CelestialFamily » life lessons

The King Swing

Michael — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:55:00 +0000

(Warning!! This post is of a very personal nature and may offend some readers.)
This is a video from a very popular rock climbing route in Yosemite. This technique is called a pendulum traverse. Climbers call it "The King Swing” and it takes place on a route called “The Nose” on the 3000’ feature called El Capitan. About halfway up this particular route the cracks and features kind of peter out once you get to the top of that flake the photographer is standing on. Since the rock doesn’t have any little cracks or bumps there is subsequently nothing to pull up on or stand on. Therefore, no way to climb it. The only solution is to go back down and see if you can find another path. Sometimes you see another path but there really isn’t any way to get to it from underneath. The only feasible solution is to do a pendulum traverse. Just as the name implies you lower down as far as you have to and swing back and forth until you can grab a section of rock that is will allow you to climb it.

I’ve done several pendulum traverses, although not this one. They can be quite intimidating. Sometimes you’re not quite sure if you’re swinging into a section that will be just as unclimbable as where you were. One time it was an emergency situation and this was the safest technique to get off the rock during a thunderstorm. But every time I was more than a little apprehensive. The technique requires much more planning than it appears and things have to be done just right in order to stay safe.

Even though the route ahead seems insurmountable it’s quite a weird feeling to hang your butt on the end of a rope and run back and forth hoping to grasp something better, something that will allow you to keep progressing. It’s not exactly the safest thing to do. The times I’ve done them were only in situations where I was absolutely sure that it was the only way to keep on progressing. The risks can be high, but the rewards can be even greater if this leads you to better climbing or a way out of the current predicament.

I’m at a point in my life where I need to take the King Swing. I’ve been on a path that has provided me with much joy and happiness up to this point. I felt like I was growing, learning and progressing. But for the last several years I’ve been stuck on a ledge looking for ways to keep moving up and not finding anything to hang on to. It has taken me quite a while to even consider looking for another path. I’d been raised to believe that the path I was on was perfect and there was no reason to stray from it. But I just couldn’t see where or how to continue. Consequently, I’ve lowered down a little bit and begun to swing back and forth looking for another path.

I believe I’ve found a path. I’m not quite sure how good the climbing will be over there but I’m sure it is more promising than where I am now. Who knows? This new path may lead me back onto my original path from a different angle. Or I may end up having to lower back down this new route too and look for yet another path. I just don’t know right now.

To those of you who aren’t having any problems negotiating the blank sections of the original route, I have no criticism at all. Congratulations. You are better skilled at finding the route than I am. Simply because I am looking for a different path I have no criticism at all if you are making it work for you.

I’m not suggesting that anybody take the steps that I about to without doing at least as much thorough research, soul-searching and earnestly looking for all of the answers. This decision, to take the swing, has not be reached casually. In my case it has been years and years of agonizing study and prayer that has brought me to when I am now.

It’s time to set the metaphor aside. This post has nothing to do with rock climbing. I’m talking about my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For the past several years I’ve been stuck on a ledge and could find no way to keep moving forward. I’ve discussed some of the specifics on this blog numerous times, but I don’t wish to get into them today. To my friends and family who are members of the church I hope that you will take this with the spirit with which it is intended. I am very grateful that you are in my life and I mean absolutely no disrespect to you at all. I have never felt that absolute agreement on everything was necessary for me to love you and this decision will not stop that. I hope that you can see it in your heart to still love me. The most apprehensive part of this decision has been the considering, reconsidering and re-reconsidering the effects it will have on my family.

I fully expect that many of you will not understand my decision. I’m under no delusion that this will be easy. But I believe it will be better in the long run. I’ve seen other friends and family members struggle with some of the same issues that I have. It’s been very selfish of me to let them struggle alone while I conceal my struggles and go through some of the same things they have been.

I am grateful for everything that I have learned so far on my path. Please don’t think that I am going to consider abandoning all of the progress and the good things that I’ve learned in the process. I have no plans to start stopping by liquor stores or breaking any other of the moral and ethical codes the church has taught me. Quite the opposite; I cherish those values and I look forward to continuing to incorporate them into my life.

The private answers to the questions I have asked in my prayers have led me in an unexpected direction, a spiritual path which, at least for now, has proven incompatible with Mormon doctrine. This search for a new route has brought me some of the most profound surprises and also the deepest sadness of my life. It is very hard for me to leave a path that I love so much.

Bittersweet

Michael — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:00:00 +0000

We’ve started making the plans for our biannual family adventure. Every other year our family does a reunion. This year it’s in Utah. We do our best to attend and we also try to make a big road trip out of it. The kids really look forward to it. This year we plan on hitting several of the National Parks in California as well as some old favorites, possibly Yellowstone and Carlsbad again. We’ll see. The hardest part about planning these trips is reminding the family that we only have two weeks to get everything in.
The bittersweet part of this adventure comes because we are going to have to leave one of the family home. If he wants to graduate on time Aaron’ll have to take a summer school class which means that he will not be going with us. While I recognize that he has to sleep in the bed he made, it’s still rather tough to make plans like this knowing that we won’t all be going.

Bittersweet

Michael — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:00:00 +0000

What’s in a Name?

Michael — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:35:00 +0000

Except for a few years of my life we have always had Volkswagen’s in the family. I have fond memories of camping in the green 1970 transporter that my folks bought new while my dad was in graduate school. I remember the day in 1976 when my brothers and I tried to talk them into getting a VW Campmobile, a yellow one just like Pippi, but we ended up coming home with a Rabbit. Later we bought another Rabbit and then I bought a ’67 Beetle while I was in High School. Shortly after Victoria and I got married we found Pippi, our 1976 VW Campmobile. I’ve always had an affinity for the brand.

VW stopped making the Beetle for the US market in the late 70s. But in the mid 90s they announced that they were going to start production of their New Beetle. We were living in Salt Lake City at the time and Victoria and I made a trip to the dealership to see one. We weren’t in the market for another car. I was just curious about it.

After only a few minutes at the dealership I was ready to go. The car was nice but it just wasn’t what I had expected. The car was so different from the original Beetle that it left me pondering why they even continued to call it a Beetle. The Beetle, the original one designed by Dr. Porsche, had a flat-four air-cooled engine in the rear and was rear-wheel drive. All of those things are significant defining characteristics of the car. Yet this New Beetle had a straight-four, transversely mounted water-cooled engine in front of the car and was front-wheel drive. The New Beetle would resemble the original more if you drive it around backwards everywhere. Except for the rounded body styling it did not resemble the original at all. It was much more similar to the Golf, which I later found out the car was based on. Mechanically it was a Golf with just a throwback body styling. Don’t get me wrong, the Golf is a great car. It just ain’t a Beetle.

On the way home from the dealership I complained to Victoria and waxed philosophic about our experience. So how many details could they have changed and still made me comfortable with calling it a Beetle? I’ve blogged a little bit about this once before. I don’t know the answer to that question. But clearly they had changed too many for me. As cute as this new car was I just could not get comfortable with how drastically different it was. Why didn’t they just call it the VW Retro or something else? But as far as I was concerned it sure wasn’t a Beetle anymore.

For the past several years I’ve been going through a transformation too, not completely dissimilar to the example above.

For my whole life I’ve been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Mormons to most of the world. Mormons have a set of core beliefs that define them. Since I was a young child most of my beliefs have fallen well within the guidelines of the church. I was comfortable calling myself a Mormon and they were comfortable with me.

Like any healthy mind should, I continued to learn. A calling I had teaching Aaron’s Sunday School class got me really studying about the church. I read just about every history and biography I could about the church. After finding more questions than answers using the official, church sanctioned materials I was prompted to look elsewhere for some of my answers. I just couldn’t make certain aspects of the church’s history and doctrine line up without digging a little deeper. As I uncovered new truths, new to me at least, I did my best to incorporate them into my set of beliefs and still continue to call myself a Mormon. One issue at a time and little by little I found myself having to really bend over backwards to make myself fit into the mold that the church was providing. (I’ll spare the specifics of the changes for other posts. I’ve already detailed many of them over the last few years.) How many defining characteristics of being a Mormon could I change and still identify with the name? Like VW did with their Beetle I was rearranging and redesigning massive amounts of technical details while still doing my best to keep a rough tribute to the original.

A few months ago I was in another teaching position at church. The lesson for that day called for me to teach a principle that I no longer believed. In fact I found the whole Old Testament story of genocide difficult to even read. Yet I was being asked to tell the story and then give the official position of the church as if I believed it. I just couldn’t do it. It was an eye-opening experience for me. Just as if I had walked to the back of the car, popped the latch and sat there looking at a spare tire and an otherwise empty trunk rather than the engine compartment I had expected to be there. Things had changed. And I couldn’t stand at the back of the car and pretend that there was an engine back there anymore.

The next week I asked to speak to our Bishop and I told him what I was going through. This would be the third Bishop I’d conveyed my struggle to. At the time I just asked to be released from the teaching position. I just couldn’t be honest with myself and still teach from the official lesson plan.

So on the cusp of this new year I look back at where I was and where I am now. I no longer have so many of the characteristics that used to defined me as a Mormon. My beliefs have changed. Like the Beetle, do I still deserve the name? Am I still a car with a flat-four air cooled engine in the rear with rear-wheel drive? Or have I evolved into something else that deserves a different name? Here’s a little bumper sticker philosophy for you. “If you were accused of being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict?” or in my case, “If I were accused of being a Mormon would there be enough evidence to convict?” I just don’t know anymore. So that round car based on the Golf that VW came out with in the 90s, I’m just not comfortable calling it a Beetle. And whatever I have evolved into in the last several years probably deserves to be called something else too. I’m just not sure what it is yet.

Trying Not to be Cynical

Michael — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:22:00 +0000

So this morning I was approached by a woman at the gas station claiming her car had broken down and her kids were sleeping in the car. Yeah I know, it’s a typical panhandler line, but I was feeling charitable so I tried to help her and her kids out. I’d had a really bad week and I was projecting a little bit. If her week was half as bad as mine she could use someone to trust her.
Well to make a long story short: I never saw the kids or the truck and I got cussed out when I wouldn’t pay for a hotel room. I told her she could get out of my truck here or I could drop her off at the police station a block away.
Yeah I know it had all the signs of a scam from the beginning, but don’t they all? So here’s my question. How do you give people the benefit of a doubt without setting yourself up for being scammed? I stuck to my rule of helping rather than just giving them a handout. And I’m glad I did. But how do I now prevent this experience from jading me for next time? What tools do you use to tell who really needs help?

Priorities

Michael — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:52:00 +0000

One of the reasons I really enjoy rock climbing is because so much of what you learn on the rock carries over into our daily activities. Maybe this is just me but hear me out for a little bit.
A few weeks ago I guided a small group of boys form our church on a rock climbing trip. We went to a place that I know better than any other climbing area, Mount Yonah near Cleveland Georgia. After spending half the day climbing some relatively easy stuff a few of the guys wanted to do something harder. So I took Aaron and another boy, Alex, up to help me set up a few top ropes on the harder stuff. They had both shown considerable interest in learning how to safely set up the anchors. In order to get to the anchors for these routes we had to rappel off of the top of the rock which was over 200 feet tall and down to a ledge in the middle of the rock. I let Aaron rappel down to the ledge first since he had a little more experience than Alex. Alex would go next and I would come down to the ledge last. That way I could inspect everybody’s set-up before they rappelled.
So Aaron gets his rappel set and heads down to the ledge with no problem. That’s when all the drama started. You see the ledge was home to hundreds of biting ants. They were big red things with black abdomens. No sooner than Aaron got on the ledge and they were attacking his legs. It also seemed that the death of their sisters brought out even more worker ants to join in the attack. As bad as the ants were Aaron really had no choice but to stay on the ledge until Alex and I could get down to him, bring down the ropes and rappel the rest of the way to the ground.
So we did just that. Alex, knowing full well what he was getting into, rappelled down to the ledge, safely clipped into the anchors and proceeded to help Aaron slap off the ants until I could get down. I followed as quickly as I safely could and set up the ropes to get us off the rock. The whole process took about half an hour and we all had quite a few ant bites when the event was over.
I was very proud of Aaron and Alex for keeping their cool. It was a very stressful place to be. My biggest concern was that in spite of the ants they would abandon the relative safety of the ledge, unclip from the anchors and try to go over to another ledge without as many ants. They both realized that the ants were annoying but they weren’t deadly. Yet unclipping from the anchors to get away from them could be deadly. It’s in exactly these types of situations that it is even my important to do things correctly. Both the boys realized this and did everything they could to help me set up the anchors as fast a possible yet also as safely as possible.
As their guide for the trip I regret that they had to learn this lesson in such a stressful way but I’m glad that they learned that some things in life just aren’t worth the gamble. Many times in life what may seem like the quick and easy way to solve a problem may in fact be risking a whole lot more than if you patiently solved it the correct way.

Sibling Solidarity

Michael — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:37:00 +0000

(This is another personal post that will likely upset some readers.)

I love my kids. Sure they can frustrate the hell out of me sometimes but I still love them. I didn’t enjoy being a teenager and I can tell that my two teenagers aren’t exactly digging it either. It seems that most of their troubles come from peer pressure; so-called friends attacking them, frequently physically, for their opinions and beliefs and trying to get them to just go along with the crowd. What’s really upsetting to them is that most of this criticism comes from people whom they think should know better, members of our church. As a parent few thing make me more proud than when one kid stands up for the other, especially in a situation where they really don’t have anything to gain my doing it. We had just such a situation last night. And although it was very traumatic for her, I couldn’t have been more proud of my oldest daughter.
A little back history: Aaron hasn’t been attending church at our ward for the better part of a year now. He has been arranging, on his own, to get rides back and forth from the Brocket Ward. He gets along with the kids in that ward better, they accept him and genuinely love him. In stark contrast, the kids in our ward tease him, call him a Satanist and frequently physically assault him. In his own words it is rather ironic that the least spiritual hours of his week are spent at church. He doesn’t participate in the Varsity scout program on Wednesday night. We’ve moved him to another troop that is a real community troop where sharing the same religious upbringing is not a requirement to hold positions. He gets along much better with these guys. On Wednesday he even arranges for rides over to Brockett to hang out with the kids from that ward that he gets along with so well. In the entire time that he has been attending that Ward only one person from our ward has asked about Aaron. He was genuinely concerned and I thanked him for caring and not forgetting about him. Not a single other person has given us the slightest clue that they’ve even noticed his absence. In stark contrast, the leaders from Brockett comment to us about how they enjoy having him there and miss him when he’s gone.
Well last night I dropped Rachel off at the church for her Young Women’s activity. She typically doesn’t have the same issues as Aaron so I was a little surprised when Victoria brought her home and she was in tears. I asked her what was wrong. Rachel then proceeded to ask if she too could attend Brockett Ward rather than our ward. Apparently even in his absence Aaron is still a topic of conversation. A few of the kids were making fun of him and it really upset Rachel. I found a bit odd that their primary criticism of Aaron is that he “believes in evolution”. Rachel has never been one to gossip and hence she refused to tell me which kids were involved. But she did say that it really surprised her because she had though that these kids were above that. Apparently she had spent half of the meeting outside crying and just waiting for us to come pick her up.
Rachel didn’t openly defy these kids, that’s just not her style, but she did refuse to be a part of what they were doing. They still fight like, well brothers and sisters, but when the chips are down it’s really nice to see them standing up for what they know is right. Rachel didn’t want to tell anybody, especially Aaron, about what happened. I thought that he needed to hear it. After he was dropped off from his activity at Brockett we talked about it and he gave his little sister a nice big hug.

I chose to post this in order to add my name to Rachel’s. I stand behind my family. You criticize one of us you criticize us all. And we won’t tolerate it.

As far as the chief complaint lobbied again Aaron goes, Evolution is a fact. Get used to it. It used to be a theory but it has long ago graduated to a fact as far as I am concerned. I would even go so far as to say that evolution is more of a fact than gravity. Gravity is still lacking a clear definition of how it works. Like evolution gravity has been tested and tested and tested thousands of times but gravity is still lacking a carrier. We don’t quite know how it works. We have hypothesized the existence of the graviton, but haven’t actually seen one. In contrast we have found DNA and natural selection, the elements that make evolution work. So in a very real sense there is more evidence supporting evolution than gravity. In the past when people have asked me if I “believe” evolution I’ve had to rephrase their question in my answer. Because belief requires faith I don’t think it applies to evolution. Faith is a belief without evidence or even in spite of the evidence. You just aren’t looking if you don’t see evidence of evolution. So I respond something like this, “I accept the overwhelming evidence that life evolved via natural selection.”

"If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality." The Dalai Lama
Wise words. It's a shame more people don't apply this same idea to thier own beliefs. I'm glad my kids are.

Puzzles

Michael — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:53:00 +0000

It’s been a few years since I’ve done a jigsaw puzzle. But last month my youngest asked me to sit down with her and work on a small one that she got for Christmas.

This puzzle was of a horse wearing a Native American blanket. We went through all of the standard techniques for building a puzzle. First I propped up the box lid so we could see the picture that it was supposed to look like when it was finished. Then we proceeded to flip all of the pieces so that the picture side is up and the raw cardboard side was down. Next I started sorting out all of the pieces that had a flat side, assuming that these would be the border pieces. Ideally, in the process we’d find the four corner pieces. Then the two of us started sorting the pieces by color, trying to group the pieces into smaller groups to work on separately; horse, sky, grass, blanket, etc.

Next came the process of assembly. Each of us would pick up a piece and try to see how it fit into other sections that we’d already assembled. I started by looking at the picture and trying to establish the border. I don’t always start with the border but it seemed to work for this puzzle. Sometimes it’s easier to start with a predominant color and try to get it together first and then work in the border later. I don’t really have a preference as to which method I choose. It just depends on the puzzle.

Eventually you’ll end up with a few sections assembled but not linked together. At this point you start looking for pieces that have a little bit of two different things on it, pieces that could conceivably go into more than one pile. The pieces with a little grass and a little bit of horse help tie those together and the pieces with the grass and sky help defiant he horizon. The “ah ha” moments of most puzzles come when you can link two large parts together with just a few small pieces or sometimes with just one. The best pieces are the ones that help tie three different chunks together. Once you’ve linked them you start looking for support pieces that also connect those chucks. Those help reinforce that your linking pieces are correct. Sometimes they disconfirm and force you to look for new ways to link the puzzle together.

At some point it seems you are always stuck with a bunch of pieces of relatively the same color and your only clue as to how they need to be assembled is to look at the shape of the pieces themselves and try to make them work.

Using these methods we were able to assemble this 200 piece puzzle in about 15 or 20 minutes. It struck me that in order to assemble it we had to make several assumptions about the puzzle.

1. The picture on the puzzle is the same as the picture on the box. I’ve put puzzles together without the box just to see how much longer it would take. If I had to guess it’d take at least twice as long. I’ve also participated in a team building exercise where the puzzle was put into the wrong box with a similar but just different enough image n the outside.

2. The pieces only have images on one side and raw cardboard on the other. I have actually done a puzzle that had images on both sides, but the stamping process made for edges that were easy to determine which side of the piece was for image one and which was for image two.

3. Flat edges are for the border. It’d be really sneaky to see a puzzle that had a jagged edge to the image and flat pieces that but up together inside the body of the puzzle.

4. The completed puzzle has no missing pieces in the body. We’ve all been in the situation where we’ve lost one piece and we just don’t feel like we’ve finished it.

5. All of the pieces have to be used. Want to really throw your head for a loop? Throw in a few pieces from another puzzle just to spice things up. I remember doing a puzzle and my grandmother’s house and having exactly that problem. She’d found a few pieces on the floor and just threw them into the first box she found.

I can think of several more assumptions that we make when we try to make sense of the scrambled pieces in front of us. But this will do to start out with.

Lately I've been working on a puzzle that seems to violate all of these assumptions.
No picture on the outside of the box. No raw side to the puzzle and no obvious way to tell one side from the other. Flat edges in the middle and bumpy edges on the edges. A few holes in the main body. A few extra pieces from other puzzles.
And the coup de gras of the whole puzzle is that I have a few large chunks of the puzzle that don’t even attach to each other.

Anyway, that’s my little analogy for today. I think I stopped talking about jigsaw puzzles a few paragraphs ago.

Amen

Michael — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:04:00 +0000

I've just discovered this guy and I love his work. Far too much of what we call entertainment is about stuff that really doesn't matter. This guy is not.
He could have done with out the potty mouth on the last line but I wouldn't suggest he change it.

Civility

Michael — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Last week I was taking my lunch hour walk and listening to podcasts just like I do every day that the weather will allow. I came across an interesting scene that at first I didn’t know what to make of it. A white car was pulled off to the side of the road and an elderly lady was standing in the sidewalk. A man in overalls was doing something to the front of her car. Parked across the street was a small pickup truck with some appliances and tools in the back. The truck had some minor damage to the rear bumper. The scene was kinda odd. That’s when it hit me what had happened any why I thought it was so abnormal.
From what I could piece together the truck and the elderly lady were at the same light and she rear-ended him as he was turning and she was going straight. Both car had a little bit of damage but the truck driver apparently didn’t think his damage was bad enough to get upset about. On top of that he seemed to have to tools in his truck to help the lady fix her car. He was hammering out the bumper and even had some kind of buffing compound to clean up where the plastic bumper cover had been discoloured.
All too often, we hear on the news and the radio about how this world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket. It was very refreshing to see that human decency and civility can still exist in a situation. All it takes if for cooler heads to prevail and people to treat each other the way they would like to be treated. I hope to see more of these type situations. I will consciously look for opportunities where I can help to create them.