That's Love

There is at least one song on my itunes that I don't really like but haven't ever bothered to delete. The music is fine. But I don't agree with the message. The song? That's Love by Brad Paisley. Here are some of the lyrics:

You're starin' at a burnt steak
You bite the bullet and you clean your plate
And then you go on and on about how great it was
That's not a lie, that's love.

Well, it's the very same thing
That she does for you...
Your bummin' out, she says
There's somethin' kinda sexy about a bald head...
That's not a lie, that's love.

As I've mentioned here before, I am big on honesty. I want to be able to trust that you will tell the truth. I want to know that I can count on you to tell me things I should know, even if it might hurt my feelings in the moment. Say it as tactfully as you can, but don't lie. And I take that upon myself, too. If I choose to lie, I am going to remember and feel bad about it for years to come. Yes, years. Trust me on this.

Besides, if I burn dinner, I know, and I probably feel bad about it. If it's like bad gravy on a Goodyear tire (Paisley's words) and we can afford it, you can even get us something else to eat - spontaneous dinner out, delivery, fast food, whatever. Otherwise, yes, clean your plate. But don't tell me it's great - I have taste buds too, you know.

And from what I know about love and women, a girl who says a bald head is sort of sexy may actually feel that way. Especially when that bald head is part of the man she loves.

Better advice comes in this column by Orson Scott Card. Basically, he is saying that if it doesn't really matter, you don't have to say anything. If it does, be tactful with the where, when, and how. But tell the truth. Now, that's love.

The Song of My Heart

I like to sing. And I'm pretty good at it. I also like to perform - there is just something invigorating about being in front of a large crowd, all focused on me. Assuming I'm prepared and it's not largely made up of people whose opinions particularly matter to me. Otherwise I'm more likely to become a nervous wreck.

So, of course, choir was a natural fit for me, and I have performed in several of them. Women's Choir in junior high. Women's Chorus, Junior Choir, State Honor Choir, and Concert Choir in high school. Various ward choirs. Once or twice, I sang with the Choral Arts Society of Utah for the Days of '47 Sunrise Service (Mom, was that just once? Do you remember?). And I probably would have tried to be in a university choir if I had gone to a different college, but I was not willing to compete for the U in anything. Which left me feeling slightly guilty when the Rivalry Week food drive came around. But I digress.

These days, I mostly sing alone. Sometimes I'll sing along with a song playing on the radio, or sing some song stuck in my head, or I'll join in with a group who is singing various popular songs for fun. But when I am in private and sing for the sheer joy of singing, I usually don't sing rock or pop. When I sing for fun, by myself, I usually stick with church music or things I learned for one choir or another. Maybe they fit better my preferred style of singing. Maybe they are more tied to other occasions of losing myself in music. Or maybe they resonate more within my soul.

Mr. Nice Guy

I never saw the appeal of bad boys.

We've all heard that nice guys finish last. And the idea has appeared in books and plays and movies all over the place. But I have always liked the good boys. The boys who go to church every Sunday, treat everybody kindly, and respect authority figures. The guys who, if you imagine them drinking, smoking, or doing drugs, the image in your mind would be so incongruous you just have to laugh.

I think most girls realize that they don't want a really bad boy. They don't particularly want to be abused. And for the long-term, at least, they realize that the ability to hold a steady job is good and criminal tendencies are not. But there is still apparently something appealing about the image of a bad boy. In the first book of Dean Hughes' Hearts of the Children series, three cousins have the following conversation:

     Diane smiled. "The only thing I ever think about is finding some guy who looks like James Dean... really handsome but--"
     "You mean, dead?"
     "No. Like he looked when he was alive. He was really cute but a little bit bad. You know what I mean? I want him to be good, and in the Church and everything, but sort of dangerous at the same time."
     Kathy had begun to laugh.
     "See, I told you--"
     "No, no. I'm sorry," Kathy said. "I'm not laughing at you. It's every girl's dream. Anne - in Anne of Green Gables - says she wants a boy who's good but one who's capable of being bad and chooses not to be. Something like that."
     "Yeah. That's it. That's exactly right."
     "So who isn't capable of being bad?" Gene asked.
     "You!" both girls said at the same time.

 But I don't want that. Of course, anybody really can be bad. But I would like a guy like Gene - someone who the girls would say can't.

Except I seem to recall Gene as being pretty popular with the ladies, and I've typically not liked the same guys all the other girls were into. Even when they were nice.

My Choice

A couple posts ago, I said I was going to look up some terminology, then explain why the "Why are you Mormon?" question is so hard for me. Well, I looked and could not find the terminology - if I still have the notes from that class, I'm not sure where they are. If it was in a textbook, I didn't save that one. I looked for online syllabuses and class notes from the classes I thought might be applicable, but couldn't find anything helpful. And I tried searches on a couple general search engines and on Google Scholar, but didn't find anything.

I bet I could have found something with Google if I had remembered the terms I was looking for.

So I'm going to forget the terminology and just try to explain the idea myself.

In one of my college psych classes,we talked about how people make decisions about their lives. You can organize the decision-making process with a sort of rubrik with four possible outcomes. So across the top, there are two options - if you have chosen or not. Down the side are two different options - if you have explored your options or not. So the four possible outcomes are having decided without exploring options, undecided without exploring options, decided having explored the options, and undecided having explored the options. The most optimal outcome is having made a decision after exploring your options.

When we were discussing this in class, I felt a little uncomfortable. Because I thought that in my life, I really hadn't explored all the different religions out there - I settled into the first religion I was exposed to. And according to the theory, just settling into a decision without first exploring is pretty bad. I eventually came to the conclusion that I was alright - that I had made a conscious decision, not just going along with what my parents chose for me. I prayed about it, and I got my answer. So it really wasn't -fill in word for that outcome-.

But when thinking about what to put for why I'm a Mormon, I am a little concerned that when I say I've been Mormon all my life, I will give the impression that is the reason I am. I want to get across that I made an active choice. But I'm not sure if I can.

On an unrelated note, Santa brought me my tiger this Christmas.

Developing

A while ago I read an article in Scientific American talking about rates of cancer in developed countries (I believe they were referring to Europe and North America) versus developing countries (specifically mentioned were Egypt, Brazil, and Nigeria).

As I understand it, when people talk about developed countries, they mean countries that have achieved, or developed to, a certain point. Developing countries are progressing to that point. I'm not sure exactly what that cut-off is, and am not even sure that there is a real fixed marker. If anyone knows for sure where the cutoff is, feel free to enlighten me.

But when I read the article, the terms seemed, briefly, to be saying that the developing countries are still climbing and growing and achieving new things. Developed countries, however, are done and are just stagnating. I know that isn't what was meant. And that isn't actually the case. But the thought did grab hold of me for about one second.

Mormon.org

For the past couple of  weeks I've been working on setting up a profile on Mormon.org. It took me a while to decide to do it, and even after deciding I've been taking my time about it, because I don't really like being so public. I don't really want to throw my name and face out there for anybody and everybody to see worldwide. It actually bothers me a little knowing that people can click through to here from other people's blogs. And I know they do because I look at my blog stats. And if I have friends in Hong Kong and Argentina, two of the countries where somebody has looked at this site from, then a couple somebodies haven't been keeping me very updated about their lives.

But the Mormon.org feels even more exposed than that somehow. Probably because there's that lack of a friend-to-friend link.

Anyway, there are certain sections in the profile that you have to fill out before making it public. Some of them were pretty easy - name (they don't allow you to use your full name, which I like), ethnicity, and previous religious background required no real thought. About Me and How I Live My Faith required some thought, but not too bad. I hesitated about uploading my picture, but I found one I liked okay and made myself go ahead with it.

But I'm still having trouble figuring out exactly what to say for Why I am Mormon. I'll probably write a bit more about this later, because to really describe my thought process will require me to look up a little terminology that I have forgotten and because this post is long enough already.

Bread and Water

When I was very young, I looked forward to taking the sacrament. Not because I was particularly holy, but because I saw it as a mid-meeting snack, and I liked snacks. I don't think I'm particularly unusual in this.

During sacrament meeting today, I realized that I feel a bit more of a focus on the sacrament on fast Sundays. And I started to wonder if this was a good thing or a bad thing. As a general rule, does my extra attention to the sacrament on fast Sundays help me get more out of sacrament meeting, or am I busy thinking about the food as an opportunity to eat that I focus less on the atonement than usual?