Above All, People.

I love people.

A lot. They are my favorite.

This love leads to heartbreak, disappointment, fulfillment, and joy. Parents nurture and cripple. Siblings support and undermine. Friends enhance, detract, come, go; some endure. Enemies. Allies. Strangers. Acquaintances. People are horrible. People are wonderful. People with all of our yin and yang are by far, and I mean this with every bit of bombastic verbosity I can muster, the most important thing in existence.Period!

I believe in this human preeminence, past the point of feeling, over into the realm of knowing. It is at the heart of my narcissistic self-centeredness. Because I am a person I love me, but it also feeds my selflessness, because you are a person too. I am an I, as well as a we. With people lies the power to create, destroy, uplift and oppress. Humans are the creators and curators of art, music, architecture, civilization, and war. It is and will always be above all else, us.

Nature does not grow out of itself and mechanize, then choose to return to itself. People do, have, and will. Animals with all of their anthropomorphic wonder, for better or worse, often consume each other but do not commoditize or domesticate each other. They express and communicate but there is no literature. Wind, fire, water, and earth often destroy mankind, but none of those things consider themselves. Some of us do.

I believe we should consider each other more often and deeper.

I see people over there and sometimes I wonder but more often I move on. But they are still over there and whether or not I want it, they matter. They, you, we, affect each other all the time. Humans do not exist in vacuums metaphorically or in reality. We humans are capable of pretending and often do so when considering ourselves and the roles we play in society when we would be better served to embrace each other.But embracing is risky and hurt is real and regular. We are in fact dangerous.

So is gravity.

Let’s get to know each other. Please? All of us.

Let’s be in each other’s homes, eat together, live, share, and grow. All of us. If we do, some of us may be hurt- in every way possible. That possibility is inherent.

But if we ignore each other that possibility moves on to likely and then becomes inevitable.

My Mormonism: The beauty found in a Philthy place

I am Mormon. I think most people I know, know this. It’s not so much that I wear it on my sleeve, but moreso it is just sort of who I am.

We could discuss the ins and outs of what exactly being a Mormon means, lets do that one day, but not today. Today I will indulge myself in just one little aspect of what being Mormon means.

Being Mormon is not so much what you believe, or where you sit on Sunday, but it is very much who sits next to you on Sunday. It is even more about who you hang out with on Wednesdays.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, there are no pastors or priests, at least not in the professional sense. There are plenty of people doing a lot of preaching, just not a whole lot of getting paid to do it. By not a whole lot I mean none.

But things still need to get done. Lessons to be taught, sick to be visited, Sunday sermons to be given. This is why Mormonism is about who sits next to you. Because that is who does these things. Better yet, you do too.

Sometimes it works out well, sometimes not, but that is how it works, and because this is how it works I have been forced to learn a few things.

I have not learned so much about what is in our books, which is important, but I have learned a little more about how the stuff in those books doesn’t matter a bit if I ignore the person in the chair sitting next to me. No matter who it is.

Some of the people who have sat next to me have been right, even more have been wrong, and better yet, I’ve been both of those things too. Some have been beautiful, some not so much. Some well educated, others not so much. Some have been nice, many more quite the opposite. On and on and on, and still things have to get done. And when it comes time to get those things done, you look around, and that is all you have.

The people sitting next to you.

And you learn to love.

A family kind of love. The kind of love where you want to strangle your cousin Larry, because he deserves to be strangled, but he is your cousin and always will be. So you have to love him. You don’t have a choice whether or not to be cousins, you only have the choice to learn to love him or be miserable.

It isn’t easy.

But thats the point.

This is simply how it is.

By “it” I mean reality.

Truth.

This is reality.

Take a look at the people around you and this is how it is. It is like this now, and it will be like this in eternity.

It is not clouds and space,

it is faces.

This is not to say that all these faces are just or justified, including that one in the mirror.

But here we all are. In this together. And our charge is to get better.

A lot better.

Christianity, of which we are part, is based on the idea that this human persuit of perfection is impossible. We can’t do it and are doomed to be failures, hence the need for a Christ to redeem us from ourselves.

And that is Mormonism.

This role of Christ, is where one sacrificed and helped another get better, even though that “other” was deficient.

And we are charged with the task of becoming more Christ-like.

So we have to help the person in the chair next to us, even if they are no longer sitting in that chair, even if they don’t deserve it, even if they are horrible…

Or even if they are wonderful.

And we have to be helped too.

Because on any given day or in any one way, I am both horrible, or even wonderful.

And this role of Christ, this role of helping others strive for perfection, the role we are charged to take part in, has to be done with love.

Love must be the motivator.

Sometimes this is hard.

It takes practice.

So you go about trying to get stuff done; great lessons or boring ones, false doctrines or clear and simple ones, friendships or trials.

No matter what you get right or wrong, no matter how much you improve yourself or the others around you,

If you figure out the love part,

It is wonderful.

Mancation: Inception

I think maybe it was the phone calls.

I get a lot of phone calls but there are these certain types that after I hang up I just sort of stare off into space for a while. In my role in church I get told things that I then have to keep. I don’t get to talk about them, its kind of like confession. So I just sit there and stare while the phone call sinks into my soul like lead. I started getting a lot of those calls.

“You should call your friends and go on a trip.”

I can’t really raise one eyebrow, but if I could, I would have.

We talked. I listened. No; I think I complained and she listened. It was decided I needed a vacation.

How does one vacation? No. Wrong way to think about this. What do I want to do? Right. Thats a better way to go about it. As I sit and think I am annoyed with the need to think and plan. Thinking and planning is what I need a vacation from. Forget it. Forget planning. I’m not planning this.

I sent a text to the guys. They were in, but they weren’t going to plan it either.

I soon realized that to travel without planning I would still need to plan a little. I emailed out a spreadsheet with the supply list: tent, cooler, a canoe, ya know, just the basics. Off to one side was a list of possible destinations: Leatherheads workshop, cheese farm, Root Soda bottling plant, somewhere up north not near anyone, just the basics. Then, up top, I wrote out some ground rules:

No internet

No hotel/motel

No more than one purchased meal per day and only if it is specific to location (ie Maine lobster)

If we come upon a natural body of water 3+ feet deep, we must swim

If any of us almost die Dr. Chadwick must save them

And that was it.

Early Thursday morning I drove over the bridge to the Dr.s house and shortly thereafter the were-bear (half man half bear) arrived.

The Kala Beverages boys were back together. We loaded up the rented Xterra and pointed north.

Good Friends Celebrating my Graduation.

I spent the entire day doing what should have been done ages ago; cleaning my office.

One years worth of assigned readings and my effort to support the logging industry.

It was some first class excavating and I came upon a new technique for removing dirt from historical objects. By inhaling at least 90% of the dust bunnies and Egyptian sand under the futon, I had much less to sweep up, and the area was left clean. I on the other hand was left with a stuffed nose and 2 collapsed lungs. When the Mrs. and Littlehammas left to go get the other Littlehammas from school, I collapsed on the couch to rest and concentrate on breathing.

I was roused from my stupor by a phone call from an incredibly short Dr. “Hey, come outside for a minute,” he told me through the phone. Barefoot and wheezing I tipped out to his car where he informed me I was getting in. I protested and recounted my scheduled meeting for that evening. He smiled and told me he had cancelled my meeting. I went and got my shoes on.

I won’t recount the whole event, I did that already some time ago ( click here ), but this time made me incredibly happy.

DiBruno Bros. purveyors of celestial foods.

As we walked down 9th street I saw the guys up ahead loitering around the entrance. They were the usual suspects except for one who was slightly larger and furrier than the others. “Seriously man? I don’t know if I should be more surprised to see you in town or to see you wearing a jacket!” He just kinda smiled and shrugged his tweed jacketed shoulders. We all exchanged greeting and congratulations then got ready to start the sampling. As we turned to enter, Ian the cheese monger looked around curiously and asked, “uh where’s the beer?” After explaining who and what we were Ian won our hearts with the sort of knowing joke we don’t get very often, “Oh, sorry about the alcohol thing, but at least we have all sorts of food you can store in your basement for three years.” Well done Ian.

I have done this a few times before. It never gets old. Each time has been a little different, there is always a new twist. Like what Zeke called the DiBruno gluten free ravioli, aka cheese wrapped in salami. We were also presented with a cheese ball made of lemon tinted goat cheese rolled in candied cashews. We skipped the crackers and used sugar cookies to scoop with. My kinda guys.

It was good to get the band back together. We talked about the good old days (2 years ago), root beer, and parenthood. I ate too much, laughed just enough, and had to climb in through my window thanks to me leaving without my keys.

Thank you gentlemen. I am blessed.