God Loves Broken Things

God loves broken things,

The tossed away and torn,

The dented, scratched,

Mismatched and mangled,

Mostly scarred and worn.



God bids to the party, play and feast

A motley crew of losers, loners, geeks.



Come play. Come dance.

Just as you are,

All dirtied, dunged and damaged.

Come dance with the passionate God.

Come dance away the dross,

Until your heart of stars

Shines sprightly bright and far,

The Beloved of the Lover

Of the Broken Hearted Marred.

Don't be afraid of Isaiah

The Closest Thing to a Valentine's Day Post I'll Write

What is love? Listen to this story from long ago and yesterday.

A father decides he wants to retire from being king. He plans to divide his kingdom among his three daughters and live with his youngest daughter, who is likely to very shortly marry a foreign king. Do you see any problems here? An ex-king living with a frienemy king, leaving behind a divided kingdom? Or maybe this plan is the father's way to stop his daughter's marriage. Either way - he's not thinking or acting correctly.

It gets worse.

He decides the best way to divide the kingdom would be to ask his daughters to say in public how much they love him. Whoever gives the best speech will get the best part of the kingdom. His exact question is "which of you shall we say doth love us most?" Do you see any problems with these ideas?

It gets worse.

After his first daughter's speech, he immediately gives her one third of the kingdom. He's not even following the rules of his own twisted game. As you can tell, he's not much of a father or king. His second daughter says her speech. His youngest daughter refuses to play the game and as best she can tries to stop the train wreck her father started. What does she get for honesty? Her father banishes her and attempts outright to stop her marriage. But the foreign king sees her good sense, honesty and ability to love and marries her anyway.

It gets worse.

The father still attempts to retire from being king. Trouble is he wants to give up the responsibility but not the perks. He tries living with his other daughters, neither of whom wants to pay for his lavish lifestyle or have a former king hanging around gumming up their plans for ruling a divided kingdom. And these are ambitious women. One of them is going to "get rid" of the other, some how. I don't need to go into all of the gory details. And they are gory. This is one messed up family.

Eventually, the father ends up homeless and ill, wandering in the wild in the middle of a storm. His youngest daughter searches for him, finds him and keeps him safe. Which of his daughters loves him?

It gets better.

As he is waking up and coming to himself, he can hardly believe he is seeing the daughter he banished, the daughter he treated so poorly - to put it mildly. "I think this lady to be my child Cordelia." She responds simply, "I am. I am." Words that echo our Savior's words declaring his divinity in the Garden of Gethsemane during his betrayal. Lear, her father, says to her, in true humility, for he truly is coming to himself and fumbling to repent his wrongs, "If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you don't love me, for your sisters have (as I do remember) done me wrong. You have some cause, they have not."

He cannot comprehend that anyone could love him with all the bad he did. He did not understand Cordelia's love at the beginning and he does not believe it possible now.

Cordelia's response is the most divine moment of the story - full of the Atonement of Christ. It is the answer we all hope to hear when we beg forgiveness. Lear says the truth when he says Cordelia has a cause against him. Her response, "No cause. No cause."

Her love for her father is of the kind that she chooses not to strengthen his weaknesses by paying attention to them, but rather to always acknowledge his fatherhood and kingship - even as their parent/child, king/subject roles are reversed. She forgives so totally and completely and immediately that for her it's as if the sin never happened.

This infinite forgiveness is a divine quality. I doubt any of us are currently able to do this. It is a terrifying ideal to strive for, to be like Cordelia.

But we can all be like Lear - in a place of vulnerability and humility, knowing we are at the mercy of God. And we can accept forgiveness.

This is Love.  Or at least some parts of it.

Chemistry Awesomness!

The CoolSiteoftheDay for today is a periodic table. I think chemistry is liquid evil, but even I have to bow to the total amazingness of this periodic table. Check it out! Click here if you're checking this out on the 7th. Click here if you're checking it out after that.

iPod? Is that you?

My iPod is sending me messages.

As background, it should be known that I manage a costume rental shop and am attempting not to be stressed about Halloween by preparing in sufficient time. But as most people, there are days that I just don't want to go to work.

Yesterday while getting ready in the morning my iPod was set on random and played the most interesting series of songs: "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas, followed by "Whistle While You Work" and "Heigh-Ho (it's off to work we go)" from Snow White.

What is my iPod trying to say? Or am I simply finding meaning in random events?

Hitting a Deer

Hit a deer last night. We're ok. The car's not. I hope the deer died quickly - or wasn't hurt at all. But judging from the car damage, I can't imagine it not being severely hurt. I've never hit a deer before. I've never killed anything so big. It's funny how prejudiced we can be. Arriving home after hitting the deer, I killed, with my bare hands, a mosquito, almost without thought. Why the remorse over the deer, and little to none over the bug? Is it that the mosquito could hurt me with a bite and could be carrying infectious diseases? Is it that it was small and I've killed tons of them? Hmm.

Sliding Down the Stairs

Took these videos a long time ago. Should have posted them sooner. Don't know about anyone else, but seeing these boys shoot down those stairs just makes me giggle.

Facebook

Just joined the network. And already I have 12 friends. It's nice to know that on the web you can count your wealth like that. Well, I'm now getting into bed. Tomorrow is another day!

And He's Off!

Sent the Bean away today. Watched him till the last minute going through security. Helps that he's so tall. Even from a distance his head is high enough to see. Little bit of a blip in getting him there. Someone misspelled the last name, and so for a while there it appeared as if he didn't have a ticket and might not be able to make it back in time for school to start. But then the extra "i" was discovered through a panicked phone call home to Mom who remembered the error. And so he got off fine. I'm really going to miss him. When we hugged goodbye, he said "See you at Christmas." The expanse of time struck - I'm not going to see him for Halloween (70 days away, btw) or Thanksgiving. I hope he has a great year at school.

Breaking News

It's been far too long since I've posted, but I just learned of some critical breaking news. It's even more important that Russia invading Georgia or the Olympics. Combined.


In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?


In The Know: Are America's Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?


Country Music Stars Challenge Al-Qaeda With Patriotic New Song â??Bomb New Yorkâ??

A Bunch of Pictures.

In no particular order, because I don't have the patience right now to make it orderly, here follows a bunch of long overdue pictures:

Disneyland Rowing Team:

The After-Disneyland-DVD-in-the-Car Zombie:

The Zombie's Mom:
Harry, Hermione and Ron were here. So was I:
This is the place we all were, at different times:
Cartoons come to life:
A stylin' do from the soon to be World Famous Fashion Hair Designer, Nephew Thomas:

The World Famous Fashion Hair Designer on his White Charger, with his mother:
The newest Disneyland Crew Team recruits: (Daniel's not nervous, just uncomfortable.)
See, I told you Daniel was a natural born sailor.
Here we are in the Alps.

At the firestation.

From Christmas:

Funny Quotes

If the world didn't suck, you'd fall off.

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.

Costumers make clothes for imaginary people.

FOURTEEN THINGS THAT IT TOOK OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN

By Dave Barry

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. You should not confuse your career with your life.

6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

7. Never lick a steak knife.

8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.

13. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

14. Your friends love you anyway.

Thought for the day: Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Long Time No See

Well, it's been far too long since I updated this little ol' blog. Much, ever so much has happened. I am back home from Qatar. I am no longer practicing law and there is much rejoicing. I am working at the Hale Theatre. You will kindly notice the "re" spelling; this distinquishes it from the Hale Theater. The "Re" is up in West Valley. So I do have quite a commute. But I love what I do. It's happy. It may be a bit sick, in fact, I know it is, but I'm looking forward to the craziness of Halloween. The commute is something else though. There was a snow storm this moring which more than doubled my time on the road. Took me two hours to get there. But I arrived safely. I must get in bed so that I can get up and get to work on time tomrrow. This is just ridiculous. Pictures of Christmas and California to come. Oh, I think I might throw in some Thanksgiving pics too, since there are some pretty darn cute ones there.

UltiMitt

Check out my brother-in-law's web site for Mitt Romney for President: UltiMitt. If the fancy strikes you, go ahead and join. You can even get your own campaign type team together, if you're into politics. It's a great site.

Accidents Happen, Especially in Doha

As a friend said when he heard of this, I can now go home. I have done everything there is to do in Doha. I got in a car accident. Around 2 o'clock, Tuesday 26 June, 2007.

Not my fault and fortunately the ticket agrees with that fact. I didn't get the ticket. I was rear ended. My car was the bigger of the two and so won the collision. No one was hurt.

I was getting ready to turn right onto a very busy road. Most turns here are right turns. There are islands running down the middle of most roads to prevent cars from travelling in the lane for oncoming traffic. The drivers here are truly that aggressive. I have had cars heading directly for me on roads without barriers down the middle. And most of the intersections are round abouts. So left turns are rare birds. So are turns onto streets or into round abouts where you are not risking your life. And most people here would rather hit you than yield. And don't get me started about the tailgating here ..... grrrrrrr!!

So I'm stopped waiting to turn right, like any normal person. But apparently I was supposed to just head into the traffic like a crazy Arab driver because that's what the person behind me intended to do, even though I was in front of her.



Collision. She got the worst of it. I felt a jolt in my neck, but nothing serious and it took just a second for the truth to register. I pulled a bit forward and to the side in order to get as much out of the flow of traffic as possible.

The lady who hit me was nice. Not upset or angry. She gets on her mobile phone, I get on mine. Call mom. There's a series of calls. I learn that in order to get my car fixed I have to have a police report. I also learn that I should not move my car at all.

This brings up the only rather odd occurrence. (I mean, besides the accident itself, which isn't all that odd here in Qatar - there's tons of accidents. I don't go a day without seeing a new wreck on the side of the road.) At one point, the lady who hit me says that the police say we should both drive to the police station. She's getting in her car and ready to go. And that strikes me as odd because I was told by two friends I'd called that I shouldn't move. So, a moment of brilliance that should have hit me previously finally does, and I say to the lady, "Ok - I'll follow you, but let me take some pictures first." So I run out to get the pictures you see here, and before I'm even done she says that the police are on their way out to see the accident. I don't know what actually happened. I do not speak Arabic. But it is something that makes me go "hmmm."

See, my dad's been rear ended, and he's the one that ended up with the ticket. In the States there would be no question as to who was at fault. (But then no-fault insurance laws could mess things up--but I digress). But here, I'm a second class citizen because I'm not Qatari. And ideas of "due process" are not exactly fair, at least to American sensibilities. So I was glad that I didn't the ticket.



The lady's husband (I assume) came to help her. There were both very nice. No angry words or even angry looks. In the States, I'd expect angry looks and wouldn't be surprised at angry words, even though it was not my fault. But these Qataris were the definition of civil. I assume they were Qatari by their dress - the abaya and thobe with the head scarf and gutra. My spellings of those words is probably wrong.

Had to go to the police station the next day to get the accident report. A bit of a confusion there because I was told to pay a 300 Qatari Riyal fine. But I had not gotten the ticket, so I couldn't figure out what the fine could be for. After a bit of questioning the policemen there it became clear that the fine was for a speeding ticket my father incurred a few days before I even arrived in the country. But I had to pay the fine anyway. Oh, well.

BTW - that way of collecting on speeding tickets is less effective. The reason for imposing tickets and fines for speeding is to not only punish infractions, but to create safer roads. In order to do that, the imposition of the punishment should be close in time to the commission of the infraction. That way the perpetrator knows when, where and what he or she did wrong and has immediate incentive not to repeat the behavior. The way they do it here is by radar and photographs. But they do not inform the driver of the ticket until he or she gets in an accident or wants to leave the country. A speeding driver could incur thousands in fines and never even know it until months or years later when he finally crashes, maybe even killing someone. It does nothing to immediately improve road safety. It it an effective way to get money. I mean, I had to pay my father's fine.

Rex's Guitar Video

A star is born!

This takes a little bit to load. But Rex is goo-ood. And the end is amusing.

More Pics

By the pool. Shortly after a short exchange with a hairy Turk. See previous post.
A desert rose. According to Wikipedia a "[d]esert rose is the colloquial name given to rosette formations of the minerals gypsum and barite with poikilotopic sand inclusions. The 'petals' are crystals flattened on the c crystallographic axis, fanning open along characteristic gypsum cleavage planes. (See also: Crystallography) The rosette crystal habit tends to occur when the crystals form in arid sandy conditions, such as the evaporation of a shallow salt basin. Gypsum roses usually have better defined, sharper edges than barite roses."

Rex, celebrating being on the honor roll, with good ol' American applie pie and vanilla ice cream. With Old Glory. Wow.
Virgin Mega Store. Sanity. Previously I thought these stores too loud for me. But here, with it's huge English language book section, it is practically Mecca to me.
Unfortunately, not an uncommon sight.

The Dragonfly catcher.

Tim Burton would love the curbs here: they're nearly all black and white striped.

Breaking Employment News

Well - I'm once again randomly employed. As a long term substitute teacher. In ESL.

I should just paper this place with my resume and land a real teaching job.

Paper Dolls

There are some paper dolls sitting here on the desk. Mom printed them up. It's a sweet little girl - late 19th early 20th century looking - with little traditional European dresses. I think Mom and I should color them and have a tea party.

Friday was good - Sacrament meeting about the Sacrament - and I realized something. At the institution of the Sacrament, all of the Gospels have Jesus saying words to the effect of "Take, eat. This is my body." (Italics added) In only one of the gospels, Luke 22:19, he says that the breaking of the bread is to be done in remembrance of him. Three ideas came to mind.

First, thank heavens for the Book of Mormon clarifying that the Sacrament is done in remembrance of the sacrifice, and that transubstantiation is false. In 3 Nephi 18:7 Jesus says clearly, as he does in the one gospel, that the breaking and blessing of the bread is done in "remembrance of [his] body, which [he has] shown unto [the Lamanites and Nephites.]"

But the second thing that hit me is that Jesus is telling us to remember he has a body. It's so painfully obvious that it's hard to explain. We're so used to skipping over the words and going straight for the "doctrinal" stuff that the obvious is missed.

He had a body. And blood. God had a body, with red blood in it.

And more than that - he has a body. We wants us to remember not only the mortal incarnation, but the immortal. Again, the Book of Mormon clarifies this because Jesus says that the Sacrament is to be done in remembrance of the body that he showed to the Nephites and Lamanites, which is his resurrected body. God wants us to remember that he is physical.

The third thing I noticed was that in all of the headings to the LDS edition of the scriptures, the reference to the Lord's instigation of the sacrament is that he "instituted" it. Of course, one man wrote all of those headings (was it B.R. McKonkie? I can't spell his name, and right now I'm a bit bitter at him, so I don't care) so of course there's going to be uniformity in his references to the same act. But it's an interesting word - it implies corporate organization, like an institute. So, at least in all-knowing Brucy's mind, the appropriate administration of the Sacrament implies, nay, requires and organized religion.

Well, that was just deepish. And has nothing to do with paper dolls.

BTW - check out this article on the Mountain Medows Massacre. There's a movie coming out about it, which seems is trying to make Mormons looks bad. Dude, if there's going to any sort of reparations towards descendants of victims, I want my family's land back in Missouri and Illinois! And I want reparations for the psychological harm done to me knowing that, until recently, I could have legally been killed in Missouri just because of my religious beliefs.

Reviewing

Just took a look at my first post on the blog. Funny how life changes things. I had little idea of what I'd write in this thing, and so I wrote that maybe I'd use it "to keep in touch with family as we all spread over the freakin' western United States." I had no idea that the family would spread faaaar beyond the western U.S., much less that I would be one of the farthest flung.

A brief note of today's happenings:

Getting to sleep too late last night. (I'm repeating the same problem at this very moment.)
Hence, waking up too late in the morning and having a generally unproductive morning. I did read the first part of Othello, but that is not one of my life goals. I should have been writing my plays or working on my sewing, or - oh yeah - looking for a job. But no. I read Othello, fell asleep and then watched the last half of Karate Kid 2. Now that's worth my time.

Then, taking Mom to get her trigger point therapy. She sprained her ankle a couple of days ago. It's a not pretty story. So I won't assault you with it. While she was getting that done, I read "Mary Queen of Scots." Had a pleasant and short conversation with a Turkish gentleman. Short made it pleasant. Any longer and I think I would have freaked out. He had given me a flower blossom and he was wrapped in his towel. I was sitting beside the pool.

Then home and a call from a new friend which reminded me about Enrichment tonight. Topic was strengthing marriage and family relationships. I can hardly express the non-excitement I have about that kind of topic. I'm mostly avoiding bitter feelings, which is progress. But certainly not a topic that makes me eager to go. But go I do, because I need to get to know the sisters here. And it turned out to be ok. No major assaults upon my unmarried state. Or maybe I'm just calloused. I think that's more like it. It's a good thing. Then I can actually respond more humanely to people's intentions, instead of their words. And I did get to know several of the sisters. A pleasant evening.

Then home, all alone, in the dark. Yes, I made it home on the dark roads of Doha. That may not sound like much, but it is easy to get turned around in the day, and in the dark roundabouts are even more confusing. Every roundabout looks the same. Got home, and watched the last half of Wayne's World. Wow. My cinema satisfaction today is supreme. I like esses.

The biggest news is that before going to Enrichment, we had a dinner of leftovers, and I was stupid. I was a blunderbuss. In an effort to convince Mom to come to Enrichment, I said all sorts of blunt observations that were in no way calculated to entice anyone, let alone Mom who is stubborn if she feels forced. I wasn't trying to convince her - I was trying to force her. No good. I think I made her feel very badly. I just want her to get out of the house. But I'll have to be more subtle. Of course, she's going to read this and now be on to my more subtle attempts. So I'll have to be sincere too. Subtle and sincere. Anyone know how to do that?