cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts, and Sherri Nelson.
"Grandma Shirts put my last Thoughtlet in it's place when she returned to Cedar City last Monday and after reading my words wrote back to me:
Thanks for the note, and thanks for the example to all of us that my disappointments have nothing to do with you. Of course the biting disappointments I wrote about last week date over decades, did not all occur during Grandma Shirts' visit, and I need to forget them and put them behind me. Since I'm pretty convinced most of you who receive these weekly Thoughtlets spend less than 5% of the time reading and pondering and thinking about what I write as compared to the time I spend attempting to put words in a legible stream, I have long attempted to remember the future, and have written the Thoughtlets based on the philosophy of writing to you when you are 30 or 40, even 50 or 60. As I wrote in a separate e-mail to one of you back in September:
If someone reacts strongly to something I have written, it tends to mean I have touched a nerve, either on purpose or accidentally. And pretty universally, I anticipate when this happens it means the words are more holographic than not. I have only been writing Thoughtlets for 5 years and 8 weeks, and hope to be writing them for another 30 or even 40 years. Even though we are each disappointed in something virtually every day of our life, I expect last week's theme is the only Thoughtlet over the lifetime of this effort which will be focused on the emotion of being disappointed. I was feeling very disappointed last week because of the Woodside bureaucracy (the moment), and I apologize if I came across too strong on my feelings (holographic).
Life is a process, and as my friend Steve Joseph taught me, some time ago, we need to trust the process (../0023.html).
If what I wrote last week made you angry, I recommend you look at your life and discover where you are not whole. There was no intention to hurt any of you, although I did attempt to find words which would touch each of you to the point of contemplation. Andrea rightly chastised me when she proofed the Thoughtlet, with `What right do you have to call your children to repentance?' My response was `Fatherhood,' and that includes being a step-father.
Based on PAIRS, anger comes out of fear and pain, and both of these keep us from being whole.
Fear of being rejected. Fear of failure. Fear of death. Fear of the unknown. Fear of getting caught. Fear of injury. There are lots of things that we can struggle with as individuals (For what it is worth, the first two I list above are my two biggies).
Pain can be due to the unfortunate circumstances accompanying any life. Birth defects. War. Economic depression. Drought and famine. Hunger. Deafness. Blindness. Lameness. Disease. Obesity. Divorce. Untimely death of a friend or a loved one. Lack of social skills. Problems our parents didn't handle very well. Problems a neighbor or a church leader or a teacher did not handle very well. There are a lot of things in life which can bring us pain. For the most part, each of us have not had to suffer very much real pain. (Please read Victor Frankel's short book `Man's Search for Meaning,' if you don't believe the previous sentance.)
The logical conclusion of the above three paragraphs, assuming these represent complete and fundamental truths, is that most of our anger comes from fear. Therefore, I repeat, `If what I wrote last week made you angry, I recommend you look at your life and discover where you are not whole.' Hopefully you are each big enough to recognize if you also reacted too strong, because of your feelings about what was written. And if you did, figure out how to get your life whole. The nice thing about each of the disappointments I mentioned last week is they can all be put behind us. The issue is if we choose to not repent (put them behind us). Then we are asking for a lifetime of pain for us and for those around us, most of which comes out sideways, and we don't even know where it is coming from.
To be specific, in the last General Conference, Neal A. Maxwell, one of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, gave a wonderful talk about the harsh reality of immorality. I will simply quote the notes I wrote down:
We set the dial. We are the ones who decide how happy we will be. And if we carry around a bunch of extra baggage we will not be as happy as we could be. And I'm writing this last sentance to myself. For if we trust the process, we can forget the past, we can let others make their own mistakes, we can simply do our best to be a good example, and hope and pray others will see the fruits we enjoy.
So what happened this week. It was another week of working on maps (see http://www.walden3d.com/US). I really do believe Bavinger was onto a fundamental truth with his Infinite Grid(SM), and I hope to prove this over the coming weeks with some of the projects we are taking on. On Tuesday I took Andrea out to a Chinese Restaurant to talk about where we are at and the opportunities that I hope to close. She fell asleep twice while I was talking, and I guess I really must be pretty boring. Although I should stress she has been working very hard in the yard this week to do the hedging, weeding, flower planting, etc. Wednesday morning Jim Jinright and his lackey (Scott Lackey) came by for a couple of hours. I sure like them. they have really taken off with these medical immunization books. I will do a Thoughtlet on them sometime in the future, and will also get all of you and each of your kids one of these books to keep with your passport. The more I hear about their prospect in Rio Grande County, Colorado, the more I like it. It has the potential to open up a whole new sub-basin for hydrocarbon exploration off of the San Juan Basin to the south. I've just got to keep presenting it, and to trust the process.
Wednesday afternoon I gave a presentation to the Croma FW Team. FW stands for Frank Wade, and is the name of a new oil company which is taking off like a rocket. They have entered into an agreement with Chroma which puts a group of Chroma professionals in their office working just for them. This was a preview meeting to get Chroma to invite us to present to their partners. It went well, and the next meeting should happen before Thanksgiving. I just have to trust the process.
Thursday I had a meeting with the University of Houston. Kurt Marfurt who runs the AGL (../9745.html, ../9816.html, ../9932.html, ../9945.html, and ../9950.html) set up the meeting. I think I helped them redirect some visualization plans, and hopefully there will be some things come out of this which help lead to cash for Dynamic. We spent about two hours with them. On the way home I stopped and talked to Dave Agarwal about Walden's business relationship with II&T. Hopefully we will be changing this next week, to be a little more of a business relationship with some mutual benefit. Friday I was working on the maps and Dave Ridyard called and asked me to come down to the office and meet with Kjell Finstad. Kjell offered to buy out all of my stock in Continuum for $10,000. And if I don't sell it, he will take the company into bankrupcy and I will get no cash. He is willing to put $3,000,000. into the company if he gets 100% ownership. I told him it soundes like the company is worth $3,000.000. and I should sell my 7% ownership for $210,000. He got angry and walked out of the room. Didn't even have a chance to talk about fear and pain and about how these keep us from being whole. Oh well! Something will likely happen this next week in the world of my ownership of any of Continuum Resources International Corporation. Guess I just need to trust the process.
Saturday was ward choir practice at 8:30; Matt's soccer game at 10:45; set up for Latter-Day Night Live at 12:00; Sheri Elizabeth Yano's wedding reception at 6:00 in Spring up past Intercontinental Airport (../9714.html, ../9813.html, and ../9839.html); and Latter-Day Night Live at 7:00 back at the Stake Center. It was definitely a day to trust the process. The choir sang at Latter-Day Night Live. I was late for and left early from Matt's soccer game. Ken Turner put up an art exhibit as non-performance art for Latter-Day Night Live. It was the first time since the art show at the Sealy Branch where we showed all 8 of the paintings done so far for Prime Words that Ken and I have done something like this. It was beautiful. The new giclee prints look like originals. In fact, when Ben and Sarah visited today, Sarah said she would like to get a giclee of the `Heros of Texas' painting. When I can afford it, I intend to get giclee's of each of the Prime Words paintings so those of you who have them hung in your house can switch out each of the differnt paintings every few weeks. Someday. As we were setting up I told Ken about my aprehensions about another exhibit. The one in Sealy was one of the worst nights of my life. Rob disappeared. We found him later in a hole in the wall off of Mason playing wizards and magic. I was convinced it was Satanic. Roice came and could not bring himself to come into the room. It hurt so much, because I want you kids to so much feel the holy spirit of God and His Son Jesus Christ as I have in my life. Oh well! I must trust the process.
Andrea and I left about 5:00 for Spring. We got to listen to Prarie Home Companion all the way there and most of the way back. I'm so glad we went up to the reception. When she saw me, Judy Yano ran and grabbed me and hugged me and would not let go. I forgot that I baptized her, in addition to Home Teaching her and introducing her to Ken, who was one of my counsellors in the Dallas First Ward Elder's Quorum Presidency (../9714.html, ../9922.html, ../0025.html, and ../0038.html). She introduced me to each of their children and to her new son-in-law as the person responsible for him having a bride. Ken is a tax lawyer for Deloitte & Touche, a leading engineering firm for determining how much oil and gas fields are worth. It was good we went because we were able to comfort Judy. It hasn't been very many years since her oldest daughter Katie Yano was killed falling off the hood of a car at a High School activity (../9714.html). And now Sheri did not get married in the temple, after all that Judy gave up to join the church and to get married in the temple. As we discussed, life goes on and we have to trust the process. We had a nice conversation with one of her friends, who told us about the conversion of her parents in Florida. It was a special few minutes in Spring.
We hurried to get back to Latter-Day Night Live on time only to find out that 249 was under construction and we lost 20 minutes getting past the construction. However, we made it to the church while the first introductory act was still going on. Our English neighbor down the street, Lynnette Stevenson, was playing the host of `The Weakest Link' and Steve Feil, Steve Holleman, Steve Long, Steve Short, Steve Wood, and Steve Riches were her panel. All of the questions had a Steve answer, and the one they couldn't get was the BYU Quarterback who was a descendent of Brigham Young. At the end she asked who they wanted to vote off, and everyone put up `Steve.' Then they had a revote, and everyone put up `Lynnette' and she walked off stage. It was a great laugh. In fact the whole evening was like that. For those of you who graduated from Taylor, you might be interested to know the Brannings (the hosts) reported that there was a white substance found on the football practice field they had never seen before at Friday's practice and the FBI was called in to evaluate it. It turned out to be the touchdown line, and they were told to go back to practice, because they probably wouldn't see it again the rest of this year. We have some very talented folks in our ward. I was particularly glad Matt got to see the program, and now that he has a benchmark, look forward to working something up to perform with him for the next one. Andrea worked really hard. She had bought all of the drink mixings, and she ended up making 5 big punch bowls full of punch. When we first arrived I counted 150 people in the audience. This included our Ward and also the Sealy Branch. It was a good evening.
The only bad part was the memories it brought back to me. The last Latter-Day Night Live was done 4 years ago, Brannings were the host, and I came alone as a divorced failure. The evening brought back those feelings, and I drowned them by going to Wendy's and getting a Bacon Swiss Cheeseburger and a small Frostie. Oh well! Trust the process. The hurt will go away someday. Maybe. And hopefully sooner for all of you kids.
Today was wonderful. Excellent sacrament meeting talks. I wrote the following stanza from Sister Celeste Nielson's talk:
Sister Paula Jurinak talked about obedience, and the High Councell Speaker, Brother Lyall Eaves kept me awake. Sunday School was really good. Marion Pickerd talked about President Kimball's 1974 landmark talk on missionary work. I even enjoyed the High Priest lesson. We talked about the stone cut from the mountain without hands, and I even made a comment, which the teacher did take completely out of context as soon as I finished. Oh well! Trust the process.
Andrea fixed salmon, which I bar-b-qued on the grill Mom gave us for a wedding present. Ben, Sarah, and Ethan came by. Then Roice showed up. Then Sara came. It was a real fun party. I got out my Lincoln Logs from when I was a kid and Sarah and I played with them, while Ethan messed them up. Then we went in the front yard and watched Ethan play soccer. In no time at all he will be playing in a world championship. Roice took Rachel, Sara, and Matt for a ride on his motorcycle. Sara and I walked up and saw Ruth Henderson. Ethan wanted his Mom and Dad so the two of us went back and Ben and his family took off. Roice and I walked back up to the Hendersons and talked for a while. After all of the catch-up, Ruth said, `Haven't they all turned out great?' I expressed concerns about Rob, and she said, `He will be just fine, you have to trust the process.' I said, `I understand. I've been putting that concept in words all afternoon.' Roice and Sara and I called my Mom. After Roice and Sara left Rob called. Looks like he might come over for Thanksgiving. That's great news! Then Andrea went to the baptism of one of her Laurels (there were 80 people at the baptism). Rachel was at the Stake Youth Choir, which performed for a Stake Fireside on `Islam and the Book of Mormon' by our Mission President, James Mayfield, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Utah. Good talk, and there are notes in my notebook for those interested. Then we had Stake Choir practice for the joint concert with Epiphany next month. When we got home Matt read from The Book of Mormon, I said an evening prayer, and finished writing this.
And my final words to myself and you tonight are: Trust the Process."