Last night my family did something that we've never done before as a family. We shared our Christmas Eve ritual with the eight residents of the group home that my eldest son manages. The last time I did something similar was over 35 years ago and I was overwhelmed with sadness at the thought of so many people in this world who were rejected and forgotten during this one time of the year that so many people proclaim to have joy and love in their hearts for their fellow men.
The thing that goes through your mind as you experience a night like that is that there are those who are not only rejected and forgotten during this most special time of the year...there are those who are forgotten and pushed aside by the very people who are supposed to love them more than anyone else in the world, thier own families.
The last time I did this, I was a teenager and I played Santa Claus. A grown young man in his mid twenties sat on my lap and told me that his dearest wish on Christmas would be for his family to come and see him.
It broke my heart and, in the foolishness of my youth, I went home that night and plead with Heavenly Father to never ever let me have a child such as that. When I discovered that Heavenly Father, in His wisdom, denied that prayer, I silently resolved that, no matter what, my son would never ever live apart from his family.
Last night we met and ate and 'danced' to Christmas music with eight men who ranged in age from their seventies to their twenties. Only two of them were ambulatory, two more could get around with attendands holding onto them, the remaining four were in wheelchairs. For most of these men, there was not a single function that they can perform on their own. Virtually, every single one of them must be helped with just about everything they have to do. Attendants need to assist them with bathing, toileting, eating, taking medication, and staying as connected to the world as they can be.
I spent the night watching my eldest son attend to these men and treat them with love and dignity and serve them in ways that their own families would not. I glowed with pride as I watched my son act with Christ-like love and serve others in ways that many I know would never consider doing.
We read the Christmas story in Luke and then we read of the same night from The Book of Mormon. As we opened up to Third Nephi and began to read, Carlos, a young man whose bent and tiny body was confined to a wheelchair, motored his way as close as possible to John-Ross so that he could drink in the experience. In his exhuberance, he accidentally ran his 350 lb wheelchair over Daniel's foot.
Daniel cried out in pain and Carlos, who could not speak, motioned for a plastic sheet of paper with letters arranged in qwerty fashion. When he got the sheet, he laid it out on his lap and turning hos wheelchair back towards my Daniel, struggled to force his unwilling hands to point to letters....S.....O.....R....R....."that's okay", Daniel said as he reached out and held Carlos' hand, "I know you didn't mean it" Carlos' smile beamed up at my youngest son.
It came time for the men to go to bed and for us to return home but when we left, I couldn't help but remember my mom who often embarrased me by making me dig through things that other people had abandoned or thrown away on the side of the road. She would often push me on and try to inspire me by regaling me with stories of other people she had known who had found priceless treasure from items that others had found worthless..
Last night eight priceless treasures, named Carl, Carlos, Elano, Mickey, Ben, Paul and two Dannies were discovered by my family and became a part of ours.
I think my mom would be proud.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Unconventional
About eight years ago, I took a trip to New Orleans with a couple of my nephews. Notwithstanding the fact that I had lived within easy driving distance of The Big Easy for the greater part of my life, it was the first time I had occasion to visit. I don't know why but most of my forrays outside of Texas had been to the west and not the east. I think that part of the reason for this is that nature hates a vacuum and, whenever I traveled eastward, I would get near to Louisiana and start feeling the IQ points getting sucked right out of my head. Once I made it all the way to Vidor and forgot how to read for a week.
If you've never been to New Orleans, you really ought to make the effort and see it before God gets around to destroying it....for the second time in man's existence, Sodom and Gomorrah has been created. I spent most of my time there with the following thought running through my head, "There is really no valid reason for a Latter-Day Saint to ever visit New Orleans"
My nephews and I checked into our hotel and became immediately aware that there was an hugely dispropotionate number of extremely beautiful young women also staying in this hotel. Not only were these women extremely beautiful, they were also dressed rather provocatively and, most of them were rather obviously, (how shall I put this?) "surgically-enhanced". They also wore laminated I.D. badges dangling from chords about their necks.
On the way up to my room, I shared an elevator with a couple of these young women and so I asked, "Is there a convention of some type in this hotel?". I learned that there was, indeed, a convention there that weekend...a pornstar convention.
When I got to my room, I called my wife right away to tell her what was going on. When asked why I was telling her all of this, I explained that over twenty years of marriage had taught me that there was just some information that my wife needed to hear straight from me and, more importantly, before she might learn about it from some evening news report.
That evening, as I waited at the dining room bar for my nephews to come down and join me for dinner, I passed the time drinking my Dr. Pepper adorned with a lime wedge and a cherry and joking back and forth with the bartender.
A couple of young women from the convention came and sat down at the bar and also joined in the conversation. After a few moments, one of them turned to me and asked, "Are you here with the convention?"
You know those moments when time just seems to stop and hang there?...the times when your mind seems to race with all sorts of responses and ponderings about the appropriate way to answer a question that you were ust asked?...that's what happened to me...
Why would they wonder if I'm here with the convention?
Are there really pornstars that look like fat dumpy greying old men?
Do I act offended when telling them no?
Eventually I settled upon what I considered the right response...because, really...how often does one get the opportunity to answer a question like that? So just before time began to move forward again, I put on my most pleasant and earnest face and answered.
"Yes....I'm a stunt double"
If you've never been to New Orleans, you really ought to make the effort and see it before God gets around to destroying it....for the second time in man's existence, Sodom and Gomorrah has been created. I spent most of my time there with the following thought running through my head, "There is really no valid reason for a Latter-Day Saint to ever visit New Orleans"
My nephews and I checked into our hotel and became immediately aware that there was an hugely dispropotionate number of extremely beautiful young women also staying in this hotel. Not only were these women extremely beautiful, they were also dressed rather provocatively and, most of them were rather obviously, (how shall I put this?) "surgically-enhanced". They also wore laminated I.D. badges dangling from chords about their necks.
On the way up to my room, I shared an elevator with a couple of these young women and so I asked, "Is there a convention of some type in this hotel?". I learned that there was, indeed, a convention there that weekend...a pornstar convention.
When I got to my room, I called my wife right away to tell her what was going on. When asked why I was telling her all of this, I explained that over twenty years of marriage had taught me that there was just some information that my wife needed to hear straight from me and, more importantly, before she might learn about it from some evening news report.
That evening, as I waited at the dining room bar for my nephews to come down and join me for dinner, I passed the time drinking my Dr. Pepper adorned with a lime wedge and a cherry and joking back and forth with the bartender.
A couple of young women from the convention came and sat down at the bar and also joined in the conversation. After a few moments, one of them turned to me and asked, "Are you here with the convention?"
You know those moments when time just seems to stop and hang there?...the times when your mind seems to race with all sorts of responses and ponderings about the appropriate way to answer a question that you were ust asked?...that's what happened to me...
Why would they wonder if I'm here with the convention?
Are there really pornstars that look like fat dumpy greying old men?
Do I act offended when telling them no?
Eventually I settled upon what I considered the right response...because, really...how often does one get the opportunity to answer a question like that? So just before time began to move forward again, I put on my most pleasant and earnest face and answered.
"Yes....I'm a stunt double"
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Tom vs. the Cockroaches
When you live in Texas, you learn to live with cockroaches. you also learn that there are actually two types of cockroaches; each one is a tell-tale sign of something in your life. If you have the little bitty ones scurrying about, you might want to pick up a bit more around the house and not leave uneaten food out and about. If you have the really really big ones occasionally entering your home...well...welcome to Texas!
Not everything in Texas is bigger but we most definately have the biggest cockroaches in all creation. In Texas, a wounded cockroach is a dangerous animal. The big ones can fly and have no qualms whatsoever in dive-bombing you. (more on this later)
When you live in Texas, you never really quite get used to co-habitating with the most disgusting insects upon the planet but you do make peace with the fact that, like the war on terror, the war on cockroaches will never ever be fully won. You can only through eternal vigilance manage to stem the tide of these nasty little six-legged jihadists.
In my many battles against cockroaches, there are actually three that the enemy has won. I have decided to chronicle these three failures so that others may learn from my mistakes and future generations will benefit from the wisdom of my experience.
Battle One: Tom vs. The Dive-bombing Cockroach
When I was seventeen, my family lived in an apartment complex near a bayou in west Houston. The complex was nestled in a bucolic, park like setting and it was my mother's habit to place bird seed in dishes on our balcony so that she could watch the birds in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the bird seed sometimes also attracted some rather large rodents that lived in the nearby bayou who would make their nocturnal forray's to our balcony and eat up all of the bird seed.
Since my bedroom was adjacent to the balcony and the head of my bed was against the outer wall, I would occasionally be awakened by the sound of a dish of bird seed scraping along the balcony and then...well let's just say that I saw "Willard" when I was a kid and I've never been quite the same since. In order to get any sleep at all, I would have to grab a blanket and a pillow from my bed and go across the hall to sleep in a bedroom that my dad had turned into an office.
It usually worked out well but on this particular occasion, I had just come home from seeing a really stupid campy horror flick with three of my friends. The movie was called "Bugs" and it was all about these radio-active cockroaches. What damage can radio-active cockroaches do? you ask...well, it seems that the nestle in your hair and set your head on fire. It was a really stupid movie where only bald people were safe. My two friends and I laughed all through it and actually did a 1975 version of Mystery Science Theatre all through the show.
However funny the movie seemed at 10:00 PM when I was wide awake, it took on a more ominous hue at 2:00 AM when I was groggy with sleep and creeped out by the sound of rats scurrying about on the balcony; a mere six inches of easily gnawed through wall separating them from my head.
So, when I entered my father's office and turned on the light only to startle a huge cockroach crawling along the ceiling who reacted to my intrusion by taking wing and dive-bombing me, you will understand that it would be a completely normal reaction for me to run in place and scream like Little Richard with a broken nail.
My father rushed into the room only to see hysterical me running in place and screaming with the offending insect long vanished...I spent the next several hours convincing my parents that I did not do drugs.
Battle Two: Tom Loses His Peanut Butter.
I'm sure that Italy is much different now but, thirty years ago, there were several things that you could just not get. Hamburgers were unknown in all of my mission with the exception of a really bad place called "Whimpy Burger" in Rome. Peanut Butter and Kool-Aid were also rare commodities that could only be had by beneavolent relations sending them to you or by being fortunate enough to have access to the American Navel Base in Naples (which I did).
Just prior to my transfer from Naples, I had made a run at the base commisary and had purchased a large jar of Skippy Peanut Butter. When I unpacked my stash in my new apartment, my companion and the two other companions that shared our apartment looked at it like a couple of starving street urchins from a Dicken's novel eyeing a Christmas feast through a frosted window pane.
There was an unwritten code in our mission. A man's stash was his own and you could not help yourself to it. However, if the missionary ever partook of anything from his stash while you were within eyesight, it was considered extremely bad form for him to not offer to share with you. Because of this code, the other three elders in the apartment made certain that I was never EVER allowed to be anywhere near my jar of peanut butter if one of them was not present.
I did share with them but, my charity waned proportionate to the diminishing level of peanut-butter in the jar. As we got down to the last bit of peanut-butter, I set the jar into the pantry determined that I would not take it out again until I could enjoy it all by myself. So, early one morning, before the other three missionaries were awake, I slipped from my cot and padded to the kitchen to eat the last bit of my peanut butter in solitude.
When I pulled the glass jar from the shelf, a cockroach that had been on the opposite side of the jar scurried around and set up residence on my hand. Startled and disgusted, I whipped my hand back and forth determined to force the offending creature from off of me. Unfortunately, a cockroach's ability to overcome Newtonion physics is greater than my own and the jar slipped from my grasp and crashed against the far wall of the kitchen. I stared in horror at a glob of peanut-butter on the wall festooned with shards of broken glass and a nasty cockroach struggling to free itself from the sticky mess.
The other three missionaries rushed into the kitchen, surveyed the scene, and then, looking at me through narrowed-bitter eyes, pronounced my fate as deserving and left me to clean up the mess.
Battle Three: Tom and the Nuclear Option.
When we lived in Katy, my wife and I moved into a rental home. It was pretty normal as far as homes in the neighborhood went with the exception that, whenever night fell, we seemed to be over-run by the really big variety of cokroaches...the kind that you usually see only one or two at a time. Our first week in the home was a nighmare and it all came to a crescendo when I took the trash out one night and, there on the outside wall, was an army of these huge cockroaches. In the dark, it actually looked like the wall was moving. We had no idea where these roaches had come from and, when we questioned our landlord, he mentioned that the previous tenant had also complained and so he had the house sprayed.
We tried a series of bug bombs but that would only work for a day or two and then they would be back. We mentioned our dilemna to a friend who leaned forward and in a conspiratrial tone, told us about a product that he'd heard of that was guaranteed to get rid of any level of infestation.
We went to several chemical stores until we finally came to one who knew of the product. After locking the door and making us sign several release forms stating that we were through having children and we promised not to sue....the clerk donned a hazmat suit and went into the back of the store emerging again with a pair of tongs holding a package called, "Demon W P". He sold us the package and we went home and mixed it up in a sprayer and went all around our home treating it according to the directions on the label.
When we were done, there was still a huge amount of the stuff left in the sprayer and, not knowing what to do with it, I decided to dump it down a storm sewer grating that sat right at the edge of our driveway. After dumping the remaining contents, I turned to go back into the house only to be stopped by a cry of alarm from across the street. I turned to see what the alarm was all about and saw, to my utter horror that an army of huge cockroaches was boiling up from the storm sewer and pitifully dying on my driveway.
My neighbors came from their homes and witnessed this shocking scene with me. When it was over, I took the hose and washed the dead roaches back down the storm sewer and then, knowing that we would be forever after known as "The Roach House" went back inside and explained to my wife why we needed to move away as quickly as possible.
Not everything in Texas is bigger but we most definately have the biggest cockroaches in all creation. In Texas, a wounded cockroach is a dangerous animal. The big ones can fly and have no qualms whatsoever in dive-bombing you. (more on this later)
When you live in Texas, you never really quite get used to co-habitating with the most disgusting insects upon the planet but you do make peace with the fact that, like the war on terror, the war on cockroaches will never ever be fully won. You can only through eternal vigilance manage to stem the tide of these nasty little six-legged jihadists.
In my many battles against cockroaches, there are actually three that the enemy has won. I have decided to chronicle these three failures so that others may learn from my mistakes and future generations will benefit from the wisdom of my experience.
Battle One: Tom vs. The Dive-bombing Cockroach
When I was seventeen, my family lived in an apartment complex near a bayou in west Houston. The complex was nestled in a bucolic, park like setting and it was my mother's habit to place bird seed in dishes on our balcony so that she could watch the birds in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the bird seed sometimes also attracted some rather large rodents that lived in the nearby bayou who would make their nocturnal forray's to our balcony and eat up all of the bird seed.
Since my bedroom was adjacent to the balcony and the head of my bed was against the outer wall, I would occasionally be awakened by the sound of a dish of bird seed scraping along the balcony and then...well let's just say that I saw "Willard" when I was a kid and I've never been quite the same since. In order to get any sleep at all, I would have to grab a blanket and a pillow from my bed and go across the hall to sleep in a bedroom that my dad had turned into an office.
It usually worked out well but on this particular occasion, I had just come home from seeing a really stupid campy horror flick with three of my friends. The movie was called "Bugs" and it was all about these radio-active cockroaches. What damage can radio-active cockroaches do? you ask...well, it seems that the nestle in your hair and set your head on fire. It was a really stupid movie where only bald people were safe. My two friends and I laughed all through it and actually did a 1975 version of Mystery Science Theatre all through the show.
However funny the movie seemed at 10:00 PM when I was wide awake, it took on a more ominous hue at 2:00 AM when I was groggy with sleep and creeped out by the sound of rats scurrying about on the balcony; a mere six inches of easily gnawed through wall separating them from my head.
So, when I entered my father's office and turned on the light only to startle a huge cockroach crawling along the ceiling who reacted to my intrusion by taking wing and dive-bombing me, you will understand that it would be a completely normal reaction for me to run in place and scream like Little Richard with a broken nail.
My father rushed into the room only to see hysterical me running in place and screaming with the offending insect long vanished...I spent the next several hours convincing my parents that I did not do drugs.
Battle Two: Tom Loses His Peanut Butter.
I'm sure that Italy is much different now but, thirty years ago, there were several things that you could just not get. Hamburgers were unknown in all of my mission with the exception of a really bad place called "Whimpy Burger" in Rome. Peanut Butter and Kool-Aid were also rare commodities that could only be had by beneavolent relations sending them to you or by being fortunate enough to have access to the American Navel Base in Naples (which I did).
Just prior to my transfer from Naples, I had made a run at the base commisary and had purchased a large jar of Skippy Peanut Butter. When I unpacked my stash in my new apartment, my companion and the two other companions that shared our apartment looked at it like a couple of starving street urchins from a Dicken's novel eyeing a Christmas feast through a frosted window pane.
There was an unwritten code in our mission. A man's stash was his own and you could not help yourself to it. However, if the missionary ever partook of anything from his stash while you were within eyesight, it was considered extremely bad form for him to not offer to share with you. Because of this code, the other three elders in the apartment made certain that I was never EVER allowed to be anywhere near my jar of peanut butter if one of them was not present.
I did share with them but, my charity waned proportionate to the diminishing level of peanut-butter in the jar. As we got down to the last bit of peanut-butter, I set the jar into the pantry determined that I would not take it out again until I could enjoy it all by myself. So, early one morning, before the other three missionaries were awake, I slipped from my cot and padded to the kitchen to eat the last bit of my peanut butter in solitude.
When I pulled the glass jar from the shelf, a cockroach that had been on the opposite side of the jar scurried around and set up residence on my hand. Startled and disgusted, I whipped my hand back and forth determined to force the offending creature from off of me. Unfortunately, a cockroach's ability to overcome Newtonion physics is greater than my own and the jar slipped from my grasp and crashed against the far wall of the kitchen. I stared in horror at a glob of peanut-butter on the wall festooned with shards of broken glass and a nasty cockroach struggling to free itself from the sticky mess.
The other three missionaries rushed into the kitchen, surveyed the scene, and then, looking at me through narrowed-bitter eyes, pronounced my fate as deserving and left me to clean up the mess.
Battle Three: Tom and the Nuclear Option.
When we lived in Katy, my wife and I moved into a rental home. It was pretty normal as far as homes in the neighborhood went with the exception that, whenever night fell, we seemed to be over-run by the really big variety of cokroaches...the kind that you usually see only one or two at a time. Our first week in the home was a nighmare and it all came to a crescendo when I took the trash out one night and, there on the outside wall, was an army of these huge cockroaches. In the dark, it actually looked like the wall was moving. We had no idea where these roaches had come from and, when we questioned our landlord, he mentioned that the previous tenant had also complained and so he had the house sprayed.
We tried a series of bug bombs but that would only work for a day or two and then they would be back. We mentioned our dilemna to a friend who leaned forward and in a conspiratrial tone, told us about a product that he'd heard of that was guaranteed to get rid of any level of infestation.
We went to several chemical stores until we finally came to one who knew of the product. After locking the door and making us sign several release forms stating that we were through having children and we promised not to sue....the clerk donned a hazmat suit and went into the back of the store emerging again with a pair of tongs holding a package called, "Demon W P". He sold us the package and we went home and mixed it up in a sprayer and went all around our home treating it according to the directions on the label.
When we were done, there was still a huge amount of the stuff left in the sprayer and, not knowing what to do with it, I decided to dump it down a storm sewer grating that sat right at the edge of our driveway. After dumping the remaining contents, I turned to go back into the house only to be stopped by a cry of alarm from across the street. I turned to see what the alarm was all about and saw, to my utter horror that an army of huge cockroaches was boiling up from the storm sewer and pitifully dying on my driveway.
My neighbors came from their homes and witnessed this shocking scene with me. When it was over, I took the hose and washed the dead roaches back down the storm sewer and then, knowing that we would be forever after known as "The Roach House" went back inside and explained to my wife why we needed to move away as quickly as possible.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
People Let Me Tell Ya 'Bout My Best Friend
Twenty-Seven Years ago this week, my wife and I went to a Ward Halloween party dressed as nerds. I don't remember if we won the final prize for best costume but I do remember that we placed high in the competition. The reason my mind is a little foggy on the details is that, on the way home, Kerry went into labor and we went to Katy Hospital so that we could witness the birth of our first born son...dressed as nerds.
I was later to find out that this auspicious start in life was a harbinger of things to come as we were to watch our son win accolades and honors and...basically show us that we were now the older generation and...well....nerds.
Those few precious moments immediately after his arrival into this world are, I believe, one of the most sacred moments of my life. I still remember the look on my wife's face as they placed that beautiful squalling mass of multi-colored goo on her chest. She spoke his name and he immediately stopped crying; then she smiled. It was a smile that I'd never seen before or since. It was radiant, serene, God-like...it was a smile that radiated love in the purest sense of the word and it is the smile that is engraved into the deepest recesses of my heart...the smile that adorns her face whenever I picture her in my mind's eye.
I knew in that moment that I had ceased to be the center of her world...and, strangely, that's exactly how I wanted it to be.
They asked my to cut the umbilical chord and, after a few moments of squeamish hesitation, I did. That was also a kind of harbinger of things to come...as I was to learn that my role of father would entail sometimes placing myself between my wife and our son and, while secretly siding with her, making her loosen her grip so that he could learn to fall on his face and make his own mistakes in life.
Then they handed my first-born son to me so that I could give him a bath. As I concentrated on not dropping what was, paradoxically the slipperiest and the most precious thing I had ever held, I set him into the warm water and bathed his tiny face and body. One of the nurses giggled, "Look!". I looked down and saw that, as I was busy bathing my son, he was busy peeing all over me.
Also...a harbinger of things to come.
The salad days of a young family are, I believe, the most magical time of a union between a husband and a wife. That little bundle we held and fed and (she) changed represented a concentration of our combined purpose in life. To this day, when I see a picture of our first born infant, I realize that I did not cherish it enough. That I did not savor those moments enough...We concentrated all we had on pouring as much love and attention on our son as we could and yet, I can't think of anything I wouldn't give for the opportunity to go back in time and do more.
I didn't write this blog to sing his praises...anyone that knows John-Ross knows that he is gifted, talented, and (as they say in Boston) 'wicked smaht'
As he has grown into adulthood, we have had occasion to debate and argue and learn from one another. Politically, there are things on which we both agree and disagree. Political debates are among my favorite things and I've never debated anyone whose opinion I respect more than my son.
There are a lot of reasons that I love my wife. If I were pressed to name the number one reason why I love her, I don't think I'd be able to do it.
But high in the running would be the fact that, twenty-seven years ago, she introduced me to one of my best friends.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
According to their desire
There was a time on my mission when I went through a really rough patch. I won't go into great detail because it's really not important why. Suffice to say that I really wanted to go home and nobody would let me. Instead, I was banished to a far end of the mission that required a boat trip and two train trips and over 24 hours to get to. This place had not had a baptism in fourteen years. I told my companion that we would visit members and go to church but that if he even mentioned tracting to me I would beat him up.
Depression was not as big a deal back then as it is now and so, while all of the signs of clinical depression were there, nobody thought I was depressed...they all thought I was just a jerk. In their defense, I really was kind of a self-centered jerk. Also, I refused to bathe and I grew a beard (I was REALLY trying to get them to send me home)
While I wallowed in filth and self-pity, I explored our apartment for any kind of relief of the mind-numbing boredom. I came across some tapes that I hoped were contraband rock and roll. It turns out that they were tapes of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance of Handel's Messiah.
I had heard "For Unto Us a Child is Born" and "The Hallelujah Chorus" before...but never had I ever listened to the whole performance. Those two tapes stuck way in the back of our apartment library became the means for me to dig myself out of the hole I had dug for myself.
The music was so beautiful and the performances so wonderful that I began to lose myself in those tapes and listen to them over and over again. As I listened, I realized that every song was taken from a scripture about Christ and I took out my scriptures and looked up all of them and marked them in green. Reading those scriptures while listening to Handel's musical testimony of the divinity of Christ was as powerful an emotion as I had ever felt.
The music became a part of me and it began to lift me up. I shed many bitter tears as I began to realize how little time I had been given to share the gospel in Italy and how much of that time I had wasted. To this day, one of my greatest fears is standing before Heavenly Father and giving an account of that portion of my mission. The music began to renew and strengthen my testimony until I could hardly wait to get out of the apartment. What I desired most of all was the opportunity to share my testimony of Christ and the Restored Gospel with the Italian people.
In the space of three days, I went from a slob wallowing in his bed to a bright and shiny, freshly showered and shaved missionary urging my companion to get up so we could get out the door and go tracting.
Everyone thought I had really gone nuts now and they were starting to seriously consider my request to send me home.
The more I researched Handel's Messiah, the more intrigued I became. I was especially struck by the story of how fast this masterpiece was written and how influenced Handel was. I read about the weeks of largely untouched meals that were delivered to his door as he wrote and how, after writing The Hallelujah Chorus, his servant came to Handel's room only to see tears streaming down the composer's face as he exclaimed, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself"
The music became a part of my life and I listened to it whenever occasion would permit. Every part of the oratorio became a part of me...but one part sunk into my soul more deeply than the others...the tenor solo at the beginning.
As I listened to "Comfort Ye" and "Every Valley", I was more and more in awe of how Handel had used the natural timbre of the tenor's voice to emulate a sounding trumpet. I imagined John The Baptist standing in the wilderness and his voice crying forth these words. I thought of Alma and how he desired most to have the voice of an angel that he might testify more clearly of Christ.
And I began to desire the same thing. More than anything, I wanted to sing that tenor solo. That music had become such a part of me that I just knew that I would consider my life incomplete if I could not participate in its performance.
The only problem was that I'd never had any voice lessons and...I was a baritone.
But the desire was much more deep than my voice and I knew that, while I would never sing the tenor solo on a stage, I could sing along with with the music...and I did. I sang along with The Messiah whenever I could. When I got home from my mission, my practice studio was my car and I would often garner strange looks in traffic as I drove along during rush hour. As I sang, I imagined myself in a tuxedo belting out the words...my whole being concentrated upon being one with the music. Every once in a while, I would notice that I could actually hit a note that, up to that point, was beyond my range. When I did, I would strive to be able to hit it again and again until I could hit that note whenever I wanted.
Choristers in church began to ask me to sing in the choir and I learned how to read music. Timmie Debusk was the first such to ask me to sing a solo in church. She was the one who first made me believe that I might actually be able to fulfill my secret desire. When her son lost his battle with cancer, she asked me to sing at his funeral. Although, by then, I had sung at several funerals, it was the first time I had ever sung for someone I knew personally. It was also the last. Although I was able to get through the song, I doubt I will ever again be able to do so. I learned that, what we sing becomes a part of us in a way that what we say never does. I began a new respect and testimony of the importance of primary songs. I began to realize that music conveys emotions that mere speech cannot...which is why people can listen to opera in a language that they don't speak and still understand the story.
I formed the opinion that the Adamic language, being a perfect language would have to convey the meanings of one who speaks that language perfectly...and would, of necessity, be a language that was sung, rather than spoken.
I began to sing The Messiah in singalongs at Christmas time and whenever I could find a performance, I would try out for the chorus. I've sung it so many times that, whenever I hear any part of the oratorio, I can sing the tenor part, words and notes, without having the music before me.
Once or twice I would even be brave enough to try out for the solo part. I never got it, men who were much more talented and much better trained than I was got the part and, as I stood in the chorus and listened to them sing, tears would form in my eyes. It was frustrating to want to be that good and know that I would never be that good. I felt like Salieri in 'Amadeus'...doomed to recognize and desire talent that was beyond my reach. But, while I could hit the high notes required of that part, it was always tentative. It felt like I was riding a bicycle on the top rail of a fence and, if I pushed myself to have the volume and bell-like quality required of a tenor singing that solo, my voice would crack and I would be humiliated. Eventually, I gave up and resigned myself to sing in the chorus forever.
One Fall, Ken Turner called me on the phone. He and I had sung The Messiah several times together and he informed me that a group of churches in Columbus was putting together a performance that was to be sung in The Columbus Opera House. I decided that I would try for the solo part one last time.
I got it.
And an impossible desire that was born fifteen years earlier was fulfilled on a Friday night a week before Christmas when I walked to the podium in a tuxedo, in an Opera house in a small Texas town with family and friends in the audience and a brother in the chorus and I sang the opening solo to Handel's masterpiece.
As I sang, I decided that, for once, I would listen to all of the people who had encouraged me and, as they say in football, "leave it all out on the field". I held nothing back and I was surprised to hear a tremolo that my voice had previously lacked. I was the best I had ever sung and, as I sang, I realized that Alma was right, God truly does grant unto men, "according to their desire"
Depression was not as big a deal back then as it is now and so, while all of the signs of clinical depression were there, nobody thought I was depressed...they all thought I was just a jerk. In their defense, I really was kind of a self-centered jerk. Also, I refused to bathe and I grew a beard (I was REALLY trying to get them to send me home)
While I wallowed in filth and self-pity, I explored our apartment for any kind of relief of the mind-numbing boredom. I came across some tapes that I hoped were contraband rock and roll. It turns out that they were tapes of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance of Handel's Messiah.
I had heard "For Unto Us a Child is Born" and "The Hallelujah Chorus" before...but never had I ever listened to the whole performance. Those two tapes stuck way in the back of our apartment library became the means for me to dig myself out of the hole I had dug for myself.
The music was so beautiful and the performances so wonderful that I began to lose myself in those tapes and listen to them over and over again. As I listened, I realized that every song was taken from a scripture about Christ and I took out my scriptures and looked up all of them and marked them in green. Reading those scriptures while listening to Handel's musical testimony of the divinity of Christ was as powerful an emotion as I had ever felt.
The music became a part of me and it began to lift me up. I shed many bitter tears as I began to realize how little time I had been given to share the gospel in Italy and how much of that time I had wasted. To this day, one of my greatest fears is standing before Heavenly Father and giving an account of that portion of my mission. The music began to renew and strengthen my testimony until I could hardly wait to get out of the apartment. What I desired most of all was the opportunity to share my testimony of Christ and the Restored Gospel with the Italian people.
In the space of three days, I went from a slob wallowing in his bed to a bright and shiny, freshly showered and shaved missionary urging my companion to get up so we could get out the door and go tracting.
Everyone thought I had really gone nuts now and they were starting to seriously consider my request to send me home.
The more I researched Handel's Messiah, the more intrigued I became. I was especially struck by the story of how fast this masterpiece was written and how influenced Handel was. I read about the weeks of largely untouched meals that were delivered to his door as he wrote and how, after writing The Hallelujah Chorus, his servant came to Handel's room only to see tears streaming down the composer's face as he exclaimed, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself"
The music became a part of my life and I listened to it whenever occasion would permit. Every part of the oratorio became a part of me...but one part sunk into my soul more deeply than the others...the tenor solo at the beginning.
As I listened to "Comfort Ye" and "Every Valley", I was more and more in awe of how Handel had used the natural timbre of the tenor's voice to emulate a sounding trumpet. I imagined John The Baptist standing in the wilderness and his voice crying forth these words. I thought of Alma and how he desired most to have the voice of an angel that he might testify more clearly of Christ.
And I began to desire the same thing. More than anything, I wanted to sing that tenor solo. That music had become such a part of me that I just knew that I would consider my life incomplete if I could not participate in its performance.
The only problem was that I'd never had any voice lessons and...I was a baritone.
But the desire was much more deep than my voice and I knew that, while I would never sing the tenor solo on a stage, I could sing along with with the music...and I did. I sang along with The Messiah whenever I could. When I got home from my mission, my practice studio was my car and I would often garner strange looks in traffic as I drove along during rush hour. As I sang, I imagined myself in a tuxedo belting out the words...my whole being concentrated upon being one with the music. Every once in a while, I would notice that I could actually hit a note that, up to that point, was beyond my range. When I did, I would strive to be able to hit it again and again until I could hit that note whenever I wanted.
Choristers in church began to ask me to sing in the choir and I learned how to read music. Timmie Debusk was the first such to ask me to sing a solo in church. She was the one who first made me believe that I might actually be able to fulfill my secret desire. When her son lost his battle with cancer, she asked me to sing at his funeral. Although, by then, I had sung at several funerals, it was the first time I had ever sung for someone I knew personally. It was also the last. Although I was able to get through the song, I doubt I will ever again be able to do so. I learned that, what we sing becomes a part of us in a way that what we say never does. I began a new respect and testimony of the importance of primary songs. I began to realize that music conveys emotions that mere speech cannot...which is why people can listen to opera in a language that they don't speak and still understand the story.
I formed the opinion that the Adamic language, being a perfect language would have to convey the meanings of one who speaks that language perfectly...and would, of necessity, be a language that was sung, rather than spoken.
I began to sing The Messiah in singalongs at Christmas time and whenever I could find a performance, I would try out for the chorus. I've sung it so many times that, whenever I hear any part of the oratorio, I can sing the tenor part, words and notes, without having the music before me.
Once or twice I would even be brave enough to try out for the solo part. I never got it, men who were much more talented and much better trained than I was got the part and, as I stood in the chorus and listened to them sing, tears would form in my eyes. It was frustrating to want to be that good and know that I would never be that good. I felt like Salieri in 'Amadeus'...doomed to recognize and desire talent that was beyond my reach. But, while I could hit the high notes required of that part, it was always tentative. It felt like I was riding a bicycle on the top rail of a fence and, if I pushed myself to have the volume and bell-like quality required of a tenor singing that solo, my voice would crack and I would be humiliated. Eventually, I gave up and resigned myself to sing in the chorus forever.
One Fall, Ken Turner called me on the phone. He and I had sung The Messiah several times together and he informed me that a group of churches in Columbus was putting together a performance that was to be sung in The Columbus Opera House. I decided that I would try for the solo part one last time.
I got it.
And an impossible desire that was born fifteen years earlier was fulfilled on a Friday night a week before Christmas when I walked to the podium in a tuxedo, in an Opera house in a small Texas town with family and friends in the audience and a brother in the chorus and I sang the opening solo to Handel's masterpiece.
As I sang, I decided that, for once, I would listen to all of the people who had encouraged me and, as they say in football, "leave it all out on the field". I held nothing back and I was surprised to hear a tremolo that my voice had previously lacked. I was the best I had ever sung and, as I sang, I realized that Alma was right, God truly does grant unto men, "according to their desire"
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
You Love That Which You Serve
I once hung a jury for the better part of a week. I did so even though my gut told me that the defendant was guilty. But, even though I was fairly convinced that he was guilty, when weighing the evidence in a dispassionate manner, I realized that it was only my gut telling me so. The prosecution had presented the weakest of cases. There were several holes in the case that I could see and which, for some reason, the defense had chosen not to exploit. But still, my gut was telling me that the defendant had committed a crime...then it hit me. The defendant had, indeed committed a crime but probably not the crime of which he was accused...After four days, I finally agreed to convict the defendant on a much lesser charge. I did so because I was convinced both in my mind and my gut that he was guilty of that lesser charge.
During my time in the jury room, I spent eight to ten hours a day with anywhere from nine to eleven people yelling and hating me. The yelling and hating wasn't one-sided either. At one point I had to ask one juror to shut up and not be on my side because the only reason he could give for not believing the prosecution's key witness was that "he looked a little gay". Juror number four will forever hold a special place on my list of people who should die with festering boils. He was a pseudo-intellectual who kept saying, "it's a moot point" only he kept mispronouncing it; saying, "it's a moat point. By day three of listening to that man make arguments that a seventh grade debate student could rip apart, the only thing that kept blood from shooting out of my eyes, nose and ears whenever he spoke was the mental image I had of driving my freshly-sharpened Number 2 pencil through his eye socket and into his brain.
At one time, the following argument took place between me and mister "moat point"
"It was a GUN"
"The charge reads 'fire-arm' and the weapon was never produced so the prosecution could never prove it was anything other than a BB Gun"
"A BB gun is a firearm"
"No...a 'fire arm' as a weapon that uses gunpowder and fire is produced as a by-product of its projectile's means of propulsion...a BB-Gun uses compressed air as its means of propulsion and since no fire is produced, it cannot be called, 'a fire-arm'"
"That's a moat point...I could still kill you with a BB-Gun"
"And I could kill you with a pork chop bone or even this number 2 pencil I'm holding..neither of them is a fire-arm"
At another point, a very sweet looking little old lady complained to me, "Well, I'm going to tell the judge that I don't think you belong on this jury" . It was her misfortune that her particular statement was the final straw that broke my camel's back. "I'M THE ONLY ONE THAT BELONGS ON THIS JURY!", I screamed "Every single ONE of you answered the same questions I did during Voir Dire and every single ONE of you said you would not hold it against a defendant for not taking the stand in his own defense...and every single ONE of you, at some point in the last three days has said that he must be guilty or he would defend himself...so that means that every single ONE of you is a &*##! LIAR!"
(I might have over-reacted a tad).
I saw that little old lady once years later at the Cineplex Multi Cinema off of Grand Parkway and, when she saw me, she had that sweet, I-know-you-from-somewhere-but-can't-quite-place-where, smile. Then I could see the recognition creep into her eyes and that sweet face of hers darkened like thunder clouds as she turned her back to me and went over to her husband sitting on a bench. I stood outside the theater until the movie started enduring malevolent glances and whispering back and forth between the two. The old man looked at me through narrowed bitter eyes and I could tell he was wishing that he was thirty years younger. I vacillated between going over to them and offering the most sincere apologies for my inexcusable conduct or going over to the man and letting him know that the sweet little woman he thought he married wasn't quite so sweet after all. I finally decided that this was one instance when discretion really was the better part of valor.
During my time in the jury room, I could tell that what I was battling were deep-seated convictions. The people on the other side of the argument were all very fine and decent people. But it became more and more apparent, as we argued, that they felt in their hearts that their job as a juror was to convict the person accused of the crime. I had always felt that my job as a juror was to judge, not the defendant, but the case presented to me by the prosecution. If the case presented by the prosecutor was proved to me beyond a reasonable doubt. I would vote to convict. If not, I would vote to acquit. I was to place the burden of proof always with the prosecution and never with the defense and, even if I felt in my gut the defendant was guilty; if the prosecution had not done its job properly and presented a case proving to my mind that he was guilty, I was doing our justice system a greater disservice by going with my gut over my mind.
The basic difference in my philosophy and those of the other jurors was that they felt that their job as a juror was to judge the defendant. I felt that my job as a juror was to judge the prosecution's case against the defendant.
During those four days, I was tempted several times to make nice with my fellow jurors and just go along..I was told over and over again that I was wrong. I was called names, At one point mister moat point called me a bleeding heart liberal.(that was a first for me) But each time I felt the urge to capitulate, my mind kept coming back to a quote by John Adams."There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others"
What it came down to in that jury room was a battle of values, my basic values and beliefs over the basic values and beliefs of eleven other people. A person's beliefs are based upon their values and, as such, there are many times when a belief is neither right nor wrong...it is right or wrong depending upon the holder's values.
But this wasn't one of those times.
What that experience left me with was the firm conviction that you really ought not to try and get out of jury duty. If you are a rational person who can look at a case without passion...the greatest service you can render your country is to serve on a jury. Unfortunately, most people who think that way are also very busy people for whom jury duty would be a financial sacrifice as well as a sacrifice of their time...and so, when they get the summons, they do their dead level best to not get on a jury. (My personal favorite was the man who showed up to jury selection with a "Nuke Gay Baby Whales For Jesus" T-shirt) Unfortunately, that leaves most juries filled with either people who have nothing better to do with their time or people who, for some reason or other, relish the thought of sitting in judgement of their fellow man...and believe me when I tell you that none of these people is apt to be sitting across from Regis Philbin holding a check for a million dollars with all of their life-lines still unused.
Ask yourself this. If you say you love your country and are willing to die for it...why do you try and get out of Jury Duty?
The next time you are summoned...go and serve
During my time in the jury room, I spent eight to ten hours a day with anywhere from nine to eleven people yelling and hating me. The yelling and hating wasn't one-sided either. At one point I had to ask one juror to shut up and not be on my side because the only reason he could give for not believing the prosecution's key witness was that "he looked a little gay". Juror number four will forever hold a special place on my list of people who should die with festering boils. He was a pseudo-intellectual who kept saying, "it's a moot point" only he kept mispronouncing it; saying, "it's a moat point. By day three of listening to that man make arguments that a seventh grade debate student could rip apart, the only thing that kept blood from shooting out of my eyes, nose and ears whenever he spoke was the mental image I had of driving my freshly-sharpened Number 2 pencil through his eye socket and into his brain.
At one time, the following argument took place between me and mister "moat point"
"It was a GUN"
"The charge reads 'fire-arm' and the weapon was never produced so the prosecution could never prove it was anything other than a BB Gun"
"A BB gun is a firearm"
"No...a 'fire arm' as a weapon that uses gunpowder and fire is produced as a by-product of its projectile's means of propulsion...a BB-Gun uses compressed air as its means of propulsion and since no fire is produced, it cannot be called, 'a fire-arm'"
"That's a moat point...I could still kill you with a BB-Gun"
"And I could kill you with a pork chop bone or even this number 2 pencil I'm holding..neither of them is a fire-arm"
At another point, a very sweet looking little old lady complained to me, "Well, I'm going to tell the judge that I don't think you belong on this jury" . It was her misfortune that her particular statement was the final straw that broke my camel's back. "I'M THE ONLY ONE THAT BELONGS ON THIS JURY!", I screamed "Every single ONE of you answered the same questions I did during Voir Dire and every single ONE of you said you would not hold it against a defendant for not taking the stand in his own defense...and every single ONE of you, at some point in the last three days has said that he must be guilty or he would defend himself...so that means that every single ONE of you is a &*##! LIAR!"
(I might have over-reacted a tad).
I saw that little old lady once years later at the Cineplex Multi Cinema off of Grand Parkway and, when she saw me, she had that sweet, I-know-you-from-somewhere-but-can't-quite-place-where, smile. Then I could see the recognition creep into her eyes and that sweet face of hers darkened like thunder clouds as she turned her back to me and went over to her husband sitting on a bench. I stood outside the theater until the movie started enduring malevolent glances and whispering back and forth between the two. The old man looked at me through narrowed bitter eyes and I could tell he was wishing that he was thirty years younger. I vacillated between going over to them and offering the most sincere apologies for my inexcusable conduct or going over to the man and letting him know that the sweet little woman he thought he married wasn't quite so sweet after all. I finally decided that this was one instance when discretion really was the better part of valor.
During my time in the jury room, I could tell that what I was battling were deep-seated convictions. The people on the other side of the argument were all very fine and decent people. But it became more and more apparent, as we argued, that they felt in their hearts that their job as a juror was to convict the person accused of the crime. I had always felt that my job as a juror was to judge, not the defendant, but the case presented to me by the prosecution. If the case presented by the prosecutor was proved to me beyond a reasonable doubt. I would vote to convict. If not, I would vote to acquit. I was to place the burden of proof always with the prosecution and never with the defense and, even if I felt in my gut the defendant was guilty; if the prosecution had not done its job properly and presented a case proving to my mind that he was guilty, I was doing our justice system a greater disservice by going with my gut over my mind.
The basic difference in my philosophy and those of the other jurors was that they felt that their job as a juror was to judge the defendant. I felt that my job as a juror was to judge the prosecution's case against the defendant.
During those four days, I was tempted several times to make nice with my fellow jurors and just go along..I was told over and over again that I was wrong. I was called names, At one point mister moat point called me a bleeding heart liberal.(that was a first for me) But each time I felt the urge to capitulate, my mind kept coming back to a quote by John Adams."There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others"
What it came down to in that jury room was a battle of values, my basic values and beliefs over the basic values and beliefs of eleven other people. A person's beliefs are based upon their values and, as such, there are many times when a belief is neither right nor wrong...it is right or wrong depending upon the holder's values.
But this wasn't one of those times.
What that experience left me with was the firm conviction that you really ought not to try and get out of jury duty. If you are a rational person who can look at a case without passion...the greatest service you can render your country is to serve on a jury. Unfortunately, most people who think that way are also very busy people for whom jury duty would be a financial sacrifice as well as a sacrifice of their time...and so, when they get the summons, they do their dead level best to not get on a jury. (My personal favorite was the man who showed up to jury selection with a "Nuke Gay Baby Whales For Jesus" T-shirt) Unfortunately, that leaves most juries filled with either people who have nothing better to do with their time or people who, for some reason or other, relish the thought of sitting in judgement of their fellow man...and believe me when I tell you that none of these people is apt to be sitting across from Regis Philbin holding a check for a million dollars with all of their life-lines still unused.
Ask yourself this. If you say you love your country and are willing to die for it...why do you try and get out of Jury Duty?
The next time you are summoned...go and serve
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
One Last Blessing
It's four in the morning and I've been up for the better part of an hour. I love this time of day. It is my hour of peace and rest unmarred by earthly care. For some reason, my thoughts always seem better honed and more clear at this time. My emotions are more crisp and I can more easily identify thier roots.
For the better part of this hour, I have been feeling an emotion that I didn't remember ever feeling before...it is a mixture of happiness and sadness and anticipation and worry...all of my emotions seem to be mixed with its counterpart; except one...pride.
Today is the day that my last child, my daughter leaves for college. In just a few short hours, she will step out of my door and, when she crosses that threshhold one last time, her status will change. She will no longer be a permanent resident under my roof. At 3:00 this afternoon, my Sarah will take her fledgling flight into this world.
Oh sure, she will return to my home from time to time but these will always be temporary visits. When she returns, I will be painfully aware of the ticking clock that will take her away from me again. Although she will always be welcome here for as long as she wishes, if things go according to the grand design, once she leaves today, she will only have temporary residences until she finds and makes one of her own.
For the last week or so, my wife has been urging me to find the time to give our daughter her traditional father's blessing before she goes off to school. I have, to her vexation, been putting it off. I don't think that she realizes what she's asking me to do or she wouldn't be quite so frustrated with me when I procrastinate exercising my patriarchal franchise.
Whenever I ponder this blessing, the realization hits me that this could very well be the very last blessing of comfort that she seeks at my hands. The possibility is very real that she will meet someone else to whom she will look for comfort in a priesthood blessing and, when I lay my hands on her head this afternoon, I might very well be passing off the baton to someone I don't even know yet but, somehow, don't like very much right now.
Sometimes our thoughts and feelings take us down a path that seems almost pre-determined...as if the course for them has been laid by a divine hand...and that's what is happening to me this morning because, as I sit here and steep myself in this melange of emotions, it occurs to me that these feelings would not be possible were I not a parent...this is exactly the kind of thing that Heavenly Father wanted me to experience...this is what is referred to as "a growing pain".
All for this mixture of emotions that could be experienced in no other way (and others like them) a Heavenly Being created this world and sent me to it. Because he wanted me to return, he devised a plan wherein his First Born in the spirit and Only Begotten in the flesh would take upon himself my sins...all of that effort so that I could sit here at four in the morning and nourish myself with this wonderful bittersweet emotion. And now I have to add one more feeling to the mixture.
I don't know when I've ever felt more loved.
For the better part of this hour, I have been feeling an emotion that I didn't remember ever feeling before...it is a mixture of happiness and sadness and anticipation and worry...all of my emotions seem to be mixed with its counterpart; except one...pride.
Today is the day that my last child, my daughter leaves for college. In just a few short hours, she will step out of my door and, when she crosses that threshhold one last time, her status will change. She will no longer be a permanent resident under my roof. At 3:00 this afternoon, my Sarah will take her fledgling flight into this world.
Oh sure, she will return to my home from time to time but these will always be temporary visits. When she returns, I will be painfully aware of the ticking clock that will take her away from me again. Although she will always be welcome here for as long as she wishes, if things go according to the grand design, once she leaves today, she will only have temporary residences until she finds and makes one of her own.
For the last week or so, my wife has been urging me to find the time to give our daughter her traditional father's blessing before she goes off to school. I have, to her vexation, been putting it off. I don't think that she realizes what she's asking me to do or she wouldn't be quite so frustrated with me when I procrastinate exercising my patriarchal franchise.
Whenever I ponder this blessing, the realization hits me that this could very well be the very last blessing of comfort that she seeks at my hands. The possibility is very real that she will meet someone else to whom she will look for comfort in a priesthood blessing and, when I lay my hands on her head this afternoon, I might very well be passing off the baton to someone I don't even know yet but, somehow, don't like very much right now.
Sometimes our thoughts and feelings take us down a path that seems almost pre-determined...as if the course for them has been laid by a divine hand...and that's what is happening to me this morning because, as I sit here and steep myself in this melange of emotions, it occurs to me that these feelings would not be possible were I not a parent...this is exactly the kind of thing that Heavenly Father wanted me to experience...this is what is referred to as "a growing pain".
All for this mixture of emotions that could be experienced in no other way (and others like them) a Heavenly Being created this world and sent me to it. Because he wanted me to return, he devised a plan wherein his First Born in the spirit and Only Begotten in the flesh would take upon himself my sins...all of that effort so that I could sit here at four in the morning and nourish myself with this wonderful bittersweet emotion. And now I have to add one more feeling to the mixture.
I don't know when I've ever felt more loved.
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