Begin

Let me begin by saying that I am not blogging as a way to misrepresent myself as someone whose life is filled with rainbows and butterflies.  While I do appreciate life's occasional rainbow and butterfly moments, life has a way of not letting me forget that the most beautiful rainbows come after the heaviest rains and that butterflies begin as slow, tedious, rather ugly worm-like creatures who must eek their way through myriads of larger-than-life obstacles in order to make impossible beauty, possible. Life is teaching me that "the most important things we can learn . . . are learned the slow way, through practice, through trial and error.  This kind of learning depends on opposition." (Hafen, Bruce C.: The Broken Heart:  Applying the Atonement to Life's Experiences)

Now, if you ask anyone who knows me well, I do not like "slow."  I want to learn things quickly so that I can move on and accomplish something else, but such is not the way of a truly productive, God-driven life.  As Robert Browning aptly puts it, "There is an answer to the passionate longing of the heart for fullness . . .:  live in all things outside yourself by love and you will have joy.  That is the life of God; it ought to be our life.  In Him it is accomplished and perfect; but in all created things, it is a lesson learned slowly against difficulty."  I am hoping that recording some of the slowly-learned lessons in my life will reinforce those lessons in my sometimes hard heart and head, but my greatest hope is that my family will be enlightened and simultaneously grow up with me.  I use the term family loosely because I have grown up believing that we are all brothers and sisters, created by a loving Heavenly Father who wants nothing more than for all of us to return home to Him.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormons, as we are typically called.  Much of what I share will of course be based on the deep faith I have in my Savior and His teachings.  Sometimes my posts might be a thought from a church leader or two, sometimes an insight that I have learned from hard experience or joyful triumph.  I am hoping that whatever I share will leave a small trail of light that will lead others to the source of all light--Jesus Christ.