Of Life and Times

I have been busy with my new website, mormonbasics.com. I have also started to guest blog on other people's sites, like www.preparetoserve.com. Fabulous site. Lots going on. I spend almost all my free time working in Google+ communities or on Facebook in groups I belong to. I write long articles, and have started to guest blog. My head is spinning from all the directions I'm turning at once. I just got my new logo for mormonbasics.com. Go to the website to see it. Wait, I have to design my new site first. sigh.
How's that? I like it.

We've known Bob since he was a little ball rolling around in his mamma's mouth; he is a real fighter. He was born as one of 200 or so baby Tilapia in our in-house fish tank. Feeding time was a free for all; those who ate the fastest grew the fastest. Life can be so competitive. Two days ago we decided that it was time to put the 50 or so living Tilapia out in the big fish tank. Most of the original fish had been eaten by our gold fish or by their own mamma. Bob was about three inches, healthy, and still growing fast. 

He lasted about an hour in the big-boy tank. Elaine found him and fetched him in a sadder, but hopefully wiser fish. He must have seriously gotten up in someone's grill, because he is now only two inches long, someone having very unceremoniously removed his entire tail assembly. As I watched him maneuver using side thrusters only, I decided that his name would be Bob, short for Bobtail. But that image grew to include a new profession - Little Bob's De-Tailing. Watching him scoot around the tank like a valiant little soldier, I had to wonder if they make little wheelchairs for the mobility impaired fish community. Oh stop me!

Some of us do not make close friends easily. I have one friend. We have been friends for more than 30 years. Next to my actual family he is my closest connection in this life. It has been 30 years since I last made a good, close friend. Sad to say.

Working with entrepreneurs who come and volunteer at our Center for a year has been a wonderful experience. One of the volunteers came in as Mr. Gruff and Grumpy, but after a while he discovered I had a sense of humor and he suddenly turned into Mr. Hilarity. I can see us becoming "besties." The only problem is that he has finished his year of service and is about to leave to go home to Utah. In this life there are certain realities that are extremely difficult to overcome. We walk in different social circles. Of necessity we would have to live in different parts of town. We have almost prohibitively different opportunities in life. He goes on vacation and cruises all over the world. I have to content myself to traveling from zone to zone in World of Warcraft. We do what we can afford to do.

He gives the kind of thought and care to writing a check with three zeros at the end of it that I give to writing the same check with one zero at the end. Let's face it, unless we actually sought each other out there is no coincidental place the two of us would ever meet each other. Once he leaves I will probably never see him again, unless he happens to fly back to Hawaii to visit where I work.

I finally have found a person who thinks and feels akin to my thoughts and feelings, but I can't be friends because we are not in the same social class. But I will be forever grateful that I met him and his wife, they are the absolute salt of the earth. Perhaps when we get into the next life and the playing field is a little more level we can be the friends this life prohibits us from becoming.

When I married Elaine I promised her that if I failed in all other aspects of life, I would always make her laugh. Today as we finished walking around the outside of the new Heber J. Grant building on campus, she thanked me for the tour of the new building. Since we really hadn't seen anything but the exterior, I assured her that it was my pleasure; tours about nothing are my specialty. She laughed.

As I turned to walk back to my office, I thought about the eventuality that the day will come when she has heard all my jokes, and my sense of humor is as at home in her head as it is in mine. What then? Will I still be able to make her laugh? Her laugh is precious to me, and I cast my mind into the waning years when two people who have been together a long time have grown accustomed to each other to the point that they are finishing each others' sentences, and know each other so well that they don't really need to ask what they think about something, because they already know how they will respond. What then?

I had a sweet realization come over me in the form of a hope that in that day Elaine will laugh because, even if I am not there, she will know what kind of quip I would come up with. I won't have to be Mr. Originality for her to find joy in my company. With time and age there seems come a peace, acceptance, and understanding that surpasses mere acquaintanceship with the other person that allows two people to be together in silence, in companionship or in company with others, and have them be completely at home with whatever comes out of their spouse's mouth.

Elaine has even begun to zing me on occasion. I find great joy in her sense of humor. I think the challenge of my life is to be changing and growing all the time, so that even when she thinks she knows me intimately I'll still be able to entertain her or take her by surprise in a new way.

When I was a single father with four children life was hard. The Church would have nothing to do with me. The Primary wouldn't help me because there was no woman in the home, the Relief Society, the same. I had three girls, two of which were entering puberty, and no one to give me advice or take them under their wing and act as role model for them. The priesthood brethren were completely clueless. They would plan an activity at 6:30 in the evening and expect me to be there. I told them that I was commuting from SLC to Lehi and sometimes didn't get home until almost 7:00 p.m. because they were working on the roads at the time. Then I had to fix dinner, help with homework, clean house, get the kids ready for bed and still spend time with them so they felt like they had a parent and not just a housekeeper. Their response to my objection was, "just have your wife fix their dinner." Clueless to the end. The Church was my mainstay, and I was completely abandoned by all I had been raised to believe would be there for me in a time of trial.

Then there was the food or lack there of. I had to go each week to the Bishop's Storehouse to get food. My self esteem was so low at that time. I failed at everything. I couldn't braid my girls hair well enough for them to be seen in public; I couldn't earn enough for them to be able to do things at school, so they would lie to me or just tell me that nothing was happening so I wouldn't stress out when I couldn't afford the cost of their field trip or class activity. Instead they just stayed in the office while the others went on the excursion. That used to tear me up.

When I would go to the Storehouse for our food order I would go early so I could put in a couple of hours of work before they opened. I would move pallets, sweep floors, stock shelves, move boxes, and so forth. The amazing thing about the whole experience was those who worked in the Storehouse. I was always Bro. Merrill. There was always expressions of gratitude for the service I rendered. No one ever snubbed me or treated me as badly as I already felt about myself. Instead, I was constantly thanked and treated with the utmost kindness. They would ask my permission to ask me to do something that I "might" find objectionable. When we were finished with all the work, and it really was light work at that, one of the sisters would spend a couple of hours in the kitchen cooking a home-cooked meal for all the people who had come to the Storehouse that day. They made sure that we never left the Storehouse hungry. They cooked using the food they served to those picking up orders. It was always delicious and filling.

After lunch the Storehouse would open and I would help people fill their orders for a while before I had to leave to take my own order back home. On several occasions the Church employees would send me home with extra candy they had or an extra bag of nuts at Christmas, something that was above and beyond the actual order. They always made me feel like I was doing them a favor for taking it to my children.

To this day, a whole generation later, I cannot speak of my experience of the time I spent in the Bishop's Storehouse without weeping for the goodness those people showed me. At a time in my life when I could do no right, in the Bishop's Storehouse I could do no wrong. That experience has permanently shaped my view on charitable giving. I bless the Lord, and those people, and pray that I might be able to be that good to someone else and bless their life as those people blessed mine.

I never thought I would see the day when I would enjoy a hamburger using my own home-grown tomatoes and lettuce, and think to myself, these were grown using our very own fish poop from our aquaponics pond and the tomatoes were fertilized with worm tea from our worm beds. Mentally, everything seems to take on a whole new flavor.

We have an aquaponic system that is our newest toy. We have made many mistakes, including our first batch of fish an acid bath, but have had some nice successes as well. We are raising tilapia in the tank. We have at least three species. When we brought them home to put them in the tank, one of the fish had flopped out of the container and lay gasping on the floor of the trunk. We put him in the tank with the others, but as the days went on we could see that he was languishing, and was not well. We fished him out and put him in the inside aquarium to either die or get better. He got better, and eventually started to show signs of wanting to carve out his territory. It was not such a horrible task, since he was the only real fish in the tank.

We brought in another fish, hoping it was a female, since the original fish was showing signs of male territoriality. As "luck" would have it, the new fish was a female. As soon as we saw that they had been "frolicking" for a while in their own little corner of the tank, we noticed that she was rolling something around in her mouth. "Those must be the eggs," we thought. And we were correct. We marked the calendar for the nine days of incubation, and started the wait. Our marked nine days was up last Tuesday, but nothing came out of her mouth until Friday afternoon. Elaine and I were sitting in the kitchen talking about the day when suddenly Elaine yelled and pointed at the tank. I looked over to see our mamma tilapia floating in a sea of little fry. There must have been at least 200 of them. They formed a cloud around her.

Later that night, after gawking at the wonder for several hours, we left them alone and went about our business. Later I was the one to yell and point. The gold fish we had just put in the tank when Paul and Tammie moved to Indonesia, was having its tail chewed off by the mamma as she tried to drive it away from her babies. We removed the goldfish before she could kill it, but what followed was amazing. Mamma went back and began to suction all the babies up until she had gotten almost every one of them in her mouth. Amazing! There were only two loners that we could see who didn't make it back to safety, not that they are in any danger anyway. It took almost an hour before she was calm enough to let the family back out again.

Now we are wondering how long it will be before the babies have to run for their lives or mamma will eat them. Oh the wonders of nature.

I surprised myself with a thought when I was anticipating spending the day at the hospital with Elaine for her surgery. I knew it would be a long day. It turned out to be 14 hours of waiting, tending, hovering, chatting, comforting, and sitting for hours just holding a hand.

When we are little children five minutes is forever. Just try sitting in a corner not talking to anyone without a toy or book and see how long it feels. A teenager isn't much better, but they can handle groundings for a week or even a month. Newlyweds soon learn what it takes to handle whole nights with crying infants, a spouse who must be bedridden for a period of time or having a crippled child who is in constant need of care. These times are trying, largely because they have never been experienced before. They seem to drag on forever, and you wonder how you will ever survive them.

As I sat patiently in the hospital doing what I knew I needed to do for my wife, I thought about how the Lord, in all his time and experience, is able to wait for millennia for something to happen. He bides his time, patiently waiting for all the things to happen that will lead up to the end result. He understands that all things must come in their own appointed time, and in their own appointed order in order for the desired outcome to happen. I see now why patience is a virtue.

Last week, while Elaine was having surgery to remove her cancer, I had time to think for a few hours. It occurred to me how quietly the world went on its usual business around me while my wife was having a life-changing operation in the rooms above me. No one noticed, no one was there to offer comfort or help me pass the time by occupying my thoughts elsewhere. I was there, alone in the hospital with nothing but time on my hands to wait until I heard word from the doctor.

I have been comparing notes and quietly making observations for years. My initial suspicions seem to be playing out. Have you ever noticed how long about age 45-50 each time you go to the stylist/barber you seem to come home with more gray in your hair than when you left home to go to get your hair cut?

Each time I come home from my barber I hear the same comment from Elaine; "Wow, where did all that gray come from?" I don't know what class they teach in the Barber and Beauty schools these days, but they have to be secretly teaching the students how to put gray hair into the customers' heads. Elaine just came home from the hair cutting place this last weekend and the same thing happened to her. She had this nice, "new" shock of gray in the front of her hair that hadn't been there the day before.

I used to think it was age that would make me look old, or perhaps too much sun, or too many years around my own children, but now I know the truth, it's my barber.

I have an affliction. I've had it my whole adult life and, try as I might, I have not been successful in getting rid of it. Yes, I'm talking about an aversion to humility. Don't get me wrong, I love to serve. Serving is actually what I do and have done for decades now. But all that service hasn't gotten rid of my pride yet. I wonder if it ever will.

Service to others brings happiness, genuine joy. I learn so many things about myself and about others as I serve them. I learn to love a person through the service I render; it is a great feeling. But there is a fine line that almost regularly gets crossed that just spoils everything.

First some background. I honestly consider myself to be anyone's equal. This can cause problems when your occupation is as a secretary. People just assume that being served by a secretary is like switching on the light. You expect there to be light, and are genuinely surprised (and annoyed) if there isn't light. The secretaries of this world are expected to wait on everyone hand and foot. For the most part they are not supposed to have opinions, because what good is the opinion of the light switch? One just doesn't expect the light switch to have anything important to say. People don't question that position in society, it is just the way secretaries are expected to be. If they aren't then they are considered to be a "bad" secretary. It is like having a butler who doesn't "butle."

Yesterday I put on a luncheon at work. We have had them regularly in the past right after our guest speaker finishes their lecture. It is a small affair with just a few students and some faculty guests. I order the food, reserve the room, set the table, fetch the water bottles, and make sure the whole thing comes across like it was a landscape that had always been there and the guests were just fulfilling the purpose of that landscape by enjoying themselves.

The part that upsets me is that I am only invited to sit at the table with my "peers" when absolutely no one else can be found. If, as yesterday, enough people can be found I am out of luck entirely. I am only offered food if there are leftovers. I feel like I am being offered scraps from the master's table. And what is worse, my boss doesn't consider this to be insulting. He, like most bosses thinks I will be grateful to eat his leftovers. It is actually a win for him, because he has been nice to his secretary and taken care of the problem of leftovers at the same time. It just makes me angry.

Okay, reality check; I know that secretaries are paid to put on these functions, and normally they are not intended to participate, they are only there to organize the function for everyone else's pleasure. I get it. It is what I am paid to do. What causes me to be angry is the lack of acknowledgement that I just made my boss look good. I just boosted his and the Center's reputation while I get ignored. I know what you are thinking, "Wow, he thinks way too highly of himself," but that is the point. I do consider myself to be anyone's equal. Since when does anyone like being treated with all the consideration of a light switch?

Some would say that I am obviously in the wrong profession if that bothers me. I say that it is others who are wrong to treat people that way. I love my job. I love what I do, and I find it very rewarding. What I haven't figured out is how to allow myself to be treated with indifference or disregard and graciously accept that as appropriate behavior on the part of others. It feels like I am being told that this treatment is what I deserve, and I can't expect any better.

My question to you is this, how can I live with being treated as an object to be used, and not well up with indignation and anger? I'll gladly take any suggestions.