October 15, 2011
Surprise!! This is Saturday, not Sunday. Grandmother and I have been on the road for the last ten days. What a hoot. Our job on this trip is to figure out what we are going to do for the next 20, or so years, or until we get twinkled. The options are endless; the only thing that is verboten (I threw my vast knowledge of German for Sue Laing) is doing nothing. One of the most intriguing contrasts between working and playing (being retired) is how time is organized. We really don’t have to do anything, so there can be nothing scheduled. If there is nothing scheduled, or aspired to, nothing gets done, and we live with no growth, no learning, and no progression. Eons back I was given a card with the, famous “end of the trail” picture on it. The drawing is of an American Native on horseback, a spear in the back, a huge canyon drop-off in front of him, with head hanging down, and virtual certainty of impending death. Paraphrasing, the frame is appropriately tltled, when there are no dreams, life ends.
Grandmother and I have seen thousands of wonderful human beings live their lives half-way. A young couple from Florida spend about a year and a half as part of our wildly extended family. He had been in prison for all kinds of things, the most offensive, He was selling poison in the form of drugs to children. He and his wife had four children with another on the way. Because she was a drug addict, she showed positive for drugs and the new baby was taken away at birth, only to be returned after months of proving that she was “clean”. No sooner than they got the baby back, they began another baby, lost her job under suspicious circumstances, lost his job under similar conditions, and ended up going back to Florida, only to repeat the cycle again. I could fill books with stories of individuals who have fallen off the strait and narrow and wandered through life without purpose and without hope, but you get the picture.
We need to learn from these individuals and avoid the pitfalls they have shown us. Those who are younger than me –which now tends to be almost everyone – can appreciate the gravity of leaving the Iron rod (The word of God) and wandering through the dark and dreary mists (the confusion and embarrassments of standing tall) and encouraging others to follow. Not long ago, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 years, I watched as one after another of my fine friends in the Navy would go out into the mist, get drunk, get venereal disease, fill their lungs with poison gasses, and generally deny all that their parents had shared with them that was good. I assure you that is much easier in the short run, to follow the crowd than to hold on to the Word of God.
It was especially difficult for me because I didn’t have a firm foundation in spirituality. One day in Sasebo Japan, Dault Martin said, “Jake”, you need to have a beer. It won’t hurt you and it will make you feel like a man to experience what it can do for you. He bought on and put it in front of me. Weak as I was, I tried it. The best of luck (remember the Holy Ghost) was that I couldn’t stand the taste of it. To me it tasted like brine water. End of that challenge? No, not really. There were similar challenges with tobacco, with hard liquor, with tempting young ladies flaunting the bodies and asking to be used “for a price”. I must have been a terrible pain to the “spirit” assigned to me because he always had to bring me up short. I was able to move through the word of wisdom and sexual temptations without being scarred for life. I never had sexual relations until I met and married grandmother Jacobs. I was not so fortunate in the word of wisdom department and was reminded of that recently when a nurse in a sleep study facility asked me if I had “ever” smoked. I said yes, fifty years ago and she sighed and said, Yes, many tell me that they had the same problem during their military service. Up shot. Just leave that junk alone.
God gave life so we might experience JOY. Joy comes through doing the will of our Father in Heaven. Live close to the spirit, love your family, look out for those who are less fortunate than you, forgive those who do things to harm you.