Messenger Angels

Angels are visiting Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. At crime scenes and police stations they are appearing. Ten feel tall they stand. Some carry signs saying, “murderers repent.”
At a small evangelical church, teenage boys and girls are painting their faces and their hair with a silver-colored paint. They are writing on signs and building wings. As sirens in the background scream to the scene of yet another crime, these boys and girls get into a van and follow the police vehicles. Getting out of the van, they unfold chairs. Adjusting their long robes, they get on top of these chairs and let the robes fall to the floor. In an area that has been terrorized by crime, these young boys and girls look bravely ahead and boldly call sinners to repent. Their courage is commendable. The risk they take is great. But they do it because of a firm belief that something needs to be done in their city to stop the downward spiral.
I read an article about these “messenger angels” a couple of weeks ago in the New York Times and wanted to record how impressed I felt by what they are doing. Their efforts are inspirational given what Ciudad Juarez has been going through. I think that the bold steps they are taking are clear indications that people are still willing to take great risks in order to promote peace over violence. There are still good people who are working to better society. They have certainly inspired me to stand up for what is right in the face of fear.

Ants

Every day ants get out of their little ant beds, put on their antennas for the day, eat their ant cereal (which usually has depictions of the most popular ant athlete), and get ready for their little ant day. They walk outside to see all the other little ants already making their way to school or to work or wherever they are going.
The ants get into line with everyone else and walk in the same steps, go to the same places. They do this every day. Their little ant teachers give them little (sometimes big) ant assignments and the ants go the the library in a little ant line. They stay there until late and then take the same line back to their little ant homes.
After one little ant did this day after day, he wondered if there might be more to life than staying in the same line as all the other ants. Only, he was scared. He was scared that if he didn't do all the little ant things that he had been told he needed to do, he might not be happy. But all this little ant work wasn't easy and a lot of the time he felt pretty worn out with all the work load that was put on the little ant's back. One night while walking home from the little ant library,the little ant noticed that all of the leaves had fallen off of the tree. The little ant felt sad because he hadn't even seen the leaves fall because he was in the library or too distracted to notice. The little ant thought and couldn't remember the last time that he took five minutes to watch the leaves on the tree. He saw them on the ground and realized that he had hardly even seen them change color. And now they were already off of the tree.
The little ant looked up at the beautiful mountains with snow now lightly blanketing them and wondered at their greatness. The little ant had often wanted to go into the mountains and explore them but most of the time he was too busy and if he did have free time (which was quite rare), he just wanted to relax.
When the little ant got home, he was really tired. Before he went to bed though he looked out his little ant window and saw the sky beautifully lit up by the moon. The clouds looked like islands over a dark blue ocean. The light shined down on the little ant as he walked away from the window and snuggled up with his little ant blanket on his little ant couch (his roommate was snoring so the little ant had to sleep in the living room). The little ant dreamed of spending time reading the little ant books that he wanted to read and doing the little ant projects he thought were important. The next day the little ant got up, put on his little ant antennas, ate his little ant cereal (which usually had a depiction of a little ant athlete), and got back in line with the rest of the little ants to go back to wherever they were going.

Letters

About a month ago I was finishing up the audiobook version of David McCullough's John Adams. I was utterly amazed at the life that this man led, along with the deep love that he had for his wife. While listening to it, I realized that one of the reasons that we have so much information about the life of this man, along with the relationships that he held with friends and family members (aside from his journal), is because he wrote letters.
I remember thinking how I wanted to start sending letters around to people, friends, people I met while in El Salvador, family, etc. Doesn't the idea of it sound somewhat Romantic? Doesn't a letter, hand-written have more of an appeal than a typed up email?

I still like getting emails from people too though.

With technology making everything so easy (and instantaneous), there is this great opportunity to keep in contact with people like never before. I've got a roommate in Taiwan and we've been sending little things back and forth. It's been a blast and I've chuckled a time or two looking back on the way we express ourselves through writing.

I guess what I'm saying is, writing is about communication. It's also about creating a record. It's also pretty fun and provides a conduit that leads back to countless memories that would have been forgotten if you would have not recorded them in that letter or journal.

The Calm After The Storm

I was thinking about how peaceful I was feeling when the thought crossed my mind "This is like the calm after the storm." It took me a second to realize the mistake I had made in the well-known phrase "the calm before the storm." Isn't it true though, that there is a calm after every storm?

I think about the apostles of Jesus as they toiled across the Sea of Galilee (which is actually a lake I might add) against contrary winds. They awakened their Master and he calmed the storm. How symbolic of the storms that He calms in our own lives.

I feel like for the last few weeks I have been scrambling, always one project behind, one day behind, one minute behind. This weekend I finally felt the calm after the storm. No doubt this calm only precedes the next storm, but at least for a few days, hours, minutes, I have peace--and oh how thankful I am for it!

Finding Out What Matters Most

I appreciate the lessons learned and relearned throughout every day, week, month, semester, and year. I've always been the type of person (I think that most people are this way) that really loves the beginning of something new.
Take the beginning of a new semester for example. There is the onset of boredom that comes near the end of the summer when you have way too much time on your hands and you just can't wait to get back into the swing and busyness of things. Somewhere down that semester you wish that you had those long summer days back when you weren't committed to too many things for you to have enough time to complete.
I've hit that point I think.
But even as I write this, I've got a grin on my face. It's that grin that says "bring it on baby." As I mentioned earlier, lessons are learned time and time again. The stress and anxiety of having way too much to do for the little time that I've got pushed me to the point where I just had to sit down, prioritize what is really most important, work my tail off, and just let the rest of it go. Be gone baby!
It is refreshing from time to time to be pushed to that limit. To be pushed to the point where you're forced to take things back to the basics. A whole week of skipped classes so that I could participate in the final week of the New Testament Project that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is filming was well worth it, but came at the price of missing my classes. I just couldn't skip out on what I see as a once in a lifetime opportunity. Now it's taking work off on Monday and Wednesday mornings to catch up on schoolwork, campus food, quick workouts somewhere in the day to replenish some energy, and staying late in the library. I can do it--at least for a little while.
I am grateful though. For good teachers who help me get caught up again, strengthened focus, and a proper perspective that goes like this: God, family, health, and school/work.

My Day, My life: Monday

I wake up at 5:50 a.m. and try to crank out a workout before the day gets started. This helps me feel better, more awake, and is really the only time that I can exercise. Sometimes I do pushups, pullups, and situps. Basically anything that ends with "ups." Other days I go running or swim. When I get back my roommates and best friends are usually eating breakfast. We make fun of each other for a couple of minutes, giving each other a hard time about girls or how the other one is putting on weight. We laugh and probably wake up the two roommates still sleeping or the guys below us. From there I'm off to work with the campus electricians. Work there is interesting. I once turned in a time card that described my day as this: 1 hour safety meeting, 1 hour talking with Mr. R (my manager), 1 hour spinning in my chair, and 1 hour flirting with the secretary. Sometimes work is busy. Sometimes I follow the electricians around for four hours like their shadow.
I get off at noon and usually to to the Wilk where I try to get food that:
first- fills me up
second-is nutritious
Notice the order.
I'm not a big fan of being hungry.

Around one I'm hitting the books. I'll be in the library or the office of the professor I do research for. After cranking out the studies, or going to work for my professor (whichever is more pressing) I'll grab some grub at the Wilk again (around 5:00 p.m.). I don't like spending all my money on food but It is extremely difficult to find time enough to prepare lunch and dinner. In past semesters I resorted to not eating, but this semester I vowed that I would not starve.
Again, I return to the books. I'm an English guy so I've got a lot of reading. I could be here until eight or nine depending if I go home for FHE (if we're having it I will be there). I make it home between eight and nine to unwind with my friends for an hour or two. Ideally I would get to bed around ten or ten thirty. IT doesn't happen, but I've got the goal to get ready for bed at 10:00 p.m. Around then I prepare for bed, read the scriptures and then hit the sack to do it all over again.

Remember September 11th 2001

I was sleepy and had just gotten into the back seat of the car of the girls who I carpooled with. It seemed like any other day. I had gotten up early in the morning to attend seminary (an early gospel study class for youth of the LDS faith)and was about to make the 30 minute trip to school. We turned on the radio and the usual goofballs that control early morning talk radio were talking about something happening on the other side of the country. Looking back at the things they said, they jokes they made about what was happening, I wonder if they are ashamed of the way they handled that morning. I'm sure they had no idea about what was really unfolding. Neither did I. As usual I fell asleep on the way to school.
When I arrived at school, news was being shared in the corners of rooms. It was being tossed through the air. It was in our classroom and all around us. Remembering it now, I wish our teachers would have turned on the television and let us students see what was happening. Nothing we learned that day was remembered but we could have learned so much from the attack that was occurring on our country.
I remember nothing after that except brief pieces of news that I caught. Seeing a plane smouldering in a Pennsylvania field. Another smashed through the wall at the Pentagon. Two buildings that once reached to the sky--now mounds of debris. I remember seeing people falling through the air. Jumping from the towers. What did they think? How did they feel before they jumped?
The country was in absolute shock.
Ten years have now passed. Life, it seems, has gone on as normal. Do we remember as we should? Will we continue to remember? I hope that we do but I will not presume I can answer the questions I gave.