Tag: Determination

Spiritual Dyslexia

The following comments are from Carlfred Broderick, professor of sociology, University of Southern California. (Ensign Magazine, August 1986)

“My experience has convinced me that God actively intervenes in some destructive lineages, assigning a valiant spirit to break the chain of destructiveness in such families.

Although these children may suffer innocently as victims of violence, neglect and exploitation, through the grace of God some find the strength to metabolize the poison within themselves, refusing to pass it on to future generations.

Before them there were generations of destructive pain; after them the river flows clear and pure. Their children and children’s children will call them blessed.

In suffering, evidently that others may not suffer, such persons in some degree, become as “ Saviours on Mount Zion” by helping to bring salvation to their lineage.”

To these words, I would like to add my own….

My experience has taught me that some lineages, although not destructive or violent, nonetheless suffer through the smothering anguish of ignorance in silent hopelessness. Into these families, God also assigns valiant spirits to break the chain of spiritual darkness. 

Many of such families are filled with warm, hospitable and good people, who are true to their family duties and responsibilities. However, many yet cling to the old superstitions, false traditions and religious beliefs that promise, but cannot deliver, salvation. To those valiant spirits so assigned, I see their mission as including a three-fold responsibility.

1 / To be obedient to keep and observe the laws and commandments of the gospel so that their lives may be a testimony to their words. Then it can be said that before them there was confusion, fear and unbelief. After them came waters that were clear, brimming with joy, peace, hope and assurance. 

2/ Follow the commitment to find and identify those who are in such lineages so that the saving ordinances required for their salvation may be performed on their behalf.

3/ There will be the great missionary work required to locate and call these family members, now in the spirit world, whose work has been done, to arise from their sleep and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ.

These good people carried and passed on to us the seed of life so that we might have mortal life. This great gift that we now live, did not come free. Many paid a heavy price. This is especially true of the young fathers who grew old far too soon, toiling at back-breaking and thankless jobs for little more than bread to eat and an unreliable roof to put over their heads. Likewise, their young wives who died giving birth to their children so that the seed of life, which we now carry, could be passed on. 

How can such gifts and sacrifices ever be re-paid? The answer, of course, is by giving to them the truth, knowledge and ordinances by which they may obtain eternal life through the atonement of Jesus Christ. 

One by one, Christ saves each of us. One ancestor at a time  we, in some small degree, perform the role of “Saviour on Mount Zion” for our lineage, similarly to how Christ performed it for us all. 

If we fulfill this assignment, not only will our children and our children’s children call us blessed, but so will our fathers and our father’s fathers before them.

– Douglas T Garrett

Reflections on Canim Lake

The old miner’s cabin sits on the west bank, jutting out just above the water line. Smoke from the brick chimney silently rises in the frosty autumn air, sure evidence the ol’ digger is still lingering by the warmth of his iron stove.

Sitting in the wicker recliner, he jabs at the glowing coals with a crooked poker thrust through the stove’s open door. The embers responded with fits of angry sparks which quickly race up the glowing flue. 

The smoke hangs heavily over the lake bringing the distinct aroma of back bacon, beans and maple syrup. The old man clenches his pipe stem tighter between his teeth then slowly relaxes his aching body into the shape of the wicker’s well-worn bottom and oddly angled back. His head tilts up enough to allow his gaze to easily find the split pine beams, the pealing-varnished white spruce ceiling and the dusty rafters colored by age.

He clearly recalls their every detail: the smell of fresh cut wood, the sounds of hammers, the chatter as he and his partner cut them by hand. Though long ago he can still feel the pull of the Swiss saw, the rhythm in its swing, the stinging sweat running into his eyes. He can still hear the mallets driving the wedges and forming the straight, long planks.

Sixty-years-worth of memories flutter in random disorder through his mind. 

As his eyes close, he is sure he can still hear the loons laughing out in the misty, open water, trying to hide their loneliness. They wait, then call again. Waiting for an answer that never comes. 

Now, in memory, he is making the long familiar trip down the lake in the heavily ore-loaded canoe. He feels the spray from the windswept waves as they spank the boat’s sides for thinking they could pass with impunity. 

An excited pair of coyotes chasing a jack rabbit break out of the bush and onto the sandy beach. Then they suddenly stop and retreat quickly. By instinct they have felt – more than seen – the Osprey leave his high, treetop nest and swiftly zoom towards them with his powerful, terrible talons open wide. They scurry quickly. The Osprey never misses.

His mind also remembers the clear, dark skies. Night happens as if someone has pulled a blanket over the heavens. Only tiny holes in the fabric let bits of light shine through. They are a sign he always watches for, the assurance there is still a God in the bright Heavens. He will send the warm sun back to earth again in the dawn, as he has always done.

The black, jagged silhouette of pines against the purple and mauve sky frame the bright reflection of the full moon, like a yellow skid mark across the lake’s otherwise undisturbed surface.

He hears the crunching under his feet of the empty spruce cones and dry fir needles as his memory retraces quiet walks along the autumn shoreline. So many discussions together, so many problems resolved, so many dreams planned. His eyes tear when he tries, but can no longer remember her face, her voice, her touch, or what they had talked about. It was all so long ago. Like pine trees, their branches frantically waving  in vain to try to stop the wild winds, he too finds it impossible to hang on to the past. 

The fire in the old stove has gone out. It is cold as he awakes. His stiff muscles complain from being cramped so long in the recliner. He carefully makes his way to the door, steadying himself on whatever is in his path. As he stoops in the open door of the cabin, he sees clearly down to the lake and the bend in the shoreline where the water becomes lost from view. How many times has he struggled to paddle round that bend in heavy headwinds?

A flock of Canada geese come in low over the water but continue to the fields beyond. They honk their excitement as they spot some grain still left for them to feast on. 

He can see the brown earth swaths in the fields, warmed by sunlight. How many times has he let the rich brown soil slowly filter through his gnarled fingers while marveling how Mother Nature never wastes anything. Everything will eventually be reclaimed once more. He holds that thought in his mind for a moment, reminding himself that Mother Earth will someday have her claim even on him as well. Someday, someday… 

But the young boy still inside him smiles as he says out loud to himself, “Yes, someday, someday. But not today. Today you’ll have to wait!”

The creaky door closes, boards squeak and in a few minutes smoke once more begins to rise silently from the old brick chimney – just as it has done for so many years.

– Doug Garrett

Addiction Recovery: Part 2

Observations

We are really fortunate that in most countries, there are many worthwhile Non-Government Organizations that provide support and a place to seek help if anyone is wanting it. Most have adopted the twelve step program originally developed by Alcoholics Anonymous — or some modified version of it.

Step 1: Honesty
Admit that you, of yourself are powerless to overcome your addictions and your life has become unmanageable.

Step 2: Hope 
Come to believe that the power of God can restore you to complete spiritual health.

Step 3: Trust in God 
Decide to turn your will and your life over to the care of God the Eternal Father and his Son Jesus Christ.

Step 4: Truth
Make a searching and fearless written moral inventory of yourself.

Step 5 Confession
Admit to yourself, to your Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ, to proper Priesthood authority, and to another person the exact nature of your wrongs.

Step 6: Change of Heart
Become entirely ready to have God remove all your character weaknesses.

Step 7: Humility
Humbly ask Heavenly Father to remove your short comings.

Step 8: Seek Forgiveness
Make a written list of all persons you have harmed and become willing to make restitution to them.

Step 9: Restitution and Reconciliation
Wherever possible make direct restitution to all people you have harmed.

Step 10: Daily Accountability
Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong promptly admit it. 

Step 11: Personal Revelation 
Seek through prayer and meditation to know the Lord’s will and have the power to carry it out.

Step 12: Service 
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of the atonement of Jesus Christ, share this message with others and practice these principles in all you do.

The success rate of these programs are low, and the numbers attending these classes few, in comparison to the staggering number of addicts. So as expected, the problem of addictions still continues to exist and grow.

While these are the steps addicts, and those with other undesirable personal habits go through, they may not necessarily go through them at the same rate or proceed in a chronological order outlined in the manual. Some of the attendees at the meeting may be present because they were given an ultimatum by their spouse or their employer. Their incentive will be different from someone who has faced a life changing experience because of their addiction and is therefore personally desirous to become better.

Every attendee at the meeting has a special history, a different motivation and a particular underlying cause to their problem which neither you nor they fully understand. They may slip and move backwards as often as they move forward. They may find themselves progressing very well and then experience an unexpected setback that may leave them feeling like they have failed and are unable to carry-on. Others may skip steps altogether thinking they have that part under control. None of these realities should become a stumbling block because the recovery process is really just that — a recovery process. 

We should also remember:
1/  We learn best through trial and error.
2/  We reach goals that are reasonably set.
3/  Few people who change hard things are successful the first time.
4/  Trial and error is a harder, less efficient and very expensive way to learn.
5/  Changing always costs more than you thought.
6/  Sheer willpower is not enough.
7/  We cannot substitute one bad behaviour for another to improve.
8/  The path to change is seldom straight.
9/  A lapse is not permanent unless we want it to be.
10/  Good ideas always involve hard work.

– Doug Garrett

The Destination of Fish and Men

There is a reunion being held in my backyard this fall. They are expecting hundreds to attend out of the thousands who were invited.

Even though its being held on our property and in our yard, we have not been invited. As a matter of fact, they have been holding these reunions for a very long time without our permission. They have been coming long before we lived here, even longer than the coming of the Europeans to the Americas, or even the indigenous people who once lived here.

I am speaking of the annual return of the salmon to spawn in the creek that runs through our property.

For the past two years they have been gone from this stream. But now they are returning to lay their eggs and finish their life cycle –here — where it began at the bottom of the clear cold stream among the sand and pebbles.

What a marvelous thing it would be if we could sit on a log and ask them where they have been. What incredible tales of adventure would they tell us? How many thousands of miles have they traveled? How many struggles did they have to overcome to reach home? So many rivers, so many streams that all look alike, how did they find their way back?

With so much swimming, through so many strong currents, with so many obstacles, did they ever think about giving up?

I have seen them in strong tides where they were just able to hold their own. I have seen them streak through water at great speed, darting from rock to rock, finding eddies to rest in. Then, a few minutes later, I have seen them go again, then rest again, repeating the process over and over. I have watched them leap through the air, just to get over a single water fall. Some of these extraordinary efforts only gained them a few hundred feet.

In the interior of British Columbia, Canada, a damn was built many years ago. It stood in the path where salmon have passed up stream for hundreds of years. When the salmon came, they tried to get over it, but it was too high. So they hurled themselves at in until their bodies were smashed and broken. The men who built the damn were so impressed at their determination that it was decided to build a concrete water ladder so the fish could circumnavigate the damn in small leaps.

What made the salmon do this? What thought in their tiny heads was so powerful as to compel them to succeed or die in the attempt? 

I suspect, as each left the tiny stream where it was hatched, it had no such compulsion. Rather it was probably filled with a great excitement for adventure, a feeling of freedom, a thirst to swim, to eat, to look, to play, to do anything and everything with reckless abandonment.

What happened and when? How much time went by before there came the feeling deep from within that they must return? Did they ignore it at first, perhaps mistaking it for something they should not have eaten? No doubt they became restless as the feeling became stronger. Is that why they began to gather together in large schools to see if others were feeling the same? Were they looking for someone to tell them what to do? Where to go?

Visualize them then, like ballet dancers, pivoting in unison, first this way and then that. Their movements become faster as others joined in. “ Where are we going?” No one answers as each becomes transfixed in the hypnotic spell. Then, without any visible signal, they all begin to move in a single direction. Somehow, from somewhere a long, long way away, they hear –or rather feel — a calling. “Come home” it beacons. “Come home. It’s time. You must complete the task.” Some respond, yet others stop to ask,” What task? What time?” We are mature now and strong. We are already home. We will continue doing as we have always done.” They break off and swim away.

Those who begin the trip start with enthusiasm, but gradually some slowly drift away because the journey seems so long and the reason so unimportant. 

Others moving on ahead hear and feel the call again. ”Come, hurry, there is not much time left!” Swimming through and across large nets, they struggle against fast moving tides, Over and up water falls, past enticing lures and strange looking, brightly colored minnows they move onward, always onward.

Still, it is too far and too much to expect from some. They pause, and rest, and play with the exciting trinkets that dangle from long, shiny spider webs.

Now the few remaining are traveling further and longer each day. Many have scars and bruises, while still others limp and work with all their strength just to keep up. “ Move on, Move on, Don’t delay, there is only so much time left!. You must finish, You MUST finish.”

When they finally arrive, there are not many left. They look nothing like they did when they left. Their backs are humped, and their snouts turned up. Their skin is a strange, bright red color. But they have arrived and their joy is high. They have come home. They will lay the eggs that will ensure the continuation of their species. Once the eggs are fertilized,  the males make great sweeps to cover them with fine sand so they may lay protected among the pebbles on the bottom of our clear water stream.

It will be a few months before the cycle is repeated. Then these new hatchlings will too go out to sea, as countless millions of others have done before.

As it is with fish, so it is with man.

We have left the place where we were spiritually raised. But now, we are all away at sea. From somewhere afar off, we have heard, or rather felt, a stirring which is calling deep down inside of us. “Come home, come home,” it calls. “ You must complete your task. There is not much time left!” There are many who respond. They gather together looking for directions on what to do, where to go. Yet some prefer to cling to old ways. Still others are busy chasing trinkets that move out of their reach on invisible spider webs.

Still, the call has come. Can you remember hearing it? I can. It was when I was a little child. It came as a distant voice on a summer wind. I remember knowing that there is a God and I had something I must do. When the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came and called at our door, I remembered that day in my childhood. The voice sounded as familiar as “a voice on the summer wind”. Come home, come home” it called and I responded.

Later, I read what the Lord said in Matthew 4: 19: “…Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” 

We are not home yet and there are many challenges and obstacles to overcome before we get there. The early Christians used the sign of the fish to identify themselves. We might consider how many other things “fish” could teach us.

– Doug Garrett

The Trapped Chilean Miners

Hardly anyone of the millions who heard or watched the rescue of the Chilean miners who were trapped 700 meters underground for sixty-nine days, will ever forget the complete fascination and anticipation that kept us glued to our TV screens in 2005. Yet this was only the dramatic conclusion to a greater, bolder, courageous, personal drama that had been unfolding for months earlier — half a mile below the surface in the Chilean Mountains.

Thirty-three miners had been trapped in the San José copper mine in Copiapó, Chile for 17 days and none of them had heard a word about their fate. Somewhere, somehow, in those first 17 days, someone initiated the idea and convinced the others that their desperate situation was not hopeless. It is the miners code that no matter the cause of the entrapment, and regardless of how long it may take, or how great the cost or effort, those above will come and find them, dead or alive. All the buried men had to do was muster the means and will to stay alive until they were found. 

No doubt there was contention and arguing at first between those miners who were convinced and those who doubted. But in the end, we know they all agreed. They agreed to share their water, their food, and the batteries in their lights which were only intended to last 48 hours. All knew that on their own as individuals, there was no hope any one could make it. But if they were willing to share and work together, there was a slim hope they could all make it out together.

As they began to organize themselves, their thinking began to shift. Instead of just thinking about the problem, they began to allow themselves to consider and plan for a future. They began to think about what would happen if they actually survived!. They would imagine themselves being cheered and greeted by their family, friends and the news media around the world. Slowly but surely the feelings of hopelessness were replaced by a concern for their other miners and their families. That faint flickering flame of hope was being fanned and embellished each time they thought of their future instead of their present condition.

Each man was given an immediate responsibility. One was made responsible for the food supply and to insure each ate something three times a day. Another with First Aid experience was made the official “ Doctor”. Still another was assigned to keep a daily journal and to encourage the others to add to it. As their lives began to take on a structured feeling again, they began to encourage each other to pull together and hope together.

Can you imagine the moment when a pipe was pushed into their isolation? Contact from those on the surface, along with fresh air, water, food and supplies coming down the pipe. The greatest thing they received when that pipe broke through their dark hole was hope. Now they knew they were no longer alone. They knew someone was working to save them. They didn’t know how it was going to work, but somehow, somewhere, someone up there had a plan to save them, something they painfully understood, they could not do for themselves.

They were right. A plan had been put in place to rescue them one at a time. A capsule, just big enough to carry one man, but small enough to slide down the bore hole, could bring them back from the dead to the living again. Yet the first capsuled lowered to the waiting miners did no go down empty. In it was its creative engineer who felt he personally had to go down to show his faith that the capsule functioned correctly and to be there so others would know how it was done.

This is where the TV worldwide coverage had picked up the events that we had all watched.

Included were skilled technicians and ground crews from many countries around the world, the Presidents of Chile and Peru, and planners from N.A.S.A. Also waiting and cheering were family members and friends, who had camped in a makeshift village while keeping a candle light vigil and hope alive until their loved ones were safely back with them. As the miners came up, one by one, from the bowels of the earth, they were embraced in the arms of their loved ones and we all shouted and wept for joy.

How much like the miners we sometimes feel when we are in a dark hole, where we fear there is no hope or way out. We have nothing but a small flickering light and limited reserves that are about to expire. We may have even felt such self-pity that we thought no one really cared if we lived or died. 

Yet, high above us, there is a plan in operation to bring us safely out, if we will just do everything in our power to hold on until the rescue party comes and shows us how. That rescue party is Christ and his Church. It has come. The Savior personally came down to earth to show us how it’s done.

Have faith, reach out and climb into the rescue capsule. Christ promises us, if we do so, he will bring us back home to our loved ones.

Note: THE 33 is a movie that has been made about these courageous men and their remarkable rescue.

Doug Garrett