Thursday, May 7, 2009

A Day At The Zoo

After all I had heard of this marvelous Indiana Zoo, yesterday I finally got to see it. And I must say I was impressed - with the way it is laid out, with the animals (dead sharks notwithstanding), with the cleanliness and care, pretty much with everything. I was happy to be accompanied by Tyler, Brooke, & Auntie Becca (as Brooke calls her). We had a great time, even though we shared our experience with billions and billions of school kids on a field trip.

Here are some photos, beginning with the two buzzards. These are huge birds with incredible wingspans.

The elephant family at dinnertime. Each of them would grab as big a pile of the hay as they could carry in their trunk and go off to eat it.
The rhinos were a pretty bucolic lot.

Obviously the animals are far more interesting than the camera.
Trying to get through the fence to the buzzards.
Believe it or not, just a couple of nano-seconds before this was snapped he was smiling to beat the band. I don't know where this came from, but it reminds me of the "Lollipop Guild" from Munchkin Land.
This mom did have her hands full juggling two little ones while Grandpa tried to get some good shots for Grandma & the other mom, who spent the day in the hospital.
Here is an interesting sight, the cow on the right seemed to be caring for, cleaning up, the one on the left.

You may not be able to see it well, but this giraffe's tongue is out and wagging - looking for a treat from the zookeeper. It is amazing how long that tongue is!

And here he is, being himself - getting all wet and spreading his joy to everyone around him at 100 miles an hour.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

More Thoughts on C.S. Lewis

Here's another quote that resonated with me, from the Preface to The Great Divorce:
"The attempt [to "marry" heaven & hell] is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable 'either-or'; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error."
"If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell."

I had an interesting experience recently in this regard that, although perhaps not right on the mark, nevertheless made me think. Last year we had all of our old records (vinyl) made into CDs so we could continue to listen to them. One time earlier this year I happened to be listening to one of these CDs in my car, & it sounded just like the record - including some unintended noise from the phonograph. Those of you familiar with how the old records sounded after a lot of playing know what I mean. The quality of the sound was actually quite good, but in the background was the tell-tale sound of a needle passing over grooves, kind of snap, crackle, pop. Something about this made me feel very comfortable, sort of like going to grandma's house and eating cookies with hot cocoa. It was a great feeling, which got me to "pining" for the old days when sound reproduction wasn't so perfect, but we felt pretty good about it anyway. I was feeling all warm and comfortable with my thoughts and memories of days gone by when an interesting thought came to mind.

I thought, "What are you thinking? Why would you give up the perfection of today for the imperfections of yesterday, just because they are comfortable?" This thought did not come alone, for which reason I believe I was being instructed, not just daydreaming. The next thought was that at some point in the future I may be blessed to live in a world that, when compared to the one we now experience, will be close to "perfect". Much, if not all, of the "noise" (suffering from the poor choices of others, and the vicissitudes of mortality) of our present condition will be gone. Will we then "pine" for the good old days when things were "comfortable" because that is what we are used to? Will we choose to live in "historicity" rather than the colorful living present, just because it reminds us of the "old times"?

By following the admonitions of the living prophets, we may right now move forward with more and greater momentum toward the establishment of Zion (which is accomplished family by family, aided, of necessity, by the organization of the Church). As we approach it, and finally obtain it, we may find that it is a very different place than where we are today, with a culture that differs in many respects from that we are used to, including perhaps different traditions, calendar, holy days, dress, grooming, customs, daily routines, manners, language, dietary customs, etc. What will we think? What will we be willing to give up from our own culture, both familial and societal, to obtain Zion? Will we really be willing to sacrifice "the old ways" for new ones that may be very foreign to us? I am not sure we understand this, and it is probably not critical to put it at the top of our "worry list" just now. But still, I can't help wondering about my own preparedness in this regard.

If you think that you are either doing pretty well in this regard, or that you will when the time comes (although the time is now), read again the New Testament. And pay particular attention to the many passages that reveal the difficulty that individuals in the Church in those days, including some leaders - great men - had getting over the Law of Moses and moving on to the Law of Christ. The establishment of the Culture of Christ, which began in 1820 with the opening of the heavens once again, has been gaining momentum and will continue to do so. And I can't help wondering if I am becoming practiced in choosing that culture (the "best") and leaving behind my imperfect past, regardless of how "good" or "better" - or simply historical - it may seem. The measure of our success in this may well be the standard of following the prophets, reading, listening to, absorbing, and implementing teachings from general, stake, and ward conferences.

C.S. Lewis Thoughts

With some new copies of some of my favorite C.S. Lewis books, I have recently been re-reading these books. There are some very good quotes in the writings reproduced there, that I share here for your consideration.
From The Weight of Glory:
"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than just philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point."
"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith."

A Visit from Emily

As noted in last week's blog, Emily & her friend Whitney came to visit and we had a lot of fun. One of the things we did while she was here was visit James & Sabrina. They fed us a really nice Sunday dinner and we documented it all with pictures.

Reduce & Simplify

The leadership of the Church has for many years encouraged us to reduce and simplify as we serve in the Church. The most recent example of which is the new welfare pamphlet, In the Lord's Way. It is both smaller and thinner, as well as being more focused content-wise. We have taken this to heart as a couple and have spent the last few years going through our garage & house and giving things the pitch. This is a work in progress, as we tighten the criteria in successive passes through our "stuff".

This last week we passed another milestone as we eliminated our satellite connection. We have found that we just don't watch the TV any more, and don't need the expense. This reminds me of when we started out in life together in 1976. TV was not a priority, so all we had was a little black & white portable with a very small screen. As I recall, that, and a subsequent model of exactly the same proportions, was all we had until some time when we were living in Bennion and bought our first color TV. The model we have now is the one that replaced that one, so it is pretty old, but as functional as we care to have it.

In addition, I finally began to attack my office, which seems like a "stuff" magnet. It might be different if the "stuff" came in and was orderly placed, but that is not the case. Basically, it is more of a "piling system" than a "filing system". So I am going through it all and trying to get it all organized and giving as much as possible the pitch. The main focus is to rearrange the furniture so we can paint the walls, and so that I have an operational place to put my radio. Yes, I am slowly but surely still working on getting my radio up and running with a lot of support from Doug and Mike.

Here are pictures of progress. One bookcase is already in the spare room and the other (shown here) will go to the other side of the room so that my desk can take up residency on the west wall. The process takes a little longer as I need to organize other places in the process (like the closet where my computer desk resides); and I am going through all the stuff in the drawers, boxes, etc. The bookcase shown was full of all kinds of things, including "stuff" that is not books, that needed to find somewhere else to be - either in a place of order, or in that famous blue toter we keep on the side of our house. Oh yes, and you may notice the absence of the little "rat's nest" that was in the corner to the left of the bookcase.
This is the desk that awaits my attention.