Flashback: Karren, Stu & Laura

Brim With Joy by Neal A. Maxwell

"God is serious about joy." Joy is the essence of what He would have us experience.

Joy is obviously of a higher order than mere pleasure. Pleasure is perishable. It has a short shelf life. Joy, on the other hand, is lasting. It involves the things that really matter, such as being forgiven and forgiving another. One true test of ultimate value has to do with whether or not something is lasting.

Joy has a way of renewing itself, and the ripple effects of joy are constant and ever emanating; joy has a momentum of its own.

When we enlarge our capacity to love, other people become real individuals, not merely functions. Gospel duties cease to be mere routine and become, instead, doors to delight. Every doctrine of the gospel is a door to delight that, when opened, exposes us to a vista of things we have not yet fully comprehended.

Joy will come in a thousand ways--when we see a relationship mended or enriched as between spouses and siblings and friends.

When we reach a point of consecration, our afflictions will be swallowed up in the joy of Christ. It does not mean we won't have afflictions, but they will be put in a perspective that permits us to deal with them. With our steady pursuit of joy and with each increasing measure of righteousness, we will experience one more drop of delight--one drop after another--until, in the words of a prophet, our hearts are "brim with joy" (Alma 26:11).

Read the full talk here.

Have We Not Reason to Rejoice? by Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Have we, amidst all of our challenges, not reason to rejoice?

We all go through different life experiences. Some are filled with joy, and others with sorrow and uncertainty.

Aren’t the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and our membership in His Church great reasons to rejoice?

Wherever you live on this earth and whatever your life’s situation may be, I testify to you that the gospel of Jesus Christ has the divine power to lift you to great heights from what appears at times to be an unbearable burden or weakness. The Lord knows your circumstances and your challenges.

My dear brothers and sisters, there will be days and nights when you feel overwhelmed, when your hearts are heavy and your heads hang down. Then, please remember, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, is the Head of this Church. It is His gospel. He wants you to succeed. He gave His life for just this purpose. He is the Son of the living God. He has promised:

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

“For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee” (3 Nephi 22:10). “I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer” (3 Nephi 22:8).

My dear friends, the Savior heals the broken heart and binds up your wounds (see Psalm 147:3). Whatever your challenges may be, wherever you live on this earth, your faithful membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the divine powers of the gospel of Jesus Christ will bless you to endure joyfully to the end.

Read the full talk here.

Quote of the Day

Patience is not indifference. Actually, it means caring very much but being willing, nevertheless, to submit to ... what the scriptures call the "process of time."
Neal A. Maxwell

Press Release: The Family, California Marriage, and Proposition 8

As many know, a recent petition placed a constitutional amendment on the November ballot in California. The proposed amendment reaffirms an intiative passed in 2000 defining marriage in California as being between a man and a woman. This year's proposed amendment comes in the wake of the previous initiative being deemed unconstitutional by California judges.

On June 29th of this year, the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints distributed a letter to California saints, requesting that all members support the constitutional amendment (proposition 8). In my congregation and others in the Bay Area, this was significant due to both the doctrine (many of us have colleagues / friends who are gay) and the political nature of the request (rarely, if ever in our lifetimes, has the Church requested political activism of the saints).

Yesterday I was given the assignment to mobilize my ward as directed by the stake as the Proposition 8 Coordinator.

I'm pretty overwhelmed by this assignment, but ever since the letter was read, I kept thinking about it - it kept coming up again and again for me. That was in my mind yesterday when I received the assignment and I felt it reaffirmed to me that this assignment is from God.

I personally do not like to be politically proactive because I don't like to get into inflammatory arguments. I don't like to contest others. I also have friends that I care deeply about who will not agree with me on this. But I do know that the sacrifices God may ask me and my generation to make may be different from past generations - but perhaps just as difficult. I also know that true doctrine can be taught in love, even when it is not accepted.

I know that the content / doctrine of this request is true because I know that the Proclamation on the Family given in 1995 is true. I know that the political nature of the request is divine because from what I have read in the Old Testament and in the Book of Mormon, God holds his people accountable for the laws of their country. We will be held accountable if we sit in complacency and do not act in faith.

I know that our country will be blessed as we uphold eternal truths and values. This includes freedom, justice, and family.

James 1:4

Let patience have her perfect work.

Flashback: First Day of School

2 Sam 12:22

While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?

Quote of the Day

Why waste your time, your talents, your means, your influence in following something that will perish and pass away, when you could devote yourselves to a thing that will stand forever? For this Church and kingdom, to which you belong, will abide and continue in time, in eternity, while endless ages roll along, and you with it will become mightier and more powerful; while the things of this world will pass away and perish, and will not abide in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord our God.

Joseph F Smith

Flashback: Laura & Karren

Flashback: Mom & Karren

Ephesians 4:29-32

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but [only] that which is good . . . [and] edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
And grieve not the holy Spirit of God. . . .
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you. . . .
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

The Virtue of Kindness by Joseph B. Wirthlin

One way you can measure your value in the kingdom of God is to ask, "How well am I doing in helping others reach their potential? Do I support others in the Church, or do I criticize them?"
If you are criticizing others, you are weakening the Church. If you are building others, you are building the kingdom of God. As Heavenly Father is kind, we also should be kind to others.

Read the full talk here.

John 20:29

blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed

Flashback: Laura & Karren

Happiness

The Indigo Bunting by Robert Bly

I go to the door often.
Night and summer. Crickets
lift their cries.
I know you are out.
You are driving
late through the summer night.

I do not know what will happen.
I have no claim on you.
I am one star
you have as guide; others
love you, the night
so dark over the Azores.

You have been working outdoors,
gone all week. I feel you
in this lamp lit
so late. As I reach for it
I feel myself
driving through the night.

I love a firmness in you
that disdains the trivial
and regains the difficult.
You become part then
of the firmness of night,
the granite holding up walls.

There were women in Egypt who
supported with their firmness the stars
as they revolved,
hardly aware
of the passage from night
to day and back to night.

I love you where you go
through the night, not swerving,
clear as the indigo
bunting in her flight,
passing over two
thousand miles of ocean.

Virtues of the Boring Husband by Li-Young Lee

Whenever I talk, my wife falls asleep,
So, now, when she can't sleep, I talk.
It's like magic.

Say she hasn't had a good night's sleep in a week,
feels exhausted, and lies down early
in the evening,
but begins to toss and turn.

I just lie down beside her,
prop my head up in one hand and say,
"You know, I've been thinking,"

Immediately she calms down,
finds a fetal posture,
and tucks her head under my arm.

I know she lies dispersed, though in one body,
claimed by rabble cares and the need to sleep.

"Will you stay?" she asks.

"I'm right here," I answer.

"Now, what were you saying?" she wonders, and so I talk.

"It isn't that lovers always meet in a garden,"

and already her eyes
get that dizzy look, like she can't focus.

"Go ahead," I tell her, "close your eyes."

"OK," she says,"but keep talking." And so I do.

"It isn't that lovers always speak
together in a house by the sea, or in a room
with shadows of leaves and branches
on the wall and ceiling.

It's that such places emerge
out of the listening
their speaking to each other engenders.
I mean, maybe . . ."

And she sighs. Her breathing begins to slow.
And I remember something I heard somewhere:

Every so many breaths, a sign.
Every so many sighs, sleep.

Or was it: Every so many sighs, death?

I go on talking, now stroking her head,
pushing her hair back from her forehead,
clearing her bright brow,
and listening for her next sigh.

"Maybe the face-to-face true lovers enact
manifests a prior coincidence
of heaven and earth, say, or body and soul,
equal opposites exchanging
and combining properties in perpetual transformation:

shore and not shore, sea and sky,
room and a world, the gazer and the gazed upon."

Little twitches run the length of her, beginning
with her arms, then her legs, then her feet, as though
tensions were being fired from her body.

She mumbles the beginning of a word.
I go on talking.

"Maybe the union of lovers is an instance
of a primary simultaneity, timeless,
from which arises the various shapes of Time and duration:
arrival, departure, waiting, resuming,
fountain, terrace, path, an eave.

And maybe any world is born, is offspring,
of the liaison between
God and Mind,
Mind and Mind's source."

I count her second sigh, lower, longer.

"Or maybe God says I love you! and the whole
universe, consciousness included, is a shape
of that pronouncement.

Or maybe there's no You in that,
but only I love! ringing,
engendering all of space, every quadrant
an expression of God's first nature: I love!

Or maybe a You
arises as echo, the counter-ringing,
to the sovereign I love!

and we're the You to the Source's I,
the second person to God's first personhood.

Then, to surrender any sense of an I
is to feel our true condition, a You
before God, and to be seen.

Being seen: the crowning experience
and mystery of a You.

Maybe, too often, we mistake
the guest for the host,

confusing the I and the You. And yet, maybe
out of that confusion more worlds arise."

By now, she's barely listening, if at all.
I lower my voice and go on rambling,
afraid she'll wake if I stop too soon.

"Maybe love for God amounts
to the Beloved returning
the Lover's gaze.

And out of that look and looking back,
all of our notions
of space, home, distance,
beginning, end, recurrence,
death, debt, fruition, number, weight
emerge; all are issue

of that meeting between
lover and lover, our souls' intercourse
with what it loves."

By now her jaw has gone slack, her fingers loose
where earlier they were clenching the edge of the blanket,
and I'm almost whispering.

"Maybe it's true, what sages have said,
I don't know if I'm remembering it right.
Something about moving up a ladder of love.
Maybe we learn

to love a person, say, first as object,
and then as presence, and then as essence,
and then as disclosure of the divine,

or maybe all at the same time,
or discovering over time
each deeper aspect to be true.

And maybe our seeing it in another
proves that face inside ourselves.

Oh, I don't know. You sleep now."

And then I stop talking, kiss her forehead,
and wait a minute
before leaving the bed and closing
the door behind me.

Close the door. Come lie down.
There's no ocean out there not already in you.

What a narrow residence,
the lifetime of her eyes.

Quote of the Day

Maybe we learn to love a person, say, first as object, and then as presence, and then as essence, and then as disclosure of the divine.
Li-Young Lee

Talk on Service

Last April I gave a talk on Service in my ward as part of being both a new member in my ward and being a part of the Rebuilding Together committee (our ward helped renovate a house in East Palo Alto with Rebuilding Together).

You can download an MP3 of the talk here (Clicking will start the download). It's about 11 minutes in length.

Last Days at Melville

Tender Mercies

Matthew 21:22
And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

God has answered the following prayers this week:
(1) My father no longer has the job he hates, but still has his salary & benefits through the end of the year. He can now focus on finding a job that he likes and still meet his financial obligations.
(2) My friend Brandon emailed me to offer me transportation / lodging for Bruce's wedding in Seattle in August - I was sure on Saturday that I would no longer be able to attend because of the expense of hotels / cabs.
(3) I didn't have to get a root canal on Wednesday - the endodontist was open and honest with me about my options and I may not have to get one at all (at all!).
(4) My mother's physical therapists expect that she will have 100% use of her shoulder by 6 months after the surgery (she had it in March 2008) - originally the doctors projected 12 months.
(5) My brother now has an MBA marketing internship - which begins the Monday after his girlfriend leaves town for the rest of the summer. This means that not only did he get to spend the maximum amount of time with her this summer possible (after being long distance), but he will also have the internship on his resume.
(6) My room is clean.
(7) My work trip got rescheduled - meaning that my roommate will no longer be alone in our house for 8 days before moving to Med School.

iTunes Playlist

Viva la Vida (Coldplay)
Put On Your Sunday Clothes (Hello Dolly)
Sing (The Carpenters)
The Great Beyond (REM)
Miss Sarajevo (U2)
Alone in Kyoto (Air)

Waiting Upon the Lord by Henry B. Eyring

Next time I decide to do something, I think I will ask in prayer, "Heavenly Father, is this what the Lord would have me do?" And I think I will wait upon the Lord until I know. Then I might say, "Please, while I am working at it, can I remember that I am doing it for the Lord?" I promise you that if you will be patient and diligent, you will have a blessing come to you that you will know that you are doing what the Lord would have you do.

Read the full talk here.

LOLCAT of the Day

2 Timothy 1:7

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Quote of the Day

The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her . . .

Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

Strength During Struggles by L. Lionel Kendrick

Fasting and prayer will help us control our thoughts, feelings, passions, and appetites. We can bring these and our bodies under subjection of our spirits. We will experience added spirituality, strength, power, humility, and testimony. We will be able to get answers to our prayers and enjoy feelings of peace and comfort. We will enjoy the companionship of the Spirit. We will experience an increase of love. Ill feelings will be removed from our souls. We will have added power to resist temptations and to overcome weaknesses. We will become free from undue worry. Our faith and hope will be increased. Feelings of doubt and discouragement will be dispelled.

Read the full talk here.

Quote of the Day

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
George Eliot

Jude 1:22

And of some have compassion, making a difference

That We May Be One by Henry B. Eyring

We can have His Spirit with us by keeping [the covenant in the Sacrament]. First, we must promise to take His name upon us. That means we must see ourselves as His. We will put Him first in our lives. We will want what He wants rather than what we want or what the world teaches us to want.

Second, we promise always to remember Him. We do that every time we pray in His name. We also keep our promise to remember Him when as families we pray together and when we read the scriptures.

[The faith to keep all of the commandments of God] turns our call as a home teacher or a visiting teacher into an errand from the Lord. We go for Him, at His command... That faith-that the Lord calls servants-will help us ignore their limitations when they reprove us, as they will. We will see their good intent more clearly than their human limitations. We will be less likely to feel offense and more likely to feel gratitude to the Master who called them.

We must speak no ill of anyone. We must see the good in each other and speak well of each other whenever we can... We do not know the hearts of those who offend us. Nor do we know all the sources of our own anger and hurt.

There is a protection against pride, that source of disunity. It is to see the bounties which God pours upon us not only as a mark of His favor but an opportunity to join with those around us in greater service. A man and his wife learn to be one by using their similarities to understand each other and their differences to complement each other in serving one another and those around them.

Read the full talk here.

Press Release: KT's new calling

I was recently called as a gospel doctrine instructor and I taught my first lesson on Alma 17-22. It was the smaller upstairs classroom, so it was much less intimidating. The main points of the lesson were:

Alma 17
- there is great joy in learning that those we love are still our brothers/sisters in the Lord
- preparation for teaching includes fasting and prayer
- fasting and prayer was specifically to be instruments in the hands of God
- immediate response to prayer included comfort, direction (be patient and long-suffering, teach word/doctrine), and promise that yes, they would be instruments in the hands of God
- they supposed their work was great - and Alma says, "assuredly it was."
- their cause was to teach the Lamanites - each of us should consider what our cause is (home/visiting teaching, families/friends, callings, etc.)

Ammon's Experience
- service / faithfulness softened hearts of King Lamoni and his people
- taught pure doctrine with boldness
- was wise, yet harmless
- saw his prayer answered in that the Spirit was poured upon the heads of those he taught
- overwhelming joy
- example of generosity and faithfulness to King Lamoni's father (Ammon sowed)

Aaron's Experience
- imprisoned, mocked, beaten, stripped
- taught King Lamon's father (Aaron reaped)

We can apply the principles fasting, praying, teaching pure doctrine, testifying with boldness, being wise (yet harmless), and sowing / reaping as we go along.

If you can love her without politeness or delicacy, the fox says, love her with your wolf heart.

Jack Gilbert

1 Corinthians 13

Charity is not easily provoked
- How do I react to others? to my circumstances?
- I should replace frustration with perspective. with patience.

Charity is kind

Charity suffereth long

Charity vaunteth not itself
- What exactly is vaunting - what do I do that draws attention to myself? How can I remove such things from my life?
- Vaunting is a frivolous kind of pride.

Charity envieth not
- Am I grateful for my present blessings and circumstances?
- Do I envy my future self?

Charity doth not behave itself unseemly
- Am I light minded? Am I boisterous or rowdy?
- Am I sensitive? Am I careful? Am I tender?

Charity seeketh not her own
- Do I spend time with a select group of friends only?
- Do I seek to serve and bless others I come in contact with?
- Do I seek friendships with those I visit teach or do I simply do my duty?
- How do I use my social time? In indulgent ways or in true ministry?
Luke 14:12-14

Charity thinketh no evil
- When I perceive what I think are others' mistakes, do I judge them harshly or am I patient with them?
- Do I assume the worst case?
- Do I set others up for success?

Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in truth
- Do I love the commandments?
- How do I react to chastisement (truth) when it comes? Do I accept it as more light and knowledge and understanding or do I resist a new opportunity to learn / grow?

Charity beareth all things
- Do I only bear some things? The things I choose?
- What does it mean to bear? How can I be strong to bear the burdens placed upon me?

Charity believeth all things
- What do I believe? Do I believe in others? Do I believe in promised blessings? Do I believe in what I can be? What others can be?

Charity hopeth all things
- Do I have hope in Christ? Do I have hope that I can change? That I can be more like Christ each day?

Charity endureth all things
- Do I endure well? Do I murmur and wait? Do I do my duty faithfully and allow the process of time to do its work?

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

for RM

full poem here

American Humanities at BYU

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I moved a lot of files over from the iBook I used when I was at BYU. I found a lot of art clips that I particularly liked from some of my art history / humanities courses and I thought I'd post some of them here.

These two are from my American Humanities class - I took it Fall of my freshman year - and it was the first time I studied art history (and LOVED it).

This was one of the early photography pieces that we studied in the last part of the class:

Title: Manger

Photographer: unfortunately, I can't remember and can't find it on google at the moment. I believe her name was Mary ---

The following was one of my favorite pieces that we studied.

Title: Annunciation

Artist: Henry Ossawa Tanner

Press Release: MacBook Purchase

So, I finally bought myself a computer last weekend and last night I finished moving over my personal files from my work pc. I also moved over files from my dying iBook (the computer I had in college). More on those later.

I am especially enjoying the webcam special effects. This one is the comic book effect (I got tired waiting for the 3-2-1 countdown). I know I'm behind the times on this one, but it's still a novelty to me :)

Aren't the dots on the pillows beautiful? I love that effect. 

LOLCAT of the day

I bet you've missed these...

Bond and Free by Robert Frost

Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about--
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turf, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world's embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be.
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius' disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight.
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.

Hip it to the Hop

So a few weeks ago I started taking a Thursday evening hip hop class with several ladies from my ward. It is so fun! I've decided that I want to take more evening classes to get more of an exercise routine in my life. So, last night I went to a bikram yoga class (90 minutes of heated yoga) for the first time in about 18 months. It definitely kicked my trash, but it feels so good to be sore today :)

So this is the plan:
Tuesdays - Bikram Yoga (90 minutes)
Thursdays - Hip Hop Dance (60 minutes)
Saturdays - Hike/Run the Dish (60-90 minutes)

I have a beginner's pass to yoga, so I may go more often than Tuesdays until that expires (unlimited for 30 days!) and when hip hop is over, I'll have to find another dance class, I think. But I'm excited about the variety AND, frankly, I love all of these things, so it won't be a chore! Hooray!

The Second Coming by W B Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?