Your New Life

Preparing for baby is such a spiritual undertaking for me right now. I've been so impressed by the process of change in one's life and how that is accomplished. ChillyFreeToes and I finished a birthing class at the university's hospital a few weeks ago and they taught us about the physical changes that are going on inside her to accompany and eventually give birth to our little boy.

Since my program of choice is biomedical engineering, I was able to look at the process of labor in a very intellectual fashion and it was awe-inspiring. I study tissue remodeling, which means I look at how parts of our bodies do things that in a man-made material (metal, plastic, etc.) would cause them to crack, bend, and fail.

When you exercise, your body remodels itself, in sometimes drastic ways, to accommodate the increased needs for oxygen, energy, and waste removal. Patients with traumatic brain injuries in some cases can relearn the lost knowledge only because of the remodeling that occurs in the brain to store and retrieve the new replacement knowledge. Those guys who break stacks of bricks with their hands cause micro-fractures in their bones that make them stronger when they heal, so they can break more bricks. Only from stress do we adapt through change.

Our bodies teach us something important: there is always hope. For instance, I haven't run a 5K in 7 years, but this year I started running again. I also had a discectomy two years ago and I should limit the stress on my back. But I'm amazed at how much I've improved in the last couple of months! Through regular exercise, I'm back to running a 5K (though not very fast yet)!

I'm also noticing that my back is stiffer and I have more pain there after running. I'm finding it hard to make quick movements (like when I trip) that cause my back to bend. But I want to be able to lift my children, to let them ride on my shoulders, and be like the Daddy I remember having.

So where is the hope for my back and me? One of the things that I've learned in my studies is that there are thresholds: limits or boundaries where once crossed, the original state can never be restored. Physically, you can bend a bone to the breaking point, but if you don't go further the bone will rebound to its original shape. Once you cross that point, though, the bone fractures and the original shape is lost until a surgeon fixes the bone.

In life, there are thresholds as well- points of "no return" where once we cross that threshold we cannot reclaim the blessings we would have had available to us. There are times when a relationship or opportunity are lost from us forever. Everyone has those moments in life and the fewer we cause, the happier we are. That is why we are given commandments and instruction. They point the way to happiness and peace, and ensure that we have the least amount of regret when we follow them.

My back and I are the consequence of something: poor posture, birth defect, accident, etc. Either by my choice or chance, my back can no longer take the pounding of jogging for long periods of time. It's hard to admit this limitation of mine, but it's there and denying will only inflame the problem. I cannot force reality (or my back!) to bend to my wishes, but there's still hope!

When we incur the consequences of sin or circumstance, we can accept it or deny it. To deny it, we have to drown out all the signals that the universe sends us that say "Um, you might want to rethink that..." Pride comes before a fall because pride causes instability in life: there's nothing mystic about it. When we accept the limitations the Lord has placed before us, then we can move forward and progress. We change. It is only then that we see the hand of the Lord preserving us through our lives.

Sometimes that change is deep and life-altering. But we can know that it will be for good if we allow the Lord to work His will in us. That is what conversion means: a change at the very nature, the core of being. Repentance is a cessation of something, but conversion is the transformation of the repentant.

In church today, one of the speakers was discussing trials and saying that we need to accept the Lord's will for us -not because we believe that accepting a trial will make it vanish!- but because we have faith that the Lord loves us and knows what is best for us better than we do. I was struck by how true that has been for my life. I've often said "Okay, I get that you want me to be humble right now, so if I accept this is from You, Lord, You have to promise to take it away." Now I know that accepting is the only way my trials have any benefit to me!

I was inspired by this video of a fellow blogger: my wife has been following her for about a year now and this video tells the remarkable story of her acceptance and blessing of her new life.



Her husband and her were in a plane crash and she suffered a large percentage of burns on her body. While her body has suffered irreparable damage, she can see the blessings that came from her experience.

Her example is dramatic and profound. My example is less significant, and I include it only because it is easier to relate to. I can no longer be a jogger. But the fundamental motivation for my jogging is still there and I can fulfill it in other ways! I can swim or bike. I can take up cross-country skiing in the winter. By accepting my limitation, I can see it for what the blessing that it is and not as a regret.

I can change and the Lord will bless me through that. In all things, He will lead me to joy and happiness, if I will let Him do so. That is the change that we all need and that is the purpose of our life on earth. I can't wait to start!

The Title of Liberty

As you may have guessed, I'm a Mormon, which means that I am a Christian but there are some who don't want to admit it. But being a Mormon means that I read the Book of Mormon (BoM) as well as the Bible. And I happened to be reading it today...

I've been thinking lately about our world and what the future holds for my young family. The Stock Market is tanking, there's terrorism threatening our world, I can go online and see where the nearest pedophile lives, the upcoming election promises to be a choice between the lesser of two evils...

I could go on, but I'm sure I've started to panic somebody out there. Take a deep breath. Hold it. Now let it out. Good, now let's put it all in perspective, hm?

Life is about challenges. Fear and panic are things everyone must confront and some people brush it off like a light flurry of snow while others wander into huge drifts and have to have toes removed. I think most people are like me: some times I make snow balls, other times I play with hypothermia. And lately, I've lost feeling in my metaphorical fingers...

My brother B has decided to join the military. Not just the military, but the Marines. "We'll make a MAN out of him!" (Says the strangely intense recruiter.) The trouble is, B is not a man, er, mentally. I got a birthday card from him two weeks ago wishing me "Lots of making out with your wife."

I'm pretty sure he doesn't know how babies are made - and the Marines are getting their hands on him! Well, actually that's not true. He's clutching at the Marines like a shipwrecked man discovering the other side of the island is a resort for Parisian models.

We've talked to him about this decision:

• "You don't have a college education: you'll end up a grunt."
  
• "Yes, ice cream for breakfast is a great idea, but recruiter's make a lot of promises they can't keep."
• "Join the Air Force! They don't catch bullets for a living."
• "How are you going to start a family? No, there is no LDSMatch in Iraq."
• "You do know this isn't going to be like your mission, right?"

Of course, my father is the old hippie who was fighting Nixon and my grandmother 40 years ago (he only beat Nixon). He called me like it was the end of the world and I can't say I didn't agree with him. The Iraqi War looks like a quagmire and the Russians already proved Afghanistan is no easy cookie. We all know the usual arguments, so I won't rehash them for you.

Talking to B about this, he drops the bombshell: "I prayed about enlisting, and this is what I should do."

Stop, and hold the phone.

For those of you unfamiliar with the LDS faith, let me hit you with some knowledge: prayer - personal, intimate, sacred prayer is direct two-way communication with God! There is no higher authority, not even the leader of our church, who we believe to be a prophet of God can trump personal revelation through the Holy Spirit! That's it and that's all there is to it.

Now if you're not a member of my faith, this may seem as a huge dilemma. You're saying to yourself "Either there is absolute chaos in this church because everyone is got their own guidance or there is some mass hysteria that keeps everyone constantly fooling themselves into getting answers that conform to the societal norms of the Church." (Well, maybe you didn't think that last one, but I know those Anthropology majors are sitting there with a sly grin! :) )

Remarkably, there is not a lot of chaos in the Church and there are not answers that always conform to the expectations of the recipient. I've been surprised a number of times to answers that were in exact opposition to what I wanted OR what I thought I should do. And that's were the challenge comes in: you've just found out what the Lord wants, but it's not what you want.

Dun, Dun, DuuuuuNNNNNNN! So I've been there. And I know that you get through it by being humble.

You remember that you aren't the god of the universe.

You remember that you can't be, because you already asked Him, and if you were just talking to yourself, you wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

And then you do what you were told. Or you don't do what you were told and end up in more trouble than you started with. (It's true!)

So B is doing what he's been told to do. So why does that bother me? Why do I have to blog about B doing what he's supposed to do? The reason is that if that is the answer that he has received, then I am in opposition to God. Say what!?!

Here's the reasoning: a compass, pointing along the magnetic field, doesn't know why it points that direction, but it agrees with the field. I am like the compass: I don't know why B is supposed to join up, but that's not knowledge I need. That's not even knowledge B may need! The difference between B and I is that he's pointing north, if you will, and I'm trying to point south. Completely different attitudes to the same stimulus.

So I've been studying about the military and how the Church operates with it. Questions like: will B have the opportunity to associate with other members on ships or stations. We don't have a paid clergy, so it is a legitimate concern.

While I was studying, I was reminded that the purpose of these wars is to protect our liberty and freedom. (True, some corrupt men are in it for oil, opium, or graft but that's not the purpose. It is a side effect of corruption, not of war.) And freedom is why I can sit here are write this blog, why I can go to Church on Sunday (or not, if that's your belief), why my family doesn't wake up every morning worried that we could be killed because of our belief in God.

Captain Moroni was a great military commander in the BoM. He was also a great Christian and he rallied his people with a flag called the "Title of Liberty." It had written on it:

"In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children."

That's what these wars are really about. Nazism, Communism, and Extremism all attempt to limit or destroy these things. So even though my brother still thinks that "kissing for a long time" is third base, he's doing what's right. He's defending my family from those who would kill us based only on our beliefs and that kind of tyranny can never be allowed to prevail on this earth.