Monday, February 6, 2017

Why Must I Be Quiet?


Why should I just keep quiet?

They told me that if I didn't vote, I had no right to complain... I disagree, but I voted anyway.  But I didn't vote for Trump.  I don't like Trump.  I wouldn't buy an used car from Trump.  And there are those who tell me to shut up and give Trump a chance.  Why should I keep quiet?


Why should I keep quiet in church?  I don't see things the same as others in the chapel, but I don't want to offend anyone.  I want to keep my temple recommend and my membership.  So I must be quiet.

Why should I be quiet in my family?  Again, I don't want to argue, or to hurt anyone's feelings.  So, I keep quiet.

The result is that I participate in small talk, nothing really important, nothing that really matters.  And I feel very alone, and very quiet.

Freedom of speech... what a joke!

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

My Rights


I have been thinking about my rights as a human being.

Do I have a right to life?  Well, here in my community I believe that my right to life is respected.  I feel no immediate threats.  But, I also recognize that all that could change in a heart beat.  I could be the victim of a random shooting in a public place, a home invasion, a collision with a drunk driver.  And if I were to leave my relatively safe community and travel to other parts of this nation and world, would everyone recognize my right to life?  Naturally, cosmically, the universe offers no guarantees to my life, there are diseases that could threaten my life, accidents can happen.  My own body refuses to guarantee my life with the possibilities of cancer, heart disease, etc.  If I were given a certificate proclaiming my right to life, what value would it have?

I have a right to liberty.  Do I?  Maybe here, but what about anywhere I might go?  Am I completely free or have I given up some freedoms to live in a family, to work and earn a living, to be a part of a church or community?

I have freedom of speech, don't I?  My observation is that the higher one rises in an organization, the less freedom of speech he/she has.  Every word is analyzed, and so you have to be very careful and restrained in what you say.  Today I cannot say everything that I believe because of the impact it would have on my family.

My rights may be comforting illusions, ideals that still need to be fully realized in the world.  I will feel safer when all killing ends, when there are no senseless murders, police shootings, or executions.  I will feel safer when a person can say whatever is on his mind without being attacked by the politically correct.  I will safer when kidnappings, imprisonments, and slavery are ended.  Until the rights of everyone are secured, my liberties are illusions waiting to become real.  Fear is never liberty.

Our civil liberties, our human rights are ideals.  They are what we want to have, not necessarily what we actually enjoy.  That is why each of us must continue to be vigilant and defend our rights and everyone else's right too.  We must keep the faith and work to realize the ideals of human rights in our world.  As Martin Luther King said, injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.

I am grateful for the liberties I that have today, life, liberty, and my pursuit of happiness, handed down to me by the lives and blood of heroes, even if they are not absolute or perfect.  May I do what I can to pass these human rights to others, to everyone, and to the next generations.

Saturday, November 7, 2015

a human-scale measurement


I have wondered what impact I have on the world.  I am not a powerful, charismatic leader, nor a scientific or cultural pioneer.  I am a pretty ordinary individual... just one of billions on this planet.

I believe humans are big brained primates that dig in the ground, pick up and pile rocks, and leave some litter around.  I have done that.  Evidence of my being here is the cairn in my garden.  It witnesses my existence.  I was here.

I am here now.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

ad infinitum


What do I want?  Well, that is the question, isn't it?  Looking at everything I have, every experience I have had, every relationship I have had, I should be satisfied.  I have had more than my share of everything.  But I am not satisfied.

I want things to be changed in some way or I want more.  I don't think it would matter how much I had, I would either want something different, or more of something.

No matter how much I eat, I am never really satisfied, I want more.  If I lived for 100 years, I would want one more day.  If I had a billion dollars, there would be something I would want, something more.  One more thing, just one more thing, ad infinitum...


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

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.


Tuesday, October 27, 2015

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.