty at night.  Prior to this I had to go home to put on my best duty uniform because I also had to look good during this assignment.  As I was preparing to leave to go back to the base to assume my duty, my Baby son got into a cupboard in the kitchen and pulled a box of drain cleaner onto his head.  When I got to him he appeared as if he might be eating some.  I immediately grabbed him up and my wife held him on her lap in our car while I drove to the infirmary.  The doctor there assured us that the boy had not eaten any of the stuff because it would have burned his mouth and throat severely.  As a precaution, since he had dumped the powder on his head, they rinsed his eyes for what seemed like an eternity.  Then we were to keep an eye on him for the next 24 hours.  The doctor gave me a note that was to relieve me of duty so I could be home with my son.

Since my duty station was between the infirmary and my home, we stopped at headquarters and told the duty officer I had to go home.  The duty officer happened to be Lt. Locke.  He argued for some time about why I needed to go home, until my wife came in and got hysterical about this man keeping me from taking her and our baby home.  In this confusion I had given the doctor's note to the Lieutenant, basically to show him this was necessary. 

The next day I was called at home and told to report to my company commander. I tried to explain that I was told by the doctor to stay with my baby for 24 hours, but I was "ordered" to report to the commander.  When I got to the company area I was ushered in to see the captain.  Lt. Locke was in the office already.  After enduring a great deal of tongue lashing for missing my duty assignment I was finally given a chance to explain.  When I finally mentioned that there was a note from the doctor, the captain changed his tone and asked where this note was. I informed him that I had given it to Lt. Locke.  Well, of course, Lt. Locke was unable to produce the note, but a call to the infirmary confirmed my story.

After this event I had a great deal of hate for Lt. Locke.  It was so bad I would lie awake at night sometimes plotting ways to take the man's life.  Many things I did from that time forth were effected by my feelings toward my Lt.  After about a year of this I came to the realization that this was eating me up and was very definitely effecting my life.  I also realized that my feelings didn't hurt the Lt. at all.  His life went on just fine.  I knew I had to forgive him for my own sake.  I prayed about this for some time and finally was able to resolve the incident in my own mind.  Interestingly, a month or so after I resolved things,  Mrs. Locke, the Lieutenant's wife, Had a baby.  It seemed like this had a great impact on Lt. Locke's attitude toward me.  In fact, a few months later he called me into his office and apologized to me.  The last year of my tour of duty in Germany was a much happier experience.  A few months later my whole company was invited to test for the Expert Infantryman's Badge. This is a decoration that few soldiers get.  It is very prestigious for infantry soldiers.   The test lasts three days.  I told my Lt. that I was going to prove to him and myself that I could be a good soldier.  He laughed, but said he hoped I did.  When the results of the test came in no one in my company received the badge, but I had the highest score in the company.  I missed by one point.  By the way, the officers also took part in the testing and I had beaten all of their scores.

This story is a little long but it has a point.  That is that we sometimes let the discomfort that comes from others' choices effect the choices we make.  We must be very careful how we react to outside influences because our reaction can have a much more far reaching and long lasting effect on us.  We cannot let others' choices change our own ability to make correct choices because the ultimate responsibility for our lives is ours.