Latter Day Saint

So now I'm going to go Mormon.  Surprising only if you have not been following along. 

7/3/17 Email:

Various family and loved ones.

I hold that all religious truth is subjective. We are judged by God alone.  No two people experience God in exactly the same way.  I am done with arguing creeds and doctrine except in the privacy of my heart.  I am open to people, not to ideology.

 If any live the Christian behavior James described. I will consider them "of God" as their lives proclaim.  The local LDS people I know are of God by this standard and by many others.  I am completely certain the Christ they worship is the very same Christ I was raised to worship and worship now.  It is, after all, The Church of Jesus Christ, really.  I expect to join the Saints as fully as I can for the love and sake of my nearest children and grandchildren.  This move would be impossible except for a very generous gift of faith from the Holy Spirit which bridges all contradiction.

On a daily basis we can only act locally and must choose from what is possible locally. I forsake none of my current Christian brothers and sisters, pastor or congregation.   This is a "both-and" choice, not an "either-or" choice.

I consider that no sect or religion has exclusive access to God.  Emnity for those we consider in error is simply hateful behavior no matter how anyone reaches that conclusion.  Hate is evidence for the existence of Satan.  I have not considered him real for many years but you are welcome to your experience.

I judge none of you and love all of you. I pray you not judge me and I know some have and others will.  I must act in my interest and as God permits me to do. Everyone must take responsibility for their own soul.

I do not love you all equally as might be the ideal, but I love you and can not lie about such matters.  I hope to set no example except for service.  This was not a competition and everyone of good will wins.

I will care for Julie because that is who I am.  That behavior was cemented as I watched my parents care for each other and for the dear ones they could care for.  I expect to spend what life remains caring for others as I am capable.  The LDS organization is particularly well organized in this regard, as in many other ways.  I expect my abilities will be fruitfully applied and I will serve as God would have me.

We will be fine.  This is not a call for help.   It is a prayer for peace.  You may forward this as your heart advises.

In the Risen Christ,

David

8/24/17  The more I learn the scarier converting to Mormonism becomes.

Edward and me.

Do I have the alpha male thing?  I have led, managed, administrated and inspired folks.  Blazing forward, earned my keep.  Don't follow well for very long.  Both loyal and occasionally not.  Very trustworthy.  Capable of serious betrayal and living with it.  I will die with plenty of secrets.  Very good at getting people to trust and teach me.  Can pick brains, which requires the full opposite of dominance.  Simultaneously firstborn and a younger brother, can switch modes instantly.  I would have been a good double agent.

Bought Julie a tiny Chih tzu pup purebred with papers.  Neither of us with much real dog experience.  Bought what the breeder showed us without seeing both parents.  Much later learned the trick to buying promising pound animals.  Good ones go fast.  Put in your name while the animal is still in isolation, waiting for an owner who may never show.  Takes persistence as does any good thing.  Never did that.  Too late smart.  We die with so much experience and capability.

Named the pup Edward after my father's older brother and not his favorite. An obscure trick on the dead.  I have a fondness for scrappy, independent animals.  A little like my first wife, Tweet.  I came by the skill sort of honestly.  Owned a toucan just like the fruit loops bird for half a dozen years.   Simultaneously had multiple sneaky cats.  The bird can defend himself during the day.  The cats attack at night when the bird is blind.  Panics the bird even in a big strong cage.  The bird needs its own room with a door.

That long beak is quite a weapon and the toucan knows how to attack anything it can see.  Wild birds are always feisty with each other unless they're mates.  You do not want to watch ducks breed if you don't enjoy violence.

If you're standing in a doorway with a big bird flying toward you, stop.  The bird can tuck in it's wings and fly through narrow gaps.  If you move, the bird cannot correct in time and collision results.  So I learned how to deal with animals generally, on their terms.  I understand how they think.

But babies, puppies, are different.  I have so little experience with babies.  Babies, and puppies, cannot be allowed to have their own way, must learn to be submissive.  I did not know that when Edward came along.  Julie was damaged in ways I did not appreciate.  So Edward never got potty trained.  Ignoring the problem always makes it worse.  In that way Edward became my problem.

Must finish this story another time.

Falling

First seemed my father's world eclipsed.
Even with my youthful protest,
merely tarnished late.
Those massive foundations,
the ground I built my life upon,
will surely pull through darkness back.

Where steel-bound solid rock had seemed,
now black and sulfurous sand revealed.
That meteoric world was never in our orbit.
Flush and bright,
so very far outside the mean
we dreamed ourselves.

Devouring illusions,
reversion's law reclaims us.

Casualties of War and Memorial Day 2017

Generations raised in peacetime never comprehend past carnage.  Freed from witnesses, belligerence always rises again.

My church hosted a silent prayer vigil on Memorial Day 2017, specifically for Casualties of War.  A slight expansion on the formal purpose of the day.

First arriving, I prepared the sanctuary.  Brought the last of the iris. Lit the candles.  Made impromptu welcome signs.  Propped open the main doors early.  A vase of nearly spent dark flowers graced the entrance table.

Yet nothing prompted purpose.  I found a broken pencil.  Carved a point with my box knife.  Roughly printed these words and placed them beside the vase. 


"That I may not go unmourned,

That some would plead my maker
mercy on this soul.

That some might grieve and say
I did not have to die so soon."


It's not a poem I remember, not much of a poem at all.  Scrawled in moments, perhaps some stranger's plea preserved. Did I read it somewhere? Does it matter?

Before others arrived, I prayed an hour.  Fittingly and properly, Memorial Day commemorates U.S. fallen soldiers. Sometimes we forget the wounded, the civilians, the horrific losses of our enemy (now our friend).  Casualties all.  Worthy of being remembered.  If only that memory were immunizing.

According to the Garden - 2017

The garden reveals plant lore continually.  I have been schooled by tomatoes (and many other plants), for several Idaho summers.  Prepare beds well.  Use supports, twine and tomato clips, for anything resting on the soil will be consumed by others.  Corrugated cardboard also works to isolate tomatoes from the ground if it stays dry. And on and on every season.

My grandmother had these problems figured out in some different but equivalent manner.  When we mostly ate from kitchen gardens many people knew how to grow their food.  Mostly they did not record that knowledge.  One learned as a child by doing chores, practiced as youth with your own plots.  Growing stuff was common knowledge, therefore without much market value.  Farmers know as much as anyone.  As much about the land, the crops, the animals. Where land is free, requiring only an army to drive off it's inhabitants, farms multiply, production increases until the market collapses. Forget the railroads, electrification and the rest. Common farming knowledge has no value without land.  City folks or more successful farmers are quite happy to buy that land, for very little if the farmer has had a few bad years.  Skip forward a few generations.  Can kids grow anything today?

So, an old man, I garden.  I learn.  Someday this knowledge might come in handy.  But that is the rationalization.  I grow stuff because that is what people have done for 5000 years.

Confining Cinnamon

Cinnamon, my almost Maine Coon cat friend, rebelled at a shock collar. You might think me cruel, but Cinnamon figured out how to get across the radio wire clean within a day. Back and forth. Speed is the secret. Go too fast for the device to even register a boundary signal.

Now in the neighbor's yard. Now under a parked car. While I watched she went and sat in the middle of the street as if she were really stupid. When I went to get her she ducked under a car. She let me crawl halfway under that car after her. A few more like that and she considered my loyalty sufficiently demonstrated. She never gets close to the edge now. She just does not care to. The yard is her territory. She hangs out there with me. When it is winter she watches me from the closest window. 

If we are both outside and she isn't sleeping, she will sit ten feet away and watch me. She stalks the ducks, and knows they are too fast for her. They pretty much ignore her too. Probably remember the squirrel laughing at her and feel much the same. They know exactly how far she can jump and stay just over the line.
Occasionally she charges. She gets within a foot or two, but they have exploded into the air. They settle in the stream, flying all of fifteen feet. If you were a cat you would enjoy watching them too. But you would not waste energy. She accepts the score.

She will sit on the front porch and watch what happens on the street. For endless hours. You cannot beat the attention of a cat. Often she sleeps nights on the stairs so no one can get to me without stepping on her. We look out for each other. She is not a junior partner. I belong to her.

written on Facebook 5/28/17

What I Write vs. Might Write

Stories are the most efficient way to transmit thought between people.  The essay is nevertheless what I write here.  Story is all innocent adventure, pretends pleasure, fascinates through characters.  Essay implies purpose, has a job to do.  Story is the original indirect attack, denying significance while floating you over the falls.  Essay is obvious, demands attention.  Story insinuates itself, beckons to the casual listener.  Essay hits you on the head, tells you right up front what it wants.

Stories comfortably carry their loads, float them through narrative.  Stories situate themselves within life.   Essay is immediately present, story is deniably pregnant.  Story can be subtle, can disguise discomforting, dangerous thoughts beyond a censor's sensibility.  Stories often pretend other purpose.  Essay leads with sharp blade and thunder, cuts through objection, seeks to throttle doubt.  Stories pretend, meander like old streams oblivious to purpose.  Stories are not above flowers and butterflies.  Essay scuds along in tight paragraphs fairly bursting with supporting sentences.  Essay takes logic's straight path to conclusion.  Stories distract, indulge their author's eccentricities, take you by surprise.

So why do I not write stories?  Or poetry?

Economical poetry, so much with so few. Blank verse I will venture. Rhyme and meter require real work.  Troubadour I am not.

Twitter taught succinctness.  The 140 character format favors parsimony.  Trim thought's expression to the bone.  Comb through tangles, sieve distraction. Render smooth and slippery to the ear. . . .

revised 8-22-17