Give Thanks...For Wonderful Memories And A Great Cause

 This photo popped up on my Facebook feed today. If you don't know anyone in this photo, you'd think it was just another group of young adults posing for an event. I suppose the hair styles gives it away that this photo was not taken recently. It's actually almost thirty-five years old. You may not know them, but I do,

Each and every one.

This group met for university credit every weekday in a deconsecrated religious building at the top of 3rd West in Salt Lake City. We gathered, rehearsed, practiced some of the most beautiful music ever written, and threw in some B.D.Q. Bach for fun. We shared jokes, smiled a lot, allowed the time in that room to rejuvenate and recharge our crazy hectic lives. Looking at those faces from decades before, I see souls yet to experience the joys and heartaches of life. Many married fellow choir members...most of the unions remain to this day, some did not. I see lawyers, doctors, professionals from several fields. As far as I know, there have been no deaths...but spouses, well, life is incredibly cruel sometimes.

The photo was not in my feed to reminisce about a wonderful time in our lives, but for a higher purpose, something more noble. The gentleman, front row, far left is Dr. Michael Huff. A quick internet search will tell you more about this amazing musician and human. Music has always been a part of his life. In our choir he was the assistant director and accompanist. He's now the Director of Choral Activities at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. The gentleman at the opposite end of the front row is Dr. Ed Thompson.

I can count the men who have had the most influence in my life on one hand...Dr. Thompson is one.

I sang in Ed's choir for four years. Since that photo was taken, we've each gone our separate ways, made choices, sacrificed, lived. Dr. Thompson continued directing the choir he so dearly loved for several years, then retired. I know Dr. Thompson impacted my life greatly. The same can be said for many of us. Dr. Huff, who worked with his mentor as a contemporary, has done something wonderful. A new scholarship has been created, the Edgar J. Thompson Endowed Scholarship. You can find all the information on this program by clicking: HERE. 

If I could, I'd fund the whole thing. However, if you have the means and are looking for a worthy cause to enrich musicians's lives, consider donating. It will guarantee the name of a great man will live on.

I'm thankful to have been part of something special, something that I still miss these many years later. Knowing Michael, he's creating an opportunity to give others a piece of that feeling. God bless him.

Give Thanks...For The Somber Times

 I don't talk about my job much on this blog, or didn't when I wrote daily. It's not that I don't like my job--I do, most of the time. It's challenging and I feel we do good, based on the laws and policies of the state and the federal governments. But, at the end of the day, it's a job. It's a way to support my family. I spend my day as millions/billions of others every day. Some have it better...many have it much worse.

My job involves the appropriation of state and federal funds. I'm not part of the legislative branch that decides the extent of those funds, but I do make decisions of whether or not those funds continue to go to individuals who are eligible. As long as they're eligible, they get to keep them. My job is to make sure the funds continue. 

Doing the same thing everyday (with the occasional "surprise" case...), things can get routine, even boring. That's the nature of things...it can't be fireworks and rainbows all the time. That's when a phone call can stand out, especially when the person on the other end brings in a different spirit into the room.

When they bring in a somber tone, a darker time.

Last week, I made a call, a requirement for that particular person's case. I finished my job, asked the requisite questions, obtained the necessary answers, made notes, double-checked to make sure I had everything I needed, then I went into habit-mode. I thanked the woman on the other end of the line, then told her we're done for another twelve months, after which, we'd speak again.

She chuckled.

Then she said, "No we won't."

That piqued my interest. Usually, those with whom I'm speaking find my words sort of funny, as if they've been in a dentist's chair and the exam is finished and you won't have to endure my line of questioning for a year. I said, "Oh? What, are you moving?"

That's when she said as calmly as if we were discussing her favorite book in a booth at a diner.

"No," she said. "I'm only got about a month to live."

I've talked to the citizens of the state of Utah for almost three decades. Few things surprise me...this did. I was at a loss for words. I finally said I was sorry to hear the bad news. She told me what she had, some extremely long medical definition of the thing that was killing her, then said, "it is what it is."

Again, I said how sorry I was to hear such terrible news. I can't remember how we ended the call, but as I hit the "End Call" button on the computer, the conversation washed over me. I'm getting to the age where I'm seeing friends--or strangers, even--around my age who won't wake up to see another day. It's sobering, humbling, not your ordinary day at the office.

In a strange way, I'm thankful for that call, for that woman's courage, for her attitude. It makes me appreciate my life, the lives of my family and friends, the blessings I have, even my many-times boring job. The adage that there is opposition in all things rings true yet again. We cannot appreciate or understand the good without the bad, the sweet without the sour, life without the absence of life.

Every once in a while I get a call like that...very very few like that one specifically. They change the way I not only work, but how I see, well...everything.

Give Thanks...For Forty Blessed Years

 The text message came on Friday. It was from a friend, a friend I've known longer than I didn't know him. He reminded me via text that it was forty years ago--to the day--that we first met.

That day was one of the most important and influential in my life.

January, 24, 1985.

That morning I woke up, dressed, collected my suitcases (that I packed the day before...), loaded them in the car with the rest of my family and we drove sixty miles to the south, ending up in Provo, Utah, within walking distance of the great and spacious university campus of BYU.

That's where I met Brian, Mark, Michael, Jeff, and Linda...the newest missionary district in the Missionary Training Center (or, MTC...) assigned to the Denmark Copenhagen Mission for the LDS church. 

Because I'm old, I thought the anniversary was on the 25th, not the 24th, so on the 25th I dug out my old missionary journal and checked out the first entry. 1-24-85. I missed writing an entry the next day and I've missed I think one other day since 1-24-85, but every other day for those forty years, I've written in a journal.

Look at us...so different, yet in many ways, the same. Back then we were young, healthy, ambitious, somewhat cocky, a little scared, definitely naive, and we all had our hair. Now, with the life experience of two-hundred and forty years, we're not young, not as healthy, ambitious in different things, scared of different things, humbled, and lacking things (literally...) that we once had.

Growing up in a predominant religion serving a mission was something talked about every week at church, and many times throughout the week at home or with friends at school. To call it "pressure to go" would be an understatement. I always thought I was going to go. I don't think I ever considered not going. And when I turned nineteen (the age at the time...), I submitted my papers and a few weeks later my call came...Denmark Copenhagen.

The only thing I knew about Denmark was that it was small and situated above Germany. I was taking German at USU when my call came and the textbook showed what I thought was just a small map of the country. Turns out, it showed much more--almost all of Denmark.

I wrote in my journal forty years and two days ago that I arrived at the MTC and spent much of the morning walking around with Dan Scott, a fellow Davis High School graduate. We were both confused. I eventually found Brian and Mark, my two MTC companions. I skipped lunch, but ate dinner. 

That was pretty much my first entry. 

I'm glad I wrote it. I'm glad I wrote every day after that.

Rarely, do I read those old entries. Friday's text message brought me back, back to that first day, a day that changed my life. Looking back there have been several days--a dozen, maybe two--that were life-changing. This was one of them. Since that day, we all served, all came back, lived our lives, and thanks to social media, have stayed in touch. When we gather, we're family, brothers and a sister who shared those days and weeks at the MTC cooped up in the classrooms, gyms, and cafeterias. We then shared the joy and frustration of learning a foreign language, speaking with strangers (many who became friends...), and surviving that cultural experience of an LDS mission.

I cannot express in words just how impactful those days, weeks, months, and years were to me, and how my mission's affected my life ever since. I'm thankful for those memories and those people and that decision, especially those who supported me and my friends...my family.

Forty years...forty blessed years.