Mormons and the Law of Consecration, part 4 (conclusion)

In this series I have been discussing why early Mormon Utopian economic experiments failed. Having previously outlined why communal experiments collapsed, I explained in part 3 why the less onerous stewardship system didn't work either.

The conclusion I took from an article by Orson Scott Card was that all of the various Utopian systems devised by early Mormons suffered from insufficiently providing for "God-given agency." I agree with Scott's assertion that:

"To the degree that plans for economic fairness, for having “no poor among us” and “all things in common,” interfere with freedom to select among good and worthy alternatives, then to that degree they cannot be the Law of Consecration."

I believe that expansive agency is essential to becoming more like God. It allows individuals to exceed what previously was thought to be impossible. Author Charles Murray contends, "Freedom regularly makes ridiculous anyone who thinks he has figured out the limits of what is possible."

The question then is how is the Law of Consecration to be lived? What kind of system adequately honors individual agency while also observing scriptural and prophetic commandments as well as covenants regarding consecration?

It may help to understand what the law of consecration is and what it is not. It is not uncommon in Mormon circles to hear the law of consecration equated with early attempts to live that law. I believe this harms our understanding of the law and the covenant to live that law.

Like many Mormons I grew up with the understanding that tithing was an inferior law that church members were to observe until such a time that the law of consecration was restored in its fullness; an event that apparently would occur when the saints were sufficiently righteous and unselfish.

I was taught that the communal systems of early Mormons were the more perfect way. As stated in my previous posts in this series, I now understand that these economic systems were inherently flawed. The systems required coercion. They stifled human ingenuity and healthy individualism.

No one will arrive in the celestial kingdom without freely choosing to become celestial in every way, including economically. Coercion is not part of the plan. With free choice comes variety, which leads to overall better productivity and better stewardship. While it allows for suboptimal behavior, it also leads to accountability.

It is true that the law of tithing is incumbent on every church member. Consecration, on the other hand, is a covenant made in the holy temple. As explained in the booklet Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple, in the temple we "covenant with the Lord to devote our time, talents, and means to His kingdom."

But this does not man that tithing is a lesser law. After all, the Lord calls it "a standing law unto them forever" (D&C 199:4). Tithing is part of living the covenant of consecration. In this article Orson Scott Card contends that paying a full tithe along with fulfilling our church callings to the best of our abilities is essentially equivalent with living the law of consecration.

But that's not the whole story. In earlier articles Card discusses other facets of consecration. In The King Benjamin Society he writes about the importance of freely caring for others, even when they do not seem to deserve our aid. In Already Consecrated he explores what consecration means. (Pay particular attention to the words in bold type.) He writes:

"Consecration is not some past practice that will be restored, or some future law that will someday be given. We already live the law, we Latter-day Saints. It sets us apart from all other people. Nobody else takes part in the life of their church the way we do.

"And yet we also see that it costs us nothing. All our time, talents, and goods came to us as a trust from God. We improve them as best we can, and use them to serve others in his name, and as directed by the stewards set over us."

LDS bishops today generally refrain from digging into members' personal finances unless a member is coming to them for economic help. But that doesn't mean that church members are not by covenant accountable to their bishops for their personal stewardships, including their private finances.

Years ago I heard Elder Monte J. Brough of the Seventy tell about the time his family bought a new Suburban SUV. A week later his friend, who was the ward scoutmaster came and asked if he could use the new SUV to take the Boy Scouts to summer camp. He told his friend no.

A few days later, however, Brother Brough's bishop approached him and asked the same question. He gave his bishop the keys to the new vehicle. His friend was somewhat hurt by the fact that Bro. Brough would entrust the SUV to the bishop (who he contended was a worse driver) but not to a close friend with whom he presumably shared a great deal of trust.

Bro. Brough explained to his scoutmaster friend that the way he saw it, the bishop held the priesthood keys to ask any member of his ward to put their covenant of consecration on the line at any moment for the building up of the Lord's kingdom on earth, but that the scoutmaster didn't hold such keys.

The way the law of consecration works in the church nowadays, we are given a great deal of personal flexibility, depending on our capacities and interests. My octogenarian mom is no less committed than she was three decades ago, but she simply can't do as much as she used to. Billionaire Jon Huntsman, Sr. has the means to build cancer institutes and donate corporate aircraft to church leaders; things that the average church member will never be able to do. But neither is it expected of them.

We are individually accountable to the Lord and to his servants for our various stewardships. Having enough flexibility to enable individual agency means that we can choose to be insufficiently committed to the covenants we have made. The social consequences for doing so won't be nearly as problematic nowadays as was wearing a new pair of store bought pants in Orderville during the height of its communal experiment. But deep down we all have some idea of where we sit with the Lord. At any rate, the Lord will not be fooled.

In other words, we already have an economic system today that enables fully living the law of consecration. It enables all kinds of other variations as well. But the economic choices of our neighbors impact us far less than would be the case in the collectivist experiments of yore. No one is required to "run faster than he has strength," yet "it is expedient that [each] should be diligent" (Mosiah 4:27). Where we are at on that continuum at any given moment is between each individual and the Lord.

Maybe this personal way of being consecrated is actually more difficult than living within the narrow constraints of either the communal or stewardship orders. But it is far closer to the real law of consecration than were those systems.

But what of Enoch's society? Did they not achieve a community where they had all things common and there were no poor among them? Isn't this what we strive for?

Yes, yes, and yes. But it is important to note that Enoch's society consisted of completely willing and united participants. They became a separate group. They cared for their own poor, but not for the poor of the whole world. In fact, the record suggests that they were often at war with the outside world. We would consider this to be severe social stratification today. Imagine the negative media coverage that would ensue.

We also have no idea know how Enoch's system of having all things common worked. Did young people just entering the job market automatically get handed to them everything that the skilled workers of their parents' generation had? What kind of market variety existed in the city? There may be a good reason that we don't have this information. Maybe we're supposed to figure out how to apply the law of consecration to our own cultural situations.

One way "having all things common" can happen in our current era is described in the story told by Elder Brough (above) and by the Card in his article about tithing. We pay our tithes and offerings, serve faithfully in chruch callings, reach out to help others where we can, and occasionally respond to extraordinary needs.

What about having no poor among us? I do not live in a wealthy ward by Wasatch Front standards. And yet we have no poor among us that are not adequately cared for. We also regularly participate in projects to help the poor outside of our ward boundaries. While other wards and units in other parts of the world may not be able to say this, even Enoch's society had boundaries, and we are members of our given ward/branch for a reason.

Instead of waiting for perfect conditions or trying to re-enact the details of Enoch's society, we are called to personally live the law of consecration here and now in the circumstances in which we currently find ourselves. We are called to bring to pass much righteousness of our own free will (D&C 58:26-29) instead of waiting for some central authority to direct us.

Echoing what I said earlier, this may actually be more difficult than living in a centrally planned society. But, unlike those systems, it has the benefit of actually being able to work.

Mormons and the Law of Consecration, Part 3

I admitted in the first two parts of this series that I had problems with the way early Mormons attempted to implement the law of consecration. In part 2 I discussed the Orderville pants rebellion to outline why communal systems fail.

But not all LDS attempts at living the law of consecration were essentially communal in nature. The other main model employed was the stewardship system. Each person was to consecrate their property to the bishop. The bishop would then grant them a stewardship equivalent to what was felt to be adequate to meet the person's needs and righteous wants. The steward held title to these properties and was accountable to the bishop for his stewardship. He was able to enjoy the proceeds of his productive work.

Most participants received the properties they had consecrated back as a stewardship. The system was designed to put the excess contributions of the wealthy at the bishop's disposal to bolster the stewardships of those that had too little to sustain themselves.

Unlike the communal system, differences in holdings were entirely acceptable, based on individual needs, skills, and righteous wants. The system sought to reduce the freeloading and lack of initiative inherent in communal systems.

However, the stewardship system still proved unworkable. Mormon writer Orson Scott Card explains why in this article.

"First, it supposes a freeholder economy — either you farm, in which case you receive your land, tools, and seed from the bishop; or you practice a trade or keep a shop, in which case you receive building, tools, and inventory from the bishop.

"Second, while the Church could organize or fund projects that everyone knows are needed — roads, irrigation, hospitals, infrastructure repairs — there are projects highly unsuitable for local bishops or the Church as a whole to decide on.

"Third, there is no place in Joseph Smith’s freeholder economy for people who work in sales, in management, or as employees on an assembly line. Nor is there a place for artists or entrepreneurs.

"Artists don’t work well here, and not just because excellence requires hard practice to such an extent that you cannot possibly support yourself in a day job.

"The problem with artists and entrepreneurs is that bishops, by the nature of the office, are singularly ill-suited to identifying and investing in either.

"A bishop in Joseph Smith’s system has a sacred trust. He must dispose of the community’s surpluses with as little risk as possible.

"And what does the bishop do when somebody comes to him with a project that sounds risky? How can he lay the widow’s mite on the line for a startup project?

"Entrepreneurship is horribly risky, and yet no progress is made without it."

In short, the freeholder economy is simply too limited to address the complexities of real life. Scott also notes that central planning is incapable of magnifying the capacities of human ingenuity, which I believe to be the greatest natural resource in existence. This deficiency isn't just because the bishop was a back country merchant. It would still be the case if the central planners constituted a group of the world's smartest people, due to the nature of the system.

As for the sameness enforced in communal systems like Orderville, Scott says, "Sameness is not fairness. In fact, relentless sameness is torment. It’s as good a definition of hell as I can think of." He provides some real world examples of the need for variety and the unfairness of enforced sameness.

But how do you develop a system of consecration that fosters the maximization of human ingenuity for the enhancement of self sufficiency and for the benefit of others that doesn't involve communal or central planning systems?

Blasting the never ending Utopian abhorrence of money, Scott asserts that "money is not evil." In effect, "it counts as a vote. ... It allows large groups of people to make decisions together without actually having to hold a meeting or an election." With money, the "bishop doesn’t have to decide whether a project is worth the risk, or whether a particular artist’s work has value. Instead, individual people vote with their money."

The laws of economics exist and are as inviolable as the law of gravity or the second law of thermodynamics. This does not stop people from attempting to devise systems and policies that ignore economic laws. It happens everyday when opportunists seek to exploit the people's general ignorance of economic laws.

"But" Scott asks, "can money really coexist with the Law of Consecration?" He answers, "Obviously it can — because the Saints are living that law, and we live in a money economy."

At the end of his article Scott addresses the crux of why early Mormon attempts at living the law of consecration failed. These experiments, he says, "crashed against that reef of choice. They didn’t fail because the people were sinful. They failed because they didn’t allow sufficiently for God-given agency."

Given that these experiments sought to violate economic law, Scott's conclusion resonates much better with me than the stock explanation of human sinfulness. The simple fact is that mortals will always be imperfect. They will always be sinful. In fact, the whole message of Christianity is that the Atonement of Christ can compensate for the eternal effects of the sinfulness that impacts all humans.

Earthly economic systems that require perfect people are destined to fail. Mormon doctrine teaches that God usually functions within the scope of natural laws. Since early Mormon Utopian economic experiments violated natural economic laws and/or required perfect people, they could not have succeeded. Nor would they succeed if attempted today. The problem didn't lie with the people. Fundamental elements of the systems were flawed.

I believe this conclusion can be reached without denying the prophetic calling of those that promoted these systems in good faith. They were the first to admit their humanness and fallibility. It may also be true that God had goals other than economic success in mind when these systems were attempted.

In the next part of this series I will explore what the law of consecration really means. This will necessarily require separating the doctrine from early attempts to live the law.

Mormons and the Law of Consecration, part 2

In my previous post in this series I outlined some of the 19th Century efforts by early Mormons to live the law of consecration. I also stated that I was somewhat dissatisfied with the stock explanation that all of these efforts failed due to the sins of greed and laziness.

A relatively well known story from the Orderville communal experiment will help illustrate part of the reason for my conundrum. Almost a decade and a half ago Henry B. Eyring, then a counselor in the Presiding Bishopric mentioned this story in a general conference talk.

Bishop Eyring confirmed that Orderville residents were poor, but he felt that their relative poverty was actually a blessing that fostered gratitude. When a mining boom improved the economy in surrounding communities, some residents of Orderville started to feel deprived. Bishop Eyring explains:

One ingenious boy acted on the discontent he felt when he was denied a new pair of pants from the Orderville factory because his were not worn out yet. He secretly gathered the docked lambs’ tails from the spring crop. He sheared the wool from them and stored it in sacks. Then, when he was sent with a load of wool to sell in Nephi, he took his sacks along and exchanged them for a pair of store pants. He created a sensation when he wore the new-style pants to the next dance.

The president of the order asked him what he had done. The boy gave an honest answer. So they called him into a meeting and told him to bring the pants. They commended him for his initiative, pointed out that the pants really belonged to the order, and took them. But they told him this: the pants would be taken apart, used as a pattern, and henceforth Orderville pants would have the new store-bought style. And he would get the first pair.

That did not quite end the pants rebellion. Orders for new pants soon swamped the tailoring department. When the orders were denied because pants weren’t yet worn out, boys began slipping into the shed where the grinding wheel was housed. Soon, pants began to wear out quickly. The elders gave in, sent a load of wool out to trade for cloth, and the new-style pants were produced for everyone.

So, what we have here is one greedy boy that inspired other greedy boys to upset the tranquility of the commune-ity, right?

It might help to point out that a relative of the boy later explained that the rapidly growing teen had gotten too big for the pants he had. But he didn't qualify to get a new pair of regular pants from the order because his pants were not yet worn out.

Given the way sheep operations of that era functioned, the lamb tails collected by the boy were likely considered worthless garbage. It took too much effort to make much use of them. But this enterprising boy saw the tails as something useful, even if his elders didn't. He put a fair amount of labor into sheering the tails so that he could trade the wool for a pair of pants that fit him.

Calling this greed doesn't seem quite right to me. In fact, I'd love to teach my children to be this enterprising. The boy used his free time to take something that seemed worthless to others (discarded lamb tails) and turn it into something of value (new pants). Think of that. Instead of whining to his parents to buy him clothes he actually needed (albeit in a style he wanted), he earned the clothes through hard work. If this is greed, we need a lot more of it in our society.

Of course, under the communal system, not only did the trash belong to the commune, the boy's labor, which he could have used for leisure instead, also belonged to the commune. The collectivist ideology raised the perceived good of the community and complete equality among its members to overriding virtues. Nothing belonged to the individual. The system called for sameness in everything: food, housing, clothing, labor time, leisure, etc, to ensure equality.

In the communal system the enterprising boy was in the unenviable position of having stolen his leisure time from the collective and having misused it for labor. Thus, it was ruled that the pants, which had been bought with the communal properties of trash and the boy's free time, belonged to the commune and not to the boy.

Heaven knows we wouldn't want kids using their leisure time for self directed productive labor. They might form gangs that go around mowing people's lawns or cleaning their windows FOR PAY! And that might lead to the gross sin of inequality.

While the boy was rewarded with the first pair of the new style of pants manufactured by the order, he was punished for his ingenuity, industry, and initiative. The mixed punishment/reward given to the boy did not foster more productive ingenuity among his peers. Rather, they ended up employing destructive ingenuity to get what they wanted from the collective.

When I lived in Norway years ago, I was stunned by the level of vandalism of public property in that society. Personal property was held inviolate (although that is no longer the case). The number of people that felt like they were owed something amazed me. They had no problem turning to destructive means to express their frustrations when the collective failed to provide for their (sometimes rather esoteric) wants.

The stifling of productive ingenuity and the promotion of the learned helplessness of dependence are among the problems endemic in all collectivist systems. F.A. Hayek noted that a few of these drawbacks can be somewhat overcome by truly converted participants that are willing to make unusual sacrifices, but the system remains flawed by nature. Killing off individuality unfortunately means killing off ingenuity and industry.

Besides, trouble soon arises in these systems as soon as a new generation comes along that has not personally bought into the system. Some start 'causing problems' by being more industrious than their neighbors and thinking outside of the box created by the central planning apparatus.

19th Century Mormon collectivist systems failed because they failed to harness the power of the human spirit. Communal systems mainly looked at humans as glorified beasts of burden. Not only did these systems fail to take adequate advantage of the great resource of human ingenuity, they actively squelched it..

In my next post I will delve further into how and why 19th Century Mormon collectivist orders failed and why they would still fail if attempted today. I will discuss why I believe that these systems inadequately implemented the law of consecration.

Mormons and the Law of Consecration, part 1

Christians have long been enamored of descriptions in the biblical Book of Acts of believers having "all things common," selling "their possessions and goods," and imparting "them to all men, as every man had need," not considering any of their possessions as their own, so that none among the community of believers lacked. (See Acts 2:44-45, 4:32-35.) These few verses have engendered much rhapsodizing. Extensive glorious conclusions and prescriptions for living have been extrapolated from these brief words.

But a dark side of the system also reveals itself. Acts 5:1-10 relates the strange story of a couple that sold a property, which presumably had been consecrated to the church. However, they gave only part of the proceeds to the apostles, while representing it as the full amount.

In separate interviews, each partner lies about the matter to Peter, the president of the church. In each interview, Peter discerns and calls the donor on the lie, whereon, each in turn collapses and dies. The message seems to be that it is wrong to withhold our property from the Lord and that lying to the Lord's representative about such matters can have dire consequences.

There really isn't enough information in the verses in the New Testament to determine how well the common system worked, how it was actually carried out, or how long it lasted. Some scholars have asserted that the political and economic conditions of the time and area lent to the communal system (see here).

LDS scripture delves into this topic in much greater detail. The Book of Mormon also describes a people having all things common and having no economic class distinctions (4 Nephi 1:3). This system apparently endured for more than 160 years (verses 22-25) until pride resulted in the system's demise.

In modern scripture the Doctrine and Covenants condemns anyone possessing "that which is above another" (D&C 49:20). We are told that the Lord's way of providing for his saints is that "the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low" (D&C 104:16), and that the bishop is to administer to the wants of the poor "by humbling the rich and proud" (D&C 84:112).

The Encyclopedia of Mormonism (EoM) relates in an article on the Law of Consecration that when "Joseph Smith arrived at Kirtland, Ohio, in February [1831], he found the Saints organized in a communal society called "the family." He persuaded them to abandon this practice for "the more perfect law of the Lord."" A few days later he received a broad ranging revelation on how saints were to act and organize themselves. A portion of that revelation (D&C 42:31-39) outlines the basic premise of the law of consecration.

The system called for church members to "impart of [their] substance to the poor" by consecrating their donations before the presiding bishop. Each who did this was in return "made a steward over his own property," which was to be "sufficient for himself and his family." Anything in excess of this was to be used by the bishop to "administer to those who have not." The promise was "that every man that has need may be amply supplied and receive according to his wants."

All consecrations were based on covenants to live according to the law of the Lord, to supply one's own needs as much as possible, and to care for others. As the EoM explains, this was not a true communal system. Families continued to live separately and held actual title to their properties.

Many church members entered into the new order. But problems presented themselves from the very beginning. Just four months after Section 42 was received church members were chastised for their failure to live the law. Both the rich that would not give their substance to the poor as well as the lazy poor that envied others' substance were condemned (D&C 56:15-17).

Variously adapted attempts were made to live the law of consecration in both Ohio and Missouri between 1831 and 1839. All of these failed. The envisioned surplus for blessing the poor never materialized. The order was not a significant part of Mormon life during the Nauvoo era (1839-1846).

Life was a hardscrabble existence for the first few years after the church settled in what is now Utah. Conditions had stabilized by the 1860s to the point that non-Mormons (Gentiles) began settling in the area in larger numbers. With a religious utopia in mind, church leaders established a number of cooperative mercantile associations throughout predominantly LDS settlements (see EoM article). Some of these were quite successful, while others were not.

Beginning in the mid-1870s church leaders established more than 200 united order organizations in Mormon communities throughout the west. Some were based on the consecration-stewardship model and others were based on the communal model, which had been eschewed by Joseph Smith. Not all of the consecration models required consecration of all properties. Most of the communal systems soon disbanded or converted to the consecration model. The two ends of the diverse models are discussed in detail in this 2009 Educated Wannabe Cowboy post.

The most famous of the communal systems was Orderville, which endured for about a decade. They strictly followed the communal system, including eating at the same table. The order became nearly self sufficient. By the end of the experiment most members of the order were still quite poor, but they were not destitute. Some claim that the order disbanded only because many of the men were hauled off to jail for practicing polygamy.

All of the Utopian economic systems practiced by 19th Century Mormons eventually failed. The main explanations for these failures at the time basically boiled down to greed and laziness. The prosperous didn't give enough and the poor didn't work enough. This seems to remain the chief explanation given nowadays for these failures. Few people living in telestial conditions are capable of consistently living celestial laws.

This explanation seemed satisfactory to me when I was younger. But the more I have learned about economic theory and economic laws, the less satisfactory it has become. In my next post I will discuss a fuller understanding of early Mormon attempts at Utopian economic systems.

We Should be Happy About Recent Stock Market Increases, Right?

"So, the stock market is at record highs, and you say that's bad?" asked a co-worker. I had just given a dour response to his exuberance about recent stock market gains.

I replied that it could be either good or bad, depending on one's position in the market. But I noted that the underlying assumption seemed to be that the recent gains meant that the economy was dramatically improving and that life would be getting better. Oh, it will get better for a few people that have a good sense of what is happening in the market, but ....

My friend was mystified by my pessimism. I asked if it seemed reasonable to think that the underlying value of the firms that make up the DOW or the S&P 500 actually increased so much over such a short period of time. Or was it that these highly watched firms were carefully hiding value that has only now come to light? No, none of that seems right. Value gains like that would have rippled throughout the economy driving massive employment gains, and real unemployment is still extremely high.

Then maybe one should consider the possibility that a bubble lacking real value is forming in the stock market. If so, that bubble will burst at some point, leaving many decrying their losses. For long-term stockholders this will mean losses of imaginary gains that never really existed. For recent buyers that bought stocks at inflated prices, the losses will be very real.

An economist that goes by the pseudonym Adam Smith does a fine job of explaining the impending stock bubble collapse in this article.

The Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S. Government have colluded to keep long-term bond rates very low (effectively 0%) for many months in an attempt to stimulate the flagging economy and fund government debt at artificially low prices. Those that used to rely on long-term bond yields for income (i.e. retirees) have had to move to the stock market to get any kind of income.

Smith doesn't mention this, but many people that got out of the stock market when it crashed in 2008 are just now feeling comfortable enough to get back in. The average stock market investor is a very emotional being that exits the market when confidence drops and re-enters the market when confidence is high. The result, however, is that they sell when stocks get cheap and buy when stocks get expensive; the precise opposite of a wealth producing strategy.

With no "great underlying fundamental driving real growth," the supply of business equity (i.e. stock) value is no higher today than it was a few months ago. When supply remains constant while demand increases, price must also increase. People are paying more for stock without getting additional value.

Smith explains that this is actually being done by design "to make people feel richer and hence spend more money and expand the economy." One can debate the ability of fake wealth to foster real wealth, but the Fed can't keep this up forever. At some point "the Fed is going to change policy and increase interest rates."

Trading professionals are keenly watching for this moment and will engage in a huge stock sell-off when it arrives, locking in their gains. Seniors, however, that have moved their savings from bonds to stocks will end up reaping the whirlwind as the value they thought they had purchased will evaporate. After the bubble bursts, emotional based investors will jump out of the market again, thereby, permanently locking in their losses.

The stock market isn't the bad guy here. It is just a tool that is being manipulated by big government actors, whose efforts will end up contributing to the impending retirement crisis.

As I noted in this post from a year ago, we cannot avoid the fact that retirees rely on existing workers to support them. This would be true even if Social Security did not exist and retirees were completely self funded. Retiree investments only have as much value as is imbued in them by current worker productivity. Also unavoidable is the fact that the ratio of productive workers to retirees is rapidly declining.

Some say that this isn't so bad, because per-worker productivity continues to increase. While this is true, it would require a highly skewed view of economics to believe that productivity increases can adequately compensate for decreases in human capital. The best measures we have of productivity do not appear to support such a conclusion.

To top it off, the Wall Street Journal reports that workers aren't adequately saving for retirement. A significant number quit saving when the economy went south in 2008 and many have less saved today than they did in 2007. Besides the current dismal economy, increasing life expectancy, expanding expectations of post-retirement lifestyle, the relative size of the Baby Boomer generation that is now entering retirement, the diminishing worker-to-retiree ratio, and the impending stock market bubble collapse lend to the forecast of a looming retirement crisis.

When the crisis hits, watch for large swaths of the populace—especially those that are retired or close to retiring—to clamor for more government mandated wealth transfers. They will cry for those that have been most productive and most prudent to be punished, along with the young and unborn future workers that cannot yet speak for themselves. One problem of moving from a republic to a democracy is that a majority or even a highly motivated minority can succeed in gaining benefits funded by those that are less politically connected. Even this game can only be played temporarily.

Last summer I posted about the dismal view taken by Mark Steyn of the future we can expect. He asserts that "we will work till we’re older and we will start younger — and we will despise those who thought they could defy not just the rules of economic gravity but the basic human life cycle."

If Steyn is right, the coming retirement crisis may be more than just a temporary dip that lasts a few years. It could be the start of longer careers, less prosperity, less leisure, and shorter retirements for almost everybody.

So, go ahead and celebrate the recent stock market increases, if that's what you want to do. But don't be surprised when the bubble bursts, deflating Americans' dreams of long, luxurious retirements.

We have spent ourselves into the position of necessarily thrashing from economic crisis to economic crisis. The solutions offered by politicians and their business cronies at this point are designed to create temporary bubbles of inflated well being in an effort to gain power and put off for as long as possible taking the medicine we know must take. People buy these ideas because being truly fiscally responsible sells poorly.

In other words, when the stock market bubble crashes, it won't be the last economic bubble we will experience. Taking steps to get your own economic house in order can help, but it may be inadequate to fully protect you from the coming series of crises.

Of Dogs and Missionaries

A dog may be man's best friend, but such is not always the case when it comes to missionaries. I encountered many dogs on my mission. To be honest, most were either friendly or apathetic. But even the best dogs had this annoying habit of transferring doggy hair and doggy scents onto a missionary's suit and tote bag.

All Mormon missionaries nowadays carry their teaching supplies in backpacks. Nobody did that back in my day. It was common for those of us serving in Norway to use a 'veske.' That's a type of carrying bag that looks a lot like a big purse. Although men in Norway commonly carried these things back then, we would try to find the manliest looking purses possible.

I acquired a particularly durable veske that was the envy of many an elder in my mission. It had the unusual properties of being able to repel dog hair and taking no damage when sliding along the pavement after accidentally being dropped from a fast moving bike.

As the the conclusion of my mission approached, I asked one elder if he was interested in taking over my veske. He looked at me with wide eyes and asked why I wasn't taking it home with me. I looked at him like he was an idiot and said, "I think you've been in Norway too long, elder. Think about it. What would a guy in America with one of these things slung over his shoulder look like?" "Oh, yeah," he replied.

Man purses aside, not all dogs were friendly to us missionaries. Once when I was chased by a dog that seemed intent on taking a chunk out of me, my hillbilly companion (who was confused as to the number of siblings he had but could tell you the remotest detail of every hunting trip he'd ever been on) yelled at the dog to stop and return. The cowering dog obeyed him, even though, Elder hillbilly was yelling in English.

On another occasion a large German shepherd came toward us out of the darkness exhibiting the usual threatening body language: menacing growl, teeth bared, head lowered, eyes looking a bit wild, etc. I froze and contemplated whether my bladder and bowels were about to involuntarily empty their contents into my Swedish double-knit pants.

My companion, on the other hand, (a different companion) calmly dropped into a stance that clearly conveyed to everyone and everything that he was ready to take care of business. I'm not even sure that his pulse rate went up.

It turns out that Elder W.'s parents owned a martial arts studio and that Elder W. held various black belt ranks in four different disciplines. He was reported to have used his martial arts skills only once while serving as a missionary when a group of drunk punks tried to assault him and his companion. One swift kick to the side of the ring leader's head had brought the matter to a quick close.

As soon as Elder W. dropped into his stance, the dog's body language changed completely. It became fully submissive. It backed up, gave us a wide berth, and wandered off into the darkness. I asked Elder W. what that was all about. He casually replied that he had been ready to rip the dog's throat out if necessary, and that the dog knew it.

I walked confidently off into the dark at Elder W's side. The armor of God is a wonderful thing. But never underestimate the value of extreme martial arts training.

How I Almost Drowned or Don't Swim on the Sabbath

Reading Pete Codella's post at Modern Mormon Men reminded me of a time when I nearly drowned. I was with a group of male friends, mostly returned missionaries. We had gone to a cabin in Island Park that was owned by the family of a member of our group. We had agreed to do the work of opening up the cabin for the season in exchange for food and lodging for the Memorial Day weekend.

After driving up on Friday night, we split our time on Saturday between working and recreating. In the evening some of my friends started expressing doubts about trying to make it to church meetings in West Yellowstone the following morning. In the end, the matter was decided by the friend that had the vehicle. To my disappointment, he decided that we would sleep in. Most of the others concurred.

On Sunday morning I held my own worship service as my friends slept. After a late breakfast, my friends decided to drive into Yellowstone National Park. Someone mentioned that we should bring our swimsuits and towels in case we wanted to take a dip in the Firehole River, which is warmed by geothermal waters. Recalling the many times I had enjoyed the 80°+ currents of the Firehole River, I packed my gear.

It was cloudy and cool when we pulled up to the swimming hole. I was surprised to see no other cars. Many cars and swimmers had been present each time I had previously visited. I changed into my swimsuit in the car, the whole time thinking that something was not right. I knew I shouldn't be recreating on the Sabbath, but something more than that was wrong. I brashly brushed aside those thoughts and was soon headed toward the river.

Since I was familiar with the area, I directed the group to the point where people usually swim across the river and then walk up a rocky underwater shelf for a distance. A common practice is to jump directly into the current from the end of the shelf and be carried around the bend to where the river turns shallow.

The river seemed higher and faster than what I was used to. It was also quite a bit colder. This was runoff season. I had previously always visited in the latter half of the summer when the current was more sedate and the water was warmer. The conditions warranted serious caution. But I reasoned that I was a strong swimmer, while ignoring the feeling that I shouldn't be doing this.

I soon jumped in and started swimming. The force of the runoff surprised me as it pushed me further downstream than I expected. When I realized I could not reach the rocky shelf, I relaxed and allowed the current to carry me around the bend, something I had done many times. But I was again surprised as the river held me under much longer than usual. I finally emerged and made my way to the shallows panting hard.

I slowly clambered over the rocky outcropping that separated the entry and exit points. Two of my friends had decided against trying to swim. Two others had donned wet suits for the attempt. (We had no wet suits that fit me.) I stood in the water and watched each of those with wet suits barely manage to cross the strong current. Two other friends stayed dry on the rocky outcropping.

For a long time I stood in the shallows contemplating another attempt at crossing the river. I had expended quite a bit of strength in my previous battle with the ferocious current. But my other friends had made it, and neither of them was as good at swimming as I was. They beckoned me from the other side of the river.

After several anxious minutes I again lunged into the current and began employing my strongest freestyle stroke. I made it about halfway across and then my progress slowed. I crept forward until I was about three quarters of the way across. And then I stalled. The rocky shelf got no closer. It must have been only a portion of a minute, but it seemed like I held steady forever.

All kinds of warning bells were going off in my head, but I finally doubled down and exerted all my capacity to try to reach the shelf that was so close and yet so far away. I immediately knew that I should have turned and swam for the other side while I still had strength. Despite my exertion, the shelf got no closer.

Finally I was spent. I turned and tried to swim for the shore from which I had jumped, yelling for help as I did so. I knew I was in serious trouble. But somehow I couldn't bring myself to pray. How could I ask God for help when I was deliberately disobeying his commandments? As Huckleberry Finn discovered, "You can't pray a lie." Still, with weak faith that God would answer my sinner's call, I cried out to him within my soul for help.

The current was too strong for me to make it back to the shore. Instead, I was pushed downstream toward the rocky outcropping, which had been worn smooth by thousands of years of streaming water. As soon as it came close I tried grasping for anything that could keep my body from being pushed around the bend; a process that would have plunged me underwater for more time than I had breath to spare. In my mind's eye I could see myself being pushed, twisted, and turned underwater by the current until blackness overtook me.

In my reaching and grabbing at the outcropping, my hands grasped a mossy bump that allowed me to barely hold on. But it was too rounded and slippery. As my claw-like fingers slid over the surface of the bump, I suddenly saw my friend's arm and hand before my face. Just as my feet, legs, and hips were being pulled toward the bend, I managed to grasp my friend's hand. He held on with all his strength.

My friend had only realized the seriousness of my plight when I cried out for help. He had sprung down the outcropping to a tiny ledge where he had little leverage and had sprawled downward in one mighty lunge just in time to grab my hand. He couldn't pull me up on his own, so he held me there until another friend maneuvered into place and grabbed my other arm, which allowed the two of them to hoist me from the water and then onto somewhat level ground.

I collapsed onto a log feeling nauseous. I put my head between my legs and concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply. I was actually nearly hyperventilating. I felt like I was either going to retch, pass out, or both. My friends got my towel and jacket to help calm my uncontrollable shivering. In my soul I expressed sorrow for my disobedience and gratitude to God for being saved.

After about five or six minutes my breathing had calmed and I slowly started to feel like I wasn't necessarily going to faint. A few minutes later I was able to raise my head up. After awhile I was able to stand. We made our way back to the car. I almost immediately fell asleep as we drove toward Old Faithful.

I was pretty quiet the rest of the day. Not only was I keenly aware of how close I had come to departing this life, I was disappointed with myself for my rebellious choice and my willingness to give into peer pressure.

But the experience was not without some valuable lessons for me (although, you might draw other conclusions):

• You can always pray.
• God is merciful and is willing to help as much as he can, even when you do something stupid.
• Don't ignore promptings of warning.
• Don't ignore signs of danger. There was a good reason that there were no other swimmers at the river that day.
• Don't let friends entice you into doing something you sense is not right for you.
• While the old saying about getting right back on a horse after it has bucked you off can be valid advice, it is sometimes better to wait until conditions improve a bit before getting back in the saddle. You might need to recuperate and you might need to let the horse—or river—calm down for a few weeks.

And finally:

• DON'T go swimming on the Sabbath.

The Flashlight

In response to my post about funerals, some have asked me about my reference to "the flashlight poem." As it happens, I occasionally dabble in poetry. Some of my more memorable compositions are bits of doggerel of the cowboy poetry genre. I write other types of poetry as well, but I'm the first to admit that I'm no great poet. I mostly do write for my own entertainment and sometimes for campfire fun.

I rather like cowboy poetry because it's kind of rough around the edges. As such, it's rather flexible and forgiving. Much like the whimsical styles of Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss, words can be twisted to rhyme (or words can even be made up), meter can be varied, and other liberties can be taken. This particular poem sounds best if you say it out loud with somewhat of a cowboy twang.

My best cowboy poems relate true stories—actual events. Such is the case with the flashlight poem. This really happened to a boy in our troop at camp a few years ago. Every word is absolutely accurate.

Dyed-in-the-wool scouters will appreciate the poem without any introduction. But for others it is helpful to know that the word "kybo" is a Boy Scout euphemism for a latrine or an outhouse, usually of the pit variety. (There are a number of theories about the origin of this word, but that's not important for this post.)

Without further ado, my poem, The Flashlight.

It was dark that night in the kybo
As he stood there trying to aim steady,
But needing both paws he held clenched in his jaws
A flashlight from EverReady.

But the weight of D batteries is tough on a jaw
And his saliva started to flow.
Then from his wet lip that light made a slip
And tumbled right through that oval hole.

Now, as luck would have it, that light light on a ledge
Just above that deep pool of waste,
So he reached down in there with the greatest of care
And retrieved it with all due haste.

He rinsed it, then coated it with hand sanitizer
From its north end down to its south.
But one thing's for sure
It'll be a long time before
He puts that thing back in his mouth.

Planning Your Own Funeral

I was recently seated next to my wife at the funeral of a longtime and well venerated member of our ward. This hard working, dedicated family man had lived a long life. His wife and sweetheart of 6½ decades appeared to be close to following him across the veil. Wonderful memories were expressed. Fine musical numbers were presented. It was all very dignified and proper.

Then one son rose to sing a song that he said the children had been told for years had to be sung at their father's funeral. He said that the children had never been told how or why their parents came to love the song Somewhere, My Love. Somewhat in jest, he proposed a "rumor" that his parents danced to it on the night they first met.

I wasn't sure that could have happened. I seemed to recall that the song was related to the movie Dr. Zhivago. I remembered watching the movie on TV with my family as a child. I was ignorant of the political and interpersonal dimensions portrayed. All I knew was that the movie lasted for-stinking-ever.

As the number began, I whipped out my handy-dandy smartphone and quickly discovered that the song was released some 20 years after the decedent and his wife had married. I smirked and showed this find to my wife. The singer could easily have discovered the same information with a minute of research. A little too arrogant and cynical, no? Does modern mobile technology render this kind of peevishness too easy? I probably should just have kept the phone in my pocket.

As I sat through the meeting, I reflected on my father's funeral. We had plied him for his thoughts on the program prior to his death, but he simply refused to say anything about it. He finally told me that the funeral was not for his benefit, but for the benefit of the survivors. His only wishes were that his sons plan everything and that our mother be completely relieved from worrying about even the remotest detail. That ended up working out great.

When my father-in-law was preparing to pass on, his only desires as far as his funeral went were that it be only a graveside service and that it last for less than an hour. He hated long meetings. That worked out fine too.

Years ago I thought I would develop very detailed plans for my own funeral. Maybe something like the scene portrayed in the song Forest Lawn that was popularized by John Denver. Although I hope that this event is yet in the distant future, I now think I like my father's approach better. Unlike my father, however, I have a handful of minor requests for my children. (All of which are subject to my changing whims.)

• Testify of the Savior's Atonement.
• Get the cheapest casket you can. You will honor me best by saving the money for more valuable matters than a box that is going to be buried under six feet of dirt following a few hours of display.
• May there be both weeping and laughter, but hopefully more of the latter than the former.
• Have some kind of (spiritually appropriate) music that reminds you of me. (Probably no progressive rock.)
• Read something that I have written. (Maybe not the flashlight poem.)

OK, so it's a little macabre to discuss your own funeral. As it happens, my wife and I have already purchased our funeral plots (so as to reduce burdens when that time arrives). As the plots are not far from my parents' plots, I often take the opportunity to lie down on my plot when we visit Dad's grave. That creeps my kids out, but it doesn't bother me one bit. Death is a natural part of life. It need not be approached with fear.

Ward Choir Woes

Our ward choir is pathetic. I've seen a broad spectrum of ward choirs over my lifetime, just within the wards of which I have been a member.

During my teen and young adult years, the ward in which I grew up had a fine choir directed by a professional music teacher. They practiced for an hour every Sunday prior to Sacrament meeting (back in the old split schedule days). At age 14 my mom nagged me into joining the choir, although, I had no vocal training.

I have tried to sing in ward choirs ever since those days. My vocal talents have developed over time, but I am still no grand singer. We had a decent sized choir when we moved into our current ward many years ago. My wife did a seven-year stint as the choir director as we were starting our family. She was thankfully released from that calling as our young family expanded.

Choir practice used to be on Sunday mornings. As our family expanded, I hit a point where I rarely sang with the choir for a few years, opting instead to stay home and get the kids ready for church while my wife attended practices. This provided her a needed respite before spending three hours wrangling young children while trying to worship.

One of the biggest challenges our choir faces is finding a convenient time to practice. There just isn't one. People generally don't come to weeknight or Saturday practices. It is horrendously difficult to get people to the church before the block meetings start nowadays. Many that would do so are busy with morning leadership meetings anyway. It's easier to get people to stay after the three-hour block. It's much more difficult to get them to return to the church later on.

The trouble with practicing after meetings is that every room in the church with a piano is generally busy except for the chapel, where we get about 30-35 minutes before the next ward comes in. Depending on how promptly meetings end and choir members make their way to practice, we are lucky to get 20-25 minutes of decent practice time on any given Sunday.

Every ward has its own culture. The choir in my old home ward regularly practiced and performed demanding numbers. When we moved into our current ward I could tell that the choir, while fairly well attended, wasn't nearly as loyal or willing to prepare such numbers. It has remained that way ever since. Directors have occasionally tried to get members to practice more or to sing more challenging numbers, but that has never worked out. People just vote with their feet.

Over the years I have watched our ward choir slowly dwindle in membership. Practicing after block meetings takes its toll because every other organization in the ward wants to catch people at that same time for 'brief' meetings. Some people with young families feel that they need to go home with their kids, who need to be fed, etc. But if we try to hold practices at another time, even fewer people come.

Right now our regular practices fail to draw even a mixed double quartet. (That would be eight people: 2xSATB.) We once had young adults sing with us, but they now mostly attend a young adult ward. I am now the lone tenor, although, I am really a baritone. My wife is often the lone soprano. We sometimes get a couple of the several bass section members out to practice. One of them is usually my high school son (who is a basso profundo and can sing as low as the lowest note on the piano keyboard). We have three or four altos that show up consistently.

We actually have a number of musically talented people in our ward, including many piano players. Some that used to sing with the choir feel that their voice is no longer capable of choir quality singing. Few younger people—even among those that can sing well—are willing to fill those vacancies.

Our choir director occasionally has a 'flash choir' sing in Sacrament meeting. She invites anyone who is willing to come up to the stand to sing a slightly modified version of a well known hymn. This has worked to a certain extent, even if musical execution isn't the best. At least we get a few more people on the stand to bolster our flagging numbers.

Although the church handbook calls for the ward choir to perform at least monthly in Sacrament meeting, our director has the choir take each summer off. It's a relief to have one less meeting to attend each Sunday throughout the summer. I'm not sure that anyone really misses our singing.

I can't nail down all of the reasons that our ward choir is dying. I've seen other ward choirs in our stake that seem to be thriving; although, they deal with the same issues as our ward. It is disheartening to be one of a tiny number of people that show up to choir practice. It is even more depressing to feel more like a member of a quartet than a ward choir when performing in Sacrament meeting, especially given the size of the congregation.

I am not presently serving in a leadership responsibility that could do something about our choir. But when I was, the choir wasn't a top priority. We had so many other things on our plate. So I can't blame current leadership for the situation.

I enjoy singing praises to the Lord. But doing so as a member of our ward choir is kind of a grim experience at present.

A Five-Inch Needle to the Eye and a Pirate Patch

"Don't look at the needle," the doctor said as a slim syringe with a needle that looked to be about four to five inches long passed directly across my field of vision. Realizing that he needed an instrument from the neighboring room, the doctor promptly left the room, leaving the syringe on the counter in plain view.

Knowing that the doctor was about to somehow stick that needle into the optic nerve behind my eyeball, I might have gone into full panic mode at that moment. Except for the fact that I had the good fortune a number of years ago of spending a week and a half as a patient in a hospital, during which time I became as familiar as is a well used pincushion with being poked by needles—at all times of the day and night. By the time I left that hospital, it was no big deal to be poked by a needle; although, I still don't care to watch the procedure.

Actually, I was quite happy to see the long needled syringe. I had been a total baby the last time the ophthalmologist had cauterized a retinal tear with a laser. I tried to keep my eye steady—a necessity for the operation—but my eyes seemed to move of their own accord as they filled with huge tears that spilled down my face. I felt sorry for the poor doctor. To prevent such problems this time around the doctor had offered to temporarily immobilize my eye.

The pinprick sensation on my lower eyelid wasn't too bad. I've had worse. It was only a flesh wound. "That's an odd sensation," I remarked as I felt something pushing my eyeball from behind. "Um, how long will the injection take?" I mumbled. "We're done," he refreshingly replied.

After several brief instances of weirdly shaped lights flashing in my eye over the past year, I had searched the internet and had figured that I was experiencing eye flashes that are not uncommon in middle aged eyes. But then I had a longer episode that lasted nearly half an hour. Some of the material I read said to get the eye examined by a professional right away or else risk retinal detachment, which can result in blindness. Yikes! So off to the doctor I went.

"What can you see out of that eye?" the doctor asked as he waved his hand in front of my face. I could see only gray outlines. "That's good," he said. He proceeded to place a lens directly on my eyeball. That didn't bother me like I thought it would. He looked through the other end of the instrument. I soon began seeing a small green point of light flash as the doctor activated the laser by foot pedal. My eye didn't move at all. It couldn't.

This was a vast improvement over the previous treatment when my eye was assaulted with blinding flashes of light, something to which I have always been extra sensitive. The 100-120 flashes of a tiny unremarkable green light took maybe five minutes. Probably less. That was considerably better than the 25 minutes the 40-45 flashes of blinding light had taken the time before when I couldn't keep my teary eyes still.

As the doctor bandaged my eye he said that normal eye movement would return "in a few hours" and that I could remove the dressing anytime I wanted. About an hour and a half later, it felt like I could move my eye and my eyelid normally, so I removed the bandage.

Bad idea. Bad, bad idea. My wife asked why I had immediately grabbed the wall. "To keep from falling over," I replied. Even then I wasn't sure that the wall would keep me upright. I could see clearly, but everything was slanted like a fun house room. But only out of the affected eye. In attempting to make sense of the two different views offered by my two eyes, my brain almost succeeded in making me seriously nauseous.

Unable to find an eye patch around the house, my wife drove me to a nearby pharmacy, where I bought what looked very much like a pirate costume patch. My son said that I looked more like a James Bond villain than a pirate. The vague "few hours" recovery time mentioned by the doctor ended up lasting at least 12 hours until I retired. I'm not actually sure when the anesthetic wore off because I awoke with my eye tracking normally.

In the interim, I spent the day with my Bond villain look. I was somewhat self conscious when I accompanied my daughter to a children's museum. Happily, no one seemed to care. Even the young kids (of which there were many) seemed unbothered by my appearance. It was a bit more problematic to attend a wedding reception, where my eye adornment brought unwanted attention from friends and acquaintances. But at least I was able to stay upright.

The vitreous gel inside our eyes hardens with age and pulls away from the retina and outside of the eye. It's usually no big deal. But some of us are blessed with 'sticky' gel that tugs hard enough on the retina to tear that delicate membrane during this process. As mentioned above, it's important to get this treated promptly. You know, impending blindness and all.

The good news (at least for the ophthalmologist) is that once you've had a retinal tear, you are a good candidate for more. So I am getting comfortable with the idea of seeing the eye doctor more often. I guess that as long as I can continue to see him, it will be worth it.

I'm not particularly looking forward to the next time I will need laser therapy on my eyes. But I will definitely go for the eye immobilization the next time around. For me, a five-inch needle and a pirate patch beat seeing bright laser light shot in my eye any day.

It's Easier to Say, "I Can't"

I am quite certain that health professionals would say that I have an eating disorder. In this November 2011 post I discussed how my low carb diet was going. I am still doing the low carb thing, but I'm thinking about doing another round of the Rosedale diet, which I have found remarkably effective in managing cholesterol; although, not nearly as satisfying as my low carb regimen.

This interchange recently took place between my youngest son and me:

Him: "Dad, are you always on some kind of diet?"

Me: "Well, everyone that eats is always on some kind of diet." (being evasive)

Him: "I know. I meant are you always on some kind of ... uh, you know ... medical diet?"

Me: "You are asking whether I am always doing some kind of restrictive diet for health purposes?"

Him: "Yeah, that's it."

Me: "Yeah, I'm pretty much always on some kind of healthy diet."

Him: "Oh." (sounding rather non-plussed)

I have been fighting the battle of the bulge since I was 16 years old. I dropped 60 lbs a couple of decades ago and have pretty much managed to keep it off since then. Although I was never obese as a kid, I was somewhat chubby from the time I exited the womb. This feature was the preferred vehicle for much of the childhood ridicule that came my way. 

For all the paeans to the wonders of being child-like, children can be phenomenally brutal to their peers. I probably dished out as least as much as I got, but only the pain of being on the receiving end remains deeply etched in my psyche.

My wife reminds me on occasion that my obsession with maintaining a healthy weight is at least in part a response to the ghosts of childhood insults that were hurled by immature kids that have long since grown into mature, caring, responsible adults. (The petty part of me would add to that last sentence, "... that often are fatter than me nowadays.")

OK, so I've got some issues left over from childhood. Who doesn't?

The reason my son sounded joyless about my response is that dietary discipline simply doesn't sound like it's any fun. Here's a news flash: IT ISN'T! I have tried a number of different diets over the years. The ones that have actually been effective have all shared several features:

• A: They are restrictive.
• B: They require serious self-discipline.
• C: Item A above means that unless you are into spending hours daily doing food preparation or can afford a personal chef, these diets tend to devolve into fairly narrow meal options, which means dietary monotony.
• D: A + B + C = No Fun

Most diets are promoted as being pleasurable and offering a wide variety of dining options. The reality is that unless you are a foodie, pleasure and diversity are opposites of what you will find in any diet that really works.

I recently saw an article about a lady that was a hot starlet back when I was a teenager. She had subsequently added significant heft to her corpus but had recently slimmed down. She was quoted as saying that comfort foods are grand, as long as you only take a bite or two.

Maybe that works for her, but it doesn't work for me. It's far easier for me to simply tell myself that a given food is completely out of bounds. Unlike some, if I give myself permission to eat some delightful treat, I simply can't stop at a couple of bites. It's like giving a recovering alcoholic a bottle of whiskey and telling him to stop after one shot. Better not to touch the stuff at all. That's why I often tell myself and others, "Sorry, I can't."

But sometimes I tell myself, "I can." Yeah, I occasionally take dietary vacations. I don't go crazy with this. It is relatively rare and usually only lasts one or two meals. I may overeat a little on these occasions, but not a lot. It's pretty measured. I don't devolve into uncontrollable eating that is the marker of binge eating.

While diet experts warn against emotional eating, the fact is that everything we eat involves our emotions, often on a very deep level. It's inescapable. People aren't joking when they say things like, "I love donuts" or "I hate spinach" when talking about food. It is my opinion that even for those that opt for dietary austerity, eating should occasionally be a joyful experience (although it may cost some minor indigestion afterward).

When I do take a dietary vacation, I like to do so only in the company of my closest family members. This definitely smacks of covering sins and attempting to satisfy vain desires (D&C 121:37). I can dietarily vacation in public, as long as I'm anonymous. I don't like to be seen by neighbors, friends, and associates eating the less healthy fare that others regularly eat. Psychologists would say that this kind of secrecy is unhealthy and indicates a disorder. They're probably right.

Thinking back to my conversation with my son, I have to wonder what I am teaching my children by my example. No wonder my son views my dietary discipline with distaste. I wouldn't mind if my children learned the kind of self-discipline I have developed. But frankly, I wouldn't wish on them the same level of food frustration that I regularly deal with.

The fact is that I want to eat what I enjoy eating, but I don't want the consequences of eating what I enjoy eating. Most people would probably say the same thing. The difference is that I actually do something about it. And, no, it really isn't much fun. But I do like the health benefits. One of life's harsh truths is that you can't eat your cake and not wear it too.

Tired of Winter

Before heading up to our workout room in the wee hours this morning, I peered through the blinds and noticed snow accumulating on the driveway and walks yet again. I sighed. By the time I was leaving for work about an inch of the white stuff had accumulated.

Let me state for the official record that I am tired of winter. Yeah, I know. I have often told others complaining about winter that their choice of where they live sure is odd, given that northern Utah tends to regularly experience real winters. That "greatest snow on earth" slogan isn't all marketing fluff.

We had a few snowstorms in November this season. But that snow had pretty much melted away by the time mid December rolled around. And then—cold. Cold and haze due to incessant inversion. Our kids kept wishing for a white Christmas. Alas, no new snowfall graced our area in time for the blessed yuletide.

But snow fell the day after Christmas, giving us a brief respite from the inversion and unseasonably frigid temperatures. (The mean temperature this winter has been quite a bit colder than is "normal.") We haven't seen much of our lawn since December 26. We have had fairly long spells of inversion where the snow didn't melt much, interspersed with occasional snowstorms that required more rounds of snow removal.

The snow removal took its toll on me this year. I can tell that I am aging. After breaking up resilient sheets of two-inch thick ice that painted all surfaces following an unusual ice storm, my left hip began hurting. The pain increased over the next several days until it was excruciating. (I even took ibuprofen, which I rarely do.)

I have great respect for what a good chiropractor can do with respect to muscular-skeletal problems. But I frankly hate the standard chiropractic business model that sucks you into 20 visits when one or two would suffice. At least, if the chiropractor was any good at his trade. Besides, I have learned enough about how my own joints work to make certain adjustments on my own.

Having effected the adjustment that relieved the pressure on the affected nerve, I needed to give the nerve time to heal. But the regular storm pattern over recent weeks has made that difficult, as I have had to repeatedly do snow removal. Finally, however, my back and hip are approaching normalcy, no thanks to the shoveling and snow blowing. Still, I have had to stay away from the ski slopes.

Despite all of the snow removal and driving in slippery conditions (and paying for an auto repair thanks to those conditions), water managers tell us that we have below average water in the mountains and that we are likely headed into a second consecutive drought year. Now, that just doesn't seem fair to me. We have snow and ice with little sunshine for weeks on end, we keep doing snow removal, and yet we're in a drought. (They tell us that the long inversion periods kept storms away and that when storms did come they dumped their moisture in the valleys before floating unladen over the mountains, so that there isn't much snow up there.)

The media seems to take great delight in rubbing our faces in the fact that we're headed into a drought. There is a whole class of professional hand-wringers that spend a great portion of each year whining about northern Utah's water conditions. There's often too little water. Sometimes there's too much. Or it's melting too fast. Etc. There's always something to keep the worrywart/whining class busy.

Saturday night a wheel and related mechanical parts were damaged on one of our cars when one of the drivers in our household hit a patch of solid ice and slid into a curb going about 10 mph. You'd be surprised how much it costs to repair something like that. Not enough to make an insurance claim, but an unexpected hit to the family budget anyway.

The storm had passed and the skies were clear when Sunday morning dawned. For the first time during this winter that I could remember we gazed out on deep blue sky and dazzling morning sunlight reflecting off the fresh snow. We usually have many days like this during an average winter, but the inversion haze kept it from happening much this season. As I looked out at the mountains and across the valley, my consternation of the previous evening melted away. I remembered some of the things that I love about northern Utah winters.

The snow clouds of early this morning vanished by mid morning and glorious sunlight again graced our valley, making the mountains look beautiful. I'm still tired of this winter. It has kind of worn me down. But there are things that I adore about northern Utah winters. We won't be moving anytime soon.

The Missionary Library Then and Now

Just before I left to serve as a missionary I was given a boxed set of paperback books that included James E. Talmage's masterpieces Jesus The Christ and The Articles of Faith, LeGrand Richards' fundamental work A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, and the LDS Church's Gospel Principles manual.

I read through Elder Richards' book easily enough. Talmage's books, although magnificent, were written in the grammar of a true scholar at a time when the average person's vocabulary was much larger and included words like pulchritude, abrogation, and annunciation. (See John Branyan's comical take on modern vs. historical vocabulary and grammar.) While I learned much in reading Talmage's works, the chore was a tough slog for my callow, simply educated brain.

Also included in the boxed set was a slender fifth book. To this day I still don't understand how or why this book was included in the set. Perhaps one of the authors was related to a general authority. The book read more like the findings of a doctorate thesis or a university research project. It was all about how a child's placement in the family permanently sets the child's personality. The authors prescribed methods for interacting with others based on their birth order among their siblings. While birth order no doubt affects each person, I still think the book smacked of pop culture mumbo jumbo and had little relevance for a missionary.

Another book I received was Spencer W. Kimball's The Miracle of Forgiveness. This was much easier for me to read than the books by Talmage or even Richards. Mind you, I studied all of these books while I also studiously delved into the scriptures and resources for learning Norwegian.

In the MTC we were also given a book titled Tools for Missionaries. It was commonly referred to by those in my mission as "Tull for Misjonærer." The Norwegian word "tull" does not mean "tools;" it means "nonsense" (at least in politically correct English).

It wasn't that the book contained no useful information. It did, however, seem heavily slanted toward missionaries serving in Latin American cultures. That probably made sense, since that is where the church was experiencing high growth. But many of the suggestions in the book were wholly unsuited to northern Europe, rendering many parts of the book irrelevant to us. (I still dutifully studied the book.)

I regularly read these various books while riding buses, streetcars, or trains, in addition to reading them in my apartment. If I had been a better missionary I probably would have looked for contacting opportunities while using mass transit instead of hiding behind my books.

Being somewhat of an introvert, I frankly hated cold contacting people in public. I had little problem talking to people if they initiated the discussion. I could (and often did) knock on doors all day long. I think this didn't bother me much because gaining admittance was rare enough to render it less threatening.

I spent a significant portion of my mission working in the mission office in various positions. Administration seemed to come naturally to me, so my skills were well used. Although we did traditional missionary work in the evenings, the hours I spent daily working in the office minimized the need to engage in salesmanship tactics, something I still avoid. (I very much appreciate Orson Scott Card's recent article on introverts in an extrovert church.)

My missionary son today uses Preach My Gospel, correlated manuals, and the scriptures for his main reference materials. In my opinion this compendium represents a vast improvement over the resources I used back in my day. The extrascriptural elements are written in straightforward language. They are generally relevant to missionary work and are flexible enough to be individually and situationally relevant.

Works like those by Talmage that I studied as a missionary can be wonderful supplements for those that wish to stretch their linguistic as well as their scriptural understanding. Each of us needs a better comprehension of what and whom we worship. But I am glad that today's core missionary library focuses on simplicity. The universe is a complex place. But many solid truths are rooted in simplicity.

The Rewards of Relationship Rituals

A friend of mine that is a respected business owner and church leader occasionally relates a story of which he is not proud. When he was still fairly newly married, he and his wife attended a large family gathering. At the gathering he told a joke at his wife's expense. His grandfather looked at him and very publicly dressed him down for disrespecting his spouse.

"She is your sweetheart and bride," my friend's grandfather said. "You are to treat her with the utmost respect at all times." Grandpa demanded that the young groom apologize to his wife. My friend admits that his grandfather had done a fine job of modeling the behavior he was advocating and is grateful to have learned this lesson early in his marriage. He and his wife today provide a fine example for their own expanding brood of grandchildren.

I am not fond of pranks or jokes made at the expense of others. Ever since I was young it has always hurt inside when I have seen someone else hurt through this kind of thing. My wife might correct me, but I do not believe that I have ever turned a joke on her.

My Mom had only sons. She taught us about cooking and domestic chores, but Mom had no daughters to dress up. As she had my brothers before me, Mom carefully educated me about dating rituals and how to properly respect women when the time came.

Although I didn't often see Dad open the car door for Mom, doing so has become a ritual for my wife and me. It follows the pattern Mom taught me. With few exceptions, I open the car door for my wife when we are traveling in the same vehicle. I open doors to buildings and rooms for her.

I don't do this because my wife is incapable of opening the doors herself; I do it to show my respect and love for her. It's not a matter of necessity. It's a matter of enhancing our relationship. Although it would sometimes be easier for my wife just to open the doors herself, she usually graciously allows me to do so. We find it a mutually joyful ritual.

Growing up in a houseful of boys, I didn't develop many tender touching skills. Boys often show their affection by punching, wrestling, and tussling. Tenderness didn't come into the picture much. Although it still doesn't come completely naturally to me, my wonderful wife often draws me into tender touching rituals. Despite our many years of marriage, we often hold hands or engage in other minor displays of affection.

I would be lying if I said that I never got frustrated with my wife. While I still have a long way to go in learning not to be critical, I try very hard not to badmouth my wife to others. It seems to me that those that do so tend to have rocky marriages. I'm not sure whether the complaints precede the relationship problems or vice versa; or maybe it's just a self defeating cycle. But certainly removing the griping can go a long way toward preventing or repairing problems.

The longer I am married, the more I am convinced that Mom was right about the little things. Seemingly minor positive relationship rituals make a major difference. Although it may appear that these things come naturally to some couples, these exercises require continual thoughtful effort. But the reward is sweet.

Happy Birthday, Van

Last weekend we had a birthday party for Van, who reached the ripe old age of 20 years. We celebrated with a decorated cake topped with candles. We took pictures and enjoyed ice cream. But Van, who didn't have any treats and didn't blow out the candles, didn't have anything to say about the occasion.

I still recall Van's advent into our family. 20 years ago we picked up Van brand spanking new from a Ford dealership; the only vehicle we have ever bought that was built to our specifications. (It is also the last brand new vehicle we have bought, to date.)

The opportunity to acquire a sleek new 1993 Mercury Villager at an affordable price came to us thanks to the Ford Z-Plan—an employee discount incentive available through my wife's grandfather, who had retired from working in a Ford factory.

Weeks earlier when we presented the dealer with the Z-Plan paperwork, he immediately dumped all of the games that car dealerships usually play. He cut right to the chase, showed us exactly how much the vehicle and options we wanted cost, and got us on our way. He explained that he received a set percentage of the vehicle invoice returned to him in vouchers for parts. Since he was prohibited from making any extra on the sale, the sooner he could finish with us and get to another customer, the sooner he could make more money.

Having for a number of years driven a van that was built on a light truck frame, I was impressed the Van's luxury sedan-like ride and handling. In those days, Mercury Villagers were the alter ego of the Nissan Quest. They were built in the same factory using a Maxima chassis and engine. They had only cosmetic differences. The package we bought came with this ur-cool digital dashboard, that I still really like.

The only real complaint we had about Van was that its Maxima engine was designed for a sedan, rather than a van, which was built with 600 lbs more material and could haul 400 lbs more in people and gear, plus trailering. So Van lacked power when climbing hills. Still, we got a towing package and occasionally used Van to pull light loads.

During the ensuing 20 years, Van has seen a long parade of children, scouts, road trips, spilled drinks, crumbs, vomit, mud, occasional fender benders, teens learning to drive, and trips to the auto mechanic. When the trips to the auto shop became frequent and severe enough that Van's reliability was in question, we purchased a newer SUV. Van was relegated to being the vehicle driven by the teenagers. (Who call our light brown minivan "The Turdmobile" and constantly complain that the vehicle is unsafe; although, it recently passed safety inspection.)

It has been several years since we have trusted Van enough to take it more than towing distance from home. Van has mostly been used for trips to and from school and around town. We haven't bothered to repair most of the dents sustained by our teenagers. The heater and the A/C only sort of work. One power seat belt barely functions. Passengers must climb under the other one, which doesn't move at all. Anytime a power window is opened it seems questionable whether it will manage to close again. The sound of air whistling through window and door seals gets pretty loud if you get going more than 40 mph. The brakes work, although, they feel kind of iffy when the pedal is pressed.

Despite Van's age related drawbacks, we keep it around—mainly because we can't currently afford to replace it. Each family member still has many fond memories of Van. Each of our children except the first rode home from the hospital in Van two days after birth. We have shared many family trips in Van and I have taken Van on countless scouting trips.

But it is questionable how long we will be able to keep Van. The kids actually do have a point about the vehicle's safety. It's a far cry from what it once was. Van's reliability has also deteriorated noticeably in the past two years. The ownership of aging vehicles is suited to people that are mechanically inclined—a trait I did not inherit from my MacGyver-like Dad. When the day comes that Van leaves our family, I will be happy. And a little sad.

Scouting: "We're Doing It Wrong"

Dave Rich was a talented and accomplished man who served as the volunteer president of our Boy Scout council a few years ago and subsequently volunteered at higher levels in the scouting organization. An amazingly energetic man, he dedicated his life to helping and serving others until overtaken by disease. In his later years he insatiably consumed  and analyzed volumes of books and resources about all things related to youth and devised methods for helping youth become happy and productive members of society.

Although he was a highly decorated and staunch supporter of the Boy Scouts, Dave was also a thoughtful critic of the organization. He held bachelor, master, and doctorate degrees, but he felt that the BSA had moved too far into the brainy end of things, particularly when it came to scouting advancement requirements.

On more than one occasion I watched and listened as Dave discussed a raft of books and research showing that many of the problems modern youth experience can be successfully addressed by getting youth in contact with real nature more often. He noted that our scout council boasted nine camp facilities set in some of the most marvelous outdoor settings in the country. Residents of our council also have ready access to millions of acres of back country trails and expanses, some of which are accessible minutes from our homes.

All of these resources provide ample opportunity to frequently get youth out into nature. Yet Dave said he was dismayed by how we used these resources. We take boys to wonderful rustic scout camps and set them down in classroom settings to teach them merit badges that could just as easily be taught in an urban building. The boys lose out on the benefit of actually interacting with nature and discovering how it really works.

Too many of the requirements for the merit badges required for the Eagle Scout rank have nothing to do with outdoors or adventure—the elements most missing for many modern youth—and everything to do with more of the same classroom and homework regimens that already consume much of their time with generally lackluster results. Even the adventure and outdoors based requirements are often administered in a left brain fashion, unfortunately drawing attention away from the surrounding natural world.

Dave had specific criticisms for the way the scouting program works in Utah. He noted that we have become very good at getting youth to advance. Youth progress through scouting requirements, ranks, and merit badges at a much faster clip in Utah than anywhere else in the world. Many are very proud of this fact.

The problem, Dave noted, is that scouting is not primarily about ranks and awards; it is about getting youth to learn and internalize the scouting method. Scouting is about helping youth become scouts—infusing the moral and character aims taught by scouting into the essence of their very being. Scouts can achieve ranks and awards without ever internalizing these ideals if the adult volunteers fail to firmly keep these ideals the main focus of the program.

On one occasion after discussing poor application of nature in working with youth and failure to adequately teach the scouting method, Dave bluntly said, "What I am saying is that we're doing it wrong." We have everything we need to do it right, but we are too often focused on the wrong things. Internalization of scouting ideals can occur as a result of pursuing advancement, but Dave felt that it works better the other way around—when advancement is simply a symptom of the pursuit of scouting ideals.

To implement Dave Rich's vision of how scouting should work, some changes would need to occur at the national level. Some merit badges would need to be restructured and the badges required for the Eagle rank would need to be changed up. Unfortunately I don't really see this happening. Each requirement in each merit badge has a constituency that supports that requirement. The left brain designers of these requirements aren't about to lie down and let the woodsy folks ride roughshod over their beloved designs.

Local leaders can do much to get youth into nature more and to re-emphasize the scouting method. It is true, however, that they will face pressure from parents to do more advancement, because that is what Utah culture dictates. It's what parents see the kids of their friends and relatives doing. LDS Scouting in Utah following Cub Scouts is like a blitz through ages 11, 12, and 13 to get as much advancement as possible, followed by a rite of passage to age 14 when the boy never again dons a scout uniform or even thinks of himself as a member of the BSA.

All of this marshals against more outdoors oriented implementation of the scouting method. Frankly, it's a lot easier to plop the youth down in a church building classroom for an hour on a Wednesday night or to let them toss a basketball around than it is to take them on a hike to a rocky vista or a quiet pond, or to do what it takes to let them actually lead their units

It takes a lot of work and dedication to put adventure and real youth leadership into a unit's scouting program. I tried to do this during the years that I served as scoutmaster. Although I often fell short I did feel like I saw some successes. Some of those successes only showed up with the passage of time.

A few years ago I saw a man in his early 30s that looked familiar. When he turned and smiled at me I recognized him as one of my senior patrol leaders from my first year as scoutmaster. I didn't remember him as a particularly good scout or senior patrol leader. But he came over, gave me hug and thanked me for teaching him scouting principles that he said had deeply impacted his life.

We can do scouting right, and in doing so, we can help youth develop high moral character as well as a proper appreciation for nature. But for most scouting units in Utah, that means making important changes, many of which would require an even higher degree of dedication than the average scout leader now demonstrates. When Dave Rich passed away we lost one of the few champions for making these kinds of positive changes.