Latter-day Saints and Modern-day Pioneers

Check out this opinion piece by Holly Welker on the Huffington Post. Among her many quotable lines is this one: 

"So this year I celebrate by imagining the Pioneer Day parade of my latter-day dreams. The marshals of my parade wouldn't be men who make pronouncements about doctrine, but the contemporary pioneers who challenge and remake the ways Mormons live their day-to-day lives."

Way Over Yonder

All my grandparents are there. So are a few of my cousins. My dad and each one of his brothers and sisters and their spouses. Not just those aunts and uncles, but my maternal aunt and uncle, too. There are long gone mentors and professors. There are friends I knew fairly well, friends I barely knew, and people who I would like to befriend. 

When I make the journey, I'd like to meet some of the famous members of our club. Guys like Harvey and Stuart and Pyotr. If it were just up to me, the decision might be much easier. I've considered it before, usually just as a fantasy, but once very seriously. Not because I wanted to go, but because staying seemed so painful and pointless. 

I'm glad I resisted the temptation. I'm glad my mental health has improved. But when I read about someone like Todd Ransom and others who sought a way out, I realize I'm still vulnerable. Yes, in someways I'm stronger than I've ever been. I'm healthy, for the most part, and have so much to be thankful for. It has been a beautiful life, a good ride, a wonderful busy day at school. 

And there's more to come. More joy and more pain. More accomplishments and disappointments. More hot sunny days, cold dark winter nights, and those few perfect days we get each spring and fall here in the shadows of the everlasting hills. There are more rides, hikes, swims, fireworks and picnics. More doctor's offices, hospital stays, tears, deaths, funerals, graves and flowers to be placed on graves. There are more hugs and massages. More sunrises, sunsets and wild bells ringing out across the snow. 

I hope to be here. I've made promises I'm going to keep. And I've broken promises, too. Only in my dreams have I slept a summer by his side, but some of my days have been filled with wonder. But I know very well by now that there are dreams that cannot be and there are storms we cannot weather. Sorry to fill a post with so many ripoffs and cliches. 

Happy July 4th from the Castro!

Actually, I'm back in Utah now, but earlier this week I was in San Francisco and enjoyed dinner with friends and my first-ever walk through the Castro. 

The photo shows the former camera shop of Harvey Milk. Which does tie in with Independence Day in this way: Milk lived in a country which, at the time, allowed him to start a business, but not freely associate with the people of his choice. Police still conducted raids and hauled gays off to jail. Milk did much to change that and paved the way for many changes he did not live to see.

Today, if Milk had not be murdered and had married during a certain narrow window of opportunity, he woud have a valid marriage in California. That's huge progress. Yes, there continue to be obstacles, but as of January 1, 2010 six states will actively perform same-sex marriages. That's something to celebrate along with the vision of our founding fathers that as expressed in 1776:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.."

Such alterations are now in progress and I'm grateful to live in a nation which brings me so many blessings including this possibility.

Easter Milk Questions

Bought and watched MILK yesterday, then attended church with the family today. So on Saturday I saw a powerful movie that brought tears and affirmation. Then on Sunday I celebrated the resurrection of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, whose named shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. I felt the spirit both days. I find comfort in the belief that Christ and Milk (and so many other loved ones) are not dead but alive.

What do you think Jesus has to say to Harvey Milk? Does he condemn him as an evil man who broke down needed barriers to keep homosexual sin from becoming even more accepted in a corrupt world? Or is the message more along the lines of well done, you saw injustice and ended up being murdered trying to make this world a better place for all children of our Heavenly Parents?

Maybe the conversation goes something like this, "Harvey, I've got someone I'd like you to meet. You have quite a bit in common. His name is Joseph Smith."