d'oh!

will you say that you are the friends of god?

"You have the words of eternal life in your possession. What next? Take your own philosophy; if I am organized and capacitated to receive this glory and this exaltation, I must be the friend of Him who has brought me forth and instituted this exaltation for me; I must not be His enemy at any time. Again, you say, "we are organized to become Gods, even sons of God; to act independently." You expect to see the time when you will have at your control worlds on worlds, if your existence endures. . . . "Now," say you, "we are to have kingdoms, thrones, principalities, powers, dominions, &c." Can you read it in this book? This is the Old and New Testament, which you and I were taught, from our youth, to believe is the word of God. If I am to receive these blessings I will be an independent character, like those who dwell in eternity. If this is the case, let me pause for a moment and use my own natural philosophy. How can I prove myself the friend of God, who has placed all this glory within my reach, unless His influences are withdrawn from me, to see whether or not I will be His friend? At the time when you receive the greatest blessings by the manifestations of the power and Spirit of God, immediately the Lord may leave you to yourselves, that you may prove yourselves worthy of this exaltation. Multitudes, on the right hand and on the left, when this Spirit and power are withdrawn from them, sink into unbelief, and do not know whether there is a God, or not. Ask them, "What did you realize and experience yesterday?" The reply is, "I do not know anything about it. I can see this house, I can see the sun I can see men and women, but I can say no more." "Do you believe what you believed yesterday?" "I do not know."

"Do all people realize that? If they did, let me tell you, they would cling fast to their integrity. When the mind of a righteous man is beclouded by darkness, when he does not know the first thing about the religion he believes in, it is because the vail is dropped so that he may act on the organization of his own individual person, which is calculated to be as independent as the Gods, in the end. When you are fully aware of this, then you are ready to lay down your lives for the cause of God and for His people, if you act on your own integrity and philosophy.

"One of the greatest trials that ever came on the Son of God when he was in the flesh, upon that man whom we hold as our Saviour, was when the mob had him in their possession. They spit on him, scourged him, mocked him, and made a wreath of thorns and placed it upon his head, (and I will insure that it was so placed on his head as to cause the blood to start) and said to him, "Here is your cross, you poor, worthless scamp, take and carry it on to that hill, for there we are going to nail you to it." How would you feel in such a time, and at that very hour and moment when this tabernacle suffers, should the Father then withdraw Himself and say, "Now, my son, I will see whether you will prove yourself worthy or not." Did he walk up the hill? He did, and carried the cross until he fainted under it; then they took it and went on, and he submitted patiently to the will of his Father.

"Will you submit patiently to the will of your Father in the hour of darkness? Will you say that you are the friends of God?"

-Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 4:199-200

my mormon stories interview

a few weeks ago i sat down in front of a camera with john dehlin of mormon stories (and now director of sunstone) for a short interview. if you don't know what mormon stories is, for the past two years john dehlin has been has been interviewing and recording podcasts with various mormons sharing their stories. interviewees include richard bushman, margaret toscano, gregory prince, grant palmer, and richard dutcher. this is part 3 of a series he is doing on the rising generation of mormons. i chose the words estrangement and reconciliation as i feel they adequately describe my ongoing relationship with god, the mormon (especially happy valley) community, and my own spirituality.

i'll post a direct link to the mormon stories post when it is posted.


as soon as the interview was over and i left the room, i remembered a dozen other things i wanted to talk about. oh well. after watching it i realized that i look up a lot and my upper lip has an occasional elvis curl. i also wish i was as articulate as my friend ashley.

**update - the official post on mormonstories can be reached by clicking here**

billy wanted to destroy the world

billy wanted to destroy the world. not the planet. not the earth. just the people on it. billy wasn't a terrorist though. a terrorist creates terror. billy didn't wanted to terrorize. he didn't want to create fear. billy's plan wasn't to do any of those things. for that reason, billy needed to destroy the whole world. there would be no warning. there would be no threats. no, billy would destroy it all at once. at one moment there would be the world, and then there would be none. mothers would be mothering. bankers would be banking. and truckers would be trucking. billy was eleven years old and if he had his way, in a flash they would all be gone.

but billy didn't really want to destroy the world. it was a means to an end. billy didn't hate people. in fact, billy didn't hate anyone at all. billy loved people. it was god who billy wanted to destroy. billy wanted to storm heaven, knock god off his leather chair, and cause god to spill his bourbon across his beige smoking jacket. but billy was eleven and eleven years old boys don't have the means to build towers to heaven. billy didn't have the resources of babylon. but billy knew god's weakness. he knew the secret to god's demise. billy learned that whatever he did to others he did to god. by destroying the world, billy could destroy god.

so tonight, billy sleeps with a smile. in his dreams he is plotting and planning. he is charting blueprints and drawing schematics. in the morning billy's parents will tell him that if he puts his mind to it he could achieve anything. so billy will invest all his mental energies into reaching his goal. and someday, god-willing, billy will succeed.

alpine ridge

after hearing the disheartening news that my car was a total loss, i decided to throw my bike onto the back of my rental and head up the mountains.


with a perfect circle accompanying on my ipod, the short six mile ride was a blast. while the high altitude left me a little breathless occasionally and the melting snow and horse tracks made for some occasional patches of slippery downhills and untractable climbs, the view and the final downhill made it all worth it.





if something happens to my bike, i'm going to kill myself. it's the only thing that hasn't left me.

OMG! IT’S LINDSEY LOHAN!

i saw lindsey lohan at borders tonight. and i didn't care.

i didn't even realize she was there until i got up from studying to get a drink and saw her in line in front of me getting a coffee. my only thoughts were. 'oh it's lindey lohan. she's short. and she's blonde. i hope she doesn't hit my rental when she leaves.'

i then decided to get a drink from the water fountain instead and returned to studying.

i felt like the stranger's mersault with his ambivalence toward the world. perhap's it was the pensive state i was in after an overcompensatory amount of caffeine to counter my enervated state. or perhaps an alcoholic slut was nothing to get excited about.

look at me! look at me! i'm in the daily herald

i was quoted in a article on the death penalty in today's daily herald. check it out.

she didn't quite quote me right, but oh well. perhaps i'll write up yet another post on the death penalty. in the print version, they used me for their large print quote accompanying the article.

yeah. you know what that means. i'm awesomer than you.

last night's accident

this photo is actually from another incident three years ago. to imagine what my car looked like last night, picture the entire area in red smashed in. luckily for the guy who slammed into me, nobody was hurt.

hal eyring is reading my blog

some of my sources have informed me that because of elder eyring's new calling he is no longer able to comment my blog. instead he decided to respond to my last blog post in his general conference talk this morning. to shortly sum it up, he said we need to remember the moments where we have seen the hand of god acting in our lives.

here is a little selection from a post i wrote about a year ago...

just before my seventeenth birthday i hurt my back. i would eventually discover that i had cracked one of my vertebrae - a fractured spinous process on my fourth lumbar. unfortunately my parents were across the pacific ocean at my maternal grandmother's (my obachan) funeral. my older brother was living in provo going to byu. at home it was just myself and my little brother bobby.

when my parent had left for japan, i was only feeling mild discomfort and believed that i had only strained a muscle in my back. after a couple days i began having difficultly walking. eventually the softest of movements would shoot excruciating pain through my whole body. on sunday, i came home from church early because i could not handle the pain. i sent bobby to his friends so that he would not have to see me in pain. i remember lying in the guestroom bed crying and not knowing what to do. by now, even breathing caused an unbearable amount of pain. as i laid there, my body went into shock. suddenly i found myself shaking and shivering uncontrollably, screaming in agony as each shiver shot a burst of pain into every inch of body.

having nowhere to turn, i remember praying aloud, crying "oh jesus. i need your help. please help me!" as i spoke these words, the shivering stopped. the pain was still there, but it was nulled with an overwhelming warmth and sense of peace. i was calm and relaxed, falling asleep a few minutes later.

all day friday, all i could think about was hopping on my bike and hitting up a trail. the weather forecasts weren't very optimistim, predicting a cold front that was going to drop the temperature and a lot of rain that day. as soon as my classes were over, i rode home, changed clothes, packed my bike and some rations and headed off.

starting off from the riverwoods' borders, i proceeded on my plan to head up provo canyon, through south fork canyon, and onto the big springs hollow trail. while it hadn't started raining yet, the precipation was coming down heavily by the time i had reached vivian park. 4 miles later, at the trail head, i was completely soaked all the way through.

it was all worth it.



the combination of rain and the autumn colors made for a beautiful ride. i don't think there could have been any better timing. the rain filled the trickling streams and packed the trail, making for an awesome (and occasionally slippery) downhill. a deer and a pair of wild turkeys were my only riding companions (unfortunately i was too frozen and wet to get my camera out in time for them).



by the time i had reached my limit, the skies were pouring buckets on me and the temperature had dropped over twenty degrees. occasional snowflakes flurried past me. i had fourteen miles of downhill to coast before i could have the warm comfort of my car.



needless to say, by the time i had returned to my car i had a good does of hypothermia. i was shaking, feeling drunk, and my fingers were so numb i couldn't feel the strap of my helmet to take it off.



it was well worth it.

dear god, do you hate me?

dear god,

do you hate me? i just have to ask. i've been told that you can read minds. and i have to ask you some questions. you see... i'm starting to think that maybe you are looking into my mind, seeing my hopes and desires, and doing all you can do to make my life miserable.

do you remember a little over a month ago when i came to you struggling? i was feeling like life was pretty tough on me at the time and couldn't seem to lift myself out of a rut. i told you that at least i had my best friend back in my life and that i was so thankful for that. did you see to it that a few days later she would never be talking to me again?

a few days later did you see into my heart and realize how much i wanted to get this mountain bike job? did you see how much i didn't want to get strung along, like with my previous two job offers, only to find out a month later that they weren't going to hire me? are you seeing to it that a month later they are still telling me every few days to call them in a few days when they'll have a decision?

when i decided that i really needed to give up one of my vices, realizing that i was probably going to lose friends in the process, did you decide to have those friends suddenly start calling me on a daily basis?

did you see how much i needed money and then see to it that uvsc would take a month to figure out how to set up my pay?

did you see to it that instead of giving me an extra $200 that the school owed me, that they'd instead accidentally pay me $400 less?

is it because of you that for five days straight they said that they'd see that i got the money back the next day?

is it because of you that when they finally gave me a check, it was $50 short? was it because of you that they gave it too late for me to put in in the bank, leaving me completely broke over the weekend?

did you overhear my conversation with a friend at school on monday about how well my new bike tubes have kept me from getting flats? is it because of you that i had to walk my bike home with a flat tire?

did you also hear the part of that conversation about how i'm scared of getting into an accident and losing my car?

is it because of you that i keep on running into my former best friend at school, only to discover that we are still not talking? did you see to it that minutes after the awkwardness of literally walking into her last week, that i would next walk into another ex that i hadn't seen in months, and who also does not talk to me? did you really want to remind me of the fate of my closest relationships?

remember last week when i got that girl's number and really wanted to take her out? did you encourage her to not give me the diginity of calling me back?

is it because of you that the last three girls i tried to ask out all did the same thing?

remember when the bishop said he'd call me to be a sunday school teacher? remember how excited i was? are you the reason why i still haven't gotten the call?

are you telling my other 'friends' not to call me back either?

did you see me looking up trails that i wanted to ride all next week? did you see my thoughts tonight as i was driving home? did you see me looking forward to throwing my bike onto the back of my car to hit up a trail tomorrow? did you see how much i was looking forward to that, just minutes before you sent that red suv crashing into me?