What Might Have Been

"I have spent my days, stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung." (Tagore)

My sister, Becky, also named Susan Rebecca Parsons Neff, is dying of cancer. That is not the saddest part. Becky lived life her way, and it is not my place to say she should have done it otherwise. She made her choices, and soon she will be gone. She has three beautiful and good children who have given her nine grandchildren who love her, and she is married to a devoted friend and caregiver, Charlie Neff.
I dedicate this page to her and post words from one of America's most beloved poets in memory of all of our lost dreams.

MAUD MULLER
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
Maud Muller, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadows sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But, when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast--

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

"Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

And listened, while a pleasant surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away,

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah, me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!

"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat.

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.

"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

"But low of cattle, and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words."

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go:

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned;

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!


Postscript: Becky has been gone for more than two years now. I miss her and will always remember the beautiful, vibrant and strong girl of our youth. We were only 11 months apart in age, I was the oldest, but we were as different as two sisters could be in many ways.
In spite of that, she was my good friend and we helped each other during different difficult times in our lives. I pray she is at peace now and forever, and that her beloved husband, Charlie, who died a year after she passed away, is with her, too. I love you, little sister.
"God be with you 'til we meet again."

For Which I Am Grateful

I have spent too much of my life not saying "thanks" when I should have, or complaining about things that don't matter. So before I die, or get too busy doing something else, I want to list a few of those things for which I am grateful.

I am grateful I was born in the United States of America, the freest nation on earth, on Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, although I have never been to the Grand Canyon (pictured here) yet. I am grateful that there is still a chance I may get to go there one day with my beloved Philip. (And for his love and presence in my life, I am so very thankful!)

I am grateful for the sacrifice of our nation 's armed forces and their diligence in preserving my freedom. I am grateful for the education I received in this country, for both my high school and college degrees, for my teachers and professors who labored to instill in me a diverse and extensive knowledge base, and for the opportunity to work for my living and to those who employed me and gave me a chance. I am grateful for my home, my family and my city and county officials and the many conveniences I enjoy living here.

I am grateful for my life, even for all of the things that went wrong, because I finally got rid of all the bad things that made me strong ('tho' some came near to killing me.) Even more, I am glad for all of the good things that are still a part of me ... including my four children and two grandchildren, my sisters and their families, my mom, my friends and all of those no longer with us, especially my grandma Susie Beck, and even for my dad, although he was not so kind to me for most of my life.

I am thankful for this earth and all that there is to look at, enjoy and cherish ... waterfalls and rainbows, spring showers and lilacs, starry skies and sunsets, among many other things. I am grateful for the oceans and mountains and the great forests and deserts. I am grateful for this body and its senses ... taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell, and for emotions and laughter, tears and song.

I am grateful for my job and the people I meet everyday, the smiling salesperson, the kind co-worker, the dedicated people who take time to make this world better for everyone. I am truly grateful for authors, actors and musicians, composers, photographers, painters and sculptors, poets and essayists and anyone else who takes time to express themselves in ways that enrich and ennoble the lives of others.

I am grateful for all of the modern technology that makes my life so much more pleasurable, including hot water, electricity, combustion engines and T.V., radio and the Internet. Especially I am grateful for medical advances that have saved so many lives (including my own) and for all of those who spend countless hours in laboratories, universities and elsewhere researching, testing and promulgating new theories and technologies.

I am grateful that God created mankind and this beautiful blue planet. I am grateful to be alive and still learning, still growing intellectually and spiritually ... and so of course I am deeply indebted to all the philosophers, prophets and great thinkers that have gone before, for sharing their wisdom with me and helping me understand what this life is supposed to mean.

Above all, I am grateful there is a God ... as Blaise Pascal once said, "Instead of complaining that God has hidden himself, you will give him thanks for revealing himself as much as he has, and you will thank him for not revealing himself to wise men full of pride and unworthy of knowing so holy a God." (Pensees 394)

Finally, a big thanks to all who have made my life more interesting and/or have taught me to be a better person, whether they meant to or not. Thank-you for listening/reading, too.

Where Is God?

I want to believe that somewhere out there, in that great dark space beyond our own atmosphere, that there is a God who cares, hears us, and answers prayers.

But where is He when you really need Him? Yes, yes, I have had good things happen to me, things that never should have happened but did, like my fiance finding me after all the years we had been apart. And of course I consider all four of my children as blessings, along with my grandchildren, too.

But how much of anything that has happened to me been of God, and how much of it just happened ... for no reason at all except as a matter of course in the flow of human events, a natural outflow of being human?

I am beginning to lose my faith, for real. I do not want to become the person I feel myself turning into lately, and it distresses me. I remember when I was eight years old, I lay in my bed, the top bunk, in a small bedroom with my other three siblings, praying for God to simply make my dad quit kicking and beating my mother. As I lay there trembling in fear and helpless fury, wanting to kill my father as I listened to my mother's moans of pain, I remember very distinctly telling this alleged God, that if He did not stop my father, I would never believe in Him again.

Guess what? The beating finally did stop that night, but the same scenario happened over and over again as I was growing up, different victims in the family maybe, but always the fear, the pain, the name calling and the shame. Everything was such a big secret, too, you know. We were not allowed to ever tell Grandma what dad did to mom, could never tell our teachers what was happening in our house, lest we be punished for being "traitorous bitches." We did not know peace and quiet or the joy of having loving parents. I guess mom tried to maintain a facade of "normalcy"but she never took us away from him, even though she had a decent, loving mother of her own to bring us to. I guess worse things could have happened, so maybe it is not that big of a deal.

Yes, I agree ... many, many more people have had it worse than me and my siblings, like the Jews and others during the Holocaust of World War II. This, along with all of the other ethnic purges that have gone on since the beginning of civilization have to make us wonder ... where is God? How can a merciful and loving "creator" allow His creatures to suffer so much, incessantly tortured, humiliated, starved, diseased, beaten and killed? What kind of God is this? I begin to wonder at my sanity, it puzzles me so much.

Perhaps I should stop asking questions, stop asking "why?" Perhaps there really is no meaning to this life. It really is just as pointless and scary and crazy as I always believed it to be when I was younger. The false church my dad insisted we join so long ago, the Mormons, tried to convince me that we lived before this earth was created, and that we "chose" our earthly parents, chose when we would be born, and taught that we were as eternal as God, who they say was the literal father of our spirits as well as the creator of our mortal bodies. Well, guess what? I knew all along that this was false doctrine, as there was no way I would have EVER selected the two parents to whom I was born ... and I sure did not want to spend eternity as part of their "eternal family," another erroneous teaching of the Mormons (e.g., that all families will be "together forever" if they go to the temple and do the sealings etc. that allegedly bind whole family lines all the way back to Adam.)

Dad never kept the religion anyway; he made us join the church and was even baptized himself, but never participated in the religion beyond that point. He never quit smoking or drinking or running around on mom, either, so the whole thing was ridiculous. (Do as I say, not as I do edict.) Now that I have someone I can truly love and who loves me back, after all the years of no love, only hard times, I want more than ever to believe that there is a kind and loving God out there. But in my heart of hearts, I do not see how that is possible.

Is religion then only the opiate of the masses as early communists taught? Is belief in God even necessary to live a decent and moral life? I do not think so. I used to pray and ask God all of the time, when I was first baptized all those long years ago, if He would please let me talk to Him, or at least let me know if He heard me, let me know if he loved me. Guess what again? He never did. I was not asking for a sign; only for an answer, some little indication that I mattered to someone, somewhere.

Perhaps we only have each other. There is no God to save us and the way things are going, there is a very high probability that mankind will extinguish itself at some point in the not too distant future. I want to believe that we matter, that some great force out there beyond the sunset really cares about us, and will let us come home to Him one day. Life without hope is a terrible thing. Life without love makes it even harder. Aristotle said hope is a waking dream, but lately the dreams are too dark and crazy. I sometimes just want to go to sleep, curled up next to the man I love, and never leave our room, just stay where I feel safe and cared for and loved. But life pulls me onward, I have too much still to do, too many chores and earning a living, and no extra time to do the painting, reading and piano playing I enjoy so much.

I will continue to pray that there is a God and that He sent His only begotten Son to earth to die for our sins. I want to believe that the Lord loved us enough to die for us, and because I believe that, maybe one day all will be well.

"More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." (Alfred Lord Tennyson)

On Being of Norwegian Heritage

My father was half Norwegian, his mother pure blooded, as both of her parents were from Norway and married in Minnesota after their immigration. They changed their names from Olson to Nokleby, for reasons I can only guess at, namely, that maybe there were so many Olsons already living in Minnesota that they took their Norwegian hometown name, I think, as a surname to help distinguish themselves from all the other Olsons.

Who knows? Incidentally, the picture I've posted on this page is of Norway, a beautiful, cold land of fjords, lakes and rocky shoreline which saw the rise and fall of the Viking culture more than a thousand years ago. I am proud of this heritage because my brief and not-too-in depth study of the Vikings reveals that they were more than savage invaders who repeatedly raped, pillaged and terrorized the shores of neighboring lands, especially Ireland, England and northern France (e.g., Normandy). The Vikings settled in many of the places they visited, including far off Russia (which they named), and they were expert merchants/tradesmen with a knack for languages. They co-existed with other cultures and brought prosperity and progress to many otherwise backward areas. And, yes, they did discover America before Columbus. They were fearless seafarers and savvy businessmen (why do you think they named a thermally heated island "Iceland" and a cold, desolate island "Greenland"? They named them thus in order to confuse or misdirect potential settlers in Europe and thereby keep them out of Iceland!)

Anyway, Great-grandma Lottie (her real name was Charlotte) Nokleby married her second cousin, Ole Nokleby (nee Olson), an older man who moved her to Calgary, Alberta, Canada shortly after they were wed and began homesteading there. She bore five live children (as opposed to the more than three or four stillborn she lost) for him- three girls and two sons- and I have heard stories of Grandma Lottie having to get up from her childbirth bed to go put out a raging fire in their corn field. She was tough as nails and finally divorced her first husband and married four more times. The last fellow she married, a man named Peterson , had some money and owned a rendering factory in Mt. Vernon, in Washington state (by the way, my dad's birthplace). Lottie learned to fly airplanes and owned and raced thoroughbreds after the age of 50. I vaguely remember that she was short, only about five feet tall, and broad, and she had a distinctive Norwegian accent and cooked "pretty cribs" (boiled, ground-potato balls stuffed with a piece of salt pork or herring) and potato pancakes and other Norwegian delicacies. She never let me play with her extensive collection of horse statues when we visited her in Sedro Wooley, Wash., which were beautiful. I never felt like a beloved granddaughter as she never hugged or spoke to me (our branch of Norwegians held the belief that children should be seen, not heard, EVER!) and when she died, she left all of her estate to her youngest daughter, Pearl, ignoring all of her other children, including my grandmother, Gladys.

Well, the point of all of this diatribe is to discuss what I think are the pros and cons of being of Norwegian descent. I inherited the native intelligence and natural curiosity of the race, and a bit of wanderlust flows in my veins, as well, since I love to travel and see (discover) new places. I also inherited the Norwegian musical ability. Grandma Lottie played a mean accordion and her husband played the fiddle. My dad played guitar which I took up at age 12 and later I largely taught myself to play the piano (or play "at" it, as best as I can) and I have been a pretty good vocalist for most of my life. I inherited the coloration of the race, being olive-skinned, light-green-eyed and auburn hair (unlike my three siblings who were all fair-haired and blue-eyed, in the truest Nordic tradition). I also inherited a natural athletic ability but not as much as my sisters, and the long bones and facial features, high cheek bones and full lips, of the Nordic people.

But there is a dark side ... the bad part of being Norwegian is the temperament and stubbornness that besets so many of them. A harder working group of people than my Nordic family branch you will never meet, but God help you if you catch them after a few drinks and tick them off. The violence, both physical and verbal, was horrifying, and drinking exacerbated the situation, acted like fuel to a roaring fire. When angry, and especially when I used to drink a bit, I, too, seemed to lose my mind temporarily, would actually black out as I struck out at people and things with a force and blood lust that is terrifying when I look back at it after calming down, or after all the years that I have behaved myself. Then deep remorse would set in, and I would do all I could to make up for the storm of emotion and screaming, throwing things, hitting myself and, if mad enough, striking another individual. These rages were not uncommon and many a sheet rock wall has been caved in or pieces of glassware thrown and broken over the years.

After the violence of my childhood, the rages my father made us endure, seeing my mother and siblings and myself beaten into the ground nearly every time he drank, (I took my first beating at age four for running away from my father: my last one at age 18, when dad tried to kill me by strangulation, punching me in the stomach, ripping out my hair, and putting me through a sheet rock wall) you would think I had enough of violence to last forever. But his continuous beatings and rants and destructive behavior imprinted themselves on all four of his children, and we self-destructed, each in our separate ways. I will not speak of my siblings, as those are their stories to tell (or not), but I married four times, each one progressively worse, more violent and more heart-rending than the last.
It was only after years of psychotherapy and repeated suicide attempts (and a couple of "lock-down" sessions in Baton Rouge psychiatric wards) that I was able to regroup, stop the drinking and the ensuing rages, and try to build some self-esteem.
For the bottom line was that after being raised by one rage-filled parent who tore us down emotionally, mentally and physically - (and another who was a victim herself and so let it all happen, did not save us from him), - neither I nor my siblings had any sense of self worth. Our individual liberties or rights as individuals had long been stripped away, and I, at least, did not believe I had any worth at all; I felt that I was nothing and meant nothing to anyone, and so I deserved to be punished ... I became a victim and, as a result, nearly died at the hands of a husband.

After years of abuse, I finally came to the conclusion, (especially after my father died this year of a disease -Type 2 diabetes- that he stubbornly insisted for years that he did NOT have), that I was of some worth. My four children love me and I finally met a man who loves me for myself, in spite of all my failings. I have my college education, a good livelihood and a pleasant, modest home. I have so much to be grateful for and I am again proud of my Nordic heritage, that which gave me the courage to change my circumstances and dare to be more than I ever thought I could be.
Enough said about that, then. I am not mad at anyone anymore and life's too short as it is ... and these are the "good old days" now that I am living "la bon vie" with my beloved Philip and twins.

As a Man Thinketh . . .

"As a man thinketh, so is he" originated from a Bible verse, Proverbs 23:7 , and was incorporated into an essay written in 1902 by James Allen, who began his book with the following poem:


Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: —
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.



The essence of Allen's work was that our state of mind determines all of our actions, so be careful what you think about or dwell upon. This idea has been around a long time and many others have commented on the power of the mind and its creative (or destructive) abilities. William James said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, "We know what a person thinks, not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions." Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A man is what he thinks about all day."



Even Abraham Lincoln noted, that "most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Mary Kay Ash said, "If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you're right." All of our destinies are first formed in thought, how we view ourselves, others around us and the world we live in. If we "act the way we'd like to be, soon we'll be the way we act" according to Dr. George W. Crane; in other words, rehearse a particular role often enough and soon you will become that type of person permanently. Emerson said, "That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do; not that the nature of the thing itself has changed, but that our power to do is increased."



Persistence of thought then is key. Vince Lombardi said, "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." Will, being of course, the power of mind over circumstance or matter. Lincoln also said, "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing."



The mind alone has the power to keep us morally straight and free from vice. Plato said, "The first and best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile." Proverbs 16:32 says, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Mahatma Gandhi asked, "How can I control others if I cannot control myself?"



Above all, the mind has power to make dreams come true and the power to make us better people. "Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul - the blueprints of your ultimate achievements" (Anon.) Believe in the better angels of men's natures, as Lincoln suggested. Take William Shakespeare's advice in Hamlet: "Give thy thoughts no tongue ... give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure but reserve thy judgement." And remember George Bernard Shaw's saying: "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." Remember, as Emerson said, that "what you are is God's gift to you; what you do with yourself is your gift to God."

Finally, remember Emerson's words from "Self Reliance": He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must first explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

Our minds are everything, the ultimate source of all that is good and bad in our lives, and the only thing we can take with us when we die. Control your thoughts and the direction of your mind, and you control your fate. All that we can be, all that we can accomplish, lies within our own heads: we truly are the Masters of our Destinies. Now that's something to think about!

At the End of the World

Many people today believe the end of the world is near, or at least the world as we know it now. Along with this belief comes the fear of death and dying, or of suffering and/or losing our loved ones as a result of cataclysmic events.
In truth, the "beginning of the end of the world" began for me September 11, 2001. I was struggling with graduate school, working part time at the high school as a substitute teacher at the same time as I was trying to finish student teaching after earning my bachelor's degree August 2001, and all the while taking care of my young twins and a house with only my mother to help me. (Thank God for my mother and father's help during these times!)
At any rate, I was student teaching the day I heard about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center and moments later, we all heard about the second plane crash, and I knew immediately this was no accident. My students asked me why this was happening and all I could say was, "I don't know."
Within a week, my parents gave me an ultimatum: they would not support me any longer in graduate school as they believed the undergraduate degree was enough college and I should be able to get a job with that alone. Not so, for my student teaching was in the graduate level courses and I could not get a teaching certificate in Georgia without completing the master's program in which I was enrolled at Valdosta State. Nevertheless, I lost heart after 9-11, along with my will to continue the long commute from Bainbridge to Valdosta, and so I applied for a job with The Post-Searchlight, a local newspaper, where I became a news writer for six and a half years.
As I covered local events, political and military news, I became more aware of the state of the world than ever before. I spoke with people from all walks of life and found out that most of them, like myself, were engaged in day-to-day survival and making ends meet, raising children, paying bills and hoping for the best. But when I had time to think about such things, I realized I was not ready for any kind of disaster: I had no supplies or savings or any kind of plan of action that would safely see my family through a major upheaval. On the other hand, what kind of safeguards can keep us safe from a 9-11 event? If such a thing should occur here in the deep South, we would be no safer than the more than 2,000 souls who lost their lives simply by showing up for work on time one beautiful late summer day.
Bottom line then, the only preparation we can make is to prepare ourselves for death, and hope that there is something after this life to wake up to. I once heard a story about someone asking God about what it was like to die. He told the person it is like going to bed. The person said, "Do you mean it is like going to sleep?" and God supposedly said, "No, it is like when you wake up in the morning after sleeping all night."
If that is true (and wouldn't it be nice if it were) then the lives we are living now are the nightmares, the dreaming, and our real lives will begin in the morning, when we awaken to another existence. There is only today, then, and what we will make of it. "Carpe diem" ... sieze the day, and live each day as if it were your last. Do not go to bed angry with anyone, and forgive others for their meanness to you. Remember what Socrates said: If all our misfortunes were lumped together, with everyone forced to take an equal share, people would be glad to take back their own. And remember that "rudeness is a weak man's imitation of strength" (Eric Hoffman), so make your words sweet as you may have to eat them. (Susie Beck Braswell)
Remember, too, Etienne de Grellet's advice:"I shall pass this way but once;any good, therefore, that I can do; or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
Remember that "a man who is not satisfied with a little will be satisfied with nothing" (Epicurus) and that "the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." (Albert Einstein) Remember that "there is no 'one-and-only' ... there are just 'one-and-only' moments; we cannot expect continuity of being loved alone, " per Anne Morrow Lindbergh, that "happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length." (Robert Frost)
But also keep in mind that "It's a funny thing about life: If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it" (W. Somerset Maugham) and that "life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful" (Annette Funicello) and "the heart that loves is always young" (Anon.)
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year" as Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests. Remember that "if you judge people, you have no time to love them," as Mother Teresa noted. Remember that "it's by what you do that you communicate to others that you are deeply involved in their well being" (Ashley Montagu) and that "we make a living by what we get, (but) we make a life by what we give" (Winston Churchill) and that "a wise man will make more opportunites than he finds." (Francis Bacon)
And above all keep in mind what Mahatma Gandhi said about life: "A man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one, indivisible whole." He also said, "Let us fear God and we shall cease to fear man." The Lord told us to focus on each day, do our best to do our duty, serve our fellow man and give the glory to our Creator, and all shall be well.
We cannot hope to change the world or other people, we cannot control what others will do or how the world will end. But we can and should be the best persons we can be and remember that God loves a grateful soul. Be thankful for all, and do well, and things will work to the good in your life. Be patient in suffering and forgiving of all. That is all that we can do, no matter what goes on in the world around us ... it has to be enough, then.

"Be still, and know that I am God." (Psalms 46:10)

On Being an Original

It is said that "while an original is always hard to find, he (she) is easy to recognize." (John L. Mason)

It is my personal belief that everyone is a unique individual, as different and varied as our fingerprints, but many fear to step outside of boundaries set by their families or societies and "boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before" by becoming a truly original entity. It's just too scary for a lot of us, and fear of failure forms far more destinies than dreams of glory. ("For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her." Charles de Gaulle)
Henry David Thoreau celebrated the ones who dare to be different when he said, "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
The key to becoming a distinctly different entity may be as simple as losing oneself in service to others, as Helen Keller noted when she said, "I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." Mahatma Gandhi said, "Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory." And Mother Teresa said, "We can do no great things-only small things with great love."
Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that "character is that which can do without success," and John Wooden said, "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do," and he also said, "be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
Dr. Albert Einstein encourages us to use our imaginations to expand our horizons when he said, "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."
From a 1991 Reader's Digest article by W.H. Murray: The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision, raising unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
"Consider your origin; you were not formed to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge." (Dante, "Divine Comedy")
Do not be as Tagore wrote: I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.
Dare to be different, dare to do what is good and right for yourself and your loved ones: dream the impossible dream and follow your star.

Isaiah the Prophet

My favorite Old Testament Prophet is Isaiah, who not only spoke to Israelites living 600 years before Christ was born, but prophesized about the last days as well.

He said, "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." (Isaiah 1:16-20)

One of Isaiah's greatest gifts was his ability to write in such a way that I can actually hear the Lord speaking through him, as in, "I, even I , am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;

And forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth? (Isaiah 51:12-13) And his ability to comfort me, as follows, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation." (Isaiah 12:2)

Perhaps Isaiah's greatest verses, however, are those that speak of the coming Messiah, as in "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6)

But in Chapter 53, Isaiah clearly describes what the Messiah's life will be like before he returns to rule the earth, and it is called the forbidden chapter by much of Israel because it depicts a much different Savior than the one Israel expected. The pathos and poetic writing style make this, to me, the greatest of Isaiah's prophecies.

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised,and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted: yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgement: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

To paraphrase the Lord himself, he who hath ears to hear, listen; and eyes to see, look.

Points to Ponder

In my collection of sayings, I came across the following excerpts I copied from an old Reader's Digest section called "Points to Ponder." Everyone of these were so good, I have kept them for years and have tried to incorporate their wisdom into my own life.

Lair Ribeiro: The secret to success on the job is to work as though you were working for yourself. Your company provides you with the work area, equipment and other benefits, but basically you know what has to get done and the best way to do it, so it's up to you to run your own show. -Success Is No Accident (St. Martin's Press)

David Owen: The popularity of video cameras arises from a simple misunderstanding. Somehow people have the idea that they won't mind being old if they can turn on the TV and see what they were like when they were young. This is not true.

The best memories are ones that have been allowed to evolve unhindered by documentary proof. I often cheer myself up by thinking back on my days as a football star.

These recollections would be less thrilling if they were accompanied by a video showing that I weighed 80 pounds and spent most of my time on the bench. Memory is better than a video because it's free and it doesn't work very well. -Atlantic Monthly

Gil Lahav: There are two ways to find something that is lost: by accident, or by swearing, grunting and tearing the house apart. Although far more time-consuming, the second method is much more satisfying. Searching long and hard for something creates a restless suspense, a tension that is wonderfully relieved when the lost item is finally found. Finding a lost object in this manner strengthens the belief that we are in control of our lives. -Ability

Dale Turner: The story is told of five men sitting around a potbellied stove, arguing about which is the "right" religion-which offers the greatest assurance of salvation. It was a fruitless discussion because no one could agree. Finally they turned to a wise old fellow who had been sitting in the corner, listening.

"Gentlemen," he said, "when the cotton is picked, there are several ways to get it to the gin. We can take the northern route-it's longer but the road is better. Or we can take the southern route, which is shorter but filled with chuckholes. Or we can go over the mountain, even though it's more perilous. When we reach the gin, though, the man doesn't ask which way we came. He simply asks, 'Brother, how good is your cotton?'"-Grateful Living (High Tide Press)

Barbara De Angelis: Something in our human nature longs for that experience of complete emotional absorption, that magical moment when we are swept away. It is passion that entertains us. When a book is written without passion, you lose interest. When a team plays without passion, the game becomes boring. "These guys are asleep," a fan complains.

To feed this appetite, we reward those who can stir our emotions to the greatest heights-actors, athletes and rock musicians make millions because they know how to turn on our passion.-Passion (Delacorte)

Elaine St. James: No one can maintain more than three priorities. If you have a job you care about, that's a priority. If you have a family, that's a priority. Which leaves one more. Maybe it's staying in shape, maybe it's volunteering at your church.

Most people understand this intuitively. But they keep overcommitting themselves and overcomplicating their lives. So my advice is simple: figure out what your priorities are, and say no to everything else.-Quoted by Michael Warshaw in Fast Company

John L. Mason: One of the best ways to persuade others is to listen to them. You'll find that a gossip talks to you about others, a bore talks to you about himself, and a brilliant conversationalist talks to you about yourself and then listens to your reply.-Let Go of Whatever Makes You Stop (Insight International)

The Seven da Vincian Principles

Dr. Sigmund Freud once said of Leonardo da Vinci that, "We respect him by learning from him."
Buzan and Keene's book, "The Book of Geniuses," lists da Vinci as number one in their list of "top 10 geniuses of all time" among men, whose categories of achievement or endeavor include originality, versatility, dominance-in-field, universality of vision, strength and energy. The other nine were as follows: 2) William Shakespeare, 3) The Great Pyramid builders, 4) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 5) Michelangelo, 6) Sir Isaac Newton, 7) Thomas Jefferson, 8) Alexander the Great, 9) Phidias, architect of Athens, and 10) Albert Einstein.
Per Howard Gardner's "Frames of Mind," there are seven measurable intelligences: Logical/mathematical; verbal/linguistic; spatial/mechanical; musical; bodily/kinesthetic; interpersonal/social; and intrapersonal/self-knowledge. Da Vinci excelled or did very well in all of these areas.
Da Vinci also believed in strict mental and physical discipline and encouraged his adherents to adopt the same lifestyle of devotion to perfecting one's life and one's craft, while allowing for very few excesses, distractions or indulgences. He once said, "You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself ... the height of a man's success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment ... And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others."
From the book "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci" by Michael J. Gelb come the following seven da Vincian principles:
Curiosita: An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.
Dimostrazione: A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
Sensazione: The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.
Sfumato: (Literally, "going up in smoke") - A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty.
Arte/scienza: The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination; "whole brain" thinking.
Corporalita: The culitivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise.
Connessione: A recognition of, and appreciation for, the inteconnectedness of all things and phenomena; systems thinking.
Da Vinci said, "The desire to know is natural to good men," and I hasten to add here, it is natural for good women, too.

Charisma, Love & Success

What is charisma? My New Oxford American Dictionary defines it as "compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others."
From the book "Awaiting a Lover" in 2000, charisma is described as "a magnetic presence characterized by poise and a quality of wholeness. The radiance of a charismatic person emanates from a strong inner fire, mysteriously self-contained, by which one senses a devotion to creative exploration that owes nothing to the need to impress others. It is the individual's absorption in what attracts him or her that endows them with an aura of unselfconscious-attractiveness. There is an air of intensity that is felt by others as erotic and slightly dangerous. In fact, what is sensed is a love of life, which carries an extra electrical charge."
By that definition, it seems that the best way to attract interest, then, is to lose yourself in pursuit of your life, that is, to become so involved in what interests you that you do not worry about who is watching or what they think. This reaffirms the idea that confidence is the ultimate aphrodisiac. But there are other benefits as well.
Dr. Viktor Frankl said, "Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself."
When we focus on what is important and strive to do our best, good things come to us. Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
And Horace Mann, the great educator, said, "In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse in obedience to a principle. He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind speak of color."
Lucius Annaeus Seneca said, "It is within the power of every man to live his life nobly, but of no man to live forever. Yet so many of us hope that life will go on forever, and so few aspire to live nobly." Abraham Lincoln made the same observation when he plainly said, "When I do good, I feel good; when I don't do good, I don't feel good."
The Chinese stress the importance of inhibition in matters of the heart, according to "Awaiting a Lover." They speak of receptivity and not pursuit, drawing someone to you instead of hunting them down. Attracting a lover requires the wisdom to know when to hold back, when to pursue. But the holding back is the most effective, most of the time. The decision to woo, or court, must arise in the heart. The quiet power that will encourage someone to approach grows naturally from this source, when the heart is constant and the motive is good."
So, keep in mind that "knowing what you want is the first step in drawing it toward you," and remember, too, that once you have attracted the right person, to do as Charlotte Yonge wisely counseled: "The mistake we make is when we seek to be loved, instead of loving. What makes us cowardly is fear of losing that love."
"It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things," said Henry David Thoreau. Tend to your life, tend to the business of living it well, and be patient. Love, or at the very least, peace of mind and a satisfied soul, will be yours.

How Do I Love Thee?

I post here three of my favorite poems and dedicate this entry to my Philip, the love of my life ...

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

(Sonnet XLIII, Sonnets from the Portugese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be;

The last of life, for which the first was made;

Our times are in his hands who saith,

"A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: See all,

nor be afraid!"

(From "Rabbi Ben Ezra," by Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's husband)

Two such as you with such a master speed

Cannot be parted nor be swept away

From one another once you are agreed

That life is only life forevermore

Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

(Robert Frost)

I heartily agree with Charles Morgan when he said, "There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved; it is God's finger on man's shoulder." Thank-you for finding me again after all these years, PB, and surprising me with your love!

Man's Search For Meaning

We have come to know Man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips. (Dr. Viktor Frankl)

In the forward to Dr. Viktor Frankl’s bestseller, Man’s Search For Meaning, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner writes, “Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as (Dr. Sigmund) Freud believed, or a quest for power, as (Dr.) Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. Suffering, in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.”
Frankl survived Auschwitz but lost his entire family in the concentration camps. Despite suffering deprivations and conditions that most of us cannot imagine, he believed that the salvation of man was “through love and in love” and refused to let his extreme circumstances change his hopeful outlook and demeanor. In his book, he quotes Friedrich Nietzsche: “Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich starker.” (That which does not kill me, makes me stronger) and “He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how’.”
Frankl said it does not matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us. He suggested that we stop asking the “meaning” of life and instead think of ourselves as those being “questioned by life.” “Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and right conduct,” he said.
Frankl said that at any moment, man must decide, for better or worse, what will be the monument of his existence, and he then gives us a method by which we can consistently make good choices for ourselves, which he calls “the essence of existence”: “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now. It seems to me that there is nothing which would stimulate a man’s sense of responsibleness more than this maxim, which invites him to imagine first that the present is past and, second, that the past may yet be changed and amended. Such a precept confronts him with life’s finiteness as well as the finality of what he makes out of both his life and himself.”
Finally, Frankl says, “No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them … The crowning experience of all for the homecoming man (i.e., the former prisoner in concentration camps) is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear anymore – except his God.
“I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space."

Et lux in tenebris lucet ... (and the light shineth in the darkness.)

Pascal's Wager

"Scio cui credidi" (I know whom I have believed) was the motto of 17th century French inventor, religious philosopher, mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal. Pascal only lived to be 39 years old but in his short life, he puzzled over and commented on some of the greatest mysteries of life.

One of his most important contributions to religious philosophy was his "Pensees," a collection of notes and observations about reason, uncertainty and humanity's relationship to God.

"For after all," Pascal wrote, "what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all, and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed."

From this dilemma, Pascal devised the "Wager," built on the Pensees' theme wherein Pascal systematically dismantles the notion that we can trust reason, especially in the area of religion, as follows:

Uncertainty in all- "This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet."

Uncertainty in reason-"Nothing is so comfortable to reason as to disavow reason."

Uncertainty in science-"There no doubt exist natural laws, but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted, it corrupted everything."

Uncertainty in religion- "If I saw no signs of a divinity, I would fix myself in denial. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I would repose peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny Him, and too little to assure me, I am in a pitiful state, and I would wish a hundred times that if a God sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity. We understand nothing of the works of God unless we take it as a principle that He wishes to blind some and to enlighten others."

Even uncertainty in skepticism- "It is not certain that everything is uncertain."

Having thus shredded the trees of certainty, Pascal then asks the reader to analyze our position. If reason is truly corrupt and cannot be relied upon to decide the matter of God's existence, we are left with a coin toss. In Pascal's assessment, placing a wager is unavoidable, and anyone who is on the fence like he is, incapable of trusting any evidence either for or against God's existence, must at least face the prospect that infinite happiness is at risk. The "infinite" expected value of believing is always greater than the expected value of not believing (i.e., it is a better "bet" to believe in God than not to do so.)

The wager also entails obeying God's commandments and living a Christian life in every respect to ensure that one has done all that he or she can do to earn eternal life; after all one can do, faith in Jesus Christ is the ultimate commitment one makes in placing the wager to believe. So, even if it turns out that there is nothing after death, then, one has lived a good, moral life and can leave this life with no regrets or misgivings.

As far as I am concerned, Pascal's Wager is the best alternative to joining a church. At the very least, I can study the Bible, be kind and helpful to others, and choose to live a Christian lifestyle. For now, that will have to do.

A "Holy Curiosity"

"One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." Albert Einstein

It seems to be an earmark of great thinkers to possess what Dr. Einstein calls "a holy curiosity." Leonardo da Vinci includes "curiosita" as one of his seven principles, which Italian word describes an "insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning." He also said, "The desire to know is natural to good men. For in truth, great love is born of great knowledge of the thing loved."

Henry Ford noted another good reason to keep learning when he said, "Anyone who stops is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young." By this remark, he was agreeing with Aristotle's observation that "education is the best provision for old age." In addition, Aristotle noted that "the difference between an educated and an uneducated man is the same difference as between being alive and being dead."

Ralph Waldo Emerson also encouraged continuous learning and searching for truth when he said, "He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

Long before I started collecting all of these sayings I was a great believer in continuing education. I always wanted to know the "why" of everything and this, combined with my love of writing, is probably what drove me to work for the local newspaper, where I eventually won an award for investigative reporting. Go figure! Anyway, the search for knowledge and truth continues in my life and will until the day I die, I hope. I fully believe, as William Jennings Bryan once said, that "destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."

I used to believe, erroneously, that there was some sort of magical behavior I had to perform in order to gain favor with God and receive any blessings. The dictatorial stance of the Mormon church made me feel that I had no control over my life to a large extent, and that any time something bad happened to me, it was because I had failed to do exactly what I was told to do by the leadership in that church. Magical thinking is at the root of a lot of misplaced belief systems which encourage people to believe that blind obedience to the male priesthood, sublimation of all original thought, and a rigid pattern of correct behavior will win them favor with the Almighty.

I know better than that now although, for most of my life, I thought the church alone had all of the answers, and all I had to do was follow orders and I would be worthy for the "Celestial Kingdom." Ultimately, I began thinking for myself again as I came to the realization, as John Wooden noted, that "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

So now I am back to the basics and will keep in mind what Micah 6:8 advises: He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? I will remember what Emerson said, too, that "every man I meet is in some way my superior; and in that I can learn of him." I will be humble, non-critical of others, and will try to remember that my "ears aren't made to shut but my mouth is" as I travel through what is left of my time here.

In closing, here are some of the things I have learned, in a piece written by an unknown author but still rings true to my life, called "Life's Lessons":

"After a while, you learn the difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul. You learn that love isn't leaning but lending support. You begin to accept your defeats with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child. You decide to build your roads on today, for tomorrow's ground is too uncertain. You help someone plant a garden instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. You learn that God has given you the strength to endure and that you really do have worth."

Searching For Truth

"From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half-truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth ... O God of Truth, deliver us."

True-believing Mormons, which I once was, fall into all three of the categories mentioned above. Fortunately, I came to my senses after 25 years of ex-communication (at my own request) and a lifetime of trying to keep impossible standards (is perfection tough enough to reach?) I cannot stess enough to anyone who may be investigating this religion (i.e., the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) to "just say no" to this church and its representatives. Please visit one of the many Web sites sponsored by former Mormons, most of whom are far more knowledgable than myself. You will find a wealth of truth on the Web about this false religion and, trust me when I say, you are better off worshipping God at home on your knees and reading the good old King James version of the Bible than you'll ever be trying to live Joseph Smith's warped version of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What Gerald Massey said rings especially true as it so succintly describes the general relationship of members to the LDS leadership: "They must find it difficult ... Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority."

Keep in mind, too, what Thomas Edison had to say about putting your faith in things that are not true. "Faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction - faith in fiction is a damnable false hope." Check out Utah Lighthouse Ministry's Web site, that is run by Sandra Tanner, a direct descendent of a previous prophet of the Mormon church. At the very least, please look before you leap!

Anyway, after spending most of my life trying to keep impossible and often ridiculous Mormon standards, I turned to the wisdom of the world, that is, I kept a record of the sayings of some of our greatest leaders, inspirational writers and poets. I started my collection long before I left the church, but have leaned on it more frequently since I cut all ties with Mormons. I found the following jewel and memorized it as I began my search for truth:

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield, but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved, but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone, but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.
(Rabindranath Tagore, "Fruit Gathering")

To get ready for my truth quest, I had to streamline my life, clear out a lot of the extracurricular stuff that was distracting and frustrating me. I took Anne Morrow Lindbergh's advice again when she wrote about "zerrissenheit," a German word William James used to for "torn-to-pieces-hood" by way of describing fragmentation of our lives by too many centrifugal activities. Lindbergh said, "We need time for self to renew our individual goals, define our needs, remove superfluous people, things, activities, from our lives and replace them with those things that matter most and need us most."

As Charles Haddon Spurgeon once suggested, "Learn to say 'no' - it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin."

A lot of people did not like it when I stopped being a door mat and started saying "no" to almost everything that did not directly concern my children, my job or my studies. I learned to set priorities and stay on task until the task was done, and discovered that I could actually excel at a few things rather than barely complete many things as was my habit in the past. As Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, "The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that of turning aside from one's main purpose to serve a job here and there."

As part of the process of letting go of "superfluous" people, I had to keep in mind the following: "Being hypersensitive to the opinions others have of us puts us into the false position of making their approval our court of appeals instead of our own conscious and self-respect," as noted by William George Jordan. This is especially true when it is your own parents or other family members trying to get you to "change back" just when you are learning to think for yourself.

Because that is the real damage done by the Mormon church and its adherents: You are told how to think, act, feel and be. There is no individuality or originality or free thinking allowed. Every aspect of a member's life is scrutinized, including what goes on behind closed doors, and even 10 percent of their gross income belongs to the church if you want to keep full membership. As Abraham Lincoln once noted, however, "Force is all conquering but its victories are short-lived." As the Lord promised, if we know the truth, it will make us free ... not subservient as the LDS church dictates. If the church were true, it would encourage individual truth-seeking, but it does not. It is their way or the highway ... total obedience or nothing.

I choose my freedom, and agree with George Sand's saying, "Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views."

Love Is All There Is

Emily Dickinson wrote, "All we know of love, Is love is all there is," long before The Beatles sang "All you need is love," but nearly two millenia after Jesus Christ commanded us to "love one another."

But regardless of who said it first or when, the bottom line is love is a truth that transcends the ages and lifts us outside of ourselves. Like the Rogers and Hammerstein line about "a bell's not a bell 'til you ring it; a song's not a song 'til you sing ... and love wasn't put in your heart to stay; love isn't love 'til you give it away," the most desirable form of love is that which we share or give to another person, especially romantic love.

To prepare myself for "the love of my life," I spent the last 10 years alone, quietly raising my twins and eschewed any entanglements of any nature because I did not know what love really was supposed to be. When one has failed at a few marriages, it just seems the wisest course of action is to take a nice long break and concentrate on the business at hand, which for me was raising the twins, finishing my college degree and becoming gainfully employed.

In the interim, I studied all I could lay my hands on about the nature of love and how one goes about recognizing it. I also steeled myself with the possibility of never finding it, and learned to live with that thought without too much self-pity. In a little book called, "Awaiting a Lover" from 2000, I read about "The Tao of Love" which went as follows: Learn how to wait ... do not run in every direction trying to find love. When you do this, you disperse your energy. To locate you becomes impossible. You must stay in one place. If you cannot become quiet, you will not be receptive. If you are not receptive, you will not recognize the person even if he is right in front of you."

In a Reader's Digest article called "From the Heart" I read New York Times' columnist Lois Smith Brady's "Love Lessons" response to people asking where to find love. She told about a job interview early in her career when an editor gave her some advice. "Go out into the world. Work hard at what you love to do-writing. If you become good, we will find you. It may take years. But if your work stands out, we will call you." Said Brady: "That's what I tell people looking for love. Don't read articles about how to trap a mate. Don't worry about your lipstick or your height. Just live your life well and don't mope, complain or shop too much. Love will find you."

I read that "Almost everything you desire is at its heart a longing for love," and that "Knowing what you want is the first step in drawing it toward you." Best of all, I had Rainer Maria Rilke to comfort me with," For believe me, the more one is, the richer is all that one experiences. And whoever wants to have a deep love in his life must collect and save for it and gather honey."

I learned to not discuss myself, whether it be to belittle myself or praise myself, and that I had to give up the life I had planned to find the one that was waiting for me. I learned from Ann Landers, even, that "The most durable love relationships grow out of friendship. In fact, love is friendship that has caught fire." I learned that "the heart that loves is always young" and that what I thought of myself was more important than what others thought of me (Seneca.) I learned that the reward of patience is patience from St. Francis of Assisi, and that "Love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

Anne Morrow Lindbergh taught me that "woman must come of age by herself-she must find her true center alone." As I waited, I worked as well. I learned to forgive myself my failings and to be merciful to others, and especially to my children. And while Mother Teresa noted that loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the greatest poverty, I took hope from Henry Ford who noted that "Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently" and that "Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement." And I began to believe that all good things come to those who wait ... it finally did for me! (more on that later ..)

Galileo

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with good sense, reason, and intellect, has intended us to forego their use. (Galileo)

Galileo said that only falsehood need fear scrutiny and "skeptical investigation." He believed that truth is strong enough to withstand any opposition. This implies that truth is a stand-alone entity, not subject to individual interpretation, and that kind of goes against the modern school of thought implying all truth is subjective, depending on the person and circumstances surrounding it.

For example, Mahatma Gandhi suggested that everyone has to look into their own hearts and be "guided by the truth" as they see it there, and that no one has the right to force others to accept their particular version of the truth. There is nothing wrong with this stance as long as everyone keeps their opinions to themselves and as long as they take Henry James' advice about, "The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided their ways do not presume to interfere by violence with ours."

But if we all have our own individual versions of truth, then how can we ever achieve unification or come to a concensus about truth? And why would we even want to, you may ask? The reason I think it is important to first define and then agree upon what is true/truth is because I personally think there may actually be something to the new branch of science of Noetics. I certainly do not ever want to lose our individual traits and abilities or become clones of one another, but a unified belief system or shared values would go a long way to creating a peaceful planet.

So which is it? Is there such a thing as basic truth, unchangeable and irrefutable? Or is truth always in the eye of the beholder, or in a state of constant flux? Is the truth subjective or is it only waiting to be discovered? Or is it general acceptance of a fact that makes it true, as when we all thought the world was flat, ala Aristotle, until first Copernicus then Galileo et al proved otherwise? First things first, I guess. Nosce te ipsum ... Know Thyself. That's what I hope this blog becomes for me ... a journey of self-discovery and shared knowledge, a common ground truth forum that benefits as many as want to join me on my search for truth.

Link to Thomas Jefferson's version of the Bible

What Is Truth: The Phoenix Phyles

"What is Truth?" said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.


Thus begins Sir Francis Bacon's Essay number one, "Of Truth," and from there he goes on to explain why, to so many people, the lie is more palatable than, even preferable to, the truth. That is, I think he was saying that most people do not want to hear it nor do they have the energy or time to pursue it.

I have lived long enough to value, at the very least, the pursuit of truth. Whether I will ever find it in whole or in part, only time will tell. I created this blog to ask others to share their truths with me and others about life, love, worship, music, art and beauty, the things that feed the intellect and expand the soul ... and because I am a seeker and not an authority, I humbly offer my site to those who may have insights I have never thought of and ask that they respectfully share that knowledge with me before I leave this world with only the little store of truth I now possess.

I should tell you that I was lost for a long time in a religion created by men, the Mormon Church, which had me convinced that I had all of the truth and knowledge I would ever need. From the age of eight until last year, I actually felt sorry for and looked down upon all other schools of religious thought because I firmly believed that I knew everything I needed to know about how to live this life, even though my life was not at all perfect and had several areas in need of serious tweaking.

However, the veil of ignorance was removed from my eyes last year when I discovered sites like Dr. Jim Day's Trials of Ascension, Mormonthink and others, who exposed the LDS church for what is was and convinced me it was false. I still believe in God but now I have to start from Ground Zero and this time, please, I want to know the truth.

"Trust those who are seeking the truth ... beware of those who say they have found it." Amen. I believe our time on this planet is drawing to a close. It isn't just the "2012" scenario or the greenhouse effect/global warming or anything you might think would trigger such a statement. I just have a gut feeling, all Mormon prophecies of apocalyptic doom aside, that a new age is coming and I want to be prepared.

Are you interested? Do you know something to be true and real and everlasting? Something that we can take with us into the next life ... if there is one. Do you know if there is? Help me find the truth that has eluded me and most of us for so long. I have read the writings of great men and women and have a considerable collection that I would like to share with you beginning tomorrow. To steal a thought from Eliza R. Snow's hymn, "The time is far spent, there is little remaining." I still have twins to raise, children with autism. I have a job to do and I work hard everyday. I have a good and kind man who loves me but in spite of these blessings, I wonder and worry about the future, and I feel woefully unprepared for what lies ahead.

Peace be with you, now and always. I look forward to hearing from you. Fiat lux.

"Trust those who are seeking the truth ... beware of those who say they have found it."

(Andre Gide)

Link to Sir Francis Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients