My CMS The View from a New City

When I was young, I suffered under the illusion that temporal success and societal advancement were always connected with merit. It was a constant theme in much of the literature, philosophy and self-help books that I was raised on. This illusion began to suffer cracks in the foundation when I attended a college graduation ceremony some years ago and realized that the principal qualification of some receiving honorary degrees was their ability and willingness to donate large sums of money to the college holding the ceremony.

Over my years of practicing law, I became slowly aware that many who were promoted to prominent positions or celebrated as the lights of the profession were were chosen from a range of persons who varied widely in their intellectual, psychological and moral merit.

The final nail in this illusion’s coffin was pounded home when the American electorate, in their wisdom, selected Donald J. Trump as president of the United States, although the reverence I had been taught to hold for U.S. presidents had already suffered from the administration of Richard Nixon. However, Donald J. Trump’s total lack of qualification to hold any position of influence or power has sealed the deal on this issue.

When I was young, I lived in Richfield, Utah for a time. At that time, Richfield only had one radio station that specialized in livestock markets and crop markets. I heard that a distant station could be heard on a specific frequency. Thinking the secrets of the universe could be heard on this new and exotic station, I dialed up the frequency. Sure enough, a station from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma came up. It played cowboy music.

Later I had friends who were ham radio operators and could communicate to other ham radio operators anywhere in the world. I thought surely this world-wide reach would reveal the secrets of the universe, coded in the morse code. But after a lengthy investigation, I found that the only subject discussed by the ham radio operators was their radios.

Lately there has been a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence taking over the world. When this happens, AI surely must contain the secrets of the universe. I suspect, however, that when AI collects all the available human knowledge it will turn out to be a huge collection of cowboy music and cat videos.

As Kurt Goedel demonstrated, no computational system can resolve all issues without help from a meta-system outside the system. I would contend that without revelation from God, the secrets of the universe will not be known.

I have come to understand that people don’t know what justice is. I am a lawyer, but when I use the word “people”, I am not talking about non-lawyers, I am talking about everyone. The whole legal industry is built upon doing justice without an accepted, accurate definition of what justice is. People think that justice equals equality. Political parties and revolutionary movements are founded on the principle that justice requires equality. I believe that history has proven that even financial equality cannot be achieved, to say nothing of real equality, and that the pursuit of equality through force or fiat has caused rampant injustice.

Recent events have demonstrated that the idea that the rich and famous are superior in every way is a myth. The Bible calls this “the deceitfulness of riches.” It is not justice to make everyone rich and famous, nor is it justice to make everyone equally poor. It is probably impossible to do so. There will always be rich and poor.

A better definition for justice is to be found in the 104th section of the Doctrine and Covenants:

13 For it is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures.

14 I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine.

15 And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine.

16 But it must needs be done in mine own away; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.

17 For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.

18 Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.

As these verses demonstrate, real justice requires freedom and stewardship, not state imposed equality.

Anticipating an upcoming cruise, I am remembering an analogy from an unremembered source comparing a sea journey to life: early in the trip you are concerned with how many dinners you will enjoy with the captain, or what the view is from your cabin, but as the trip draws to a close, these concerns disappear. And so it is.

12:21 a.m. January 5, 2023: Woke up and can’t fall back to sleep. Thinking about the cornucopia of experiences of my life from childhood in Montana to dragging McArthur Blvd in Oakland California to milking cows to studying English Lit. to facing death in Vietnam to marriage and six children to burying my oldest child to winning and losing jury trials and supreme court cases to winning a multimillion-dollar arbitration against IHC to serving as bishop and stake presidency counselor to implementing computer programs in C, C++, Java, ADF, JavaScript, Xml, Json etc… Thinking of how the four trunks Joe Banks got from the man for whom “luggage is the central preoccupation of my life,” and how those trunks symbolize the four canopic jars under the sacrificial altar of Abraham in facsimile no. 1 from the Pearl of Great Price. Thinking about talking to Ambassadors and Counsel’s General and presenting to the Religion Writer’s Assoc. and sitting on the dais at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan New York. Thinking of how life is so much more magical and rewarding than anything in the Wizard of Oz and how fears of failure and starvation were so misplaced in a world created for us in which there is “enough and to spare.” Euphoria!

Some time ago, I watched a movie called Catch and Release. I believe the title is a metaphor for the modern dating culture where no relationship lasts very long. In the movie, the female character, Jennifer Garner, complained to the male lead about the absurdity of catch and release fishing. She said, “if you inflict the pain of catching the fish, you should at least put it to some use.” The fisherman justified the practice by saying that the fish brain is so small, they don’t remember the experience at all.

Can that be the justification for modern adult dating? The other person is so damaged that the pain won’t matter. This has to be the very definition of objectification.

To all of my children and grandchildren whom I have discouraged from becoming lawyers, I submit the following quote in my defense. This is President Russell M. Nelsen quoting Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer and the president who presided over the civil war:

As we dread any disease that undermines the health of the body, so should we deplore contention, which is a corroding canker of the spirit. I appreciate the counsel of Abraham Lincoln, who said:

“Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. … Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him.” (Letter to J. M. Cutts, 26 Oct. 1863, in Concise Lincoln Dictionary of Thoughts and Statements, comp. and arr. Ralph B. Winn, New York: New York Philosophical Library, 1959, p. 107.)

Last night I dreamed that one of my grandchildren married a New York socialite and they returned to their luxurious New York apartment after the wedding to prepare for the reception, but it was full of the bride’s socialite relatives bringing presents, socializing and making business deals. My job was to drive them off so the couple could prepare for the reception, but no one was paying me the least attention.

This dream has caused me to reflect on a General Conference talk I heard over the weekend. Elder Bednar talked about the Savior’s parable of the wedding feast. The invited guests refused to attend because they had to attend to their farms and businesses. He concluded the reference to the parable with the quote “many are called but few are chosen.” Then he refenced that phrase from the Doctrine and Covenants where it explains why they are not chosen: “…because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men….”

My own experience has demonstrated to me that the world is governed by the second law of thermodynamics. Everything wears out, rusts, runs down or dies. As I said to our fireside group: “every time I impressed a judge in my law practice, he either retired or died soon thereafter.” Earthly success is like building sandcastles on the beach. It is not a smart move to pass up God’s marriage feast for the honors of men.

In my last post I told you of my glorious summer events. I want to re-visit those events now to show you a couple of golden nuggets I recovered from the experience.

On the Alaska trip we met an extended Jewish family from Indiana. On the first night I sat at the dinner table with them and finding that I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of them asked me in jest how many wives I had. At dinner the next night, my grandson told them I had eight, but during the rest of the conversation it was revealed that I only have one and am very happy with that. However, thinking about that conversation now, it occurs to me that I could have told them that my great-great-grandfather had six wives and now has well over fifty-five thousand descendants. My one wife and I had six children and now have seventeen grandchildren, with more possible. We have done our part to counter the current world-wide blight: see The Demographic Drought, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w05QgHwq8Ig.

When my wife and I were on our missions in Manhattan, New York, we heard Gordon Smith, the former two term Senator from Oregon tell this story: While he was still senator, President Uchtdorf of the Churches first presidency called him and asked for his help in getting the Church fully registered in Italy. Senator Smith set up a meeting in Italy with the interior minister that he and President Uchtdorf attended. After President Uchtdorf’s initial presentation, the minister, who appeared somewhat skeptical, asked her assistant what he thought. He said that he had visited Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah and had been conducted on a tour by two Italian young lady missionaries. Then he said, “if your church can produce young women like that, we want you in Italy, and what’s more, we would like you to build a square like that in Italy” to which president Uchtdorf replied, “We can do that!”

This sounds like a pretty incredible story, but this summer we witnessed the proof of its truth when we visited the breathtaking Rome Temple and walked around the wonderful “temple square” surrounding it.

It has been a while since the last post. I have been busy this Summer. First, I got to go on a dream fishing trip to Alaska, flying on a private jet to Alaska then flying on a pontoon plane to the individual fishing venues. I caught Graylings, Rainbows, Sockeye Salmon and King Salmon. Next, my wife and I just returned from a trip to Europe where we visited Rome, Munich, and Paris. We saw the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany. We were not planning this trip, but our friend had to give up his tickets because of cancer treatment, so we purchased them from him. Finally, we are going to visit our son and daughter-in-law to see our newest grandchild. Life is good these days.

Just listened to an audio book called Love and War, where Mary Matalin and James Carville narrate the virtues of New Orleans and tell how two people with opposing political views can stay happily married. Carville said about issues of dispute, “you have to carefully choose the hills you are willing to die on.”