My CMS The View from a New City

Browsing though the internet news apps and Youtube gives one a smorgasbord of stories about the evils occurring these days. This morning I have had an epiphany about this state of affairs. “You Can’t be Cheated.” I am here for the experiences, both good and bad. I am under no obligation to ingest the bad news stories and to then disseminate them to others. “Time wounds all heals.” It is not my job to point out to others what must be obvious to those with eyes to see. Rather I need to focus on my actual current state of affairs and to give thanks for the many glories I am privileged to experience.

Another very interesting video. I should link it to my mysteries app.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McUvvaCMzk0

I just watched this and am moved to recommend it as good and true to everyone I know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGrYL0diuxo

When I was a soldier in Vietnam, one day our little column was moving through the jungle, somewhere between Saigon and the Cambodian border. As we came over a rise, I saw jungle stretched out before us with its meadows, rivers and streams. Even though the spirit of war and the threat of death hung over everything, the view was so beautiful that it still lives in my memory. Recently I had the opportunity to return to Vietnam and revisit the area where I served. The jungle was all gone, turned to a multitude of little rubber tree plantations. The place I had seen no longer exists. This experience has caused me to move from a view of the world as a collection of objects and toward the view of the world as a series of events. You can never step into the same river twice.

I am neither rich, nor famous. I have published no books, nor won any great awards. It seems the headwinds of life have been blowing throughout my career. I had to sue my longest term client to overcome its breach of contract and get compensated for years of faithful work. etc… Sometimes I feel like reciting Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
……..

But when I do, I know it is a lie. Our first child was born when I was making a dollar an hour, milking cows. I had to check our third child out of the hospital using a credit card. Without patron or much in the way of visible means of support, my wife and I raised, clothed and educated six children. We are now the proud progenitors of twenty five ( soon to be twenty six) souls. And there appears to be no end in sight. Truly an eternal blessing that flows without compulsory means forever. Even in hindsight, I can’t account for how we pulled it off. Only by the grace of God.

See this discussion of numbers that demonstrate the wisdom of the last post. Listen for the quote, “…one day but not now.”

I recently watched a YouTube commentator waxing wise about the things people fret over during their lives which they realize, upon reaching 70, were not worth the effort. The list included such things as social status and career.

The other day I was talking with a neighbor who is suffering from several age related maladies. I commented that we would obviously not be running any more marathons together. I noted that as those words came across my lips , i felt not a hint of regret. I later reflected upon the point, in my last marathon, where I was suffering the pain that inevitably comes toward the end of that race. I said to myself, ” you better enjoy this last three miles, because you are never going to be twenty-three miles into a run again in your life.”

The later stages of life reveal certain truths. One such truth is that their are things which can only be accomplished by the young. Obviously, you have to bear your children while you can. To my descendants I would say, if you have a choice and if you waste that period of your life only pursuing worldly status, or a ‘career,’ you will eventually have regrets.

Joseph Smith was a prophet. His view into truth and the future is revealed in this quote:

…while one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard; he views them as His offspring, and without any of those contracted feelings that influence the children of men, causes “His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” He holds the reins of judgment in His hands; He is a wise Lawgiver, and will judge all men, not according to the narrow, contracted notions of men, but, “according to the deeds done in the body whether they be good or evil,” or whether those deeds were done in England, America, Spain, Turkey or India. He will judge them, “not according to what they have not, but according to what they have,” those who have lived without law, will be judged without law, and those who have a law, will be judged by that law. We need not doubt the wisdom and intelligence of the Great Jehovah; He will award judgment or mercy to all nations according to their several deserts, their means of obtaining intelligence, the laws by which they are governed, the facilities afforded them of obtaining correct information, and His inscrutable designs in relation to the human family; and when the designs of God shall be made manifest, and the curtain of futurity be withdrawn, we shall all of us eventually have to confess that the Judge of all the earth has done right.
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, page 218.

When Job complained to God about how he was being treated, God replied that Job did not even know what God was trying to accomplish.

1. No person should obey or enforce unlawful orders.
2. Each person must decide for themselves what is lawful or unlawful, giving appropriate weight to lawful authorities.
3. Each person must decide for themselves the likely consequences of disobedience and act accordingly, but some sacrifice of personal interest or convenience is appropriate in support of the rule of law.
4. Violent resistance to unlawful orders is no more lawful than violent enforcement of unlawful orders.

Few things are as pathetic as a billionaire who is still trying to make more money.