Strolling through the Ivory Tower

So here we are--in the land of Bluegrass and horses. From a long travel-induced absence (there's nothing quite as fulfilling as driving for 16 hours through sagebrush and cornfields), I return to my loyal friends, family, and even a few general readers (who obviously have more than their fair share of free time) to report on the glories of graduate school in Kentucky.

In short, intense! Word to the wise: read well in school. You might use it in graduate school someday.

The Ivory Tower, I have found, is a most interesting place. Some of the conversations we have are about as useless as one might expect. The archane is welcomed and the obscure, smiled upon. The word, "significant" is often used with broadest of connotations (ie a piece of lint on my floor might be significant because it could demonstrate the male bachelor subculture and its associations with a lack of hygiene). Alright, I exaggerate. But let's just say I now know the proper way to pronounce the name "Appalachia" (as even the academic historians of Appalachia will concur).

But that said, I'm glad to be studying history for a couple years--see if I can cram a few more facts to spit out on fitting occasions like, say, dates...yeah...

So to those nestled in the crossroads of the West, I extend you my greetings and my love. And to the rest of my readers in blogosphere who read my blog for personal enjoyment, get a day job!

The Tangled Web We Weave

So sports fans, have you ever noticed how incredibly (and often unnecessarily) complex our dating life can be? It's outrageous, absurd, and sometimes befitting more an episode of 24 than the Love Story. For those of you who have seen government flowcharts laying out the interrelatiionship between even a small subset of government agency

Over the past several months, I have had several extended conversations with acquaintances in relationships of all stripes and qualities. While I humbly fancy myself to be rather conversant in these matters (why else would people call me "Dr. Love"?), the degree of intrigue and mystery surrounding the whole endeavor continues to amaze me. In crass economic terms, the endeavor is downright idioitic on its face: spend your money (often 10 bucks+ a date) on someone who might drop you at any instant only so that you can effectively divide your economic resources in half for the rest of your life. Yet, marriage continues, even thrives. As one marriage and family instructor once informed me (I was once considering marriage and family therapy as a career), 85% percent of all Americans will marry at some point in their life.

Perhaps, if something so painstaking and tangled can be so popular, they might be on to something...

A Drama of Eternal Proportions

In the past day, we have driven across the heartland of America--where the common man roams freely among the corn fields of the Midwest. Nothing quite brings friends together like utter boredom. In about 10 days, I will be going to the land of beer, brats, and Hmong (Wisconsin); the milieu of America is a convuluted one indeed.


As I am writing now (from Sara Riehle's beautiful home in Council Bluffs, Iowa), Carrie Beck is preparing for her bridal photos with Sara and Amanda on the sidelines doing her hair and makeup. Looks complicated, difficult, even mysterious. And it's funny--my idea of "dressing up" would take me aprx. 1 hour, if I were particularly meticulous in my attire. No matter how much men get chastised in the church, there are definitely benefits to being a male.



Stay tuned. We're going to Florence, NE tomorrow (known in Mormondom as Winter Quarters) for Kerrie's wedding; as weddings are wont to do, something interesting is BOUND to happen. So don't blink; you won't want to miss this drama of eternal proportions.

Reclaim the Wildness Within

Nothing quite like a road trip across the corn fields of Nebraska to get a man into a reflective mood about life, nature, and his relationship to the cosmos. Tonight, we ride!

While preparing for this epic journey, I began to think upon my recent trip home through the pastoral scenes of western Wyoming this past week. As I was in indulging in that luxury only afforded road trippers across uninhabited territories--listening to NPR--I heard a radio talking head talk about the concept of "wildness," that element of radicalism and spontaneity that makes life interesting rather than a drab machine of unending predictability. Henry David Thoreau tells us that "in wildness is the preservation of the world."

We might see ourselves as mere organization men/women, living predictable lives with quantifiable laws and easily digestible principles like the law of tithing, weekly Sacrament meeting, and monthly home teaching. When high adventure does present itself to us, some of us recoil, saying: "Heavens, I don't want to rock the boat; let's just stick to our quiet desk jobs."

But mortality was not meant to be a quiet desk job; we do enough of that already without seeking more! So as I travel across the plains, in a sense, seeking my own sense of wildness, please do yourself a favor and do the same. Do something different...anything at all. If you've got the money (as I wish I had), go skydiving. Rock climbing. Reclaim the wildness within.

On Orthodoxy

Today, I was reading a bit from one of my favorite works on Christianity: Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton wherein he discusses the reality and rationality of miracles. Chesterton has this knack for being able to convert the most mystical elements of Christianity into what appears to be irreducible common sense, the kind that even the most benighted dimwit could grasp while simultaneously making the educated scholar sweat.

Chesterton maintains that to be an orthodox Christian is not an epithet that would indicate a boring personality. Yet from my experience, the first connotation of the word "orthodoxy" that comes to mind is one of dullness , boredom, and remarkable ordinariness. Chesterton suggests that we end this stereotype permanently and view our self-perceived orthodoxy in a new way and perhaps, that our supposedly vibrant testimonies were more stagnant than we once thought:

People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man [in front of] madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chpt. 6).

I have found that within our faith, we members often bifurcate our ward populace between the so-called "Mormon orthodoxy" and then the "liberal" free-thinkers, the former being seen by the "liberals" as dogmatic, inflexible, and sometimes even uncaring. To the liberals, the orthodox betray their traditions of learning, refusing to "seek ye therefore out of the best books" (the orthodox might respond that the Lord is implicitly referring to the scriptures).

On the other hand, the orthodox see the liberals as free-wheeling, doctrinally unreliable, and untrustworthy on missionary exchanges. They're loose cannons and must be kept on a short leash, some orthodox would maintain. The liberals get off on doctrinal branches and might not even have a strong testimony; why else would they bother reading/citing material not found explicitly in the manual?

Both parties have their strong points, but sorting out the balance between them requires what Elder Neal A. Maxwell calls the "synchronization of the Spirit." I suggest that more dialogue--open, frank, and candid discussions--take place between these two parties. After all, as Chesterton argued, orthodoxy need not be an excuse for constricted thinking. The orthodox need not be surprised when critics bring up problematic issues while the liberals need not be incensed when they are asked to make their loyalty more transparent.

No matter our talent or ideological proclivity, the call from the Lord remains the same: "Faith, hope, charity, and love with an eye single to the glory of God qualify him/her for the work." Would that we all take a lesson from Mr. Chesterton and learn that to be an orthodox Mormon is among the highest life adventures one can take--for both the mind and the spirit.

War Is Wrong

Amusing.

Welcome to my World

Welcome friends, family, and even an occasional heckler or two! In anticipation for the great trek East (call it the reclamation of the homeland--I have an ancestor from that neck of the woods), I have thought it proper to create my own little niche in cybersphere, a meeting point for all those interested in hearing my meanderings and musings. Hence the beauty and the burden of modern technology: the beauty because social networks need not depend on geographical proximity. The burden? Well, now y'all have the means to hit me up for money no matter where I am. There are good reasons for becoming a historian: "Oh, ya need 5 bucks...I dunno...money sure is tight these days...."

Even if you have to live in the distant corners of this fine nation, you need not be a stranger! In return, I'll let you in on a touch of this corner of Dixieland: barbeques, derbies, and of course, a fair dose of bluegrass. I might even pontificate on the glories of ancient Rome on occasion...but only after I've watched the grass grow and the paint dry!

Drop a line. Stay in touch. There is plenty of fun here to be had by all.