"Well, I let myself get busy, and got behind on the Thoughtlets again. Oh well! A big part of the reason is I needed time to think about this Thoughtlet. It's important, and I'm not sure I'm smart enough nor spiritual enough to address the topic appropriately. There are three times in my life when someone has got my attention with an unexpected insight about me.
First, I used to spend a lot of time at the Dallas Stake Farm. I was the Elder's Quorum President, and was responsible for getting teams of people to take care of the farm. We hauled the big round bails of hay. We wire brushed the house and got it ready to be repainted. Several times we were sent to clear out wooded areas with chain saws and axes. Typically I would use an ax, and I was pretty good at it. One day, I was working particularly hard at cutting through some trees, an old High Priest from another ward was watching me, and he said, "Who are you mad at? It is not natural how you are cutting that tree." I felt like I was a deer standing naked in car headlights. I was not thinking about anything in particular, and yet it was obvious he was seeing part of me I was not admitting to myself. I'm not even sure I was aware of suppressed anger before that moment. I did not know how to answer him, because I had not realized I was hitting the tree so hard, until he pointed it out to me. After some sideways comments about nothing being wrong, I proceeded to find my mind focusing on what was going on. There could have been things going on with Marti, which contributed to the rage he observed and pointed out to me. It is more likely it was deep seated anger at my Mother about stuff which happened in my family of origin years before. However, as I have looked back at that moment time and again over the years, I have come to realize I do not love myself, and was angry at myself for stuff I inappropriately take responsibility for. This realization crystallized this week.
Part of this comes from having a big ego. Most of us in our family are blessed with this same curse. In fact, the older I get the more I think almost all people have an inflated ego. Surely this is the basis of the Nigerian money laundering schemes, the successful proliferation of state lotteries, the success of game shows and reality shows and shows like American Idol, which at some level are people believe are controlled by their vote. In almost every case it comes down to folks not learning to love themselves. In my case, I was responsible for my parents money problems and their marriage problems and particularly the way Mom treated me when she was mad at me about something I did or did not do. And so I learned to over achieve, and this over achievement became a major part of who I am.
Second, when I worked at the Seismic Acoustics Lab (SAL), and when I was writing the 13 articles for World Oil which became my book "New Technologies in Exploration Geophysics, John Farr, Chief Geophysicist at Western Geophysical, sponsors of the SAL, was talking to me, learned of my writing activities, and surprised me with his insight: "Roice, doing all you are doing is not normal. What is driving you?" I've thought about this conversation numerous times also, and usually in conjunction with recalling my shock at being caught overworking in cutting down trees at the Dallas Stake Farm. Again, I felt like a I was a deer standing naked in car headlights. I recall mumbling something about wanting to make a positive difference in the world. I recall John shaking his head, and feeling sorry for me. Maureen, Dave and Lee and Mike and my administrative assistant at Geokinetics, used to work for John Farr. When this face came up in a conversation recently I was surprised at how quickly my mind went to this moment with John Farr. I learned from Maureen John used to have her type up underlines he made to books he was reading, and I thought of all of the books I have had Sherry Sump, Sharon Boyce, Bob Johnson's daughter, and others type up for me. More relevant, as I have looked back on this interchange, I have thought about how I have attempted to understand and share the root reasons for my over achievement oriented personality. I mentioned to Andrea once I was probably seeking to please my Mother, and now this has become a description of activities where Andrea thinks I am putting in too much energy into something, especially relative to her perceived value of a particular activity I am "overly focused on" (see 0717.html). Over the years I've seen much more dramatic extensions of this approach applied by co-workers who know my personal details, as well as folks at church, and folks I have considered friends. The worst example was Bill Rollwitz, and is tied to how he almost bankrupted me with HyperMedia Corporation. It is interesting how an attempt to honestly confront the skeletons in my own closet has sometimes ended up being used as leverage by others. And I think a lot of this type of manipulation could have been avoided if I loved myself enough to not let others take advantage of me. Believing at a deep and unconscious level one is not lovable is always going to create issues. The really sad thing to me is that if this is how I feel about myself, even if it is at an unconscious level, then some of you kids are likely to feel the same way about yourselves, because after all I am your example for better or for worse. I can see circumstances where one might say, most likely at an unconscious level, "How can I love myself if Dad doesn't love himself."
Third, on Monday morning Dave Johnson came into my office and started to talk. He has been on the road for a couple of weeks giving the company pitch to potential investors, and so I haven't seen him for a while. Dave is very good at getting right to the crutch of things. It wasn't 5 minutes before he had the door closed and he was drilling down to the kernel of why I do not like my current assignment. His conclusion surprised me, much as the other two examples I've given surprised me: "You do not love yourself. And that is a sin not to love yourself. God loves you. And so you must love yourself." There is no question about the fact my description of the previous two examples was colored by this statement. I've heard the words before. I think Dr. Nancy White at PAIRS said the same to me. I think friends and church members who have got to know me well have said the same. I'm sure Andrea has said it to me, and I expect some of you have said it to me. And for whatever reason, I think I heard it better coming from Dave Johnson than I have from any of these other sources. I expect, especially since most of you do not read these Thoughtlets and will not see these words for years, if ever, there will be few who read these words who think they apply to you. I'm sorry if this is so. And I'm very sorry for my example. Because I do love each of you, even though I don't necessarily feel the same feelings for myself. As I reflect on it, I do not think my Dad, and especially my Mom, loved themselves. I expect part of my issue is tied up in their feelings about themselves. How could I love myself, if those who were my primary caregivers did not or could not love themselves. Sin is a significant filter on our perceptions of ourselves and others, and sometimes we sin without even knowing we are sinning. For instance by not loving ourselves.
Tuesday morning Dave came back in and continued the conversation. He gave me a CD which means a lot to him based on his insistence it be given back to him. The CD is called "The Father's Love - Jesus came to show us the Father - Be in Health" by Hugh Elkins and Evangelical Minister. It took me until Thursday night to block out enough time to listen to the CD. And I did on Thursday night. It is good. It focuses on abuse, rejection, and abandonment. It talks about how in almost every Cristian Congregation, like he was talking to, when he asks those whose Father's told them they loved them to raise their hands, only 10% of the audience raised their hands. Most of the lecture was LDS Doctrine. For instance, talking about Jesus being the Jehovah of The Old Testament, and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. He was a bit mixed up in his theology relative to who the "Ancient of Days" is. He quoted from Daniel 7:9 where it describes how "the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from him: thousands thousands ministered unto him, and then thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened." He correlates this with Revelations 5:7 where it says "And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne," and makes the brash statement that these two scriptures are the only verses of scriptures which refer directly to Heavenly Father. He talked about when we think we've found truth it is time to look for confirmation and we will find it someplace else in the scriptures. He quoted from Matthew 3:17, where the scriptures say, "My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." He did not quote the account of Thomas, the member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, who looked to heaven as he was being stoned and saw God the Father, and Jesus Christ on his right hand.
Of course, he did not quote from D&C 27:11 where we are taught "And also with Michael, or Adam, the father of all, the prince of all, the ancient of days." Nor from D&C 138:38 where we are taught "Among the great and mighty ones who were assembled in this vast congregation of the righteous were Father Adam, the Ancient of Days and father of all." Nor from Brigham Young who expounded on Adam being the Ancient of Days and how Adam, or the Ancient of Days has a key role, as delegated by Heavenly Father, to play at the Judgment. After teaching LDS Doctrine, he did make a snide remark about "The Mormons," to the effect, "How can they justify having any other Gods before God?" I thought about this statement for the next week, being mixed up with his major point, thinking he was referring to before as a chronological statement, i.e. that the LDS Church teaches there was a God prior to God, which is one possible extrapolation of Joseph Smith's King Follett Discourse and John Taylors "As God now is man may become, and as man now is, God once was." However, as I searched the Bible, there are no chronological statements of Gods prior to Heavenly Father. Then I realized he was misquoting the 10 commandments, where Jesus, as Jehovah, said to Moses, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." In other words, it was a statement of placement. Somehow he has the impression Mormons believe because we have been commanded to become perfect, like Heavenly Father (Matthew 5:48), and we can become as God (D&C 132:37-38), it means we that we think those who become exalted are placed in front of their and our worship of Heavenly Father.
My hackles were up with the minister's statement denigrating the LDS Church, and so in addition to the previous paragraph's thinking about how his criticism was out in left field, especially since most of his lecture was based on doctrine the LDS Church has uniquely taught since the truth was restored by angels in these latter days, I figured he has to attack my church, and only my church, because it threatens his profession. For instance, I Peter 5:2 teaches "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; nor for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind." The LDS Church's unpaid ministry has to be a major issue to folks whose livelihood comes from preaching the gospel. Also our missionary work has to be upsetting. I made a chart at church on Sunday, the 20th. using linear extrapolation between 1 missionary in 1830, 3,000 missionaries in 1947, 20,000 missionaries in 1987, and 50,000 missionaries in 2007. Roice and Sarah came to lunch later that day, and Roice helped me calculate the area under the curve. Subtracting out for the years of World War I and World War II, we calculated there have been over 1.3 million missionary years served since the restoration of the gospel. If you average this at 2 years per missionary, (Sisters and some senior couples are 18 months, and for many years foreign missions were for 2 1/2 years), this means there have been some 650,000 missionaries since the restoration of the Gospel. This is a significant army in any body's view of war. And God's war against sin and Satan is integrated across time.
Anyway, other than his unnecessary and inaccurate remark about Mormon theology, Hugh Elkins CD is a wonderful statement about how important it is to love Heavenly Father and how this starts when we love ourselves. At the end of the CD he invites women and then men to come forward and to be hugged by men assisting his ministry. As each person is given a hug the person giving the hug whispers in their ear something to the effect of "Acting vicariously for your Father in Heaven, I want you to know you are loved. I am glad you were born, and I want you to know Heavenly Father is proud of you." You could hear the tears of folks who were very deeply spiritually touched by being told these words, which it was obvious some of them had never heard before. My first reaction was, I certainly hope each of you know I love each of you, I am glad each of you was born, and I am very proud of each of you. Later in life, Mom and Dad would say 'I love you,' in response to my saying these words to them. However, it was not part of their normal vocabulary, and these three points were not points made to me. Maybe this is why at a very deep level I must learn to love myself. Hopefully this is not the same fact for each of you. If it is, and if it is because I did not say nor show how much I love you in a way you could hear, I'm sorry. I have done the best I knew how with the tools I was given. And my message to each of you today is you must love yourself. And my message to me is I must love myself. And hopefully we can each overcome our individual issues and start or continue to avoid the sin of not loving ourselves.
Friday, the day after I listened to the CD was the Nottingham Country Ward's first day to fill the Houston Temple. We were all encouraged to take a day of vacation, and to spend the day at the temple. Andrea was teaching Seminary, and so I rode up with Mike Pickerd, Jeff Jurinak, and Don Keller. It was a special day, and the CD, despite the anti-Mormon baloney, set the stage for a special spiritual experience. We got to the temple about an hour early. It gave me a chance to pull President Pickerd aside and talk about the comment Don Keller had made when he came over to talk to me about a possible new calling a few weeks ago. I felt better having talked about it, even though President Pickerd had no recollection of the conversation Don had talked to me about. When we went in I was assigned to do washings and anointings. I did 13 of Colin Steward's ancestors and 3 Ray Magruder submitted for "Effie F.", the first missionary to serve from Texas. Then I did 3 endowment sessions, again for Colin Steward's ancestors. I can not think of a better and more personal way to connect with those who have passed on than to perform these temple ordinances vicariously for them. It would be wonderful if everyone had a chance to hear, understand, and accept the gospel in this lifetime. And it just doesn't happen. It would be nice if everyone knew their Father loved them, was glad they were born, and was proud of them. And it just doesn't happen. So the work in the temple, and the work of Evangelical Ministers like Hugh Elkins helps fill the gap and makes the world right. Hopefully we do not do more things to create problems in the world than we do making the world a better place for Heavenly Father's children.
As far as how my week went, it was better than the recent average. Monday was my second time to meet with anyone from Noble, the client for the PSDM project I am assigned to, and the first time to actually look at the data and the work I have done. Todd Jones was the representative from Noble. I was very impressed with him. Young, good looking, confident, good and insightful questions, and made me feel that much more that I do not fit in a seismic processing group. Oh well! My insecurity and my lack of love for myself.
Tuesday was our 8th anniversary. I got a nice note from Andrea:
Rob joined Matt and Andrea and I and we went to Kobe, the Japanese grill where Shrimps used to be. It is surprising how fast 8 years has gone by. I am so glad Andrea and the four of you and now Joshua and Bobbie Sophia (0719.html) have come into my life. I can not imagine not having you as part of my family, and if anything I wish I knew how to bridge the distances better.
Wednesday we got a very nice note from Sarah Johnson Nelson:
We also got a note from Roice with digital images of three pages from the Austin newspaper. The article was about commuting by bicycle in Austin. Roice was the feature because he commutes three or four days a week on his unicycle. Neat article (see page 1, page 2, and page 3). Neat article. When I showed it to my friend Les Denham, he said, with his Austin accent, 'Just doing his bit to keep Austin weird.' I thought this was very funny, and yet I recognize my role in refusing to buy a car for Roice unless it was powered by fuel cells or batteries. So Roice's environmental focus certainly does not all derive from Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient Truth."
I also got a note from Diane Anderson, Geokinetics Corporate Lawyer:
I talked to Merril Littlewood about this, and the bottom line is I can not use the $1.3 million HyperMedia tax loss carry forward to save taxes from the sale of the Geokinetics Stock options. Oh well! Also, it does not do me much good to purchase them, having to pay the taxes, and then to hold them for capital gains savings. So when we sell the stock options, we will have to pay a 32% tax to the Federal Government. Oh well! I need to love myself, and I do not need to love the IRS.
There was also a note from Dave Willis at Geokinetics:
Thursday, the 17th I got a note from sister Sara:
This was followed up on Friday, the 18th note from Justin Lee:
I let myself get sufficiently busy and involved in other things I forgot to forward this e-mail on to all of you. Another reason to not love myself. Gotta work on this insecurity stuff and realize I'm not Superman, I'm not Batman, I'm not Tarzan, I'm not Robin Hood, I'm not James Bond, I'm not Jonas of The Unit, I'm not Jack Bauer, and even though I am not any of these super heroes and make too many mistakes, I know in my mind Heavenly Father and Jesus still love me. Hopefully I will come to know this in my heart. And hopefully each of you know this truth, or come to know to know this truth regarding Heavenly Father's and Jesus' love for you as an individual in both your mind and your heart. Easier written than done for those of us with a combined inflated ego and deep seated insecurity.
As I mentioned above, Andrea and I spent Friday in the Houston Temple. We left a little after 4:00 PM because we were having John Walker and Susan Jensen and her twin boys over for a bar-b-que dinner. We cooked salmon and chicken on the bar-b-que, and there was nice salads and veggies and fruit and chips and Root Beer and ice cream - a real feast. It was a nice evening. Just before they left I felt impressed to play "I Once Saw A Family" for them (../9652.html). I had a hard time finding it in my book, but I did, and they liked it. Then Susan asked me to sing it at their wedding in 8 days. I agreed (see 0721.html). Then I sang "The Wooden Shoe" for the twins. I think they liked it. I know John liked it. It was a nice evening. They left just in time for us to watch the season finale of "Numb3rs." It was good.
Saturday Andrea and I worked in the yard until after noon. After mowing the lawn, I dug up a Red Tip bush which had died, where Andrea wanted to plant another fruit tree. In deepening the hole after getting the dead bush out I cut through a PVC pipe. It took a couple of hours to dig out around this pipe and to learn that it was an extra piece of pipe not connected to the sprinkling system, with the two valid pipes laid underneath it. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on a presentation for Pine Brook Road Partners (see http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic/pinebrookpartners), a New York investment fund that was referenced in The Houston Business Journal, which I read about on Friday. They funded a couple of brand new oil and gas start-ups, and it seems like they would have an interest in all of the material I have put together for Dynamic Resources Corporation (DRC). And If I am going to start loving myself, it seems like I need to get out of the Geokinetics PSDM Group, and do something I feel good about doing. I can not think of anything better to do than to bring DRC out of mothballs and pursue this long term dream. Of course, it would be nice to see An Open Mind go someplace too. Oh well! I don't know what else to do until I hear back from Roice Kruger's friend, Greg Link.
Brother and Sister Bancroft hosted a dinner group at their house at 5:30 Saturday evening. Great meal and good conversations. I enjoyed getting to know the Partridges a little better. They are the parents of Kelley Anne Minor, and have a wonderful background. He is retired Air Force, and she was born in Whitney, Idaho, and is a relative of Ezra Taft Benson. The McClendons were also there. He is an acquisition geophysicist and Andrea is her Visiting Teacher. We left the Bancroft's at about 6:30 so Andrea could help serve at David Pickerd's reception. At the reception, I talked to John and Heather Turner (0715.html) about the value of his house, which is a block away, so I could protest the value the government wants to tax our house at (see 0721.html). David Pickerd introduced me to his bride as one of his Scout Leaders. I never could get him excited about scouts or outside activities when he was in my Priest Quorum. Oh well! He certainly seems to be doing just fine. Ron and Linda Burgerner were there. She gave me a big hug and I told her it was great to see my favorite airhead (see ../0042.html). They had brought me a copy of the article about Roice riding his unicycle to work. And it turns out Ron is Roice's Bishop and Linda is the Stake Relief Society President again. I also spent some time with the Gebauers, and then I went home to work on my Pinebrook Road Partners presentation, until Andrea was ready for me to come back to the church and pick her up.
Sunday was Ward Conference. President Pickerd gave a very interesting talk about those who leave the church, particularly in a maze of complex intellectual ideas. However, behind these complex ideas he pointed out the three things which keep folks from coming back to the church: 1. Pride - I couldn't make a mistake and I have nothing to repent of. 2. Sin - too often tied to improper sexual conduct. 3. Substitution - replacing the spiritual with material things. And as I write these words, I realize because of my commitment to the church and to those things which I consider spiritual, it can be interpreted as telling those of you who currently do not choose to follow my example you are not lovable. For what it is worth, if these are your feelings, this is your choice, and it is not at all my perception. You are lovable, and you are loved. And not only by me, also by Heavenly Father and by Jesus.
Sunday afternoon and evening I finished up my Pine Brook Road Partners web pages (see http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic/pinebrookpartners). I also spent some time thinking about why it probably is true I do not love myself as much as I should. This last year has been particularly hard for me. Opportunities for others looked like they were going to take away the physical basis for all of my years of thinking about urban planning and the basis for all of my Walden 3-D plans. There was no way I could compete with these opportunities while working for a salary at Geokinetics. I'm sure this has been a significant part of my disillusionment with being in the PreStack Depth Migration group. I was asked not to be say anything specific about this opportunity, even though much of it is now in the public record. A week after I listened to the CD, I felt like my prayers for the last year were answered (see 0721.html). It was like the feelings of abandonment and rejection by the Savior were wiped out, through an answer to the prayers of my heart. Hopefully one of my projects will come through, allowing me to proceed with the work which I feel is so important for my Grandkids and for the whole world. However, whenever I start to think like this, my mind goes back to the Ezra Taft Benson quote which was in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," (see ../9833) about how the Lord working from the inside out, while the world works from the outside in. Maybe none of my plans are meant to happen, and maybe this is because they can be viewed as working from the outside in. And then again, maybe my plans will happen, if I learn to work from the inside out by following the advice I give to each of you: love yourself."
