Marriage and Family... the Issues

Marriage and families are very important to Mormons and other people.  We defend the family from attacks that could desecrate and destroy the sacred institution.  Recent discussions and news reports have been on my mind and I want to explore this topic.

I recently heard the term "natural family" being used by some and protested by others.  What is a natural family?  I believe if we looked back in time we would find the natural family grew from individuals mating, reproducing and living with their mates, and children.  At first that seems very familiar, but, wait.  A person in such a family would would grow up to live with with his/her parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, children, and grandchildren.  This extended family would be living together or in very close proximity.  This I believe is the natural family.

I did not grow up in a natural family.  Any chance of the Martinsens living in a natural family was shattered by World War II, when all the men in the family left the Idaho home and farm and never came back.  Each settled somewhere else in nuclear families of their own.  Society, the state, and economics crushed the natural family long ago.  Today we can see remnants of the natural family in the Amish and other cultures struggling to continue in the face of economic pressures.  It can be done, but it is very difficult.

The nuclear family of mother, father and children, who will grow up and leave the home, is a truncated, radically pruned version of the family.  It is an isolated and socially deprived, unsupported organization.  I believe that both parents and children experience greater stress in such families.  The extended family, the natural family has far more internal supports and richer relationships.  I have only seen fleeting hints of the natural family in the occasional family reunions.

If we are interested in protecting and defending the family, we need to understand that the natural family has already been lost.  All we can do now is to pick up the pieces of that shattered institution and try to support them.  Those shards are the nuclear family (the "new natural family"), divorced families, step-parents and their families, single-parent families, foster families, adopted families, and all other forms of partnerships and guardianships.  If we conservatively try to define marriage and family, we risk marginalizing people who do not live with our definition; I can assure you they need our support.

Some discussions focus on same-sex marriages as the greatest attack on marriage and family.  I disagree.  I do not see same-sex marriages as viable reproductive units.  At best they are on par with adoptive families and step-families.  A child will never have more than one biological parent, genetically related to him/her living with him/her.  But, if we were to nullify and not allow same-sex marriages would that save the family?  No.  The vast majority of problems marriages and families would continue to erode the institution.  The problems the family faces are because they are made up of people, and people have problems.  People have problems with marriage and family because it is stressful living with others.  They lack skills they need to cope, they can be selfish, sometimes incompatible with each other, can have mental illness, can be abusive, etc.  Then there are external forces of economics and finances, jobs, etc.  Even in the nuclear family, individuals are often isolated and unsupported as they experience the problems and stresses of life.  Just think of bringing that first new-born infant home!

Among "us heterosexuals" there are plenty of threats to marriage and family.  Not everyone looks at marriage as a sacrament.  People fall in love and just live together.  Then, after the trial period, maybe they will commit to each other for a lifetime.  Some of us are serial polygamists, marrying, divorcing, and marrying again and again.  Married heterosexuals have premarital and extramarital sexual affairs.  We bring many threats to the family ourselves.  It is ironic that we think the greatest threat to marriage and family are people who want to be married.

So, why do LGBT individuals want to be married?  The rhetoric is that they just want to love who they love, but really that is only a part of the reason, in my opinion.  I step back and ask why do straight people want to get married?  What do we get out of it?

Forty years ago, I met Jean, we dated, we walked and talked together with intent.  I felt attracted to her, socially, emotionally, and sexually.  I "fell in love" with her, meaning that I wanted to be with her, mate with her, commit myself to a sexual bond and family life with her... and we got married.  Why?  Well, we were both clearly taught that sex was reserved for marriage, so only through marriage could we have shameless, guilt-free, acceptable sex with each other.  We received a ceremonial blessing and an elaborate celebration, gifts, and a state approved certificate of our special legal status (with tax incentives) when we got married.  Oh, and Jean changed her last name.  Everyone now recognized that we were committed to each other for the rest of our lives and into the eternities.

We could have just moved in with each other to have sex, a life together, and children without the ceremony, celebration, or certificate, but would everyone else around us be as sure of our commitment to each other?

Is this what the LGBT partners want?  They want to be free to love each other and they want to have the ceremony, celebration, and certificate; they want their sex to be shameless, guilt-free, and accepted.  And they want all the same legal status that Jean and I enjoy.  They don't want to hide in some affair, or just live together.  They don't want to just be "partners" anymore.  Again, it is ironic that the greatest threat to marriage comes from those who are fighting to be married.

And, again, as a homophobic, heterosexual, white, middle-class, 60 year-old male, I do not pretend to understand same-sex attraction, its causes or consequences.  As a biology major, I understand sexual reproduction.  So, I do not see same-sex marriages capable of creating "natural families" any more than single-parents, step-parents, or divorced parents can.  I suspect same-sex marriages will have many matrimonial and familial problems to face the best they can... hopefully, with love and support.

In my experience with children and families as a school teacher, counselor and administrator, I tell you there are a lot of different kinds of cohabitation and guardianship out there now.  The nuclear family is only one type of family.  I have have witnessed the challenges children have in these "families."  We may have ideals, but reality rarely approached those ideals.  We all have a lot of work to do if we are going to protect, defend, or save the marriage and the family.

So, where do I stand on the issues of marriage and family?  First, I believe that marriages are religiously, socially, and legally sanctioned sexual unions.  Now, people have sex outside of marriage, but they have to justify it themselves without the support of religion, society, or the state.  I believe that natural families have largely been bulldozed down by modern culture and economics, and replaced with all the other forms of families we have today.  I believe our corporate-owned, mass media is working very hard to convince us to accept all forms of sexuality: straight, gay, polygamous, and polyamorous.  The logical culmination of that acceptance would seem to be the legal status of marriage.  Will this be the progression of marriage and family or its degradation?  I don't know.

Ultimately, the sanctity of marriage and family rests in the minds, hearts, and bodies of every man and woman.  What I do, say, and think impacts my marriage and my family.  I have some work to do.

I am going to give Jean a hug.

What is ________ For? Looking for Purpose.

What is ___________ for?  We fill in the blank with anything and everything.  I am currently thinking about what people are for, but before I tackle that, I metaphorically step back and look at the big picture. What is the universe for?

Creationists and the Anthropic Principle tell us that the universe is here for us, conscious and sapient beings.  We are its purpose.  Well, OK.  Maybe.  Another, evolutionary point of view is that the universe exists as it does and we were lucky to evolve and adapt to existing conditions on this tiny speck of cosmic dust.  Looking down at this dust beneath my feet, I find dirt.  What is dirt, or soil, for?  Well, we buy bags of the stuff to grow plants in, so the purpose of dirt must be to grow plants.  But, in reality, soil exists because the earth's crust has been subjected to physical and chemical erosion, wearing the rock substrate down into this mixture of gravel, sand, silt and clay.  Plants and other organisms have adapted to exploit this environment.  Soil exists, and they have rooted themselves in it.

Now I fill in the blank with people: what are people for?  Well, maybe we have been created by God for a purpose and His representatives, prophets, priests and kings, will tell us what that purpose is.  Or, we evolved as very intelligent, social primates, communicating, grouping together in families, clans, tribes, villages, cities and states.  We naturally socialize.  We work and play, trade things, fight sometimes, and love each other sometimes.  We have a complex set of traits and characteristics that help us adapt to our environment and survive, not necessarily a purpose.

But those prophets, priests and kings certainly give us purpose.  Religions provide us membership in God's Kingdom and compel us to obey His laws and commandments, to live, act, speak, and think in a sanctified way, to pay our alms and offerings to the church, to proselyte, and to die in the service of God.  Governments make us citizens and compel us to obey the laws of the state, to vote, pay our taxes, and to go to war, to kill and die for God, King, and Country.

And now there are new prophets, priests, and kings in corporations to tell us what our purpose is.  We are consumers and must buy their goods and services.  And we must get jobs with them, work as their wage-slaves to produce all the goods and services that we and our fellow consumers must buy.  So we are exploited by corporations, by business and industry.

I am skeptical of the motivations of religions, governments, and corporations.  Despite all those who tell us what our purpose is, I believe that people are adapting to the world, the country, the culture, and the economy we live in.  We are all doing the best we can.

The Physical Challenges

Gravity, Inertia, Friction, Radiation, and Oxidation...

These are the physical challenges of all living things, and the great challenges of my life.  Just getting out of bed in the morning, I have to fight gravity.  Walking up hill to the mail box, I have to fight gravity.  Lifting each and every object, I fight against the omnipresent force of gravity.

And beginning any movement, any action, any task, I have to overcome inertia.  It much easier to remain a body at rest than to apply the force needed to begin, to change.  Inertia is a subtle but constant state to consider as I begin to do anything.

And once begun, I have to keep up certain level of force just to over come the effects of friction.  There is a constant drag on me.  I can't just coast!  And friction is wearing me and all my tools and machines down.  Friction keeps me busy repairing things.

Less visible, the chemical process of oxidation, rusting, corrupts things without out even using them.  We need oxygen to live, but it turns out that the very element we rely on also is poisonous to us at the same time!  We can't escape it, we just have to keep working to hold back oxidation's effects... keep polishing the silverware.

And radiation!  We are being irradiated by cosmic rays... the universe is hostile to us; we are being irradiated by the sun... it gives us light and life and then can take it away; and we are being irradiated by the earth itself... how can our Mother Earth leak radon gas into our homes?

So how do I face these challenges?  I get up.  I get moving.  I keep going.  I open the windows and breathe deeply and defiantly.  And, I go outside with a hat on... usually.  Life is all about overcoming these challenges as long as I can.

Small, Simple and Shy

I have seen others much greater than I will ever be.  I have seen the redwoods, I am but a dandelion.

I have heard others compose great speeches, epic poems, novels, and dissertations; I can barely write a paragraph, or string four lines together.

I have witnessed great courage, people plunging honestly into the battle knowing their opponents; I timidly hold my peace at the price of my integrity.

But, I will keep going the best I can...  small, simple, and shy.

just a thought...

Happy Back to the Future Day!

We Made It!

A Reflection on Time

When I was a boy I imagined the future with me in it.  I would be the one riding in rocket ships exploring other planets.  I was going to be the scientist, or the teacher, the philosopher, the poet.  Now I imagine the future, but I am not in it.  The future belongs to my children and grandchildren.  I know I will not be there.

It's a little sad.  I really want to hang around and see how our story plays out.  Will we get our collective heads straightened out to actually live together in peace on this shared planet?  I hope so.

It's only a little sad because I am living in a wonderful age as it is.  So many things that were only imagine when I was a boy are real now.  We are surrounded by miracles!  I can learn anything I want, travel around the world if I want, see anything I want.  Information explodes at my fingertips.  I carry a library in my hand.  I almost have no unanswered questions.  Art and music have transcended their humble pigments and acoustics to become ethereal.  Artists now can paint with pure light, and musicians compose with pure sounds.  And even more vital to our future, people are connecting to each other in ways that were not physically possible before.  Communities also transcend our locality.  People are becoming global citizens.  It amazes me!

I love being here now!

Why Are We Frozen?

Most of us have frozen our thinking, making our view of the world stable, consistent, and understandable.  It makes our world familiar and safe.  We will stick to our thinking, hold on to it with a death grip. draw our swords to defend it, unleash tirades to argue away all other views.  We love it when others agree with us, and hate it when they don't.

But do our static thoughts actually fit the dynamic universe we live in?  Our environment changes from moment to moment like the light and shadows on my wall.  The light changes, the wind changes, the seasons change...  even mountains change.  Why do we then try to put everything neatly into a box and say with all our hearts that this is the way things are?  Why do we try to stop the sun from moving?   Why do we think we can control the wind or the weather?  Why are we so satisfied with jars of peaches in our pantries?  Truth, what ever it is, surely cannot be bottled and put on the shelf.

What would happen if I simply let go of certainty, and admitted that I don't know, that I don't have the answers?  What would happen if I let my thoughts thaw out and become as fluid as water?  I don't know...

Dead End

There are times... when I just hit a dead end.  I can't go forward and I hate going back; so I stand here frustrated.

My 4-year old grandson does not have the same feeling about dead ends.  He explores every possibility of a maze.  He knows the goal is to find the way through, but he also does not want to leave every other path way unexplored and unmarked.  He visits every part of the maze with great delight.  In the end, you really can't find the one correct path on his page.

My son-in-law, I believe, does not look at dead ends the way I might.  He comes to the end of the road and looks at the opportunity to go off-road!  (He has a jeep, an ATV, and, if they don't work, hiking boots.)  Road?  He doesn't need a road!

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the signs say, dead ends are just in my mind.  I will turn around and get on with the journey.

Just don't follow me thinking I know where I am going.

the problem of being connected

There is a problem with being connected to the rest of the world, to seeing global news on the TV and internet, and to knowing what is happening to others around the world.

I see innocent men, women, and children suffering, in the depths of deprivation because of war or natural disasters; but there is so little I can do.  I can donate a little to a fund to help.  I can write my elected representatives.  Really, I can do very little.  I feel my humanity being torn away from me as I watch these scenes reported in my living room.

If it were closer, I could offer my assistance, but it's on the other side of the globe.

Part of me would just turn off the news and cut the cables that connect me to the rest of the world... I would hide in the woods, living off the grid...  Would that restore my peace of mind or my humanity?

They say to think globally, but act locally.  That is doable, but it hasn't seemed to reach far enough.  I can see much farther than I can ever reach.  And that is the problem of being connected to the world.

My Sphere of Experience

I live inside a tiny bubble of experience.  Within this sphere are all the things that I can actually see, hear, touch, and otherwise sense.  Beyond my personal experience are the stories that I can learn from others.  Without being there with them, I have to imagine what they tell me about things beyond my horizon.  I have no direct knowledge of what they tell me, but if I can trust them, and trust my imagination, I can learn many wonderful things from them.

If necessary I can go see for myself, bringing the event witnessed by another into my personal experience.  I can look at any evidence that the person may have collected from the event he/she witnessed.  Lacking objective evidence, I can also check what is reported to me from beyond my bubble with what I have experienced, and maybe verify it (make it "true") for myself.  Perhaps more than one trusted person reports the phenomenon.  The least favorable way of verifying some claim is to compare what I imagine it to be with some other imagined thing.

It is hard to live inside such a small bubble of experience.  There are a lot of things that I just don't know... but a lot that I imagine.

Human: a simple definition.

Human: an animal that digs, moving dirt and rocks from one place to another.

I am an example of a human (at "Glitter Mountain," AZ)

Another example. 

ObamaCare

The Affordable Care Act, aka: Obamacare, has sure benefited us.  A high deductible health insurance policy that would have cost over $1,200.00 per month, and taken almost half our retirement check, only costs us about $300.00 per month.

Thank you everyone, for helping us have decent health insurance.  Thank you.

Interest Rates

Just me, but I would love to make more interest on our savings...  I don't know what effect it would have on the rest of the economy, but it would good for us.

The Alien Invasion Has Begun!

No, this little guy is not the alien...  the alien took his picture.

We scare ourselves with cinematic visions of extraterrestrial invaders.  They come from other planets for some resource that we possess in abundance (water, humans, air...), and they have no sympathy for us at all.  All these characteristics (except the other planet thing) sound very familiar.

We are the aliens.  Though our evolutionary history is from this planet, we left it long ago to live an artifactual life "above" this Earth.  When we first put soles on our feet, built fires and shelters, used weapons, and planted seeds, we separated ourselves from nature and our own planet.  Today we have created artificial entities, corporations and nations, to distance ourselves even more from the ecosystem and all others.  Our machines plow down trees, mountains, creatures of all kinds, and humans that get in our way.  We use everything and everyone to sustain our way of life; because our way of life is all that is important to us.

We are the aliens, and it is telling that we scare ourselves when we look at ourselves through others eyes.  We are the invaders, the predators.  We are destroying the Earth for the resources we need to feed our machines and our selves.  We are the conquerors and the conquered at the same time.  We are invading... resistance is futile...

Integrity

Integrity is the state of being whole and undivided.  In a social/ethical sense it means that one is not divided in word and deed, that what he says is what he believes.

Taken by my 2 year old granddaughter, Emma.

Integrity is a man-made concept.  My body is an example of integrity only in the grossest sense.  I appear to be undivided on the surface, all contained in my skin, my "person."  But a closer look reveals that I am at best a leaky bucket.  I have my cells, but I am also a vast, complex ecosystem of micro-flora and fauna.  I am living within a cloud of personal particles and bacteria, and I leave a pat of me behind where ever I go.  The very elements, atoms and molecules that make up my body are constantly being exchanged for new ones.  I am a cloud, a semi-stable, persistent whirlpool of stuff that I ate, drank or inhaled.

I doubt I can ever be integral.  My mind swirls with new ideas, hypotheses, and opinions with the influx of daily data from my experiences.  Though there is some continuity - I still recognize myself as me - I must say that my thought flow in a river that is never the same from day to day.  What I think today, I may doubt tomorrow.  Such inconsistency does not qualify me as one having integrity.

I hope that when someone wiser looks at what I am... a mosaic of many thoughts and ideas, a collection of experiences and actions, he or she might see an integrity that I have missed because I was looking far too closely.

As fuzzy, cloudy, and messy as I am, I am still me... just me.

simplicity

I believe in simplicity.  I believe believe in straight lines from point A to point B.  I believe in Ocam's Razor, that the simplest answer to a problem or question should be accepted.  I believe in human-scaled solutions to problems whenever practical.  I believe truth can be expressed simply in a few words, or maybe an equation.  I believe that even though there are over 100 elements, the "elements" of light (sunlight), water, and earth (soil) may sufficiently explain many interactions of my life.  I believe in simplicity.

Fear Tactics... not a fan.

I am tired of people threatening me everyday.  Start with religious leaders: If I don't toe the line, remain faithful to the reading schedule, the meeting schedule, and the service schedule, I will fall prey to the devil and lose my ticket back to God's loving arms.  The world is dangerous!  Seen and unseen enemies lurk only inches away to snare me.  And, the world is going to end next Wednesday, so you have a little time to get right with God before He destroys everything.  And, you better get on the right side of God because when Christ (the Prince of Peace) comes again He will lovingly destroy all the wicked.  Be afraid... be very afraid.

Then there are the politicians:  Our country is on the way down into chaos.  Our God-given liberties are being threatened.  Terrorists are crowding in on us, they are already in our midst, ready to release weapons of mass destruction.  The federal government is a massive conspiracy reaching into our lives to enslave us (So they all want us to elect them to take the helm of this great evil...)  Thank God we have our guns!  We are going to need them!  And it could be next Wednesday...  Be afraid... be very afraid.

It's too late for us to save ourselves from catastrophic climate change.  The polar bears are the first to go!  China will take over the world.  North Korea will rain destruction down on our capitalist heads.  Mexicans are migrating in taking all the really good jobs that we need for our children.  Common Core Curriculum is brain washing our children, dumbing them down so they can never compete with the Chinese, or the Mexicans...  Drugs are poisoning our society!  Guns are killing innocent people!  Cancer is killing us all.  The Sun may blow up!  And there's a monster black hole in the center of the Milky Way!  Be afraid... be very afraid.

First... do fear tactics really work?  As a junior high teacher, I found that the more I threatened, the more problems I had with kids.  Threats do not work.  Fear may be a motivator, but it can only be sustained for so so long.  Fear does not inspire anyone to do good works.  We just cover our butts and watch for our enemies.

And, I already know that I am going to die (hopefully not today).  I already know that I am not safe from the tribulations of life.  I already know that I am not as free as I would like to be sometimes.  I am already afraid of the dark, of heights, and of spiders...  I don't need everyone telling me that I am living on death row...

I hear all the threats, the fear mongering...  but I am listening for Hope, Vision, Values.  I am listening for Humanity.  I am listening to someone say that we have a great future ahead of us... that we can embark on a great adventure.  There may be risks, but we are up to them all.  Let's go!

still true...

I am STILL not voting for any of these candidates...

Problems vrs Solutions

I once tried to teach junior high students about the relationship between order and energy or work.  In a social experiment I had them put away books as fast as possible, while I timed them.  The books were thrown onto the the shelves in no order at all.  Then I told them that they had to be in order, upright on the shelves.  With the stop watch ticking away, the kids still hurried as much as they could, but they also communicated a lot more and there were a couple who rose to lead the process and insure that the books were indeed in order.

I could give thousands of examples.  Children naturally pull out every toy from the toy box and scatter them around the house.  A park naturally becomes littered.  Our houses become cluttered, as do our daily lives.  Disorder, or "chaos" is easy and may, in fact, be a natural state within many systems.  Order requires work and the expenditure of energy.

It is very easy to spot problems; it is a lot more work to solve those problems.  Creating "order," creating solutions, and fighting entropy requires more time, energy, work, communication, and leadership.   I believe it is a law of nature.

Hell is easy... Heaven on Earth will require a lot more work.  

We are busy!

The grandkids are here...  I have no time for posting today.