Self enlightenment

December 8, 2012

I want to continue with the visit I had last week about enslavement. To varying degrees we are all held hostage by “things”. Things were very awkward for me in 1957. We had moved from the 12^th street apartments dad had developed to the Redwood Wood Motel on State Street in Chandler. I started high school at North Phoenix High School and very shortly ended up at Chandler High School. I wanted to play football, so I went out to practice and they let me play. I wasn’t very big but I was a scrappy fellow. I remember one day something went wrong on the practice field. One of the kids did some dumb kid trick so I went after him like a bulldog. He wasn’t twice as big as me, but at the time he seemed like Goliath. I just remembered his name, Lamb. He wanted to hit me but I was a great street fighter and had him tackled and on the ground. One of the really big guys came to my aide and broke up the mess telling the guys to knock it off and “leave the new kid alone”. In another instance I remember standing at the door of the big red brick high school. I was on the steps about to go inside when a girl said to one of the boys, “push him off the stairs.” Probably the same reason applied, but the moment long lingered in my mind and fifty plus years have gone by and I still wonder what it was that I did to promote such actions in others.

The idea of loving God, loving our neighbors, and loving oneself is the key to virtually all the mysteries of life. Some of us actually get to the point where we do love God. Fewer of us learn to truly love our neighbors; and just a tiny speck of humanity get to the point where they understand that God loved us enough to provide this moment in eternity in which we could learn that we are worthy of loving and being loved. What a remarkable notion. Watch people who go off in a rage over some “road” inconvenience, some notion that they have been wronged, or that another’s attitude is not what it should be. Almost always these incidences come from a lack of self confidence, or understanding of personal worth. Take any profession and put the folks who work in that field under observation and you will be able to tell at a glance what their personal worth quotient is.

My son, David, said it best tonight. He noted that we, yes each of us, collect this basket of garbage. Over the years it festers and rots because we never give it up. Each time we see a person, or recall an incidence in which we were offended, misjudged, stolen from, or denied an opportunity, all that putrid vengeance, rage, and ill-will boil to the top and the whole things starts over again. His answer with which I totally concur is to throw up, get the poisons out and go on with life. Sicknesses such as cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, mental defect, and all the others are absolutely real. They will make you die prematurely. They will make you stop enjoying life. They will make you into a person you do not want to be. So what can we do about such concerns?

The first thing we should do is use the fantastic medical help we have in this great country. The second is to research and seek out alternative medications, holistic medicine, oriental healing, yoga, self hypnosis, etc. The third is to understand the power of spirit cleansing, prayer and spiritual blessings. Each of us has access to our spiritual leaders who have authority to bless our lives, our spirits, and our physical bodies. The fourth is to search our personal insights. Look at the end game. See what we want from life; then, challenge ourselves to use PMA. The acronym PMA stresses the use of Positive Mental Attitude. Another interpretation of PMA (hopefully one I made up and didn’t steal) is a great companion to the first because it asks us to Please Make Adjustments.

No one can just get physically better by “willing it so”, but we can all look to the tools we have to work with and challenge our minds and bodies to work to improve our personal lot. I watched a television spot last night in which a 55 year old fellow was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He didn’t just lie down and die. He and his family went into the marathon business and at the airing of this segment; he was just completing a marathon in Hawaii that would be his last on a journey to run a marathon in all fifty states. Wow! Talk about going out with a bang.

Thanks for your wonderful love and friendships. You all make my world a better place.

God bless you as you sojourn into the realms of your mind and heart.

Duane Jacobs, pop, grandpop, uncle, cousin, brother, and fond friend

Duane

Personal enslavement

December 2, 2012

I am preparing to write a book titled “The Enslaving of America”, identifying the five major periods of slavery found in the historic past of the United States of America. As I have pondered the historical facts related to this horrifying part of our past, I have found that there are two primary enslavement components. The first is, as anyone would expect, the purposeful detainment, disenfranchisement, and destruction of the rights and freedoms of one, or more persons. This book will investigate and share the ravaging of five distinct publics which have been desecrated.

Title:      Enslaving America – The Five historic eras of Slavery in the United States of America

1.       King George enslaved the early colonizers through repressive taxation without representation

2.       The slave traders greedily catapulted “old world traditions” of enslaving African men, women and children

3.       The American natives were placed in reservations; thus, placing them in long-term slavery, where they were no longer required or allowed to use their personal resources, location, or other actions offered to free people.

4.       A vast majority of Japanese people were summarily removed from their homes, jobs, and freedoms; placed in camps where their lives were put on hold.

5.       The people of the United States have been offered womb to tomb services beginning with the Great Society, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Food stamps, and a plethora of complicated, enslaving governmental tools intended to enslave people and rid them of freedom grow, to learn, to succeed and to fail.

The second enslavement component is universal to all humans in vastly varying degrees. It is insidious because it is self imposed and unstoppable by anyone but the individual who has placed himself in the jaws of such a dilemma. Self imposed enslavement comes under the general category of addiction. We are addicted to virtually anything in this world. Food, entertainment, music, sex, work, play, narcissism, crime, fear, avoidance, and so many other “things” can capture us and force us into slavery.

When I was in high school, I wanted to have an identity. I remember many times watching people do “normal” things and wishing I could be like them. On many occasions I did and said things that were inappropriate just so I could be part of the in crowd. Of course it never works because one can’t adopt the ideas, mannerisms, or actions of another and be successful. One famous Shakespearian quote, “to thy own self be true” rang loudly as I wandered through years of trying to be someone else. I found that the only way I could find my true identity was to look deeply into my soul and pull up the “inner me”. I was flabbergasted by what I found.

I found that I had a desire to be good. I saw that I wanted a connection with God. I saw, even in a dream, or personal revelation, that I wanted to be married and have children. I saw my sweetheart Jean and Scott and Diane. (Sorry Kaye, Dan, Andy, and David; I only saw part one). I began to look deeper into my understanding of God and all things spiritual. One day while in Long Beach while on liberty, I was in the YMCA and a nice group of young adults came over to me and asked me to join them at a church activity. We went to a church and had a nice party. When we got into their spiritual elements I found them to be very sincere and full of love for our Savior; but when they asked me to come up and confess that Jesus was the Christ, be saved, and have my sins washed away, I shared with them that I had already done this and was quite happy with the Mormon Church, my baptism, confirmation, and entry into Christ’s love. They were very surprised, but they honored my feelings.

This was not the only incident which assisted me in forging an understanding of who I was, but is was certainly one that helped me better understand that I had to be me. I had to seek out my personal salvation; my personal beliefs; my personal track to returning to the bosom of my Heavenly Father. I found that no amount of temporal pleasures (enslavements) would get me where I wanted to be. There are some who have propagated the notion that, “religion is the opiate of the public.” After a lifetime of study, prayer, wandering, reaffirming, and recommitting, I have found that the only absolute road to personal freedom is through commitment and knowledge I have of a Loving God and an understanding of the atonement, and eternal life and exaltation.

Stay the course. Do not let Satan and his angels detour you. Watch for enslaving devices which will distract you from your only goal on this earth. Love each other, love God, and by all means love yourself.

God bless you in your efforts to be honorable and true to the commitments you made with God I the eternities before this mortal station.

Duane Jacobs, grandfather, father, uncle, cousin, brother, and fond friend