Mornings
I believe it happened during a month when I was spending an inordinate amount of time in bed because of a pressure sore. Thankfully, when I spend time in bed I am able to work on my laptop computer making the downtime not as "down" as it would be otherwise. For some reason I was spending a lot of time reading the Old Testament. I just couldn't seem to get enough of it. I was reading 2 Samuel one afternoon when some words just leaped off the page at me. These words were David's final words recorded by the author or authors of Samuel, preserving a metaphor regarding Jehovah, Christ, The God of Israel. "Now these be the last words of David...The God of Israel...the Rock of Israel spake to me [saying]...And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds..." [2 Samuel 23:1-4] [Emphasis added]
I think David's metaphor concerning Christ struck such a responsive chord in me because of my love for the precious rising of the sun I have witnessed and enjoyed during my lifetime.
I have diminished eyesight. I can't really see out of my right eye and only good enough out of my left eye to read on my computer with the fonts magnified to the max. I can watch TV if I sit close enough to the screen and also movies if I am close to the front of the theater. However, one of the things I still am able to enjoy about life is to wake up each morning just as the sky is beginning to gray and witness the sun beginning to stream through the two large windows in my bedroom. To me it is a glorious and comforting sight.
I believe my love of the morning began when I worked for Kennecott Copper Corp. each summer as a young man. I would make enough money each summer working for Kennecott in Eastern Nevada to pay for two semesters at BYU the following fall and winter. I invariably worked what was known as the "Graveyard Shift" which began at 11:30 p.m. and ended at 7:30 a.m.
The summer I worked as a drill helper I will never forget. The drill was mounted on a rig that could be driven slowly from site to site depending on where holes needed to be drilled. We would drill holes all night and then in the morning the powder crew would come and fill the holes with explosives, ignite them, and the entire town would shake, rattle and roll for just a few minutes during the moment of explosion. Immense electric shovels would then scoop up the shattered earth which contained the precious copper ore, and deposit it in large trucks for ultimate transport to the mill and smelter.
Once the drill began its work the driller and his helper didn't have much to do but watch the drill and correct any problems that might occur.
The Liberty Pit in Ruth, Nevada, where I worked is located in a mountainous area which is more than 7000 feet in elevation. I remember standing and shivering outside in the very cold Nevada night air, hour after hour and night after night, anxiously awaiting one thing -- the arrival of morning. The Nevada nights were beautiful, full of stars, but I felt a great joy inside me as I looked at the Eastern Mountains and could discern them against a graying sky. The dark would reluctantly and imperceptibly give way to the powerful light of the rising sun. The morning star would still be visible, and then the sun would just seem to explode above the mountains and bathe me in its warm, life-giving rays. The long, cold night was over, and one of God's greatest gifts to his children, a new day, had dawned.
In the mission field I became an "early morning Nazi"(translation -- fanatic). I made it part of my mission to always be out of bed before any of my companions. I felt so righteous (self-righteous) as I would sit at my desk studying Spanish and searching the scriptures for an hour or so before my companions would begin to stir. Those hours, undisturbed by the awakening world, became precious to me. I would always make a point of going outside, or looking out the window as the sky would begin to gray to witness another glorious morning burst upon the world.
Arising early did not end with my mission. My most productive time of day was in those early hours before the sun would break over the horizon.
While I served as bishop my two oldest children were in early morning seminary, but not old enough to drive. We had an old Volkswagen bus and I would take my two children and pick up three or four of their friends and drive them to the chapel each morning. While they were in seminary I would run from the chapel up a street that led me into the foothills. My run would begin in the dark, but as I would return, the sky would begin to gray and by the time I reached the chapel to pick up the kids, the warming rays of the sun heralded that indeed, once again, a new day had been born.
I could go on with many more sunrise experiences, but suffice it to say, I think I know why David chose to describe Christ the way he did: "... He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds..." David was a shepherd boy who cared for his father's sheep in the hills surrounding Bethlehem. How many long nights did he spend guarding those precious sheep, anxiously awaiting the glorious sunrise and dawning of a new day? How he must have enjoyed the warming and life-giving rays of the sun that would come each morning bringing life to him, the sheep, and to the earth.
Christ himself said: "... I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." [John 8:12] Christ disperses darkness, the darkness of sin and of death. Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time. David's metaphor is very powerful in teaching us that Christ is as the "light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds", dispelling the cold darkness of night and symbolically reassuring mankind that just as the night of death will come to each one of us, so will their come a glorious and literal "morning" of resurrection.
The scriptures reveal the following significant truth as well: "...Christ...is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made. And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings... Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space— The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things..." [Doctrine & Covenants 88:7,11,12-13]
I believe when Christ comes to usher in his millennial reign he will come as the "light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds." I hope we will all be "morning" people then.
Yes, mornings are special as they remind us of the "light and life of the world".
Dad/Grandpa/Jack
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Wisdom Teeth
December 2, 2009, Observation:
Well, I hate to admit it, but I am not nearly as wise today as I was a couple of days ago. I had to go to an oral surgeon to have a bottom wisdom tooth and the one next to it extracted.
When I was a young married man I let a dentist in Ogden, Utah talk me into pulling all my wisdom teeth. As it turned out it was not a very wise decision on my part. He started in the afternoon and by 8 p.m. I was still in the chair with only the two wisdom teeth on the right side of my mouth having been pulled. As he was working on me he would say things like, "Oops, I think maybe I shouldn't have done it that way," and etc. He wanted to make an appointment to pull out the wisdom teeth on the left side but for some reason I did not feel inclined to take him up on his offer. He said that at some point in time those remaining wisdom teeth would be a problem to me. I never wanted to see the fulfillment of his prophecy and ever since that time one of my life's goals was to die before the wisdom teeth went bad on me. No such luck!
In all honesty it was a brutal experience. Several times during the procedure I wanted to cry, but old men are supposed to be tough and so I stifled the desire to scream, moan and groan, and just suffered in silence.
The longer the tooth extraction took, the oral surgeon began to look, in my mind's eye anyway, like a hairy, muscle bound, 800 pound gorilla, who was trying to pull my head off.
I must admit that as the procedure continued on and seemed that it would never end I was only thinking of one thing and that was me -- Jack Rushton and the pain and misery I was experiencing at that moment. With the oral surgeon's hands in my mouth, along with his various instruments of torture, I was not very concerned about those troops who had been recently killed at Fort Hood, Texas, and their surviving families and loved ones, or the thousands that have been killed in recent earthquakes and tsunamis, or the poor starving children in Africa, or even some dear friends that are suffering from severe health problems much worse than mine -- I was only thinking about one thing -- me!
I had the same feeling when I suffered my injury many years ago. I was consumed with "me." I was totally self-absorbed in my pain and in that condition could not reach out to help others or to even be concerned with their unique and individual challenges.
I take comfort in the fact that I think all of us, because of our humanness, are much the same way. Victor Frankl, the author of the important book, "Man's Search for Meaning", drew the following analogy regarding the relativity of human suffering: "... a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative." [Man's Search for Meaning, Pages 61-62.]
I believe what he is saying is that if I am having wisdom teeth pulled out in California while people in Fort Hood, Texas are being slaughtered by a maniacal killer, or the good folks in Samoa or Peru are losing their lives because of earthquakes and tsunamis, I am going to be much more concerned with my pain than theirs. I believe like Victor Frankl that each individual's suffering -- regardless of the kind or "size" -- can completely fill his soul and conscious mind leaving little room to be concerned about the miseries of others. Because of this I also believe one of the challenges we all face is to rise above our own self-absorbing pain and misery and be able to reach out emotionally and spiritually to help others in need.
I took a life altering course at BYU as a junior. It was called "Major British Authors." My teacher, absolutely the best one I ever had from kindergarten through graduate school, Nan Grass, had written her doctoral dissertation on the great English writer, John Donne (1573-1631).
Because of her love for the writings of John Donne, we as her students began to love them as well. She felt his prose was the most sublime ever written in the English language. I do not doubt that statement was just hyperbole on her part.
One of her favorite passages from his writings, and one of my favorites as well, comes from his "Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions." (1624) "...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less... Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."
I have pondered for years about what John Donne wrote so long ago, and believe he described beautifully an eternal principle. Truly, "No man is an island" and any man's death (or suffering) diminishes us because, hopefully as he stated "... [we are] involved in mankind...."
As I think about Donne's words I cannot help but think of the suffering experienced by all of God's children during their Telestial tour of duty upon this earth. As we struggle with our own pain and observe the pain and suffering of others we have several options available to us. We can, for example, ignore and pretend we don't see the suffering of others. At our worst we could take advantage of the sick and weak and take from them what little resources they may have, or on the other hand, be willing to give of our means and time to bless the unfortunate about us.
One thing I know for sure, based on my own personal experience, none of us will ever successfully traverse this Telestial terrain alone without the love and support of others.
We need one another! That is the genius of the organization of the Church. We simply cannot go it alone. Eugene England, many years ago, wrote a profound essay entitled "The Church Is As True As the Gospel!" This was no clever play on words but a profound statement regarding how a divinely inspired Church organization would bless us with the love, support, and strength of others to carry us through, because truly, "No man is an island." Without my family, friends, and the love and support that has been constant from members of the Church since the day of my injury I would certainly have perished long ago.
When the hairy, 800 pound gorilla comes into our lives and is trying to pull our heads off hopefully we will be able to see beyond our own pain and misery and reach out to bless others, and in so doing bless ourselves as well.
Dad/Grandpa/Jack
"It's Good to Be Alive!"
http://www.observationsbyjack.blogspot.com/
Well, I hate to admit it, but I am not nearly as wise today as I was a couple of days ago. I had to go to an oral surgeon to have a bottom wisdom tooth and the one next to it extracted.
When I was a young married man I let a dentist in Ogden, Utah talk me into pulling all my wisdom teeth. As it turned out it was not a very wise decision on my part. He started in the afternoon and by 8 p.m. I was still in the chair with only the two wisdom teeth on the right side of my mouth having been pulled. As he was working on me he would say things like, "Oops, I think maybe I shouldn't have done it that way," and etc. He wanted to make an appointment to pull out the wisdom teeth on the left side but for some reason I did not feel inclined to take him up on his offer. He said that at some point in time those remaining wisdom teeth would be a problem to me. I never wanted to see the fulfillment of his prophecy and ever since that time one of my life's goals was to die before the wisdom teeth went bad on me. No such luck!
In all honesty it was a brutal experience. Several times during the procedure I wanted to cry, but old men are supposed to be tough and so I stifled the desire to scream, moan and groan, and just suffered in silence.
The longer the tooth extraction took, the oral surgeon began to look, in my mind's eye anyway, like a hairy, muscle bound, 800 pound gorilla, who was trying to pull my head off.
I must admit that as the procedure continued on and seemed that it would never end I was only thinking of one thing and that was me -- Jack Rushton and the pain and misery I was experiencing at that moment. With the oral surgeon's hands in my mouth, along with his various instruments of torture, I was not very concerned about those troops who had been recently killed at Fort Hood, Texas, and their surviving families and loved ones, or the thousands that have been killed in recent earthquakes and tsunamis, or the poor starving children in Africa, or even some dear friends that are suffering from severe health problems much worse than mine -- I was only thinking about one thing -- me!
I had the same feeling when I suffered my injury many years ago. I was consumed with "me." I was totally self-absorbed in my pain and in that condition could not reach out to help others or to even be concerned with their unique and individual challenges.
I take comfort in the fact that I think all of us, because of our humanness, are much the same way. Victor Frankl, the author of the important book, "Man's Search for Meaning", drew the following analogy regarding the relativity of human suffering: "... a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative." [Man's Search for Meaning, Pages 61-62.]
I believe what he is saying is that if I am having wisdom teeth pulled out in California while people in Fort Hood, Texas are being slaughtered by a maniacal killer, or the good folks in Samoa or Peru are losing their lives because of earthquakes and tsunamis, I am going to be much more concerned with my pain than theirs. I believe like Victor Frankl that each individual's suffering -- regardless of the kind or "size" -- can completely fill his soul and conscious mind leaving little room to be concerned about the miseries of others. Because of this I also believe one of the challenges we all face is to rise above our own self-absorbing pain and misery and be able to reach out emotionally and spiritually to help others in need.
I took a life altering course at BYU as a junior. It was called "Major British Authors." My teacher, absolutely the best one I ever had from kindergarten through graduate school, Nan Grass, had written her doctoral dissertation on the great English writer, John Donne (1573-1631).
Because of her love for the writings of John Donne, we as her students began to love them as well. She felt his prose was the most sublime ever written in the English language. I do not doubt that statement was just hyperbole on her part.
One of her favorite passages from his writings, and one of my favorites as well, comes from his "Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions." (1624) "...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less... Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."
I have pondered for years about what John Donne wrote so long ago, and believe he described beautifully an eternal principle. Truly, "No man is an island" and any man's death (or suffering) diminishes us because, hopefully as he stated "... [we are] involved in mankind...."
As I think about Donne's words I cannot help but think of the suffering experienced by all of God's children during their Telestial tour of duty upon this earth. As we struggle with our own pain and observe the pain and suffering of others we have several options available to us. We can, for example, ignore and pretend we don't see the suffering of others. At our worst we could take advantage of the sick and weak and take from them what little resources they may have, or on the other hand, be willing to give of our means and time to bless the unfortunate about us.
One thing I know for sure, based on my own personal experience, none of us will ever successfully traverse this Telestial terrain alone without the love and support of others.
We need one another! That is the genius of the organization of the Church. We simply cannot go it alone. Eugene England, many years ago, wrote a profound essay entitled "The Church Is As True As the Gospel!" This was no clever play on words but a profound statement regarding how a divinely inspired Church organization would bless us with the love, support, and strength of others to carry us through, because truly, "No man is an island." Without my family, friends, and the love and support that has been constant from members of the Church since the day of my injury I would certainly have perished long ago.
When the hairy, 800 pound gorilla comes into our lives and is trying to pull our heads off hopefully we will be able to see beyond our own pain and misery and reach out to bless others, and in so doing bless ourselves as well.
Dad/Grandpa/Jack
"It's Good to Be Alive!"
http://www.observationsbyjack.blogspot.com/
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The Great Debaters
I am very wary of recommending movies for others to see. We all have such different tastes and sensibilities. If I recommend a movie I think is great and you watch it and think to yourself, "Boy, old Jack has finally lost it," it just makes me feel badly. Therefore, it is with some trepidation that I am going to skate out onto thin ice and recommend a movie I have seen a couple of times. Each time as it comes to an end I have tried to get out of my wheelchair and give those around me a high five.
The movie I am referring to is "The Great Debaters" released in 2007, starring and directed by Denzel Washington. I am sure that many of you have already seen it.
The film, based on a true story, revolves around the efforts of debate coach and poet, Melvin Tolson, (Denzel Washington) at historically black Wiley College to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s, when Jim Crow Laws were common and lynch mobs were a pervasive fear for blacks. In the movie, the Wiley team eventually succeeds to the point where they are able to debate Harvard University (Actually Hollywood felt a debate with Harvard would be more prestigious than the one that actually took place between the Wiley team and the debate team from the University of Southern California, the reigning champion debate team in the United States in 1935.)
The movie also explores the social milieu of Texas during the Great Depression including not only the day-to-day insults and slights African Americans endured, but also a lynching. Depicted as well is James L. Farmer, Jr., who, at 14-years of age, was on Wiley's debate team after completing high school at that tender age and who would go on to be a powerful figure in the civil rights movement during the 50s and 60s. [The information cited above is from Wikipedia]
Although they were not necessarily the focal point of the story I was most impressed by James Farmer Sr. and his son James Jr.. James Farmer Sr. was born on June 12, 1886 in North Carolina. After graduating from the Cookman Institute in Jacksonville, Florida he came to Massachusetts on foot to attend college. In 1918 he earned his Ph.D. from Boston University becoming one of only twenty five African-Americans who held Ph.D.s at the time. He was the first African-American from Texas to earn a Ph.D.
Farmer could read English, Aramaic, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. He was a good, moral man as well, and tutored James Jr. to follow in his footsteps. [Information from Wikipedia]
To me, the highlight of the story was the often repeated advice James Farmer Sr. kept giving to his son, James Farmer Jr. when James Jr. was tempted to not study or give his best effort as head researcher for the debate team, because for many months in 1935-36 James Jr. never had the opportunity of actually engaging in a debate which was his dream and passion. In those moments of discouragement his father would say to him, "We have to do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do!"
For some reason I can't get that statement out of my mind. It just rings so true and is very important to me. "We have to do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do!" So many people, both young and old, have dreams of doing great things -- things they want to do -- but are unwilling to pay the price to do what they have to do each day so they can eventually do what they really want to do.
I suppose every missionary that has had to learn a foreign language for example, can hopefully identify with that statement. About a hundred years ago when I went to Central America to serve a 2 1/2 year mission there was no MTC or language training. We were told to buy a good Spanish College grammar book and bring it with us. I had visions of speaking fluent Spanish and communicating effectively with the people -- this is what I wanted to do. To get from where I was to where I wanted to be was a long arduous journey. Each day I had to do what I had to do to become fluent in a foreign language. Rising each day between 4:30 and 5 a.m. for months, conjugating verbs, memorizing vocabulary, and spending hours reading out loud from the Spanish Book of Mormon alongside the English Book of Mormon as well as the Bible, after many long months I was able to do what I wanted to do and dreamed of doing.
This truth of course applies to so many aspects of our lives. I believe one of the great lessons we hopefully learn early in our lives is that we have to do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do -- or more importantly become what we want to be.
My son John is an ER doctor. He truly did not like his first two years of medical school at USC. It was all theory and little or no hands-on work with patients who had health problems. I know there were times he wanted to throw in the towel and maybe do something else with his life. Finally however, after doing for two years what he had to do, he finally was able to do what he wanted to do -- be a doctor and help people. He is currently a critical care doctor flying wounded troops from Afghanistan to Germany and after they are sufficiently stabilized, flying them from Germany to Walter Reed Hospital in the United States. What satisfaction this must give to him to help keep these special people alive so they can get the help they need to improve the quality of their lives. Had he thrown in the towel prematurely and not done what he had to do when he had to do it he never would have been able to do what he really wanted to do with his life.
I'm going to tweak the James L. Farmer philosophy just a bit, but I think in an important way. My life has taught me that "We must do what we have to do so that we can do what we may have to do."
Life being what it is, full of bumps and detours and curves that we never expected to see, some of us may never really get to do what we wanted to do and dreamed of doing. However, if we have consistently done what we have had to do we will be prepared to do what we have to do when life introduces unexpected, difficult, and mostly unwanted circumstances to us.
Good movie! Important philosophy!
Jack
I am very wary of recommending movies for others to see. We all have such different tastes and sensibilities. If I recommend a movie I think is great and you watch it and think to yourself, "Boy, old Jack has finally lost it," it just makes me feel badly. Therefore, it is with some trepidation that I am going to skate out onto thin ice and recommend a movie I have seen a couple of times. Each time as it comes to an end I have tried to get out of my wheelchair and give those around me a high five.
The movie I am referring to is "The Great Debaters" released in 2007, starring and directed by Denzel Washington. I am sure that many of you have already seen it.
The film, based on a true story, revolves around the efforts of debate coach and poet, Melvin Tolson, (Denzel Washington) at historically black Wiley College to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s, when Jim Crow Laws were common and lynch mobs were a pervasive fear for blacks. In the movie, the Wiley team eventually succeeds to the point where they are able to debate Harvard University (Actually Hollywood felt a debate with Harvard would be more prestigious than the one that actually took place between the Wiley team and the debate team from the University of Southern California, the reigning champion debate team in the United States in 1935.)
The movie also explores the social milieu of Texas during the Great Depression including not only the day-to-day insults and slights African Americans endured, but also a lynching. Depicted as well is James L. Farmer, Jr., who, at 14-years of age, was on Wiley's debate team after completing high school at that tender age and who would go on to be a powerful figure in the civil rights movement during the 50s and 60s. [The information cited above is from Wikipedia]
Although they were not necessarily the focal point of the story I was most impressed by James Farmer Sr. and his son James Jr.. James Farmer Sr. was born on June 12, 1886 in North Carolina. After graduating from the Cookman Institute in Jacksonville, Florida he came to Massachusetts on foot to attend college. In 1918 he earned his Ph.D. from Boston University becoming one of only twenty five African-Americans who held Ph.D.s at the time. He was the first African-American from Texas to earn a Ph.D.
Farmer could read English, Aramaic, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. He was a good, moral man as well, and tutored James Jr. to follow in his footsteps. [Information from Wikipedia]
To me, the highlight of the story was the often repeated advice James Farmer Sr. kept giving to his son, James Farmer Jr. when James Jr. was tempted to not study or give his best effort as head researcher for the debate team, because for many months in 1935-36 James Jr. never had the opportunity of actually engaging in a debate which was his dream and passion. In those moments of discouragement his father would say to him, "We have to do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do!"
For some reason I can't get that statement out of my mind. It just rings so true and is very important to me. "We have to do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do!" So many people, both young and old, have dreams of doing great things -- things they want to do -- but are unwilling to pay the price to do what they have to do each day so they can eventually do what they really want to do.
I suppose every missionary that has had to learn a foreign language for example, can hopefully identify with that statement. About a hundred years ago when I went to Central America to serve a 2 1/2 year mission there was no MTC or language training. We were told to buy a good Spanish College grammar book and bring it with us. I had visions of speaking fluent Spanish and communicating effectively with the people -- this is what I wanted to do. To get from where I was to where I wanted to be was a long arduous journey. Each day I had to do what I had to do to become fluent in a foreign language. Rising each day between 4:30 and 5 a.m. for months, conjugating verbs, memorizing vocabulary, and spending hours reading out loud from the Spanish Book of Mormon alongside the English Book of Mormon as well as the Bible, after many long months I was able to do what I wanted to do and dreamed of doing.
This truth of course applies to so many aspects of our lives. I believe one of the great lessons we hopefully learn early in our lives is that we have to do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do -- or more importantly become what we want to be.
My son John is an ER doctor. He truly did not like his first two years of medical school at USC. It was all theory and little or no hands-on work with patients who had health problems. I know there were times he wanted to throw in the towel and maybe do something else with his life. Finally however, after doing for two years what he had to do, he finally was able to do what he wanted to do -- be a doctor and help people. He is currently a critical care doctor flying wounded troops from Afghanistan to Germany and after they are sufficiently stabilized, flying them from Germany to Walter Reed Hospital in the United States. What satisfaction this must give to him to help keep these special people alive so they can get the help they need to improve the quality of their lives. Had he thrown in the towel prematurely and not done what he had to do when he had to do it he never would have been able to do what he really wanted to do with his life.
I'm going to tweak the James L. Farmer philosophy just a bit, but I think in an important way. My life has taught me that "We must do what we have to do so that we can do what we may have to do."
Life being what it is, full of bumps and detours and curves that we never expected to see, some of us may never really get to do what we wanted to do and dreamed of doing. However, if we have consistently done what we have had to do we will be prepared to do what we have to do when life introduces unexpected, difficult, and mostly unwanted circumstances to us.
Good movie! Important philosophy!
Jack
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Blood for an Enemy
"Blood for an Enemy"
Our son, John, is an ER doctor. The Air Force paid for his education and he agreed to serve in the Air Force for the next three years blessing wounded troops with the skills he had gained in medical school and his residency.
John and his friend Matt Mecuro, as 16-year-olds, were body surfing with me that fateful day when I had my accident and were able to get me onto the beach and basically saved my life. John was very involved in my care until he left on his mission, and through it all gained a desire to study medicine.
His home base is in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Nellis Air Force Base. Each year, he is deployed somewhere in the world to practice ER medicine as needed. His first deployment was a big army base outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. He and two other ER doctors managed the ER unit 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Part of their duty was to take turns going out in helicopters to pick up the wounded.
I thought you might enjoy hearing about John’s first helicopter experience and about what took place. What follows is his e-mail to me.
"Hey Dad and family,
"So things are going well here. I went on my first helicopter mission a few days ago. It was pretty exciting. We had to go pick up an enemy combatant who was shot while trying to set up an IED (improvised explosive device). We flew about an hour to where the patient was being held. He was shot in the bottom while bent over setting up a bomb, but the bullet went into his stomach and hurt his intestines and nicked a big artery in his pelvis. By the time I saw him he had already gone through 11 units of blood, which was the entire supply of blood at that base. Throughout the chopper ride back, I had to monitor his vitals and had to keep giving him drugs to keep him sedated. He kept waking up and looking at me, so I kept giving him drugs to knock him out.
"We flew really close to the ground, about 200 feet. The surrounding area is really pretty and you would never know there was a war going on. There are a lot of rivers and farms, kids playing soccer, etc. In the helicopter was myself, 2 pilots, and 2 soldiers looking out both sides of the helicopter for possible enemies on the ground. Behind us we had a big black hawk helicopter loaded with guns that was covering us incase we came under fire. I was a little nervous on the flight to the get the patient, but on the way back I was so busy keeping him stabilized that I didn't have time to think about the dangers.
"Its pretty amazing the effort we make to take care of the enemy. I don't think they would do the same for us. I mean the guy got all the blood at that one base. If one of our soldiers had gotten hurt, there would not have been any blood for them. Also just think of the risk involved in just going to pick the wounded enemy up. When we arrived with the patient, we discovered we were also out of B- blood and we actually had to get volunteers to give their blood to this guy who was essentially trying to kill us. I think it says something really special about this country that we would put so much effort into saving people like this."
I don't know about you, but reading John's e-mail made me feel proud to be an American. Imagine risking your life to save the life of an enemy who is seeking to take your life -- even giving him your own blood. We do value human life and freedom in this country!
I believe that many of the pundits in Washington, DC could benefit from reading John's simple little e-mail. I know many are opposed to what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and maybe President Bush got us into this war on terrorism in Iraq prematurely -- who really knows? But isn't it refreshing to know that we really are trying to do something very good in the world and that we place such a high value on human life, dignity, freedom and liberty.
There is a spirit of pessimism and negativism abroad in the land. Ten years ago President Gordon B. Hinckley described it as follows: "... there is a terrible ailment of pessimism in the land. It's almost endemic. We're constantly fed a steady and sour diet of character assassination, faultfinding, evil speaking of one another. Read the newspaper columnists. Listen to the radio and television commentators. The writers of our news columns are brilliant, the commentators on the electronic media are masters--but they seem unable to deal with balanced truth, notwithstanding their protests otherwise. The negative becomes the stuff of headlines and long broadsides that, in many cases, caricature the facts and distort the truth--at least the whole truth." [CES fireside, March 6, 1994]
President Hinckley, in that same CES fireside talk, also said while speaking of the United States of America: "I know that she has problems. We've heard so much of these for so long. But surely, my brothers and sisters, this is a good land, a choice land, a chosen land. To me it is a miracle, a creation of the Almighty. It was born of travail. The Constitution under which we live is the keystone of our nation. It was inspired of God. Of it the great Englishman Gladstone said, "As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from . . . progressive history, so the American Constitution is . . . the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man" ("Kin Beyond Sea," North American Review 127 [September/October 1878], p. 185).
Since 9/11 we feel we have truly been put upon as a nation. Can you even imagine what it would have been like to have been living in England at the beginning of World War II when Nazi Germany had already overrun most of Europe and was threatening to invade England as well? Thankfully for Western civilization there was a Winston Churchill, who like President Hinckley, was the essence of optimism and courage. He rallied the people as no one else could in that dark and desperate time. In speaking at Harrow School which he had attended as a boy he significantly said: "Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race." [Address at Harrow School, 29 October 1941]
And then Churchill spoke the following stirring words to his countrymen after the disaster at Dunkirk when the prophets of doom were prophesying disaster and the imminent demise of the British Empire: "We shall not flag or fail. . . . We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." [Speech on Dunkirk, House of Commons, 4 June 1940]
I believe we need the spirit of a Winston Churchill today in this country. Our way of life, the way of life that inspires us to give our blood to the enemy to save his life, must be preserved at any cost. Whatever your feelings about the war on terrorism or about President George W. Bush, don't you believe we have just begun a battle to the death with a very evil ideology that would rob us of everything we hold dear?
Thank you John, for reminding us that we do belong to a pretty special country!
Dad/Grandpa/Jack
Our son, John, is an ER doctor. The Air Force paid for his education and he agreed to serve in the Air Force for the next three years blessing wounded troops with the skills he had gained in medical school and his residency.
John and his friend Matt Mecuro, as 16-year-olds, were body surfing with me that fateful day when I had my accident and were able to get me onto the beach and basically saved my life. John was very involved in my care until he left on his mission, and through it all gained a desire to study medicine.
His home base is in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Nellis Air Force Base. Each year, he is deployed somewhere in the world to practice ER medicine as needed. His first deployment was a big army base outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. He and two other ER doctors managed the ER unit 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Part of their duty was to take turns going out in helicopters to pick up the wounded.
I thought you might enjoy hearing about John’s first helicopter experience and about what took place. What follows is his e-mail to me.
"Hey Dad and family,
"So things are going well here. I went on my first helicopter mission a few days ago. It was pretty exciting. We had to go pick up an enemy combatant who was shot while trying to set up an IED (improvised explosive device). We flew about an hour to where the patient was being held. He was shot in the bottom while bent over setting up a bomb, but the bullet went into his stomach and hurt his intestines and nicked a big artery in his pelvis. By the time I saw him he had already gone through 11 units of blood, which was the entire supply of blood at that base. Throughout the chopper ride back, I had to monitor his vitals and had to keep giving him drugs to keep him sedated. He kept waking up and looking at me, so I kept giving him drugs to knock him out.
"We flew really close to the ground, about 200 feet. The surrounding area is really pretty and you would never know there was a war going on. There are a lot of rivers and farms, kids playing soccer, etc. In the helicopter was myself, 2 pilots, and 2 soldiers looking out both sides of the helicopter for possible enemies on the ground. Behind us we had a big black hawk helicopter loaded with guns that was covering us incase we came under fire. I was a little nervous on the flight to the get the patient, but on the way back I was so busy keeping him stabilized that I didn't have time to think about the dangers.
"Its pretty amazing the effort we make to take care of the enemy. I don't think they would do the same for us. I mean the guy got all the blood at that one base. If one of our soldiers had gotten hurt, there would not have been any blood for them. Also just think of the risk involved in just going to pick the wounded enemy up. When we arrived with the patient, we discovered we were also out of B- blood and we actually had to get volunteers to give their blood to this guy who was essentially trying to kill us. I think it says something really special about this country that we would put so much effort into saving people like this."
I don't know about you, but reading John's e-mail made me feel proud to be an American. Imagine risking your life to save the life of an enemy who is seeking to take your life -- even giving him your own blood. We do value human life and freedom in this country!
I believe that many of the pundits in Washington, DC could benefit from reading John's simple little e-mail. I know many are opposed to what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and maybe President Bush got us into this war on terrorism in Iraq prematurely -- who really knows? But isn't it refreshing to know that we really are trying to do something very good in the world and that we place such a high value on human life, dignity, freedom and liberty.
There is a spirit of pessimism and negativism abroad in the land. Ten years ago President Gordon B. Hinckley described it as follows: "... there is a terrible ailment of pessimism in the land. It's almost endemic. We're constantly fed a steady and sour diet of character assassination, faultfinding, evil speaking of one another. Read the newspaper columnists. Listen to the radio and television commentators. The writers of our news columns are brilliant, the commentators on the electronic media are masters--but they seem unable to deal with balanced truth, notwithstanding their protests otherwise. The negative becomes the stuff of headlines and long broadsides that, in many cases, caricature the facts and distort the truth--at least the whole truth." [CES fireside, March 6, 1994]
President Hinckley, in that same CES fireside talk, also said while speaking of the United States of America: "I know that she has problems. We've heard so much of these for so long. But surely, my brothers and sisters, this is a good land, a choice land, a chosen land. To me it is a miracle, a creation of the Almighty. It was born of travail. The Constitution under which we live is the keystone of our nation. It was inspired of God. Of it the great Englishman Gladstone said, "As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from . . . progressive history, so the American Constitution is . . . the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man" ("Kin Beyond Sea," North American Review 127 [September/October 1878], p. 185).
Since 9/11 we feel we have truly been put upon as a nation. Can you even imagine what it would have been like to have been living in England at the beginning of World War II when Nazi Germany had already overrun most of Europe and was threatening to invade England as well? Thankfully for Western civilization there was a Winston Churchill, who like President Hinckley, was the essence of optimism and courage. He rallied the people as no one else could in that dark and desperate time. In speaking at Harrow School which he had attended as a boy he significantly said: "Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race." [Address at Harrow School, 29 October 1941]
And then Churchill spoke the following stirring words to his countrymen after the disaster at Dunkirk when the prophets of doom were prophesying disaster and the imminent demise of the British Empire: "We shall not flag or fail. . . . We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." [Speech on Dunkirk, House of Commons, 4 June 1940]
I believe we need the spirit of a Winston Churchill today in this country. Our way of life, the way of life that inspires us to give our blood to the enemy to save his life, must be preserved at any cost. Whatever your feelings about the war on terrorism or about President George W. Bush, don't you believe we have just begun a battle to the death with a very evil ideology that would rob us of everything we hold dear?
Thank you John, for reminding us that we do belong to a pretty special country!
Dad/Grandpa/Jack
Saturday, June 14, 2008
I discovered the writings of Charles Dickens as a young student at BYU many years ago. I would say my two favorite books written by Dickens are "Great Expectations," and "A Tale of Two Cities." I have felt at times like many of you I am sure, that the opening lines of Dickens', "A Tale of Two Cities," are very descriptive of most of our lives.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."
Life is very dynamic and ever changing. It is never static, and the best of times can quickly become the worst of times, while our spring of hope can be turned into a winter of despair. Often times these seemingly polar opposites are found operating simultaneously in our lives.
I was thinking back about the six long months I spent at Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Hospital immediately following my accident 19 years ago. A season of hope had been turned into a winter of despair in a split second, and I thought at the time that the best of times had all of a sudden become the worst of times. Instead of having everything ahead of me I could see nothing ahead and light had turned into blackness. However, even during that season of darkness, there were brilliant flashes of light that dispelled the gloom and hopelessness and made the worst of times the best of times, even if for just short periods of time. Let me explain.
There was an African American nurse that worked the night shift from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. about three nights each week. She radiated a spirit of love and light that penetrated my dark world every time she was with me. Every morning before she would leave to go home, knowing that with the shift change I would probably not see another nurse for at least an hour, she would get a basin full of hot water and with a washcloth she would wash and massage my face in a most loving and caring way. It was not doctor's orders and no other nurse ever thought to do it... but she did, and she did it every morning she was there. No one can know how good that felt, especially when you can't feel anything in your entire body except your face and the top of your head. But as good as it felt physically it even felt better emotionally to have someone, really a stranger, show that kind of love and concern.
Another flash of light that always brought hope and made the worst of times a good time was the care given to me by an African-American nurse's aide. He was a big man, muscular, an Afro hairdo, ear rings, various tattoos, and a loud voice. You wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley late at night. Poor Jo Anne was afraid to leave the hospital that first night that he was to be a participant in my care. How true it is that looks can be deceiving. I was never treated with such respect, kindness, and tenderness by anyone at Rancho than by him. He couldn't do enough for me. I always rejoiced when I realized he was to be my helper during a 12 hour period. It was obvious to me that what he was doing was not being done out of a sense of duty but out of love and deep concern for me and the other young men in our spinal cord injury unit. He had a great sense of humor and made me feel good in spite of myself and the trauma I was going through.
My physical therapist at Rancho was a little, barely 5 foot tall girl, with blond hair who had the heart and spirit of a tiger. She pushed me, never showed pity for me, and worked me as hard as she could each time she came into my room. She gave me exercises I was to do to strengthen my neck muscles and would accept no lame excuse for not doing them religiously. I can still hear her footsteps in my mind marching down the corridor to my room. Had she been in the Army she would have surely been a general. She was my advocate and cut through the bureaucracy and red tape of the county facility I was in, and while my roommates and others in the spinal cord injury unit were still languishing in bed, she had me up racing through the corridors of the hospital terrorizing everyone in sight in a mega, breath control power wheelchair. When I left the hospital and sadly said goodbye to my two roommates who had been at the hospital months before I got there and wouldn't leave for months after I left, it just didn't seem fair they didn't have my same physical therapist. She kindled a light inside me through her toughness and no-nonsense approach to my care, and made me believe in myself and that maybe I could have some kind of life even in my paralyzed condition if I were willing to work hard enough.
These, and many other experiences I have had throughout my lifetime, have helped me to realize that there are going to be seasons of light and dark, hope and despair, times when we feel we have everything before us and then suddenly nothing. We can't control circumstances but we do have the power to not let our individual circumstances control us.
I believe one of the important things that helps us through the hard times and keeps us from succumbing to the circumstances life brings to all of us is what I choose to call the lovingkindness manifest to us by others -- the kind of loving kindness I experienced at Rancho.
I use the word lovingkindness because I think it is more descriptive than the words charity or love, although all these words are synonyms describing the "pure love of Christ." The word lovingkindness is used numerous times throughout the Scriptures to describe God. The vast majority of the references come from the book of Psalms. For example: "Because thy lovingkindness is abetter than life, my lips shall praise thee." [Psalm 63:3] "How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their atrust under the shadow of thy wings" [Psalms 36:7]
The lovingkindness manifest to me by so many during my lifetime has always helped to make the worst of times the best of times, and magically turned seasons of darkness into seasons of light.
Perhaps the greatest gift we can give one another, given the challenges and problems we all face, is simply to treat all with whom we interact, especially family members, with lovingkindness.
Dad/Grandpa/Jack
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Mothers
May 10, 2008, Observation:
When our daughter Rachel, was in elementary school, her mother would frequently dress her in a little pink T-shirt that had three words emblazoned on the front in a feminine script made out of some kind of girlish, silvery, glittery material. The three words were: "Girls Are Smarter!" Every time I would see that message on my little daughter I would kind of wince because I knew the truth of it. Also, had she chosen to do so, Jo Anne could have dressed Rachel in a little pink T-shirt with a different message for each day of the week like: "Girls Are Kinder," "Girls Are Sweeter," "Girls Are Special," and the list could go on and on.
I know that gender was determined in the pre-earth life when we were organized from "intelligence" by God to become either men or women. I rather suspect that he took all of the high-grade intelligence -- the most intelligent, most compassionate, and most kind, from which he created "women" to be the mothers of mankind. From what was left over he created man. By the way, this is Jack Rushton doctrine and should not be mistaken for gospel truth.
The children of good mothers are blessed throughout their lives and have their characters shaped and molded because of the qualities and character traits that are an inherent and integral part of womanhood and motherhood.
The women in my life, my great grandmothers, grandmothers, mother, and the mother of my children have all had a great impact for good upon their posterity, and upon me in particular, because of the womanly qualities and character traits with which they have all been so abundantly blessed.
Of all the multitude of virtues I could mention that these great women possessed that have blessed my life I will only mention one in this observation. It is a character trait possessed by all of these women that I have grown to treasure and value as it has impacted my life for good.
Let me introduce this quality or character trait that has impacted my life so much by sharing with you a brief experience from my mother's autobiography.
"Mother was expecting her eighth child. Papa went to the cedars to get a load of wood. It was a short while before Christmas. They were both thirty seven years old at this time. It was in 19l6. When papa came home he didn't feel at all well. He had terrific cramps and became seriously ill. I remember Mama and Louisa (her oldest sister) went to Hinckley in the buggy to get our Christmas presents and I stayed home with Papa, I had an earache. He was sitting by the stove and I sat at his feet with my head on his lap. I know how he must have felt being so ill and watching for mama to come home. He had me go out and climb up in a tree to see if I could see them coming home." (He had a ruptured appendix and with no doctor available out in the country -- they lived in the little farming community of Abraham, near Delta, Utah -- Halley, his wife and my grandmother, took him to Salt Lake City to a hospital on the train on Christmas day.) "He passed away on January 12, 1917. He was buried on January 14, 1917 at Hinckley, Millard County, Utah. It was just a month to the day before my tenth birthday. What a sad, sad family. I will never forget the funeral and my papa lying there so cold and white. All seven of us sat together in frightened solemn silence. It was our first experience with death and it seemed so final."
My grandmother was resourceful, tenacious, and hard-working and was able to keep the family together. The kids all worked hard on the farm. Halley, my grandmother, was the postmistress, a midwife, and through this job and what the farm produced, was able to sustain her large family.
My mother, as well as her seven brothers and sisters, knew how to work and work hard. This character trait was and is possessed in rich abundance by all the women in my life. You may think it a strange character trait to highlight but not really.
These women were strong, resourceful, and understood the "law of the harvest" which is we reap what we sow. They didn't moan, wallow in self-pity, give up, or ever think that the state or Church should take care of them when tragedy struck unexpectedly. They only knew one way -- work hard!
My mother tried hard to pass on to her boys this work ethnic character trait by both precept and example. I believe her efforts were successful.
My brothers and I all received the same message from her: "Go to college! Don't end up working in the mines!" We somehow got the message because all four of us graduated from BYU and went on to receive graduate degrees as well. We weren't very smart but our mother taught us to work hard.
Mom taught us integrity in doing our work. When we scrubbed our linoleum floors on our hands and knees under her direction, she always made sure we got the corners. We learned how to do dishes the right way -- her way! She kept me working at the piano and taking lessons until it eventually evolved from an onerous daily task to something I truly began to love. I learned much more than just music -- I learned how to work hard and stay with something challenging until I had achieved a goal.
My mom was smart. A philosopher once said that no man can ever fully recover from the ignorance of his mother. This is a negative statement but at the same time I believe it is very true. Mom put the backbone into us as well as the work ethic. Every day as I am able to sit at my computer and work for hours on end I have to thank my mother for her example of working hard and with integrity and blessing me with her work ethic.
Jo Anne, like my mother and grandmothers has been blessed with a great work ethic and integrity in all she does. The oldest daughter in a family of 10 children she had great responsibility placed upon her shoulders as a very young girl. A visiting young cousin who didn't know the family really well observed Jo Anne -- age 12 or 13 at the time -- working around the house, cooking, cleaning, etc., and said to her, "How much do they pay you for working here?"
Jo Anne has been an incredible example to me and to her children of living the law of the harvest and of working hard and with integrity. She has encouraged me to work hard and has never tolerated me using my physical condition as an excuse for not being productive. What a blessing! She has given me many psychological kicks in an unmentionable part of my anatomy that has made me work hard and do and achieve things I never would have attempted without her encouragement and example.
Jo Anne, like all the women in my life thankfully, can be best described by two phrases: "True Grit," and "Pure Gold."
Without these smart, sensitive, kind, compassionate, and hard-working women in our lives I am afraid most of us men wouldn't amount to much. How grateful I am that God created woman, and if you read the creation account carefully it was his crowning and most significant creation. How right he was in knowing "... it is not good that man should be alone."
" And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be aalone; I will make him ban help meet for him... she shall be called bWoman, because she was taken out of Man...And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the amother of all living." [Genesis 2: 18, 22-23, 3: 20]
"I Wish it Were Yesterday"
In the spring of 1962, I was in the Army and stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco. My Saturdays were free and one beautiful spring Saturday afternoon I was walking down a busy street in San Francisco. As I passed a large movie theater I noticed on the marquee the words: "Westside Story" by Leonard Bernstein. I had no idea what it was about; I thought maybe it was a Western. I have always been a sucker for cowboys and Indians. Having nothing better to do I bought a ticket and went in. It was an unexpected and delightful experience, and "Westside Story" has been one of my favorite Broadway musicals from 1962 to the present.In a "rumble" (gang fight) between rival gangs, the "Jets" (whites) and the "Sharks," (Puerto Ricans) the leader of the Sharks was inadvertently stabbed to death by the leader of the Jets. The police came, the gang members all scattered, and later that night two of the Jets met up with one another. They were visibly shaken by what had happened, and in the ensuing conversation one of the boys said "I wish it was yesterday!"
I have seen the movie and listened to the music more times than I would care to admit. However, it is that haunting phrase, "I wish it was yesterday," that always captures my attention.
August 1, 1989 at about 3 p.m. while body surfing at Laguna Beach, California, in one split second I was paralyzed from the neck down and would live on life support the remainder of my life, however long that would be. Around midnight the head neurosurgeon sent all of my friends
and family home so he could perform additional tests to determine the extent of my injury. I have never felt more alone than I did when my loved ones departed that night. I was strapped to a board, still in my swimming suit -- an ugly looking thing, a sick yellow color I had purchased because it was on sale -- still covered with sand, with several big hoses shoved down my mouth and throat to enable me to have the oxygen I needed to stay alive. No, the last thing I was thinking of was "West Side Story," and the phrase "I wish it was yesterday!" However, those words described my state of mind at that moment perfectly.
Yesterday had been such a beautiful day as we acted the part of tourists in Laguna Beach. Our little girls, Rachel, age nine, and Jackie, age four, were having a great time as were Jo Anne and I. life just didn't seem to be able to be any better. I was serving as stake president, loving my assignment with CES; we had just had our first two grandsons born several months before, and our second son Richard was on a mission in Columbia. There was not a cloud on the horizon of our lives, and it looked like we were going to live "happily ever after."
As I was alone in the regional Trauma center that night I absolutely could not believe what had happened to me and to my family. How would we ever come through this tragedy? How would we survive financially? How would I be able to be an effective husband and father? If I were permanently paralyzed how on earth could I ever endure living this way? Those kinds of questions continued to run through my mind at warp speed all through that tortured night. Truthfully, what was happening was that I was crying out from the depths of my soul, "I wish it was yesterday!" I am sorry to report that "I wish it was yesterday," was my cry for much longer than I ever would like to admit.
The day finally came however that I came to understand that in order to have peace and for life to be productive, meaningful, and of the highest quality possible, the phrase "I wish it was yesterday," had to be eliminated from my mind, my heart, and my vocabulary.
That kind of thinking leads our lives into a cul-de-sac or a dead end that will take us nowhere. I suppose most of us have done something we have regretted, or had something done to us, or to a beloved family member that has erupted from the depths of our souls the sentiment, if not the exact words, "I wish it was yesterday!" Oh, how we would like to go back to the "good old days" when a seemingly tragic event is perpetrated by us, or inflicted upon us by others, or by life itself. I believe it is human nature -- "the natural man" -- to have that knee-jerk reaction to the challenges life can bring our way. It has been so since the beginning of time. As Eve was giving birth to her first child I wonder if she ever had a fleeting thought, "I wish it was yesterday" back in that beautiful garden?
One of the problems Moses had leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, was to get Egypt out of them. Those folks always wanted to go back to the "good old days" which really weren't that wonderful in reality, but only in their minds now that the going was tough: [Numbers 11:5] "We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:"
The "I wish it was yesterday" way of thinking eventually cost them dearly as none of that older generation was permitted to enter the "Promised Land" but wandered in the wilderness 40 years until their carcasses rotted in the desert wilderness with the "Promised Land" visible on the horizon, but was unapproachable by them because of their false way of looking at life and rejecting Jehovah and his desires to bless them.
Lot's wife had a similar challenge as she looked back at "Sodom" with longing eyes and was turned into a pillar of salt -- an inanimate object that could not act, but could only be acted upon. She was unable to move forward; her progress came to an abrupt end which is the same thing that happens to all of us who live in the past and can't let go of it and move forward to the "Promised Land."
I would imagine as Joseph was sold by his brothers as a slave that as he trudged behind that camel train with a rope around his neck that he couldn't help but thinking "I wish it was yesterday!" Things were so good in Jacob's tent for him as the favored son. "How on earth could this have ever happened to me" he must have thought a few times. Thankfully, our worthy and magnificent progenitor, refusing to live in the past and finally, as a 30-year-old, having been a slave and prisoner in Egypt for almost half his life could have this written about him, "... the Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made it to aprosper." [Genesis 39:23]
The same can happen to each one of us as we "... press forward with a steadfastness in Christ... and endure to the end..." [2 Nephi 31:20]. Regardless of what may happen to us we simply must press forward, never looking back, refusing to say or entertain in our hearts the thought, "I wish it was yesterday!" If we do so the Lord will be with us as he was with Joseph and cause us to "prosper."
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