Trees of Righteousness

Once again I have chosen to revisit Isaiah 61:3 (look it up) because the idea that the Lord is willing to prune me to help me become a “tree of righteousness” is so inspiring to me that it just pops into my mind from time to time. I do want to live up to the potential he sees in me – which I often do not see in myself as clearly as he does – but which must be there if he sees it. So I am willing to keep trying.

The Wild Chicken Eggs Incident (circa 1953)

We only lived in LaVerkin, Utah for about 2 years, but I thought that it was a wonderful place to live, with considerable forgiveness for boyish mischief and stupidities, and all the freedom I wanted of the town and the hills.

I quickly made friends with Leon Duncan, who lived next door to me. We did everything together. We roamed the hills and fields around LaVerkin all summer, went to Church together, worked on our Trekker bandaloes together (an LDS Primary thing), and cooked and ate some rotten eggs together, among other equally dumb things.

Come to Scratch

I have told this story before, in a 2010 blog post, but I think it’s worth retelling seven years later. It seems to fit well with the intent of this post. As you will see as the discussion proceeds, I “came to scratch” with the adversary and lost.

My first chance to get a taste of real beer came one evening in Antioch, California when I was about 14 years old, as I was babysitting our next-door neighbor’s children. They were not LDS, and there were three or four beer cans on the table in front of the couch. There was also cold beer in the refrigerator. I didn’t have the courage to open a fresh one, but as I shook some of the cans on the table, I discovered that they still had some beer in them. After some personal discussion with the adversary (or one of his minions):

My Personal TOUCHDOWN!

When I was in 9th grade in the old Antioch Junior High School (long gone now) we had gym class every day. We suited up in our grey shorts and tee shirts (gym uniform – everybody wore the same thing) and went out on the playing fields to do whatever our gym instructors wanted us to do.

The Murals

In the Salt Lake Temple, the walls in the various rooms are covered with beautiful murals. While the temple is not open to the public (only church members in good standing may enter), many smaller renditions of the murals can be seen in the work of the 5 art missionaries sent to Paris to prepare by studying with the masters of the Paris art scene. They were to return and paint appropriate murals on the walls. The most prominent among them was a Swiss-born artist, John C. Hafen. You can find out much more about him by Googling John C. Hafen, or Utah impressionism.

Wondering

From my admittedly imperfect point of view, wondering seems to me to be the key to many great discoveries. Scientists wonder. Clerics wonder. Philosophers wonder. Mathematicians wonder. Artists wonder. We all wonder many times in our lives about many things.

Practiced Ease

I have always been fascinated by the organ in the Tabernacle at Temple Square (and now, by the one in the Conference Center too). When I was very young, the organ seemed to be magical to me. It was impossibly huge, and the music it made was fascinating and mysterious. I couldn’t imagine where it came from. It had always existed as far as I was concerned, and was just part of the Tabernacle, which had always existed too. But www.lds.org describes the real history of the organ briefly: