The Lord and me - and you.

I’ve tried to imagine, and can’t really, the great wisdom, power and majesty of the Lord in His dealings with us. Or perhaps I should say, in the way I have come to believe He deals with us.

This is kind of where I’ve come to in my feelings about that:

We know we are here on the Earth because we wanted to be like our Father in Heaven; that is, to have a physical body and to prepare it so it would be in a condition that would allow us to take it back with us to the condition He lives in – to be like Him, and have the freedoms and wisdom and power that He has acquired. We wanted to have an eternal companion and family, like He does. We wanted to be like He is and do as He does.

We chose to come here. There are those who chose not to come. I don’t know exactly how they went about making that choice, although I doubt it was their goal to not come here, to not have a body, to not have a family, to not be like our Father. I imagine they were told, and somehow believed, it would work the way they wanted it to, and they would be the ones who would be here. But, in the wonderful, fair, freedom of choice, majestic process that took place there, we all made our choice – and they chose not to come – and they lost everything, and they have come to hate us, are now trying really hard to keep us from getting back there. And they have drummed up plenty of people who did choose to come who are helping them do it. Some of them pose as our friends.

We chose to come. The scriptures tell us that we rejoiced to come. That suggests to me that we were pretty confident we could make it back. We at least wanted the chance to try. I suppose we each had our own feelings and reasons and such. There were probably those who were humbly uncertain but felt if the Lord would help them along, as He promised He would, they could maybe make it. On the other end of things, there might have been those who proudly felt they wouldn’t have any problem – ‘just hurry and get me down there and I’ll be back in great shape’. And everything in between.

The Lord is helping us, every one of us, every person born on the earth, in every possible way. Sometimes He helps us directly. More often He helps us through our parents and other people. We know some things about that and I believe it suggests a number of things.

• For example: Every person born on the Earth is blessed with the ‘Spirit of Christ’, and is thereby taught truths and is led if he/she will allow it.
• Everyone ‘knows’ right from wrong.
• Everyone ‘knows’ and recognizes the basic truths of the Lords Plan. Consider how, after centuries since the true gospel has been taught, and in spite of being taught false concepts, people ‘recognize’ or ‘remember’ the fundamental truths – what the Lord is like, what we’ll be like after we die, life didn’t begin at our birth, how we should live and treat each other, etc.
• Everyone, worldwide, receives answers to his/her prayers. Some people recognize that and respond, others ignore or deny it, or don’t pray very often even in their mind and heart. But when they do He answers and they really do know it.
• Everyone receives the Lords help in every way that individual will accept it. For example, if a person responds to the guidance of the Spirit of Christ they will find the truth and accept it. They will then receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and, if they live what they have learned, have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.
• Everyone is treated equally. Over the course of the Pre-existence, Mortal Life, and the Spirit World every person has every chance, and receives all the help he/she will accept, in the process of becoming like our Father.
  

And when it is time to be resurrected and judged by the Lord we will all have been treated equally – and more by far than that, we will each one, everyone, ‘all men’, have received every help, all the help, that we would accept. If we fall short to any degree it will be because of our own choices, made in whatever manner we make them - there will be no place for blame. We will not feel to blame the Lord or any man, for we will then know that we were given every chance and every help that we would receive. All men, all women, all mankind, every individual, everywhere.

And now back to why I’m writing this – back to the first sentence or two. Is it possible for us to even imagine the wisdom and love required of the Lord to conceive a way for each one of us, as we deal with the challenges we each face, so that we will, each one, everyone, say, at the time of judgment: I was treated fairly, and I received all the help, every possible help, from the Lord that I would accept. I don’t have the ability to understand the depth of knowledge and feeling and wisdom, knowing myself, and my dealings with children and others, how He can always, every time, do all that can be done to help me and not, in mercy or tenderness, do too much for my good, or, in His desire to help me or in the need to teach me, do too little.

But I know He does just that. I know He has dealt with me that way. I have had every chance. I have been presented with every possible help. Sometimes I have chosen to receive His help, sometimes I have not. Some time ahead I will fall at His feet and weep – many tears of gratitude and joy for what He has done for me, and perhaps some tears of regret because I didn’t respond to His offers of help.

Talk up-front

Maybe nothing tells more about us than the way we speak. They may judge us by our appearance until we speak, then our appearance is muted, and we are as we speak.

We may have been told to enunciate, to talk slower, to speak clearly, to not run the words together, and so on. I now suggest, regardless who gave you the instruction, that you toss it away, forget it, ignore it - and let me give you a simple but magic rule that will remove the need for any further instruction or correction. You will be admired for how well you speak.

I will give you the rule in a few simple, uncluttered words. Learn the rule and apply it. Everything I say before I give you the rule is simply to help you know the importance of how you speak, and what I say after is to help you apply the rule.

The author of the book called this rule the "talk up-front" rule. The rule is this:

• Form your words with your lips, your teeth, and the tip of your tongue.
• Feel your words being formed as you speak, right at the front of your mouth.

That's it. That's the rule. That's all. Don't expand on it. Practice this rule and forget everything else you know about how to speak well.

It will take some practice. But as you do, you will find that you are enunciating each syllable properly, you are speaking at the proper speed, you are forming each word and never "running words together", and all without focusing on any of that. And you won't sound like you're trying to speak better. You will sound very natural and as a well educated, sensible person would speak.

It's been years since I read the book. The idea is the only thing I remember. So it's one of those things that become your own after a time, and the words to explain it are also your own. I'm convinced it's all you need to know about speaking well.

Posture

When I was in the 9th grade, which was high school in our school district, we had a new family move into town. They had 3 sons, ages of about 4, 3 and 2 years my senior. I immediately liked them, especially the younger one. The two younger ones were a lot alike. They walked kind of slouched over with their hands in their pockets. I thought that looked cool, so I started doing it.

By the time I was later in my sophmore (10th) year of school I began feeling really bad about my posture. The farmer I worked for told me he'd like to tie a board to my back to straighten me up. The thing he didn't know was that I had been working on my posture for months, and I couldn't make any significant improvement. When I wasn't consciously thinking about it and working on it, I would return to the kind of slumped position.

Well, I worked on that for years. I still work on trying to have good posture, and I'm still very conscious of the effect that year of carelessness when I was a boy has had. One of the things I like about WII Fit is that they encourage and emphasize balance and posture, both of which are so very important to our health, participation in various activities (sports, dancing, etc), self confidence, etc.

I guess that was a very important lesson to me: be yourself, be your best self, adopt characteristics and habits that will help you do that - but don't copy foolish, damaging things that seem cool for a moment.

Years later I came across a book that had a very good chapter on posture, with a unique but wonderful suggestion for maintaining good posture. I think I taught it to all our kids. This is the suggestion:

1. Imagine you have a large, helium filled balloon tied to the top of your head, immediately in line with your spinal chord. The balloon is large enough that it almost lifts you off your feet, not quite, but it makes you very light on your feet. It makes it easier to walk up a flight of stairs, it stretches the muscles in your neck and seems to lengthen your neck. It stretches the muscles in your sides by your ribs, it makes you want to stand on your toes. Try it, let your imagination work, don't be skeptical or say, "that's foolishness".

2. Now, with the balloon in place and doing it's job, relax every muscle in your body. Don't worry, you won't collapse for the balloon is holding you straight up. Consciously relax your shoulders - feel them relax. Don't try and keep your shoulders back, just let them relax. Relax your arms, your stomach muscles, every muscle. As you relax, allow yourself to feel the pull of the balloon, lifting you almost off the ground.

3. When you are doing this well you have perfect posture. The shoulders are straight and in the right position (they won't take an un-naturally forced back position like we sometimes do when someone tells us to 'keep your shoulders back'), the stomach is pulled in just the right amount, you are light on your feet - relaxed and comfortable - nothing is forced.

4. If this is done consciously for a time it will become a habit - just like my bad posture habit. You'll find that, after a few times, when you picture the balloon tied to your head, your body immediately relaxes and you are in 'perfect posture' and balance.

I hope you'll try it. I think you'll find that it works.

WE FIT 2

For you who, like me, are trying to learn how to do the various things in Wii fit, I thought I'd pass on the things I think I've learned that seem to have helped me.

It has helped me to remember that the only thing Wii Fit "see's", I think, is where my weight is shifted to, as reflected by the balance board. So leaning, or bending, or such is only effective if it is reflected by a shift in weight at my feet.

So, for example, when I do the hoola hoop, I concentrate on being sure as I move my hips, that I feel my weight shift from left toes to right toes to right heel to left heel to left toes, etc. I think that must be how the program knows that my hips are moving in a circle. When I lean to catch another hoop, I have found it's more important that my weight shifts to the right or left than it is how far I am leaning in that direction.

I have a hard time maintaining my balance. I feel myself teetering and tottering by the way my weight shifts as felt by my feet on the Wii Balance Board. Balance seems to be all important in some of the activities. It has helped me, although I'm still really poor at it, to consciously be sure I am putting weight on my big toes and little toes. The other toes seem to follow suite.

That idea is especially true when doing the ski slalom or the ski jump, because the speed is determined by shifting your weight to your toes. So, I seem to be more successful at keeping my balance if I shift my weight to the front or right or left by pressing down with my big and little toes or by shifting my hips left or right rather than by leaning a lot, which puts me off balance.

Well, I know you're all doing much better than I am at this, but it makes me feel important if I can sound like I know something. I have to admit I'm enjoying doing it, even if it does still insult me by saying things like, "this obviously is not your forte, do you find yourself tripping when you walk?" I've decided the remote didn't go through somebodies TV screen because it slipped out of their hand. They got mad and threw it because they were insulted.

WE FIT

Dawn has been doing WII FIT for several months. She has recorded nearly 200 hours, or at least that is her goal by her birthday on March 1st. She does a variety of the activities every morning at about 6 or 6:30. It took awhile for her to begin to see results of the hard work, but she stuck to it every day without fail and the results now are really very impressive.

I don’t know how much weight she has lost, she doesn’t talk about her weight to me, but I do know her clothes don’t fit and I’m probably facing the purchase of a new wardrobe. The really surprising thing to me is the way her body has kind of re-structured itself. She really looks good. She may still be a bit over-weight but she looks trim and stylish and in shape.

I’m so proud of her for doing it. I know it isn’t easy to get up every morning and do that for about 9 months of days in a row (excluding Sundays). It takes a lot of determination and courage – tenacity. Another word for tenacity is stubborn. I’ve been called stubborn or bull-headed more times than I can count. Maybe we’re alike in that regard, Dawn and I. I like the sound of tenacity better than stubborn and bull-headed, I think. I’ve learned that this family has a lot of that, tenacity that is, and now I understand better where you all got it.

And Dawn is continuing on, day after day. It is going to be a very interesting journey to see what happens. And, believe it or not, she has impressed me so that I decided to do it to. So I started a few days ago and I have recorded about 13 hour’s total. Hey, that’s a start. I’m determined too. I want to be productive and do some worthwhile things for a long time yet, and it takes good health and energy to do that. It’s worth some effort if we can see that happen for both of us.

I’m looking forward, too, to getting on-line with WII FIT and playing games or competing with my grandkids and other members of the family, them in their house and me in mine. Actually, a good part of my exercises so far have been doing the activities that I can do with the kids – and beat them, like the one where you hit the soccer ball with your head and dodge the panda and the shoes, the ski slalom and the ski jump - - and the hoola hoop. I’m going to practice bowling too.

Maybe we can have a tournament at the family reunion – grampa, Grandma and the parents against the kids. You better watch out though, the old man is doing pretty well on some of those things. I’m practicing to win.

Learn with Joy

Referencing my notes about not telling the truth when I was allowed to take the car the first time, there is a wonderful verse in the Book of Mormon, Jacob 4:3 that teaches something about all that. It reads:

...and we labor diligently to engraven these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy wnd not with sorrow...

I knew without a doubt when I was 15 years old that I should tell the truth. I had been taught many times how important that was. Obviously, it hadn't sunk in very deep for I lied. If only I had been wise enough to believe and follow what I had been taught, and simply told the truth. If I had learned to tell the truth by being taught I would have learned with joy, but because I had to experience the consequences of not telling the truth before I would believe what I was taught, I learned with a good deal of sorrow.

I wish I'd told the truth.

I found myself thinking the other day about a time when I was about 15. I guess this memory came back as a result of thinking about driving well.

In those days in Idaho kids learned to drive farm vehicles when they were very young and were allowed to get a driver’s license at 14, as I remember – no drivers training. My parents owned a 1941 Hudson – a big black car. I had permission to use the car and go with my friends to a movie in Preston, 15 miles away – my first time to be trusted with the family car on my own with my friends. I was pretty excited and thoughtlessly invited a car-full of friends; Ed from Clifton, LaVel from Dayton (I had told my parents I was taking them), but then I invited Alvin from Weston, and Harry from way up Weston Canyon about 30 miles from our house, and not on the way to Preston. I didn’t tell my parents I had added Alvin and Harry. I was afraid now to tell them how far I’d need to drive.

So, I picked up the friends and we went to a movie and then to a hamburger joint for a hamburger and a shake. All as planned – correct and proper.

I’m not sure what time we left Preston, but I remember very clearly, and still painfully, that it was nearly 2:30 am when I finally finished delivering everyone to their homes and arrived home myself. I knew I was in trouble when I saw that the light in my parent’s upstairs bedroom was on. My bedroom was across the hall from theirs.

I entered the back door of the house without a sound, and climbed the stairs (avoiding every stair that squeaked for I knew them all). The stairs went halfway up in one direction and then turned and went the opposite direction to the top where there was a landing and the entrances to the two bedrooms.

You know of the story of the man who fell off the roof of a high building. As he passed the second floor window he said, "Well, so far so good".

I had now reached the halfway point on the stairs but hadn’t turned the corner. I hadn’t made a sound. The back door had closed silently enough and I had taken my shoes off so I could cross the linoleum kitchen floor quietly. I had successfully negotiated the stairs – not a squeak. (In retrospect, I’m sure my Mother had to have been impressed at how very well I had done.) I reached the halfway point, as I said, took a deep breath, and prepared to turn and work my way up the second flight of stairs, saying to myself, “Well, so far so good”.

I turned and saw my Mother ….

It occurs to me that I should tell you a bit about my Mother. She was truly a wonderful person: kind, understanding, and loving. She was very kind to the farm animals and would never swat a fly if she could find a way to shoo it out of the house. She had babied me shamefully all of my life so far. She would always prepare a special dish of potato salad for me because I didn’t like onions, bake pumpkin pie often because it was my favorite, scold me carefully for running up the stairs because it might not be good for my heart, and protect me from anything that might not be good for her little boy. But, on the other hand, at this moment, there on the landing, halfway up the stairs, I remembered the time, out in the cow corral when I was 6 years old or so, my Mother with a long, green willow in her right hand, holding my left hand in her left hand, and tanning my behind as I ran around her at top speed – and my heart went to my throat and sweat broke out on my brow once again.

Well, I turned and there she was, standing at the top of the stairs with her hands on her hips…

I saw no mercy. I’m sure that 10 minutes earlier she and dad had both been deeply worried that I might have had a serious accident (things you imagine are always serious when you don’t know where or how your child is, especially at two in the morning). I suspect they had been worried that I might be laying somewhere in a wreck, hurt or worse. But not now. Not as I stood there on the stairs, not bleeding, not hurt, not showing any concern for anyone but myself, and looking up at her. All those tender and worried feelings had suddenly turned to anger. How could I have done this to them? How could I possibly be so insensitive? Why would I treat them this way? And worse, what might I have been up to until this time of the morning. What kind of sins was this kid up to, after all?

So…she stood there her hands on her hips, and said…

I wish I could tell you the tone in her voice. Ominous? I thought so. Menacing? It was to me.

She said, “Where do you think you’ve been until this hour of the morning?

Well now, my Mother is a very intellegent woman, but you have to admit, looking back, that she was probably not performing at her peak. That was not the best question in town. I’ve asked myself, “Had I been thinking clearly, which I wasn’t, how should I have answered that without being a smart-aleck and making things worse?” I have found no answer. Maybe you can help me. Maybe you’ll face that question or a similar one sometime before you grow up.

You may be wondering what I said. Well, you know me. I would surely have answered with a high degree of intellegence for a boy my age. Something she could quote to her friends for years to come. I said - - - “I dun no”.

Now there was the long term and very telling mistake. There was the mistake I have had to live with. But for me the dye was cast. “Did you go to a movie?” “Yes”. “Did you have a hamburger?” “Yes”. “Where’d you go then?” “I dun no”. Why’d it take so long to get home?” “I dun no”. “Did you get in trouble?” “No”. “Is the car ok?” “Yes”. And now more ominous and menacing than before, “Then where have you been?”

Now this is my great opportunity. All I have to do now is simply tell the truth. “I invited Alvin Maughan and Harry Lemmon and it took a long time to take them home.” She’d have said, “Well, I wish you had told us what you were going to do”. I’d have said, “I’m sorry”. She would have hugged me and we’d have gone to bed.

So, what did I say? I stuck by my guns. I couldn't bend. I'd never break. I said, “I dun no”.

Well, she turned and went to bed, and I went to bed. There were no hugs. No green willow sticks. I lay there a long time before I went to sleep. At first I blamed everything on her. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Then sometime that night I came to realize how very foolish and childish I had been – that I had lied – that I should have told my parents before I went what I was going to do, where I was going to go. They would have probably not let me drive so far, but that would have protected me in many ways, and I’d have been home on time and had fond memories. And most importantly, I would have earned my parents respect. I didn’t ask for the car again for a long time.

I learned a very important lesson that night. I haven't always had the courage to live it, but it was a great lesson. I've had similar lessons that have reinforced what I learned that night. I think I have come to know how very important it is. I learned that night, very early in the morning, how to just face the music and be honest – tell the truth.