Stunning

Elder Maxwell gave two BYU devotionals (that I'm aware of). One was in 1990. The other was in 2004. He looked quite different in the two. Understandably. The one in 2004 was given 4 months before he died of leukemia.

The themes of these two devotionals were quite different, but a significant point he made in both involved the nature of God. Put his intellect together with Elder Scott's particle-physics background and you get an insight into the nature of God that is shocking. It is similar to the insight to which I have belatedly become aware and which I have mentioned in the last few blogs.

Elder Maxwell calls this insight "stunning."

I called it terrifying.

That this insight keeps coming up in scripture, in prophetic writings, and in journals is attested to by common scriptural description of the discomfort and even terror of the wicked as they are brought before God. They will want mountains to fall upon them to hide them from His glory. And the oft-quoted statements from early 19th century brethren that if an angel were to appear in their room, they would be out the window in an instant even if it meant leaping to their deaths.

These brethren had a very clear view of the nature of God and His glorified servants.

As mentioned in recent blogs, this insight has bothered me. It makes me nervous. It scares me. I've never been scared of Heavenly Father before. To whom am I praying? To whom have I prayed for 70 years? How dare I?

With relief, I grasped at the image of Christ. He's definitely loving, gentle, accessible. He reaches out a comforting arm and puts it around my shoulders. He encourages me. He draws me into his presence in intense love. All of this is enabled by the atonement -- by the way he sacrificed his own life to save me.

Amazing grace.

And he is just like God, the Father. God, the Father -- stunning, terrifying -- is just like him.

It is comfort.

If I could believe it.

God is infinity. Infinity of power. Infinity of energy. Infinity of complexity. Infinity of perception. Infinity of knowledge.

All in a man-sized being. Composed of tightly encapsulated infinitesimals of energy -- an infinite number of infinitesimals -- each comprising the mass and energy of an entire universe.

Infinite universes in a finite man-sized being.

A mathematical concept.

It is only mathematically that we are able to characterize this. Intellectually, it is beyond us. As is the case in so many areas of nature. Einstein looked at his math and his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. Incomprehensible. Among the first incomprehensibles of the 20th and 21st century.

And there it hit me. A solution to my discomfort, my terror, my inability to believe that such a God is approachable -- that He is truly like Christ, His son.

Mathematically.

God has be be absolutely humble and meek. He has to be. Mathematically. Because if He has the slightest, tiniest, non-zero portion of vindictiveness -- or whatever else the opposite of humble and meek may be -- multiplying this by infinity creates a catastrophe. A demon. A devil.

The only thing you can multiply infinity by -- without creating a catastrophe -- is zero. A singularity.

Ergo God is absolutely humble and absolutely meek. His declaration that "I am a jealous God," the description of us being subject to the "judgements of God," His raining down fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction on this continent that accompanied the Crucifixion of His son -- all those things are for our instruction and tutoring, and a reflection of His mercy. He will bring to end the doings of the wicked so that they will require no further reconciliation. He will bless us as greatly as it is possible for us to be blessed and He will punish us a little as it is possible for us to be punished.

And we are to become like Him -- and through the atonement, we shall become like Him -- equally humble and meek.

Lost Language of Symbolism

I'm reading Gaskill's book. The unimaginable is represented and made conceivable by expressing it in symbols. Symbols touch upon the abstract. Concrete objects expressing abstract concepts.

"How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings." Feet upon land represent ownership. Feet upon mountains represent ownership of the world. Mountains represent temples. Temples represent the universe. Ownership of the universe. Symbolism within symbolism. Concept within concept. Take the terrifying and make it comforting. Allow us to grasp it. Become familiar with it. Become comfortable with it. Become grateful for it. Become idolizing servants to it. To Him. A circle returning us to the beginning, only now with a bit of understanding.

And the Lord made coats of skins and clothed them. Lambs' skins. The lamb is the symbol of Christ. They were enclosed in the protection of Christ. With what reverence, what confidence, what love we enclose ourselves. Infinite power. Protecting us. Depending on our faithfulness.

What is Reality? Truly?

God is truly terrifying. The image of God described in my last post has shaken my confidence in His presence. It's increased my faith. His ability to manipulate matter and energy, space and time is infinite. His ability to perceive and understand is infinite. He knows everything. He can do anything. But the image is terrifying. When I am brought to stand before Him and be judged, will I be totally freaked out? Will I seek to flee from Him, wish the mountains would fall upon me to hide me from His presence?

Quite possibly. Not inconceivably.

Christ is identical.

Width can be rotated into depth and height into width depending on the location and orientation of the POV (point of view). Einstein's relativity shows that time can be rotated into any of these dimensions and any of them into time depending on location and orientation (and relative velocity) of the POV. Physics shows evidence of as many as eleven dimensions, each infinite, each can be planes packed infinitely close or encapsulated infinitesimally tiny in the next higher dimension and can exist in infinite number. Infinities of infinitesimals, inimaginable.

God is terrifying.

Christ is identical.

Christ is an image of love. Of gentle consideration. Of washing the feet of His disciples -- a token of servitude.

God is love.

Is this world an egg? Are we wormy embryos? Is this entire universe, 14 billion light-years wide, packed with immense quantities of matter and energy, simply an extravagant nest for this one little egg? Why not? Our heavenly parents have access to any quantity of mass and energy, space and time. As we develop from embryos to adolescents to adults, how much mass, energy, space, and time will we need to become educated adults?

"Worlds without end have we created." Each an egg? Each in it's own finite 14-billion-light-year-wide nest? Why not? If we dare imagine infinity and know that our imagination is woefully naive and tiny, what is reality? Truly?

"My ways are higher than your ways...

...and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9)

"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." (Arthur Stanley Eddington)

"Is that what you think about during the endowment?!" (Carolyn Head)

OK, so lets get a few things out of the way -- amazing though they are, they're science. No fiction here. No fantasy.

E=MC²

Everyone knows that equation. Right? The basis for nuclear bombs. It means that if all the energy in my little fingernail were to be released at once, it would be an explosion comparable to a nuclear blast. If all the energy in my body were to be released at once, it would be comparable to hundreds of simultaneous detonations of the largest nuclear bombs the US is thought to possess or dozens of simultaneous detonations of the largest nuclear bombs Russia is thought to possess.

That's what E=MC² says. It's not science fiction.

Ok, the significant word here is "if." We haven't figured out how to do that yet. Nuclear bombs release only a tiny portion of the energy in a very small part of a very tiny percentage of the atoms. That's enough. If we could improve the efficiency just a tiny bit more, the effect would be devastating. God forbid that we ever learn how.

The Big Bang Theory

OK, it's a "theory," but it's pretty well acknowledged. The evidence supporting it continues to grow. We think we know what the universe was like right back to 10^-43 seconds after the big bang started when all the energy and mass in the entire known universe was in a particle only 10^-35 meters in diameter. That's smaller than even the most powerful microscopes could see. There is serious controversy, but it involves conditions in the first few seconds of the life of the universe, not so much in the big-bang, itself, or that it started tiny!

OK, so now we've gotten the you-gotta-be-kidding out of the way. People might say that what I'm going to record next is deep, mysterious, far out, and, by definition, should not be preached. "Let's stick to faith, repentance, etc., and not get carried away with the mysteries."

Ha! My take is that we already have the deep, mysterious, and far out, and they seem to be valid. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to take these apparent difficult-to-understand-but-apparently-valid "mysteries" and relate them to the gospel?

I think so.

So here goes.

These are all things we've heard all our lives and we accept them because we've heard them all our lives:

God has a body. His glory would consume us if we were in His presence and unprotected. Christ has a light that permeates the universe. It is the light of the stars, etc. When we die and are separated from our bodies for a time, we will consider this separation to be a prison.

Why the latter? Let's start with it. Why would we consider separation from these corruptible bodies to be anything but a liberation? Joseph Smith says that spirit matter is a fine matter (as in wispy, insubstantial matter), but it's still matter. There's no such thing as immaterial material. How big an explosion would you get if you released all the energy in a spirit body. Not much, I expect. We interact very nicely with the things of this universe because out bodies are tightly encapsulated packets of incredible amounts of energy. If spirit bodies are so much more insubstantial with so much less matter, they are much less able to interact with very much in this universe. No wonder spirits consider their disembodied state to be a prison after having had the experience of being able to interact with so much.

But God and Christ have bodies. How much energy is encapsulated in their bodies? As much as a star? As an entire galaxy? As the entire universe? As many universes? Remember that 10^-35 meter particle that contained all the energy in the universe? We have no idea what things were like when the universe was younger and smaller than this. Infinitesimal? That's how it's described. What if God's body was composed of such infinitesimals? Perhaps his body encapsulates an infinite amount of energy.

Perhaps it is the source of all energy of the universe and however many other such universes.

And people think the idea of God having a body restricts Him some way.

They don't understand physics.

But then neither do any of us -- including the physicists.

And, to the extent that the laws of physics helps us to imagine any of this -- the actual universe, the actual reality, the actual nature of God, ourselves, and this wonderful universe home of ours -- reality, that we can't imagine, that it's not possible to imagine, is likely to be much more glorious and wonderful than that. Perhaps infinitely more.

Humility

In the most recent "Spoken Word," what's-his-name quoted a rabbi (I've forgotten his name, too): "Humility is knowing that everything's not about you." That created an epiphany for me. If everything is about someone, it must be about God. He's the ultimate reality. That makes our joys and miseries, our successes and failures, our glories and shames pretty much insignificant. The only thing we can do is fill the hole into which God has stuck us and do it as competently as possible. In that way we can share a tiny portion of His joy, success, and glory.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Is that true? Someone famous (don't remember who) wrote a short story suggesting that this well-known and oft-quoted saying is not necessarily true.

In the story, a man was shipwrecked on an island and discovered that the people who lived there were blind. I will be king here, he thought. It didn't quite turn out that way. He learned that people do not like someone who appears to be cocky and arrogant. They don't like to be given advice they don't ask for. They don't accept information that disagrees with their prejudices. They especially don't like it when someone catches them in illegal acts. The community, who in the beginning received him warmly and kindly, came to consider him to be an anti-social trouble maker and decided to surgically remove his eyes.

This has a moral for both sides. I'll leave that to the reader to determine what they are. This ties in with our "humility" theme.

Eyring and the Three Nephites

More than once Elder Eyring has talked about humility in the sense of purification-of-motives. It's clearly a topic which worries him.

He's a great speaker. I love to hear him talk. I suspect he gets a lot of praise for his talks, and he is tempted to speak in order to get that praise rather than to serve the Lord. That worries him. That's why he expresses his concerns publicly. Such expression is cathartic. It helps him to clarify both the concerns and the possible strategies for addressing them.

I recently read through the BofM where Mormon and Moroni talk about the three Nephites. "They will be among the gentiles and the gentiles will know them not. They will be among the Jews and the Jews will know them not" (3 Nephi 28:27-28). And, of course, both Mormon and Moroni were looking to our day. For them, the entire population of the world would be divided into these two groups and everyone would be a member of one or the other. So that means that the three Nephites will be anywhere in the world and no one will know them.

These three gentlemen are powerful. They can't be killed. They move freely between the mortal plane, the Spirit-world plane, and the Celestial plane among others. They know (see) a great deal that we don't. Such men must be wonderful tools in the hands of the Lord for accomplishing his work.

But they do it anonymously. No one knows them or knows what great power they have or what wonderful secrets they could share. They are free of arrogance. They help wherever help is possible and they don't care who gets the credit. They go about quietly doing whatever the Lord wants. There is no honor, no glory -- just the knowledge that the Lord is pleased with them. The Lord is their ultimate reality -- even their total reality.

That's where we should be, how we should act, what attitude we should have.

And it is possible -- for each of us.

And, to hear Elder Eyring talk, that's where he wants to go -- difficult for him, being so in the lime-light as he is.

It would be easier for us.

Sunday Sessions

Sunday A.M., I spent a few hours doing my extraction-director work and when 10 A.M. arrived I realized it was time for my nap. The only thing that would have prevented me from immediately going to sleep would have been to sit on a tack or to take Vivarin intravenously. A pill simply doesn't work fast enough. Both of those involve sharp points, and I determined to take a nap, instead, so I missed a lot of the 4th session of GC.

However, I did pick up on at least two speakers saying that righteous acts are not a spectator sport. We don't get credit for them by observing and commenting on them.

For the 5th session, I noted a very interesting thread:

Elder Bednar talked about the temple -- one of my very favorite topics.

Elder Stevenson (?) told a story, the punch line of which was that the little boy said, "We aren't lost. Even though we are way out in the boonies, on muddy roads, across rickety bridges, as long as we can see the temple there, we're not lost!" The image on the screen was that of the Logan Temple seen above the trees in the foreground.

At that time, I thought that the being-able-to-see-the-temple was much like navigating with a GPS that does not have a map. It's as though your destination is like some high landmark that you can see so you know where it is, which way it is from your current location, and how far away it is. You may not know the absolutely optimum way to get there, but since you can see it, it's just a matter of time and patience to find it.

And then Elder Teixeira startled me by giving the talk that I have thought of giving if I ever got a chance. The GPS is such a great metaphor for so many things. It tells you where you are, where you're going, and how to get there. It works fine as long as it can hear the satellites. The metaphor is obvious, in my opinion.

Then Elder Watson told of having been taught that, when you are in a fog so dense that you can't see your hand in front of your face, you can give the horse completely free rein and it will find the way back home. The metaphor for him was that there are times when we simply have to give our trust over to the Lord who knows and perceives things that are hidden to us. He will guide us through his servants, the prophets as well as through inspiration directly to us.

Even though I'm not particularly comfortable with the use of a horse as a metaphor for the Lord, his point is well taken and ties in nicely with the rest of the thread.

Conference Synthesis

Just as Michelle's 40-day approach to reading the Book of Mormon brings unique benefits, a single-sitting viewing of General Conference also brings unique benefits. For the Book of Mormon, it helps you conceptually knit together principles and ideas from different books and pages. For conference, it helps you conceptually knit together principles and ideas from different speakers. Such a knitting-together requires a bit of personal synthesis, so my apologies for blending my own perspectives with the ideas of the apostles.

Note that this is not the way I usually think of watching GC. I sit through all the sessions, but I know that I will later view them and/or read them again, as individual talks, and I give them less thought and consideration the first time -- being satisfied with simply "absorbing the Spirit" so watching with an eye (ear) toward synthesizing things that can't easily be put together talk-by-talk was different -- and as it happened, quite valuable.

This morning, Elder Hales taught that obsessions can only be overcome by a love of Christ. I was touched and received a powerful testimony that it was true. It impressed me because I have worried about obsessions for some time. What makes a person bash in car windows and steal sound systems in an HP parking lot in broad daylight, and what makes a pedophile stalk victims on the web? Both of these people know that they will soon be caught.

The movie "Silence of the Lambs," which I did not like and have no desire to ever watch again even though it made a great impression on me, illustrates how obsessions can totally overcome a person's rationality. It was scary, and I have worried about how such things -- such impossible-to-resist obsessions -- will play out in the eternal judgement, and how they are to be reconciled with never being tempted beyond our ability to resist.

And yet, Elder Hales points out that this same obsessive irrationality is present in many things we do, especially, he pointed out, in the bad habits that lead to financial problems. He concluded by stating that obsessions can be -- and perhaps can only be -- overcome by submersing them in the love of Christ.

Do you remember our cousin, Scott (last names withheld for web security reasons)? His father abandoned his mother, Brenda, to go shack up with a cute little Korean masseuse. At that time, Scott told his father that he (his father) had done that because he had abandoned the love of Christ. I thought that was a quaint, if not a bit naive way of stating it, but it looks like Scott understood a phase of the Gospel which, up to now, has eluded me.

That also suggests how impossible-to-resist temptations come into being. We are promised that we will never be tempted beyond our ability to resist, but we aren't promised that we will not be allowed to place ourselves in conditions where temptations cannot be resisted. That's our choice. And submission to an obsession is, in the beginning, just such a choice. Correcting this means returning to Christ and renewing our inherent love of Him.

And Elder Christoffersen expanded Elder Hales thoughts by telling us how to get the strength to do this. He quoted extensively from the Sixth Lecture on Faith. This reminded me that this lecture was the most powerful and wonderful thing I had ever read when I first encountered it early in my mission. We get strength and faith needed to acquire a love for Christ (as needed to overcome obsessions) through sacrifice. In fact that is what we do to acquire powerful, i.e., all, faith. Sacrifice is the way to come to know that our path of life is entirely acceptable to God, and this knowledge allows us to exercise all faith. In fact, it is a requirement for being able to exercise all faith.

And Elder Eyring expanded Elder Christoffersen's points by telling us how important adversity is to give us -- even to force us to have -- experience, motivation, and strength to pursue such a marvelous effort of faith to its ultimate, successful conclusion.

All these things came together in this morning's session. In a few minutes, the afternoon session will begin. I'm looking forward the wonderful ideas that I will get from this session -- assuming I can stay awake to listen. (Not that obvious at the moment.)

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And the afternoon session was a bit of a challenge to keep my eyes open, but I did notice that one of the Latino seventies continued Elder Eyring's comments about the benefits of adversity. He lost a child to drowning. And Elder Scott also continued this theme having lost two children and his wife. Elder Scott also said that the temple strengthens us in our adversity and helps us learn whatever we are supposed to learn and that he attends the temple weekly and participates in all ordinances.

That was special to me because a couple of months ago, I helped administer the initatory to him.

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I assumed that this "40-day" effect would likely not be present in the Priesthood Session. A third of the speakers would address the 12-year-olds giving them inspiration and entertainment. The other two thirds would talk about honoring our priesthood.

And, ho-hum, Elder Packer started just that way. He told us how we, as priesthood holders, should do righteous things.

But then another Latino seventy (De Costa?) brought that into our family relations and told us which righteous things in particular strengthened our family and how great our obligation was to our family.

Then Elder Uchdorf told the story of the airplane crash in the Everglades that occurred because the crew was distracted by a burned-out indicator light and he drew our attention to the need to never let unimportant things distract us from important righteous acts.

Then Elder Eyring talked about the need for valor and bravery in approaching needed righteous acts. He used the story of Blackhawk Down to powerfully illustrate this.

So, from Packer to Eyring it was a continuous, thrilling crescendo.

It thought that President Monson was going to have trouble continuing that crescendo. Eyring had pretty much raised it as high as it would go.

Then President Monson talked about keys of the priesthood and referenced D&C 107:18-19 without actually stating exactly that. This is just about the most exalted statement I know:

"The power and authority of the higher, or Melchizedek Priesthood, is to hold the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the church. To have the privilege of receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to have the heavens opened unto them, to commune with the general assembly and church of the Firstborn, and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father, and Jesus the mediator of the new covenant."

Elder Monson just referred to the "spiritual blessings" part. The rest of it is pretty high up there and is so exalted that it is seldom mentioned. That's about as high as the crescendo can get -- so high that you only understand it if you know the scripture he's referring to.

And all this from Michelle's 40-day reading approach applied to General Conference.

I'm becoming my mother?

“Why do you read those trashy novels?” Mom asked me on more than one occasion.

“They're not trashy,” was my habitual defense.

“They're just made up stories,” she'd counter. “Worthless.”

“What should I read?” As if I didn't know. She'd always point to the scriptures.

I considered this to be inexcusably provincial on her part, and I attempted to broaden her appreciation and tolerance by drawing her attention to our great body of uplifting literature. She remained unconvinced and, with time, read only the scriptures and finally only the Book of Mormon before she lost her sight to macular degeneration and descended into “sweet confusion” as described by her assisted-living caretakers.

In general, I'm happy. I have a joyful lightness of step much of the time if not most of the time. I've often wondered if I'd have achieved this decades earlier if decades earlier I'd have adopted the habit of weekly endowment sessions. I know twenty-somethings who do this and they show obvious spiritual benefit. I wish I'd have been one of those twenty-somethings. I feel like I lost decades.

In any case, the joyful lilt is enhanced by said endowment sessions, BYU devotionals, CES firesides, general conference, In Performance, Orchestra at Temple Square, Music and the Spoken Word, FARMS, J. S. Papers, the Ensign, and, of course, the scriptures. I'm proud to say that I'm addicted to all of these.

And this lilt is diminished by ER, CSI, Heroes, Numb3rs, Fringe, Cold Case, Without a Trace, Law and Order, most novels, and much of the public news media. And, I'm embarrassed to say, I'm even more addicted to these.

I fully understand the experience Cindy described. Cindy's a quiet, spiritually sensitive mother of four including twins, whom we knew in our California ward. She was a great fan of Harry Potter, and once she described how, after she finished reading Rowling's latest publication at the time, she had to go into the bathroom and pray to dissipate the dark feeling that enveloped her.

Since that's the way I often feel, how long will it be before I determine that it just isn't worth it to subject my spirit to such depressing influences when there's so much better material to choose from? I suspect it may happen. If I live as long as Mom (not likely) I can imagine that this determination may come well before then.

Mom Insight

So there I am, subbing Wednesday night at the SL temple, and an ordinance worker whom I didn't know walks up to me and starts talking with no introduction:

"In our mission there was an old-woman missionary named Ireta Head who enjoyed playing basketball with the young elders. She was quite a person. She always complained about how difficult it was to get people ready for baptism, but she and her companion baptized more than anyone else. They were the ones to keep up with. I don't remember the name of her companion or many others anymore, but I'll never forget her or her name."

Of course that is only a synopsis of what he said. I admitted yes, that was my mother and it sounds typical, but those were details I had never heard before.

...going on fourteen

"Grandma says we're going to make valentines," I informed Claire when I picked her up today after their school valentine party was already history.

"For who?" she asked bluntly.

Hm. Direct challenge to adult rationality. From a six year old. She's going to be some teenager.

"Lucas gave me a transformer," she said.

The non sequitur threw me for a moment.

"A girl's transformer?" I asked. In the past, she's shown distinct antipathy toward boys' toys.

"No."

"I guess that means he likes you."

"He does."

"How do you know?"

"He only talks to me when he's around me -- or when I'm around him."

"Do you like him?"

Pause. "Yes. We met in the hall today and had a little chat."

I didn't dare pursue that any further. Hope the hall is well chaperoned.

Claire's Swimming Update

Today's open-plunge session was 2 hours (because Mommy stipulated that it shouldn't be longer than that). We spent about a third of that time in the 9-foot Olympic racing pool.

Claire enjoyed finding new toys to play with including a bin full of yellow water-polo balls. As floats go, they're a little hard to keep under control and they get away from you very easily, but Claire stated that water-polo was going to be her sport of choice (though she insists on calling it water-soccer).

She was also pleased to find the stash of huluhoops (used in her swimming class). She even tried them out on land for the purpose for which they are designed. It's not quite the same as the WII Fit, but she progressed from 3 loops before it found itself around her toes to almost 10 loops. But she gave that up after a few minutes and took it into the water with her.

She instructed me on how to hold it (vertical, mostly under water) and proceeded to push off from the bank, swim through it, and come to a halt some distance from the bank and not an insignificant distance from me -- in 9-foot water with no float.

Be aware that she has never been taught to tread water. Her classes are conducted at the 3' 3" level where she can comfortably touch the bottom with only a bit of a tippy-toe stretch. I mentioned last time that she showed she could tread water -- once, for about one second -- but Michelle blew it off with a bit of amusement disbelieving that this short time frame could really be considered treading water.

So here she was, treading water, several feet from me. This made me acutely nervous -- a number of things she does make me acutely nervous -- but I held myself in check to see what she would do.

Still treading water, she turned to me, grinned, and commented on her swimming prowess (not her water treading prowess which was freaking me out). Then she giggled.

I decided that there was not too severe a crisis in the offing.

Dad (Nephi L. Head)

I have used blogging to record some of my most precious past experiences and epiphanies, but I realized this week that I have never recorded the single most defining event of my life: the death of my father.

Here is some background. During my teen years I developed a paranoia that became nearly a neurosis: I became terrified that one of my parents would be killed. In my early teens, I became aware that there was a cruel world out there ready to do us harm. The Korean war was a daily source of bad news, and 1952, the year in which I was 13, was remembered as a year of record-breaking automobile accidents. It was the first year that US auto fatalities exceeded 50,000. (Since then it has seldom exceeded this number by a great deal, due presumably to safer vehicles and roads.) People were dying everywhere and everyone knew victims. That scared me and I became almost pathologically frightened of my patents being caught up in this carnage.

When I was nineteen, my worst fears were realized. Dad died as a result of an accident. It wasn't an auto accident, but it was just as deadly. He was painting the eves of our house and the ladder collapsed under him. For three weeks, he was in a coma, and then he passed away with mother holding his hand.

Those three weeks were a hell born of desperation. Subsequent weeks and months were a hell born of hopelessness. There was no joy in the universe. Joy was impossible. The only thing that could possibly bring joy would be for Dad to return to normal life and routine. That wasn't going to happen. The universe had been irremediably broken. Nothing was ever going to be right again, ever.

Helen arrived from Canada for the funeral and stated that she couldn't believe it. To her, Dad was still someplace else -- a long distance away just as he had always been while she lived in Canada and we lived in the US. And she knew that this perception was true. It helped her.

I had no such help. Dad lived with us. He was always an immediate presence. Dad and I had, virtually up to the day of his accident, been daily carpoolers. He worked at the VA hospital across the street from where I attended the U. We'd had daily opportunity to converse and visit about any and every subject imaginable -- not as a parent and child, but as two adults discussing deep and significant temporal and spiritual matters. Dad's intellectual command was immense and he stretched my intellectual muscles. In those couple of years, I had grown closer to him than I'd ever been. His absence was an intolerable void that could not be filled. I envied Helen. I also envied Lawrence and Kitchener who still had full families and homes to which they could return -- homes that continued, unabated, without ghastly voids. Mother and I were in hell, a hell from which there was no redemption. We fled to Canada for respite. And while we were gone, Lawrence and Kitchener finished the house which had been Dad's death.

In Canada, I read my first church book: "How to Pray and Stay Awake." I read it as avidly as any novel. Religion had suddenly acquired relevance. I was no longer satisfied with Sunday School answers to vital questions. I wanted to know that the Spirit World existed and what it was like. I wanted to know that Dad still lived and I wanted to know what he was doing now.

The next year was a year of huge change for me. I became an avid student of religion. Even before Dad's death, I had become quite enamored with the recently discovered evidences for the Book of Mormon. That was the basis for my testimony. The Book of Mormon was hard to explain away by rational, unbiased, thorough scholars. To me that meant that it leaned solidly toward being true. And that was putting it mildly. If it was true, Joseph Smith was a true prophet. If he was a true prophet, the church he founded was true. If the church was true, then the Church's teachings were true. If they were true, then the Spirit World existed and Dad was alive and active and a part of some great movement somewhere.

This line of reasoning became an urgent verity for me. It had to be true! It had to be. It not being true was simply not imaginable.

I studied vigorously with a concentration on anything and everything pertaining to the afterlife. This provided a framework for the mastery of an ever broader range of Gospel topics. I loved the way it all fit together and I acquired more than a bit of unrighteous pride in my mastery and understanding of the kingdom's mysteries.

And, with time, the broken universe restructured itself into something more exiting and more beautiful than ever. I had experienced the very worst that I could imagine and I had survived. All my childhood demons were swept away. I was afraid of nothing. Death was either no more than a necessary step in our eternal progression, or it was the end of consciousness. Either of these was OK with me, and I found that powerfully reassuring. "It" no longer had to be true, but I enjoyed the reason-derived probability that it was, and I liked that better.

I was amazed at the alteration in myself, and I stated, definitively, more than once and to multiple people, that Dad's death had been the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Why can't we go through the same transformation without the need for such traumatic and final events as the death of a loved one? The universe doesn't work that way, I assumed. "There is a law irrevocably decreed..." and all that. Too bad.

But my testimony was purely rational. Reason trumped faith, and I knew that it shouldn't. My testimony was as dry and lifeless as a parched desert. It hadn't changed me. It didn't have the power. What had changed me was the experience of Dad's death and the reordering of the universe. The Gospel was powerful, itself liberating, capable of creating in an individual all the amazing transformations I had experienced and more -- without the traumatic tragedy. I needed to tap into that power to complete my metamorphosis.

I was aware of something called a "spiritual testimony" and I even understood what it was to a degree and that I lacked it. It was the luxuriant rain forest as opposed to the parched desert. Perhaps flashes of Holy Ghost enlightenment had touched my soul and imprinted upon it a numinous awareness of something just out of reach. I understood a "spiritual testimony" to be a direct communication by the Holy Ghost to one's spirit -- spirit-to-spirit -- more believable and convincing than anything acquired through the senses -- that had power to change attitude and nature. I wanted such a testimony and I prayed for it.

I entered the mission field a year almost to the day from the day Dad died.

My lack of a spiritual testimony proved to be a serious problem. All those wonderful things I had experienced and the amazing absence of demons and the fearlessness did not protect me against depression. The first three months of my mission, with me banging my head against the wall of rejection and persecution, attempting to bear a testimony that remained lifeless, and trying to do it in an unknown language, dragged me down into a hell that was different from the one I'd experienced a year before, but it was nevertheless a hell that made life seem not worth the effort.

Then, in the third month of my mission, during the third week of September, 1959, my prayer was answered and I did receive a spiritual testimony that proved to be more than I ever imagined. That's another story. Let's just say that it continued the transformation that had started with Dad and seemingly would not have been possible without Dad.

When Jerilyn died several years later, I thought, "Wow. Lawrence and Dorrine now have a huge, unfillable void. A 17 year old daughter -- a beautiful butterfly that has just emerged from its chrysalis and spread its lovely wings -- and is then crushed before the wings even dry. What could be worse? They are experiencing the same thing I did -- perhaps even more intently."

When Lawrence asked me to speak at her funeral, I was shocked but I recognized that it would be cathartic. I felt that I knew what they were going through and I could express it -- and express my own feelings and perceptions as well. This funeral talk is on the family web site under Jerilyn's page. I have thought that it expresses my impression of life and death so well that I would like to have it played at my own funeral -- I, myself, speaking at my own funeral. Poetic, no? Carolyn has strong reservations about that. I recently listened to it. Maybe she's right...

Claire's Swimming Progress

Claire's now in the middle of her second 6-week swimming course. She's making good progress but not quite to the point where we'd be comfortable giving her access to deep water without very close supervision.

It would seem to make little sense that the only swimming she gets is in a swimming class. Where's the concept of home work and practice? So we decided that I should go with her to "Open Plunge" Saturday afternoon. We've done that for two weeks. It now looks like a firmly established tradition.

Open Plunge is a different environment from the classes held in the same pool. The slides, fountains, jets, and lazy river are all in full function -- and the patronage is dense to the point of infestation -- squirming, crawling, splashing, half-naked creatures of all shapes and sizes. You can't do anything without bumping into something living. No one even bothers to say excuse me, otherwise it would be a constant "Excuse me" chatter. And, as always, my job is to stay close to Claire and do everything she asks.

She expressed curiosity about what she could see through double sets of glass doors. Over there was the Olympic-size racing pool. We wandered over. It was empty except for a half-dozen people in one corner and one old man (my age) doing laps in one of the lanes. Quite different from the playground pool. I asked the only official there if "Open Plunge" included this pool. He looked up from his work of repairing and adjusting the lane floats to answer, "Sure."

Claire studied the numbers painted on the edge. "Nine feet!" she exclaimed. "That's deep!"

That was unique. I've never heard my barely 6-year-old granddaughter express shocked discovery and realization before.

"Remember when you were jumping off the diving board," I reminded her. "That was nine feet."

"Oh?" she said. "I didn't know that...." The last sentence trailed off to thoughtful contemplation.

That was even more startlingly unique. When had she ever expressed humble surprise before?

I could almost hear the gears grinding in her little brain. What were we to do with this huge, intimidating place?

She decided that this end was a little too intimidating. The opposite end was clearly the place to start and she took off in that direction. As per rule and tradition, I followed her without being directed to do so.

The other end turned out to be nine feet also. Well, we'd just have to make do with what we had. "You go in first, Grandpa." Obediently I jumped in and she jumped in after me.

After a period of getting used to it and trying all sorts of floats, boards, and even some flippers she dug out of a bin -- the smallest set still too large -- she settled on a float comprised of pipe insulation -- four-foot lengths of 4 inch diameter, flexible cylinders that fit across the chest and under the armpits. They were a variety of bright colors. (I wasn't aware they came in any color but black or dark gray.)

With this, she proceeded to flutter-kick/doggy paddle the entire length of the pool! She seldom lets me in on her intentions and plans, so this was an amazing surprise to me. In the very middle of the pool where the banks all appeared to be impossibly far away, I was sure that she was going to come to her senses and give up. When she made it to the end, I assumed that her appetite for the Olympic racing pool would have also come to an end, and she would now be content to go back to the playground pool. How surprised I was when she turned around and immediately set out to retrace her path back to the original end!

She repeated this several times, stopping once to trade her 4-foot section for a 2-foot section. That concerned me because it didn't seem substantial and secure enough, but she was overjoyed with the greater maneuverability and seemed more than satisfied with the result. The only other time she paused was to tell me, "Let's rest. I'll show you how we rest here." I followed her lead as we got out of the pool, sat on the bank with our feet in the water, and kicked vigorously for 5 seconds. Then back in the pool.

Once she actually did lose her float. At that point, she demonstrated that she can tread water! That demonstration lasted one full second before I could grab her.

Meanwhile, I was pacing her with a half water-tread and side stroke. It was not the most efficient or relaxing way of getting through water. Whenever I settled into a full, relaxed, gliding side stroke, she would say, "Grandpa! Don't try to pass me!" She insisted that she be the one to win every lap. She even had me move to the next lane so that we could be fellow competitors. The result was that I was getting tired. The single 5-second bank flutter hadn't done it for me.

"Are you sure we want to go again," I asked as we made it to the end of a lap. "I'm tired!" She looked at me with disdain and took off.

This only ended when she said, "I have to go potty!" She jumped out of the water and added, "I have to go potty bad!" I have studiously avoided letting her in on the dirty little secret.

One serious problem I have with all this is that Claire pops in and out of the water at will and with rapidity. As a boy scout I learned how to quickly and easily get in and out of deep water, (Claire has never needed such instruction) but my lack of shoulder rotator cuffs makes this technique impossible, so my efforts to get out of a deep pool -- or even a shallow pool -- is similar to a walrus ooze-flopping onto the beach. And I have to do it quickly, because Claire moves quickly. She has learned to walk/run just fast enough to avoid a shrill whistle and rebuke from an official. To keep up with her is also a bit of a stretch for me to avoid the same whistle/rebuke.

We completed our open plunge in the playground pool after which I finally succeeded in my many attempts to convince her that she'd had enough and wanted to go home.

The whole was a three-hour stint.

America's Choice

I walked into the Bountiful Temple and noted that only one of the two recommend stations was manned. A bit of a line was forming. In front of me was a lovely, tall young woman.

An ordinance worker walked up to the unmanned station and began fiddling with the computer. The young woman moved over beside him presumably to split the growing line into two, but from the computer machinations, it appeared that it would be some time before the station was ready to scan recommends. I motioned to her to resume her place in front of me where she would be next in line.

She held her ground and said, "I'm being taken care of." She smiled. She seemed to smile easily.

My recommend was scanned and handed back to me. Before continuing into the temple, I turned and stared directly at her from the front. She returned the favor with obvious amusement.

"You're Miss Utah!" I said. I hope I didn't point at her, but I'm afraid I probably did. Bad form.

She appeared startled and I assumed that I was mistaken though the resemblance was uncanny.

"I am!" she exclaimed. "I was," she corrected. Then she flashed a dazzling, completely unmistakable smile. "Thank you," she said.

"Hard to miss," I muttered as I turned and continued into the temple.

It's no surprise that I couldn't remember her name, but I wished that I had muttered something like "People's Choice" (actually, should have been "America's Choice") to cement the identity.

A contemplative temple meditation session was out. I hurried home to get onto blogger and clear my brain of Jill Stevens. Yes I remembered her name -- significantly during the endowment.