The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn

My sister Meredith got married this past week. right now she's on her honeymoon in Cancun Mexico and i hope that she's having the time of her life as she should be. as the wedding drew closer and the preparations began, i thought a lot about what was happening and the gravity that marriage (or the preparation of marriage) brings to a relationship. i remember wondering if what meredith was doing was right, if it would last, and how happy she would be. i suppose only time can give those answers with certainty but none the less they passed through my mind on several occasions. my mother seemed to be worried, my dad somewhat passive, my brothers in favor of it and i just wanted to be supportive. i love my sister very much, and i've come to really love her husband tony too. they are wonderful people, and they are wonderful together. the morning of the wedding, as my sister was getting everything ready, i asked her very passively if she was nervous. i think i was somewhat nervous, but then again i get nervous about everything. she calmly told me, with a sort of "duh"-tone to her voice that she was very calm about everything. later in the day, as we were in the Bountiful temple together as a family and with some close friends, i realized a few things that become very apparent to me. first off, i realized what a wonderful and sacred thing marriage is in the church. to know that we aren't just married by civil law like everyone else in the world but that we are married by the sealing powers of god which were restored through angelic ministers to prophets of god. what an incredibly powerful thought that is. i know this is something that most people already know in their brains, but to feel that power in the temple as your sister is being married by that power was something else. when the sealer (who's a friend and neighbor of ours, Bill Jones) began explaining the blessings and promises of the temple, i thought about the stereotypical relationships at BYU. there are so many people who find a cute girl or boy, date for a few weeks, "fall in love", and then get engaged after knowing each other for anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks. i know that isn't how all the engagements go, but stereotypes come from somewhere and there are a lot of people who really do that. for something that is so sacred and so important and filled with so many blessings, cant more people take their time getting to know one another? i'm heart broken when i hear of friends that break off their engagements after having put so much time and emotion into it all. obviously these relationships probably would have ended whether or not they were engaged, but breaking up is already hard to do, let alone breaking up an engagement. after seeing my sister get married, it is so plain and obvious that patience and time are key ingredients to good relationship.

One lesson that i hope that i've leaned, is that any lasting, loving, good and virtuous romantic relationship is not about love. it's not about love; at least in the sense that most people would define love as. most people when they think of love, they think of these overwhelming feelings of affection. they think of being selfless and giving everything that they have to someone else. they think of the passions and erotica and the euphoria and all the mixed emotions that come with the rapture of being caught up in the craving desire of someone else. well, that's great and all, but is that what being in love really means? i suppose everyone has their own definition as to what it means and there probably aren't any two people that feel exactly the same. i know that i have always felt different in every relationship, but allow me to give what i think it could all be about. now, i admit that i wonder if i've ever really been in love with anyone. sometimes being caught up in the moment, i believed that i had begun to tap into the reservoir of love and it's true that i had felt some of the powerful feelings described above, but as i've explained, those are only fractions of the equation, slices of a pie, or small pieces to a puzzle that should portray a picture much more beautiful. but despite all that, i believe that being in love is much more about the constant concern for the welfare of the other person. it's about sharing a companionship that grows together. it is about passing through hardships, trials, adversity, challenges and hell itself in order to understand each other better. i believe love is mostly about understanding each other's hearts and then doing everything in your power to fulfill the needs of the other. that is why "Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves" -1 Corinthians 13:4-7. If love is this powerful and this cogent, shouldn't we learn to love a little more and to do it right? I have a quote on my wall that is framed and written in beautiful calligraphy which reads, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return".

O Captain! My Captain!

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

The Tree of Freedom

Often we take for granted what has been given to us as Americans. How often do we get down on our knees and thank all mighty god for the free practice of religion? How often do we speak out in the public square in thanksgiving for the right to free speech? How often do we vote in elections; not just to give consent to our public officials, but because millions have fought and died for that sacred freedom, never having obtained it.

How often are we thankful for those who have worn the flag on their shoulders? Those who were willing to pick up a gun and stand at post; who, in the name of the United States, were willing to fight, to kill and to be killed because they were called upon to do so. How often do we drop to our knees and give thanks for their sacrifices.

The men and women in uniform will tell you that they do not fight for their country alone. They don’t put their lives on the line, going bravely into battle just for their country. They don’t go hungry, dodge bullets and endure explosions just for their country’s sake. Ask any soldier and they will tell you that they do it for their families, and for us individually.

Do you realize that they forgo all the comforts of home, family and peace so that we don’t have to? Do you realize the sacrifices of the families of the soldiers? Think of the children who are left fatherless and the wife’s that are left widows. The price of freedom has always been great. Thomas Jefferson wisely said: “From time to time the tree of freedom must be watered with the blood of patriots.” By fighting for us individually, truly this is a country “by the people, for the people and of the people,” build upon the foundation of those “who more than self their country loved” and who asked not “what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country.”

In the course of war and bloodshed we have been able to free ourselves of a repressive nation. We have loosed the bonds of oppression and granted inalienable rights to all persons both who were bond and those who were free. Aristotle said, “We make war that we may live in peace.” In fact, we have given rights so freely to our citizens that some have lost sight of what it all originally meant. The flag that our men and women fight under and the flag that they wear on their shoulder, is the flag that they solute as they go into battle. It is the flag that covers the coffin of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice as they are laid to rest; and it is that flag that represents freedoms so unbound and so emancipated that it’s citizens are even free to burn that flag.

We cannot be apathetic towards these sacrifices. In gratitude for the freedoms and the sacrifices given in our behalf, let us rise up and join the men and women who have given so much for these rights, and participate in the progression of this great nation. Let us do so by loudly raising our voices in the public square, by silently casting our votes in the halls of government. Let us choose good, honorable, and wise men and women to lead us. Let us become knowledgeable in the current issues of our day. We need to know the problems that face us, the issues that challenge us, and the trials that stand before us. We must arm ourselves with knowledge, sympathy and a strong voice. We don’t have to love politics. It doesn’t have to be our favorite branch of learning or our preferred past time but we do need to become active participants in a government that has secured its power in the hands of the people.

Apathy towards voting or participating in public elections shows apathy towards those who have died securing those freedoms. To become indifferent is to give away your power in government; a power which is an endowment at the cost of American blood. It is to give away a right that is inalienable to you, to someone else. Raise up your voice! It doesn’t matter if you are republican, democrat, an independent, a conservative or a liberal. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, what you vote for, where you vote, or when you vote. It only matters that you do vote, and that you vote for what you believe in. And that matters because it has mattered to those who’s bodies lay scattered across the battlefields of war as well as for those who have had to burry them.

It is clear that freedom is not free, that sacrifice rarely is convenient, and that a duty and power has been entrusted to everyone of us. Let us rise up together and use this god-given power, written by the hand of our founding fathers and secured with the blood of our forefathers, to sing the song of freedom and make this “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

In conclusion, I encourage everyone of you to recognize what has been sacrificed in your name. To give thanks for the rights granted to you by those sacrifices. And to take advantage of those rights, specifically by voting in public elections. Not every nation has been able to vote so freely and safely as we do here in America.

fragrance

eyes reading words, mind read something else- her. with every turn of the page the air caught a sent of her perfume. i turned more pages.