Easter

I am in the throes of finals.  I am ridiculously busy with multiple assignments and multiple finals coming up...

Not really, but it feels like it.

 So why am I blogging at a time like this?  Easy, it's Easter, and I can't pass up saying how I feel about today, no matter how busy I am.

This will be another religious post.  I promise they're not all like this, but April's a big month for it.  Just hold out until May if you don't want to read it ;).

Believe it or not, I just google these, I don't even make them...

Today I celebrate the resurrection of the man called Jesus the Christ.  This means that I believe that a man named Jesus (or Yeshua, depending on how close to the original Hebrew you want to get(ישוע if I'm not mistaken in my googling)) was killed sometime right before the passover and that the morning after the passover he came to life again, but not as a mortal anymore.  He became "the firstfruits of them that slept."  This means that I believe that I (along with everyone else) will follow Him in that I too will rise again after my death.

I believe that he came back to a body of flesh and bones.  I believe that we will do the same.

I believe that He was the Christ (the anointed one).  This means that I believe that He came and lived and died for me.  He fulfilled a mission in this life that made it possible to become like Him.

This is what my church claims to believe, that we are destined to become Gods and that Christ showed the way how.  This day I celebrate what, if it was true, was the sealing evidence in His case, His literal resurrection.  I believe that He rose that Easter Sunday almost 2000 years ago. 

I believe that He said it best when He said "I am He who liveth, I am he who was slain.  I am your advocate with the Father."

Why do I believe all of this, you may ask?  I make a habit of prayer, and I have felt Him there.  I have felt Him guide me towards choices that seemed ludicrous to me but ended up being exactly what I needed.  I have watched Him change lives.  I have seen the changes in my own life that I've needed to make with His help.  I have felt His comfort when there was literally nowhere else to turn.  I have felt His love when I was completely alone.  I know He is there.  I know He lives.  I know He died for me.  He is my God and my Savior.

He is my Shepherd

All of these things I know more completely than I know anything else.  They are my reason to do anything that I do.  This is the foundation of my life.  I know it's not much, but I need to get back to finals week.  But do know, dear reader, that I know. 

If you have the time, and if you are inclined to an experiment, try it.  Pray to Heavenly Father, ending in the name of Jesus Christ, asking Him if He is there and if His son lives, lived, and died for you.  You will feel what I feel if you really want to know for yourself.  This will change your life.  It has changed mine forever.  That is what I celebrate this Easter Sunday.

A beautiful depiction of Christ in the Salt Lake Temple Square Visitor's Center

Commencement Speech

For those of you who don't know, I submitted a speech for commencement.  I was picked as one of ten finalists, but didn't end up getting it.  The feedback I got leaving from one of the committee members was that (not an exact quote) "it was like listening to my grandpa give advice.  Very calm and reassuring..."

Well, there you have it, finally someone else said it.  I'm a 95 year old man at heart :)

How I feel relating to others my age...

 I'm certain this was meant as a compliment, but I'm also certain it was the reason I'm not speaking in commencement.  Oh well.  I thought I would attach the speech here for any and all that want to know what my thoughts to the class of 2014 would have been ;)  Enjoy!

     Dear everyone-who’s-come out today: welcome!  The list of parents, roommates, grandparents, great-grandparents, faculty, staff, and what seems like a billion, billion other people that have worked to put today together is far too innumerable to begin to thank fully.  To those of you graduating, congratulations!  You effectively survived outfitting yourselves in the most flowing dress that you will ever wear!  I will admit that the garb is not particularly flattering, but has it’s own attraction, I suppose.

    I’ve been allotted about four minutes.  In those four minutes I have been charged with being, quote, “the voice of the graduating class.”  This is a charge I choose to take seriously.  Our world is guided by voices.  Some voices shout loudly, others simply whisper.  Many have no voice at all.  Across the centuries, as all graduating today have learned, there has been a “silent majority”.  People pushed into silence by those in power.  For hundreds or even thousands of years, a large group of the population was unable to voice their opinions freely for fear of retribution.  The United States of America was so concerned with this issue that we decided to affix a right into our constitution by the very first amendment, which states that, among other things, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”.  Is this a right that we use so seldomly that we often forget we have it?  Edward Burke once said that “all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”  It is vital that each of us speaks up and speaks out. 

    Assuming everyone here has accepted the need for voicing something, the question then just becomes, what?  There are sufficient slogans in the world to fill our mouths from now until forever.  At the door of our minds and hearts lie crowds and rallies calling for us to come out and join them.  What is the crowd you will join?  What is the voice you will use?  Is it one of ridicule?  One of mocking?  Will it be a voice of consolation?  Will you shout?  Will you call others to war?  To peace?  Or will it be, as Mary Anne Radmacher once said, a “little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow”?  What causes will you support?  Will you call for economic equality?  Food security?  Homeland security?  Will you be one voice among millions, or a voice for millions without one?  I give no opinion, no recommendation.  The choice is entirely yours.  The destiny of your voice is your own.  Do remember, however, that your voice carries great weight from now on.  You have joined one of the most educated groups that this world has ever seen.  You have graduated from one of the greatest universities in the nation.  Your voice is now more important than anyone is willing to tell you.  You have been granted a voice in a world of them.  How will you use it?  You can now make a greater difference than ever before.  Your life, as a result of that exceptionally flowing dress, can have greater meaning and purpose than ever before.  Take a moment and ask yourself, what voice will I be?

Dearest class of 2014, we will be many things.  We may be doctors, lawyers, artists, dancers, architects, scientists, or one of a million other things.  In this moment where I have been designated to be your voice, let me say to those present, to the parents, the faculty, the staff, the administrators, any of the world willing to listen, with a prayer that it carries your conviction and permission, that we, the class of 2014, will be many things, but we will not be silent.
Thank you.

Only Human

Today I am thinking about humans.  Us.  You.  Me.  What a remarkable thing it is, to be human.  Not that I've really tried anything else...  I think that we identify as many things, but we sometimes forget about this aspect of our identity simply because it is so basic.  There are so many wonderful, intricate parts of being human.  One wonderful perspective is in one of my favorite songs, by Christina Perri:

Human

I can hold my breath
I can bite my tongue
I can stay awake for days
If that's what you want
Be your number one

I can fake a smile
I can force a laugh
I can dance and play the part
If that's what you ask
Give you all I am

I can do it
I can do it
I can do it

But I'm only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I'm only human
And I crash and I break down
Your words in my head, knives in my heart
You build me up and then I fall apart
'Cause I'm only human

I can turn it on
Be a good machine
I can hold the weight of worlds
If that's what you need
Be your everything

I can do it
I can do it
I'll get through it

But I'm only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I'm only human
And I crash and I break down
Your words in my head, knives in my heart
You build me up and then I fall apart
'Cause I'm only human

I'm only human
I'm only human
Just a little human

I can take so much
'Til I've had enough

Cause I'm only human
And I bleed when I fall down
I'm only human
And I crash and I break down
Your words in my head, knives in my heart
You build me up and then I fall apart
'Cause I'm only human 

 --Christina Perri

We are an incredible paradox, we humans.  We are incredibly strong, but also incredibly fragile.  We can endure years of pain, of heartache, of sorrow.  We can forgive the unforgivable.  The New York Times Magazine recently did a piece on people in Rwanda who have forgiven those that did unspeakable crimes.  This is a photo of one of those people and the man that acted against her.

This man killed her father and three brothers, and years later sought forgiveness.  She gave it to him.

We sometimes speak words like daggers to those we love the most.  We struggle with loneliness, but often push others away.

But we're all we have.

Only Human is the only thing the world has ever had.  Only Humans speak words of peace.  Only Humans give embraces when words are not enough.  Only Humans have written books of love, knowledge, and peace.  Only Humans have brought the world into their power, control it for their own devices.  Only Humans have done incredible things.  Mahatma Gandhi was Only Human.  Mother Teresa was Only Human.  Joseph Smith was Only Human.  I am Only Human.  You are Only Human.

Yes, even Chuck Norris

Saying that I am Only Human means that I am at once acknowledging my weakness and my strength.  It means that I recognize that there is in me, and in you, a spark of the Divine, but that it is still only a spark.  It means that I recognize the potential of that spark, but that it is still a potential.  It is recognizing that I am here to become Great, but that I am still becoming.

I crash and I break down.  I bleed when I fall down.  You build me up and then I fall apart.

I won't always crash.  I won't always fall down.  I won't always fall apart.

But I will sometimes.  I will need help.  I will be stressed.  I won't be perfect.  That's okay.  That's Only Human.

We all "wear the same jersey" as Dieter F. Uchtdorf once said.  In life, we are certainly competitors, but we are not opponents.  The prize we seek is not exclusive to one person.  We all can obtain it.  Let us lift, in love, those around us.  Let us look in sorrow at the mistakes of others, but not in anger.  Let us, if we sorrow, let that sorrow fill us with a deep understanding and love of those who hurt us.  Let us never forget that everyone, no matter how cruel or kind, is, very simply,

Only Human.