Merry Christmas with the Tooth Fairy

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. We sure did in our family. The kids had a great time and that is what really counts. The fun and funny (now that we are through it) event was just a day or two after Christmas.

We were sitting in our Bedroom watching movies with the kids when the little guy says, "I have a loose tooth" What? I had forgotten how close he is to losing them. Well, maybe blocked is a better term. For whatever reason it has been a tradion in our family to 'pull' baby teeth when they are close to falling out. I do have one sister who swears it is totally unnecessary and not worth the headache of convincing the kids to let you do it and after Monday night I may surrender.

The big guy was a headache when it came time to pull his teeth. Now, he has always tended to be a bit more dramatic than our little guy has been, so I think I was hoping that the little guy would be less dramatic when it came to teeth too. When J. was losing teeth a couple of years ago E. even brought us a string and asked us to pull some of his too. So, with his tooth almost falling out Mom and Dad asked him, "Can we get the string and pull it?" Apparently J's example spoke louder than I had previously thought. Suddenly E was channeling his big brother's drama. You would have thought I was asking pull his arms out of their sockets. Watching him cry, and fuss and after losing my patience (by the way, isn't it funny that losing our patience and losing our temper are not opposites but exactly the same) with him his brother and his mother, and myself. We finally got the tooth lassoed with dental floss. Then with one quick tug it was out. 40 minutes of cajoling, coercing, and pleading, tears, frustration and I admit a couple of explitives, for something that was over in less than a second and only bled for 3 seconds. Oh, I hope the next one won't be such a headache. We'll find out soon enough. E's other front tooth is loose.

Hopefully, though I will weather it better, I get pretty impatient when the kids are unreasonable in their fears and emotions. I know I shouldn't because I realize that I am emotional too, but I don't handle these events nearly as well as I would like too.

Monday Musings: Christ the Savior is Born

This Christmas Season has been an interesting one for me. I took a new job 6 months ago and it has been catalytic. It has changed me and how I think and who I am. Every experience we go through can be like that, but this one certainly has been transforming. It reminds me of something I have believed for a time. This world is a fallen world. The Fall of Adam brought about changes to this whole world. We live in a telestial state. A state bound by limits of time and plagued by the vagaries of temptation, sickness, suffering and death. A friend recently found my family and I and the wife in the family has been in the hospital for around a month. She was diagnosed with an Auto-immune disease. Now, some people would experience something like this and curse God for afflicting them with this when she is such a young mother with children. Others would revile Satan for having afflicted them with such suffering. Myself, I lay the blame nowhere. It is simply the nature of the world we live in. Now, Satan will do all in his power to turn this experience into a stumbling block. God will exert his influence to try and make this a stepping stone. It is the faith or doubt of the individual which will determine the change. It is truly our choices that create who we are.

Gratefully, Our faith in Christ can become an anchor for our souls. We can choose to trust in him to turn to him and to allow his Atonement overcome the effects of the Fall. Now, the Atonement works personally, individually in our own lives. Eventually he will return to reign here on Earth and the effects of the Atonement will take effect on the whole Earth creating a paradise here. A world where the suffering and afflictions will be gone. Some probably think this is very saccharine view of the world, but it is my faith and my belief.

Am I fully at ease with this. No, I am a skeptic, in the best truest sense of the world. I am a scientist, technologist, humanist and optimist. I honestly believe we as people must do all we can to solve our own problems with the skill, knowledge and wisdom we have. I believe as you look over the history of mankind that you see a story of people that prevail. Time and time again we have solved our problems and improved the standard of living for most people. I think there is more of compassion and understanding in our world today than their was even 50 years ago. I look at the crises we face and I have hope.  I have great hope and that hope is centered in Christ.


Links:
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=6be803bb4c19d110VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRD&locale=0

Wow! Social Networking Works!

Around 11:30 this morning I checked my phone. I have it set up to send me updates when something goes on with my Facebook account. Somebody sent me a message? Curious. I don't know the person and my phone only displays a minimum of info. He says he's the husband of... Curioser. I wonder why someone is messaging me ad prefacing it with the fact they are somebodies husband. So, out pops the iPod touch and the Facebook app. Within moments I have reconnected with a friends I haven't seen in years. Turns out he is the husband of Jane (name has been changed to protect the innocent). His wife and my wife were very close friends about 7 years back. We moved. They Moved. Numbers changed. We lost contact.

Well he was in town and his wife is in the hospital and wants very much to reconnect with my wife.

How did he find me? Google search and joined Facebook. He also found my work email which is pretty easy.

Anyway I'm very grateful to reconnect with these friends and glad that people could find me. I know it is scary to be so available, but for me the risks are worth it.

Monday Musings: Pride and Selfishness

Normally, I make these posts on Monday a little more formal, but today, I couldn't resists ranting about something I overheard on the bus.

I commute to work on an express bus and there are two individuals in motorized scooter style chairs that regularly ride. There seats are across from each other and today I was sitting just in front of them. They began talking about the various features they like about the motorized chairs and then the older of the two gentleman mentioned that the scooter he is on is his wife's not his. He is traveling up to the Veteran's Hospital for treatments and has to have a scooter to get around but is now using his wife's because his was stolen.

Can you believe that??? Who could steal a wheelchair? What kind of person does that?

Which brings me to my musings. C.S. Lewis wrote an essay on pride being the universal sin. President Ezra Taft Benson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints then reiterated many of his words. Both of their comments boil down to this. People sin because they are prideful. In their pride they believe they know better than God. I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment. Most of my major failings come down to me thinking I know better than God and his Prophets. I like to express this a little differently though, Selfishness is the simplest form of pride. When I want my way despite what the consequences are for others I am sinning. Pride and Selfishness become the bitter bite that drives people to seek their own desires above the concern for others. Nearly all the commandments in one way or another drive us to consider others before self. Selflessness is the sign of a man of God.

Monday Musings: Fasting

In  Malachi, God speaks through his prophet about the importance of tithes and offerings

From scriptures.lds.org

  8 ¶ ^aWill a man ^brob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In ^ctithes and offerings.

  9 Ye are ^acursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.

  10 Bring ye all the ^atithes into the storehouse, that there may be ^bmeat in mine house, and ^cprove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not ^dopen you the ^ewindows of heaven, and pour you out a ^fblessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Even though it states tithes in verse 10 verse 8 refers also to offerings.  Last week I blogged about how I feel about tithing.  This week it is fast offerings.

A few years back, I heard an anecdotal story.  Sorry, I have no source on it, and whether it really happened or not isn't really relevant to the point I am going to make.  A gentleman from India was speaking to a leader of the LDS church and telling him how much he wished that people would go without food for just one day so they could empathize with the poor and hungry of his country.  The church leader then tells him, "Our members do this every month and then donate the money saved to help the poor and the hungry" The man from India then broke into tears to think someone would actually do this.

As I mentioned, I don't remember the details, but for me the message was what mattered.  I gain empathy through forgoing food for 24 hours, or two meals, and then donate the money saved to others.  The LDS Church encourages it's members to fast on the 1st Sunday of each month and the Sunday Meetings that day are an opportunity for members to share their experiences and beliefs.  The church accepts the donations and then redistributes them first to those with local needs and then further abroad as surpluses allow. The LDS church handles the details of it for me, but what a fantastic way for me to learn what others suffer.  The spiritual blessings of the empathy alone are important, but additionally, I find that when I fast sincerely and add to my fasting prayer, I am much more able to recognize God's will and influence in my life.  Like tithing, fasting becomes an outward manifestation of my devotion to God.

So I got a comment

I got a comment on my Monday Musing for this week. I am the first one to admit that these Monday Musings are by no means doctrinal dissertations. Just my thoughts on a few things that matter to me. I will always do my best to represent accurately anything I say, but when it comes right down to it. These are my reflections on my beliefs.

But the comment the gentleman made was enough to get me out to his site and see what he had to say. I commented on one of his blog posts where it seems to me he was trying to point out the evil of tithing. I give my response below

Umm...what about a church that doesn't have a paid ministry? The tithes in the LDS church are used almost entirely for building new churches or other buildings of worship, printing materials provided free to those interested, and to pay the salary of a very limited full time employees of the church. Another portion is used to maintain the church functions and some is invested to provide ongoing support to the church. You commented on my blog that I was an extortionist and say that Christ did away with the Old Covenant by dying on the cross, but Peter, Paul and the rest of the Apostles tithed the believers. Tithing is for me a way to show my commitment to God and his kingdom and a not only good place to start, but a good end.

What a wierd way to divert my web

Twice today when I tried to load up www.google.com I got this:
Um...I'm not in Canada nor really near Canada but ok!!

The new PhotoBooth has video....my son figured it out

So, a few weeks ago I was looking for a bag for my MAC and I had to run into another store. I had my parents with me so I left the MAC and the kids in the car. Below you can see the result.

Monday Musings: Tithing is an outward manifestation of our willingness to place God first

I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the California Fresno Mission. This consisted of basically the whole San Juaquin Valley.

While I was there, I had two experiences that taught me a lot about why tithing matters. The first was with a family who was asking: "Why do we need to pay tithing before I go to the temple?"

My answer was what I learned from. I don't know what inspired me to say this (well, I actually do) but I remember responding that if we aren't able to keep the commitments we make outside the temple then we won't be able to keep the commitments we make inside the temple.

Another experience taught me the truth of that. Later in my mission I was working with another couple. He was an Ensign in the Navy and I am sure their little family of four was on a really tight budget. When we got to the law of Tithing, it was all over. They wouldn't have anything more to do with us. They had been committed to baptism, but when they learned that they were expected to give 10% of their income to the Church they simply couldn't see it. I hope that at some future point the feelings they had about the Church may have changed their minds but at that time they could not see how they could possible make it while giving away 10% of what little they had.

Tithing is by definition 10% of what we have earn. This Tithing of us as a people provides the money for running the Church. In the LDS church there is a lay ministry so none of the church leaders are paid for their service. Some full-time church employees are paid from Tithing funds, but all of them must maintain their membership in good standing, meaning specifically, they must maintain a good moral life.

Tithing then isn't really about me paying for my religion but about me dedicating funds to support a system I believe in. The benefits I get from the church are completely intangible, but marvelously effective in my life.

Some of you may have read this post earlier, I realized I had made an error and made the above strikethrough and correction.