Night o' Rock Band

Awesome

Never did I think that something I saw when I was about -- I donno -- 2, would have stayed with me.

Nevertheless -- it did.

Lets go Telephone ROCK!!

Sunday I spoke in Church. Normally, a 10 minute talk is no problem -- I write one for 8 minutes and then toss in a few well placed jokes. However, due to a flu benching our youth speaker and a dramatically shortened talk by the person who went before me -- I was left with a good 30 minutes to fill.

That's longer than many General Conference talks.

I think I weathered it well -- but you will have to ask those in the congregation.

The original draft of the talk -- improvs and last minute extensions excluded -- is pasted in below.

Enjoy!

(I might note that I have it spaced out and written in a way that helped me deliver it with a little bravado. Hopefully, the random capitalization and paragraph breaks aren't too distracting for you, my dear reader.)

The 10 Commandments:

They're old. I mean -- OLD.
Not, oh man I can't believe I remember Nixon old.

Or

Wow, you listened to music on an LP -- old.

I mean -- OLD. The foundations of civilizations old. The 10 commandments are one of the OLDEST bodies of law in the world. They are the foundation for the the Jewish Ethic...which is the foundation for the Christian ethic... which is the foundation for the Western ethic... such as it is. These revelations were ancient when America was founded... they were ancient when America was DISCOVERED.

And like anything ancient or old, these foundation stones beg a very important, fundamental question.

Are they relevant? Timely? Important?
OR
Are they just a relic of an ancient people? An appendix of our body of faith fit for nothing but a line or two in our history books, a mention during one class in seminary?

To answer this question -- let me pose another: How do you define yourself? How do you distinguish your own identity from the 6 thousand million other people walking the planet?

It is by answering this question that we can get at all the incalculable value and relevance that the 10 commandments have.

SO... how do I define myself? Well -- I am a Mormon, a Christian, an Elder in Zion. I am a Father, a husband, a man who worships one God, a man of Faith, a man who knows that God has prepared a way, a path so that we might have joy. I believe in being something better tomorrow than I was today. Fundamentally, I see myself as a man of faith, seeking for greater knowledge and truth and always, ALWAYS trying to become something better.

As so defined: How can the 10 commandments help me? How are they relevant? How do their roles coincide with my goals?

Well -- I said that I am a man of Faith: Joseph Smith taught that faith is the 1st principle in revealed religion and the foundation of all righteousness. That it is the principle of action and power in all intelligent beings. (Lectures on Faith.)

The 4th Article of Faith lists Faith as NUMBER ONE on the most vital principles of the gospel list.

Faith is -- undoubtedly -- fundamental to how I define myself. Growing that faith, reinforcing it, strengthening it: these are essential to me as a religious man.

How do the 10 Commandments help me do that?

Well -- let's look at them. Commandment Number 1:
I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.
In other words: BELIEVE IN GOD!
The Old Testament doesn't really go for subtle does it?

Commandment Number 2:
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
No idols -- American or otherwise. No replacing the worship of God with the worship of something else.

Now this brings up an important point about faith. True faith is focused in and on the Lord Jesus Christ. Such faith always leads to righteous action.

In my experience, the most violated commandment is this second one. Granted -- we have no Golden Calf before us most of the time. But come on -- Satan is FAR too clever for that.

Who -- or what -- receives our ultimate trust? Do we trust scientific theories or revealed truths? Do we adore flashy flickering boxes of entertainment or revel in the purity of prayer and thoughtful pondering of Holy Scripture?

How do you schedule your days? Does a service project bump a football game or is it vice versa? Does Sunday Worship?

True faith in God and in his son Jesus Christ requires commitment, requires a reordering of our priorities. Notice that the first commandment isn't "Thou shalt not steal or kill" -- as vital and important as these commandments are -- the first commandment is "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me."

Or, better yet, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and will all thy soul and with all thy mind.

Before anything else a man of faith worships God and NOTHING comes before him. The origin of that lesson is in the 10 Commandments.

Now, in addition to being a man of faith -- I have defined myself as a person who seeks after greater knowledge and truth. I mean -- look at me -- I am 27 years old and to my wife's everlasting befuddlement -- I am still a student. I still have teachers, I still study, I keep close to my heart that very eternal truth that I still know SO little and that there is SO much more to learn.

My search for truth is not isolated to what I can find in textbooks -- how shallow a search would THAT be -- I seek for greater light and truth in every avenue of my existence -- foremost in my relationship to my God and in my understanding of his word.

In many ways I am like the Isrealites wondering in the desert -- An adolescent in so many ways.

Look at them! For generations they were enslaved -- much like our children THINK they are -- to cruel and unjust task masters. The collected memory of the Isrealites was one of oppression and slavery. Their lives, their purpose, their very identity was defined by those who had power over them -- The Egyptians. At Mount Sinai they exhibited the classic adolescent response. My dad calls it "when the cat is away, the mice shall play". Moses takes off for a little while to go and talk with God -- the same God who freed them from the Egyptians, the same God who performed many mighty miracles on their behalf -- and what do they do in the meantime?

They build a Molten Calf and worship IT! Like teenagers whose parents are gone for the weekend -- they throw a party, a kegger!! When Moses sees the mess they made -- he goes ballistic.

Anyway -- the point is, they perform like many adolescents do by breaking promises to their parents and showing their parents that they are not QUITE ready for greater responsibility.

The Lord -- smarter than us in many, MANY ways -- sets up a great plan to get his children back on path. He gives them a prepartory law. The 10 Commandments form the basis for this prepartory law. They form the foudnation that the Isrealites will need to build upon to regain the Lords trust, to truly prepare them for the greater knowledge that the new and everlasting covenant will provide.

In the words of Paul to the Galatians: The law was the schoolmaster.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. (Gal 3:24-25)

So... Let's see if I can draw this parrallel. I am an adolescent who is seeking for greater knowledge and truth. The Isrealites were an adolescent people who needed a preparatory law to help them become justified by faith. Just as the Isrealites eventually received the Savior, who fulfilled the law and in whom the faith is placed -- I also passed out of my adolescence. I prepared through worthily holding and exercising the Aaronic prieshood to hold the Melcheidick Priesthood and -- more importantly -- to go to the temple where I can receive greater light and truth.

The 10 Commandments -- for all of us -- are the basic proscriptions for a temple life. Putting your foot on the path to go to the temple requires you to know, understand and live the most basic of God's rules.

But why is this? Why is this true TODAY as well as it was several thousand years ago?

The nature of the Gospel -- the fundamental nature of God's Plan -- has never changed. Remember, the commandments, ordinances and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to BECOME what our Heavenly Father desires us to become. (Oaks, Challenge to Become)

Which dovetailes quite nicely into the third way I defined myself: I am always, ALWAYS trying to become something better.

Now, hang on -- the 10 Commandments -- more than almost any covenant or commandment out there -- are such a list of "to do's"... or, more precisely, "NOT to do's". How can we look at a commandment like "Thou shalt not steal" or "Thou shalt not kill" as anything more than a box to check off at the end of the day?

Well, let's see -- today I paid my Comcast bill, I took out the garbage and -- Oh, I didn't kill anyone. Good, took care of that!

Are the 10 Commandments really supposed to help us become something better? Let me answer with a resounding YES!

The Savior said that we are not made for the commandments, but that they were made for US. (Mark 2:26) The 10 Commandments are full of proscriptions regarding piety, regarding respect, honesty, love, industry, purity even. Some of our greatest frustrations with the consumer, Hollywood culture of today would be ERADICATED with an adherence to the fundamentals of the 10 Commandments.

President Benson once spoke of Honor. He said that honor is the one word that describes the meaning of character. Without it, civilization would no longer exist, there could be no dependable contracts, no lasting marriages, no trust nor happiness. Quoting Tennyson, President Benson expressed this concept by saying "Man's word of honor is GOD in man."

He then listed the following traits that an honorable man or woman would have: Truthful, free from deceit, above cheating, lying, stealing or any form of deception. President Benson created a list intending to describe what honor is and succeeded in encapsulating the essence of the 10 Commandments.

In an incredibly simple illustration, Elder Oaks described the relationship that God has with man. He said that Gos is like a wealthy, well respected man who turns to his young adolescent son and tells him:

All that I have I desire to give you, not only my wealth, but also my position and standing among men. That which I HAVE I can easily give you, but that which I AM you must obtain for yourself. You will qualify for your inheritance by learning what I have learned and by living as I have lived. I will give you the laws and principles by which I have acquired my wisdom and stature. Follow my example, mastering as I have mastered, and you will become as I am, and all that I have will be yours.

Brothers and Sisters -- by looking into who I am and what I want to become I see myself as this young adolescent. I see the faith of my fathers, the knowledge, truth and light that they have received, I see how they have grown better and better, improving and perfecting their souls, their skills, their very being along their lives. Are the 10 Commandments still relevant today? Is faith? Is a belief in God and in the Savior relevant?

Everything I am, everything I hope to be is founded on the 10 Commandments. If we were to reconnect with them, rediscover their worth, and their value, our children would be happier, our wives would be happier -- we would have the spirit of the Lord more in our day to day lives and the spirit of contention less. Just because they are old does not make them irrelevant. It makes them wise...precious.

Thoughts for a Sunday Morning:

I teach Sunday School. Try to resist imagining me in a habit wielding a yellow ruler, will you.

What is fun about teaching is that I get the occasion to tie spiritual life lessons into tight fortune cookie statements that I then try to force feed into 14 and 15 year old teenagers. Like that isn’t tough. Where is my Olympic medal?

One of the drawbacks is the fact that sometime, every now and then, I have a moment, a flash of sunlight in my mind, where I just want to read a passage of scripture as though it were poetry and make my class just sit there and let it sink in. I have these mental images of me standing behind a mic in a coffee shop, dressed in all black, hair dyed and plastered across my forehead reciting a passage and closing to nothing but snapping. As I sit down the barrista with bleached blond hair, tattooed arms and sporting more bracelets than any free man should leans over to me and says “Deep, man…” The greatest compliment for a poetry jam.

But the poetry I read, the depth attributed isn’t my own. It comes from a fundamentally spiritual place. A place reserved for that which is sacred, pure, honest. It comes from the same habitat as hope, as love, as that simple, calm feeling of peace you get weekend mornings in summer.

The other day I was asked to prepare my favorite passage of scripture regarding Easter for a Palm Sunday celebration. I didn’t have the opportunity to recite it or expose it to the unfashioned minds of my class. But then, that is one of the reasons I have this blog – I get to spew any unqualified drivel here I want. :)

Quoting from Paul:

Behold, I shew you a mystery;

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,

Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

More than anything my belief is one of hope. Hope in the future, hope in mankind, hope in progression, improvement. Hope that things will get better, that good will triumph. Hope that I can become better. Hope that all that is good in this world will stay and all that isn’t will be replaced.

That that which is corruptible will become incorruptible.

Easter is when I remember and celebrate the opening of the greatest hope that I can have. Easter is when we are reminded that death is a doorway, not a wall. That the grave is a waypoint, not a destination. Easter marks the good news which the Gospel should scream from the rooftops.

Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here.

He is risen.

An Ineffective Attempt at Heroric Allusions -

Pasted in below is the first draft of the Ninth Week Posting. It is in it's crude, unwashed form - just what you want from your DVD deleted scenes. This tapestry of words was woven at nearly 3 o'clock in the AM - which presents an excuse for it's verbosity. Upon final review, we thought it was too long and took too much away from the pacing of our pregnant story. So here it is, in it's story-board-esque form - The Wondrous Ninth Week:

This upcoming week marks the entrance into Week 9 of the pregnancy. I know that it is hard to believe or understand, but Amber and I are still pretty excited. In fact, today Amber turned to me and mumbled (she is pretty tired these days) “Hey, you know, it’s been a month since we found out that we were going to be parents.” To which I responded, “Is it real to you yet?”

Some days it’s hard to think of anything else besides my future doubles tennis partner growing and maturing within my wife’s belly. Other days I find that the simple tedium and routine of read, eat, study, eat, outline, eat, go to class, eat, take a test, eat, sleep (I think I figured out why I have put on 20 pounds since law school started) allows the paradigm shifting development of a child to slip from my ever-present thoughts back to the dark alleys of my mind, the same place I keep my thoughts about credit card bills and thank you cards. Some mornings I wake up and I still feel like I am 18, senior in high school with only a dance and gas money to worry about.

But it’s real. It really is. Our little creation is no longer considered by science as an embryo. I now have a fetus – or foetus if you prefer the latin. It means “young one”. My little goblin has lost the webbing between his fingers and his toes. This happens due to a preprogrammed cell death in the cells that made up the webbing last week. It is pretty amazing to see how God has crafted such a symphony of cell birth, growth and death in such a complicated and sophisticated way as to bring us from a single cell to a complex elaborate biological machine.

The other thing that our Hector – our Hercules developed this week was something I felt and used pretty well on Tuesday night. You see, Tuesday we had an earth shake here in the Bay Area. It happened in East San Jose, but at the time I was in Santa Clara, just a mere mile from the epicenter. It was a 5.6 on the Richter Scale and it lasted for about 15 seconds. It was pretty fun. I got a little nervous because I was standing in a parking garage at the time. Anyway, the thing I used was my heart. I know, I know, our Achaean Hero has already developed a heart, but that was simply a two chambered heart. This week our boy has joined the ranks of the mammals by developing his four chambered heart. (Well, I guess he still needs hair and live young…but what are those to a tiny little nub of life?)

Amber was in Los Angeles early this week. She was working hard for Zazzle on promoting their recent big announcement. Zazzle and Myspace struck some sort of deal that is supposed to be “super cool” and “uber fantastic” (Amber’s words…not mine. J ) She put on an event complete with live bands (that band that did that song with that music video on youtube with the treadmills (gee…that was a GREAT sentence…)) velvet ropes and doormen that tell people that they’re “not on the list.” Amber works pretty hard for Zazzle. She has really put her blood, sweat and tears into that company. (Watch how I make this transition!) Talking about blood, our young one is now creating his OWN blood. (See how I did that? Literary GENIUS!) See up to this point he has been living off of a yolk sac. Now, however, he has a liver that is developed enough to produce blood. Normally the marrow in bones takes care of this task however in his case, his bones are currently made of cartilage. You know, the same stuff that your ears and…well, sharks are made of. That’s right, my boy? He is made of the same stuff as SHARKS!

Finally, I suppose it is important to let you all know that our micro-machines man has developed his neck to the point that he can now move his head. MOVEMENT!!!! No, Amber hasn’t felt any yet – even if she did, I am sure she would just be confusing it for the 4^th Meal I just picked up from Taco Bell, but just the same, Micro-Sam is capable of moving his head. With de-webbed fingers and elbows, this now lets him practice the move he will need to know very well while he is growing up—putting his fingers over his eyes and shaking his head in dismay. Honestly, can you imagine me being the father-in-the-cardigan taking pictures of my son and his prom date? That scene is ripe with opportunities for dismay.

The other movement our child can now do with a articulate neck? Sucking his thumb. I am not saying he IS doing it, I am just saying that he might be.

Thanks for reading, thanks for following along. Amber and I are on a great adventure and it is wonderful to have you all along for the ride.

Until Next Week!