tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21548760563798882052024-03-19T09:57:11.150-07:00RED In TransitionMy middle-aged musings as I journey through transitional places in my life.REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.comBlogger195125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-88244591543023147422016-03-23T19:11:00.000-07:002016-03-23T19:11:24.268-07:00My Last Posting in RED In Transition<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxYS-ASABvfPKlpQcei15mgUfjfFaohypXBTbItLmayHOF9TVcdgmPF9Gda1k7hhSpX_9eQaRPzvtaIBvoERwtEaGGy-9Pr9GnBASVGoE4-GFwax-EdpBxPxJEE5Bm_5u5jsvBZcWnMdM/s1600/Best+Pictures+50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxYS-ASABvfPKlpQcei15mgUfjfFaohypXBTbItLmayHOF9TVcdgmPF9Gda1k7hhSpX_9eQaRPzvtaIBvoERwtEaGGy-9Pr9GnBASVGoE4-GFwax-EdpBxPxJEE5Bm_5u5jsvBZcWnMdM/s640/Best+Pictures+50.jpg" width="488" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A picture from my Alaska adventure that was the subject of my first posting on this Blog!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In July of 2011, I decided to launch my blog RED In Transition. Some 195 postings and over 30,000 domestic and international views later, I have decided to not publish any more. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As stated on my homepage, I have blogged because I need to blog. Other than talking with my wife, this place has been where I have processed my thoughts and feelings, where I have shared my interests, where I have been open. It has been therapeutic for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've wondered if I just needed to be true to myself and damn the torpedoes. I feel that I can be true to myself in a safe way by continuing to write, but to write for myself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I have come to appreciate the fact, and it is a fact whether I like it or not, that because of the psychotherapy work that I do, I do not have the luxury to be so open in written form. The "down" side of being so transparent outweighs the "up" side.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It might be different if my some of my thoughts were more "mainstream," but they have the potential (and in one case have already caused a problem) for someone who has read or in the future to find this blog and use it to support a position against me. Even though that risk is small, there is the risk, and I've decided it is not worth it. I am going to delete from the blog history any postings that might be viewed as being controversial. I will put them in my blog which I have kept exclusively for me, and eventually, my posterity. I definitely want my posterity to know me. That has been one of the main reasons for writing in RED In Transition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have used Facebook to direct people to this blog. I will obviously no longer be doing that. I have decided to not write about myself in any way on Facebook and just post what to me are clever or unusual things on there. I just can't afford (figuratively and literally) to be so open about myself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">This does not mean that I will not continue to write in my professional blog REDMFT.blogspot.com. I will write there, and perhaps more than I have been in the recent past. I have a easy-to-read writing style, and I believe I have ideas to share with my therapy clients.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I want anyone who reads this last posting and who has been reading this blog for awhile or who may have commented on it, that I have appreciated that attention. I didn't really write to have large numbers read it; my views numbers have always been modest. I wrote because this shy redhead wanted the world, and especially those who know me, to understand my life. I wanted to perhaps help someone who might be experiencing what I have or something similar to it. I wanted to challenge people in some cases to think about their views.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So thank you. Thank you a lot! </span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-46822512134504856512016-02-22T16:32:00.002-08:002016-02-22T16:52:01.045-08:00Musical Guilty Pleasures -- Part Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So here is a second edition of my Guilty Pleasures. I was frustrated that I was unable to upload onto this blog the exact videos of the songs. There must be some copyright issues or something. Anyway, here are another ten guilty pleasures. Like the first edition, I own all of these, be they on mp3 or CD.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Go Down Gamblin'</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I really liked the horn-infused vibe of Blood, Sweat and Tears. David Clayton Thomas was one of the best lead singers of any group. This is one of my favorite rockers from this group who was "competition" at one point with a similarly horn-infused, jazzy Chicago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Baby I'm a Want You</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bread appealed to my soft rock period in the late 60s and early 70s. Saw them in concert and learned that the lead singer, David Gates, had Mormon ancestry (guess in which state I saw the concert?) That's him on the right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Bring Him Home</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is not so obscure, except my guilty pleasure is that I like Hugh Jackman singing this incredible song. Every time I hear this song I think not only of Les Miserable, but also, about my own boys and my feelings about them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Lean On Me</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bill Withers originally did this song, but I really like the funky cover that Club Nouveau did. "We be jammin!'"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Auld Triangle</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like in my first list, I have fallen in love with The High Kings. This song is about loving a woman who is incarcerated by a man who is also incarcerated, and is sung a'cappella--without accompaniment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Lonely Looking Sky</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I first heard the music to <i>Jonathan Livingston Seagull</i> by Neil Diamond while living and working in Argentina. Thus for me it has a strong emotional connection. The music is very introspective and shows Diamond's talent in my opinion. For me, this song creates a mood.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Simply Irresistible </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This popular song by the late Robert Palmer is a favorite. When I hear it, I often think of the video. For some reason, I could not pull it up; thus, there simply is a picture of him and the "clone girls." By the way, this is an extended version of this driving tune.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>1979</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yes, I do listen to some semi-modern tunes. This one from the Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins is certainly a guilty pleasure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Me Wise Magic</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is a bonus track off of one of Van Halen's Best ofs. (They've put out a few.) I like this tune because of its driving sound, in-your-face musicianship from Eddie, and typical David Lee Roth vocals (although he sings part of it in his lower register.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Yoda</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I guess all of Weird Al's tunes are guilty pleasures, and this one is an oldie but goodie, a take-off of the song <i>Lola </i>by The Kinks. One of my fond memories was when my four kids, wife and I were singing this song driving around the Tacoma, Washington area in the late 80s. It is not difficult to upload from You Tube the actual videos associated with his songs, but for some reason, they cannot be uploaded and placed in my blog. Thus, this is a concert clip of him doing this song (for about the first 3'20") about the Jedi of all Jedis!</span><br />
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REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-36360937853261501602016-02-18T08:26:00.001-08:002016-02-18T08:32:54.117-08:00Red Rocks Canyon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Some 45 minutes north of Lancaster, California, on Highway 14, is a not-too-well-known California State Park known as Red Rocks Canyon. Most of the red rocks are on the other side of the highway from where these pictures are taken. This sandstone/limestone? paradise is quite visually stunning and has been in numerous Hollywood motion pictures and MTV videos. </div>
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I drive by the Park when I am traveling to Ridgecrest, and while I have stopped to take pictures of the red rocks on the other side, I had wanted to visit the Ricardo Campground to see more stunning landscape. I thought it would be a fantastic place to take pictures, and I was not disappointed.</div>
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Let me take you for a brief photographic tour of what my wife and I saw and experienced. I apologize to any picky photographers because these are un-photoshopped and shot without filters. What you will see is pretty much what I saw as is.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7qC8NXSQE__V5AYzgKLp5kj26CZRAhVwSBg7Gu_fITEuMokH0G6PhydmTrNhIK4-7tKCacRRDHOVl65fSghqcOj9pq8eH48mUGKCgeHmdDPWah4zp3kj5j-ZHzFn0pAmBJz-kkCJM-VA/s1600/RRC+65.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7qC8NXSQE__V5AYzgKLp5kj26CZRAhVwSBg7Gu_fITEuMokH0G6PhydmTrNhIK4-7tKCacRRDHOVl65fSghqcOj9pq8eH48mUGKCgeHmdDPWah4zp3kj5j-ZHzFn0pAmBJz-kkCJM-VA/s640/RRC+65.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
My wife said that this place was like a big beach sand castle! I thought that was a great description. As you can see, the sand castles are pretty substantial. There are gaps or slots between some of the "pillars."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JWGvAcqZ5UhfD1oLR2hSm0iT2uDFJYHs_M2ePhGJtB3IRMnREIpdoEUsq-xfhVuKrddk-ib0LEtI7sqSCH2qawoF0H1kt7jWjzMFllfWAj3edCcxhc9zMjpwedAlD1cubKRKfJp0z-w/s1600/RRC+70.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JWGvAcqZ5UhfD1oLR2hSm0iT2uDFJYHs_M2ePhGJtB3IRMnREIpdoEUsq-xfhVuKrddk-ib0LEtI7sqSCH2qawoF0H1kt7jWjzMFllfWAj3edCcxhc9zMjpwedAlD1cubKRKfJp0z-w/s640/RRC+70.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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There was sand everywhere (obviously!) The brochure at the Ranger Station said that this area was under water at one time.</div>
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Here you can get a scale of the enormity of some of the sand spires and how there are slots betweeen them. They are simply fascinating!</div>
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Between the sand spires, there occasionally were spaces like the one above and the one below. Some were too small to enter into; others just barely passable. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5ToiuH0pcd1cgbjFVyYptbNPYnYVxQWdbc1UM_Sqpj_IQ9DeJsqfmAg3ITm_PqPmizNKEO1NyddN1MYaBfbhyphenhyphenv9QZL34gPIrApaZa780f7cUUR5Cv4-glDEnjPEcmLi0_pTJYtU-CP0/s1600/RRC+17A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5ToiuH0pcd1cgbjFVyYptbNPYnYVxQWdbc1UM_Sqpj_IQ9DeJsqfmAg3ITm_PqPmizNKEO1NyddN1MYaBfbhyphenhyphenv9QZL34gPIrApaZa780f7cUUR5Cv4-glDEnjPEcmLi0_pTJYtU-CP0/s640/RRC+17A.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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What was amazing was sometimes what you would find in these slots once you were able to squeeze your way inside of them. The next few pictures are from slots that we were able to enter. They often were quite stunning. I would point my camera skyward and shoot. It was really something to be in such a wondrous, secluded place where few people have been. I say secluded because many were very difficult to access. For some reason, I didn't feel claustrophobic like I have felt in other tight places.</div>
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You could see texture on the walls in most of the slots. They almost seemed other worldly, as you can see from the photos below.</div>
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This photo below was taken outside of a slot, still pointing the camera upward but witnessing the other worldliness of the scene.<br />
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This last picture took a little bit to get to in order to shoot it, but I thought it was worth the effort. Rome has its Roman architecture, Red Rocks has Mother Nature!<br />
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<br />REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-2865528980450165762016-02-10T17:03:00.000-08:002016-02-11T08:34:38.384-08:00Near Death Experiences <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For some reason, my wife became very intrigued by near-death experiences (NDE). Some of the people who have experienced these unique, unforgettable experiences have written books about them. I likewise have become intrigued with NDEs as well, as we have listened to books about them on CD while traveling and while driving to and from work. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXefwXDnDkKKeuC_VNI67HZZjD16pelGa6egatGbUrGZhAngbok-Z7wCtZ0GKN_Pit4ex2bSCLiLquNgxLx1BFhI0Cd9w_99p3ipDXfvfATx-O_FdNVpvz5-Cq88E94fsiiiR-Nea9YAU/s1600/Anita+Moorjani.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXefwXDnDkKKeuC_VNI67HZZjD16pelGa6egatGbUrGZhAngbok-Z7wCtZ0GKN_Pit4ex2bSCLiLquNgxLx1BFhI0Cd9w_99p3ipDXfvfATx-O_FdNVpvz5-Cq88E94fsiiiR-Nea9YAU/s400/Anita+Moorjani.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Those who have had NDEs are from all walks of life and from all over the world. Among them are atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Buddhists, evangelicals, and Mormons. Whenever I learn about someone of my faith experiencing an NDE, my interest is piqued and I listen to what sometimes is familiar to me as interpreted by them. I have come to understand that most of the time, people who have NDEs see what they are experiencing are through the lens of their life experiences. (How else could they?) And if they have some religious background, they observed the events through that lens. Because everyone is different, it only stands to reason that their NDEs are not the same.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All of these experiences, no matter who relates them, are </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">amazing</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> and </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">challenging</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. I write </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">amazing</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> because these people supposedly have caught a glimpse of what it is like to be in the "other realm." They relate incredible experiences of a place where there is no time, where they feel unconditional love from those whom they encounter there, where there is no pain or anguish or sorrow. Some have often struggled as to whether to return to mortality, and most then struggle to put into words what they witnessed while out of their bodies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I write </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">challenging</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> because of how their experiences can sometimes conflict with what I have been taught in my Church concerning the doctrines of the "after life." These NDE stories confirm a belief that inside of our bodies is a spirit and that those spirits do not die when our bodies die but continue on. These stories often treat the subject of a being or entity that governs the after life and from whom emanates pure love. But they also sometimes relate experiences about multiple earth experiences, multiple dimensions, or karma.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I find that they demand of me to consider that my religious teachings may not contain all that there is to know about what transpires upon death. They demand of me to be open to new ideas. They challenge me to be available to entertain new truths.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One thing is for sure, those who return to mortality having been out of their mortal bodies come back very changed. They see everybody and every thing in a new way. They no longer can be who they were before. Their previous views, ideas and beliefs no longer serve them; they want more. They often have greater understanding of their place in the universe, how interconnected we all are, how precious life is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I have listened to their stories, it has brought me to serious reflection. I have considered how fragile and short my life is. They have helped me to keep my life in better perspective, to not sweat the small stuff, to consider what is my potential, to better realize how connected I am to everyone else. They have helped me to realize more than ever that the most important thing that I can do during my mortal sojourn is to love and to try to do so unconditionally. </span><br />
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REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-82320192087826955522016-02-07T22:47:00.000-08:002016-02-07T22:47:16.216-08:00Musical Guilty Pleasures -- Part One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I listen to all kinds of music constantly, mostly on my I Phone, sometimes on the radio, sometimes on Pandora. It is part of the fabric of my life. As I have written previously on this blog, my tastes are all over the place. There are a few tunes that I enjoy listening to that are not very mainstream. These tunes often are not well known and not the most notable songs from a particular artist. I call them my guilty pleasures. I thought I would find some of these on You Tube and share them. I hope you could enjoy them as well.</div>
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I love Diana Krall and her sensuous alto voice. I like so many of her songs, but I chose this cover of the Eagles song of the same name. "<i>Come down from your fences before it's too late</i>."</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BoWgjz0A_Gs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BoWgjz0A_Gs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<i>Desperado</i> -- Diana Krall</div>
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Beck is a performer born near where we used to live on Mt. Washington here in Los Angeles. He refuses to be pidgeonholed into a certain genre. This particular tune is one that I like to play for some of my Latino friends. This particular video lacks the charm of the original recording which I was unable to find online. "<i>Que onda guero?</i>"</div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/u2-l__WFjb8/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u2-l__WFjb8?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<i>Guero</i> -- Beck</div>
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My college years were filled with The Carpenters. This tune was a cover of a Beatles song called <i>Ticket to Ride</i>f from their very first album. Richard Carpenter is a great arranger, and I love what he did with it. I really like singing along with this song. She was a young 19 year old when this tune was cut. "<i>Think I'm gonna be sad</i>!"</div>
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<i>Ticket to Ride</i> -- The Carpenters</div>
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The High Kings are an Irish group I have fallen in love with. This likely is a drinking song, as are a number of their songs, and it has a catchy melody. They are fun to listen to, and this is one of my favorite songs that they do. "<i>1-2-3-4-5, hey</i>!"</div>
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<i>Rocky Road to Dublin</i> -- The High Kings</div>
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This tune is one of their more well known offerings. But the Ramones are from the punk rock genre, and were punk rockers before most of the others punk rockers. Their music is full of energy and I like this song along with the fun <i>I Wanna Be Sedated</i>. Blitzkreig Bop was the first cut of their very first album. "<i>He ho, let's go</i>!"</div>
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<i>Blitzkrieg Bop -- </i>The Ramones</div>
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What would a rock music guilty pleasure list be without an offering from Weird Al Yankovic? Many of his tunes are guilty pleasures and have been for many years. Here is one of my favorites, a cover that got him in trouble with Coolio, the performer of the original song "<i>Gangsta's Paradise</i>." "<i>We're gonna party like its 1699</i>!" His lyrics are the bomb!</div>
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<i>Amish Paradise</i> -- Weird Al Yankovic</div>
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Steely Dan is a basically a two-man group that had a long list of jazzy rock songs. Their album <i>Pretzel Logic</i> is one of my favorites, and the bluesy title cut is one of my favorite tunes of the album. "<i>Where did you get those shoes</i>?" Walter Becker and Donald Fagan put out some great music!</div>
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<i>Pretzel Logic</i> -- Steely Dan </div>
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People my age are familiar with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Her Albert went on to form a record company with a friend Jerry Moss called A&M Records. In 1979-1980, he decided to go back into the studio (his own) and perform again. This instrumental cut, called <i>Rise</i>, is one of my favorite cuts from this really great album, in my estimation. I believe the woman in the video is Lani from Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 who became Herb's wife.</div>
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<i>Rise</i> -- Herb Alpert</div>
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One of the great super groups of all time was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Neil Young has had a great solo career, but I really like this particular not-to-wellknown tune about loved ones who have died from drug addiction. "<i>Every junkie's like a setting sun</i>."</div>
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<i>The Needle and the Damage Done</i> -- Neil Young</div>
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The film<i> O Brother, Where Art Thou?</i> was a great movie and this tune by Alison Kraus was a memorable song of a memorable baptismal scene. I really like this a'cappella tune. "<i>Let's go down, come on down</i>."</div>
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<i>Down to the River to Pray</i> -- Alison Krauss</div>
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This last tune is perhaps my greatest guilty pleasure of them all. In the late 60s and 70s, many rock groups did "theme albums." The idea is that the group would do a complete album around a given theme. Some of the more memorable theme albums of this era were <i>Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band</i> and <i>Magical Mystery Tour</i> by The Beatles, <i>Dark Side of the Moon</i> by Pink Floyd, <i>Pet Sounds</i> by The Beach Boys, and <i>Days of Future Past</i> by The Moody Blues. </div>
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Perhaps the most bizarre and uncharacteristic LP of this theme album era was from The Osmonds. Known for light weight, bubble gum-type music, these Mormon boys from Utah decided to break out of the image they had been given to the degree that they could, and do a theme album about a doctrinal subject--The Plan of Salvation, trying to deal with existential questions such as "where did I come from," "why am I here," and "where am I going." The album is all over the place musically, very uncharacteristic of the music for which they were known. One of the last songs of this album dealt with the last days, the time Mormons believe that will preceed the coming of Jesus Christ again to the earth.</div>
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This song, named "<i>The Last Days</i>" is an edgy (for them) hard rocking work. It sounds very 70ish, but you have to hand it to them for making the attempt. I can't say that I really care for the album itself musically, but I like to listen to this interesting song by the five brothers from my tribe. "<i>Nations take up their battle stations.</i>"</div>
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<i>The Last Days</i> -- The Osmonds</div>
REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-12495860848427473172016-01-28T10:59:00.000-08:002016-01-31T21:17:29.732-08:00Aloneness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Reflecting upon my early years, I have concluded that I was essentially raised as an only child. My brother got married right before I turned three years old, and I have no memory of him being at home. My sister got married when I turned five, and I only have a couple of memories from her time at home. From five on, I had no siblings to interact with. For that matter, I don't remember my parents interacting with me very much. In this regard, I would refer the reader to view my earlier blog posting "A Long Time Ago," from October 29, 2014.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since being alone was my "normal," I didn't think my lone life was abnormal. There was no brooding, no "my life really sucks," I don't know that I really thought that it was a big deal to not have brothers or sisters at home, even though all of my friends seemed to have siblings at home. I had a few neighborhood friends and knew some kids at school, and it seemed like a pretty typical situation outside of my family. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I remember thinking that my parents were a little old but that they loved me, not realizing at the time that they didn't often interact with me.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't recall feeling very lonely, but then, that was many years ago and I don't recall a lot of things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the results of my fairly solitary life was having a rich inner life. That is, lacking significant interaction with others, and not having a pet, I would have interactions with myself--in my mind. I believe that I got used to thinking about things, to entertain myself with my thoughts, to basically talk to myself, although I don't recall that I actually had verbal conversations! I lived in my head.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I need to express that I believe that my <u>nature</u> is to be shy and introverted. I believe that I came to earth this way. I also believe that the <u>nurture</u> I am writing about provided ample opportunites to be shy and unsure of myself, even though </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I learned to be "self-sufficient," to take care of myself, to try to make sense of my experiences. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But because there was precious little emotional interaction, especially with my parents, I can see now that I was hungry for approval, for some response that I was doing okay. In fact, in retrospect, I wanted to have any interaction at all to break through the "aloneness" and shyness of my life. In retrospect, I believe that there was a sense of emotional abandonment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wrote in the blog posting referred to above about feelings of emotional abandonment from my father. But there was an interesting dynamic in my relationship with my mother that likewise produced emotional abandonment, of my own doing to be sure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My mother developed colon cancer when I was very young and had to have major surgery in which part of her colon was removed. The result was having to have a colostomy for the rest of her life. Another result was that my mother experienced a "nervous breakdown," or so I was told. The surgery altered the appearance of her lower torso, and I deduce that it had a chilling effect on my father. I am not sure that there were not other emotional issues present before this occurred with her, but their relationship was not emotionally fulfilling for her. My father never spoke to me about his relationship with my mother. During my growing up years, if my mother thought that my father was either physically or emotionally attaching to something or someone else, especially a woman, it rocked her world. She could not handle it. It made her incredibly needy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The result of this dynamic back then was that since she was unable to have a normal, healthy emotional connection with my father, she turned her neediness onto the only other person in the home--me. Her neediness for me at times seemed completely smothering. Because it felt overwhelming as I became a teenager and even after I got married, I pushed back, throwing up an emotional boundary to preserve myself. As such, I felt the need to retreat back into my "aloneness" because I didn't feel safe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My adult life has been a journey of looking for attachment. I have often said in therapy that if we do not deal with and try to resolve our childhood issues, they will play out in our adult lives, to our detriment. It has been a journey of hoping that people can reach through my solitude and connect with me, which is really unfair. It has been a burden I have placed unfairly on my wife, and for which I am deeply sorry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because of my shyness and introversion, I costs me somewhat to reach out through my solitude to connect with others. I have realized that if I want the dynamic to change that it ultimately is up to me to change it, to reach out. I am responsible to for my own needs, not my spouse or anyone else. I am not always successful at this endeavor, but "if it is to be, it is up to me." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-16019452616379800712016-01-26T17:14:00.001-08:002016-01-26T17:26:53.875-08:00Hanging with the Servants of Satan<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">Like the initial Affirmation
Conference which I attended in 2014, I came away from this most recent one held in
Los Angeles on January 15-17 feeling somewhat sad, but hopeful and connected. Some 125 people attended, held on the Loyola
Marymount campus. There were speakers,
workshops, and of course, the special Sunday meeting where people were allowed
to share “stories” or to bear testimony.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">Being around LDS LGBT people is a emotional experience for me because of the good people I see and with whom I associate who are wrestling with the paradox of wanting to be faithful members but in many cases have been poorly treated by intolerant members and leaders of the Church. I likewise wrestle in my own way with the paradox of wanting to be faithful to a Church that produces what it did in the Handbook last year and whose leader of the Quorum of the Twelve says what he did about it being revelation. It pains me because the Church does so much good, and Pres. Nelson is a good man, but I digress. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">I was pleased that Ann decided to
attend and that she likewise felt the Conference was very worthwhile. I am grateful that we could share this
unique experience, and that we have been able to discuss it and how we felt about it.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">It was nice to see people I met at
the previous conference and with whom I am Facebook friends, some of whom are
the movers and shakers in the LDS LGBT community. For example, it was great to see and to
briefly chat with John Gustav-Wrathall, the current director of Affirmation,
Tom Christofferson, a brother of the apostle, Vicki Wimmer, Sara Jade Woodhouse, and Carol Lynn
Pearson. It was great to make new
acquaintances and to see that the new Executive Committee of Affirmation is in
good hands.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">There were a few poignant meetings
that had special meaning for me. One was
the workshop led by John Gustav-Wrathall that addressed the landscape of
feelings about the recent revision of the Church Handbook and the address given
by Elder Nelson and his wife about that revision. Feelings were raw and candid, as would be
expected, with many expressing confusion, anger, betrayal, and so many other
difficult emotions. But there were also shared feelings of hopefulness, determination,
and caring as well. There were many tears but there were also many smiles.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">I very much enjoyed listening to the
address given by Christie Frandsen. We
know one another from our association in my Stake, and I suspected that her
talk would be one of the highlights, and she did not disappoint! This Seminary and Institute teacher was on
topic, insightful, eloquent, and sincere as she discussed the LDS LGBT
community and the importance of being knitted together in a wonderful
multi-colored blanket. I was very proud
of her, and I am proud of how she has supported and loved her gay son Christian,
one of her 11 children.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">Another was the Saturday night
meeting at which Carol Lynn Pearson addressed the Conference. She has been in the struggle from the days her
husband died from AIDS in 1984 and which she poignantly wrote about in the book
<i>Goodbye, I Love You</i>. She was graceful, eloquent, witty,
vulnerable, and believable. She represents what I believe to be the heart and soul of the LDS LGBT movement, the grand dame, so to speak. She is all about loving, caring, and
supporting each another; she says that these are the weightier matters of the
law. I particularly appreciated her
tenderness as she sang a tender lullaby as she concluded her remarks.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">Of course, the testimony meeting is
always very significant and powerful.
There were a lot of tears shed, a lot of warmth and gratitude expressed,
and a lot of strong witnesses of the love of the Father and the Son with
strength and conviction. Allies like me were
encouraged not to share their testimonies because so many LGBT people
are unable to do so,</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , sans-serif;"> having been excommunicated from the Church for "acting" LGBT. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">The Spirit was
strong and I felt peace and comfort, and assume others did also.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">It felt good to be around people who can find happiness in the midst of turmoil. It felt good to be around people who are dealing with the label of being "Servants of Satan." It felt good to listen to and watch an LDS bishop who desired to understand LGBT people and who self-reported that he came away a changed man. It felt good to be around people who honestly care about each other and treat one another in loving, non-judgmental ways, as He would do. It felt good to be lauded for being in attendance even though I do not have a close relative who is LGBT. It felt good to see people who value the Church and its teachings (except for this one) and who want to stay attached to it.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">I look forward to future
conferences. There is the main annual Affirmation Conference, this year in Provo, Utah, from September 22-25. Who knows?
I may attend.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "corbel" , "sans-serif";">I wonder if I am a Servant of Satan....</span></b></div>
REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-29567399924395563492016-01-24T18:21:00.000-08:002016-01-24T18:21:33.920-08:00One Mo Time!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Last November, I posted about my difficult preparations to take the Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) exam once again in December, having failed it last February. The test I failed was a 200 question multiple choice exam taken over four hours. That failed test would have been the first of two required tests, the second one being a 75 question, multiple choice "vignette" exam.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I knew that new tests were being prepared for 2016, and feeing some anxiety about having to study for whole new exams, I was preparing to take at least one of the old exams in December. I was hopeful that I would be grandfathered into taking the second exam in 2016 having successfully passed the first one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Little did I know that there would be no grandfathering! Little did I know that there would be no test taking at all during the month of December, because the test didn't exist anymore! I was chagrined to learn that reality as I spoke to someone in the Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) office in Sacramento when I was unable to schedule a test time. All of the practice exams (answering 775 questions in 31-25 question tests!) I had taken were for a test that now couldn't be taken!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There was absolutely nothing that I could do about taking the old test. Nothing. I decided that I would have to face reality and start studying for the new exam. I had learned that I must take before the one year anniversary of failing the original exam.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I soon discovered that the website where I had taken all of the practice tests now had practice tests for the new exam. This first of two exams is now about the law and ethics surrounding my MFT profession. It is a 75 question exam. I have been spending a lot of time in this new preparation; all told, I have answered 435 questions of the online test prep examinations, plus I have spent many, many hours studying. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the material, but then, I felt that way before the first exam.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Tomorrow morning I take the new law and ethics examination. I am cautiously optimistic that my 61 year old brain will be able to retain what I have studied and will have the wisdom to make the correct choices. I believe I must get a minimum of 50 correct....</span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-82428601291783246332016-01-18T07:49:00.002-08:002016-01-18T07:49:36.293-08:00The Year in Review -- 2015<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px;"><b>As 2015 comes to a close, I wanted to review this eventful year. It had many memorable events and people, and since this is a blog/journal of my life, it seems appropriate to now look back with words and some pictures:</b></i><br />
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<b><u>PASS & FAIL</u></b></div>
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In the early part of 2015, my son BJ received his Certification as a Certified Addiction Treatment Counselor He had taken his test in 2015, having completed a four semester program at California State University, Dominguez Hills. I am very proud that he is using this certification to legitimately work at and for The Beacon House, the rehab where he finally overcame his drug addiction. He and I both would say that it is never fully beaten, but I am proud of his work and thankful to God.</div>
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I, on the other hand, failed my first attempt to take the first of two licensing exams to become a legitimate, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT). I was unable to try to retake it in the rest of 2015, but will take it in January 2016.</div>
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<b><u>A TRIP TO THE DESERT</u></b></div>
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In the spring of the year, we decided to visit the area to the east of Los Angeles. Using a little residence as a base in Morongo Valley, we explored Joshua Tree National Park and all of its wonders--which are many. We spent more time in the Morongo Valley and then returned for a visit of Palm Springs. It was a great opportunity to take pictures, and I took many, one of which is above.</div>
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<b><u>THE BIG CANADIAN ROAD TRIP</u></b></div>
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Lake Moraine, pictured above, was on my bucket list. We decided to see people and places on what ended up to be a 4600+ mile loop north in Northern California (we saw Emily, Adam, the grandkids, as well as my cousin Scott), Seattle (we saw Rebecca & Isaac), the North Cascades National Park eastern British Columbia, Banff National Park (home to the Lake above as well as other beauties), Glacier National Park in Montana, and Utah (we saw extended family). It was a 16 day trip and I am so glad we took it! We saw some of the most scenery I have ever witnessed, and I was able to photograph some of it. It spawned a coffee table book of pictures I have taken so far.</div>
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<b><u>ANN'S DREAM CAR</u></b></div>
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Ann had a dream about driving a blue 2005 S-Type Jaguar, having downloaded a picture of one on her computer as a vehicle she would like to own some day. I took that as a challenge. Our son Doug needed a car, and so we decided to sell it to him and to buy a blur Jag. Although it has experienced some mechanical challenges (what did we expect?), Ann loves it and it is really a luxurious, lovely car!</div>
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<b><u>THE JOHNSON MOVE TO NORTHERN CAL</u></b></div>
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In June of 2015, Adam and Emily loaded the kids into their van and drove across country from New Jersey to begin a new life in the Golden State. We helped them locate a sutiable area, helped them move in, and visited for a number of reasons five times between June and the end of 2015. By the way, the picture of Charlie above is at the Wonderland Park in Oakland, visited by Walt Disney prior to building and opening Disneyland in Southern California. This little urban park reportedly served as inspiration for what would become the Happiest Place on Earth!</div>
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<b><u>LIFESTAR CONVENTION</u></b><br />
This is an annual event held in Salt Lake City. I thought that it was important to attend to be able to learn more about the Lifestar program with sexually addicted clients. It was also important to interact socially with my peers in counseling, and I enjoyed haging out and being with them there. A couple of our activities were to see a concert of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in Park City and to sight see Bridal Veil Falls up Provo Canyon, Heber Valley, and Park City again. Nice.<br />
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<b><u>A VISIT BY THE PAXMANS</u></b></div>
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Rick and Amy, my borther and sister-in-laws, held a family reunion at the beach in Oceanside. It was nice to spend time talking with them, walking to the pier, eating, and just hanging out. I wish we lived closer and could have more time with the crew. All of the children were there except Suzy, and it was a chance to see Rick and Amy's new grandchild. It was great to see Amy who continues to suffer from a bunch of physical ailments.</div>
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<b><u>WATCHING THE JOHNSON KIDS</u></b></div>
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Emily and Adam were able to go on a company-paid trip for a week to Rome! We gladly obliged to watch the kids here in Southern California while they had a wonderful time there. BJ wanted to spend time with the kids, and they really enjoyed spending time with him. At a nearby park, he was able to help them have the thrill of learning how to rock climb, as shown by Elizabeth above. Always physically draining, we enjoy spending time with these wonderful kids!</div>
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<b><u>TRISH MORTIMER DEATH</u></b></div>
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Walking to and from the grave site at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills was this lovely, tender sculpture. It reminded me of the tenderness of Trish, a woman from our church congregation to whom Ann and I had been assinged to home teach along with her husband, Bob. This vibrant, dancing, cat and dog-loving woman contracted cancer which eventually led to her death and which caused her to lose a lot of weight. Ann and I remarked that she physically looked like she belonged in a concentration camp, and it was a blessing from Above that she was finally taken.</div>
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<u><b>POLICY CHANGE</b></u></div>
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Much to my surprise, the Church decided to institute policy changes regarding practicing homosexuals and their children. These changes listed above greatly saddened me and Ann. While we continue to support and sustain Church leaders on a local and general basis, we are saddened, confused, and on some level, upset and even angry at what has happened. We continue to nurture our connection with Heavenly Father and His Son, and trust that we will have understanding of this change, and hope that He will make things right. It is also a chance for us to be more loving, kind and repsectful to His children, no matter their sexual orientation.</div>
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<b><u>CHRISTMAS TRIP TO SEE THE JOHNSONS</u></b></div>
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The Johnsons came to Southern California for Thanksgiving, and we went north to the Bay Area for Christmas. It was wonderful to see Christmas through the eyes of children, to feel of their excitement and energy. This gave us another opportunity to spend time with them, Adam and Emily, and, on the day after Christmas, to make a trip to the City, San Francisco. It was a great way to end 2015!</div>
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<br />REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-30751477834782354572015-12-29T21:42:00.002-08:002023-09-01T15:23:32.685-07:00Is One Mortality Enough, and Other Easy Existential Questions<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";">I firmly
believe in the immortality of souls.
While others may wrestle with the idea, I do not. It makes no sense for us to deal with the
pains and sufferings of this life without some purpose or reason. And while this certainty is one of faith, I
am as sure of this truth as I am that I am writing here. I assume that I exist!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";">My faith in my LDS religion informs me that we come to this planet from a premortal realm, experience life
while growing and becoming, and at an unforeseen time are called back to our
heavenly home. My faith informs me that
there are experiences in mortality that can only be obtained here, and that my
purpose on earth is to have those good and bad experiences, learning to choose
wisely but learning from my mistakes. I have confidence that I exist for a reason!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";">I also
believe that my mortal sojourn is choreographed by an all-knowing, all-loving
Supreme Being who is only interested in giving me learning and becoming opportunities. That is not to say that everything in my walk
is predetermined. While He may know my
beginning and end, I don’t. He knows
what is going to happen in my life but I still have choice, or agency. And I believe that every mortal's life is likewise choreographed.</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;">However, those who are mentally incapacitated lack the ability to choose and to experience the full
breadth of life, although their lives can often be a blessing to those who care for them. Others who
become truly addicted to a substance or behavior, or who were born with or
developed psychological maladies like obsessive compulsive disorder or
schizophrenia, or whose upbringing caused these mental dysfunctions to happen,
have limited agency and lack the ability to fully experience life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";">Those difficult conditions
beg some questions: what learning and becoming experiences can such persons have? Do they "get a free pass" for the tests of mortality, or are their conditions for the learning and
becoming of those who interact with them?
Did they choose these deficiencies in that premortal realm? Is it possible that they will learn all that
they need to learn in a future time (the Millennium period, in LDS belief),
free from the chains of their dysfunction, before they are judged? Or are they just out of luck?</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;">On a related subject, can someone
who did not have a full mortal life in which to experience mortality learn all
there is to know in a millennial period (another LDS belief), assuming they
have all 1000 years in which to experience "life?" The Church teaches of a terrestrial, peaceful 1000 years. How can one experience how to choose between good and bad, or much more difficult, good and good, when there won't be bad? LDS belief dictates that the Devil "will be loosed for a season." I wonder how long that "season" is, and what really can be learned in a "crammed test?" </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVAKV1GJ68XysQgebF3UzFs862qIfacdDFkUxyr2zYRoHl-63Ok0fkSISleakDIHTl7TMkUcSRrlMhJvq1rwQTagk0UV-rb3FrOL0d7uNr5iSd5y_3sLIh1aHh0DX5xlzUjiV5STW2vBs/s1600/Mentally+Challenged+4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVAKV1GJ68XysQgebF3UzFs862qIfacdDFkUxyr2zYRoHl-63Ok0fkSISleakDIHTl7TMkUcSRrlMhJvq1rwQTagk0UV-rb3FrOL0d7uNr5iSd5y_3sLIh1aHh0DX5xlzUjiV5STW2vBs/s320/Mentally+Challenged+4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";">And how can
physically and emotionally sound people (are there many of us?) experience all that there is to learn in mortality in 70 to 90 years? I’m
61 and I am still learning so much, and arguably, I am on the downside of my
mortality and don’t have 61 more years left.
How can I learn experientially about mortality in a postmortal spirit world (yet
another LDS belief)? </span><span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;">Are we put in charge of overseeing mortals in that realm?</span><span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";">I can learn theory
there, learning from my experience in life, but I believe that I knew theory before I came to
earth and I needed this mortality to actually experience what I had learned theoretically. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;">Is one mortality enough to gain the experiential insight we need?</span><span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;">Because of LDS doctrine which teaches an exclusive salvation, I have wondered about the literal </span><u style="font-family: "Cambria Math", serif;">tens of billions</u><span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;"> (a billion is a 1000 million!)</span><span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;"> of people born on earth through the millennia, most of whom never will hear about God the Father or His Son, Jesus Christ. There is the LDS doctrine of performing “ordinances of salvation” for ancestors and others who did not have the opportunity to participate and accept such works, as well the genealogical work to account for dead ancestors. LDS people believe that temples will be open 24 hours a day during the millennial reign of Christ, but work in the temple for </span><u style="font-family: "Cambria Math", serif;">tens of billions</u><span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;">? Will there be more billions of bodies born in the millennium for those spirits who were </span><span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;">aborted naturally or by man, have been given another body? </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE71jRrxlv9Q3ly55WnPxihxGLDuMeJUlC9VqWXDxRAHagJTP9Dn6zmGyKXZb6QDPd2InDzgubL6tb22sHHVwERaos4fjQH-7B3g7XD7qp3DL8Qxjd9TLhoM7MIn7zgmkY2rkECFwSwwc/s1600/Mentally+Challenged+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE71jRrxlv9Q3ly55WnPxihxGLDuMeJUlC9VqWXDxRAHagJTP9Dn6zmGyKXZb6QDPd2InDzgubL6tb22sHHVwERaos4fjQH-7B3g7XD7qp3DL8Qxjd9TLhoM7MIn7zgmkY2rkECFwSwwc/s320/Mentally+Challenged+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Cambria Math', serif;">Most of my
LDS brothers and sisters will read my esoteric questions and either roll their eyes or
pat me on the head and say something to the effect of “there are answers to all
of these questions and God knows them all, so just have faith that He’ll take
care of things.” Just because I have questions does not mean that I am on the road to apostasy, nor does it mean that I am tempted to abandon all that I do know. I just don't see with my limited experience how all of this is going to work out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Cambria Math","serif";">I'm glad that I have these questions. But at their core, I wonder if a
single mortality is enough to experience and learn all that is needful to experience and learn in
order to become a god (yet another and very uniquely LDS doctrine)? And yes, it makes perfect sense to me that if in fact God is the father of my spirit that inhabits my physical body, He would want me, His son, to become like Him!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-57247089978207914532015-12-17T10:45:00.002-08:002015-12-17T10:45:49.328-08:00"Thank you for believing in me when I didn't believe in myself"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIV72biAdjEc7G6mggev49cgtAJqsPKrJMo-Riwk_6at4X_k_XvK-9KXA27uXdWGtEkzZSJ4h638xFq149Tdur05pvd-wOrV0zEIGI4E9rHnNQ-dxHgFYetThql1OkttfqAemSABhOXgY/s1600/BJ+at+Testimony+Meeting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIV72biAdjEc7G6mggev49cgtAJqsPKrJMo-Riwk_6at4X_k_XvK-9KXA27uXdWGtEkzZSJ4h638xFq149Tdur05pvd-wOrV0zEIGI4E9rHnNQ-dxHgFYetThql1OkttfqAemSABhOXgY/s400/BJ+at+Testimony+Meeting.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My son BJ (Robert) sharing at the Tree Trimming gathering</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<b><i>Thank you for believing in me when I didn't believe in myself</i></b>." So stated a number of guys at the Beacon House in San Pedro last night. The occasion was an annual "tree trimming" gathering put on for the approximately 100+ guys and alumni of the "House." It was a chance to share their hearts and their gratitude with their brothers and others, and then hang a meaningful ornament on a Christmas tree. I felt so blessed that my wife and I had been invited to attend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">I am where I am supposed to be</i>," said some, commenting on how profoundly the Beacon House has turned their lives around and given them hope, a hope that many said they never have experienced. Some stated that they had been to other rehabiliation centers but felt that the Beacon House was different, but they somehow knew this was home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">Thank God for my life</i>," announced another, reflecting on the despair and depression he had felt for most of his life, and how the "House" had given him another chance. Some spoke of times past when they had felt suicidal because they had lost all hope, and how bleak their lives were, but then spoke of renewal and enthusiasm for the future, and how blessed they felt for having another chance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">I really love my life right now</i>," said others, talking about new outlooks, new schooling completed, new jobs, the sense of community and brotherhood and unconditional love they now feel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">Words cannot express what I'm feeling right now</i>," stated others </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tearfully</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> as they stood humbly before a filled hall, realizing they now were clean and sober, being overcome with gratitude for the "House" and its staff, feeling the warm love and caring eminating from their brothers. These are men who had lost faith in themselves and in their ability to change course; many men who had lost everything because of their addictions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">All the things I was promised have come true</i>," some said as they reflected on how Bill and Brent, the managing and program directors, challenged them to "shut up and follow directions," and that if they did they would finally become the man they always wanted to be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">Are you going to abandon your son again</i>," said another, quoting something very poignant Bill had said to him when he was given a second chance for sobriety and recovery at the "House" after having willfully left prematurely. There was always complete openness, transparency, and rawness as hearts were softened during the share.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6mXVAj8fZJJdnflrpt0b25q-zgsQywEjwSjm9qk7zU3aOfUx4MaAstOz9s8lPUYwMWmPxc53PToDYf47f4-UmNXHNoyzxLszzGGItQSTUblXJnsDGU6QV61Lw9RE_eajSucF8Ir3OjO4/s1600/Beacon+House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6mXVAj8fZJJdnflrpt0b25q-zgsQywEjwSjm9qk7zU3aOfUx4MaAstOz9s8lPUYwMWmPxc53PToDYf47f4-UmNXHNoyzxLszzGGItQSTUblXJnsDGU6QV61Lw9RE_eajSucF8Ir3OjO4/s320/Beacon+House.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Beacon House</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">I know God is in this House</i>," stated another. His heart was full as he gave thanks for the grace and mercy extended to him by his higher power, as well as offering thanks for the love and compassion offered him by the staff and his brothers. There was talk about how there were miracles that occured routinely at the "House" as men came around to themselves and changed their life's course and credited their higher power for the miracle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">This place is my home</i>," opined many others, noting that they felt more at home among the people at the "House" than even with their own families, noting the positive feelings and comfort they felt. Some longed to be with their families at Christmastime, but then stated that they knew this was where they needed to be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">You never gave up on me</i>," said various men filled with emotion. They expressed profound appreciation to Bill and Brent, often noting that they seemed like father figures they had never had in their lives and how they looked up to them, and feeling so profoundly grateful for that blessing in their lives. Some talked about second and rare third chances to be admitted to the "House," even relating how Bill and Brent had on occasion sent some guys to pick them up on the streets because they had lost hope in themselves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">I'm grateful for my brothers</i>," said nearly all the guys who stood in line for a long time for a chance to express their profoundly deep and raw emotions to the guys who had accepted them with open arms and hearts. Some expressed how hesitant they were to engage with others when they first arrived, but how they were greeted with open minds and hearts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">You showed me the real meaning of family</i>,"<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>stated many who had felt they had been so selfish and proud with their own families and who, free from the grasp of addiction, had been able to feel the warmth and love of caring brothers walking similar paths. There really was a feeling of acceptance, forgiveness, caring and love that permeated the hall.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">God's got my life now</i>," announced another, reflecting on how through actively embracing the rules and directions of the "House" and developing a firm belief in a higher power, he felt connected to God and felt His influence in the daily workings at this rehabilitation program.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZE0o51pEww6tF5p-MVlGhQVysNCGzqN1P7K2cevZzWo79JualiHLEBzIIoxy3nmtP2-bPM5a0nqHxXRTY2MTBFkHESopkwFVlWHrmgrrfKH6i1JgswpCGp_eOGsYnOOx6mu5Vvg9gm-o/s1600/Sparkling+Tree+Ornament.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZE0o51pEww6tF5p-MVlGhQVysNCGzqN1P7K2cevZzWo79JualiHLEBzIIoxy3nmtP2-bPM5a0nqHxXRTY2MTBFkHESopkwFVlWHrmgrrfKH6i1JgswpCGp_eOGsYnOOx6mu5Vvg9gm-o/s1600/Sparkling+Tree+Ornament.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i style="font-weight: bold;">I want to sparkle again</i>," said a one-day veteran of the Beacon House, holding a sparkling ornament and using it as metaphor for what he hopes will happen to him there in the coming months and years. Others who shared had been to this tree trimming event for many years but who come back annually to express profound gratitude for their lives given back to them by the staff and brothers of the Beacon House.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On a personal note, I feel to express my deep appreciation to Bill and Brent and the "House" for giving me back my son BJ and for giving him the opportunity to bless the lives of others there. It is continually amazing to me how God worked in his life to help him face his demons, and how in His amazing grace and mercy He has helped him turn his life completely around. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I loved to hear last evening how in his ministry, if I can call it that, at the "House" as part of the young staff, he is touching lives and sharing his knowledge gained through that school of hard knocks. It's one thing to be licensed as a Drug and Alcohol Rehab Counselor, and another to actually be touching hearts on a daily basis. He has been been in the dark place that the guys know well, and can not only relate to them but to call them out when they lie to themselves as he did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So Merry Christmas to the staff and the guys at the Beacon House. I felt so honored to be in your humble presence. And thank you for my son. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr6ojwWjVup-FtTXSh0Cszq89_DfMnRoe3XMW3iWEaiCe6Jnz_VIZnU8UPugZaF7Q5LWphKoi81aShNylEAHNbAh2_vg3D3LbqmCrMCOWw5RhC4wojqPvgTHBpXLdfCXVpNSeykDSFbf4/s1600/Beacon+House+BJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr6ojwWjVup-FtTXSh0Cszq89_DfMnRoe3XMW3iWEaiCe6Jnz_VIZnU8UPugZaF7Q5LWphKoi81aShNylEAHNbAh2_vg3D3LbqmCrMCOWw5RhC4wojqPvgTHBpXLdfCXVpNSeykDSFbf4/s320/Beacon+House+BJ.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not the staff of Beacon House; just a picture of my son repesenting the "House."</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-89486842898733040012015-11-22T20:17:00.002-08:002015-11-23T09:44:36.660-08:00Bobby Davis -- Early Edition<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilq5vzF1Yn38I83BvUmjf7MELfTHTAhivQRfdjZ_NHwfxdR1DHm0UogD67dD1kVNvPsFtVd9h0KOSw65jeXMSS087waUqC2vyngmGYPz4fTWWKszxLWZqTgEzDQintEx5z0hX-pyqOjxU/s1600/Dad+and+Me+1A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilq5vzF1Yn38I83BvUmjf7MELfTHTAhivQRfdjZ_NHwfxdR1DHm0UogD67dD1kVNvPsFtVd9h0KOSw65jeXMSS087waUqC2vyngmGYPz4fTWWKszxLWZqTgEzDQintEx5z0hX-pyqOjxU/s640/Dad+and+Me+1A.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My dad and me--he was 38 in this picture</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am very grateful to my sister Darlene who goes to great lengths to send me memorabilia from my Davis family. By the way, my mother was a Davis before she got married to my father (no relation!), so when I say Davis family, I mean that literally. She recently sent my pictures from some scrap book in her possession that I believe I already have in my scrap books. But it was that Darlene thought that I might not have them; that she was thinking about me!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These pictures are from my earliest days, literally from birth to some age before eight months. I write eight months because that was when my parents and I moved from 337 North 6th West to 509 North 8th West, the home in which I grew up, and which can be seen in its present state in another blog posting (August 5, 2015).</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAGZFkRTBMyVy1Z5CDX0r-QBQtHEzpsIQqIP282ke8Z0UnZIqn_ddw9ArQQF4q3jKtehGepDNEZyoXqIZ-Obkp-Hp2nfPy-T1PKfjWf9uRm2bqLCAK_0snn6qyg9r6hTJcnTaZzxx9afo/s1600/Mom+and+Me+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAGZFkRTBMyVy1Z5CDX0r-QBQtHEzpsIQqIP282ke8Z0UnZIqn_ddw9ArQQF4q3jKtehGepDNEZyoXqIZ-Obkp-Hp2nfPy-T1PKfjWf9uRm2bqLCAK_0snn6qyg9r6hTJcnTaZzxx9afo/s640/Mom+and+Me+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notice the fashions, the car, the chairs, and most of all, the crib. Mom, Darlene and Aunt Ruby looking on.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was born on Friday, June 4,1954 to Albert Earl and Bess Davis. If I'm not mistaken, I weighed a paltry 5 lbs. 10 ounces. I don't recall ever getting an answer as to why I weighed so little, so I usually state my deductive reason: my mother was not really taking care of herself physically because she was nursing my father back to health from a heart attack he had in May of 1953--at the age of 37. My reasoning is probably not accurate. I need to ask her that in person when I see her in the next life!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What my birth timeline does tell me is that I likely was conceived whilst my father was recuperating from the heart attack. I was born when my father was 38 and my mother was 37. I was very much an oops; how can it be otherwise with a brother who is 17 years older and a sister who is 12 years older? There was a baby born between them but who dies within an hour after he (Eugene Leroy Davis) was born, or so the story goes.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAq_ziNVzIEG3wdMFKtiz9ixbQaLStp4W0TVqI6eWhmFh2ORYVAVDRM8n342qT27IV0uzyLni5JPWH9iB_1PqejnwUVaYLNhTeOzG_xG7NX9wbA4ODykUDaIFTXHjgnvYvyYlAJoqRO8k/s1600/Darlene+and+Me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAq_ziNVzIEG3wdMFKtiz9ixbQaLStp4W0TVqI6eWhmFh2ORYVAVDRM8n342qT27IV0uzyLni5JPWH9iB_1PqejnwUVaYLNhTeOzG_xG7NX9wbA4ODykUDaIFTXHjgnvYvyYlAJoqRO8k/s640/Darlene+and+Me.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My wonderful 12 year old sister Darlene.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When my mother was preparing to leave the Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City the Monday after, she was told that I was not breathing properly and that I "had turned blue." I assume that referred to my coloring. She was told that I had been placed in an isolette with 100% oxygen (very much a no-no these days because of its negative effect on eyesight). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I guess there was some doubt as to whether I would survive. Evidence of that is, as the story goes, I was given a name and a blessing (an LDS ritual for newly born babies usually done in a church service a month or two after the birth) in the hospital. My mother used to say that I looked like a little sparrow that had fallen from the nest. At 5 lbs. 10 ounces (perhaps a few ounces less at the time), I must have been quite tiny. I was given the name of <b>R</b>obert <b>E</b>arl <b>D</b>avis, a given name that my parents liked and a middle name the same as my father's. I did have some red hair, so my initials were an indication of that red hair which I am proud to say I still have plenty of!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Obviously, I survived. Obviously, I gained weight. Obviously, I was loved by my parents and am loved by my siblings. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Obviously, that was the first of many wonderful blessings in my life.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thanks Darlene for caring about me and sending these pictures! And yes, they are black and white because I'm that old! </span><br />
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<br />REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-29336640506362685932015-11-14T23:01:00.001-08:002015-11-14T23:01:36.115-08:00Will Ye Also Go Away?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"<i>From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him</i>."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"<i>Then said Jesus unto the twelve, 'Will ye also go away</i>?'"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"<i>Then Simon Peter answered Him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life</i>." John 6:66-68</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I paraphrased verse 68 during my temple recommend interviews this past week with both a member of my Ward bishopric and my Stake President. This in response to the question both of them asked regarding my support of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I told both of them that I am trying but that I am not supportive of the decision to change policy about same-gender marriage as apostasy, nor the decision to preclude children under 18 years of age from receiving ordinances because one or both of their parents may be in a same-gender relationship. And even though the First Presidency attempted to clarify the Handbook change, the change is nonetheless wrong, in my opinion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is not my intent to change anybody's mind about this. I just believe that the Handbook change only made the Church's stand regarding LGBT people even more difficult for those who want to maintain a connection with the Church for themselves and their children. I would invite those who may disagree with that assessment, with how damaging the change is particularly to children, to read my previous blog posting earlier this week.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The arguments put forth by Elder Christofferson, and other apologists who have tried to make comparisons to polygamy in protecting the children rings hollow. I cannot wrap my brain around the Savior forbidding His Father's children to receive baptism. That is not what the Savior that I worship would do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You may argue that I am putting myself in a more knowledgeable position than Christ. That would assume that every word that a prophet or apostle speaks is His word. Church history simply does not bear that out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of a truth, there is doctrine and there is policy, and this change in the Handbook is not doctrine; the Brethren have not said that it is, and I believe that they have been careful to not say it is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But then, I do sustain the Brethren as prophets, seers and revelators. They themselves would say that they are fallible. I choose not to worship them. I choose to worship the Father and the Son. None of the Brethren are on the other side of the vail--Christ is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I do believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's Church. I could honestly answer in the affirmative (or negative, depending on the question) the questions of my recommend interview. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If any doubt my sincerity or my testimony, I would refer you to my previous blog posting titled, "Behold You Are Mine."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I believe that the Lord has revealed, is revealing, and will reveal the words of eternal life. To the degree that the Holy Spirit confirms what the Brethren (and Sisters) say, and it does most of the time, I will make the words my own. But like Joseph Smith, who lacked wisdom and asked God, I choose to receive confirmation for revealed words, and that has not occurred yet in my case with this policy change. It may yet happen, but so far, no.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In addition, I am choosing to not allow this to alienate me from the Church, although I respect that many are choosing to disassociate themselves from the Church because they cannot live with the cognitive dissonance they are experiencing. Many same-gender individuals and couples desperately want to stay connected to the Church, and have weathered the LGBT storms up to now. These people, returned missionaries, local Church leaders, even an Area Authority Seventy, have desired to stay in the Church, but have simply thrown up their hands and proclaimed, "enough!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even though for an LGBT Ally like me can choose to be so, those who are LGBT in nearly all cases cannot. Most have done everything spiritually that they could to ask God to take the feelings away, and it wasn't. Many have received personal revelation that the course that they are now following is honoring who they are, and that Heavenly Father is okay with it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now to tell these worshipful and faithful Latter-day Saints that they are apostates? To tell them that the children that want so desperately to be raised in the Church cannot be treated in the eyes of the Church like those kids who have sat next to them in Primary, Young Men and Young Women. What a terrible blow! Yet many are indeed choosing to stay and not go away, waiting as I do with increased faith, that they will someday understand it, and feeling the love now of empathetic members who know them as the disciples they really are.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My Shepherd will supply my need, Jehovah is His name!</span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-46422945325529121202015-11-12T22:50:00.000-08:002015-11-12T22:50:16.554-08:00I Just Don't Get It -- 46 Consequences Intended or Otherwise<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I have been wrestling mightily with the change in the Priesthood Handbook 1 regarding the apostasy of same-sex couples and the "disenfranchisement" of their children, I came upon this article, posted on <i>timesandseasons.org</i> on November 11, 2015 by Julie M. Smith. I'd be very interested in any responses.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">I’m thinking about the implications–doctrinal and practical and cultural–of the recent policy changes.</span><br />
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The language of the policy refers to “a parent who <em>has lived</em> or is living in a same-gender relationship” and “a parent who <em>has lived</em> or currently lives in a same gender cohabitation relationship or marriage.” There are no qualifications on the “has lived,” even if that be before the child is born or before the parent is a member of the church.</div>
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The idea that this policy covers not just the parent’s current living arrangement but also their past living arrangements is in there not once but twice and, in the second iteration, its applicability to past relationships is emphasized by way of contrast with the phrase “currently lives.” The plain meaning of the language is that it applies to any gay cohab/marriage in the parent’s past. If the policy was not actually intended to apply to past relationships, then the language used is inaccurate. This post addresses the policy as written, not our assumptions about what was really intended.)</div>
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<li>Say that a woman has a cohabitating relationship with another woman while in college. Years later, she considers returning to full activity in the church, but is aware that any children she might have–even after a temple marriage–would not be allowed to be baptized. I presume this would be a strong disincentive for her to return to church. If she does, the entire ward will know about her past as they watch her children not be members. (Do you think this will lead to speculation and gossip?)</li>
<li>How do transgender people fit into all of this? What determines whether they are in a same-gender relationship: physical body, chromosomes, how they present themselves socially, legal gender, or what?</li>
<li>I’ve seen comments to the effect of “children in this situation can still have the light of Christ.” It seems to me that every time this is said, our belief in the importance of the gift and constant companionship of the Holy Ghost is diminished.</li>
<li>I’ve also seen comments to the effect of “God will work it all out.” While I believe that it is ultimately true that God will work everything out with a perfect blend of mercy and justice, I’m concerned that saying that in this situation leads to a culture where we don’t bother so much about the effects of our actions on other people since God will fix it all eventually.</li>
<li>Elder Christofferson said that, for children who cannot be baptized, “<em>Nothing is lost to them in the end if that’s the direction they want to go.” </em>I am pretty sure that his meaning was that, in an eternal sense, there will be no difference a thousand years from now whether you were baptized at 8 or at 18. However, I have to admit that it makes it a little harder for me to get out of my bed at 5:45am every day to take my child to seminary if nothing will be lost to him in the end if he is not active in the church as a teenager. (Of course, I don’t actually believe that.) But I do wonder where we end up as a church culture if the idea that teenage involvement in the church is not thought to be of crucial importance.</li>
<li>Gay marriage has been legal in various areas where the church is organized for more than a decade. Gay cohabitation has been going on since time immemorial and more publicly for at least a generation. The fact that this policy was only implemented now suggests to many people that the church leaders only really care about or are aware about what is happening in the US. (I don’t believe that this is true, but I think the timing creates that impression.) This belief makes it more difficult for members to remain faithful.</li>
<li>To many people, this looks like a “hateful” and “bigoted” policy. While I do not believe that the Brethren have a single hateful or bigoted bone in their bodies (there are 3,090 bones in the Q12 and FP, if you were wondering), the policy and its roll out can create that impression. How might things have played out differently had the policy been accompanied by admonitions to donate to organizations which help homeless gay teens or a reminder of the need to convey God’s love to gay people?</li>
<li>There is a certain number of LDS temple marriages out there–probably a small number, but still–where one spouse is unaware that the other had a gay cohab before marriage. I suspect those marriages may be ruined if that partner now has to tell the other partner that their children cannot be baptized. (Or will they keep it a secret?)</li>
<li>To the extent that one accepts Elder Christofferson’s argument that the policy is designed to limit harms to these children but one also recognizes the harms caused to other people (including the always-faithful LGBT people who feel alienated in the church or the parents who now suffer from the choices of their ex spouses), one has accepted a utilitarian calculus in weighing policies. There are obviously some advantages to that calculus, but . . . there we go again, treating some people as if their suffering is an acceptable cost to advance other ends.</li>
<li>I don’t buy the argument that the Brethren are clueless and out of touch. Which means that I presume they knew that this policy would lead to many disaffections from the church and make conversion much more difficult. They apparently thought the policy’s benefits were worth this cost. But the only official rationale for it is to avoid cognitive dissonance in children. Another cost of the policy is that presumably some of those who cannot be baptized at eight will never be baptized and go down a different path. In sum, this policy shows that avoiding cognitive dissonance is really, <em>really</em> important to be worth incurring those costs. To what other situations might LDS decide to apply this principle? Will a woman with a nonmember husband decide it is better not to take her kids to church?</li>
<li>I have a Primary-aged child. I can imagine him sharing the gospel with a friend. I can imagine him asking me if his friend can meet with the missionaries. What I have a harder time imagining is me asking (who: my son? his friend? his friend’s parents?) if the parents are now or have ever lived in a gay relationship. So I suspect this new policy will put a damper on member missionary work.</li>
<li>I, like you and everyone else, live in a bubble. But there are really faithful, orthodox, totally committed to the church people in my bubble, people who oppose same sex marriage. And many, many of them are having a crisis of faith over this policy the likes of which I have never seen in my life. These people will by and large stay in the church, but something has happened to them as a result of this policy. I suspect a lower level of commitment to the institution, a lower level of trust in its leaders, and, perhaps, a lower likelihood of staying faithful when the next challenge (whether that is a personal issue or whatever) comes.</li>
<li>I’m already hearing stories of parents filing to change their custody arrangement; they are concerned that their current joint custody might result in their child being denied church membership. It is also not hard for me to imagine situations where, in a divorce, the faithful LDS parent demands/requests/maneuvers the gay parent out of the child’s life and/or the gay parent (who in many cases still has a great love for the church) removes him or herself from the child’s life in order not to jeopardize the child’s membership in the church. (In other words: if I have no idea what my mom is doing, her gay marriage can’t affect my future in the church.)</li>
<li>Imagine two young men being interviewed for missionary service. In answer to the bishop’s question about same-sex marriage, they both say, “Well, honestly, bishop, I don’t have strong feelings about the legality of it, but of course I am committed to the law of chastity in all respects and have a strong testimony of it.” Most bishops will recommend for service a kid who gives this answer . . . unless his parents are gay married, in which case the bishop cannot. This is a very odd double standard.</li>
<li>There are so many odd situations that might spring up: what if a child lives in a gay-married foster home before being adopted by LDS folks? (In fact, would that background make them less likely to be adopted by LDS people?) What if a child’s legal guardian is a gay married grandmother or other non-parent relative–does the policy impact her?</li>
<li>Because of the emphasis on living arrangements, there is an economic aspect to this policy that troubles me. If I’m a 23-year-old who can afford my own place, I can be baptized, but if my budget only permits living with my moms, I can’t. If I’m a gay dad who can afford two addresses, I can present my still-active-ex-wife with a plausible story for the bishop, but if I can’t, my kids can’t be baptized.</li>
<li>One part of this policy is that disavowing one’s family member’s gay marriage/cohab is a requirement for baptism. To what extent will Mormon culture develop in terms of disavowing the gay relationships of people other than one’s own children? And what will disavowal look like?</li>
<li>Most of this policy relies for enforcement on what a bishop (or mission president) knows about a child’s situation. I wonder if bishops will be tempted to develop blinders; I wonder if members will become adept at hiding things. I can imagine a situation where a temple marriage ends in divorce and the still-faithful parent begs the other parent to please create some plausible deniability regarding their gay living arrangement, such as maintaining two addresses. And will bishops be asking 7-year-olds about their parents’ sexual history in baptism interviews? Will people move to a new area and lie about their ex’s past (and coach their kids to lie)? Or might we start annotating membership records? What happens when we find out about a baptism done in violation of the rules–will it be “annulled”?</li>
<li>One premise of the new policy is that, as Elder Christofferson put it, same sex marriage is “<em>a particularly grievous or significant, serious kind of sin.” </em>I do not doubt that it is. But my concern is that in a church where same-sex marriage bars your children from saving ordinances but many other significant and grievous sins do not, we might be therefore tempted to think that sins such as rape, murder, child abuse, etc., are actually not all that serious after all.</li>
<li>Elder Christofferson did <em>not</em> say “this is a revelation. We are asking the members of the church to accept it as God’s will, as a matter of faith and as a matter of obedience to priesthood authority.” Instead, he explained it as being done to protect children from cognitive dissonance. In other words, he provided a rational reason–not a spiritual justification–for the policy. He thus invited us to reason about the policy–not to accept it on faith. What are the consequences of this?</li>
<li>I’ve seen people defend the policy, but I have seen no one defend its roll out. Apparently church leaders thought a policy could be put online and in print and that no one other than its intended recipients would know about it despite the fact that it was effective immediately, which means that people outside of the recipients of Handbook 1 (including, presumably, all Primary Presidents and Young Men leaders and missionaries and anyone directly affected by the policy) would have to know about it.The Newsroom announced a response would come Friday at 3 or 3:30pm . . . which became 7:30pm . . . which was actually about 9:30pm. The roll out does not inspire confidence in the leaders’ understanding of the members, which diminishes the members’ confidence in the leaders.</li>
<li>Imagine a woman gay cohabs in her 20s. She meets the missionaries and joins the church. She is endowed and holds a recommend. Per this policy, her children cannot be blessed or baptized. Who is going to be willing to marry her when their children cannot be baptized? What kinds of cultural trends might develop in the wake of this situation? Will people feel obligated to get confirmation of domestic histories before marriage?</li>
<li>How will the apologetics over this policy develop? Will folks say that the children of gay married parents must have been less righteous in the pre-mortal life?</li>
<li>Tom Christofferson, the brother of Elder Christofferson, has shared his story of living most of his adult life in a gay relationship and then feeling a desire to attend church, despite still being partnered to a man. After a few years of attending his ward as an excommunicated man, he decided to end his relationship with his partner and be re-baptized. Will this new policy make situations like his less likely?</li>
<li>The book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447183572&sr=8-1&keywords=king+leopold" style="color: #993300; outline: none; text-decoration: none;"><i>King Leopold’s Ghost</i></a> presented me with a shocking realization: the nearly unfathomably cruel way that Europeans treated Africans in the early 20th century was, in large part, based on their belief that since God had denied baptism to the Africans (since they lacked the opportunity for it) and thus condemned them to hell, there was no particular objection to treating such people poorly; rather, it would only affirm God’s judgment of them. I worry that a much milder version of this will happen in the LDS community. Even without intent, it is easy to imagine the Primary teacher or YM leader or whomever devoting their (limited) attention to the child who will be able to get baptized or will be able to be ordained or will be able to go on the temple trip next week–especially since the child of gay parents will not be on the rolls.</li>
<li>In situations where a child is not being baptized or ordained or attending the temple, there will be questions. The option is for the parent to reveal their sexual history to the ward or for the assumption to be that the child lacks the desire to participate. I wonder how families will negotiate that.</li>
<li>Either this policy will result in virtually no children of gay parents being involved in the church or it will result in their presence as a class unto themselves. I’m wondering what it will do to a ward’s culture to have people who are not on the same track as everyone else. (I suppose we’ve been down this road before with members of African descent.) I’m not sure what it looks like on the ground when eight kids in the Primary and three in YM/YW aren’t baptized/ordained and can’t be. We do a lot of cheer leading at church about things like baptisms and temple trips and the like–and rightly so. I suspect that cheer leading will all but disappear in wards where a child of gay parents is present and it will likely be muted everywhere else, since a teacher or leader does not normally know the circumstances of the children in her midst. I’ve read too many notices in lesson manuals about being sensitive to the home circumstances of children to think I could, if teaching Primary, ever again go whole-hog on how very, very, very, important and wonderful baptism is.</li>
<li>How will missionaries handle these rules? Will the questions about the investigators’ parents’ past behavior await the baptismal interview, or will the missionaries bring this issue up earlier in the process in order to avoid complication? (Either way, this means that the investigator will need to be aware of and comfortable with this policy in order to be baptized; will this be a stumbling block?)</li>
<li>Many kids these days are pretty fluid in their sexual expression. It is not hard to imagine a situation 30 years down the road where a huge portion of the pool of investigators needs to be told that any of their future children will not be able to be blessed and baptized. I can’t imagine what effect that ends up having; I presume it means that many won’t be baptized. But I can fathom a situation in 50 years where 20 or 30% of the Primary kids cannot be members of the church. So see #26.</li>
<li>Elder Christofferson offered a fundamentally different understanding of baby blessings than the one I had. I was under the impression that it was a sort of “welcome to the world, baby girl–God loves you and we do, too!” kind of a thing. But he made it sound more like an event which triggered church membership; I had always thought of baptism in this way. I’m curious about the implications of his position in terms of how we think about baby blessings, baptisms, and church membership in general. I wonder if there will be a reluctance to to bless babies from home situations where their future relationship with the church is less likely.</li>
<li>Elder Christofferson also implied that an expectation that a child of gay parents would be in Primary “<em>is likely not going to be an appropriate thing in the home setting.” </em>I’m wondering if we are to develop a culture where we don’t expect children of gay parents (or other serious sinners?) to be in Primary. What does that imply for Primary?</li>
<li>There is (at least) one significant difference between the policy of children of polygamy and children of gay marriage: children of polygamy can be baptized as minors (if they live in a non-polygamous house); children of gay marriage/cohabs cannot be baptized as minors regardless of their living arrangement. This suggests something; I’m not sure what.</li>
<li>Here’s how Elder Christofferson explains the ban on blessings and baptism for children: “<em>We don’t want there to be the conflicts that that would engender. We don’t want the child to have to deal with issues that might arise where the parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different.”</em> This sounds to me as if it would be wrong to bring a child to church if they had a gay parent. Is that how members and leaders will interpret it? But later, he says in reference to blessings of healing: “<em>We would expect that to be done throughout their lifetime, from infancy on as long as that’s the desire of the parents and of the child. That’s something we are anxious to provide.” </em>So one presumes a conflict there; I’m not sure how people will resolve that: should or should not the child of gay parents have experiences which expose them to the gospel and priesthood?</li>
<li>I take Elder Christofferson at his word that the purpose of the policy is to reduce cognitive dissonance. However, if the child is involved with the church in any way, that cognitive dissonance will still be there. Actually, it will now be increased because not only will there be the “my parents are gay married but the church says that that is wrong” cognitive dissonance, but there will also be the “the church says baptism and ordination and the gift of the Holy Spirit are really important, but I can’t have them” cognitive dissonance. What am I missing that justifies increasing the cognitive dissonance?</li>
<li>It’s not a secret that this policy has generated anger. This has largely been in the abstract (as a matter of the policy) or vicariously (as one or two stories hit the Internet of baptism or ordination denied). But I suspect that at some point, virtually every ward will deal with this policy within their own boundaries. I just don’t know how the Saints will react to that. Obviously, there are situations that arise (say, a parent refusing permission to baptize) that might frustrate the heck out of the ward family, but in that case the target is the recalcitrant parent, not the institutional church.</li>
<li>How does this play out in blended families? In this <a href="http://janariess.religionnews.com/2015/11/10/mormon-boy-denied-priesthood-ordination-because-his-mom-is-living-with-a-woman/" style="color: #993300; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">example</a>, some of the children in the household are eligible for baptism and ordination while others are not. How will families negotiate that? (Would they really have a FHE lesson about baptism in the presence of a child who could not be baptized?) Will they just shrink from activity?</li>
<li>We are now in the odd situation where the missionaries (or bishop, in the case of ordination or missionary recommendation) are more concerned about your parents’ sexual history than your own–theirs has longer-lasting repercussions than yours does. I can’t help but think that this will impact how we think about sexual sin and sin in general. Some sins will impact your children for decades, but may impact you much less. (If I gay cohabbed for a few months, I could then repent and go to the temple–no permanent impact on my status in the church. But my children–not so much.) To put it mildly, this is theologically weird. Mormons are good at generating theology to explain policy; I wonder what members will make up to justify this.</li>
<li>There will be situations where a child who is born in the covenant cannot be blessed or baptized. What will that do to our thinking about families and sealings? Can a child be sealed to parents in a situation where the child cannot be blessed or baptized?</li>
<li>There will be new thinking about the age of accountability. Are these non-baptized kids still accountable? Will it encourage them to sin with the thought that they haven’t taken on covenants and/or are not regarded as accountable by the church? Will every talk and lesson about the importance of covenant keeping remind them that they are under no such obligation?</li>
<li>There will be a cadre of missionaries (and marriages) where, because the missionary was baptized at age 18, he or she has no experience with the temple, with the gift of the Spirit, with exercising the priesthood, etc. It strikes me that this will be a loss to that person’s ability to be a missionary. And in wards with nonmember kids present, teachers may be tempted to downplay the role that these things can play in preparing one to serve a mission.</li>
<li>A 20-year-old cannot live in the home of her temple-married parents if she wants to be approved for missionary service if either parent ever gay cohabed. What are the doctrinal and cultural implications of this?</li>
<li>Let’s say you are a bishop and you have in your office a 20-year-old child of gay parents who wants to serve a mission. This will, per the policy, require her to move out of her home. It is easy to imagine the bishop arranging for her to live with her friend for a few weeks and conducting her interview during that window. Problem solved? Well, maybe. But it also means that local leaders and members have accepted the principle that sometimes the Handbook has to be “gamed” or one has to look for loopholes. This does not bode well for how we read and apply the handbook in other instances. Other bishops will not, I suspect, look kindly on young adults who move back in with gay parents at some future point (which means that financial or health reversals get really complicated).</li>
<li>There are no church-mandated repercussions for the children of a gay man who has a different partner every night of the week, which means that this policy encourages gay promiscuity. Given that the church considers gay sex in any context to be sinful, it may not seem like this would matter much. However, I think we have an obligation to be a light unto the world and to help improve things even if only to a small extent. And, especially because our primary concern in terms of this policy is not the righteousness of the gay man but the effect on his children, I would think that we would want their father in as stable of a relationship as possible.</li>
<li>One of my favorite parts of Mormonism is this: every time I have been in a ward where a child was in a poor living situation, the ward went overboard in doing everything possible to help that child with whatever s/he needed and drew her/him as close to the church as possible so that s/he could see what functional families looked like and learn a better way to live. This policy suggests that that is not always the right thing to do; I wonder in what other cases wards will decide to stand down, either to avoid cognitive dissonance in the child or because the ethic of doing everything possible to rescue a child has been de-emphasized.</li>
<li>How will the principles behind this policy be applied to other situations? Given that there are so many permutations of experience that the policy does not directly address, it should not be surprising when local leaders decide to apply the policy to other situations. For example, can a BYU student be denied an ecclesiastical endorsement if she goes home to her two moms for the summer? Should older missionaries disavow their children’s gay relationships? Should any and all members reflect their commitment to this policy by disavowing gay relationships of those they know, and what should this disavowal look like? Will people be asked to renounce other people’s sins in other circumstances?</li>
<li>If this list sounds like a deluge of negative outcomes, here’s a positive one: the many, many members who are troubled by this policy seem to be working double time to ensure that any gay folks and their families in their circle are shown that God’s love extends to them.</li>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I just don't get it. I am choosing to remain faithful (I just made it through the temple recommend interviewing process this past weekend), but I just don't get it. My only consolation at this point is that the neew guidelines are not doctrine, but just policy, and policies change.</span></div>
REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-72400845784653926482015-11-04T15:56:00.003-08:002015-11-04T16:29:05.234-08:00Climbing Up a Difficult Mountain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On February 11th of this year, I blogged that I had failed the 200-question multiple choice exam to become licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist. Some time later, I applied to retake the exam, as required by the Board of Behavioral Sciences in Sacramento. Their response did not come until a couple of months ago, and I am now allowed to take the test again. My intent is to do so toward the end of this month, November.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The exam, which has 25 questions that do not actually count (they are questions being "tried out" for future exams), requires that successful applicants get approximately 117 of 175 questions correct, or a 2/3 success rate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because of the nearly six years between when I graduated and when I was taking the test, because my memory was suspect, and because I was 60 years old, I opted to take a test prep course (at no small cost, may I add). Some of it involved reading through some literature to refresh the memory of what supposedly had been learned in school, but most of it involved taking practice tests, including 200 question tests in a four hour period. The four hour block is the time allotted to take the actual test.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I read, took some shortened study exams, and took five 200-question tests. I didn't do so well on the first study exams but I eventually did better. I recall that I passed four of the five 200 question tests at the 2/3 success rate. I never did much better than the 2/3, but I did pass them. With success in taking the mock exams, I believed I would do a "passable" job on the real test.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not even close! I barely cleared 50% of the questions! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It really set me back on my heels. It made me wonder what it was going to take to pass the exam. It made me question if I had the brain power/recall to pass it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I smile as I read the previous paragraph and reflect on what I've written thus far. If a client came to me and told me this story, what would I say to him/her?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I would probably say that I should not give up but have faith that I can eventually pass the exam. I would probably challenge him/her to do something different this time, to try different ways of studying, but to study diligently. I would challenge him/her to keep a positive, can-do attitude, and be careful not to be too hard on himself/herself. I would tell him/her that regardless of whether he/she passed it this time had nothing to do with their abilities as a therapist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What I've written above is what I have been telling myself and doing, especially recently. I did purchase a different test prep course (again at no small cost), with study manuals (two of which were recently stolen out of my car in a bag along with my laptop), cds, and online practice tests, but </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I will admit that the journey has been very challenging this time.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I am attempting to spend six days a week studying two hours a day, and I am amazed how much I do not retain. I have taken 31 25-question practice tests, and have gotten 2/3 or better correct only <u>five</u> times. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am noticing, however, that recently I seem to have a better grasp of the material. My issue is that on a half dozen of the four-answer multiple choice practice exam questions I am usually able to eliminate two of them, but I choose wrongly between the other two. After making a choice, the online exams offer the reasoning why a certain one of the four questions is correct, and I find that sometimes I just make a silly mistake. If I were to get four or five of those half dozen questions correct, I would usually exceed the 2/3 mark--because I am usually just three or four questions (or one or two) short of the mark.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I would do with a client, I remind myself that I can scale a mountain by taking one step at a time and focusing on short term achievements along the trail. Occasionally, when I lift my head up from the trail, and look up at the looming mountain, I feel overwhelmed. So I just focus on getting up this incline, that hill, knowing that I am scaling the peak.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I would ask for your prayers, warm feelings and thoughts, anything you can do. I really still believe as a therapist I am doing exactly what I need to be doing, doing what clearly makes me contented and happy, doing what I feel God wants me to be doing, helping some people along the way. But I am going to need His help to pass this exam!</span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-63009660460498717482015-10-12T08:54:00.000-07:002015-10-15T09:52:19.891-07:00Just Lazing About,,,,<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My life has been quite busy recently and will continue to be so for some time. Because I haven't posted on my blog in a number of weeks, I felt like I wanted to write about different aspects of my life to let anyone interested know what is happening, and for those individuals to not expect much from me for the next month or so. I've divided my life into various topics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><u><b>Work</b></u></i></span><br />
I continue to work as a salesman/consultant at A&A Wiping Cloth. I've been there since 2004 and I continue to experience financial success in maintaining most of my customers, but I find it challenging to find new customers that will buy at reasonable prices and that will buy what we have available to supply. I do enjoy working with Jeremy, the owner, who is very supportive and kind.<br />
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My therapy work continues to be challenging and fulfilling. I feel quite comfortable and competent, and I perceive that I am doing good work with most of my clients. We just opened a new office in Valencia and will be moving to a new location in Van Nuys. The office in Pasadena is still my favorite with my pictures, plants, rocks, and stuff. It feels very comfortable.<br />
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<b><i><u>Schooling</u></i></b><br />
As I posted earlier this year, I failed the MFT licensing exam. It took many months for the BBS in Sacramento to give me permission to take another stab at it but they finally did. I have committed myself to study a minimum of two hours a day except Sundays for the next 5-6 weeks, after which I will take the exam again. I have successfully been accomplishing my goal for the past couple of weeks. I would appreciate any warm thoughts or prayers on my behalf. I certainly need them! There is an urgency I feel to take this test (and there is another 75 question vignette test) before the end of 2015.<br />
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<b><i><u>Family</u></i></b><br />
My wife is spending many hours a week at home either making tests, correcting those tests, or correcting homework, above and beyond the teaching and work at her school. We are able to spend about 30 minutes together in the morning over breakfast, and sometimes an hour just before bedtime, and that is about the extent of our face-to-face interaction. I am trying to support her the very best I can during this challenging semester.<br />
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Emily and my wonderful son-in-law Adam are going away on a dream vacation, and they are driving their minivan from Northern California to our home next Saturday, dropping off their daughter Elizabeth and the triplets here, flying back to San Francisco, going on their trip for a week, returning to San Francisco the next Saturday where we will meet them with our grandchildren in their minivan. We will fly home the following day to recuperate from the whirlwind! It'll be a blast to have the kids here, and we're appreciative of BJ and Douglas and others that will help us with the kids while Ann and I work.<br />
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<b><i><u>Church</u></i></b><br />
I am yet functioning in my role as a 2nd assistant in the High Priest Group leadership, a presidency with no president or 1st assistant! I found out over the weekend that the High Priest leadership (ME!) is responsible for the Ward Halloween Party on the 30th. Imagine my surprise! With some help from a thoughtful, full of ideas ward member and with my power of delegation, I will endeavor to pull this off.<br />
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Lest you believe that I don't have enough on my plate, I will be leading the Sunland Ward Choir (I am the Choir Director as of a month or so ago) next Sunday in singing "God So Loved the World." I do enjoy leading the Choir. I only wish I had some more men who could really sing! The Christmas program is on the horizon, and I am looking forward to beginning on that program in earnest after we perform next week. I am very much enjoying singing in the Southern California Mormon Choir, and I will enjoy singing Christmas music with them.<br />
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By the way, I just finished reading the Book of Mormon again. This time, I marked meaningful scriptures digitally on my phone. The physical scriptures that I have had for so long lay gathering dust on a shelf. <br />
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I enjoyed watching General Conference, for the most part. I asked for and received spiritual confirmation about the calling of the three new apostles. Church leadership seems to be aware of the need for non-Utah leaders to take other leadership roles other than apostolic ones, and I am pleased to see the brethren they have called. My hope is that they continue to call both men and women leaders from around the world to better reflect the growing diversity of world membership.<br />
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<b><i><u>Miscellaneous</u></i></b><br />
My views on the US and world economies are fairly negative right now. And with retirement on the ever approaching horizon, Ann and I feel that we need to take some money and invest in other than stocks and bonds. As such, we have decided to purchase an investment property. Real estate is a pretty secure investment in these times, in my opinion, and so we will be earnestly looking to purchase. There are multiple factors involved in this decision, but I hope that we will be blessed to find the right property,<br />
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Our children and grandchildren seem to be doing fairly well. We love them dearly and love interacting with them. We are proud of them and their attempts to be the best they can be. I am truly blessed to have them in my life.<br />
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For that matter, I continue to feel so abundantly blessed. I have good health. I have sufficient for my needs. I have friends and family who care for me. I am doing what I really enjoy. I have contentment in my spiritual place. I feel great serenity in my life, in spite of its current hectic pace!<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-34240525156073084562015-09-15T21:08:00.000-07:002015-09-15T21:08:34.236-07:00What Can Be Expected From Individual and Group Therapy?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my work as a specialist in sexual addiction therapy, I have participated in various recovery modalities. Talk therapy, with individuals and with partners, is the one in which I spend much of my counseling time. Group therapy is another means to recovery, and I have done it both professionally with Lifestar Network and with the Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) of the Mormon Church. And even though I am not a sexual addict and cannot sit in on Twelve Step program meetings such as Sexaholics Anonymous (SA) or Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA) because of that fact, I have clients who regularly attend such programs. These support groups can be very important.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I want to share my ideas about one-on-one (or one-on-two) talk therapy, and group therapy, and what should be expected from each modality. I have not taken the time frankly to do research on this topic. I only share here my observations from my seven years of experience intimately involved in both, and how I frame those observations to my clients. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe both personal and group therapies to be beneficial, but they usually serve different purposes for the person attempting to move past sexual addiction, or any other addictive behavior or substance for that matter. I would recommend that both be considered, for reasons that I will articulate, but admitting that there are plenty of examples of people involved only in personal psychotherapy, and only in group therapy, who achieve recovery.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Group Therapy</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Often, people confronted by a partner, or confronting themselves on the nature of their lives as a result of having addictive behaviors, will seek out so-called "recovery groups," such as SA or SAA, or Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA). These organizations grew out of granddaddy of recovery groups, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Sometimes, in rural areas where there are currently no SA, SAA, SLAA, or other less well-known sexual addiction recovery groups, people who wrestle with sexual addictive behaviors will attend AA meetings--usually held just about everywhere.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost always, like AA, sexual addiction recovery groups center their "doctrine" or "beliefs" on the Twelve Steps, and as part of those steps, attenders are asked to consider the value of a belief in a "higher power." These groups are very careful not to describe or mandate what the higher power should be; only that it is an imperative for them to hold some kind of belief in a power larger than itself. The idea is that they on their own have been unsuccessful in abandoning the addiction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To offer a very brief summary of the Twelve Steps, the First Step requires that the addict admit his/her powerlessness over the addiction and the subsequent unmanageablility of their life. Steps Two and Three discuss the need for a Higher Power and the importance of that belief in recovery. Step Four requires a fearless moral written inventory, after which Step Five requires a confession of the addict's "immoral" behavior. Steps Six and Seven deal with being honest about discovered weaknesses articulated in Step Four, and turning them over to the Higher Power. Steps Eight and Nine requires that amends be considered then made, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or forgiveness offered, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to those who have been harmed or who have harmed them. Step Ten is a daily check in with one's self as to daily recovery. Step 11 adjures the addict to seek spiritual guidance, and Step 12 suggests that the "good news" of the Twelve Steps be shared with others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Twelve Steps can be a challenge for some who feel that part of their addictive behaviors have been caused by rigidly religious parental figures, and feel anger toward what they feel is forceful overreaching by those figures. These people now want nothing to do with a higher power. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When attending a group, one is confronted with real stories of addiction and how the addiction has affected loved ones and others. Ideally, it is a time of vulnerability and reality, of appreciation and attitude corrections, but most importantly, a time of connection and support from and with other group members. It can be overwhelming, raw, emotional, affirming, sometimes disgusting, but a respite of time to be among others who share similar experiences and that get addiction. It is about the group, which at times can feel like church fellowship.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Group members are encouraged to interact with others one-on-one after the meetings, to find a sponsor who is in recovery and has been so for a number of months or years, to read the literature of the group, to attend the particular meeting they are attending plus other meetings--sometimes 30 meetings in 30 days or even 90 meetings in 90 days. Attending meetings can be very much like attending church services.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Group meetings are meant to be supportive, but not therapeutic. Some of the group members may be in individual therapy but it is not a requirement of the group. Done diligently, the work of the Twelve Steps for many can be all that is needed, because while "doing the Twelve Steps," the addict comes to understand the "whys" of his/her addiction; why they acted out sexually, why they sought out solutions in a substance, why they continue to use the addiction. Regrettably, few actually "do the Steps" which can often happen because usually the groups' emphasis and focus is on sobriety, and members can think that by mere attendance at the group their addiction will go away.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Individual Therapy</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reasons why people engage in addictive behaviors can be complicated or complex. And while support is offered by a group, the particular reasons for the addiction are best understood and dealt with through individual contact with a professional who can dispassionately observe the addictive behavior and offer possible insights--or help the addict to gain his/her own insights. That is far more challenging to do in the dynamic of a group. The addict's sponsor, assuming he/she has made the effort to have one and makes contact daily or many times a week, can offer one-on-one insight to the addict. But again, this mentoring process is not always carried out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If an addict understands why he/she engages in the addictive behavior, they are on the road to recovery. Otherwise, they can forever "white knuckle;" or in other words, attempt to use willpower to achieve sobriety. But sobriety is not recovery. Certainly, sobriety is needed for recovery--allowing the reasons for the addiction to manifest because the entire focus is no longer on the addiction. But until the "whys" are identified, willpower will ebb and flow, and the addict will likely never really be able to be free of the addiction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the work that I do in my attempt to help clients to achieve long stetches of sobriety, for example, a client can "slip up" or "act out" their addictive behavior(s). I engage my client, one-on-one, to analyze what he/she did or didn't do that led to the behavior. I like to put the behavior "under the microscope" so that my client can learn from his/her mistake. This type of very specific work can best be accomplished through individual therapy, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">week in and week out</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the client and I look at what happened, especially if it happens routinely, we begin to notice what core issues were at play that led to the behavior. What did the client do or not do that led up to the behavior. As a client understands and assimilates what has been occurring, I view this as the beginning of true recovery. They are in the process of discovering the "why" of the acting out behavior(s). They begin to take control over the addiction as opposed to allowing the addiction to control them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe that most psychotherapists are capable on some level of helping a struggling addict who wants to be rid of an addictive behavior. However, it has been my experience that we who specialize in addiction recovery, and in my case, sexual addiction recovery, are best qualified to understand the dynamics of addiction and addiction recovery and can best help the addict. In my case, it is my speciality. It is wonderful for the addict to understand and feel that the therapist really knows what transpires inside their mind and heart.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So there is good to be had from both individual and group therapy. I encourage clients seeking recovery to avail themselves of both. Hopefully, this posting helps bring clarity to what can be expected from each.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-89572426438001147042015-09-03T22:44:00.000-07:002015-09-04T09:17:47.232-07:00A 2015 Musicians List<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's been awhile since I've written about my musical tastes. Some of my earliest postings had to do with my Top 40 Favorite Songs in certain genres. Even though music is such a vital part of my life, I've written relatively little about it. So it's time to write about some of the genres that form my musical tapestry in September 2015. I imagine new threads will be woven in as I hear more musicians and composers in the future.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I guess the type of music that I listen to most is rock music, although there are sub groups such as R&B and funk that I lump under rock. My mood determines what I listen to, and I often want to hear something with guitars, a strong bass, some drum, and definitely a beat, and often with the volume up so I can hear eveything happening. I generally like music that is melodic, which much of early rock music had, but not so much currently. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even since the Beatles hit the scene in 1964 (the Ed Sullivan Show), I have been enamored of the Fab Four for over 50 years. They will always be my favorite rock performers. But below are some other "rock" musicians to whom I listen, and with whom I often sing along, and I've attached some You Tube videos of some of them:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>Rush, Paul Simon-solo-and Simon & Garfunkel, Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Police, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, Steely Dan, Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, Crosby Stills Nash & Young and Neil Young-solo, The Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Bread, The Carpenters, The Beach Boys, Tom Petty & The Heartbrakers, ZZ Top, Michael Jackson, Billy Squier, Elton John, Metallica, The Ramones, Robert Palmer, U2, Billy Joel, Phil Collins.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The list above is pretty much composed of musicians from the 60s, 70s, and maybe the 80s. I have felt that that was really the golden age of rock. My tastes have transitioned to include some of these more "recent" rockers--some 80s, 90s, 00s, and current:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Stone Temple Pilots, Muse, The Smiths, Club Nouveau (kind of old school), Bush, Soundgarden, Presidents of the United States of America (also kind of old school), Fugees, Beck.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are singers that I will occasionally listen to that tend to be less raucous, sometimes a little folksy, or maybe jazzy, but I love their music. Here are a few of them:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>Linda Ronstadt (especially in Spanish!), James Taylor, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Sting, Willie Nelson, Dean Martin, John Denver, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My mood sometimes takes me into the jazz genre, although there are sub genres in jazz that I will listen to but only briefly. Here are a few of the jazz musicians that I enjoy:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66, Herb Albert (not so jazzy), Keith Jarrett, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Mangione, Dave Brubeck, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Vince Guaraldi, Mills Brothers.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I want something soothing, but not necessarily classical, I will often listen to Pandora--streaming music. But if I want to listen to one artist(s), I will listen to: </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Enya, Diana Krall, Thijs Van Leer, Mannheim Steamroller, The King Singers (not always soothing, but always good), John Barlow Jarvis, Leo Kottke, Bedalamenti, Morricone.</i></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a genre all by themselves--until I find more musicians that don't fit anywhere else outside of clasical, is a new group to which I was introduced on Pandora. They are from Ireland and are called </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">The High Kings</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">; very Irish and very melodic!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As for my favorite classical composers, both instrumental and choral, here is my last name list, although I'm sure I will forget some. If I hear their music, I often recognize it right away:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>Mozart, Vivaldi, Part, Lauridsen, Holst, Beethoven, Faure, Durufle, Rossini, Whitacre, Copland. Rachmaninov, Saint-Saens, Gershwin, Sousa, JS Bach, Wilberg, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Handel, Rodrigo, Strauss, Barber.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I will occasionally swerve into country, opera, world music, electronic music, and other genres, but the above lists are what I usually listen to.</span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"> </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I feel to thank God for His grace in allowing me to be able to listen to music. I thank Him every day for the blessing it is to even be able to hear. I thank Him for the pleasure music has given and continues to give to me!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Based upon what you see here, does anyone out there have any suggestions in any of the genres, or some individual or groups or composers that you would recommend?</span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-84681073776675369152015-08-28T06:45:00.001-07:002015-08-28T06:45:52.711-07:00Getting Back On The Horse<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Many begin the process of addiction recovery with high expectations and high hopes. Many have decided that "the pain of addiction is greater than the pain of recovery" and want to take steps to finally rid themselves of their addictive behavior.</span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">(NOTE: Even though the topic here concerns addiction recovery, the ideas apply to <u>any</u> unwanted behavior)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">They may have been been given an ultimatum from their partner. They may have been advised by someone to seek help. They may have lost someone very important to them as a result of their addictive tendencies. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">They may have tired of the secrecy and double life they have had to live to maintain their addiction.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">So they begin</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> to attend a support group. They begin seeking therapeutic help from a therapist versed in addiction recovery. They begin reading recovery literature. They begin regular consultations with an ecclesiastical leader. They are on the road to sobriety.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">In many cases, through sheer willpower, known as "white knuckling," they achieve some sobriety. Triggers to engage in the addictive behavior may recede for a time. They may be filling their head with recovery. This can be a hopeful time. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">But inevitably, something occurs, prompting well known thoughts and feelings to arise. Seemingly, all of the positive expectations melt away under the heat of the desire to return to the addictive behavior. The positivity is replaced with pessimism and there is a feeling of helplessness. The once hopeful addiction warrior has fallen off of his/her horse.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Having fallen off the horse, the focus often is placed on the addictive act rather than on </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">what took place before that led up to the act. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">The reality is that the addictive act was symptomatic, the final link in a chain of previous thoughts a</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">nd feelings.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> W</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">hether due to triggers or due to engaging in "slippery slope" thinking and/or behaviors, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">there was a specific moment in which the warrior had the thought to engage in the addictive behavior</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Nearly all of the literature indicates, and nearly all those who work with people with addictions agree, that most warriors will sooner or later fall off their horse on the road to sobriety and recovery. It just happens! But that doesn't mean that all is lost! It doesn't mean that there is no hope for sobriety! It certainly doesn't mean the warrior is a loser! All it means is that the warrior fell off the horse!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">A difference needs to be made between "slip ups" and "relapses" for the warrior who sincerely wants to put an end to the addictive behaviors and has amassed some sobriety time, however modest. A "slip up" can happen when he/she willfully but disappointedly engages in the addiction. A "slip up" can happen when something unexpectedly occurs that prompts him/her to "go to the dark side." A "slip up" can take place when a loved one says or does something that really hurts, physically or emotionally, and, unable to handle the inner turmoil. the warrior engages in the addiction. In other words, the "slip up," while unwanted, is a disappointment, but it is part of the sobriety process. And falling off the horse hurts!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Relapses, however, are tied to hopelessness. They can occur as the result of repeated failures to achieve some extended sobriety time. The warrior feels like a failure. Relapses can take place when the warrior forgets to focus on the process and only sees their failure to achieve the end result of sobriety. They happen when instead of focusing on the behavior, they look at themselves--who they are--and see themselves as excrement with the accompanying self-loathing. Relapses occur when "the pain of recovery is greater than the pain of addiction" and he/she decides that the journey requires too much. In a relapse, not only has the warrior fallen off of the horse, he/she sees no reason to get back on it! </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">In either case, the goal needs to be to get back on the horse and start riding again. Those who relapse have to decide that it is worth the trouble; whether they want to put themselves through the process again. It may take time for them to find and regain hope. If the act was viewed as a "slip up," he/she needs to own what has happened and focus on a hopeful, brighter future.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">But before mounting the horse again, a careful study must be made to determine what happened in the first place; a "post-mortem" so to speak. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">What event prompted the original thought to engage in the addictive behavior? What feelings or thoughts came crashing down like a tsunami that overwhelmed the warrior? Were these feelings or thoughts familiar ones from their past, or did they catch the warrior off guard? What circumstances were present that allowed the behavior to take place? What precautions were or were not taken to maintain sobriety? What can be learned from the circumstances of what happened?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Answeering these questions might lead to more opportunities to look at in-depth, underlying reasons for the act. They can lead to seeing unresolved issues from growing up years. They can lead to understanding better what emotional core issues manifested in the act. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">But dealing with these deeper issues is for another day! </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">The important thing to do in the moment is to get back on the horse and begin riding again, accumulating sobriety time and confidence once again, armed with greater understanding as to what happened, and the decision as to what to do if the original thought and circumstances occur again. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Getting back on the horse takes great courage. It takes faith in one's self and faith in the process. It takes being aware of circumstances that can lead to falling off the horse again. It takes discipline and hard work, but it is very worth it!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
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REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-22206205918017743282015-08-25T17:37:00.001-07:002015-08-27T10:16:29.544-07:00A Keen Mind<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I was three years old, so the story goes, my stay-at-home mother printed the alphabet on some flash cards and proceeded to teach me the letters. I don't remember those activities, but I do remember riding in the front seat between my parents on a stool (no seat belts or kid seats back then) and sounding out and reading the names of the cities/towns that were illuminated just below the roof line of the Greyhound bus terminal in downtown Salt Lake City as we drove by. I was probably four or close to being five at the time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I went to kindergarten at Onequa School at age five and then was advanced to first grade months after turning six. I was assigned to Mrs. Moore's class, and remember her as being a kind, older lady. Near the beginning of the school year, perhaps in the first or second day of class, I was sitting in her class. I received a copy along with my classmates of <i>My Weekly Reader</i>, which I believe was a national publication for children to help us learn to read.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, under my mother's tutelage and because of a keen mind I had been given from above, I already knew how to read. Because this happened 55 years ago, I don't remember exactly what happened in those minutes, but I believe when classmates began stumbling in their attempts to read passages such as "See Dick run." "Run, run, run." "See Spot chase the ball." I raised my hand and proclaimed that this was too easy for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I remember happening next is that she called me to the front of the class and handed me her Teacher's Copy of the publication. I began reading it, with no problem. I was too naive and too young to look at her facial expression, but I imagine that she must have been very, very surprised. Who knows at what grade level I was reading?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't remember if it was that very same day, but within the next 24 hours I was taken out of Mrs. Moore's first grade class. What happened next has been blurred by time, but I am told that I was given an aptitude test, the result of which was a recommendation that I immediately be "skipped up" two grades to the third grade. I don't know if it was because of some recommendation from a psychologist, from a friend or relative, or perhaps they felt they were inspired, but my parents decided to advance me not two grades but just one. I was placed in loving Mrs. Provostgaard's second grade class. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As it was, I was a much younger, physically small, redheaded boy, but I seemed to be able to keep up scholastically with the other students. In fact, in the fourth grade, in Mr. Beckstead's class, when we began to learn how to mulitply, my native calculating talent assumed front and center, and I quickly learned how to multiply numbers 1 through 12--the times tables, I guess they are called. I learned them much quicker than most of my classmates.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Mrs. Slater's fifth grade class, I took second place in the class spelling bee, another talent that came easily for me. On my last elementary report card in the sixth grade with Mr. Woolston and the delightful Mrs. Kershaw, I got straight As. And as long as I am reminiscing about sixth grade and tooting my own horn, I was the only boy out of four sixth grade students to receive the local Kiwanis Club's Hope of America award.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Looking back in retrospect, knowing now about socioeconomic realities in education, I had a very fertile mind with great natural talent, but grew up in a blue collar neighborhood on the less than affluent west side of Salt Lake City. My guess is that teachers and administrators at my elementary school knew of my abilities early on, but must have decided that skipping me up a grade was good enough. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I must assume they had no understanding or knowledge of what to do with gifted children and how to take a child's above average abilities to another level. I must assume that I wasn't seen as someone with a extremely high IQ (who knows if my IQ was tested?) but just a child for whom learning concepts was easier than those of my chronological age.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have wondered through the years since then if I had been born on the east side of Salt Lake City, or like in Southern California, and/or born 40 years later, what might have happened to me scholastically. I do not regret my middle to lower middle class upbringing; I was surrounded by salt-of-the-earth people, by an ethnically diverse population, and I developed a good work ethic. My growing up environment is an important part of the story of Bobby Davis. But whenever I hear of a story about a gifted kid and how he or she has flourished in a rich, rigorous, and nurturing educational environment. I wonder what if....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-32513301460842258182015-08-16T17:45:00.000-07:002015-08-16T17:45:25.001-07:00No Respecter of Persons<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since I have been released as the Sunland Ward Missionary Leader, I have split my time during Sunday School between the Gospel Principles class (for investigating non-members, members becoming active in attendance again, and new members) and the Gospel Doctrine class (for members who are active or semi-active in their attendance at Sunday services). Even though I am usually more comfortable attending (or teaching) a Gospel Principles class, I chose today to attend the Gospel Doctrine class, and the lesson title was "God Is No Respecter of Persons."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The title was taken from words that the apostle Peter spoke in Acts 10:34-35, which read, "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The back story of Acts 10 is that Cornelius, a centurion and a Gentile (non-Jew) who is "a devout man...that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway[s], is told in a vision that he should set up a meeting with a man (Peter) who at the time was in a neighboring town. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Literally at about the the same time, Peter is blessed with a vision in which he sees a knitted, four-cornered sheet, upon which are different kinds of animals that are forbidden to be eaten by Jewish law. He is commanded to kill them and eat them, but hesitates because as a Jewish practitioner, he had never eaten them. As the vision, ends and Peter is contemplating what he just witnessed, servants from Cornelius arrive where he is lodging. The servants from Cornelius and Peter head for Caesaria where Cornelius lives and has gathered his family and close friends awaiting their return. Peter realizes what the significance of his vision was and teaches these Gentiles. Ultimately, these Gentiles are blessed with a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The Jews of Peter's day had a very hard time with what had happened and the new doctrine of not having to live the Mosaic Law.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The instructor of the class discussed a latter-day event in which a significant change in doctrine occurred within the LDS religion, specifically, the revelation allowing all men to receive the Priesthood. As most class members acknowledged this landmark doctrinal change in 1978, the instructor pointed out how some members, as did some Jewish members in Peter's day, could not abide the new doctrine and left the Church.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He then began to talk about the call by priesthood leaders for Church members to get involved in the passage of Proposition 8. I wasn't sure what that had to do with what occurred with Peter, or what occurred in 1978, but perhaps he was attempting to connect this recent "revelation" with those of Peter's or President Kimball's (the 1978 revelation), and seemed to frame it as a revelation. Gratefully, he only spent a couple of minutes talking about it and accepting remarks from the class about the Proposition 8 debacle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As whenever the topic of Prop 8 or "same-sex attraction" is spoken of in a class or over the pulpit, I become uneasy, and I was feeling those feelings today. Rather than raise my right arm that had on its wrist a multi-colored band that shows my support of LGBT people and marriage, and hijack the lesson for a time, I kept my arm down. It would likely have come to naught and would not have prompted anyone to consider questioning what was being taught at that very time. I chose to be empathetic to the teacher rather than lead the class in another direction--for better or for worse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But it seemed so incongruous to be listening to a lesson about inclusivity, about not judging, about casting aside old ways of thinking and being open to new ones, about a God who is "no respecter of persons," to talk about Prop 8. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had a notion to ask what class members would do if an obviously gay or lesbian couple walked into the room. This couple, like most who dare with great courage and apprehension to darken the doors of a potentially hostile environment of our church building (so ironic!), are probably true believers who want to be nourished with the "good word of Chrst" like their heterosexual brothers and sisters. They would want to be blessed like Cornelius and the thousands of black members throughout Africa and Brazil prior to 1978. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Would the class members get the real message behind Peter and President Kimball's revelations and make the connection between the inclusivity doctrine and its application? It is one thing to talk about changes in doctrine or policy as a topic for a talk or lesson, but quite another to implement what is being preached in the here and now, with His children. It is easier to "respect persons" and emotionally distance ourselves from those we consider "unclean."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If God truly is "no respecter of persons," and I really believe that about my Heavenly Father and His Son, my Savior, it requires us as Their disciples to do what They would do. My duty as a disciple is to be loving, kind, understanding, and welcoming no matter who I meet, because that person is my spiritual brother or sister. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My hope is that the practices of the institutional Church and the behavior of its members will evolve to reflect a more Christ-like treatment of those whose behavior does not match what currently is being taught or inferred in classes or over the pulpit.</span><br />
<br />REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-55211298548384906382015-08-05T12:18:00.000-07:002015-08-05T12:18:41.740-07:00Memories From My Old Neighborhood<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Occasionally when I travel to Salt Lake City from Los Angeles and we make it a priority, my siblings will take me over to the area where we all grew up on the west side of the Valley. When I was surprised last year by a trip there for my 60th birthday, Ann and I had some time to make the pilgrimage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Armed with my camera, we walked around the immediate neighborhood and I took some pictures. We drove around to other places that were part of my childhood and I took some photos of them as well. I realized that I had never posted them here, and because I want my blogs to chronicle my life in order for others, particularly my descendents to know my story, I'm taking the time to show my past, and to write a bit about them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before taking this virtual tour, I have to say that these places, and particularly the homes, are from my childhood, many of them were many years older than the 60 years I was celebrating. Some look remarkably as I recall them, while others, including my own home, have changed--not completely, but they've changed through the years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the home in which I grew up. It was a two bedroom, one bath, small home. It had a basement, largely unfinished that included a "fruit room" under the outside front porch, in which food storage was kept and which was a fun place to hide. It had metal kitchen cabinets like those of that era. All rooms intersected to a hall that had six doors. The current residents have really made the exterior and interior look very nice (I know about the interior because I asked on another trip if they would allow me to look around inside, and they gladly permitted me to do so). The chain link fence that blocks access to it was not there when I lived there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can almost see from the photo the address is 509 (above the door). I seem to recall that during my teenage years or maybe a little later, the street numbering was changed by the City. The streets which had been 800 West/8th West and 400/4th North became 900 West and 500 North. In my memory, though, my address will always be 509 North 8th West. My phone number was EL 5-6901. (EL was short for Elgin, and was dialed 35)</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-AY-qCNZYTwV2n1GjfxNC3_ZK1B8jns_kFZ1VuNnPFAru4mOdJyNNyEiQnBfoRvBd2b6fl9Hp0T52IId3jpCJ4tA12Fl6EpTl4u81TIVu-ucFiQ0Jauxa2sat4-Z4vTWsa1xTHscOwWA/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+728.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-AY-qCNZYTwV2n1GjfxNC3_ZK1B8jns_kFZ1VuNnPFAru4mOdJyNNyEiQnBfoRvBd2b6fl9Hp0T52IId3jpCJ4tA12Fl6EpTl4u81TIVu-ucFiQ0Jauxa2sat4-Z4vTWsa1xTHscOwWA/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+728.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cornia Home</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Next door to the south, on the corner of 8th West and 4th North was the home owned by the Cornias. They had three children and the youngest, Gay, was a couple of years older than me. In my early years, Mrs. Cornia would paint on the front window and would have a Christmas scene behind it in their living room during the Holiday season. For may years, there was not a fence between our properties. I learned how to ride a skateboard on their driveway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For some reason I did not take a picture of the home to the west of the Cornias, perhaps because it had been changed so dramatically as to be almost unrecognizable. It was the Webster home, and where my good buddy Keith lived. I spent countless hours inside and outside that home, in front and behind. Their side yard abutted our back yard. Keith was the youngest of four children. Of the friends I had in the neighborhood, I spent the most time with Keith, who was two years younger than me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The street that ran parallel to 8th West was Chicago Street. I spent many hours on that street, because some of my friends lived there, and because in those days before video games and non-stop TV watching, we often played outside. For most of my childhood, I knew just about everybody on Chicago Street. Below are some of the homes of people and friends with whom I interacted.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitccLVt4extmSKf-r02iJbaDonXiY1EoBHqaC9UpQM4vJRslyYsGcJiWF0q4HY5Lb9mFzPOYhuHH6xYSn-eGrvK69wwShmOkzZMUBG0Bxw-H0Rm3HLAuXpXX6JKIJS__PKKPtnP6wGlt8/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+720.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitccLVt4extmSKf-r02iJbaDonXiY1EoBHqaC9UpQM4vJRslyYsGcJiWF0q4HY5Lb9mFzPOYhuHH6xYSn-eGrvK69wwShmOkzZMUBG0Bxw-H0Rm3HLAuXpXX6JKIJS__PKKPtnP6wGlt8/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+720.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Matheson's Home, with a porch that wasn't there when I was young. Jack was a friend.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQL85SaPCJp2vmhru4s5UZWjvdZMebk-7CP0OfLcVFgS1hjaclt3u800x1QSeulQywhpNhuk4mPV09HCAX5oPGdGt8_Phmnif-8m20T82QViZoNdidbhwQg2Evm-eeIKxX9P1a4W7CGpU/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+721.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQL85SaPCJp2vmhru4s5UZWjvdZMebk-7CP0OfLcVFgS1hjaclt3u800x1QSeulQywhpNhuk4mPV09HCAX5oPGdGt8_Phmnif-8m20T82QViZoNdidbhwQg2Evm-eeIKxX9P1a4W7CGpU/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+721.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Selma Mitchell's Home, where she and her mentally challenged son Roy lived.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMNxxhYp0ALyc30s-1u5-7vKT3ARjgE-Dw8qjK_Ng_Xo8mUtbGG8zAbC69u-kByPUSxbS1DDFOPmJz-EqLwzfvDVncgsZcAMelSMACUObUvXExOVjANEI_d0A8ganFph0sCZNSzO1KOu8/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+722.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMNxxhYp0ALyc30s-1u5-7vKT3ARjgE-Dw8qjK_Ng_Xo8mUtbGG8zAbC69u-kByPUSxbS1DDFOPmJz-EqLwzfvDVncgsZcAMelSMACUObUvXExOVjANEI_d0A8ganFph0sCZNSzO1KOu8/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+722.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Johnson's Home, across the street from the Call's. My friend Scott had two brothers, Jerry and Kent.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFP9FM2WUMT7HUWr19tPeSqhNVO5xNKB0AXCcL3BqfHA_wEcZR03_X9cOQ2s-tGQbR2731B2soIVg2quX5Md1m9aBssjKaVryWgZWsk2jtHE2lkUke-ydjaUEXq759oYfByeyywZTBCXo/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+723.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFP9FM2WUMT7HUWr19tPeSqhNVO5xNKB0AXCcL3BqfHA_wEcZR03_X9cOQ2s-tGQbR2731B2soIVg2quX5Md1m9aBssjKaVryWgZWsk2jtHE2lkUke-ydjaUEXq759oYfByeyywZTBCXo/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+723.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Call Home, where my friend Jay lived.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My mom would get her hair done at this home, the Thorpe residence, located on the corner of Chicago Street and 5th North. One of their children, Van, would later become my Explorer leader. I remember how exotic the weeping willow tree in front of their home seemed to me.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMUS3oxQ64AznY1f9fE0LyEGlwyN5MdkTrelzL_E-Ws_GOCY3jsWY4xHhsxQUt9xBN_KzrbFZTyCliPN800ksQPJXC7nUmEEllThho3-CaLzqFqW8upbr9QZVweQrsyJJld-YZ4xINqtA/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+724.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMUS3oxQ64AznY1f9fE0LyEGlwyN5MdkTrelzL_E-Ws_GOCY3jsWY4xHhsxQUt9xBN_KzrbFZTyCliPN800ksQPJXC7nUmEEllThho3-CaLzqFqW8upbr9QZVweQrsyJJld-YZ4xINqtA/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+724.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Thorpe Home. The weeping willow was gone.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Behind the Mathesons and the Calls, there is an alley that splits 8th West and Chicago Street. I spent many, many hours climbing trees, playing wiffle ball, riding Keith's Tote Gote, climbing onto sheds, walking to and from the Calls and Mathesons, and hanging out in that alley that seemed so long and wide back in the day but which now seems so short and narrow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because friends weren't always available, and because I was an only child at home, I would sometimes shoot baskets alone on the hoop hanging from the front of Keith's garage. Inside my home, I created actual board-like games. I created "stock car" races using Monopoly boards or the braided rug in the hallway (stock car races were run at the Fairgrounds about 3/4 of a mile away every Saturday night, and I knew many of the names of the popular drivers). I played "starving Bobby" in that hall intersection. I created a nine-hole par 3 golfing course--in the front, side and back yards of the house, using my dad's golf clubs with cups (cans) in the ground. For a brief time, there was a basketball hoop to the height of the carport roof (about 8 1/2 to 9 feet high), and I spent hours shooting baskets. I would play a game with myself shooting foul shots. I practiced my skateboard skills on the slanting sidewalk from our porch to the sidewalk below.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I created tent forts in the basement by haging blankets and sheets from the clothesline. I created a "fort" there as well using 2x4 pieces of wood from my brother's work. This wood fort had lights, a radio, a place to store stuff--a regular little room/womb to hang out in. I also had a dart board downstairs and I got to be a pretty good dart thrower.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi60pq6SLWCOemeLEoiNNH4V8CWRos8DgPyvD6lpkwZ8YZ_ohZqUQeP0LTTUQzUOA6uhXb9qvYvN9Jj21NpvGOTnB_N1Krgynw-QFPCXCrbbrR2Y4lDHSzceTUQrHN0qgYYvMd2cjyys7s/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+726.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi60pq6SLWCOemeLEoiNNH4V8CWRos8DgPyvD6lpkwZ8YZ_ohZqUQeP0LTTUQzUOA6uhXb9qvYvN9Jj21NpvGOTnB_N1Krgynw-QFPCXCrbbrR2Y4lDHSzceTUQrHN0qgYYvMd2cjyys7s/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+726.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If it rained, I would sometimes go behind the four-plex apartments to our immediate north and connect the puddles. It was childhood engineering, making a river from one puddle to the next in an attempt to drain it, and my goal was always to have multiple rivers flowing at a time.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riverside Ward Building</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All of my pre-missionary life on Sundays was spent inside this church building on 3rd North and 10th West. I left on my LDS mission from this buidling and spoke in it upon my return. Though it has fallen into disrepair, what went on inside of that building was a significant part of what molded my childhood. To this day, I remember all of the hallways and many of the rooms--and the "secret" passageways. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My very best friend during junior high years was Richard Jacobsen who lived in this house on 7th West near 4th North. His house was on the way home as I walked from Jackson Junior High and from West High because I couldn't drive. He had all kinds of games, and as I recall we would spend most days after school playing his many games.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD_7km4u0NbfjtnkvDM_5JaicwSKrP35_bv-LG6RjdiaJoZN_DCslnJEi_wGAgUYccfjG7IDVIjeLcbWVXKpqf047GiFvWQdnrXjHX3nwvo0Bt4HzptvAunQMMC0_cQDiVW7PvVI6yRTg/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+719.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD_7km4u0NbfjtnkvDM_5JaicwSKrP35_bv-LG6RjdiaJoZN_DCslnJEi_wGAgUYccfjG7IDVIjeLcbWVXKpqf047GiFvWQdnrXjHX3nwvo0Bt4HzptvAunQMMC0_cQDiVW7PvVI6yRTg/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+719.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Jacobsen's Home</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I learned how to play tennis on the courts behind the Fire Station on 2nd North and 9th West. near the Utah State Fairgrounds. I played against Tom Shaw and Kirk Harmon who were older and would inevitably beat me, but I was hanging out with the cool older kids and that was all that mattered.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8xY7uNlg6NvnTXcjvAWoFZo7RtLHh3vdTQxQOiSjVJ1htsTF9MEVf3CYE0pAw2gKuAU5JxXYiSw9_7IclkU5IWWLnQb_Hrt6w4-WQPsMfP1CWxHW-124cK9d_h1LrSIwAYUlckQD2DA/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+730.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8xY7uNlg6NvnTXcjvAWoFZo7RtLHh3vdTQxQOiSjVJ1htsTF9MEVf3CYE0pAw2gKuAU5JxXYiSw9_7IclkU5IWWLnQb_Hrt6w4-WQPsMfP1CWxHW-124cK9d_h1LrSIwAYUlckQD2DA/s400/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+730.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tennis courts. The Fairgrounds racetrack was just a few hundred feet away.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The building below has all kinds of history associated with it, near the intersection of 7th West and 2nd North. It was in this home/building, upstairs and down behind the awnings (original from when I was growing up) where my mother grew up with most of her 10 siblings. It also housed the store and butcher shop where my maternal grandfather had his business, and where my Uncle Bud and Aunt Mary lived. And the residence to the viewer's left on the ground was one of my sister's first apartments after marrying Bill. I would park my bicycle behind it while attending 7th grade at Jackson Junior High School (which no longer exists).</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnA05R2ediuAO7vdEXInd5CR5E5IqdL8k1eHxlR8t0h7FiEyyQCNW_sxDnSovYDSqGno6oSU2XQK9AWW8Ug3W_mmhgAsA6gsat7l5nTjQgQkaMxV66izIvZaoa85J_vCFKYdzFCqv5kdQ/s1600/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+718.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnA05R2ediuAO7vdEXInd5CR5E5IqdL8k1eHxlR8t0h7FiEyyQCNW_sxDnSovYDSqGno6oSU2XQK9AWW8Ug3W_mmhgAsA6gsat7l5nTjQgQkaMxV66izIvZaoa85J_vCFKYdzFCqv5kdQ/s640/Morongo+Valley+-+President%2527s+Day+Weekend+2015+718.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What memories, what memories are inside (and outside) this home. It has to he over 100 years old.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh the stories my mom and aunts and uncles (and my siblings to some degree) would tell about what carried on in that house! If those walls could talk, what stories they could tell!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ensign Peak, where early LDS church leaders placed a pole, and ensign, for all the world to ackneowledge.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The little dome at the top of the hill/mountain above the homes (that didn't used to be there), and to the left of the center pole, is Ensign Peak. If you look closely, you can see a flagpole at the summit. This easily hiked Peak overlooked where I grew up, my high school, the capitol building, Temple Square, all important in my growing up story. Would we hike it from Beck Street on the west, walk down the south face to the Capitol building, and then eventually make our way back home.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front of the School. The back below was not at all like this when I attended.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I attended West High School on 2nd West from 1968 through 1971, where I graduated the day before turning 17. It was where I evolved from a nerdy, backward, bespectacled kid to a popular, dating, singing, picture taking, basketball managing, radio corresponding, assistant editor of the school newspaper and co-master of ceremonies at the awards banquet. I don't think it particularly prepared me scholastically for BYU (except for some singing prowess), but West is another important piece of who I became during those teenage years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, there would have been no Me, no neighborhood, none of this, without these two, buried in the beautiful Salt Lake Cemetary, high in the Avenues. They provided well for me, gave me a pretty good, stress-free upbringing, taught me values and morals, and loved me as best they could. I honor them, and am attempting to make them proud up there in heaven. Thanks, Mom and Dad!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-18876476117808995322015-07-26T20:42:00.000-07:002015-08-11T12:05:12.687-07:00The Importance of Emotional Connection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the world of psychotherapy in which I live, my specialty is in dealing with aspects of sexual addiction. Since I have been living in this sphere for nearly seven years, I have learned a number of truths about its causes, its precursors, its emotions, its lies and deceptions. One truth that makes perfect sense once it is understood and embraced, is the inability for one battling addictive tendencies to be emotionally connected to another.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To be clear, my experience has been almost exclusively, but not entirely, with heterosexual people. But the truth is neither a homosexual nor a heterosexual issue. It is about the difficulty of connection, and that spans all orientations. Such a connection, or lack of such, is a telling sign in sexually addictive behavior. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lack of emotional connection is not just a problem in the sexual realm either. Much of what follows is relevant for most any kind of addictive behavior, be it anger, codependency, self-justification...anything!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sexually addictive behavior is any sexual behavior with self or another that someone has unsuccessfully attempted to stop and which has caused problems with self or another's life. To call someone a full-on "addict" is a high bar for me, and those with whom I work are rarely in that state. Nearly all who sit in front of me definitely have sexually addictive tendencies, but for the purposes of this discourse, I will call them "addicts."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has been my experience that early on, for many during puberty, that the addict has some difficulty in connecting with others. There are a multitude of reasons for such difficulty, but the reality is that such an inability to connect with another at its core is an inability to connect with one's self. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the addict doesn't know and understand who he or she is, because it hasn't been modeled for them, because they have been raised in variations of rigid or unstructured families, because parental figures or siblings have tried to define them instead of allowing them to define themselves, or because of many other dysfunctional reasons, relationships will be difficult for the addict, either with the same or opposite gender.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If they are too vulnerable, they see people making fun or taking advantage of them. If they hide behind an emotional wall to protect themselves, they get comfortable there because that place makes them feel safe. For some, they project the pain onto others and become aggressive to avoid feeling the inner pain, and wall up their feelings. For others, they turn inward and become isolated, which is often accompanied by anxiety or depression--or both. Relationships become a problem.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When there has been particular physical, emotional, or particularly, sexual abuse, the ability to relate in a healthy way to others is decreased or goes away completely. They feel they cannot afford to trust anyone and they see the world as a particularly dangerous place filled with dangerous people. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQEpdal9H9wiGvzBqoxgxUNiLSjreiWAMKR5VcFQttEZn1__EYLCF98-APCbHislDqy-Hq2ZM-G5-ndfdCvCPb-zWJsPJ1rTDGuIcEAKmOZZaoIGJe43ppoj6ssvFgoco5ru988F1c_I/s1600/Adults+Only+Keyboard+Key.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQEpdal9H9wiGvzBqoxgxUNiLSjreiWAMKR5VcFQttEZn1__EYLCF98-APCbHislDqy-Hq2ZM-G5-ndfdCvCPb-zWJsPJ1rTDGuIcEAKmOZZaoIGJe43ppoj6ssvFgoco5ru988F1c_I/s320/Adults+Only+Keyboard+Key.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a young person who has started to engage in sexually addictive behavior to take care of himself or herself as a means to survive, often in dysfunctional ways. They can easily turn to sex, probably with themselves, and especially if they're not socially adept. It can make them feel free and good about themselves, if only for a moment. And it can come through every time, as opposed to messy relationships with parents, siblings, friends, or others. It becomes a pseudo friend--always reliable, always there, never a hassle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It becomes much easier to use sex to feel good, to fill the emptiness. And as with other poor coping stategies or behaviors like taking drugs or drinking alcohol, the sexual addict begins to meet with the "friend" more often. In many cases, what made them originally feel good as they act out, the result of the release of brain chemicals--a "dopamine banquet,"will not make them feel "good enough," and they will require more stimulation--more dopamine. Sometimes, the sexual acting out behaviors can devolve into an addiction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what can be done? One cannot just decide that they are going to be connected tomorrow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To begin, a person has to realize that there is a problem of sexually addictive behavior, if not full blown addiction. That can be a terribly scary realization. Admitting that takes courage. But it takes even greater courage to face fear and do something about it. For some, the timing isn't right, or they simply are too comfortable where they are, in spite of how bad their lives have become. In the addiction recovery world, that reality is expressed thusly:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>When the pain of addiction is greater than the pain of recovery, the addict will seek recovery. But when the pain of recovery is greater than the pain of addiction, the addict will stay in addiction.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Taking a risk to become vulnerable with another takes the greatest courage of all. It starts with a willingness to be just a little vulnerable, peeking from behind the emotionally safe wall which acts as both protection--keeping people out, and prison--keeping the person in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is not an all or nothing vulnerability. Thinking of vulnerability as being in degrees can be helpful. In other words, a person can make the choice to be a little vulnerable with a safe someone, not a person or group which has made someone feel badly in the past or with some family or friends where there is a history of emotional tension.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The person attempting to be a little vulnerable must not think of the negative event or situation as being all or nothing. They can realize that the timing may not have been right. They can realize that they may have revealed too much about themselves and may have overwhelmed the other person. They can realize that while a situation may not have produced the desired outcome, they can learn from it, and have hope for the future. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They can realize that they will live to see another day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As successes occur in safer environments, the next step is to courageously begin to become a little vulnerable with those whom we have considered dangerous. Again, the challenge is to not get caught up in the catastrophy, the all or nothing thinking. The challenge is to realize that this is a journey and that events are not always going to turn out the way they had been envisioned. If it has taken the person X amount of years developing bad connections and bad habits, it is going to take some time for those to begin to disappear. Learning to when and with whom to be vulnerable takes time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another less risky intention can be to begin the process of strengthening, if not finding and nurturing, same gender relationships. The idea is to stregthen those which may have existed in the past, or to look for places or environments where someone can find same gender possibilities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost always, when as a therapist I ask someone who has sexually addictive behaviors how many same gender friends they currently have in their lives, they will often say none, or perhaps one. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This same gender friend cannot be a drinking buddy or casual acquaintance. That they say they have none</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> does not come as a surprise. If they are in a partner/spousal relationship, they are usually incapable of emotionally connecting with them as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Taking time to reconnect with people of the past, or making time to seek out same gender connections in group settings or faith settings, is a safe way to learn better how to connect. In this safe environment that lacks sexual tension, it is easier to begin to be more vulnerable. Hopefully, but not always, the new friend reciprocates, and connection can begin to thrive. It takes an investment of time, and maybe a little money, but it is well worth the investment.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVDmFEs8A3uYocdmyJFjR9RXg2U7oH95PDyHKoWmHHQG3x6G_F1CMfgW0xDfFJ2ejykt_zN0vzcHLp4P9vkwQoJgSGz5vr7AVnaeook93x53WD5F1dRn3azom6tx_5A7vbtpZfcVrBWM/s1600/Emotional+Connection+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVDmFEs8A3uYocdmyJFjR9RXg2U7oH95PDyHKoWmHHQG3x6G_F1CMfgW0xDfFJ2ejykt_zN0vzcHLp4P9vkwQoJgSGz5vr7AVnaeook93x53WD5F1dRn3azom6tx_5A7vbtpZfcVrBWM/s320/Emotional+Connection+3.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Usually, as a person in emotional connection recovery develops these nourishing and satisfying same gender relationships, the sexual addicting out behaviors begin going away. Why? Because they are nurturing themselves and their emotions in a safe, even joyful way. The temporary thrill they got from sexually acting out is countered by the long term satisfaction of a healthy relationship. </span>REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-82115895272224726002015-07-12T22:38:00.000-07:002015-07-13T09:35:44.544-07:00My Quixotic Quest -- LGBT and Religious Conservative Empathy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This posting is my attempt to process my thoughts and feelings as a result of the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) ruling regarding so called same-sex marriage for the United States. I knew that the ruling was inevitable but I felt the need to roll it around inside me and then blog about it here. As stated in other postings, this blog is where I finally focus and write what has come into focus for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Those of you who have kept up with "Red In Transition" or have looked at older entries know of my heart relative to Mormons and my LGBT brothers and sisters. As someone who participated in getting members of my Glendale 7th Ward to participate in the passage of Proposition 8 in California which attempted to give voice to those who felt the California Constitution should define marriage as between a man and a woman, I have changed my mind and my heart and have supported the right of same-gender individuals to be married. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">However, I remember well my thoughts and feelings and those of many like-minded individuals, and I wish to write about what I consider to be the drama that exists between these two communities where I existed and still exist, with the desire to offer a bridge of understanding between them. I recognize that I am a voice crying in the wilderness, but I don't mind this quixotic attempt. It is not unlike the quixotic therapeutic work that I do with couples.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In that counseling/therapy work, I usually encounter a partner that readily points an accusing finger at the other partner. Often, catastrophizing occurs. In other words, accusatory words like "always" and never" are used to describe the behavior of the other, with references to heartless attitudes and actions. The accuser, while not perfect, is in the right, while the accused can do no good. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The issues appear to be very black and white, with very little gray or nuance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sitting in front of such a couple, I observe one partner essentially playing the role of a victim and accusing the other of playing the role of persecutor. The roles of victim, persecutor, and rescuer are roles articulated in what is known as the Karpman Drama Triangle.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (See my earlier posting about the Drama Triangle) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When I introduce this principle to a couple, or to each of them individually, I ask them if they enjoy drama in their lives and marriage. If they don't, then I challenge them to recognize the role(s) they might be playing, and to then attempt to change their own behavior as they recognize a role they might be assuming. To put it another way, the object of the Drama Triangle is to recognize one's own complicity in it and to refuse to play a role.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In the Drama Triangle, victims need persecutors (and rescuers), and perscutors (and rescuers) need victims. If one refuses to act in one of the roles, it wonderfully removes the power of the one in the opposite role. It is the only way to really change to behavior of the other partner--by changing themselves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Interestingly and sadly, people or groups who see themselves as victims can quickly and easily assume a role of persecutor, often without knowing they are doing so in the moment. If the victim sees himself/herself as being taken advantage of, it is easy to place the other partner on the defensive, thus assuming a persecuting role. And around and around the victim and persecutor go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Regrettably, people often prefer to play a role. It suits their personalities and their agendas. The status quo can be very comfortable and known, and it </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">is far easier to focus on the issues of the partner rather than looking at their own issues. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They prefer drama.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It appears to me that Drama Triangle roles are currently being played by the LGBT community and by faith communities, speaking generally. To wit, there is much drama being played out by both camps in many types of media. For the LGBT community, it is historical victimhood. It is not difficult to bring up historical and even some current examples of heterossexual privilege, examples of hypocrisy, examples of private and public persecution. My point is not to dismiss these examples; there have been many who have assumed the role of persecutor of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For those faith-based, conservative communities, in the ruling of the SCOTUS regarding taking the rights of states to regulate same-gender marriages and what arguably can be seen by them as a redefinition of what is marriage, they see themselves as victims, and the LGBT community as persecutors. For these "traditional" or conservative people, the world is going to hell and Sodom and Gomorrah has nothing on the USA in 2015. My point is not to minimize their genuine fear and bewilderment; if I am feeling this way, I very much feel victimized.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxLdjRE465QS9IJBKpEF8jABocOMoC8wgd-LWA3iDbku-9nRpY7dxtHzw5McxlQK0kM_OGdD4qXDPBDQIUFbWICa5NaMtompUFOeRcOjVJbefe-UTNfVadIWMNY60h5u7WNDU3vSgDz0g/s1600/No+Drama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxLdjRE465QS9IJBKpEF8jABocOMoC8wgd-LWA3iDbku-9nRpY7dxtHzw5McxlQK0kM_OGdD4qXDPBDQIUFbWICa5NaMtompUFOeRcOjVJbefe-UTNfVadIWMNY60h5u7WNDU3vSgDz0g/s1600/No+Drama.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My quixotic attempt in this posting is to challenge each group to move past the role of victim, whether it be recent or historical. Victims need persecutors to exist, and I am challenging each to challenge the status quo and not be victims or persecutors. As I stated previously, the only way to change the conversation is for each group to change themselves. Turning swords into plowshares is a way to find commonality and understanding. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I see people of good will of both communites sitting down and finding areas of agreement. I see people coming from behind walls of fear and security and attempting to be vulnerable and real with one another, enabling there to be some empathy. I see each group sharing common humanity. I see people embracing the golden rule. I see people showing respect and concern for each other. I see people realizing that life is too short to be spent in drama, and refusing to play any dramatic roles.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For those of my faith in both communities, I see us emotionally if not physically embracing one another. I see us espousing the values the Christ taught while on the earth. I see us "trying to be like Jesus and following in His ways." I see us looking at each other as the children of God that we are. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Please take time to read this Op-Ed piece published in the July 11th edition of the Salt Lake Tribune. This is exactly what I am talking about and what I am proposing! </span><br />
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By Erika Munson</div>
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When the Supreme Court announced its decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the national media's declarations that life in the United States had changed overnight quickly became, in my opinion, a tired cliché. Such oversimplification ignores both the generations of LGBT activists who have worked long and hard for their civil rights and conservative Americans whose deep disappointment and concern will not vanish in a sea of rainbow flags.</div>
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It would be nice to think that the rancor is over, that all is forgiven on both sides, but in a free society it doesn't work that way. Humanity doesn't effortlessly glide from paradigm shift to paradigm shift. Whether you celebrated or lamented the <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/obergefell-v-hodges/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2183a3; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Obergefell v. Hodges</a> decision, there is work ahead to do. Under these new circumstances each Utahn has to figure out how to productively and joyfully live, work, and raise their family in a community that won't always agree on some pretty basic principles.</div>
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Now that same-sex marriage is the law of the land, we have the opportunity to move away from often polarizing debate around a specific issue and toward a deeper understanding of how sexual orientation, gender identity and religion work in our lives and the lives of our neighbors.</div>
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What lies beneath such statements as "love is love" or "marriage is ordained by God"? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores this terrain when he compares the moral foundations of liberals and conservatives. Over years of cross-cultural research, Haidt has identified values that the two groups share and where they diverge.</div>
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It should be no surprise to anyone that care for those in need, liberty from oppression and the idea of fairness rank high on the list of moral foundations important to people of all political and religious inclinations. We saw this at work last March when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and LGBT advocates came together in support of Utah's historic nondiscrimination legislation.</div>
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But research also shows that conservatives don't stop there. Just as important to them as care, fairness and liberty are loyalty to the group, respect for authority and sanctity. Too often, the left characterizes these last three as products of fear or superstition — not moral foundations at all — yet for the right a moral code is incomplete without them. It is this conflict that can keep us in our respective corners.</div>
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But there is a way out. We need to learn how to ask questions and listen empathetically to each other with an ear tuned to these moral foundations: "Tell me what justice means to you." "How does the counsel you receive from your religious leaders work in your life?" "When do you connect with the transcendent?"</div>
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But where to begin? These weighty topics are hard to broach across the fence to a neighbor you don't know very well. Start by cultivating relationships in your community the old-fashioned way: a barbecue, a baby shower, a playdate. If you want your values, your choices to be understood, you have to show a willingness to learn about those of others. Challenge yourself to find the people you think are the most different from you — be it the activist lesbian mom or the straight-laced Mormon dad and get to know them. Sit next to them at the soccer game. Ask them to volunteer at school. Be interested in the life of their family.</div>
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In 1855, the poet Walt Whitman wrote:</div>
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Do I contradict myself?</div>
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Very well then I contradict myself,</div>
<div class="TAGLINE" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)</div>
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Utah is a state that is famous for tea party Republicans and a conservative religion, but its capital was also voted "America's Gayest City" by the Advocate magazine and has the highest percentage of same sex couples raising children. We certainly defy cliché and we often contradict ourselves, but as a result we have the chance to be a model to the nation for respectful, inclusive, community-building.</div>
<div class="TEXT_w_Indent" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
We are large Utah, we contain multitudes. Let's start talking.</div>
<div class="TAGLINE" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<i>Erika Munson is a mother, grandmother and English teacher from Sandy. She is the co-founder of Mormons Building Bridges, a community devoted to making LDS homes and congregations places where LGBT/SSA individuals can thrive.</i></div>
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REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2154876056379888205.post-81208883498318893732015-06-25T17:20:00.003-07:002015-06-25T17:20:39.704-07:00Boundaries: A Review<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARHHyjl_ummrAU_Mj3V5EstM_UX2CPUNRh9VtKJpG4sRmNnsUEyf8wfa4WGnlAgYyDQ8zWrxIX47vr9UJ1Vspi5iSIeRAN6FHK5viE_52zp5vRXr8fRUCWbFN2N-Eid3urq96bN4Mz1Y/s1600/Boundaries+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARHHyjl_ummrAU_Mj3V5EstM_UX2CPUNRh9VtKJpG4sRmNnsUEyf8wfa4WGnlAgYyDQ8zWrxIX47vr9UJ1Vspi5iSIeRAN6FHK5viE_52zp5vRXr8fRUCWbFN2N-Eid3urq96bN4Mz1Y/s400/Boundaries+4.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">My work with couples has shown me that boundaries are completely necessary in this the most important of all interpersonal relationships. When I talk about boundaries, some people think of them as a way to control their partner's behavior. Others think of them in terms of punishment for their partner. Neither of these ideas could be farther from the truth.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Boundaries are to protect ourselves. Melody Beattie, in defining what are boundaries in her book <i>Beyond Codependency,</i> frames boundaries in this way:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">"<i>It's a decision to tell someone he or she cannot use us, hurt us, or take what we have, whether those possessions are concrete or abstract. {It's a decision] to tell them they cannot abuse us, or otherwise invade or infringe on us in a particular way</i>."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Like national, state, or even home property territories, boundaries define the territories of our body, mind, emotions, possessions, even our spirits. They define the territory of "me." They are why I end and you begin.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fE3gqsR3E10RMatsTSu_UnIdDbJpNiUuXACoaeK-_uRJDCsUEEgbNvaybVlVF7X4g96dY7qd1z_qhxAVtuON8Xqsdzj7zp9SpRdIOuSGzhd4_O-bF0aSq31altgnWCYB8gRYv_oK2Bk/s1600/Boundaries+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fE3gqsR3E10RMatsTSu_UnIdDbJpNiUuXACoaeK-_uRJDCsUEEgbNvaybVlVF7X4g96dY7qd1z_qhxAVtuON8Xqsdzj7zp9SpRdIOuSGzhd4_O-bF0aSq31altgnWCYB8gRYv_oK2Bk/s400/Boundaries+6.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Regrettably, many of us don't understand "me." That can be the result of living for others and meeting their needs instead of our own. It can be the result of being swallowed by the personality, the will, and character of caregivers and friends from our past. It can be the result of a lack of self-awareness. It can be a refusal to take care of ourselves.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Sometimes, we don't immediately know what hurts and what feels good. We may not know what are our rights. Sometimes, because we have neglected ourselves for so long, we find it difficult to know where we end and others begin. And sometimes, we may feel shame every time we even consider establishing such a thing as a boundary. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMKKTh0Ay2juqSEM8daEzXIiuYz5ZfyYc1F4UtYhPDM3sshovlahnAb0p9a3MhBM70twPr8b9WgeEeuy2UGQuEOKTIf4hX9oRwJMGilMQjtEQCpRpFYRvjRPVi4cvYFpeoXH-TIkjSMjQ/s1600/Boundaries+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #771100; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMKKTh0Ay2juqSEM8daEzXIiuYz5ZfyYc1F4UtYhPDM3sshovlahnAb0p9a3MhBM70twPr8b9WgeEeuy2UGQuEOKTIf4hX9oRwJMGilMQjtEQCpRpFYRvjRPVi4cvYFpeoXH-TIkjSMjQ/s320/Boundaries+5.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="274" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Step 2 in the Twelve Steps talks about "insanity." Those without boundaries seem to have a high tolerance for "insanity." This can manifest itself in a high tolerance for personal emotional and physical pain, hurt, and mistreatment. It can be a constant state of craziness that has been going on for so long that it seems normal, that it is all we've ever lived with and know. Unless someone points out that what is being experienced is insanity, how can we know what normal is when we don't know what really is normal?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">As we begin the process of establishing boundaries, it can be challenging. It can be virgin territory where we have never walked, and as such, can be daunting and even scary. But recognizing that it is a process allows us to make mistakes and to know that we are at least attempting to change who we are or have been. It is a skill set, and as such, it will develop with practice.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">The process optimally begins with relationships in our lives that are not deeply personal, such as with collegues at work or at Church. As with setting boundaries regardless of with who or where, it optimally begins in a non-emotionally charged environment.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWEkr2EVKPsZRlnFB5s08osYFNf-kati_Nad0GH-ckeOQ9h0qqtd3Az2631Mq3FNDN39gEQTo7sx8d6s-JPYcdSW6nvuU-PenKRQ7mOZ-SjVXcwL8fXMg5-35HmXtHVysp6shc76JTOY/s1600/Boundaries+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #771100; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWEkr2EVKPsZRlnFB5s08osYFNf-kati_Nad0GH-ckeOQ9h0qqtd3Az2631Mq3FNDN39gEQTo7sx8d6s-JPYcdSW6nvuU-PenKRQ7mOZ-SjVXcwL8fXMg5-35HmXtHVysp6shc76JTOY/s1600/Boundaries+3.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">For example, someone at your church may ask you to take on a responsibility. Your initial thought may be to accept it. But if you are struggling with a toddler or two or three at home, and your spouse is unable or unwilling to support you in your domestic responsibilities, it is both appropriate and good for you to state in a calm setting something to the effect of "I'd like to accept it but I just am unable to do it at this point. Maybe later on ...."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">In this example, you are taking care of yourself, which may be somewhat foreign to your experience. You may feel guilt or shame for not accepting, but you are taking care of you. And as you take care of you, your self-confidence and self-esteem will increase. You will develop better ideas as to what is appropriate for you and what isn't.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">The process inevitably leads to more intimate relationships, especially when done with partners. While more challenging and certainly more difficult with them, boundaries are very necessary and important. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">For example, a partner may habitually nag the other about performing a specific behavior. Assuming that the partner being nagged would perform the behavior if they physically or emotionally could, a boundary could be established in a calm, non-emotionally charged moment by stating something like "I have been feeling overwhelmed at work, and I just cannot face this right now. I need for you to extend some grace to me for awhile. Let's talk about this next weekend, and see where I am." (Giving partners a time frame to brings some kind of closure is always a good thing!)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">If there is emotional or physical abuse taking place, the boundary could look like this: "you can choose to raise your voice and yell at me. But I can choose to not be abused and I can walk out of the room, and I will." This is not about one partner controlling the other or telling them what to do. It's about thinking enough about one's self to take care of themselves by not allowing another to abuse them. And it's about doing it in a concise, non-angry way. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubfOrV76nlEO0WPfo1fICjXdBcHkU5DZDRGorX6RYhwVLwQ7Wj7kT9EidnN9E5lFzpIhX3cZEsV3Z88lFkJ1sxObx4tHlJT_FrzeusmRcwNWPaleQLbuemR-8QBpMgPHEjHnNFb9LMWk/s1600/Boundaries+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubfOrV76nlEO0WPfo1fICjXdBcHkU5DZDRGorX6RYhwVLwQ7Wj7kT9EidnN9E5lFzpIhX3cZEsV3Z88lFkJ1sxObx4tHlJT_FrzeusmRcwNWPaleQLbuemR-8QBpMgPHEjHnNFb9LMWk/s400/Boundaries+7.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">In review, then, setting boundaries is about the process of learning to take care of ourselves, no matter with whom the difficulty or discomfort is. It is about defining what we believe we deserve and don't deserve, about what we want and need, like or dislike, and feeling okay with those decisions. It is about coming to the place where we feel we have the right to take care of ourselves and to be ourselves, and not feeling fear or shame when we do take care.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">It is definitely not about controlling others. It's about coming to know who we are and embracing those truths--the process of becoming our true selves.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Understand, however, that partners and others may not take kindly to the new you. The following are some possible outcomes:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;" /><br />
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;">
<li style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">you cannot take care of your feelings and another person's feelings</span></li>
<li style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">you will be tested as to your sincerity and belief in your boundary</span></li>
<li style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">your partner or another may feel angry or rage</span></li>
<li style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">your partner may complain or whine (the last two outcomes are good clues that a boundary or boundaries needed to be set!)</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">As a wise person once stated when talking about the decision to do a difficult task, "if it makes you feel uncomfortable, you probably ought to do it; if it makes you feel comfortable, you probably ought not to do it."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">A word of warning: Boundaries ought not to be established if the person setting them does not intend on following through. In the partner example above, if the partner being abused does not intend to leave the room, to follow through, it is probably better not to set the boundary in the first place. It was likely a feeble threat or attempt to manipulate. It means that the person setting the ill-fated boundary has more work to do on their journey to self-respect and self-love. But that's okay!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Setting boundaries helps to increase self-worth and self-esteem. As we increase in loving and caring for ourselves, our ability to set boundaries increases. And as we set more boundaries, our self-worth and self-esteem continue to grow, and so on. You get the picture!</span></div>
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REDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09704304983271890282noreply@blogger.com1