Monday, December 22, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
its THAT simple
My favorite six year old asked me the other day, "Wouldn't it be neat if we could just decide when it was day or when it was night. We could change it back and forth whenever we want."
I asked, "Who would decide?"
he said, "WE would."
"What if I wanted it to be day and you wanted it to be night?"
He shrugged and said, "We would Roe-Sham-Boe for it." And he hopped up on the curb and tightroped his way to the car.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Coming Out
So I never thought my first blog at this new site would be about homosexuality. And yet, here we are. I guess it's time for me to "come out" to my family and friends.
The seeds of this blog germinated this morning, when a friend I value asked me point blank how I had voted on Proposition 8. And because I do value the friendship, and because it is such a big issue to so many people, I went ahead and answered a question I normally would have wanted to keep in my own hoop. I had to admit.... I did not vote.
And (aside from the fact that I am not registered to vote, and am generally jaded about the whole political process, anyway) here is why:
I'm ambivalent.
There. I said it. I am ambivalent. I do not have a stance on homosexual marriage. I have two stances. And I am firmly planted in each of them.
Here is a Reader's Digest Condensed version of how the circles in my head go:
Homosexuality is a paraphilia. I believe that. I don't believe it is "normal."
But then, I don't believe that the sexuality I experienced in my Mormon temple marriage was "normal" either. In fact, I know for sure that it was not. It certainly was not the highest and best use of the powers of Couple-ing that have been bestowed on all humans by their loving Creator.
In fact, I would venture to say that the attitudes toward marriage (and the resultant behaviors) that existed in my peer group as a dating teen and (very) young adult, and seemingly in the Mormon community at large, could also be described as, if not an all out paraphilia, at best a really sick way to behave.
I enjoy association with a lot of gays and lesbians. There are two in my immediate-extended family. They are great kids. I want them to be happy. I also know, fairly intimately, some gay and lesbian couples. As a result of being in a therapy/recovery community with them, I have learned a great deal about how they Couple (the couple-bonding process, not the sex act). And it is not discernibly different to me from how heterosexuals Couple. In fact, I would say that of all the couples in my almost-four-year-long group therapy career, I'd give the lesbian couple (one partner of which was in my group) the best chance of having a rigorously honest, loving and respectful relationship into old age.
So why did I not vote against Prop 8, and give gays and lesbians the ability to call their unions "marriage." Because I am ambivalent.
Regardless of how well they are able to make it work--I still come back to the belief that it is a paraphilia. I don't believe it is the highest and best use of the powers of Couple-ing that a loving God has given to all humans.
I do believe that marriage is a sacred covenant, and that it is meant to be between a man and a woman. I do believe that. And I also believe that God has a prophet on the earth, and if He wanted that status changed, He would let that prophet know. I do believe that.
So why didn't I vote for Prop 8, and reserve the right to marriage (in California) to be only for a man and a woman? Because I am ambivalent. (Return to top of circle.)
And because the argument goes, "They already have all the rights of marriage in their civil unions. Why do they need to call it marriage?" on one side. And on the other, "We are in a committed, life-long union, the same as a heterosexual couple, so why can't we call it marriage?"
And the only answer I can find within myself--to both of these questions, and to so many others regarding homosexuality--is: "I DON'T KNOW."
My gay and lesbian friends may be surprised by this post. You might have expected me to come out on your side. I hope you can handle it and continue to regard me as the person you have known and loved, and who has loved you (and still does.)
My Mormon friends and family may be surprised by this post. You might have expected me to come out on your side, and to have followed the church's position. I hope you can handle it, too, and not question my firm and abiding testimony in the Gospel.
When it came down to it, I had to do as I was instructed "from the pulpit" to do, and vote according to my own moral values. So I did. I could not vote one way or the other without betraying an aspect of my true Self. So I didn't vote.
Some from each camp may regard me as a traitor or a fence sitter. In response to that I will quote one of my favorite people in all the world (who happens to be a gay man married (in a state that does not recognize even civil unions) to his spouse for about ten years, with children). The quote is, "You know what? I can love you enough to let you feel that."
The seeds of this blog germinated this morning, when a friend I value asked me point blank how I had voted on Proposition 8. And because I do value the friendship, and because it is such a big issue to so many people, I went ahead and answered a question I normally would have wanted to keep in my own hoop. I had to admit.... I did not vote.
And (aside from the fact that I am not registered to vote, and am generally jaded about the whole political process, anyway) here is why:
I'm ambivalent.
There. I said it. I am ambivalent. I do not have a stance on homosexual marriage. I have two stances. And I am firmly planted in each of them.
Here is a Reader's Digest Condensed version of how the circles in my head go:
Homosexuality is a paraphilia. I believe that. I don't believe it is "normal."
But then, I don't believe that the sexuality I experienced in my Mormon temple marriage was "normal" either. In fact, I know for sure that it was not. It certainly was not the highest and best use of the powers of Couple-ing that have been bestowed on all humans by their loving Creator.
In fact, I would venture to say that the attitudes toward marriage (and the resultant behaviors) that existed in my peer group as a dating teen and (very) young adult, and seemingly in the Mormon community at large, could also be described as, if not an all out paraphilia, at best a really sick way to behave.
I enjoy association with a lot of gays and lesbians. There are two in my immediate-extended family. They are great kids. I want them to be happy. I also know, fairly intimately, some gay and lesbian couples. As a result of being in a therapy/recovery community with them, I have learned a great deal about how they Couple (the couple-bonding process, not the sex act). And it is not discernibly different to me from how heterosexuals Couple. In fact, I would say that of all the couples in my almost-four-year-long group therapy career, I'd give the lesbian couple (one partner of which was in my group) the best chance of having a rigorously honest, loving and respectful relationship into old age.
So why did I not vote against Prop 8, and give gays and lesbians the ability to call their unions "marriage." Because I am ambivalent.
Regardless of how well they are able to make it work--I still come back to the belief that it is a paraphilia. I don't believe it is the highest and best use of the powers of Couple-ing that a loving God has given to all humans.
I do believe that marriage is a sacred covenant, and that it is meant to be between a man and a woman. I do believe that. And I also believe that God has a prophet on the earth, and if He wanted that status changed, He would let that prophet know. I do believe that.
So why didn't I vote for Prop 8, and reserve the right to marriage (in California) to be only for a man and a woman? Because I am ambivalent. (Return to top of circle.)
And because the argument goes, "They already have all the rights of marriage in their civil unions. Why do they need to call it marriage?" on one side. And on the other, "We are in a committed, life-long union, the same as a heterosexual couple, so why can't we call it marriage?"
And the only answer I can find within myself--to both of these questions, and to so many others regarding homosexuality--is: "I DON'T KNOW."
My gay and lesbian friends may be surprised by this post. You might have expected me to come out on your side. I hope you can handle it and continue to regard me as the person you have known and loved, and who has loved you (and still does.)
My Mormon friends and family may be surprised by this post. You might have expected me to come out on your side, and to have followed the church's position. I hope you can handle it, too, and not question my firm and abiding testimony in the Gospel.
When it came down to it, I had to do as I was instructed "from the pulpit" to do, and vote according to my own moral values. So I did. I could not vote one way or the other without betraying an aspect of my true Self. So I didn't vote.
Some from each camp may regard me as a traitor or a fence sitter. In response to that I will quote one of my favorite people in all the world (who happens to be a gay man married (in a state that does not recognize even civil unions) to his spouse for about ten years, with children). The quote is, "You know what? I can love you enough to let you feel that."
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Books I've Read
(Bold: Read the whole thing. Italic: Started but did not finish.)
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (all seven, but stopped enjoying them after the fourth)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (I feel certain I read this in highschool, but don't remember it... so I'll have to read it again (or at least start it and see if I remember it)).
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (I did read the Satanic Verses by this author, tho. The one that supposedly had him marked for death by Islam)
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (has ANYONE ever waded through the whole thing and survived the sleeping sickness?)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (excerpts)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (started it twice, but never finished it)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (all seven, but stopped enjoying them after the fourth)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (I feel certain I read this in highschool, but don't remember it... so I'll have to read it again (or at least start it and see if I remember it)).
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (I did read the Satanic Verses by this author, tho. The one that supposedly had him marked for death by Islam)
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (has ANYONE ever waded through the whole thing and survived the sleeping sickness?)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (excerpts)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (started it twice, but never finished it)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
What have you DONE??
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Alaska
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Been to Disneyland
7. Climbed a mountain
8. Held a praying mantis
10. Bungee jumped
11. Watched a lightning storm
12. Taught yourself an art from scratch
13. Adopted a child
14. Had food poisoning
15. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
16. Slept on an overnight train
15. Had a pillow fight
18. Hitch hiked
19. Built a snow fort
20. Run a Marathon
21. Watched a sunrise or a sunset
22. Hit a home run
23. Been on a cruise
24. Seen Niagara Falls in person
25. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
26. Seen an Amish community
27. Taught yourself a new language
28. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
29. Gone rock climbing
30. Seen Michelangelo’s David
31. Sung karaoke
32. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
33. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
34. Walked on a beach by moonlight
35. Been transported in an ambulance
36. Gone deep-sea fishing
37. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
38. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling (if swimming with the Manatees counts... we snorkeled)
39. Played in the mud
40. Gone to a drive in theater
41. Been in a movie
42. Visited the Great Wall of China
43. Started a business
44. Served at a soup kitchen
45. Sold Boy Scout popcorn
46. Gone whale watching
47. Gotten flowers for no reason
48. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
49. Gone sky diving
50. Bounced a check
51. Flown in a helicopter
52. Saved a favorite childhood toy
53. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
54. Eaten caviar
55. Pieced a quilt
56. Stood in Times Square
57. Been fired from a job
58. Broken a bone
59. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
60. Published a book
61. Had your picture in the newspaper
62. Read the entire Bible
63. Visited the White House (saw the outside....)
64. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
65. Had chicken pox
66. Saved someone's life
67. Sat on a jury
68. Met someone famous (Invited to Peggy Lee's birthday party...but I didn't go)
69. Joined a book club
70. Lost a loved one
71. Had a baby
72. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
73. Been involved in a law suit
74. Been to a foreign country
75. Had someone die in your arms
76. Watched kittens or puppies being born
77. Had a concussion
78. Driven through a redwood tree
79. Sailed on the open sea
80. Been whitewater rafting
81. Hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Alaska
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Been to Disneyland
7. Climbed a mountain
8. Held a praying mantis
10. Bungee jumped
11. Watched a lightning storm
12. Taught yourself an art from scratch
13. Adopted a child
14. Had food poisoning
15. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
16. Slept on an overnight train
15. Had a pillow fight
18. Hitch hiked
19. Built a snow fort
20. Run a Marathon
21. Watched a sunrise or a sunset
22. Hit a home run
23. Been on a cruise
24. Seen Niagara Falls in person
25. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
26. Seen an Amish community
27. Taught yourself a new language
28. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
29. Gone rock climbing
30. Seen Michelangelo’s David
31. Sung karaoke
32. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
33. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
34. Walked on a beach by moonlight
35. Been transported in an ambulance
36. Gone deep-sea fishing
37. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
38. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling (if swimming with the Manatees counts... we snorkeled)
39. Played in the mud
40. Gone to a drive in theater
41. Been in a movie
42. Visited the Great Wall of China
43. Started a business
44. Served at a soup kitchen
45. Sold Boy Scout popcorn
46. Gone whale watching
47. Gotten flowers for no reason
48. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
49. Gone sky diving
50. Bounced a check
51. Flown in a helicopter
52. Saved a favorite childhood toy
53. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
54. Eaten caviar
55. Pieced a quilt
56. Stood in Times Square
57. Been fired from a job
58. Broken a bone
59. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
60. Published a book
61. Had your picture in the newspaper
62. Read the entire Bible
63. Visited the White House (saw the outside....)
64. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
65. Had chicken pox
66. Saved someone's life
67. Sat on a jury
68. Met someone famous (Invited to Peggy Lee's birthday party...but I didn't go)
69. Joined a book club
70. Lost a loved one
71. Had a baby
72. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
73. Been involved in a law suit
74. Been to a foreign country
75. Had someone die in your arms
76. Watched kittens or puppies being born
77. Had a concussion
78. Driven through a redwood tree
79. Sailed on the open sea
80. Been whitewater rafting
81. Hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail
Monday, May 19, 2008
And a few more Texanisms (thanks James)
It's colder than a welldigger's a$$
It's cold enough to freeze the b@lls off a brass monkey
A face that could make a train take a dirt road
That dog won't hunt (Texan for "I'm skeptical")
It's cold enough to freeze the b@lls off a brass monkey
A face that could make a train take a dirt road
That dog won't hunt (Texan for "I'm skeptical")
carlsonism
*I* think the things he says are adorably cute. And it's my blog, so....
Last night Carlson said the family prayer. He asked God to "keep us from harmony and influence."
(That's five-year-old for "harm and evil influence," by the way)
Last night Carlson said the family prayer. He asked God to "keep us from harmony and influence."
(That's five-year-old for "harm and evil influence," by the way)
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