May We Have Eyes To See

This last weekend I went down to Temple Square with a friend and had a great evening seeing the Savior of the World and the Christmas lights. The performance was beautiful and moving and I was inspired by their message. After the performance we made our way back through Temple Square over to our car parked a few blocks away and as we passed I noticed the usual panhandlers that surrounded Temple Square. There has been quite controversy over whether to support panhandlers and beggers on the street and I have seen many stories in past years on the news that have exposed people posing as panhandlers only to take advantage of others generosity, and making good money to boot.


While we were living in Korea, my dear friend Tiffany shared an experience she had with me. Because Seoul was such a large city it was often much easier to travel by subway than drive. Tiffany was riding the subway one day when a begger woman entered the car. She was an older woman who had a slight difficulty walking. As soon as she entered the car, she moved directly to Tiffany who happened to be the only American on the car. This woman stood right in front of her with her hand stretched out. She didn't say a word but just stood there.

She was annoyed that this woman had instantly singled her out as the "rich American" and was expected to donate to every poor person who came along. There was a dozen other people on the car that could have easily donated to her cause, but the woman walked directly to Tiffany and expected her to give out. Annoyed with her asumption that she was full of money to give away, Tiffany sat with her arms folded and stared away from the woman. A minute later the woman moved on and looked for other donations.

Tiffany told me that later she was reading the Ensign magazine preparing for her visiting teaching and the lesson happened to be on blessing the poor. She shared with me a scripture in Mosiah 4:19 that reads,

"For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have?... And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependant for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing ye shall recieve, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another."

I remember when I was younger going with my family to see the lights at temple square. We had parked over by Dee's Family Restaurant just off North Temple so we could conveniently stop off for hot chocolate on our way back to the car after the lights. As we passed through the parking lot on our way to the lights, a man approached my Dad and asked if he had any money to spare. The guy explained that his car had broken down and he was trying to get back home and needed money to buy a bus ticket. My Dad simply asked how much the man needed, opened his wallet, pulled out what he could afford to give, and gave it to the man. The man thanked him and was on his way.

After the man had left, I asked my Dad why he gave the man money. "His car probably isn't even broke down and he'll probably use the money to buy drugs or alcohol. Why did you give it to him?" I asked. My Dad explained simply that if someone asks for our help we should give it. "You can never know if someone is trying to take advantage of you or not, but if you can help you always should" he said. Although my Dad didn't know the man's true intention for the money, he knew that he was responsible for his actions toward him.

I keep thinking about that lesson a lot lately and the scripture Tiffany shared with me. "Are we not all beggars?" We may not be begging for money, but we may be, in our own way pleading for attention or validation from a spouse or family member; on your knees pleading for forgiveness and relief from guilt and sin; acting out in anger because our children aren't behaving the way we would like; or maybe you find your self everyday on your knees pleading for Gods help to move forward in pursuit of a goal or dream.

My wish for myself, and all who read this, is that this Christmas season we will be able to SEE those around us. To truly see others through Christ’s eyes-- as children of God. Instead of seeing someone asking for an inconvenient hand out, allow the spirit of Christmas to work within you and see the soul of that someone, asking for your help. Don't judge their intent. Simply see it as an opportunity to GIVE. I've been praying for opportunities to give more this season and I hope I can have eyes to see all the opportunities that are around me.

Because I have been given much, I too must give.
Because of thy great bounty, Lord each day I live,
I shall divide my gifts from thee, with every brother that I see,
Who has the need of help from me.

Because I have been blessed by thy great love dear Lord,
I'll share thy love again according to thy word.
I shall give love to those in need, I'll show that love by word and deed,
Thus shall my thanks be thanks indeed.


Because I have been sheltered fed by thy good care,
I cannot see another’s lack and I not share,
My glowing fire my loaf of bread,
My roof's safe shelter over head,
That he to may be comforted.  

Fearless

As many of you know, I have been working with a dream coach for the past few months. I haven't discussed this experience much with others because I struggle to know how to explain the experience to someone else. It's been so comprehensive and deep that it's hard to give a 30 second commercial explaining what we do. The experience has gone a bit longer than planned, but it has gone a lot deeper and been more life altering than I could have ever imagined.


One common theme to what I keep learning in life and throughout this experience is the role of fear. Each of us is plagued with it. From the moment we come to earth we are being taught what is good, what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable through our experience and interactions with others. We learn to fear certain things, people and ultimately every experience we have from the moment we come from the womb shapes how we believe, think and feel about EVERYTHING. Woah. Let that one soak in for a minute. I'm sure if we really thought about it we could identify a moment in our lives when something happened that has stuck with us ever since.

We are the results of what we choose to believe. On my last session I was assessing those things in my life that I see as failures. It has been interesting to me what things I consider as failures and what things I don't. This is going to sound silly, but one of the failures I saw myself as having was the fact that I had a degree in Music Education and I am not using it. I am not teaching in a school and therefore I have failed. I also see my sparse and fading knowledge of theory and inverted secondary dominants (blah blah) as a complete failure as well. If I can go through 5 years of grueling practice and study and then 5 years later look back and remember so little of the "technical stuff" I must be a failure.

Throughout almost my whole college experience I knew I loved music. I knew it spoke to my soul in the way that nothing else had and I needed it in my life. In some ways, I also felt like music needed me. I felt I had some unique gift to offer it that no one else could give. That's why I chose to study it. But despite those feelings and the knowledge of my "gift", I could clearly see that I struggled with the technical aspect. I struggled and drug my way through every theory and aural skills class I had to take, taking some of them over, but I got by. I did what I had to do. I didn't excel at it by any means, but I got through. I tried hard, but despite my efforts, looking at my transcript it looked like I only did enough to get by. My peers probably didn't know. I didn't talk about it, but I constantly compared myself with the department "stars"--you know the ones who are always raising their hands in class because they know the answer. I slowly told myself that I wasn't as good of a musician because I wasn't the theory wiz or the aural skills master. And slowly I began to believe that. It didn't happen over night, but over a long period of time that belief took root.

And now here I am. It's been almost 5 years since I graduated and am still struggling with that belief.

Why is it that we always see the failure? How often do we stop and evaluate the lessons learned from it? Why do we ignore the best parts of ourselves only to keep feeding a lie that serves no purpose but to hold us back? It's because of fear.

I want to share an experience I had several months ago. I had been struggling with the effects of my divorce and felt frustrated and overwhelmed that I couldn't move forward in certain areas of my life. I felt a great deal of fear over certain issues and I felt a lot of anger from what had happened. I had made an appointment with my bishop and after I had poured out my soul about all the problems I had, he told me something I had never before considered. He explained to me that fear and anger are one of Satan’s greatest tools. When I am consumed by fear and frustration I am not progressing and I am right where Satan wants me. Stuck in my own self pity and woe and not going anywhere. Think about it--if he can stop us from recognizing our own greatness, he's won! When we're consumed by fear and anger we can't see past the clouds and lack the vision and power to move on. I suppose I already knew that, but until he said it, I didn't get it.

I love the scripture in 2 Timothy 1:7-8 that reads,

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God."

We all have failures in life. We all have fear that is the result of how we see our failures. But God has not given us the spirit of fear. In looking at my schooling as a failure, I'm forgetting all the amazing experiences, blessings and knowledge I received! I have been letting a small weakness stop me from achieving my greatness. No more. I believe God has great things in store for me. He has prepared me and will continue to prepare me if I will only trust Him. I am choosing to not be controlled by fear. I am choosing to be fearless.

  

A day for JOYce 2009

On September 28, 2007 my dear friend Joyce passed away. She and I had been friends since 2000 when we met our Freshman year at BYU-Idaho. We were neighbors our first year and roomates our second. Joyce and her twin sister Joan became great friends of mine and have stayed that way ever since.  In 2005 Joyce was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.  She faught her battle with cancer for a year and was blessed to have it go into remission. We were relieved. During that time, she was fortunate enough to become pregnant with a little boy. During her pregnancy her cancer came back and she resumed treatments throughout her pregnancy and delivered a beautiful healthy baby boy named Jacob on December 19, 2006.  It was 9 months later when the doctors realized that Joyce's cancer had taken over some of her major organs and there wasn't much they could do. Surrounded by her family and loved ones she passed away.

I think about Joyce alot.  Her death hit me hard, not only because she was my dear friend, but also because she was my same age and had a child 5 days older than my own.  I struggled with the fact that Jacob wouldn't grow up knowing the amazing person that is his mother. I know he is surrounded by a loving family who will not let him forget her, but as a mother I just wanted to hold him and tell him also.

I remember one experience about Joyce that I want to share. When we were roomates we had a goal to have apartment prayer and scripture study every morning. We would roll (literally) out of bed around 6am and congregate in the living room. We'd pray and read scriptures half awake half asleep and then be on our way either to the shower or back to bed.

I don't even remember what spawned this, maybe it was something she saw on a movie, (Joyce loved movies) but one day Joyce told me that when she woke up in the morning she was going to sit up and say as loud as she could, "I'M BACK!"--like "woohoo! I made it another day!". Of course the idea totally made me laugh and I completely forgot about it until the next morning when my alarm went off. A minute or two later I heard someone down the hall yell enthusiastically "I'M BACK!!!". I totally busted up laughing.

I don't want to forget Joyce. Her birthday is November 5th and I want to honor her life in some way so I invite you to join me in a day for JOYce. On this special day I invite you to celebrate the life you have been given. Wake up in the morning and yell out with gusto "I'M BACK!!!". Embrace every moment and savor the simple joys you get to experience everyday. Hold the people you love longer and tell them not only that you love them, but what you love about them. Let love flow and don't hold it back from anyone or anything. Hold your children. Squeeze them and tell them how much you love them and how proud you are of them.  Hold them a little longer and savor every second. Make a phone call or write a letter to someone you love. I challenge you to spread love like a wild fire this coming November 5th and simply love♥. Let the phone ring and the dishes sit in the sink and every other unimportant thing wait. If anything, do it for Joyce, and Jacob and Stu who will be together forever, but who may be missing the presence of their wife and mother a little bit more on that day.

♥♥For Joyce♥♥

Art

So one day several months back I was sitting in the McDonald’s Play Place in Bountiful happily eating my grilled chicken sandwich while I watched Lucy disappear and reappear from the gigantic play "thing". Not far from me was an older gentleman who was there with his brood of grand kids. I knew because while I was there he had a continuous stream of requests. "Grandpa can I get an ice cream cone?" as he would promptly pull out a one dollar bill and say "Sure. Here ya go", every time.


It wasn't long before we struck up a conversation which lasted about an hour. As long as the kids were happy we kept talking. His name was Art Nielsen and he had been a teacher and coach for over 40 years. He's currently in his 80's and substitute teaches 4 days a week in south Davis County and loves every second of it. It was so weird to me, but I felt such a connection with this 80 year old man. It was a little serendipitous and I couldn't help but feel at the right place at the right time.

The thing I learned about Art during our conversation was that the relationships in his life were the most important thing to him. And it wasn't just the relationship with his spouse or his children, but every relationship was important to him. He was full of stories about kids he'd been able to help over the years and I was amazed as I listened. What impressed me the most was that Art gave his complete trust to these kids he'd never met. He would work with them one on one, he would talk with their parents, he would listen, he would even loan them money if they asked for it. Art gave them something few teachers and adults ever give kids. He gave them trust. He told me that he couldn't control whether they trusted him, but he chose to place all the trust he had in them.

I recently read a book called Anatomy of Peace. The objective of the book is to teach us how to resolve conflict in our lives. One of the first lessons taught is how to identify whether we are seeing others as people or as objects. To put this in very basic terms, when we see someone as a person we acknowledge that that person has needs and feelings just like us. Where as when we see someone as an object, they don't have individual feelings or needs, but are just part of a group, social class or "type" of people. By labeling someone as an object, it strips them of any personal or individual feelings or characteristics. This can be applied on so many levels, but the lesson is always the same. We treat others differently when we see them as people instead of objects. The book goes on to explain how these views of others effect our relationships and teaches how to over come these challenges we all face.

I have to say, it feels like it's been a long time since I felt sadness about the end of my marriage. I felt I had come to accept that what was done was done and I needed to focus on the future. Reading that book brought back a pain I hadn't felt in a long time. It's that pain that comes when we realize that we have seen those we love as objects and not as human beings. I found myself wishing I could go back and change the past, that I could have reacted differently in certain situations or just been a better person over all. The problem with pain is that, as uncomfortable as it may be, I believe it's a catalyst for changes we must make.

I got to see Art recently. He spoke in a fireside and as I listened to his stories again, I was so impressed by him. It's so hard to explain, but when I look at Art, I see someone who sees no objects, but only the people he is surrounded by. He would give you his time, his money and his love if you asked for it, and probably the same even if you didn't ask for it. The love from this man flows like a river. Unrestrained. I want to be like that. I don't know how, because I'm hopelessly flawed and selfish, but I want to be like Art. God willing. Someday.

IN GOD WE TRUST

A friend of mine recently posted a status on facebook saying this, "Do you really think an all knowing God would punish a people for not recognizing him in temporal matters?  How about we leave God to religious matters and not be so juvenile as to say that our particular form of diety is childlike and will throw a tantrum if we don't recognize him/her/it in all matters."  His comment was in response to the argument of removing "In God We Trust" from our currency and his view is that God has better things to do than to worry about His name on our currency. This was posted over a week ago and I have been thinking about it ever since.

I don't want to talk about the whole currency issue. I hope the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" stay on our currency, and hopefully by the end of this post you'll understand why. But that's not what I want to talk about. I've been thinking a lot about God lately. I think it's important for you who read this to know that I believe in an all powerful God who created the Universe and everything in it, including us. That being said, I also believe that it is that same power, God, who causes the sun to shine, the grass to grow and our hearts to beat and lungs to breathe every day. I don't know how it works, but it does.  Planets revolve around the sun and embryos become babies.  There is a system to this universe, to which you and I are integral parts of.  I want to share a quote by a woman named Marianne Williamson:

"To trust in the force that moves the universe is faith. Faith isn't blind, it's visionary. Faith is believing that the universe is on our side, and that the universe knows what it's doing.  Faith is the psychological awerness of an unfolding force for good, constantly at work in all dimensions. Our attempts to direct this force only interferes with it. Our willingness to relax into it allows it to work on our behalf. Without faith, we are frantically trying to control what it is not our business to control, and fix what it is not our power to fix. What we're trying to control is much better off without us, and what we're trying to fix can't be fixed by us anyway. Without faith, we're wasting time."

Those of you who know me well know that I used to do a lot of river running. I remember an experience I had when I first started to guide boats down the river. In my mind there was a specific course I had to to keep my boat on. In my mind, I couldn't stray for my course or something would go wrong. It was like in my mind there were lines painted on the river and I had to stay in those lines or there would be trouble. After a long day and several runs down the river I was exhausted. It wasn't fun. I didn't want to do it again and I kept thinking "Why is this so hard?"  I would see other guides with commercial rafting companies floating down the river with ease, knowing that they would probably go on four runs that day and I could barely make it through two! I talked with my Dad about it and he reminded me that there is a current to the river. If you stay in the current the river will take you where you need to go.  My job was to keep my boat in the current. That lesson made guiding my boat so much easier.

I've thought about that lesson a lot throughout my life. How often to we try to control our lives? To control people and processes.  It's like trying to paint lines on a river.  The truth about rivers is that we can only see the surface. Sometimes the water is rough and sometimes it's smooth and glassy, but there is always a current even if it's running deep under the surface. We can learn to trust in the force or we can fight against it. Fighting against it is always harder. Like Marianne Williamson said, "our willingness to relax into it allows it to work on our behalf."

I hope we choose to trust in God. I realize this is a hard thing. It involves surrendering everything we think we want and having faith that God, the One who makes the sun shine every day and the grass grow, will make our lives what they're supposed to be.   Not just in spiritual matters, as my friend suggest, but in every aspect of my life. This is faith, and something our country needs more of.  If you ask me, IN GOD WE TRUST should be printed on every building, on every billboard and most importantly, on every heart.