Greater Purpose

I was taught some interesting things today. Our Elders quorum lesson was on fear... and our hometeaching visits and the Christmas devotional were about refocusing on Christ through service, love... From those things I made this connection. Sometimes I do not serve because I am afraid. I'm afraid that people will judge the talent that I'm sharing, that people will examine with scrutiny the words that I have to say, that my efforts will be insufficient, that I'm not worthy/able to meet the need... I realized that my fear basically boils down to my pride. I am so concerned about how an unfavorable outcome will affect my happiness rather that focusing on the act of reaching out. I feel that this balance is most obvious to me while singing. When I perform a solo and I am concerned about what people will think about ME and MY voice then I can hear the nervousness affect my singing. When I perform with the intent of sharing the message and put my efforts into expression the music just eases out of me and most likely sounds 10x better. I've noticed the ability to perform with excellence in anything is much easier, and more effective, when I focus on the importance of the service/action/person rather than myself. I'll never excel if my motivation is myself. Find a better reason to live!

Matthew 14:26-31

26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.

27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.  

28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.  

29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.  

30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.  

31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

Pride -> Fear, Love -> Faith 

Sound of Silence

Let me tell you about one of the most glorious things in the world. We had our Christmas concert the last couple of nights and there's a moment in it that I wish could of lasted just a bit longer. We sang a version of "The First Noel" that just melts the soul. The music itself is quite wonderful, but what just floored me was the contrast that takes place in the last chorus. To me, silence was the most powerful instrument in that performance. To see what I mean check it out (Link). To listen to the whole song go to 1:21:15 and to just catch the last chorus jump to 1:25:10. With all of the choirs combined on this song we have well over 600 voices plus and orchestra, you can imagine the amount of sound in there as we hit that climax. Just now I've been replaying that spot over and over... It doesn't really compare to being there, but it's the closest you can get now... and it's still amazing. In the concert hall that silence was incredible. In the video you can even hear how the sound echoed into silence (so cool!!!!). There are few experiences I've had that equate to the peace, stillness and majesty that lingered there for just that split second. I wish everyone could experience what I did these last few days in that concert and, specifically, in that beautiful song.

Skit-tells

So I stayed up super late tonight... I had my roommates, Duck Dynasty and some skittles to keep me company. I don't think there has ever been a really good reason that I've been up at 2 AM. Yeah there have been the late night walks with a sweetheart, the call of urgent need and a few other respectable reasons... tonight certainly was not one of those! A word to the wise, if you think you should go to bed... you probably should :) I've put it off long enough, so that's what I'm gonna go do right now.

If you can't sleep, meet my friend Trale Lewous... he's funny (especially late at night!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyYJlYxVJDc

Consistency

Ready for me to bore you with my musings? I've decided (haha, lets see if this works) that in order for me to ever really get consistent at blog posts that I'm just going to have to start, no matter how short, boring or unintentionally my posts turn out to be. Eventually I'll get more efficient with my time and produce higher quality stuff quicker. But for now you'll have to suffer through poor grammar and mundane anecdotes.

Something that has been on my mind a lot lately is the idea of consistency. I used to think that doing the same thing all of the time was boring and monotonous. However, lately I've recognized, more than ever, how necessary routine and sameness is! Regular study hours leads to the mastery of the material, daily practice at a skill produces artists and consistent scripture study is, in part, the foundation for spiritual giants. These things I know (and knew) but I would get distracted by doing other things, stretching myself in different directions, consequently destroying my routines and good habits. Let me give you a real life example... So I am in a Dance class. Why? A number of reasons, but for now lets just say to impress the ladies and to have fun. Did I need to take this class? Nope. Could I have done something less time intensive? Yep. The reason I'm semi-unhappy with my choice to take the course is that all too often I did not get to sleep early enough the night before and to keep up with my daily routine I need to be up at 6 in order to study the scriptures, exercise and get to dance by 9. The pressure to get all that needs to be done in the mornings often destroys my morning study. Dance is just one of the "extra" things that weight down on the shoulders. I'm an EE major taking 8 credits degree relevant courses, a religion credit, two activity courses, the aforementioned dance class, BYU Singers (singers.byu.edu), a seminar course, I'm the president of a club (venture.byu.edu), I pretend to be a TA, I'm neck deep in a brand new fellowship on campus (crockerinnovationfellows.com), I have a church calling, I'm in a dinner group, I'm starting a business with my brother, I'm trying to have a social life, stay in shape, and go climbing from time to time... (a bunch of things I listed in my "expert" post) and I like to sleep. I didn't list these things as a "badge of honor" (President Uchtdorf's Talk) but rather to illustrate how many ways life can be demanding. How am I supposed to be consistent with all of this going on? The answer I've come to... you can't!... at least the way things are. I'm convinced that people can handle the amount of interests that I have (because I've met them) but they are wizards at this time management/consistency game. This winter semester I'm taking a step back. I don't need to be involved in a billion different things. I need to be focused and dedicated to less (still diversified) causes. I need to finally take the advise from President Uchtdorf's talks and learn to appreciate the moments. I need to internalize principles and create things of real value. Racing to the finish has left me with half developed talents and a shoty memory of foundational principles. Taking the needed time and being consistent with a few things will be a much better way to live. Anyway, it's bed time. Food for thought. Please share your insights. Till next time.

Spiritual Haven

This happened awhile ago and I meant to post it then:

A cheery mood rested on the room as bishop raised his hand to make a comment with about 5 minutes left to go in the third hour... 

Let me set the stage: It was the 5th Sunday Lesson so naturally we met as a complete ward for the third hour. We are fortunate enough to have our meetings in the testing center and we enjoy spending our 3 hour block in the same desks where we often scrape our brains for a recollection of recently studied material. They split the beloved room in two for a sacrament room on one side and a classroom on the other. Those of you who know the building could probably see us piling into the seats of the aforementioned classroom ready for the impending message. We knew going into the meeting that we were scheduled to discuss the converse of a typical 'dangers of technology' agenda. Our conversations were to be about the good uses of tech and media, built off of the analogy that we ought to spend our times in spiritual safe harbors. We had a great meeting sharing scores of uplifting ways to use computers, the internet, etc. Many of the comments were insightful and occasionally we had an experience or example shared that just came out funny. We have a guy that ___ and one that even indexes while biking (... stationary or course). I was thouroughly enjoying the sincere suggestions as well as the fun, witty musings of others.

I was in this elated state of mind when bishop volunteered his thoughts. He began to explain again the purpose of discussing the topic, Satan is out to destroy us and his favorite tools reside in current technology so we must prepare a technological 'safe harbor'. And as he reminded us of the temptations so prevalent throughout the digital world I heard faintly from the adjoining sacrament room...

...the wrath of the stormtossed sea

or demons or men or whatever it be...

I didn't think too much of it at first, but then they kept going. Bishop was still enumerating the evils so available to us and the music. It was at this point that I leaned over to Matt and whispered an "Are you hearing this?", with affirmation we began to chuckle...

...No waters can swallow the ship where lies

The Master of ocean and earth and skies..

What made it even better... the second that the music goes into peace Bishop shifted his comments to illustrate the idea of a haven, a way to safely navigate the dangers of the web...

...They all shall sweetly obey thy will: 

Peace, be still; peace, be still.

They all shall sweetly obey thy will:

Peace, peace, be still.

And as if right on cue, Bishops comments ended with the final note of the verse... You could not have planned it better... but it got better!!!! After the comment Brother McClellen, who was teaching, gave us the final minute or so to reflect on how we could make better spiritual safe havens. As the room fell silent music seeped in again, they still had two more verses!!! Oh... and it gets better! I couldn't help it, I found this way too coincidental, I had a fit of silent laughter for the duration of the "silence." The instant that the music stopped Brother McClellen was again in the front of the room concluding the lesson (right on cue). He added his final thoughts closed in the appointed way and someone came up for the closing prayer. I bet you can imagine what happened when the prayer was over... The pianist in the other room began their postlude and what was played? A repetition of 'Master the Tempest Is Raging'! It was just too good!

Day 1: France

The first day of our vacation was amazing!! After landing at around 7:30 AM in Zurich we waited through customs, collected our baggage and went outside to grab our rental car... Car... It was more like a bus!

In a land of small, fast, zippie cars we are driving a bohemath, the small streets and interesting parking situations have made it rather fun to try and get around without scraping walls, breaking mirrors or frustrating the locals (we've definitely done two of the three). From the airport the first thing to notice was the color. There were green rolling hills!

Coming from the drought and fires of the dry US west, this was a big deal! It was amazing to see and feel the rain again, it had been so long! So in our crazy big van and dipped into French wine country (miles and miles of beautiful green rows of grape vines.)

We pulled into a small French town, Eguisheim, looking for a festival. The rain kept them from throwing the party but we enjoyed looking around the town, admiring the architecture, looking for storks and eating some quiche.

Leaving that town we plunged through more wine country for a larger town, Riquewihr, to explore and after some interesting driving manuvers down the tiny streets in our big van, including one the left a bit of a scrape, we bought a large piece of some 'stinky' cheese. This lady had some huge wheels of cheese, it was one of the craziest things I've ever scene. We were lucky to have Aarika pulling together some french to coordinate the purchases. When, for lack of her actual name, 'the cheese lady' went to cut us a slice she used a blade that was equally as huge as the wheel. She knocked off a piece that was about an inch thick and we started to tear through it. 20 euros seemed like a ton for a chunk of cheese, but we munched on that thing for days!

There were 8 of us (including infant Ben) and it took us three days to finally kill that thing, not a bad purchase!! Riquewihr turned out to be a fun little place to walk around and the French weren't as stereotypically mean as we often hear. The only slightly strange moment I had with the French was when i took a picture of a gelato stand and the owner came over and asked that i not take pictures of his food! Well, at least he said please...

We had a good time eating crêpes & macaroons, analyzing the architecture and exploring cultural differences.

Leaving Riquewihr we headed for our first castle visit at Hautkoenigsbourg. The rain had calmed to near nothing by this point but it was still a soggy drive and walk up to the castle grounds. It really reminded me of typical portrayals of Mideval times in Europe. When we finally got to the foot of the castle a light mist hovered around generating a damp, chilly sensation, it felt as though a French guard out to lean out from the wall, shout "you mother was a hampster and you father smelt of elderberries" and proceed to launch cows at us.

It was great to walk around and see how these people lived and operated back in the day. As we avoided crushing some precious escargo, on the way back to the car/van, we reflected on how funny it was that because of our oddly shaped vehicle we have been getting some unique privileges. When looking for parking at the castle we parked on the road dedicated for tour buses and ours must qualify as a bus because a guard came by and directed some other cars to leave and just walked by us with a pleasant 'bonjour.' As we moved on to Baden Baden for our first nights rest we could look back and see the castle atop its great green hill that overlooks all the small wine towns below. 

We got in town with time to do one of the most anticipated activities of the trip, relax and rejoice in the 'baths' of Baden Baden. From what was explained to me, Baden Baden is a retirement-esk city where some of Germany's wealthiest individuals chose to live. Apparently it's also a hot spot for spas... Literally... It's water it heated geothermally!! Our hotel was just around the corner from on such bath so we went on in. I felt like i was in some classy James Bond ritzy hang out. They had lockers for each guest activated by wristbands and nice showers for rinsing before you walk into the indoor pool (bath) area where there are no children splashing, running and laughing but rather adults relaxing and soaking in a many different levels and temperatures of pools. After some soaking and exploring we found sauna rooms, aroma sauna rooms, heat lamp baths, hot tubs, cold tubs, bubble seats, massaging jets and some... nude only locations. Say goodbye to travel stress, that Bath just soaked and soothed my worries away. Some Chinese food and a good nights sleep, not bad for the first day of our european vacation!

Germany: Getting There

It's just the end of the third movie on the flight overseas. I don't really know what it was about... Steve Carell was trying to be serious? Awkward. If you've flown overseas you may be able to relate to how i feel right now. It's kind of an interesting situation. I tried the head on the table, I've tried the head tilt back (they don't build these chairs for the vertically blessed), I tried the equilibrium position yet efforts remain fruitless, i've drifted in and out of a sudo sleep with no refreshment, simplyfree frustration. Maybe you have also gotten to the point I have, where frustration has led to submission, "it is inevitable that i must remain awake." The result of this unfortunate position is that i caught the last ten minutes of a strange film and am now left in a perfect position to compose the first blog post of this awsome journey to connect with the family roots! I'm worried about how the first couple of days will go based on the unavoidable consequences of the current circumstance. Let's quickly evaluate these repercussions... First, and most prominant, the mother of all irritation, a headache. It will not only be the result of the sleep lost now but it is compounded by the last few crazy Provo nights (and that's crazy, believe me, haha... No regrets) before the trip. A headache is a problem that no amount of awesomeness can really resolve. If it hurts to think, it hurts to be. That's not a good state to be in when it's vacation time with the family. I believe that headaches are an extension of a much more common international travel ailment, energy drain (jet lag). It'll be hard to enjoy the European countryside if you can't stay awake to visually perceive and analyze it. Why be somewhere so cool if your out cold for a majority of it? My last worry is also related to the above concerns. I believe in metaphysical inertia (I love this topic, look for a post on it later), the angry will remain angry, the sad sad and the happy happy until some force initiates a change. If my vacation starts unpleasant I fear it may stay that way. How am I going to combat all this? I have learned a couple principles from two remarkable women that apply so perfectly and could make all the difference for this trip. Let me start by saying that the mind is a very powerful tool, you can control so much in your life if you learn to control your mind. For instance, climbing is a mental sport, as is running and most other endurance related activities. To succeed you teach the mind that your body can do so much more than what it's used to. Alright, principle number one I learned from an absolutely amazing girl whose wisdom far surpasses mine, I think you will agree that her council is undeniably sound. "You shouldn't worry about things over which you have complete control" (ooo, airplane breakfast just came! :). We may resolve that I don't have complete control over whether or not I get a headache, if i have enough energy or if i'm in a pleasant mood, but the second piece of wisdom argues that I do. Sister Hall, perhaps the best professor at BYU, shares with her choirs that "energy is a choice." We spend the beginning of each rehearsal ridding our minds of the stresses of other non-choir issues so that our time together is effective and meaningful. If you come in tired, you decide to be full of energy. If you come in stressed, you decide to be stress free for at least that hour, and so on. It really works!! I am going to put the combination of these two thoughts to the test. Regardless if I have a 'headache' or 'no energy' I will refuse to let it ruin the short time I have with my family in this beautiful country. I can do that because attitude, energy and enjoyment are all things that I control. Plus, I can always recover, sleep and worry later, but this time... This time is to be full of life and enjoyment. And who knows, maybe all of this positive thought will just cure the ailed mind and give my energy a boost! Looking forward to a great trip! I'll put my obnoxiously happy face on now!