Personal Information

       Not that it really matters to me that you, as a reader of Omnium-Gatherum-Millerum, learn some things about me, personally, (although you surely have if you have read many of my commentaries), but it might be self-informative for you do such an exercise yourself to more clearly identify your own values. I disclose the following (and put on my protective armor when you read of what I do not like);  so please be tolerant.

These are a few things I like:

Early mornings out-of-doors

The sounds of water running over rocks in a stream and hearing birds in trees

Being married

Seeing my children being happy

My Church and church involvement; funerals and hearing good things about people

The sight of mountains and long vistas. Climbing mountains

The smells of perfume, freshly cut wood, freshly cut grass and divots, riverbottoms

Reading good novels and non-fiction

Campfires

Learning new things, going new places, the thrill of discovery

Taking university classes
Proper use of the English language

Leather, finished wood, cashmere, Levis 501's

Studying the scriptures and gaining new theological insights

Giving talks, preaching sermons, teaching interested, attentive people

Romantic time with my wife

Time, anytime, with my wife

B.M.W.s, Morgans, and Triumph and Austin Healy automobiles

Hitting a great drive or solid iron shot in golf. Playing golf.

Religious authors: C.S. Lewis, George McDonald, Hugh Nibley, Brigham Young

Joseph Smith, Jr., Bruce R. McConkie, Rodney Turner

The feeling of being fit, being strong

Seeing physically fit people doing athletic activities

Israel, the Rocky Mountains, tropical beaches, the English countryside

A windy road in a sports car with the top down.  New roads and country places

The feeling of being alone on a trout stream and of a trout hitting a dry fly

Vanilla ice cream, cherry and apple pies, fresh pumpkin pies,  popcorn

plain food, fruits and vegetables

            Breakfasts of oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins or Shredded Wheat and Grapenuts               

Labrador retrievers

Storms

Helping people who are trying to help themselves

Finishing projects in a reasonable time

Music, ballads, Anne Murray, Yanni, John Denver, harps, 50’s Black singing groups, music from 1955-1963

Going to bed early; getting up early

Running, lifting weights, taking walks in the country or on the beach

Some things I don’t like:

            People being rude or inconsiderate of others

            Smog

            Witnessing adversarial or contentious human interactions on television, in politics

            Cold water swimming, cold showers, wearing wet clothes

            People interrupting others, being interrupted myself

            Being sick, especially being nauseaous, air or seasick

            Being around women who talk too much

            The LGBT movement

            Rap music, loud or jarring music, hard rock music

            Baggy clothes

            Vulgar or crude language or behavior

            Comedians

            People wasting food, resources, or being ecologically shortsighted

            People on cell phones in my presence

            Stuffy or over-hot rooms or houses

            Wind in my face when I am running

            Waiting for people or lack of punctuality or being late myself

            Fat, greasy food

            Dirty or untidy houses

            Sitcoms, canned laughter, most modern television programming

            Gossip

            Being around people who have been drinking alcohol; being around smokers

Braggarts, cocky showoffs, loud people; those who use “me, mine, I” a lot in their speech

            Hearing people talk about money or getting rich, or what they have or are going to buy

            Fixing cars

            Violent, loud movies and movie previews--violence in general

            Little yappy dogs

            Dealing with money

Well, that was interesting.  At least I find that I like more things (numerically) than I dislike. 

Things As They Really Aren't

A couple weeks ago the news story broke of a young football player, Manti Te’o from Notre Dame University, being scammed in an internet dating hoax.  I have known for the last six or seven years that such things are going on on the internet, and  I have since learned that such things are now so pervasive that there was a 2010 documentary film (Catfish) and now a television show (Catfish:The TV Show) that depicts such things.  These things can be terribly dangerous and damaging. 

I have a mother who has Alzheimer’s disease.  She is completely vulnerable and helpless and can no longer act on her own volition, which is now essentially extinct. Her condition is the result of an organic cause beyond her control. The people who get caught up in these cyberspace scams, which are initially within their power to control, tend to be likewise vulnerable and naively convinced and consequently helpless and eventually addicted to a non-reality and it is a tragedy.

What can be done?  Let me suggest some things that should not be done.  

All people, but especially the emotionally vulnerable, should not become involved with anything that could harm their body or inhibit or impair their capacity to discern things as they really are.  “If any man defile the temple of God (man’s body), him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” ( 1 Corinthians 3:16-17). 

We must not put at risk the very instrument God has given us to receive the learning experiences of mortality.  There are grave spiritual hazards in our technologically-oriented and rapidly changing world that can harm our bodies, our minds, and our spirits.  Unfortunately, that which is initially perceived by many as harmless or merely entertaining--the video games, the inane Facebook postings and Tweets and texts, the chat-rooms, the online friends, the romance novels, the pornography, etc.,--can completely take over our time, our health and put a stop to our eternal progression.  As the Lord declared, “Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment…, Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known.”  God wants us to work and serve and live productively.

Do not let the digital dominate ‘things as they really are.’ “The Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not.  Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls.” Compare your digitally involved time with your Spiritually involved time and see where your emphasis is. 

  

The bottom line is that too many sad and lonely, confused,  and vulnerable people find the ‘virtual reality’ so real, so compelling, that they live an artificial life devoid of real, deep, soul-expanding relationships, talent-developing work and thus personal growth, and consequent lasting happiness and confidence.  They come into life as children of God, endowed with a great potential, and go out with very little to show for their years. Alas, many go out greatly depressed and with a smoking gun found near their body. 

The tragedy is that their lives are built upon a faulty foundation that will cause an inevitable personal ‘fall’ just as nations and civilizations have fallen.  And nations and civilizations have fallen because an entire culture has fallen just as otherwise good, but beguiled, people like Manti Te’o have fallen for the artificial. 

And Satan laughs.  

The Captain of Thy Soul

As much as I loved America's great philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson (and I still do), his essay 'Self Reliance' confused me in my youth.  It was truth mixed with error. He proceeded by the light that he had--and he had a very great intellectual light--but it had been eclipsed by the restored Gospel light that had burst upon the world, that few, even today, have begun to walk in.  

Compare this proud poem by William Ernest Henley, who may have been influenced by Emerson's 'Self Reliance,' with the Gospel of Jesus Christ-inspired counterpoint of an enlightened Orson F. Whitney:

             Invictus  

      by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.  

      The Soul’s Captain 

     by Orson F. Whitney

Art thou in truth?  Then what of Him

Who bought thee with His blood?

Who plunged into devouring seas

And snatched thee from the flood,

Who bore for all our fallen race

What none but Him could bear—

That God who died that man

      might live

And endless glory share.

Of what avail thy vaunted strength

Apart from His vast might?

Pray that His light may pierce the

    gloom

That thou mayest see aright. 

Men are as bubbles on the wave,

As leaves upon the tree,

Thou captain of thy soul!  Forsooth

Who gave that place to thee?

Free will is thine—free agency,

To wield for right or wrong;

But thou must answer unto Him

To whom all souls belong.

Bend to the dust that “head unbowed,”

Small part of life’s great whole,

And see in Him and Him alone,

The Captain of thy Soul.