WOW! What a Trip It Was!

Last summer, Ann and I went on a cruise (my first) to Alaska with some good friends.  This year for our vacation, we endeavored to coordinate our time with my brother’s vacation week at a Family Cabin at Bear Lake in Utah.  We had attempted in the past to travel there to spend relaxing moments with extended family, but to no avail.  We made the decision last year that we would try again this year, and we finally were able to do it!

When the decision had been made to spend some days there, I contemplated what else we could do (and see) on our way there—and perhaps what else we could do on the way back to Southern California.  I created an itinerary for a road trip that ultimately took us just under 2500 miles.  And what a spectacular road trip it was!!!

I will tell (and show in some pictures taken) where our journey took us, and some personal impressions.  It was just the two of us, and we both agreed afterwards that it was even better than our cruise last year.  (We’ve now taken two formal vacations in our transition as an empty nest couple.) 

We left on a Thursday morning and drove to a place called Kodachrome Basin State Park. 

It is just a few miles south of the east tip of Bryce Canyon National Park in Southern Utah near the tiny town of Cannonville, and we stayed in a nice little cabin right in the Park. 

The scenery was simply awe-inspiring, and we were right there in the middle of it!  

     This particular Park hardly gets visited at all but it should be.  The lack of crowds was so welcome, especially in light of the crowds we saw at other Parks.

 

 After putting our suitcases in the cabin and acknowledging what a hidden gem we had found, we drove 22 miles on a washboard dirt road to an arch that juts up dramatically from the flatness around it.  It’s called Grosvenor Arch.  

We later hiked within 5 minutes of our cabin, enjoying interesting rock formations in reds, orange and grays in the evening, setting sun.  

We lamented that we were not able to stay longer but vowed that we would certainly return some day and spend more time exploring this unknown place and stay in the same cabins!

We left there about 9 Friday morning, having hiked a mile and a half or so in Kodachrome (awesome!), to travel to a trail that accesses Bryce Canyon from its east side in the small town of Tropic.  We had been told about this quite unknown access by one of the Tropic locals the last time we went to Bryce.  

As before, we hiked from the bottom up—the floor of Bryce, unlike everybody else—literally (nobody parked by us near that secret east trail entrance), and it makes for an easier hike.  Everybody else that chooses to hike at Bryce starts at the top, descending, then has to huff and puff back to the top.

However, Bryce Canyon needs to be seen from the top, near Inspiration Point or Bryce Point if possible.  But it also needs to be seen from the trails such as the Navajo Trail that take you next to the incredible rock formations—called hoodoos.  

Other than its smaller, nearby sister Park, Cedar Breaks, just outside of Cedar City, Utah, there is nothing like it—except maybe at the “Cars” area of Disneyland California Adventure Park in California.  

The rock formations of Bryce are very different from Kodachrome, and the Park much more crowded, but people should not only go to Zion National Park, Arches National Park, and other well-known destinations, but should check out Bryce too.  And while they're at it, they should check out Escalante Petrified Forest State Park.

And if people go to Bryce or Kodachrome, they should travel Highway 12 east from there, designated as a national Scenic Byway.  

It is a singular road that affords awesome vistas, a section of road that can have steep canyons on either side, and a lovely ascent and descent of 10,000 foot Boulder Mountain.  It was fantastic the first time we drove it a few years ago and was still as awe-inspiring as it was then.  

We stopped on Highway 12 and spent three hours hiking at Calf Creek Canyon that dead ends to a magnificent, spectacular waterfall.  Incredible landscapes, magnificent fall, and unforgettable visual memories. 

We next traveled north toward Salt Lake City.  After spending a wonderful evening and morning with our long-time friends, Bill and Janice Harten, we headed north to Bear Lake, on the border of Utah and Idaho.  

I have been coming to Bear Lake since I was a little boy, but I had not been for a while—perhaps 10 years.  I have always gone to a place that an aunt and uncle owned that has two cabins and a large boat house.  This place simply holds many memories for me of family and fun. 

 It was so great to spend time with my brother Tom and sister-in-law Janeen, and five of their six children as well as some of their legion grand and great grandchildren.  Although chaotic at times, it was wonderful to be with family, whether it was on a boat on the lake, sitting around talking about children or talking about life, eating together, or just shooting the breeze.  

Ann and I also enjoyed taking a ride on my brother’s four-wheeler and getting caught in a thunderstorm while doing so, and going for a bike ride and stopping to buy and eat some just-picked Bear Lake raspberries.

We spent Sunday afternoon to Wednesday morning at Bear Lake, but it was time to wend our way to our next destination: Yosemite National Park.  That is quite a distance from Bear Lake and we had decided to make it in two days, and had picked our half-way point to be the small town of Ely, Nevada.  The road from Wendover, Nevada (the location of the famous Bonneville Salt Flats) to Ely was deserted—at least going our way.  We stayed at a little motel in Ely and ate some surprisingly good Mexican food nearby. 

Rested, we left to head west toward the east entrance of Yosemite.  Part of the road was hilly and we had a good time flying over them –- no air, just stomach tickles.  We finally saw the Sierra Nevada jutting up, and having eaten a fun lunch in the Eastern Yosemite town of Lee Vining, we drove on the Tioga Road into Yosemite. 

 The vistas of the mountains and domes were breathtaking.  They just kept appearing, one after the other.  The skies and lake were intense blue, and the gray and black and white of the rock formations was incredible.  This landscape was majestic, and different from the other kinds of rock formations that we had seen up to then. 

I commented to Ann that the rock formations we had seen of Kodachrome, Bryce Canyon, and Highway 12 and the Calf Creek Canyon, were each different and unique, and that what we were witnessing in Yosemite was yet other types of rock formations.  Each was breathtaking in its own right.  And speaking of rocks, I made sure to collect a few samples of rocks from each place to add to my rock collection that I collect on hikes to new locations.

We decided to stop and do some hiking while on the Tioga Pass road.  We picked a moderate, 2 ½ mile hike to May Lake.  Much of the trail was over rocks, and it was at a high altitude (9270 feet).   The lake at the end of the trail was beautiful, and luckily, not too many people were on the trail.  After we finished our hike we continued driving west, eventually leaving Yosemite and headed for our campsite at an RV park.  Even though the camp was dusty and the people and their kids were making noise long past the curfew hour, we managed to get enough sleep and headed east early in the morning toward Yosemite Valley.  We arrived early enough to beat the lines of cars that are known to clog the entrances at a later hour.  We whizzed right through at about 8:00.

Anyone who has been to the Valley knows how stunning and breathtaking the rock formations are, and they were indeed stunning and breathtaking for us. 

 When we first saw El Capitan, we were amazed at its majesty.  

 And as you drive eastward, you are flanked on either side by incredible rock walls and domes.  It was as if the trees along the road obscured the views of the majesty on either side. 

Sadly, it was the wrong time of year to see the Yosemite Fall, but we made it a point to see all of the falls that were running.

We found a parking place in Curry Village (very lucky!) and started our hike to Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall.  We continued to see spectacular rock formations, but we gained different perspectives as we left the Valley floor and hiked up a few thousand feet to the falls.

  We made a loop of a hike and avoided a lot of the crowds (and the stairs we had just climbed) while seeing incredible vistas.  

The hike to the Falls took it out of us and we spent the rest of the day visiting what there was to view on the valley floor in the Village.  The Village did not disappoint, nor did checking out the magnificent Ahwanee Hotel.  On our way back to the dusty campground, we stopped to see the third and final Fall, Bridalvail.

  Lucky for us, it was a short walk to the viewpoint, although the view was crowded with non-hikers.  (Am I being snoody? Yes!) This Fall was barely flowing, and it would rarely flow straight down because it was “wispy” and a breeze would blow the stream to the right and left of complete vertical.  

We were also afforded one last view of El Capitan before leaving the Valley.  Wow!

We left the noisy and dusty campsite the next morning and set our sights for the Coast.  Between us and there, however, were a lot of twisty and turny roads—and hot Fresno.  We were looking forward to some relief from the heat that we had experienced in Yosemite and its environs, and we finally got our wish as we approached our bed and breakfast in Los Osos.  The B&B rests on a bay, and lies some 4 miles south of Morro Bay.  

After we put away our suitcases in the room and rested for a while watching some Olympic competition, we decided to take a short ride to Morro Bay for some delicious fresh seafood.  We enjoyed the cool temperatures and the nice room that had a romantic fireplace—which we lit, ironically enough.

We woke up the next morning and attended a church service in Morro Bay as we had done the previous Sunday in Salt Lake City.  Returning to our B&B, we packed up and embarked on our journey home.  This journey involved seeing numerous glimpses of the Coast and soon began to feel the heat as we moved farther inland.  When we arrived home, it was really hot and we realized we had been spoiled by the previous evening and morning.  We also realized that we had driven a long way.

As I have reflected on this incredible journey, I realize that it was singular and extraordinary vacation.  It was fall of memorable views and memorable experiences with people we love and care for.  I have realized just how much I enjoyed spending time with Ann and how well we get along and are enjoying our empty nest.  I appreciate more than ever God’s creations and this beautiful earth and earthly experience that He has given me.  What a trip it was!

 I hope that if you have not taken the time to read this lengthy travelogue, you have at least been able to appreciate many of the views and landscapes and people from our pictures of our Big Vacation Loop through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and back to California!

Challenging Myself

When Ann went away to be a grandmother for a time, I knew that I would be spending time alone.   I challenged myself to keep busy and accomplish some tasks that I had been putting off, but also, to do accomplish some things that were best accomplished without her being at home.  Such was my decision to hike a nearby mountain.

                Ann likes hiking more than I do.  I accompany her, and occasionally I will really enjoy doing it, such as our hike on a shore excursion in Juneau, Alaska during our cruise last year.  But for the most part, I don’t enjoy putting my body through the rigors of hiking, preferring much more to sit in front of a screen or driving somewhere.   I force myself to go because I know that the exercise is good for me and my heart, because I enjoy nature in its splendor, but more importantly because I want to spend time with her.

                So the decision to climb a mountain on a trail in the middle of summer that had a 2800 foot elevation increase was definitely NOT because I wanted to.   I really didn’t particularly want to.  But since I had told people that I was going to do it, on the 4^th of July no less, and because of wanting to challenge myself, I woke up and parked my car at the trail head at 6:30am, wanting to take advantage of some cooler temperatures and some early morning fog.

                I had made a peanut butter and jam sandwich the night before.  I likewise had filled my water bottle and belt, had prepared a bag of cherries, found some sunscreen (which I regretfully only applied to my face and part of my neck), and went to sleep determined to conquer Mt. Lukens the next morning.

                I started out with great determination and at a good clip.  I had made an announcement in the men’s meeting of my church congregation the previous Sunday with the hope of engaging a hiking companion.  But when a prospect had asked what pace I was going to keep, I informed him that I was going to keep a brisk pace, and I’m sure that scared away his wife and him.  In fact, not only did I want to walk briskly, I wanted to not take many “breathing” breaks that Ann feels obligated to take when we hike together.

                After about a half hour, I had gotten to the beginning of the true ascent, a series of switchbacks, a point in the hike that had taken Ann and me some 45 minutes or so to reach on a previous hike earlier in the spring.  And after about 50 minutes, I had gotten to a place where we had turned around on another hike earlier in the spring.  I was quite pleased with my speed and that I had not stopped to rest.  I hadn’t even stopped to drink, and when I finally did access the water bottle a little later, I barely slowed down.  I even took out my sandwich a little farther up and kept walking while I ate.

                Until the trail took me to the south to where I could overlook the town of La Crescenta, the path was quite boring.  There are no conifers, only chaparral, and the prolific flowers that had graced the trail a couple of months previously had all wilted and died.  The higher I got, the greater the mountain vistas were, but it really is a rather unexciting hike—at least at this time of year.  Still I kept the steady pace on the trail that had plenty of rocks under foot and that never had more than a few twenty-foot stretches of level ground.  The problem was that when the fog burned away, it was because the sun was out in a cloudless sky, and the temperature rose.

                I occasionally caught glimpses of the towers at the top which served to animate and motivate me to keep the pace.  However, the warmth and the relentless uphill nature of the trail began to take their toll.  The last mile or so is constantly uphill and I realized that I was beginning to tire.  Some 300 yards from the summit I ran into hikers descending from the top, and when they asked me how I was doing, my response was, “I’m tired,” to which they replied, “you’re just about there.”  I only saw five other crazy hikers the entire time I was on the trail.

                Some two hours and twenty-five minutes after I began this endeavor I reached the top.  I learned that Mt. Lukens is not a specific point or geological outcropping.  Rather, it’s just a flattened top of a mountain (I wonder if originally it was flat before the towers were erected and the helicopter pad placed).  I felt satisfaction that I had accomplished this goal that I had set for myself.  I found a shady place to sit, interestingly on the wheel well of a trailer upon which a rather large compressor had been placed.  I took a picture of the towers.   I explored the summit, sat for a total of twenty minutes, and then decided to begin my descent.

Towers Atop Mt. Lukens

                As I stated down from the top, I realized just how tired I was but noticed that I still had energy.  I found a rock from the top to commemorate the hike to place in my collection of other rocks from other hikes, and found another quite spectacular one another couple of hundred feet down the trail.  I carried them in my hands all the way to the bottom.  About that time, I took a picture of what lies north of where I was.  It is a rugged, foreboding, chaparral-covered series of mediocre peaks and canyons, and actually quite beautiful in its starkness.  I took a picture of this vista to help me remember it.  At the base of these minor peaks was Big Tujunga Canyon Road upon which I have walked and which eventually merges with the Angeles Crest Highway, which can barely be seen in the picture.

Looking Down Upon the Big Tujunga Canyon Road

                By this time, it was starting to get warm—it was about 9:30.  I hoped that my ball cap would help keep my face and neck in shade.  As I would walk away and towards the sun I would turn the hat’s beak to face the sun.  I must have changed it a couple of dozen times, but I still got sunburned a bit.  

                As I descended, I noticed just how unrelenting the downhill of the trail was.  As difficult as it was to hike up, it was likewise difficult to hike down, especially as I realized just how many smaller rocks littered the trail and would occasionally cause me to stumble. 

                Because I am kind of analytic and because I hear about old people purposefully trying to walk 10,000 steps a day to maintain good health , I decided to approximate how many steps this hike was going to take for this middle-aged guy.  I counted the steps in a five minute period—440—and calculated that I was going to take over 20,000 steps.  I guess that if I measured the approximate length of my stride, I could calculate just how far I was hiking (I couldn't calculate that in my head.)  An online map of the hike I took shows that the round trip was about 11 miles.  I guess I'm trying to avoid the transition to old age!

                I purposefully did not stop but just plowed on, turning the beak of my ball cap back and forth and eating the last of the cherries I had brought.  I noticed that my feet and calves and hips were starting to ache, and realized that I was really feeling tired.  In a shady place some 1-1¼ miles from the car, I stopped for a couple of minutes, but then trudged on.  That last little bit was not so downhill but had numerous rocks on the trail, and one time I stumbled and almost fell.  I realized just how tired I was.  I imagine that my foot path kind of meandered a bit there at the end, but because I knew this part of the trail fairly well having taken it a few times with Ann, I knew that I was getting close to my car.

                I finally reached the pavement and walked resolutely the last 100 or so yards to my car.  I took off my fanny pack and water bottle belt, threw them on the floor in the back along with the two rocks I had brought as souvenirs, and sat my tired butt in my car seat.  Ahhhhhhh.  A short five minute drive and I was home. 

                I look with pride at Mt. Lukens as I drive by it on the freeway and look up to the towers.  I set out to do something hard, and in five hours total, and I did both.  Yay for me!

The Ability to Empathize

                Recently, a heavily armed young man strode into a midnight showing of a movie and commenced to indiscriminately shoot innocent theater goers, killing 12 and wounding scores of others.  

                This past weekend, another man—referred to as a white supremacist, shot seven Sikh worshipers and wounded others.  

Lest events like this become too commonplace so as not to give one pause, I wanted to briefly share my thoughts and feelings about these senseless acts and what I figure answers the “why”; how could someone do something so heartless and cruel?

                As I watched cable news reporting about one of the the killing sprees, one of the stations asked one of their pundits, a forensic psychologist, to opine about the “why.”   This particular man has over 20 years of experience, much of it attempting to figure out motives and reasons of mass murderers.  Because I am a psychologist in my own right, I was interested in what he had to say.  What he said really rang true and made sense to me, especially because in my profession I am an observer of behavior.

                  Simply stated, he posited that the reason why people can commit atrocities is that they have lost their ability to empathize.   Combining his explanation with my own, some time in their past, something happened in their lives—likely in their childhood—that emotionally hurt them to such a devastating degree that for self-preservation they had to shut down emotionally; to bury that hurt and dissociate from it because it was too painful to feel.  When one shuts down that feeling completely, one doesn’t feel (and doesn’t want to feel).   

                 Sometimes the loss of empathy can occur because of a political or religious belief.  Such was the case with the terrible tyrants of the 20^th century like Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse Dung, Sadaam Hussein, Charles Taylor, Idi Amin, and Papa Doc Duvalier who were responsible for the slaughter of well over 100 million people.  They likely considered the people they slaughtered to be less than human.  They and those that carried out their evil killings lost their ability to empathize.   I would submit feeling empathy is a God-given ability, but in them it was completely extinguished. 

                Empathy involves me acknowledging that you have a right to be.  It involves caring for others.   It involves an emotional attachment with those around us and valuing them.  It involves feeling on some level what others might be feeling, and respecting that.  

                Losing our ability to empathize as humans is a terrible thing.  I am convinced that the men who perpetrated these barbarisms have lost that humanity.  We who remain hopefully do feel empathy, and our hearts are saddened and we mourn those whose mortal lives were snuffed out and whose families will be scarred for the rest of their lives by these evil acts.

Real Recovery From Someone Who Knows

               As many of you know, my son Robert is in a substance rehab facility in Southern California and has been there for almost 29 months.  He has stayed clean and sober those 29 months, a great accomplishment, and I am hopeful that he finally understands the "whys" of his addiction and has taken actions to turn that understanding into changed behavior and thinking.  I believe that he has done so based upon the monthly conversations he has with Ann and me once a month when he is allowed to contact us.  

               Some months ago, I asked him to write down what he was telling us--both for his own benefit and for mine.  Obviously, since I work in the addiction world as a therapist, I am always looking for articles and ideas that I can share with some of my clients.  He finally has produced the following.  He acknowledges that many of the ideas he presents are not necessarily his own (he got many from the AA Big Book and the AA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions) but they have been filtered and enlarged upon as he makes his way on the road to addiction recovery.  I thought that it was worthwhile to share with the world.  Maybe it can help you or someone you know!

Brains: Masking Pain through Adrenaline

            One of the functions of the brain is to protect a person from pain. This is accomplished through adrenaline. Adrenaline is a powerful anesthetic for both physical and emotional pain. The injuries of a fight, either physical or emotional, are often not felt until after the conflict is over, and the adrenaline is wearing off. Because of the powerful effects of adrenaline, we are all addicted to it.

Adrenaline can be had in many different ways. You can get adrenaline from positive and negative sources. Sports are an example of a positive source of adrenaline. Negative sources of adrenaline can be had from behaviors such as intimidation, sarcasm, wallowing in self-pity, fantasizing, verbal abuse, etc. Some sources can be negative or positive, depending on what it’s being used for. An example would be getting lost in the fantasy of a movie. There is adrenaline attached to the fantasy of a movie. However, it becomes a negative source if, for example, at work you get yelled at by your boss, and rather than deal and process the effects of the altercation, you watch a movie for the fantasy as an escape from dealing with the emotional effects of the encounter with the boss.

From a very young age, our brains learn to use adrenaline to mask pain. In fact, most people’s first memory is of an event or activity where they experienced some adrenaline. When it comes to trauma experienced during the developmental stages of life, the more painful the experience, the more adrenaline is needed to mask the pain. In the brain’s efforts to cope and protect the person from the debilitating pain of trauma, behaviors are learned to effectively get adrenaline to mask the pain. In an environment where trauma isn’t processed in a healthy way, the child is left with coming up with their own behaviors. These behaviors which provide the necessary adrenaline fix to mask pain become the answers to the problems for how they feel. These answers work, at least for a time.

The behaviors adults use that are unhealthy are the learned answers for adrenaline developed as a child in response to traumas. When a child reaches puberty, the onset of these changes with the influx of hormonal changes and combined with the social stresses, forces the teenager to increase the adrenaline they’re seeking to mask the increased pain of puberty. This could mean more frequently engaging in activities that provide adrenaline, or picking up new answers that provide a higher dose. Many teenagers at the onset of puberty will start bullying, setting fires, torturing animals, molesting, breaking the law, and experimenting with sex and drugs. These activities all have super high levels of adrenaline attached to them.

But when an adult is still using childhood answers and is also an addict, it causes a whole set of difficult problems. The result is the unmanageability of life described in the second half of the First Step. These childhood answers reinforce and increase the selfishness and self-centeredness of the addict, inflicting pain on all who get caught up in their inability to cope with life while simultaneously exacerbating the problems created from addiction.

In recovery, the addict learns new answers that are healthy in an effort to replace the unhealthy adrenaline-seeking answers developed as a child. This process takes time for it is only by trial and error through repetition that these new answers become part of their character, which is the goal. These new answers are spiritual in nature, and incorporate the principles of the Steps like honesty, willingness, justice, discipline, courage, etc. Finally, childhood answers are directly connected to the calamity of when what is God-given in every child is twisted and buried beneath the pain of trauma.

Twisted Instincts

We are all born with instincts. They are God-given and therefore good. They keep us alive, and drive us to do the activities necessary for survival. They can be categorized into the three different instincts: social, security, and sexual. The social instinct is the drive for humans to be accepted and feel a part of a social organization greater than themselves, like family, friends, and community. The security instinct is our need for shelter, food, clothing, and other material needs for our day to day existence. The sexual instinct is the drive for a mate and to reproduce.

When humans are exposed to traumas and accompanying unhealthy energies which are absorbed in their developing stages of life, these instincts become twisted. For example, our social and security instincts are to be met and directed by our parents. But when a child experiences abandonment from a parent, the child experiences a mental imprint, and a deficiency in their social instinct not being met is created.

The need for this instinct to be satisfied results in behavior that attempts to satisfy this instinct. It is the behavior people engage in to satisfy unmet instincts that characterize twisted instincts, for we are attempting to get more satisfaction for our instincts than God intended us to. In the example of a child whose social instinct was threatened by abandonment, the child will try to satisfy this instinct in a variety of unhealthy behaviors which could include being codependent, pretending to be someone they’re not for friendship, people-pleasing, making unfair demands for attention, and requiring validation from people, etc. All of the overreaching to satisfy twisted instincts is selfish in nature, sinful, and is the cause of all emotional problems and conflicts in relationships.

An important purpose of the Fourth Step is for the addict to look at how their instincts got twisted. The events surrounding the traumas an addict experiences in the developing stages of life is referred to in AA literature as “causes and conditions”. The Fourth Step confronts the causes and conditions where the instincts were twisted by traumas, and illuminates how this twisting of instincts resulted in the development of coping behaviors which are unhealthy and selfish. These coping behaviors or “answers” that are the products of twisted instincts are the reason why a person turns to drugs in the first place. As stated in AA literature, “alcohol is but a symptom” of the problem.

Indeed, drugs are but one of many unhealthy solutions to the problem of pain experienced from trauma resulting in twisted instincts. As previously stated, these unhealthy answers that are adrenaline-fueled help us to deal with self, which is our true problem. Our twisted instincts seek to keep us "in self," cut off from God and others. The further we indulge in the activities that attempt to satisfy our twisted instincts, the more we come into conflict with others. That creates the need for more selfish attempts to satisfy our twisted instincts. This self destructive cycle keeps us miserable, and for an addict, takes us to the point of suicide. Our answers no longer work, and everyone has been effectively driven away by our selfishness, achieving the disease's goal for the isolation from everyone who cares about us. To the extent we indulge in satisfying our twisted instincts, we are cut off from the grace of God and from a faith that works.  

A Channel for God’s Will

So how does all this affect our relationship with Heavenly Father? We are on this planet to serve His will, to bring Him glory. The questions we must ask and face are: what keeps us from being a better servant? What keeps us from being in God's will more? What percentage of the day is spent "in self," and what percent is spent "out of self," which will always be God's will for us. The fact is that the closer we are to being our true selves, the person Heavenly Father sent us to be, the more effectively we can serve His will.

However, the childhood traumas we experience move us away from our true selves, and the unhealthy answers we develop as a result of our twisted instincts effectively moves us farther and farther away from our "soul purpose".  By healing these traumas, giving them to God so that through Jesus Christ we can be made whole, we can start to establish a connection with God where we can intuitively serve His will.

As the Big Book states, we "intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.” We are faced with situations every day where we can choose self will or God's will. If we are stuck "in self" due to sinful behavior as a result of reacting to a twisted instinct, we won't have the connection needed in the moment to clearly see what God's will is for us, and we will be cut off from the power which can be given through the Holy Ghost needed to make the right decision. The more stuff we clear away from our past and heal from that cuts us off from God, the more often we can intuitively make the right decision that falls in line with God's will for us.

This is how we come to have a faith that works in any condition, for when we are connected and aligned with God's will, we are insulated from the temptations of the adversary. When we heal our traumas that effectively keep us creating conditions where we are stuck in self, and practice keeping the commandments and live by spiritual principles, we stay "out of self," and God's love and power can flow through us always, resulting in saying what He wants us to say, doing what He wants us to do, and fulfilling our callings on this Earth. When we stay out of the way, and let Heavenly Father work through us, we know true happiness. There is no doubt that our prayers will be answered. We can be of maximum service to our fellow men, for our "crap" is not affecting or clouding God's ability to work through us.

Been Awhile...Checking In

                It’s been awhile since I posted on this blog.  I must admit to allowing distractions in my life, but I am committing to be more diligent.  Writing my thoughts and feelings is very therapeutic for me and helps me to focus them—as opposed to having them come and go.

                Let me be systematic in writing them, as opposed to some kind of a stream of consciousness riff.  I am kind of a systematic guy, always looking for the system (what is in the background causing the behavior).  I will try to be precise, but at the same time, eloquent.

                Politics—I keep an eye and ear on what is going on with the presidential election as well as what is (or isn’t) going on in Washington.  Politics is a nasty game, not for the faint of heart, but I am afraid that there are very few truly principled men and women that work there.  But the way our government is set up, we should try to elect such principled people at the ballot box and then hold their feet to the fire, so to speak. 

                If you’ve read some of my recent posts, I have been following the Romney campaign closely and observing how his presence on the national scene has affected my Church and its perceptions in the media and by people in the country.  I have been intrigued by his “no-win” scenario when it comes to his religion; how he can’t talk about his religion in any way because 1) he doesn’t want to alienate those Evangelicals on his right, 2) he doesn’t want to be seen as a mouthpiece for leaders of my Church who have constantly reminded the members about political neutrality, and 3) he doesn’t want to bring about the possibility that any of the Church’s past beliefs such as polygamy and blacks and the Priesthood will distract him from his message.

                Sadly, as many articles have shown, being frozen in this manner does not allow him to bring up his “humanity” as shown by his service as a lay ecclesiastical leader and as a missionary in France.  He may campaign in a somewhat stiff manner, but I know enough about his past from study to know that there isn’t much stiffness.  It would be more accurate to say that he is focused on accomplishment, being a good missionary, a good bishop, a good leader at Bain Capital, a good husband, a good father.  I have no doubt that this single-mindedness and drive will make him a caring but competent leader of the Country.  I also have no doubt that the only way he will be elected President is if it is God’s will.

                Same-Sex Attraction—You should know by now that this is a subject of great interest to me.  You also should know that while I have some strong beliefs about various aspects of this subject, I am in a transitional place as to my ultimate feelings about it.  It is my desire to be congruent and consistent in those ideas that I finally choose to espouse. 

                I have been interested by a blog called The Weed, written by a member of the Church named Josh Weed and his wife.  It seems, if he is to be believed, that he has had and still has SSA but has been in a heterosexual marriage for 10 years and has kept his “orientation” in the closet until he felt like he, she, and it (the marriage) were strong enough to weather the controversy that would occur as a result of his “coming out.”  His wife knew about this issue long before they decided to get married, and in fact, they were very best friends from childhood, and he finally realized that she could be more than that and that he wanted to be obedient to the teachings of the Church regarding marriage.  Nothing wrong with marrying one of your best friends; I did.

                I likewise have been intrigued by an article that was posted on a website I frequent.  It relates a similar story to that of Josh Weed.  This male member of the Church is a therapist like me, but wrote that he likewise had SSA early on   He decided to get married to a woman and writes that he is very happy and in full fellowship in the Church.  He likewise realized that he did not want to be celibate for the rest of his life and wanted to place himself in a position to receive what he says are all of the blessings available to those who marry in the Covenant.  He discusses three issues brought up by the You Tube video made by gay and lesbian students at BYU called It Gets Better in the context of Gospel beliefs.

                The blog and the article have caused me to reflect on my attitudes.  As I’ve stated, I am in the process of trying to figure out where I am on this issue.  One thing that I am sure of, however, is of the importance of loving all of the Father’s children, no matter who they are.

ARP—Other than speaking at a meeting in August with some Stake Presidents of the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, Antelope Valley, and points northeast of Los Angeles regarding ARP, I have been released from my regional calling as Program Coordinator.  I may be asked to help start a Spanish–speaking ARP in Orange County or to help out with a Spanish-speaking ARP elsewhere, but those opportunities will be rare.  Having been released last December from attending twice a week ARP groups here locally, for the first time since 2006 I am without what could be termed a “major” calling or responsibility.  I still function weekly as a Sunday School teacher to the 4-6 young men and women aged 14-15 in my congregation, and I enjoy doing that.  It is “major” on one level, and I am enjoying being “under the radar.” 

                Ann and I have grown considerably in this calling, and we both consider it divine intervention that we were given this opportunity to serve.  It has helped me in my career as a therapist who specializes in sexual addiction, giving me a pretty firm grasp of the Twelve Steps and their importance in recovery work.  It gave me a chance to see people struggle against addictive behaviors and has caused me to look inside of myself and my own issues.  I am convinced that God gave me yet another opportunity to be a trail blazer in another endeavor; someone who is planting seeds and establishing protocols and formulating procedures that will be followed and improved upon by those who will follow after me as the endeavor matures.  It was this way on my mission, when I served as a branch president on my mission and in the Spanish Branch in Newhall, and when I served as bishop of the Singles Ward in Glendale.

MY HEALTH—I celebrated my 58^th birthday on June 4.  Physically, I am doing pretty well.  I stopped running about the time I became a bishop and have only run a handful of times since then.  I do go on fast walks with Ann (and sometimes alone—when I will sometimes run) a couple of times a week, we are trying to hike more often, and I try to keep active.  But the reality is that I don’t seem to have quite the lung capacity that I have had in the past.  My blood pressure has gone from being low (a source of pride for most of my adult life) at around 100-110/72-75 to a more normal 120-124/80.  It’s still good but I would like to see it lower.  I am in the first stages of diabetes but I am controlling it with pills and diet.  My weight has been in a 5 lb. range for tens of years.  I had my eyesight checked and it is doing fine.  I go to the chiropractor for adjustments for my neck and back.  There is some arthritis present in my hip area and it usually manifests itself in the wee hours of the morning causing me to wake up and turn over a number of times.  All in all, I’d give myself a B+.  I’d give myself an A- if I could lose about 10 lbs.

                Emotionally, I feel that I am in a good health.  I feel pretty positive and good these days.  I do a good job of not beating myself up when I do something dim-witted.  I am in touch with Bobby, my inner child.  I feel good about the work I do daily on the relationship with Ann, and I feel like my relationships with my kids and grandkids is as healthy as they have ever been.  I feel pleased about my employment situation.   I would say that I am in a good place, and I’d give myself an A.

                Spiritually, I need to spend more time and effort feeding my spirit.  My hectic life is not so hectic these days such that I do have the time to give it nourishment.  It’s a matter of organizing my time in the morning and making spiritual matters a priority.  I need to work on not rationalizing, a life-long challenge I’ve had.  My basic testimony is strong, and while I don’t understand some things and get frustrated at times with the bureaucracy of the Church and how some members focus on doing rather than being, I realize that people are the Church and that the organization of the Church is to give me the opportunity to be a true disciple and to love as Christ loved and loves.  The Church is the means to the end but not the end.  Luckily for me, Ann feels pretty much the same way such that we focus on what is eternal and important, and let the other stuff fall away.  I would give myself a B, and know that I am capable of full-on A because I’ve been an A for much of my life.

Sharing Some Articles

To My Dear Blog Readers (the few of you there are),

When I am not directly involved in selling wiping rags or doing psychotherapy (my "split personality"), I am usually either listening to music or listening or reading about issues that interest me, and these days those issues are often centered on Mitt Romney and the historic so-called Mormon Moment (LDS people  and beliefs in the national spotlight), the upcoming presidential election, the debate on gay marriage, BYU, sports, and addiction.

I read the following articles/posts and found them interesting. The first two are about the Mormon Moment, and the last is a blog post by Mitch Mayne in which he talks about his relationship with God.  They are worth the time to peruse--I hope you do. 

An Acceptable Prejudice?

May 29, 2012 

By

Thomas C. Terry - Associate Professor of Mass Communications at Idaho State University

It was a fairly typical lunch at an academic conference in the East after the New Hampshire primary in 2008. There was a smattering of endowed professorships and international reputations at the table, perhaps eight academics in all.
Along with the sweet tea and penne pasta came the inevitable skewering of George W. Bush.

"Never has a president experienced such horrible poll approval numbers in the midst of a war," one professor quipped.

"That is, if you overlook Harry Truman," I interjected into an uncomfortable silence.

It was going to be that kind of meal.

Dessert made its appearance and talk turned to the relative merits of the developing college basketball season and presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were hotly debated – the state’s primary promised to be a pivotal one. Then it was onto the Republicans, and Mitt Romney’s name popped up.

"I couldn’t vote for a Mormon," one professor said. There was some polite (or perhaps impolite) head-bobbing. "It’s a cult. Very intolerant, and their opinions about women, and, well ... ” and his voice trailed off.

I mentioned I had just been hired at a college in the West with a sizeable student and local population of Mormons -- Idaho State University, in Pocatello. I wondered rhetorically whether anyone said the same thing in 1960 about voting for John F. Kennedy because he was Roman Catholic. Or for then-Senator Obama because he is African-American. There was that same uncomfortable silence again. I think they felt sorry for me.

I’ve attended numerous scholarly conferences since that lunch where Mormonism has been discussed, and it is amazing to confront snide and disdainful comments and even overt prejudice from intellectually and sophisticated academics. And it seems perfectly acceptable to express this bias. Mormons are abnormal, outside the mainstream; everybody knows that. They don’t drink alcohol and coffee. Their women are suppressed. They don’t like the cross, and their most holy book seems made up. And there’s that multiple-wives thing. At one session involving a discussion of Utah’s history, several dismissive comments were spoken, rather blithely and without any sense of embarrassment. Belittling comments were made about Mormons' abstemiousness, and there was a general negative undercurrent. The LDS Church was referred to as the Mormon Church, something many members object to. They don’t mind being called Mormons, but their church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS Church. At least some of the professors who were making these remarks knew that.

Yes, Mormons do not embrace the cross as a symbol of Christianity, but it is because they consider it representing state-sanctioned execution and intense suffering. I regard it as a sacrifice on my behalf. Who’s right? Various Christian denominations think that during communion the wine and wafers actually are transformed into the body and blood of Christ – and over the centuries Christians have been derided as cannibals. I was raised to believe that the Eucharist represents the sacrifice of Jesus. Nothing more than different perspectives and beliefs.

Mormons are excoriated in popular culture (see: "The Simpsons") for the way their church was created by someone who was kind of a con man. And the translation of the Book of Mormon was accomplished with a hat. And the Golden Tablets have been lost. Hmmm. The stone tablets of the Ten Commandments were misplaced, too. And a burning bush talking? Really? It comes down to faith, as it should. Not some sort of ignorant bigotry.

Many of the academics consider themselves liberal, socially responsible, and broad-minded individuals, the repository of the best in America. They’re proud of themselves for voting for Barack Obama (a bit too smug maybe?). They would splutter and bluster and be generally outraged to be considered prejudiced. None would consider saying anything similar about African-Americans, Muslims, Jews, Native Americans . . . well, you get the idea. But anti-Mormonism is part of the same continuum that contains discrimination against any group. Why, then, is it allowable publicly express bias against Mormons?

In 2009, The Daily Beast compiled a listing of the top 25 safest and 25 most dangerous college campuses in America, based on two-year per capita data from 9,000 campuses with at least 6,000 students. The two states with the highest proportion of Mormons did pretty well in the safest category: #5 was Idaho State University, Pocatello, where I work;  #13 was Utah State University, Logan, and #17 was Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. No Utah or Idaho schools were on the most dangerous list.

And yet, nestled in the midst of all the good publicity, was this comment about BYU: "Joseph Smith’s golden plates would have been safe at Brigham Young." Would the Daily Beast have said this: “The tablets of the Ten Commandments would have been safe at Brandeis University" or "at Notre Dame University?” Not very likely. But this sort of flippant and biased comment about Mormons is somehow socially acceptable. Responsible people don’t use "Indian giver" anymore (and we shouldn't). But we Welch on deals and get away Scot-free. I have a sprinkling of Welsh and Scottish blood in me, and I don't appreciate those comments.

So what, exactly, is so awful about being Mormon?

Utah is about 72 percent Mormon, so it's a pretty good representation of Mormonism. Among the 50 states, Utah has the lowest child poverty rate, the lowest teen pregnancy rate, the third-lowest abortion rate, the third-highest high school graduate rate at 94 percent, the highest scores on Advanced Placement exams, fewest births to unwed mothers (also the highest overall birthrate), lowest cancer rate, lowest smoking rate, lowest per capita rate of alcohol use, and, arguably, the most comprehensive and universal state health insurance system in the U.S.

Furthermore, Mormons as a group have the lowest rates of violence and depression among religious groups, are seven times less likely to commit suicide (if active church members), and have the lowest divorce rates of any social-religious group. Sixty-five percent of Utah residents have personal computers, the highest penetration rate in the country. Crime has decreased in the state of Utah by anywhere from 15-18 percent over the past 10 years.

Mormon women are more likely to be employed in professional occupations than Catholic or Protestant women (similar to Jewish women) and more likely to graduate from college than Catholic or Protestant women (but less than Jewish women). One survey indicated Mormon women experience more orgasms and are more satisfied with their married lives than non-Mormons.

Plenty of religious groups – from Orthodox Jews to Orthodox Muslims to various mainstream Christian denominations – do not allow women full participation in the life of their church and communities. But disparaging Roman Catholics, for instance, because their church does not allow female clergy, isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to that faith. Yes, Mormon women wear less revealing clothing – no plunging necklines and short-shorts. But is modesty a bad thing?

Glenn Beck is a Mormon, but so is Harry Reid. Other famous Mormons are or were: Harmon Killebrew, Jack Dempsey, J. W. Marriott, Gladys Knight, the Osmonds, Butch Cassidy, and Eldridge Cleaver. What does that tell you about Mormonism? Absolutely nothing.

Sure, many people find it annoying to have Mormon missionaries knock on their doors. But what kind of moral and religious conviction must it take to devote up to two years of your life in service to a higher calling, whether it be community service or religious proselytizing? Isn’t this the sort of commitment we want to encourage in young people, who are too often accused of being selfish and jaded? Having students who have been to Mongolia, Paraguay, and Finland enrich my classes, not diminish them.

At about 13 million members, Mormons are a pretty large cult. So what is so bad about this “cult?” And a cult growing at almost exactly the same rate, decade by decade, as the original Christian church in the 1st and 2nd centuries. It makes no sense, but then bigotry doesn’t. Who wouldn’t want to be on those lists? Seems like good things to be, even if you can’t drink coffee and beer, wear more than one earring per ear, grow a beard (frowned upon only if you want to move up the church hierarchy), and show lots of cleavage. You can have as much hot chocolate and ice cream as you want, though, and I have embraced this provision enthusiastically.

When I first moved to Pocatello, I lived in a cul de sac and seven of my nine neighbors belonged to the LDS Church. Nobody tried to convert me. They invited me to church picnics – no pressure. My next-door neighbor spent nearly two hours one weekday morning (he was late to work) helping me restore my snow blower to life after five years in the humid South. Another helped flush and fix my sprinkler system. A third returned my dogs after they’d escaped. Several just showed up with family members to help me move in. A fourth one tossed me the keys to his Cadillac after the transmission in my Suburban disassembled on my driveway. "Bring it back when you don’t need it anymore," he said.

These are not the faces of intolerance and prejudice.

No. Those faces are in the academic mirror.

I was raised as a member of the United Church of Christ – the same denomination as President Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright – and my sister is an ordained minister in the denomination. I am now Episcopalian. An uncle and aunt and several of my first cousins are Mormons; the first was converted while stationed with the Marine Corps in Hawaii.

Just why is it socially acceptable to denigrate and trivialize and insult a class of people as a class of people? They had a name for that sort of behavior and system in the South a few decades back. You may remember it. It was called Jim Crow.

Is Mormonism Ridiculous

May 23, 2012 By Taylor Petrey -- Assistant Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College

In The Book of Mormon Broadway musical, the central character Elder Price sings, “I Believe…” followed by a mixed series of benign and ridiculous claims. The genius of the song is that it so perfectly performs widespread American perceptions about Mormonism in the early 21st century.  Elder Price, and Mormons in general, are presented as harboring some naive and strange ideas, but in the end being good people with good intentions who might actually be able to help people.

Mitt Romney’s upcoming nomination as the Republican candidate for President seems to confirm how Mormons generally have come to be understood.  Even Evangelical Republican voters have largely overcome some hesitancy about Mormonism, perhaps accepting it the way viewers of The Book of Mormon musical come to accept Mormons. Romney may hold some wacky religious ideas, but he is a good person who may actually help some people.

Like Elder Price and Mitt Romney, Mormons are praised for certain characteristics: being nice, having good families, valuing industry, thrift, or for being good citizens in the community. These are indeed genuine compliments that any community should be proud of.  What is missing from this list of positive attributes is praise for Mormonism as having any important religious ideas.  In fact, praises of Mormons as people often include the caveat that Mormon ideas and beliefs about angels, golden plates, and Kolob are strange, weird, ridiculous, and sometimes even dangerous.

The common response to the idea of Mormonism’s weirdness is to insist that all religions are weird to some extent.  Mormons and non-Mormons alike utilize this response.  Stephen Colbert said it best when he quipped, “Mormons believe Joseph Smith received golden plates from an angel on a hill, when everybody knows that Moses got stone tablets from a burning bush on a mountain!”  Jon Stewart similarly evaluated the angst about Mormonism as a kind of arbitrary stigmatizing that can apply to any religion. There is something compelling about familiarizing Mormonism by way of defamiliarizing accepted religious stories, yet this also remains unsatisfying to explain why anyone would believe incredulous things.

The trotting out of apparently ridiculous Mormon ideas is evidence of just how little Americans really understand religion.  Religious people of all stripes should be concerned with the way Mormonism is portrayed because it reveals the inability of people to ask the right kind of questions about religion and to discern how religious people construct their worlds.  Discussion of Mormonism in the media tends to reveal the fundamentally unethical way that Americans think about religion, engaging in reductionism, decontextualization, and stereotyping.  It is not enough to suggest that all religious are equally silly (a point Bill Maher’s Religulous makes not in defense of religion, but against it).  This perspective represents a failure to understand religion at all.

Such shallow explanations of Mormonism tend to decontextualize certain details that are embedded within larger narratives in a way that renders them humorous or bizarre, but unintelligible as meaningful religious ideas. It would be like saying that Christianity is about the belief that three Zoroastrian magi followed a star to a house in Bethlehem or Islam is about the idea that Mohammed flew on a horse to Jerusalem.  These may be accurate details, but shorn from the broader context they reveal essentially nothing about Christianity or Islam.  Bullet lists of strange ideas hardly explain what people find compelling about the Christian or Islamic narratives and does little to illuminate the meaning of these religions to billions of adherents.

How then should we think about religions that avoids reducing them to a few salacious ideas?  Iconic scholar of religion J.Z. Smith has suggested that in the way we speak about religion, there is “a tension between religion imagined as an exotic category of human experience and expression, and religion imagined as an ordinary category of human expression and activity.” (Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982], xii.)  In other words, we are often tempted to treat religion as something strange and exotic rather than as a normal way of engaging with the world.  When we engage with the religious ideas of others, we owe them the respect of an explanation of what may be intellectually compelling about them.  What kinds of problems are they seeking to solve?  How do they make sense of the situation around them?

Like most religious traditions, Mormonism emerged to resolve some kind of spiritual or intellectual problems its early adherents saw in the competing options available to them.  In order for Mormonism to survive, it has had to continue to be relevant, to address something that people find compelling.  As the discussion of Mormonism continues in the public sphere, it may be useful to understand what people find compelling about Mormonism, and even why so many apparently smart and capable thinkers remain committed to its teachings.

There is no doubt that public discussions of Mormonism will remain interested in difficult issues from its past, including polygamy and its history of excluding people of African descent from priesthood leadership; and its present, including excluding women from priesthood ordination and its teachings about homosexuality. These discussions are important, and will hopefully be conducted responsibly and fairly. Rather than focus solely on these more problematic and controversial aspects, we might practice an attentiveness toward Mormonism as a paradigm for thinking about religion more broadly, to articulate Mormonism as offering a persuasive evaluation (for some) of human situations. The questions that we should be asking, and Mormons should be answering: How does Mormonism handle the big questions?  What is the meaning of life, of death, of the terrible and the good in the world?  How do Mormon notions about the cosmos affect ethical decisions toward others?  What do Mormon narratives about the past and the present offer their adherents?  These are not simple questions, and the answers are not simple either.  To discuss them at all is a serious endeavor.  While we may laugh (and I think we should) about religion, we can only do so ethically if we learn to think with religion as well.

My relationship with my Savior -- by Mitch Mayne on May 27, 2012

The other day I met with a friend of mine—a non-Mormon, very spiritual man who has committed much of his life to Christ-like service within the LGBTQ community. He is kind, wise, and it is remarkably easy to see my Savior very much alive in both the words and the actions of this man.

We ended up, as we usually do, talking about things of a spiritual nature—specifically, about our own understanding of the nature of God."How," he asked, "do remain so confident about who you are and what you're doing in the face of so many who criticize you?"

Somewhere along the journey of my life, I shared, I bought into a notion of God as a punishing, spiteful, vindictive and judgmental God—quick to smite me if I made a misstep, and slow to love me again, if ever. This concept was resinscribed, it seemed, when I heard others (including leaders within my own faith) interpret scripture to say that God demands perfection and has a zero tolerance policy for those who commit transgression, whether it be by choice or by happenstance.

That was a dark and terrifying way to live. With that kind of vision of God, I had to live a faultless life, and if it were true that God has no tolerance for sin, then it would be up to me to perfect myself first, before I presented myself to Him. Worsening things was the consistent counsel to develop my own, personal relationship with God. Well, quite frankly, when I held a vision of Him as such a terrifying figure not only did I fear building a relationship with Him, but quite honestly imagined myself to have a better life on my own. After all, who wants to have someone—anyone—looking over our shoulder who is just waiting for us to mess up so they can condemn us?

I decided that I had to completely toss out what I thought I knew about my Savior and learn for myself. I began simply, just sitting in a room quietly and beginning to talk to Him the same way I would talk to a trusted friend. By experimenting with a combination of prayer (speaking to my Savior) and meditation (listening for His response) I began, over the course of a few months, to feel more comfortable with this new relationship. This step, for me, was not about church. It wasn’t about any specific religion at all. It was simply about building my own personal understanding of a Savior who would be with me anywhere at anytime—not just one who was accessible for a few hours on Sunday.

And over time, I came to an incredibly simple conclusion—my Savior is my best friend. He shares my hopes, my dreams, my heartache, and my failures. I am free to bring my entire self to this relationship—things that would have been off limits with my previous understanding of God—including intimacy and shortcomings.

Today, I can say anything to my Savior—He knows me that well. Even when I am not at my most eloquent, I can still express my feelings and thoughts stumblingly, and I know He understands my intent. At times, I get angry, like a little child, and kick and yell and want my own way. Then I get to apologize to Him, and through that process, our relationship deepens.

He knows my fears, my defects and my mistakes. He also knows my capacity, my worth, my assets and successes. He knows what I need and provides it for me, even when my sight is not keen enough to ask for it. He gently, and often with a great sense of humor, pushes me in the direction of His will for me. When I have questions, I know it’s okay to ask. My Savior never makes me feel stupid or wrong. He gives me choices—and when I make a mistake, it’s okay. That process only makes us closer.

Developing this relationship with my Savior didn’t only change my understanding of Him, I explained to my friend, it changed my life. Today, I can say with complete certainty, that I am much less reliant on the opinions, needs, and demands of others. I need no longer look outside myself for validation. When I'm right with my Savior, I don't really need to be right with anyone else, regardless of their title or position in my life. All the other stuff falls into place easily and effortlessly, or it falls away completely.

What a much better life it is to have Him as my friend, and to have shrugged off the concept of a God who wants me to suffer because of my mistakes.

Sure, there are those who say my version of my Savior is inaccurate and how I approach Him is even disrespectful—and they are free to have their own understanding of Him, as well. But for me, I’ve genuinely grown to believe that when it comes to my relationship with my Savior the only truly disrespectful thing I can do is to lie to Him, and bring some pre-packaged version of myself to our relationship. After all, He can’t really help me become the person we both want me to be if I am not rigorously honest with Him.

How will you cultivate your relationship with your Savior today?