Thursday Morning Prayer

Dear Father in Heaven, Thank you for the blessings of this day, of this week, of this year and the years preceding it. I'm grateful for the beauty of this week's snowfall, and I'm so thankful that I regained my balance so many times when I slipped and almost fell. Was it me alone? Did I have some steadying help from my guardian angel? Thank you, however you delivered the miracle, that I did not fall. Thank you for our planet, our country, our lives and fortunes. I'm grateful for the moments of optimism I felt as I watched the State of the Union and listened to the State of the State addresses. I'm grateful that I have been able to work, worship, write, read, rest, laugh, eat, sleep, dream, shower, shave, breathe, move, walk, sit, feel, love, mourn, pray and plan this week. I pray that I will continue to live life in thanksgiving. Thank you for the wonderful family, friends, associates, neighbors, citizens, activists, leaders, writers, programmers, singers, musicians, artists, strangers and all of those unseen contributors and laborers who touch my life each day. Please continue to bless them, please continue to bless me that I might not take them for granted. Bless this planet, your planet, our planet this day. Bless all of us here that we may comfort those who die, rejoice for those who are born, and help all of us who live that we might be grateful for our lives, but see beyond ourselves to those we love, those who love us, those we find easy to love and those who are not so easy to love, but need love, need a smile, need a hug, need our blood, our company, our expertise, our substance, our encouragement, our creativity this day. May we contribute what what we can with gratitude for what we have, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Alone but not Lonely

(Gay) Mormon Guy's post about Fitting In prompted me to write the following. I figured I might as well share it here and ask for your thoughts and insights.


Hey MG, 

First of all since I don't know your name, I hope you're OK with MG as nick name. If not let me know and I'll abide by your wishes.

Second, I relate to your post. Even when I am among friends and family, I sometimes feel the same as you, like I don't fit it. So here's the little talk I sometimes have with myself. "You are unique. You are one of a kind. Even if you had an exact twin, your spirits would be different. Enjoy the difference, but also be aware of how much we share. All of us on this planet are brothers and sisters. We are all subject to hunger, thirst, fatigue and loneliness. None of us is exempt, but no matter what our situation at any given moment, we have opportunities to respond, not just to react, but to draw upon our God-given talents and abilities and feel the connection we share with the other mere mortals in our proximity." 

Third, do I always do this? Of course not. It is an ideal. But it is worth striving for. Some people may characterize this approach as "fake it until you make it" but that's not what I'm advocating. I'm saying that sharing our authentic and sometimes vulnerable feelings can sometimes help another person and ourselves feel more at ease, more accepted.

Fourth, at this moment I am sitting in a darkened room. A small amount of light is glowing from my laptop screen. The other light is from the Christmas lights hanging outside my windows. I've opened all the blinds so I can see the snowstorm. I am alone, but I don't feel lonely because I know you'll be reading this message later, and although we've never met I consider you a friend. 

Fifth, I know that conditions outside are cold and dangerous, but I choose to see the beauty. The room would be warmer if I closed the blinds, but then I'd miss the beauty of the storm. I hope this finds you warm and happy. I hope it will brighten your outlook in someway and I hope you will know and feel that you are not alone.


(End of Message to MG)


So what do you think? How do you deal with fitting in or not fitting in? How do you feel when you're inside and you know that snow is softly falling outside?

My thanks to my toes, and you, and you, and you, and you

As I awakened on this Thanksgiving morning of 2010, I thought of my toes and other things I'm thankful for on this cold wintry day in Salt Lake City.

Toes - They're the farthest or is it furthest from my heart, yet they still live. Their nails grow much more slowly than my fingernails. I keep them in the dark almost year round, only letting them out a few days in the summer or a few minutes a day when I shower. They must love it when I swim when they're not only free from sox and shoes, but when the gravity and the weight of body they usually endure are all topsy turvey and wonderfully different. Thank you toes for supporting me. For helping me balance. For giving me perspective about those I care about even when you're far from my heart physically, I still love you. I rely on you. I'm grateful for you. Thank you, toes.

Pipes - I'm grateful for you, too. You pipes in my walls, and in my yard and under my street and your cousins the wires in the air and underground, copper and fiber, all of you. Without you, taking a drink or taking a dump would be so much more difficult. I couldn't write these words as easily and effortlessly save them in the cloud, the cloud wouldn't even exist, nor would the orange "publish post" button, if not for you, dear pipes of all sizes and functions. Like my toes, you are hidden, but like my toes I rely on you so much. Thank you. Thanks for water, heat, electricity, television, telephone, and all that is online. Thanks for quietly and almost flawlessly carrying away gray water and worse. And thanks to all the people behind all the pipes. I sometimes think of myself alone in my home with my loved ones, but we are not alone, we are connected to so many necessities and much more thanks to you, our dear pipes, and those who maintain you and make possible the contents you carry.

ABCs and QWERTY - In the beginning, we're told, was the word. If so, then in the pre-existence there was the alphabet. I'm grateful today for alphabets and words and the expression, and creation and communication they make possible. I learned the QWERTY keyboard in junior high. It has served me so well though the decades. I'm using it at the very moment I write this, and you could not so easily read my words without it. I did not have to form the letters with a pen or pencil. I did not have to find the bin and then find the letter made of lead in reverse and then place it in a tray and then find the next letter and the space and the ink and the paper, the press and the labor, the drying time and distribution. No, all I had to do was press a key and my fingers knew exactly where it would be thanks to QWERTY. For letters, words, keyboards and sentences, paragraphs, typewriters, computers and broadband, I am grateful this day. 

Fingers - Just because I wrote of toes first, did you really think I would fail to mention you, my ten good friends? Thank you for your beautiful functionality. Thank you for your length ratios which, like my counter clockwise hair sworl, are a physical indication of my great challenges and gifts as a bisexual man. Thanks for all you do. Ringman for working with that extra weight of gold more than three decades now. Thank you all for helping with so much everyday. Thank you for letting me touch and feel. For helping so much with buttons, zippers, keys, driving, holding and so much more. For being an integral part of so many handshakes and hugs, caresses and the holding of hands, pets and more. Thank you for working as a team. Please accept my apology for sometimes forgetting you. I try to clip your nails weekly, but as you know, I sometimes procrastinate. In this weather I should make sure that you get lotion and wear my gloves out in the cold. Thank you for all you've done, all you do, all you will do. Thanks, my fingers and thanks for the fingers of others who have touched and served me in countless ways.

FAM - Thanks to mom and dad, grandpas and grandmas, a dear wife, caring offspring, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces. And those of you who read these words, you, in my book are also family. We are all brothers and sisters, are we not? Like the family members I have listed above, you have helped and loved me, each in your own way, and I appreciate and love you, too. How can that be possible when so many of us have not met face-to-face and we hardly know each other, if at all? Well I've never met two of my grandparents face-to-face either. They were dead long before my birth, but I still appreciate them. I appreciate you, too. Not in the same way, of course, but in an important way nonetheless. I can write without readers, but what a difference it makes to write knowing that someone will read and a few will comment. Thank you for that and much more my moho fam. 

Well it is time for me to rise and shout, even though I'm much more red than blue in my Salt Lake County/Utah County affiliations. No matter where you live, north south, east west, East coast, or Alaska, overseas, or Texas, rural Utah or Hawaii or New York City, I am thankful for you. Thanks for writing and reading, being my Moho bros and sisters. I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving today, that you give thanks and find that the thanks you give are thanking you back. If you're here in frigid Utah may find joy in the warms that protects you. If you are warm Texas, Hawaii or San Diego, may you be especially grateful for the warmth of climate.

Again and again, thanks to my toes, and you, and you, and you, and you.

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 Kindling New Year

Kindle, it used to be a perfectly acceptable verb and now, thanks to Amazon, it's a noun and brand. Nonetheless I like some of the associated definitions. Kindling works as either a noun or a verb:

• material for starting a fire
• ignition: the act of setting something on fire

And kindle, as a verb, has several evocative meanings:

• kindle - catch fire; "The dried grass of the prairie kindled, spreading the flames for miles"
• kindle - cause to start burning; "The setting sun kindled the sky with oranges and reds"
• kindle - arouse: call forth (emotions, feelings, and responses); "arouse pity"; "raise a smile"; "evoke sympathy"

I thought of the word this morning in relation to scripture reading of all things. Maybe trying to jump into daily scripture reading is like trying to ignite a large block of wood. You'll waste your match unless you have some kindling. So I'm going to start 2010 by taking a look through my marked copies of the scriptures. To me that's like getting a fire started with some kindling. I'd like to be a strong spiritually as the pixilated guy appears, of course I'd also like to be that strong physically, mentally, financially, romantically--well you name it. Here's to kindling strength in each other, in our loved ones, and in ourselves in the New Year.

So those are a few of my thoughts on this first day of the year. What do you think? As you look ahead what do you see on the horizon, or perhaps just beyond it, for the year ahead?