17 Dec 2006 #0651.html

Easily Offended

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Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome to this week's "Thoughtlet."

These words are my personal diary and a weekly review of ideas, beliefs, thoughts, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you: my children, my family, and my friends.

"This weekend there was a conversation or an e-mail which reminded of Elder Bednar's talk about being too easily offended. The talk is on pages 89-92 of the November 2006 Ensign, and I think it, like President Benson's talk on pride, is appropriate for each of us in this family to review regularly, like once every six months. Let me quote one paragraph:

'When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.'

I could quote the entire talk. It would probably be good for me to type it out, as I tend to learn things from words when I type them out, which I do not learn when I simply hear them. Maybe it is a psychological reaction to my mother. And just maybe that is an excuse psychologists have propagated because the only folks who who go into psychology are folks who never learned how to have reasonable relationships in their family of origin. And who am I to point a finger, and have four fingers pointing back at me?

Sunday was busy. I prepared my Primary lesson in the morning. Before class there was a practice for the entire Primary to go through the songs to be performed at the Ward Christmas Party on Saturday night. During the practice session I spent a little time talking to Brother Siebert about how the exploration idea we discussed earlier (../0537.html). I also asked permission to approach his wife about collaborating on putting some of my songs to a musical score and submitting them to the church. He told me I did not need to ask his permission to talk to his wife about this. The regulars were in attendance in Primary Class: Ashley, Dylan, Morgan, and Jonathan. I wonder why the others do not come? Is it my lessons? Is it my post cards? Brother Larson is back, and he was in the classroom with me. Again, it is fun to sing the Primary songs with him. I do not understand why he is not more involved in the ward. Sacrament meeting included a talk by a High Councilor. OK talks. After sacrament I gave a copy of the form I discovered the week before when preparing my Primary Lesson for submitting songs to the church, and a copy of my song "Nephi's Vision I Nephi 11:2-22" (../0317.html) to Sister Siebert. It will be interesting to see if this goes anyplace. After church Andrea and I had our annual tithing settlement. It always feels right and good to me to be able to declare we have paid a full tithe. Bishop Harlan is very organized, and has a very good spirit about him.

Sunday evening was the annual concert with Epiphany. There were a couple of solos I was afraid were going to fall flat. However, all of the music seemed to go well. Father Jack M. Dinkins was the most negative he has been in 13 years of concerts. Specifically he made a point to refer to us as Mormons twice in his comments. I was surprised, and yet it only makes sense this joint concert can not always go smoothly. The attendance was disappointing. I'm sure part of the reason there were so many empty seats was because of the rain. I expect a bigger issue is that after 13 years it has become somewhat 'routine,' and there was not the advertising and telling others about the concert which has happened in the past. Then maybe my comments about Father Dinkins are just because I am easily offended. I was surprised by our choir director's comments, Sister Linda Nuttall, when we got together before going into the sanctuary to sing. She said: 'Being able to conduct this concert is the highlight of my life.' This comment places this experience over the birth, blessing, baptism, or marriage of her children, over her own marriage and sealing for time and eternity, and over any other event in her life. It reminded me of the Chinese leader of a delegation to Landmark, whom we took to a baseball game at the Astrodome. We had seats behind home plate, and a foul ball was hit up into the stands and landed in her lap. Several young boys tried to take the baseball from her, and I would not let them. Later she told us 'This was the highlight of my life!' I thought then that her life must have been pretty limited for this to be said, and certainly for it to be true. Sister Nuttall's comment has led to me spending time all week thinking about what is the highlight of my life. There are so many, in so many different areas, I have no idea how to respond to this question. Certainly I could list lots and lots of events which I consider more of a highlight than conducting a choir or catching a baseball. And yet I truly believe these events were significant highlights for these individuals. Hopefully I have contributed to providing each of you a path where you will have multiple highlights of great significance in your individual lives.

Monday morning George Schultz called and said Mike Schoemann was taking a day of vacation. I found this news very frustrating, as Mike had shown me how to interpolate a velocity volume and I submitted it just before we left on Friday. Turns out the job wasn't finished yet. I called Mike and he wanted me to finish repicking velocities on the one line which was not done like the other 23, and resubmit the interpolation job on a faster computer. The bottom line is there was another day with no work for me to do, and memories of why I did not want to be a seismic processor early in my career. I used the day to do a couple of things that came up over the weekend. First I copied Bob Scott's history section from all of the old POPS (Pioneer Oil Producers Society) for Pat Heaney. He just got a new job as a radio announcer with a station that plays in Houston and Dallas, and the one common thread between the two cities is the oil industry. I imagined a regular radio show about these kinds of history stories, and imagined a book put out summarizing these stories every so often. I gave the copies to him on Saturday, and he was cordial with regards to the idea. I also worked on the Nauvoo powerpoint Andrea wanted presented to the seminary classes. I think the presentation turned out quite nice, and would make for a great family home evening lesson. If any of you are interested it is at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/061123-25_Nauvoo/061124_Trip_to_Nauvoo.ppt. The only issue is it is 455,131,648 bytes in size (read that 456 MB).

Monday evening was the second Empty Nester Family Home Evening we have been to at George and Becky Schultz' house. It was a fun evening. After a fabulous pot luck dinner, everyone went in the living room for a white elephant exchange. George gave a brief lesson, and then had everyone introduce themselves. I introduced myself as Howard, Howard Roice Nelson, or H.R. the Houston equivalent of the Dallas J.R. It got the evening moving on a very lighthearted keel. Bishop Feil jumped up and pointed out I forgot the Junior. Then someone tried to pick up one of the Schultz' decorations as a white elephant gift, and Becky quickly corrected them. I asked if it was the 'B.S. Grinder' I had brought to the previous Empty Nester's FHE, explaining that Becky thought B.S. stood for Becky Schultz (../0203.html). John McReynolds was there, and I gave him a bad time about not getting baptized yet. He told me he will never quit smoking. Maybe he is right, and maybe his heart will soften. I hope so. There is so much good accompanying active participation in the church. George asked me to give the closing prayer, which I found flattering, especially given my comments on his belief in the 9/11 conspiracy theories. We had picked up Sister Schmidt and given her a ride to the party. She seemed to have had a good time. I hope I'm doing as well if I live to be 85.

Tuesday I went to early morning seminar and gave the presentation on Nauvoo. All of the seminary classes met together. Andrea started off the presentation, and made some comments which I found very embarrassing. They were unnecessary comments about my boss taking the day off work and me spending the entire day working on the presentation. The implication I was sneaking around behind my bosses back, and implying to all the seminary teachers and youth that I was somehow being dishonest at work hurt. I don't think she meant to hurt, and it is another reason I thought about Elder Bednar's talk on those easily offended. I didn't say anything about it until Friday evening, and I'm sure the fact I was upset and didn't say anything Tuesday morning (embarrassed is probably the proper word), contributed to making it a hard week for Andrea. I'm sorry. However, I'm not sure Andrea will see this apology since she hasn't read the Thoughtlets since I quoted from Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes book (../0444.html), showing she can also be easily offended. I went from seminary to an eye doctor exam. I haven't been to see Dr. Blair for over 2 years, even though I've had my left lens broken for over a year. I like him. My eyes seem very stable, and the only thing he requested was that I use the artificial tears eye drops every morning and every evening until my next visit.

I did not get back to the office until 10:00. It turns out Les Denham did not come in because he had a high temperature and was quite sick. I had attempted to coordinate with Maureen to get hold of Dr. Marfurt at the University of Houston to get him to change the day he visited with Les. Maureen had already left a message. Dr. Marfurt did not get the message, and when I got to the office the first thing Lee Bell said was that I was not there to meet with Kirt when Les was out. Oh well! In addition, the contact with the dGB consortium came by at 10:00 to deliver Geokinetics a new set consortium deliverables. I arrived at the office just in time for this meeting. dGB is the company with the "free" seismic interpretation software (../0441.html, ../0442.html, ../0444.html, and ../0516.html). Geokinetics and dGB formed a consortium to build velocity model building software, and have two oil companies sponsoring the consortium. It was an interesting meeting, and I ended up contributing quite a bit because of my experience. I guess this is why Lee Bell wants me to learn pre-stack depth migration, so I can be of benefit to the consortium design meetings. I suggested they look at Sketch-up, and Kristopher ended up spending an hour in my office looking at the tutorials and becoming introduced to the capabilities of this software. Then Tuesday afternoon I followed Mike Schoemann to I-45 and the Tollroad, across the freeway from Greenspoint, to visit Noble Oil. The objective was to learn details regarding the geology of the project I am working on. This project is so much more risky than any of the Dynamic Resources opportunities. If it is there and if a well can be put down 30,000+ feet, the opportunity is giant. However, it is still small compared to Dick Coons opportunities in Cabinda or Denmark. Oh well! Time will tell!

Tuesday evening Matt called to correct my comments in 0626.html, specifically to point out there was only one member of the Triple Duces decommissioned at Camp Gordon, where Matt was in Advanced Individual Training. Everyone else was at Camp Shelby. Marc came by and did a backup of all of the system in the evening. This was preparation for downloading a new version of the operating system on Thursday.

Wednesday through the rest of the week I re-picked the velocities at the base of the survey. When I picked the velocities the first pass through, it was done on a zoomed in window, and the velocities below this window were just interpolated. There was too much lateral variation in these interpolated velocities, and so the very bottom velocity needed to be repicked in order to smooth out the model. In addition, the velocities I picked on Wednesday were all wrong because I had the wrong velocity file in the background. Oh well! I think it was Wednesday night Melanie called and said we should watch a special CNN was doing about racism in America. They had a really slammed Vidor, Texas the night before as the home of the Klu Klux Klan. Melanie had written them an e-mail, and thought she was going to be quoted on the continuing Paula Zhan special that evening. So we watched it. Melanie was not quoted, and the CNN program was news sensationalism at it's worst. No wonder Melanie was easily offended by what they showed about her adopted home town. Later in the week she sent me this e-mail:

'CNN ended up calling me yesterday and Paula Zahn is now coming to Vidor next Tuesday for a "town discussion". They are interviewing my good friend, who is West African, and his family about their experience in Vidor. Rui (my friend) served a mission here, of course knocked on the doors of the people for two years. After his mission, decided to move here to pursue an education. He then married a girl from Vidor and they have a one year old little boy. He now teaches at the high school and may be pursuing medical school in the next year or so. He has never had any had a negative experience in Vidor. They have asked that I come to the town discussion. I'm waiting to hear where it is at and if it is open to the public before I decide if I will be there. I will attend if there will be 30 or so people there but if there will be 150 people there I will probably not be there. I hope it is a more positive report on Vidor. Love ya, Melanie'

So I'm going to be controversial and write some of my thoughts about the Klu Klux Klan and Vidor, Texas. I vividly recall when I told Rick Zimmerman about Melanie marrying someone from Vidor and moving to Vidor how his immediate response was 'That's the home of the KKK in Texas.' I discretely asked Melanie about it, and in effect she said it has been a problem in the past and it is blown out of proportion by those who are easily offended. She also told me how her new brother-in-law, the Institute teacher in Austin, gets very angry whenever anyone talks about Vidor as the home of the KKK. Jared told me he remembers the KKK standing on the street corners of Vidor in their hoods collecting donations. The bottom line in my mind is where there is smoke there is usually fire, and there is definitely smoke relative to the KKK and Vidor, Texas.

So how does the KKK presence relate to the church and Vidor? The church has been in Vidor for many generations, going back to at least the late 1800's. During this time the KKK was as much against 'Mormons' as they were against 'Blacks.' This is best illustrated by a story. Quoting from Volume 1 of 'Golden Kimball Stories' by James Kimball pages 31-33:

'In he fall of 1891, Golden (J. Golden Kimball, a member of the First Quorum of 70's and the Mission President for the Southern States Mission) received a telegram saying the Klan was going to tar and feather all the elders in that county if they did not leave immediately. Golden instructed his elders to meet outside Rome, Georgia. He met the elders as planned and they went into the hills to hold their meeting. It was in the Georgia pines in a clearing next to a large stream. The night was crisp and the moon was out. They built a large fire, had a word of prayer, and began a testimony meeting. Golden was the last to speak. He had only said a few words when they heard horses coming up on the far side of the stream. By the light of the moon they could see the Klan's white sheets. The klansmen had a wagon with a big cauldron on it. They built up a large fire, unloaded the wagon, and put the cauldron on the fire. Golden kept talking as the Klan yelled and war-whooped. Soon the pungent aroma of tar filled the trees. Golden saw fear on the missionaries' faces but said, "Elders, don't you worry about a thing. I was raised around scum like that, I know how to talk their language. I want you to leave and go back to your quarters. Don't you worry about me. If anything happens, just ship my body home." He gave them all a hug and a pat on the back and off the elders trudged into the darkness. Alone, Golden went to the stream and yelled, "We're finished over here. Do you know who we are?" Fifty Klansmen yelled back, "You're those blankety-blank Mormons! We warned you to git out of our county and we're here to teach you a lesson!" Golden said, "Yes, we're Mormons. And let me tell you something: Mormons have horns - big, damned ones! You cross that stream, we'll gore the hell right out of you!" Golden heard noises behind him. He turned and saw . . . the elders had come back! They were standing in a line just behind him. By the light of the moon the Klan couldn't tell whether the elders had horns or not. One by one, they got on their horses and rode off. The tar was dumped on the ground, the cauldron put back on the wagon, and the rest left without ruffling a sing hair on a Mormon head. One of the elders later wrote to Golden how one grand wizard told another, "By the light of a full moon, the Mormons grow horns and become vicious. They should be left alone."

As with many of the J. Golden Kimball stories it is very funny from our perspective. And yet during most of the time the Church has been in Vidor, Texas, there has been a prohibition against 'Blacks' holding the priesthood. I can see this 'doctrine' as a basis of tolerance by the KKK for the church. Sadly, I anticipate there could even have been some church members who were led astray and became involved in the KKK, using the priesthood prohibition as justification. This, even though history shows the Missouri persecutions were largely driven by members of the church voting as a block, and voting against slavery. Just as I see God's hand through history, I also see Satan's hand through history. The church's brave stand against slavery on the far western frontier in the 1830's and 1840's became a source of persecution, leading to being burned out of their homes and to many being killed in the middle of the winter. The church's policy of limiting blacks from holding the priesthood became a source of persecution during the Civil Rights movement 120 years later. I've previously written about blacks being given the priesthood (../0114.html), and this is a separate topic. In my mind, the key point relative to Vidor, Texas and the KKK, is the reality of Satan. Because Vidor and Gilmore, Texas were the first two firm footholds in Texas for the church, it is logical Satan would position his minions to denigrate the communities where the restored gospel was becoming firmly established. And it is logical this same type of perception will be promoted and 'shouted from the housetops' (D&C 1:3) by his minions today, including those who get caught up in the moment, which in my mind can include some of the 2006 liberal media types. Hopefully those who read these controversial thoughts are not going to be easily offended.

Thursday, 14 December 2006, I wrote a possible stanza for Prime Words based on an AudioTech Business Book Summary of a book called 'Shake that Brain,' by Joel Saltzman:

'Everyone has a cool idea Fall out of their mouth And very few grab the idea And write it down'

I figured out how to make velocity picking bearable. I turned my PC into an expensive radio, listening to on-line streaming of the classical music station, or an expensive CD player, listening to AudioTech Business Book Summaries. The music or the words kept me awake, and it doesn't seem to be so loud that it causes a problem for Lee Bell, whose office is next to mine. Thursday evening the missionaries came over for dinner. Nice guys. The new Elder, Elder Smith, has roots in Cedar City. Both of his parents are from Cedar City, and I went to school with his uncle, Brent Sorenson (../9904.html). Later Thursday evening Marc and I figured out that AT&T did not push the new IP address out, and we sent an e-mail to the group who did our IP address before. This resulted in having access to the walden3d.com website for the first time in a week on Friday. We still don't know if the e-mail is going to work or if the denial of services is still going to be affecting the system. We were on the phone with different technical support folks until about 11:30 PM on Thursday evening. Were I a different personality, I could have been easily offended.

Friday evening Andrea and I had a long discussion. She has been hurting inside all week, which seems to happen each Christmas. It didn't help that I was embarrassed on Tuesday morning and have waited until the emotions died down before I wanted to talk about it. She wanted to change the plane tickets to Utah, and to only go up for Michael's wedding reception on Saturday. However, Matt called after we had been talking for about an hour, had a very good conversation with her, and things seemed back on track again for our Christmas week in Zion Canyon (0653.html). Then we watched a video I ordered from ABC news called 'Last Days on Earth.' It summaries 7 scenarios which could end life as we know it:

  1. gamma ray bursts and black holes;
  2. intelligent machines, or computers smarter than us that decide to get rid of us;
  3. an asteroid hitting the earth;
  4. a super volcanic eruption, like happens at Yellowstone every 600,000 years, and has not happened for 630,000 years;
  5. nuclear war and the associated nuclear winter;
  6. plague, particularly human engineered smallpox; and
  7. they claim climate change is the most serious and most real threat, which was also presented as a given fact.
They are each scientifically viable scenarios, and certainly bring the importance of the gospel principles and the revelations relating to the last days into focus for me. Then we watched a video about the gruesome murder of adults who sexually abuse children on 'Numb3rs.' A little too graphic for me, and yet the background story is always cute. This time the astrophysical sidekick professor gets sent to the International Spacestation for for six months. And as they walked off the FBI campus in Los Angeles, they were wearing dark glasses and acting like astronauts in the movies.

Saturday morning I got up early to convert another Thoughtlet (0632.html) to html, and to work on this Thoughtlet. At 8:00 I was at the church to help set up for the Ward Christmas Party. Jeff Jurinak, Bill Hagen, and I ended up pulling the four Bethlehem panels we had in the garage out and taking them to the church with instructions from Andrea that they are not to come back to our house. Then we drove to Barker Cypress and almost I-290 to pick up 10 more of these panels. It was about 11:00 when I got back. I had a shower and took the POPS minutes over to Pat Haney, and then worked on this. The lights were blinking on the e-mail again, and so it looks like walden3d.com is still being hit by a netbot denial of services (0650.html). Marc came over and traffic is about 1/3rd less than it was before we got the new IP address. Hopefully the spammers have figured out they are not getting paid to not deliver e-mail to walden3d.com.

Saturday evening was the Ward Christmas party. It started right on time at 6:30 PM in the chapel, where there was Christmas carol singing. A Roman Centurion called us to go to Jerusalem (the cultural hall) and pay our taxes with coins given as we entered the chapel. In the cultural hall was a wonderful Mediterranean feast, with lamb, humus, flatbread, and all of the fixings. It was really good, and I ate way too much lamb. After the feast was a wonderful program by the Primary, and then a live silent nativity in the Relief Society Room on the way out. Then we put our costumes in the car, and went in and helped clean up the cultural hall. This wasn't just a good Christmas Party, this was a great Christmas Party. I hope each of you had at least one opportunity to reflect on the birth of Christ in an environment close to as special as this Ward Christmas Party was for me.

Sunday I worked on Thoughtlets most of the day. Because there was an extra week without a lesson from the lesson manual, I took a game and played the guitar for my Primary Class today. The kids are too used to me, and they were pretty much off the wall. I guess there is great wisdom in changing classes and teachers each year. I have one more lesson to give them next week, on Christmas, and then I will get a new class when we get back from Christmas in Zion (0653.html). Sacrament meeting was good. I wrote three possible stanzas for Prime Words on the 17th of December based on talks by (a) Michael Kennerson, (b) Jacque Heaney, and (c) Mark Warden:

'It is our thoughts Which are most important Which lay the path To being able to see Christ' (b) 'Music is one of the most Forceful instruments In molding and directing The minds and actions of men' (b) 'Virtue is a goodness The power that left Christ When a believing woman Touched the hem of his cloak' (c)

Sunday after church Andrea and I wrote a letter to each of the 10 of you regarding what we are giving you for Christmas. I went and Home Taught the Minors. I read from Thomas S. Monson's talk, sang 'The First Prayer' (../0044.html), and ended up telling them about my conversion in Corvallis, Oregon (../9715.html). Hayden Hudson and Dong Liu were not home. Andrea went downtown to see The Messiah with Jana McClain. I also had a nice Home Teaching visit with Chris and Michelle Schmidt. The elders were there finishing dinner. They had a second meeting with the young man they told us about on Thursday, and he had several questions. While the Schmidts were doing the dishes, I helped them think through answers to the questions. Jonathan was very receptive to my lesson. At least none of these folks are easily offended."

Since the 38th week of 1996 I have written a weekly "Thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me). Until the 43rd week of 2004 I sent these out as an e-mail. They were intended to be big thoughts which mean a lot to me. Over time the process evolved into a personal diary. These notes were shared with my family because I know how important the written word can be. Concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life, I thought this was a good way to reach those I love. It no longer feels right to send out an e-mail and "force" my kids and my family to be aware of my life and struggles.

Everyone has their own life to lead, and their own struggles to work through. I will continue this effort, and will continue to make my notes publicly accessible (unless I learn of misuse by someone who finds out about them, and then will aggressively pursue a legal remedy to copyright infringement and I will put the Thoughtlets behind a password).

The index to download any of these Thoughtlets is at http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets, or you can e-mail me with questions or requests at rnelson@walden3d.com (note if you are not on my e-mail "whitelist" you must send 2 e-mails within 24 hours of each other in order for your e-mail to not be trashed).

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 2006 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.