For unknown reasons as I was replacing parking brake drum shoes (which were naught but useless rusted steel, and had so been for at least the two years I have owned the vehicle until I finally got around to doing something about them yesterday), it entered my mind to voice the BYU Cougar fight song as if recited by Dana Gioia. As the sounds issued forth, they actually fit the intent.

I was introduced to Dana Gioia through a link from this site to the Gently Hew Stone blog five years ago, for which I continue to be grateful. With Seamus Heaney dead, Gioia was what I needed. So I hope the following, though done in humor, may be recognized as coming from an admirer and not a mocker. I somewhat wish I could use a faux Gioia voice instead of my own all the time.

So, here it is:

If you liked that, here’s another take with different strengths and flaws:

Finally, that which is naturally the culmination of this indulgence:

Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward.
34 Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.
35 Behold, I do not condemn you; go your ways and sin no more; perform with soberness the work which I have commanded you.
36 Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.
37 Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet; be faithful, keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Amen.

I have a recurring dream.  Sometimes there is a mountain range.  Sometimes there is just a mountain. (more…)

The Lovely One dreamed the Church announced it was taking down all the angel Moronis on the temples to replace the trumpet with a sword.

Then this morning we read this verse in D&C 6.

 Behold, I am God; give heed unto my word, which is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, to the dividing asunder of both joints and marrow; therefore give heed unto my words.

See also Hebrews 4:12.

So I guess we are gearing up for the long haul by getting healthy and happy.

Every doctor in the land has their own brand of health advice.  Much of it, I am convinced, bad. The studies are mostly bad and all contradict each other.

I have my own views on health.  But in this post, I am just going to tell you what I know from my own experience.  It may not apply to you.  I am not going to tell you everything I do or believe, because some of it I believe works but the effects are not obvious enough to be sure.

I will say that feeling healthy is  much better than not.

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Here is a problem that happens in marriages and other relationships.  It comes from well-intentioned people being well-intentioned.

You want one thing and you have reason to believe your spouse wants another.  Happens all the time.  But you are well-intentioned.  So you come up with a compromise in your mind.  You mentally give up part of what you want.  It feels like a real sacrifice to you.  After all, you want the whole thing.  It is a real nice thing you are doing for your spouse.

Eventually you get around to telling your spouse, or more likely you execute your compromise.  Your spouse gets mad.  And you feel betrayed.  This is the compromise!  Your spouse is rejecting even the compromise.  So intransigent. Don’t they see your sacrifice?

But there are reasons your spouse feels that way.  They don’t know about your sacrifice and by this point it will feel otiose and manipulative to tell them.  It wasn’t their compromise.  Quite possibly  your compromise wasn’t fair.  Human nature is that we rate our own interests higher even when we are trying not to.  Quite possibly your compromise misunderstood what was actually important to them about what they wanted.  But even if the compromise was completely fair, its your compromise.  You can’t skip the part where you counsel together.  The process is important.  I’m not just saying that your spouse will feel like they are being cut out of the discussion, though that too.  I mean that your spouse hasn’t had time to assimilate that there is a split in goals and hasn’t had time to assimilate the need to hash something out.

The more masculine I am, the more people respond to my compassion.  They eat that up.

We saw it for the first time a few days ago, on John M.’s recommendation.  It is a gem.  We will see it again.  Highly recommended.

Pity the babe whose mother, having assigned a pet the status of “child,” hasn’t demoted the animal now that she actually has a child.

I was thinking about a science fiction story I read in my teens.  Enemy aliens make the sun go out somehow.  A young man and his mother struggle on in an apartment building.  The story lovingly details all the shifts and jury-rigs he has to do to keep the warmth in, to keep the warmth going, to chip off blocks of frozen atmosphere and thaw them.  There is an implausible happy ending, or at least I thought it was implausible when I read it at age 12.

They say that science killed poetry.  They have a point.  But there is a potential for poetry there also.  One could try to create an image of bitter cold, building up the images word by word.  But none of it would be quite as effective as this story going step by step what these lone survivors had to do to survive.  In memory its as good as or even better than To Build a Fire.

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An ape scraped together some education and a chalkboard.  RULES, he wrote on it.

RULE NUMBER ONE: SHARE YOUR FOOD

He called the animals together and showed them the rule.  The lion had his doubts, but the ape reminded him that even kings were beneath the law.  By way of teaching the rule by example, the ape helped himself to generous samples of every animal’s food.

Later the ape gathered some tender shoots and was munching on them.  A number of animals who liked that sort of food gathered round for their share.  But “ah,” said the pe, and led them back to the chalkboard clearing.  There, written clearly under Rule Number One, was the following:

EXCEPTION ONE: Unless the Food is a Luxury.

Sharing is for necessities, the Ape explained.  Tender shoots are a delicacy, not a necessity.

The monkey objected, “you ate  most of my banana.   That wasn’t a necessity.”

“Oh, they are for apes,” the ape replied.  “But in any case . . .”  He turned to the chalkboard and wrote a new exception.

EXCEPTION TWO:  Unless the Food Requires Effort to Prepare.

“I had to dig for these tender shoots,” the ape explained.

“And I had to climb the tree for the bananas and you made me peel it for you!” was the monkey’s hot reply.

“I feel sorry for you, friend,” the ape said.  “But Exception Two didn’t exist back then.”

Moral:  the rules created by rule manipulators aren’t real rules.  The explanations they make aren’t real explanations.

Think about the mystery of the dispensations.  Yes, nations fall away and need the Gospel refounded for them.  But that is not all dispensations are.  They seem to have a pattern among them, and the contents and style of each dispensation differ.

Why us?  Why are we the last dispensation?

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The only hard currency is the favor of God and the respect of quality men.

Right or wrong, understandable or unforgivable, awesome or awful, the events of yesterday and the reaction today both represent escalations.

The political doom spiral continues.

Yesterday was the last day of Christmas.  We kept the lights on for one last night.

One Christmas Eve years ago after the kids went to bed I sat up a model train around the perimeter of the tree.  One of my girls woke up around 3 AM, went out, and ran the train around and around for an hour or so before she went back to bed.  If you ask her, that is one of her most magical Christmas memories.  The dark, quiet night.  The lights on the tree.  The train going round and round.

There is a feeling somehow that the train is going somewhere.  What if, after it went around enough times, the air changed and the room opened up and there was another space there where your whole family living and gone were waiting for you?  It feels like there is a barrier that can somehow be broken through.

Christmas is like that.  We are on repeat from year to year, but not just on repeat.  We are headed somewhere.