Spiritual Cerumen

 

Recently I woke up and had trouble hearing out of my right ear.  My right ear is the good ear, and the left is the one I have trouble hearing out of.  I touched my face and felt pressure in my right ear that was not present in the left.  I knew something was wrong and wanted to get my otoscope out and look into my right ear, but my eye was not on a stalk like that of a snail, so I had to rely on someone else to look for me.  Fortunately, I was able to secure an appointment with my ENT doctor that day and he found my ear canal was clogged and obstructed with cerumen or ear wax, for those of you who are not familiar with medical terminology.

He removed the cerumen and I immediately felt relief and my hearing was restored to normal.  This was the first time in my life that this had happened to me.  It was a simple procedure and was quickly accomplished.

We often have spiritual cerumen build up in our spiritual ears until it obstructs our ability to hear the word of the Lord through the still small voice of the Holy Ghost.

When I was in high school our choir sang this song which repeats the words “Hear the word of the Lord”.

In instructing the church, the Lord says in the Doctrine and Covenants 46: 17-19 that we will receive information through the Spirit. We must then have ears to hear before our hearts receive understanding.

 

What is this spiritual cerumen that dampens our hearing of the spiritual whisperings? It is the roar of the crowd and the mocking of the great and spacious building.  It is the praying and not listening.  It is the failure to read, ponder and pray. Just as our body builds up and secretes earwax (cerumen) little by little until it obstructs the ear canal and interferes with our physical ability to hear, the ability to “Hear Him” is impaired by spiritual cerumen. Thus, we have ears to hear, but hear not.

 

So, my grandchildren, keep your ears clean!

 

Love,

Grandpa

 

 

 

Questions for the day

 Letter written many years ago, but not sent to a church leader.

I had intended to let this be the end of my letter, but some experiences during the past month
have given me some impetus to write to you on another matter. 

For the past 6 years I have served as Chapter Chairman of the Wyoming Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. I have attended the national meetings and have watched the making of policy and have seen the impact of such statements upon national and state agencies. I have felt quite alone sometimes because I have tried to represent my somewhat conservative views on social issues to be drowned by the overwhelming voices of liberal colleagues. 

Being a member of the Lord’s church does not
foster popular views on social issues, since the ways of God and the ways of the world are usually at opposite poles. I have found during the six years that the four members of the church I have met among the Chapter Chairmen have been good men, but most do not choose to seek to find offices where they may be in a position to more effectively represent the ways of the Lord. As a result, a usually conservative group of physicians now have a policy which holds that social programs holds the answer to replace the family in teenage pregnancy, and day care centers to replace the mother who chooses to work. 

I have often wondered what we who are in the professions are supposed to do? We who have the gospel and realize that it alone can bring about peace and sanity into an otherwise worldly society. Should we involve ourselves in the organization of the world, hoping to exert our influence for good or should we abandon the worldly organizations and put all our efforts into church activity totally ignoring what the world does? 

I realize that church policy and pronouncement on such issues would perhaps be unwise and would certainly raise the ire of the liberal factions and bring about continued discord. 

Here the letter stops.  These are questions that we can pose today. If we do not lead out who will follow?

 

Be a leader.

 

Love, Grandpa

Wrong way drivers

 

The parable of the wrong way driver

The other day on the freeway there were two incidences of wrong way drivers within a 24-hour period. The first accident involved two vehicles and both drivers were killed. In the second one only the driver who was in the wrong was killed, the other was not. There have been a number of wrong way driver incidents in which the drivers were not killed but injuries occurred. The highway patrol has been alerted and seeks to stop the wrong way driver and keep him from injury and death.

Why do some drivers go the wrong way? Perhaps they do not read the signs.  Most on ramps have a sign that alerts the driver that they are entering the freeway going the wrong way.

Perhaps they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Perhaps they are taking their directions from a GPS or someone in the car.

Perhaps they are looking at a video or text on their phone.

This is an analogy to the highway to heaven or the covenant path.  The freeway is called that, because there is no payment required to use it. The covenant path is also free (Salvation is free to all.) that leads us to our Father in Heaven, and we don’t have to pay anything for it, we just have to keep on the covenant path. This covenant path leads to our Father in Heaven and exaltation in the celestial kingdom. All we have to do is keep our covenants. The covenant path begins with baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we keep on that covenant path by keeping our Heavenly Father’s and Jesus’ commandments. In addition, we covenant in the temple to do certain things and we covenant to obey all of our Father’s commandments and in addition; in the covenant of marriage we covenant to obey all the laws, rites, and covenants pertaining to the holy state of matrimony.

How do people become wrong way drivers on the covenant path?

Perhaps they neglect to pray on a regular basis and communicate with God.

Perhaps they do not read the scriptures that warn us of the evils that are so prevalent around us.

Perhaps they do not listen to or read the words of the prophets who tell us where to go.

Perhaps they transgress the law of chastity or break one of the commandments that they have covenanted to keep.

Perhaps they use drugs or alcohol.

Perhaps they do not attend the sacrament meeting.

Just as the wrong way driver on the freeway can cause death or injury to himself or others, the wrong way driver on the covenant path can cause spiritual death (exclusion from the influence and eventual presence of God) or spiritual injury to themselves and others.

Let us take an example from the Book of Mormon. Korihor did not believe in Christ and sought to lead his fellows who were members of the church astray and was having great success until the prophet (like a highway patrol officer) intervened to save the people from his teachings (the wrong way driver.)

Now an example from more modern times. James J. Strang was a member of the church at the time of the prophet Joseph Smith. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Strang) He did not follow the leadership of the church after the death of Joseph smith and led 12,000 people to Beaver Island where he declared himself king and was killed by a gunshot wound.  He was a wrong way driver and not only died spiritually, but physically as well. The church he founded collapsed and the members found other churches.

There are plenty of wrong-way drivers on the Internet. Many apostates seek to crash into you and destroy your faith in the church.  They have been excommunicated and would seek, like Korihor, to lead people astray. 

There are guides such as bishops and stake presidents and priesthood leaders who like the highway patrolmen will help us to avoid being a wrong way driver on the covenant path.

A child or family member who goes the wrong way on the covenant path can injure the feelings of other members of the family by exercising their agency causing pain and suffering and, in some cases, spiritual death.

We have been admonished to do everything possible to stay on the covenant path.

Don’t be a wrong way driver. Stay on the covenant path.

Love,

Grandpa

Model Ariplanes and Me

 

Model airplanes

I will try to detail my experience with model airplanes.  In the far distant recesses of my memory, we lived in Missoula Montana.  I remember that we had some sort of a paper airplane and I seemed to remember that it was associated with cereal boxes.  I don't remember much about it except that it was a glider and not self-propelled.  We then moved to Pocatello and then on to Cheyenne, but I don't remember much about airplanes during that period of time.  When we got to Denver I remember three different kinds of airplanes. 

The first were paper airplanes that we made from a sheet of typing paper.  There were two different kinds one was a long sharp-nosed glider that we would fly off the porch of 433 Corona Street in Denver.  The other was what we called a fighter it was also made out of typing paper but had wider wings and a tail and a rather heavy nose.  This we would launch in a different manner by grabbing it by the nose and throwing it forcefully off the porch.  Neither one of these was very airworthy.

The next airplanes that I remember were, I think, associated with cereal boxes, but I don't remember if we just sent in the box top and got the airplane in the mail or whether it was cut out of the box.  These are represented World War II airplanes and required a penny to be glued into the nose for proper balance.  These were not self-propelled but were gliders and seemed to work well unless they crashed.

I then progressed to model airplanes that were propelled by a propeller and a rubber band.  These planes came in kits and had to be assembled.  They were made of balsa wood and the parts had to be cut out with a razor blade or other sharp object.  Because I was so interested in these planes I asked my parents for an X-Acto knife for Christmas.  It came with a number of different sharp blades much like the surgical scalpels that I became used to later in my medical training.  I would cut out the parts and glue them together which formed a skeleton structure of the airplane.  The kit came with a very thin paper, which would be glued to the framework with airplane glue.  The airplane glue that we used smelled like bananas and had a tendency to form a film if it got on your fingers.  This could be removed with a solvent, but we preferred to chew it off because solvent cost money.  Occasionally we would run out of airplane glue and would use sodium silicate.  You could buy a whole bunch of this at the drugstore, and it would last much longer than a tube of airplane glue.  The only problem was that sodium silicate was water-soluble.  In order to tighten up the paper that we use to cover the wings and fuselage we sprayed it with water.  It would shrink tightly and would make a good base for the paint that we used to cover the entire airplane.  We called this paint model airplane dope.  It came in various colors.

The only problem that we encountered was; if the plane was not balanced right when we flew it, the plane would veer to the ground and crash.  If the plane withstood the impact, we were lucky.  Sometimes we could salvage the plane so that we could make it airworthy to fly and crash again.

Many of the young men in our neighborhood in Denver built model airplanes and flew them.  Some of them even had gasoline engines.  I don't believe I ever had a model with a gasoline engine.  I did have a gasoline engine for a model airplane but never did install it in an airplane.

I do not remember ever having a picture of any of the models that I made.

Maybe you can find a kit and make a model airplane and outshine your grandpa.