Running, Part Deux

My oldest three ran a mile race this evening. Here are their times in order of age, oldest to youngest:
8:56
10:45
8:47

Wow, that third child can move fast! I think they all did great! I actually think their times could have been faster, but there was a lot of slow moving at the beginning because of the large number of children racing. The second child was running with a friend and I think that slowed her down even more.

My wife also ran a 5K race and did really well! It was her second run and she came really close to her first time, but she actually went a bit slower to stay with a friend, so she felt like she improved. Interesting that that happened with both my girls tonight. They sacrificed their times for social interaction. My boys and I would never have thought to do something like that.

Women are Beautiful

Walt Whitman wrote a poem entitled 'Beautiful Women' that reads:

Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,
The young are beautiful - but the old are more beautiful than the young.

Since reading that a few weeks ago, I've been watching women around me a little more closely. I've been noticing their delicate forms, the way they move just a little more gracefully than I do, the way their smaller, smoother frames compare to the bulky, jagged, awkward frames of men. I've been noticing my wife and as I watch her develop wrinkles and other little signs of age, I think what a story those signs tell of a life given to building a family, serving people around her, and trying to lift up instead of tear down. She has always been physically beautiful in my opinion and, though she still has room for growth, she grows more beautiful in other ways every day. She is more beautiful on the inside than when I first met her and the wrinkles tell a story of a beauty that can't readily be seen. But I see it. And because I see it, she looks more physically beautiful to me than ever before. I wonder if that's sort of what Whitman saw.

Earlier this week, I was riding a bus and in the seat across the aisle from me, I saw an older couple, maybe in their 60s. The man had his arm around his wife's shoulders and they were leaning toward one another. They looked happy together. I stole a few glances at the woman's face. It looked a little worn out, skin sagging, but her eyes were bright. Her face seemed to radiate something that no amount of make-up or fashion could mimic. That old woman looked absolutely beautiful.

Portrait of Virginia McKenna

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature,
But beautiful old people are works of art."
-Author Unknown

Seeing beautiful women like that, young or old, is as refreshing to me as watching a sunrise or sitting by a quiet lake. Men just don't have that effect on me. In fact, men are just bulky, awkward, and ugly. I really don't see what women see in men, but I'm glad they see something valuable. I'm glad my wife sees something redeeming in me that makes her want to stick around. And I'm thankful she lets me admire her beauty without being self conscious about it. It's refreshing and fulfilling. I really think our nature requires both male and female to feel complete. That's my experience and while I can't claim it to be universal, I'm fairly confident it is.

Adam called his wife's name 'Eve' because she was the mother of all living (Gen 3:20). The Hebrew word for Eve here was 'Ḥawwāh' or 'Khavah', meaning 'source of life'. Adam treasured this companion God gave him immediately and recognized her as a source of life, naming her accordingly. Women are beautiful treasures, gifts from God, and they have a unique gift that allows them to participate much more closely than men in the process of creating new life. What a miracle to be part of that process and to be married to a beautiful woman who allowed me to take part in it with her. Thank God for beautiful women.

My New Toy

Emily bought me an early Christmas present and gave it to me this week. Thanks to some great salesmanship from friend and colleague, Matt, I got excited about spending some money on a new toy. I love to read, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for me to want Amazon's new Kindle. Emily bought me the 3G version.

I've been playing around with it for a couple of days and already have about 45 books and a few samples. Everything I have has been free, but I'm looking at getting a few multi-volume works for a buck or two a piece. It's amazing how much stuff is out there for almost nothing when there's no more copyright. And I don't read much modern literature, so I've been looking at the classics.

Here are some of the authors I've downloaded so far:
G.K. Chesterton
Howard Pyle
William Shakespeare
Jane Austen
Charles Dickens
Leo Tolstoy
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Homer
Plasto
Aristotle
Cicero
Robert Frost
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Jonathan Swift
Robert Louis Stevenson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Thomas Paine
Benjamin Franklin
Louisa May Alcott
Karl Marx
Albert Einstein
H.A. Lorentz
Alexandre Dumas
Niccolo Machiavelli
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Gaston Leroux
Sun Tzu
Confucius

How much wisdom of different ages and cultures did I just download for free? That Kindle is an amazing device! I am having so much fun with it already. I've read some of the works already, but the vast majority of them are new to me and I'm thrilled I got them for free and now I have a whole library of books in a little device that's physically smaller than the print version of any single book in the collection.

I'm going to be doing quite a bit of traveling in the near future, so Emily was sweet enough to buy it for me before Christmas so I could enjoy it on a few long flights. Thanks Emily! You are so nice to me.

And thanks to Matt for selling me on the Kindle. I think I owe you a commission, pal. Good luck getting it from me, though. :) And to all of you who have been thinking of getting a Kindle and this post pushed you over the edge ... Merry Christmas. I'm not ever planning to make money off this blog, so enjoy your new Kindle and you can thank me later.

Armies

My oldest just shared one of his favorite jokes:

Q: Where do Kings keep their armies?
A: In their sleevies!

Cute, huh?

Overworked

I've been focused too much on work lately. Business has been great and although I much prefer that to the alternative, it sure makes it difficult to balance other priorities.

Thankfully my children have been very understanding and supportive. We've had some time on weekends to play and although the work week gets very long, they seem to be ok with it as long as I wrestle with them, tickle them, and play with them on Saturday and Sunday and occasionally on weekday evenings when possible. My kids are so fun to play with.

And Emily is a gem. She has been so supportive of all the time I've spent away from her lately and really sweet to welcome me home with a smile and a kiss every night instead of a guilt trip. Thanks, pretty lady. Remind me to pay you back later.

Business goes in cycles. This crazy period won't last forever. I just need to keep my focus on the important things and fight through the busy time.

School Board Meeting

Emily and I took our oldest son to a school board meeting last night. He was presented an award for being one of the top readers in his school. The district uses a computer-based testing system to evaluate how well the students have understood the material in various books they read. Depending on how well they do on the test, how difficult the book is judged to be, and their current age/grade, they are assigned a certain number of points for each test they pass. My son read all of the Harry Potter books over the summer and since they were judged to be several grade levels above my son's current grade, he scored big points on each of those tests. That series gave him a big head start, but he didn't stop there. He reads all the time and just keeps racking up the points. The superintendent presented awards to the top four students based on the points they had earned so far during the year.

My son received a certificate stating he had about 230 points. Apparently he was the top scorer; the second student had about 140 points! Wow. I think it's great that he has learned to read so well and he loves it so much! I don't think there's any academic skill more valuable at his age and I think it's great he has embraced it so well.

Swimming

For about the last twelve months, I have been swimming pretty regularly to try to get back in shape. After several years of a full schedule including work, school, family, and other stuff, I was a mess physically. I used to swim in High School and although I was never very fast, it's nice to have that background to help me feel comfortable enough to make swimming a regular workout. It's great because it works just about every muscle in my body and stresses my heart and lungs at the same time. I'm still not a great swimmer, but I love the way it works my body and I love the way I feel after I'm done.

One of the things I never got used to as a teenager was the lack of air. Swimming long distances always forced me to take a breath every other stroke because I never felt like I had enough oxygen to keep my muscles moving if I didn't. The oxygen problem got worse when I learned to do flip turns because there were stretches of time at each end of the pool when I didn't get any oxygen as I flipped, pushed off from the wall, and kicked under water as far as my momentum would take me.

For the last year, I have been avoiding flip turns because of that problem. But my lung capacity seems to be improving with time and this last week, I did flip turns during the entire workout. It sure hurt my lungs, but it felt really good afterward! I don't have a racing suit, just a regular swimsuit with drag, but it works. In 30 minutes, I'm able to swim as much as 1500 yards, though I don't always do that. Last week, with flip turns wearing me out and a few sprints, I swam 1200 yards in 30 minutes. I'd like to swim for 45 or 60 minutes, but it's tough with my schedule right now.

I love that I'm getting stronger. I love that my endurance for physical activity has increased dramatically. I love the way I feel when I'm (sort of) fit. I love being able to see my distance go up, my times go down, my strokes improve, all that good stuff. That kind of growth is really satisfying to me.

Run!

My third child ran about 1.5 miles this week at school in about 12 minutes. That's about an 8 minute mile. For a boy his age, that is pretty amazing! This is the same child who figured out how to ride a bike without any instruction. I don't want to pigeonhole any of my children, but I can't help but think this child is going to be very athletic.

His PE teacher was so amazed that he called him into his office after the run and gave him a free T-shirt. Apparently, no one his age ever runs so far in the allotted time. Pretty cool, huh?

Priestcraft and Idolatry

The LDS Church has a rather unique definition of the term 'priestcraft'. A Book of Mormon prophet named Nephi tells us, "priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world" (2 Nephi 26:29). Sometimes people with good intentions see the value they can offer to others with their wisdom, faith, or other gifts God has given them, allow pride to creep in, and begin to set themselves up as a light to others. Rather than walk by the light of God, they begin to walk after their own light and fulfill the words of Isaiah: "Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow." (Isaiah 50:11).

On the flip side, we may look up to leaders, whether political, religious, or whatever, and allow their influence to displace the influence of God as the primary influence in our lives. If we look up to someone so much that we become dependent on them in a moral, religious, intellectual, or other similar way, we may be in danger of allowing our regard for them to displace our worship of God. If anyone becomes more important to us than God, we have probably fallen into the trap of idolatry. God told Moses: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). God didn't say that because He needs our worship to feel validated. He said it for our benefit. We need to look to Him in order to find truth, joy, and all that good stuff He offers us.

It occurred to me recently that priestcraft and idolatry are two sides of the same coin. On the one side, priestcraft is setting yourself up to be a god to someone else. On the other side, idolatry is looking up to someone as if they were God. Either one of these is harmful to all parties involved. Priestcraft may exist without idolatry (in which case, the priestcraft is unsuccessful and the would-be 'priest' probably ends up frustrated or clueless) and idolatry may exist without priestcraft (maybe a more common occurrence), but when they are combined, I think they tend to reinforce each other and all parties involved may go down in a spiral of pride and destruction.

I'm afraid both priestcraft and idolatry are alive and well in our world today. Though we don't bow down before statues of stone, golden calves, or other man-made deities, many of us do worship the works of our own hands (or the works of others). We may worship cars, jewelry, fancy clothes, or other status symbols. We may worship wealth, power, fame, prestige, praise, honor, etc. Or we may feel a sense of comfortable pride that we avoid all these things and yet still fail to keep our focus on the one Being who can teach us all truth and guide us into happiness and joy. Perhaps we worship leaders, whether political, religious, scientific, or otherwise. If our number one priority isn't God, we have probably fallen into the trap of idolatry. And if we seek to displace God in the life of someone else, perhaps someone who looks up to us, even our spouse or our own children, we are doing them and ourselves no favors. Idolatry and priestcraft sever us from the most important relationship in our lives. They can kill us spiritually. And yet I am convinced that they are very common.