By What Criteria Do We Judge?

This polished metalic red Nissan Altima, with all the trimmings, zoomed passed yesterday. It seemed like some sort of modern chariot. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the comfortable leather seats. Immediately I imagined a cool young professional behind the wheel. But when I looked, it was a surprise to find an elderly man hunched over the steering wheel. Don't get me wrong, I don't hold prejudice against old people. It's just that it wasn't what I expected. Then I began to wonder. Is this old man driving the hot car to make up for the youth he no longer has?

The next thing that flashed through my mind was the old cliche saying, "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything at all." So if that's the case, and it's most likely the old guy in the flashy Nissan wasn't in the best of health, what exactly does he have? Is the car what he has? And he's gonna go out of this world in style?

Then I pictured myself walking through the the glacier cut valleys in the high mountain peaks of Utah last summer. It became painfully obvious to me after day 2 that no matter how much my pack, gear, and outdoor clothing had cost, it was my physical endurance and mind that was gonna get me up the trail. Most people away from the mountain would say I've got my life together. From the outside looking in, they might say something like, "Smart, financially sound, good job, stable, clean, polite, aware of his surroundings ... " Yet in that moment I knew there was something wrong with the way I was being judged. In the mountains, none of these criteria for having it together meant anything. The physical pain was teaching me what was really important. Physical conditioning is what nature demands and I was not prepared to learn this.

So we passed by a couple of Mexican sheep herders living in a make shift cabin protected by a home-made tent. It was filled with supplies, enough to last through the season. They were rounding up horses and walking up and down the steep terrain like it was a walk in the park. They were truly a picture of physical health. And yet, they have nothing as far as material goods is concerned. They may not have even had American citizenship, a social security number, health insurance, savings plan, or anything resembling the old man's metalic red object of desire. And yet, they had more than me or the old man did in that moment.

The next thought racing through my mind is gonna surprise you. Thoughts raced towards a fantasy of an alien spaceship landing in the middle of this crazy scene where middle aged, 401K rich, out of shape, weekend hikers passed by two young, physically fit, poor, minority sheep herders. So, in that moment, I knew that the aliens were gonna have to choose who it was that would be best to abduct. And it wasn't going to me and I was pretty disappointed about it. Most likely the aliens were going to choose a more physically fit specimen. I'd lost out.

To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure what criteria the space aliens would have used to choose their specimen. It seems, however, that these two vastly different experiences were bound to stir up my thinking as to all the crazy things our society uses to judge people. And it's a very confusing thing indeed.

May I list a few examples? And I hope that anyone who reads this will comment about a few more. Here they are.

If you are trying out for American Idol? What matters most is your voice, second is appearance. If you want to win, you need charisma.

If you are religious? You need to dress modestly, not smoke or drink, go to church on Sunday, and it helps if your vocabulary is full of seldom used biblical phrases. But these are only the outward things. To a Saint, physical attributes have very little meaning compared to unselfish acts of kindness and goodness that qualify one for a rich eternal life.

If you are in college? Only two things matter to be successful in getting good grades. Good study habits and/or a high IQ. These forces sometimes seem to oppose one another. But if grades are not important? How much can you drink or do you have a car or .... might be the most important criteria.

If you are rich? The amount of money you have is very imortant.

If you are smart? Intelligence means the most.

If you are dressed well? Clothes mean the most.

If you are healthy? Health means the most.

Is anyone getting the picture? It seems to me that the more I think about this, the more confusing it gets. A person who has it all would be healthy, beautiful, smart, dressed to the nines, rich, have a great singing voice, and ofcourse be charismatic. They would bless other people's lives by quiet unselfish acts of kindness. But if they are all of these things, and don't have health? They don't have much.

Note: Religious peeps have something to look forward to... Mansions in the sky.

Favorite City Spot in Salt Lake City

One of my favorite spots in the city is on Main Street between 2nd and 3rd South. There is a Trax stop, beautiful buildings, and cool places to shop. Sam Weller's bookstore with the Coffee Garden is second to none in my book as a place to sip coffee, have conversation, and stimulate myself intellectually. I took the picture, at left, on a winter January 2008 evening, just a week or so before writing this blog. The Wells Fargo building, it is mis-shaped, is in the background. There's a tree to the right with no leaves and the street lamp bringing light to the people that walk by. The sky is still blue.

Why She Should Not be Secretary of State

I once knew someone who got all those quotes mixed up. I often teased her after she would blurt one out. I'd say something like, "That statement proves to me that you should never be considered for the job of Secretary of State.

Walgreens is open 24/24.
That's apples and eggs.
He got paid under the carpet.
That's where the metal meets the highway.
It's not rocket surgery!
You owe me a buck two ninety eight.

I'd like to hear more, so if you can think of any, please contribute with a comment!

Evil Subsidizes Good

Here's an idea that is not my own but I read about it and want to share it. It seems there are many people in Utah who don't want to see alcohol served in restaurants. They may even complain if it is advertised or in place where their children can see such an evil thing. And yet, not one of them complains about the lower price they pay for their food because the sale of alcohol subsidizes their food bill. Just something to think about next time?

This also reminds me of a semi-religious married couple I once knew. It seems that a certain Molly Mormon stay-at-home wife wanted to continue paying her half of the tithing after her more liberal minded Jack Mormon soul-providing husband decided to stop. Ironically, Molly continued to pay her half and reap all the blessings that the Lord provided. This included things like high esteem by the Lord's anointed, a temple card, church callings, and adoration by her chosen friends and family. And then she spent her husband's half of the tithing on anything that suited her fancy. Who is the selfish one in this situation? Another thing to think about.

It seems that the truth of the situation lies somewhere we would least expect it. Many of what many judge to be "Evil" in our society actually create wealth in some cases. More importantly they allow what many judge to be "Good" to cost less. How much less lower are the taxes for a righteous father of seven due to the fact that his hell bound gay neighbors are childless? Most accidents are caused by drunk drivers according to the news. But what would the Bishop who happens to be an auto insurance broker do if people stopped drinking? He'd most likely have to stop playing golf and start working.

Dining Out

Walked into Squatters the other day and sat at the bar waiting for a table to break free. Two heads covered with knit caps, young peeps, seemed to be enjoying each other's company. They both could be considered part of the pretty people crowd if you looked real closely at them. I'd say they were in their mid twenties or something. Whatever she was eating had created a slight white mustache above the lips. For some odd reason, he wasn't letting her know about it. I fought back the urge to point it out to my friend but finally caved and we had a good laugh about it. My friend continued to watch while I scanned the room for other interesting dining rituals. Next thing I heard was, "She's kind of a sloppy eater". I thought to myself, this may be an exaggeration, but after watching the next large bite get shoved into her mouth, I was in agreement. And still he's not saying anything.

What is it with manners anyway? I mean does it really matter how the food gets from point A to point B? For some reason it's embarrassing to have a smudge of whip cream on your face and a few crumbs on your shirt, but if both are left on the plate, nobody notices. And why have we made a ritual out of eating?

The human animal is just that, an animal. If you boil down eating to it's most basic component, it is an animal instinct. Basically we get hungry. So the food goes into the mouth. And what is a mouth? It is the first step in digesting the food. Digestion? We like to look at another person begin to digest food? What is so great about that?

Some people like to call me an Idaho spud. For the few odd years I spent growing up in a small farming community, I consider myself much benefited from. We learned how to work. Working in the early hours of the morning, watching the sun rise. Working in the hot sun. Working in the evening, watching the sun set. Walking through endless fields of potatoes, making sure they get watered, struggling to make the process of irrigation happen so that somebody, somewhere could eat.

The potato is an odd thing. It's basically a root and if you look at it raw, it looks and feels more like a rock. I was once told that is mostly water but there are nutrients there that make it highly desirable for human consumption. So why don't we just dig these things up, peel them, slice them, and eat them?

It's because they just don't taste that great in their raw form. So more energy is put into the root rock so that it can be turned into french fries, baked potatoes, or one of my favorites, funeral potatoes. It's an extra step that has to be done to most foods before they can find their way into our initial digestive system, otherwise known as a mouth.

So let's skip to the end. What's the last step in digestion? I'll give you a hint. It's your bum bum and duty comes out. Yucky right? And yet this step is just as important as the first one. But there seems to be a big disconnect in the way we treat the first step compared to the way we treat the last one. Instead of making a ritual out of it, inviting friends to share in the experience, we isolate ourselves in a room and just take care of it.

To this day, I have no proof that some of my friends have ever pooped. And yet I've witnessed just about all of them putting something into their mouth. If the item that is inserted, pleases their tongue, they will often crinkle up their face (smile) and show the pearly white chomping mechanisms (teeth). All the while, they will be trying to hide the food that just one second ago was presented to them in the most astonishingly amazing manner.

I don't want to see their food all chewed up. I don't want to hear it going down their throat. I don't want to hear the stomach growling when it hits. I don't want to hear or smell the gas that sometimes results. And I don't want to know that you create little poopers in the potty.

Most people don't hang out in the bathroom with their friends unless they are sisters, girlfriends, or senators from Idaho.

Love - the greatest of all

A friend asked me the other day, "What is love?"

The first thought that entered my mind was that of finding a "romantic love". The next thought were the words to a popular song in the 80s that went like this, "What's love, got to do, got to do with it?" And last but not least, were the words of a wise university psychology teacher, who often repeated his theory that "love is not an emotion".

Is love something you can find or something you can feel?

I am normally not a religious person, but, believe it or not, I do hold onto certain principles, which I call bits of human wisdom, as truth. I believe that these truths, if learned at an early age, can be practiced and can help define who we are as a person. One of those bits of wisdom is an idea called love as it is defined in the Bible. It's contained in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, basically a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the peeps that lived in a town called Corinth, thus they were called Corinthians.

I firmly believe in the truth that Paul was writing about. The basic thought he is trying to convey, as my feeble mind understands it, is that love is greater than anything else. He basically compares love to many other great things. These are things that were seen as great to the piously religious Corinthian type peeps and also important to many peeps living in this century. Here are a few of them. I'll use the words contained in the King James version of the Bible and try to define them in 21st Century American terms.

Prophecy - Foretelling the Future
Tongues - Ability to speak many languages.
Speak with the Power of Men and Angels - charismatic public speaking.
Knowledge - knowledge.
Feeding the poor - charity.
Giving my body to be burned - sacrifice.
Faith - a very strong belief in the an idea that can't be seen, but is true. When acting on the belief, actual results are obtained.
Hope - hope.

Wow, don't these all sound like great things? And yet, Paul tells the peeps in Corinth that these things mean nothing when they do not have "LOVE". And basically he tells the peeps that it is possible to have the qualities listed above and not have love.

So what is love? We're back to that again. Here is how Paul defines it. He uses a word called charity. We've redefined the word charity to mean, taking care of the poor, but that isn't what charity is. Charity is a pure love, the pure love of Christ.

If you are a Christian, you should listen up now, because believe it or not, being a Christian most likely does not mean having a strong belief in Jesus as most people define it today. If you are not a Christian, you can still have pure love and not have a belief in Christ. In other words, you can substitute the love of Christ to the love of God, or define it as pure love. If you are an atheist, I'm not really sure what to say to you, except that when you die, you will be all dressed up, but have no place to go.

Here are some phrases that can be used to describe this pure love. Again, the old English words translated into the 21st century.

Suffereth Long - ability to patiently suffer through hard times without complaining or cursing or causing damage to another human being, species, plant, or spouse.

Kind - respect for another human being, the golden rule, truly caring for another person, not being a mean son of a bitch even if seems like the right thing to do. And no, sometimes you do not have to be cruel to be kind, being cruel and being kind are opposites.

Envieth Not - when you see a person who has it better than you, you say to yourself, I wish I had all the stuff they had, or the beauty they have, or the wife they have, or the child they have. Basically you do not appreciate what you have but want more and more and are never satisfied. This is envy. If you do not envy, you somehow are able to be satisified with what you have and who you have in your life.

Vaunteth not Itself - Vanting basically means putting yourself high up on a pedastal so that everyone can see how great you are. Donate a billion dollars to an organization who builds a building dedicated to curing cancer and make sure it has your name on the front. It is like being a politician who constantly seeks coverage for himself in front of the camera. Sometimes they call this being in the lime light. A person with pure love does not do stuff like this.

Not Puffed Up - Not full of pride. This includes the falicy of righteous pride, which can be seen in every religion across the United States. It's a notion that somehow has infected our society and it goes something like this. If I am righteous, I will be blessed with riches. Therefore if I am rich, I am righteous. Nope, you missed the boat. If you have pure love, you will not be righteously prideful. In fact, you'd better think about coming down a notch or two or moving to a foreign country.

Does not behave unseemingly - Basically this means you do not make an ass of yourself. This can happen in various ways. If someone calls you an ass, you probably have been acting this way, so just take a look at yourself, and say STOP! And just quit doing that stuff. If you've been drinking too much or taking some kind of drug, this does excuse you from acting like an ass. So if you can't drink without acting like an ass, then quit drinking. It's that simple. Don't be an ass.

Seeketh not her own - Doesn't it seem like the purpose of our society is to gather up as many jelly beans as you can? I mean there are only so many and I'm gonna get my fair share damn it! In our case, money is the jelly bean. It's what peeps respect and it's what everyone wants. They'll scrape and save and steal and lie and do every damn thing possible to get as much of it as possible. I want it for me and it's mine and it's mine. And don't use the stupid excuse, "I'm doing it for my kids". Or "I want my kids to have every advantage possible". This is just another phrase that means "I seek after my own" which is the opposite of "Seeketh not her own".

Not easily provoked - Provoked can easily be linked to a word called offended. Let's see, how would that go? Oh yeah, Not Easily Offended. Amazing! So when someone calls you a name, it doesn't really bother you because you are filled with pure love. In fact, it doesn't really matter what anyone says, because it really isn't going to matter one way or the other, especially if it is directed at you as a minority or a lobby or a life style or a religion or a ... Just get over yourself!
I think this means we don't need to outlaw certain "offensive" words. I think it means that words don't really mean much, but what means most is having pure love.

Thinketh no evil - Remember the 3 monkeys that see, speak, and hear no evil? Oops, wrong again. It's not what you hear, see or speak that is the trouble. It's what you are thinking that causes the trouble. Thoughts come first. Before you can steal, you think about stealing. Before you can kill, you think about killing. Before you can invade the privacy of another, you've got to think about. Cut evil thoughts out of your mind and seeing, speaking, hearing will no longer be a problem. Acting on the evil thoughts will not happen if there are no evil thoughts in the first place. Where there is evil actions (smoke) there is evil thought (fire). Pure love starts with your thoughts. Fill your mind with the truth. Fill your mind with kindness. Fill your mind with good and there will be no room for evil.



Beareth All things - There are so many hard things to deal with in this so-called life on earth. For instance, God forbid, someone might actually make a mistake. And due to this mistake, someone else is put in a position to suffer from it. In fact, there are some peeps that walk around this planet constantly causing others to suffer. But that's okay, as long as it's legal. So I guess I'm getting a little off track here but what I'm getting at is . . . in one way or another somebody else is gonna cause you some bad times. The important thing here is not that you get through life without suffering bad times. The important thing is that you handle the bad times gracefully. You are able to grin and bare it. You are not walking around like a victim with blame at the end of your lips or an attorney in your hip pocket trying to obtain what you are "entitled" to. You forget about revenge or cursing a higher power, and get off you bum bum and try a little harder next time. Yes this is part of having love.

THIS BLOG WILL BE COMPLETED AT A LATER DATE.

WT/RN

Coors beer, mullets, an engine in the yard.
Profane cartoons, drunkeness, smoke filled rooms.

Dead lawn, chipped paint on the mailbox, burned out light bulbs.
Bumper stickers, four letter words, cut off shorts, steel toed boots.

Satellite dish, fast food, burping, loud laughter.
Country music, the Army, Patriotism, whatever feels good in the moment.

False knowledge, No need to learn more, Fear of success.
Unpaid bills, court orders, family fueds, wife beater shirts.

Fast cash loans, overtime, layaway, Walmart.