Daily choices have a big impact on our progress in life. How we look at a choice can make a lot of difference. One way to look at our choices is would be as a summary of what we have done. Sometimes it appears as though others have done more than us. It seems like what we have done is less important that what we could have done. A better way to look at our past list of choices is to consider instead of what our choices were but to consider what those choices have lead us to be.  Who we are is more important that what we have done. The same choice can have a very different result on a person depending on the persons attitude, motive or desire. Tonght in FHE we were considering why prayers were not answered unless we had faith that they would be? Why do you need to know you will get an answer before you will get an answer. Why does motive or real desire or attitude matter? Apparently it is more than just the choice it is why we made the choice.

How

The blogger info is new and after all these years I just don't know how to post anything using this?

home on the river in Phnom Penh

Our friends the Synders blog each week. They left to serve a mission in Cambodia in July of 2010 and are on a a 23 month mission so I think we will see them soon. Many of the homes along the riverside in Phnom Penh they say are like this. They rise with the water.

Us reflected

I like pictures that are shadows of something else. I see myself in the reflection and I am reminded that how I see myself is probably different that how others see me. It could be KJ and me reflected on the wall. It could be me looking back in yesterdays post.

who we are, rewritten

Some thoughts about

"Yin and Yang"............ a symbol that is used to describe, among other things, how contrary forces are connected. Put another way the symbol is a way of expressing that opposites only exist in relation to each other. For the purpose I have used it today the symbol is more of a representation of a whole that has complicated parts that struggle with each other..................The symbol itself is interesting. Maybe the whole is made up of two complimentary halves but I suspect that it takes a lot of work to become complimentary to each side.

*

I recently heard a talk about the "soul of man". A persons "soul" we were told consists of the body and the spirit. If you look at it this way you would have to conclude that we may have been incomplete before we gained our body. If gaining a body completed the entity then are the two halves opposites, or contrary forces, and how does the struggle impact us?

*

Since it is the bodies appetites and desires that create so many struggles it seems clear that the spirit is the "better half". Hopefully the day will come when the halves are equal.

*

This might be a odd post. A rambling group of thoughts about our soul hardly fits into a blog of pictures of daily observations and events. Taking a moment to think about how really hard it is to master the body is one perspective on life. It just never really changes a lot. On the other hand if you look back and look at the memories of life you can see growth rather than just the struggle. You can see how far you have come.

A day to be Thankful for.............

To the left are some friends that we know from Church. They are serving a mission in Cambodia. Each week they send a blog link and we get to see their weeks activities. This one is a side trip they took because they got a couple of days off when their daughter came to visit. It is always interesting to hear from them. A few days back I posted a picture of a man named Tom who was an older man who was part of our church group for a while. I was thinking about him today, Easter, and thinking about the fact that in serving him I really grew to care for him. Serving others gets us to love others. These friends in Cambodia are serving others and each week express their love for the others. I was thinking about what service is. When I served Tom it often was a lot of work. You get to know others when you serve them. I suppose you learn about their weaknesses too. Since today is Easter I thought about why Christ might love us? Why He might have cared about us enough to pay the price for our sins. I thought about these little examples of service and note that our Cambodian friends are getting to know those they serve and Tom was someone I got to know. Christ, having paid for each individual sin that each of us, and myself in particular, has committed would have in doing so enabled Him to have gotten to know us more than anyone else ever will. It is hard to imagine that every single wrong thing I have ever done would have been known to Him and He would have paid the price for it. There is no hiding who I am or who we are from Him and maybe that is what helped Him love us.............................

hbtm a day early

Mike's birthday is tomorrow. I told him this morning on our walk that if he would find a wife and have a little boy sometime in the next couple of years when he was my age he could be out walking with a young man the same age as he is now..............................

HP Guys

Tom is the guy with the white hair sitting down. This picture was taken about a year ago. It was the last Sunday before he moved to Washington DC area. Felt some prompting to take the picture, glad we did. Tom went with his son and their family who had to move and this last week he passed away. He was in our ward for a couple of years and went through a lot of health issues. Most people are interesting. Older folks can be very interesting. Tom was from Canada. His wife was from Australia.

"Stands by Buffalos"

For a few years up to a few years ago I watched the movie
"Dancing with Wolves" many many times. I suspect I will watch it a few more times eventually. A lot of things appealed to me in that movie. I liked the Buffalo scenes. The "majesty" of them and the impact they had on the earth as they moved across it. I liked the final scenes as "Stands with a Fist" and "Dances with Wolves" leave together and above a wolf calls out. I liked the individuality I saw in the Lakota Indians.

*

On our Saturday walks we often walk by a bronze buffalo. I have taken a number of pictures of it. Many many times in fact. Like watching the movie it draws me in and it sometimes becomes part of my day. Today was no exception. Today MJ served as the reason for the picture. Something about land in New Mexico that has some attraction. It seems to be from another time in a way.

*

Applications were already taken. You won.

The help wanted ad from Shackleton requesting help for his long journey might be like the ad we answered when we signed on for this life. The only difference might be that a "safe return" is likely. Honor and recognition probably will be based on what we learn but the experience will bring us to a point where we will see things different.

*

I have liked T.S. Eliot's quote and have wondered why he felt that way and what might be concluded from the quote. It seems to me that Eliot was thinking about a homecoming and it is likely that he considered that at his death he would begin again as himself wiser for what he had learned. Wiser for answering the ad. Wiser for the experience. More depth, more capacity to understand. Better able to see things in a different way. Wisdom seems to come from experience rather than words.

*

Maybe

The question of whether you see your own Shadow in your kids is worth some pondering? I suppose most people ponder this on occasion and for some the answer is easy. Shadows are reflections of ones self. Exact duplicates in some ways. On the other hand perhaps shadows are nothing at all like what they reflect but instead just a very similar outside image. Somewhere between duplicate and and just an outside reflective reminder may be the answer to what this Shadow idea is all about.

*

Maybe a more relevant question to ask would be whether the kids see themselves in the Shadow or even in the guy behind the camera? I can answer the question as to whether I see myself in my own Dad much easier than I can speculate as to whether my kids are "inside" similar to myself. Truth is I see a lot of myself in my perception of my Dad but not enough to really lead me to believe that were more the same than different. Understanding our sameness is easier than understanding our difference.

*
Agency is a word that might be a way of understanding differences. When we chose to be like someone we use agency and in that our likeness is chosen.

*

The older I get the more I see things in my own parents to chose to be like, "I think".

18th

The mythical Phoenix rises up reborn from it's own ashes to live again. Going to Phoenix this last week was not exactly a rebirth but getting away from the routine had a little of that feel. We traveled a highway we have never before traveled and then add to all of that, I went to Ikea. All new stuff.

*

February is the month that both of my parents were born and likewise chose to get married in. My dad was born in 1914. This month will mark 98 years since that day. Every once in a while I come across someone who has a parent alive and near 100 years. I think of Kelly Cooper who when he was about 98 stood and told a small group at church that I was in his life story. We gave him a half hour to talk and after the half hour he had made it to 1914 or so? This was a number of years ago and even so he only made it in his story to high school. We had to give him more time to finish in another meeting but then most of the folks I have heard tell their life story sort of make it all the way through in 30 minutes. They usually mention some time when the were kids, often something about getting married, their own kids and if they went to war they will mention it most always.

*

Looking for the common thread over a lot of years can be a interesting story. Growing up and being a kid, being newly married, having kids, seeing them grown up, and just trying to do what is right through it all can have some threads. Blessings make a difference and occur all along the way.

*

Today is the 18th of February. Looking ahead...................................................

Speaking of "bill"

I am just about done reading a book about the life of William Faulkner. One reason I have enjoyed the book a lot is that in telling the story of his life it wraps the story around his books. The characters in the books mostly are folks set in a special southern county and they seem to age as they reappear in later books, older but with more to say. The authors life and books come more into focus with the approach of this biography. "Bill" said of himself that if he had not been born he would have been "written". I suspect this indicates that he indeed is a character, perhaps a "character in his own mind" and if you know how to look you will find him in his books. Wonder if we are not all "characters in our own minds"? Someone once said of me that I was a "legend in my own mind". On the one hand that probably clearly shows someone who didn't much care for me when they said it. Bill must have thought he himself was legend like since he implied that his life was such that it would have been written had it not been lived. Perhaps as we look back at our indivdual lives we all find that it might have made for an interesting book.

*

Reoccurring characters and re use of past thoughts and pictures are what my own blogs are all about, by the way. These pictures today reflect the same scenes seen out walking over the last few years. MJ was the focus of what I wondered, if taken, might capture the balloons way off in the blue behind him. Saturday mornings often are times when balloons rise up on the Western horizon but today there were many of them. Course they didn't show up on the picture taken so I posted an old shot from the past along with a file shot from the past of what was behind me as I posted this. MJ on the other hand shortly after this was taken pulled a camera phone out of his pocket and took a picture of me taking a picture of him. I understood that he may have forwarded that picture to his FB account?

*

I went back and added to my last post since those characters, as they stood, were not complete without having done so...................................

Favorite pictures with comments

These pictures are so good that "lifting" them off of one of my favorite "go to" blogs..........might be ok?

The cute young lady is holding her ears as the young man on the ground is saying something that probably should not be heard. The other young man in the background is "contemplating" the whole event in his own way.

(maybe I will add something to the prior blog too)

Saturday, revisited it, and yet to be revisted

Another Saturday, another walk, another shot with the Sandias in the background. MJ in the shot too of course. Blue skies. All the good things about a Saturday.

*

This shot somehow made it's way to FB, posted I think by MJ. If I would have taken a picture of him looking to the west the horizon would have had a balloon or two. It might be interesting to walk the same path regularly over a lot of years and take a picture along the way often over those same years. The things that would change would probably be the "characters" of the story. When later we looked back we would see the changes as growth and how we see them would probably reveal a lot about our own changes.

I "felt" the light

Today I heard a young girl, just turning 12, express her testimony and in doing so she said that she had written a poem for her mother and had "felt the spirit" when she did. I was glad to hear her express herself today. Her thoughts made me think about a poem that I like and also about the words of the poem and what it really means to feel passionately. Maybe the passion you feel for the poem is connected to a testimony about "truth and light". When our thinking is in tune with "truth and light" we "feel" strongly. Perhaps passionately. Maybe one could say our own soul "rages" and excels.......................

*

I think the 12 year old girl in her simple testimony showed that she was willing to stand up in her own unique "rage" of a testimony of the truth and light.

*

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Old age should burn and rave at the close of day:

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right.

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in the green bay.

Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

who is at the other end of that phone call..........

This blog is about "what I did on December 27th" I suppose we could say that it is really about what my friend Glenn did since that is him with the phone and his granddaughter and daughter and probably those folded hands on the right are his wife Fran's hands but then again this is my blog and I could call this "what did I do on December 27th" so therefore I can tell you that I called Glenn. He was at Red Lobster as you can see and he was talking on the phone to me. That is why this post is about what I was doing that day. Not having anything else to post about today I thought that I would just post this picture...............Happy Birthday again Glen a few days after the fact. Course he sent me the photo a few days after the fact.

Reaching down

When you think about the coming year or the time ahead it is challenging to really come up with something that represents what might be ahead. I thought a little about goals the last few days. Often over the years I have sat down and reviewed goals and set new ones. Ben Franklin wrote some good advice about goals. He suggested we focus on 13 goals and that we spend a week on each of them.

*

Temperance

Silence

Order

Resolution

Frugality

Industry

Sincerity

Justice

Moderation

Cleanliness

Tranquility

Chastity

Humility

*

The focus on each of these areas worked for Ben Franklin. He was pretty wealthy by the time he was middle age. On the other hand is getting wealthy what goals ought to be about? It seems like in some ways goals are about running a race and the winner somehow beats the others. A few weeks ago I saw a commercial that I thought might be a good case for "not setting goals". Not trying to win the race in life. The event shown in the commercial was a race. Some down-syndrome kids lined up at the starting line. All were smiling. All were happy. The parents on the sidelines looked excited for their kids. The kids were ready and the race started. They ran. The parents smiled. All were excited. (on their way towards the goal of finishing or maybe winning) Soon a little boy fell. He went down. His parents looked on in shock. He looked so sad. His happy face was changed. A little girl looked back. She stopped. She went back and "reached down" and pulled him up. The started to run. The others looked back. The waited. They locked arms and ran together when the little girl and boy caught up. The parents smiled. The faces were all happy. They finished together. The goal was not winning it should have been finishing and they did it together. Life is an opportunity at times to reach down and pull up and stop and wait. Wonder how old Ben Franklin could have worked this idea into his 13 steps for success. What a better way. Good reason to set no goals that involve winning and beating those around us. On the other hand we have to develop the talents we are given. Interesting how to do both. Reach down, develop our talents. Are goals needed?

A nice present

This calendar was put together by KJ and perhaps ZJ helped but it is a nice presentation of a nice bunch of folks........................

Chirstmas Posts

All of these pictures are Christmas theme pictures except maybe the one of the food room just off the kitchen. On the other hand KJ and ZJ spent 10 hours Wednesday working on re organizing it and getting it in shape for the Holidays. Today is the Christmas Eve and all through the house were all stirring and hopefully there is no mouse. The cat does seem sort of up to it all and hangs around the tree and the gifts a lot. Also good news is that we have blue skies again. We had a few days without them and it was not a good thing.