North Star: Choosing Happiness

"Love is like the Polar Star. In a changing world, it is a constant. It is of the very essence of the gospel. . . . Great beyond comprehension is the love of God."
 -Gordon B. Hinckley

A good friend, also one of my home teachers from my YSA ward days, invited me to attend a fireside last night for the North Star International group. I'm so glad I went.

As described on its Facebook page, North Star is "a place of community for Latter-day Saints dealing with issues surrounding homosexual attraction who desire to live in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the doctrines and values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Another stated purpose is "to empower individuals to help educate themselves, their family, friends, and Church leaders as they strive to become integrated more fully and lovingly into the Church community."

I'm grateful to be one of those friends, and I proudly stand as one of their supporters. Also, as one of their admirers.

This fireside featured possibly the greatest display of congregational singing I have ever witnessed. They sang loudly, but they also sang with the voices of angels. As they sang, "So long thy pow'r hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on o'er moor and fen, o'er crag, and torrent, till the night is gone," and then, later, "O Savior, if thou wilt be my guide, tho dark and rugged the way, my voice shall echo the message sweet: I'll say what you want me to say," the words were not just words on a page but also a testimony of their very lives.

In addition, I was impressed by the number of hugs I saw people giving each other throughout the evening. I don't think I've seen that much hugging take place since the last time I was at sacrament meeting in Peru. Hugs are very much a part of their culture, too.

Truth be told, it's one of the things I miss most about that place and those people.

"There's so much love in this room," I overheard one person say. There was indeed.

Oh yeah. There were actual speakers at this fireside, too. The husband and wife (the husband has lived with same-gender attraction, though they've been married 9+ years now) who spoke talked of the most important commandment being that of loving God, and, in turn, He will love us back. It is the whole purpose for existing in the first place. All that seems unfair in life can be made right through the Atonement. We don't really know what we believe until we are tested. What you truly value and what you want out of life is far more important than seeking gratification. Purpose can be found in the service of others.

The wife spoke of an important lesson Eustace learns about being cleansed of his dragon scales by Aslan (i.e. the Lord) in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which gave her an extra gold star in my book. (The Narnia series remains my favorite.) The husband also spoke extensively on Victor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning and reminded everyone of an important lesson: The last and most important of humanity's freedoms is the freedom to choose what our attitudes will be in any given set of circumstances. Whatever trial or challenge any of us faces, we always have a choice.

Frankl knew something about that because, well, he survived Auschwitz concentration camp.

Speaking of dealing with difficult circumstances, the world would tell the members of North Star that there's no possible way they could be happy following this path that they have chosen.

Well, it ain't necessarily so, folks. It's bubkes, actually.

Last night, I met some of the pleasantest, happiest, and friendliest new people I have met in a long time. There wasn't a frowny face in the bunch. They are proud to be disciples of Jesus Christ, and it is a choice that brings them true joy and gives them hope and purpose. It shows in the way they act, and it radiates in their countenances. They choose to love God by keeping His commandments (see John 14:15) and loving their fellow man—in that order—and that is what makes all of the difference.

They know it, they live it, and they love it.

An Angry White New Year's Eve

There's no fanfare or public relations work to do tonight. I'm not gonna even post a link to this one on Facebook. It may even be deleted by morning if I care enough to take a second look. I'm tired of defending myself against the world anyway and of having to answer all of the smart alecky devil's advocates, many of who should really know better anyway. I don't need to be the one to tell them.

Sometimes, you just need to get it out of your system.

If the Angry White Loner were truly angry and a loner, he might lament the fact that it's New Year's Eve. Again. There are parties to attend, but at this point, they feel only like an obligation. One is a Church dance for single adults of the younger set, from whom the AWL has been cast out as a leper and unclean, while another is for the old set, who have been assimilated by the Borg, and, I daresay, there are very few who have met each other more than once in a year's time. The third option is the marrieds party, which, you might guess, is for the married friends.

The AWL would just be a third wheel. Or fifth wheel. He forgets which one it's supposed to be. But you get the picture.

He also set a new personal "best," if you can call it that, this month, batting .000 in the dating department. That's 0-for-9. He tried to get a date nine times and was told no, thanks, nine times. One of the girls he asked out four times, four weeks in a row, before she finally remembered that she had a boyfriend. Or she made one up. Same effect, either way.

He tells himself to brush himself off and keep trying, but rejection still hurts. If you care even a little bit, it has to. Nothing risked, nothing gained. All of those slammed doors on the mission pale in comparison.

Not that he is bitter. Haha!

Ergo, he's in a room full of people, yet all alone at the same time. It's not from a lack of trying, he reminded himself more than once tonight. That one thought is a small consolation. The only consolation. There is that cute girl who wants to get to know him better on the online dating site, but she lives in Alaska. Nope, nobody in the immediate, 1,000-mile radius tonight.

Nobody cares. They go through the motions of caring, but they don't. None of the ones he cares for and wants to care for him in the same way, at any rate. That's the Catch-22 of it all. They all say they want a sense of humor and kindness and all of that gooey stuff, and end up picking the jerks anyway. Or, they pick no one. 'Cause there's only one Captain Moroni, and it certainly ain't you.

There are men out there on death row, for crying out loud, who have women madly in love with them. Convicted murderers, rapists, kidnappers, spousal abusers, child molesters, etc. Yes, the AWL is aware he has brought up this tidbit before. It never helps nor changes anything. But it still bothers him.

Another thing that bothers him: Angry White Close Relative and he had a conversation today. AWCR brought up the word that has crossed his mind several times before on sleepless nights but that no one has mentioned to him face to face until today: alone. That death knell of words. That's how you're going to end up, it was strongly implied. Maybe it was said right out loud. He doesn't really remember because he was stunned to hear it said out loud at long last. Either way, the message got across.

You had someone who cared about you not long ago, AWCR reminds him. She made you quite happy, didn't she? He can't believe he's doing it, but he cites Jane Austen.

"'Quite happy' is not enough. 'Quite happy' is not the ending I want to write for my story."

One in 500, he calculated not long ago. That's how many out there are still trying. Out of 30,000 people in this county alone, 29,000 seem to have given up. Completely. Either that, or they're hiding under some very large rocks out there somewhere. They fill up their lives with books and movies and Farmville and the badge of busyness and a thousand other things except for the most important thing they could be doing. As far as caring goes, they have declared themselves immune, exempt, and forfeit. He recognizes he feels passive-aggressive about it all, and though it's often been his defense mechanism, it's something he knows needs to work on in 2014. But he still notices it.

This is why people hate the holidays. This is why they get S.A.D. during this time of year.

Well, at least there's 101 Dalmatians on Netflix to keep him company. And that will have to be enough for tonight. Not the animated one; the live action one, with Dr. House and Mr. Weasley as the henchmen.

Yep, that's what the Angry White Loner would write only if he were truly angry and a loner. Which he clearly isn't.

Not in the least.

. . . Wait, the Lakers lost tonight?! And Disney's Robin Hood is on Netflix, too?! This day just got 10,000 percent better.

Hope Springs Eternal

Recently, a couple of my friends got married. To each other.

What sets these friends apart from the many other friends of mine who get married - this is Utah, after all, so having friends get married is not that uncommon of an occurrence - is that each of them, on separate occasions and a number of years previously, sustained traumatic and life-altering brain injuries. One of them is also confined to a wheelchair.

Out of respect to my friends, and without going much more into the situation, suffice me to say that watching this couple's courtship progress and develop on a weekly basis (I know them both through a mid-singles institute class I attend Wednesday nights) over the course of the past couple of years has been, as I look back on it, a rather awe-inspiring thing. It's not the traditional, Taylor Swift-type love story, but it is a love story nonetheless. And it has led me to one bona fide conclusion:

Sometimes, God directly lends a hand.

"Soul mates are fiction and an illusion," taught President Spencer W. Kimball. Finding one's spouse is largely left up to us individually and as couples, despite our imperfect natures and the mistakes we all-too-frequently make. In my case, it's at least twice that often (making mistakes, I mean).

Nevertheless, on rare occasions, I believe, the Lord steps in does something to help a relationship move along to its goal. Adam and Eve, for example, were meant for each other - no questions about that. Isaac's servant was guided specifically to Rebekah to find a wife for his master. Nephi and his brothers were also commanded to return to Jerusalem to find wives and were led to Ishmael's family.

I believe that such was the case with my two friends who were recently united in wedded bliss. That's not gospel doctrine or fact here but just a page from the Epistle of Jon.

And so, the $64,000 question is: Why does he intervene on these rare occasions when so many of us are left to our own devices?

I believe that the answer, in each case, is to teach us something important. In the case of Adam and Eve, the lesson is kind of a no-brainer, involving such things as "multiplying and replenishing the Earth" and things of that nature. A book I'm reading now also raises the issue that one of the oft-forgotten commandments given to Adam and Eve is that they were to remain together, and once Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, Adam faced a choice: eat of the forbidden fruit, be cast out with Eve, and remain with her, or stay alone in Eden. (Many men in our time, the book points out, choose to separate from their Eves in favor of what they perceive to be an Eden - be it another person, a job, etc.) In the case of Isaac and Rebekah, as well as Nephi and his family, the lesson is about the importance of marriage in the covenant, assuming that Seminary video taught me right.

In the case of my friends, well, I believe the lesson is simply this: Whatever challenges life has thrown at you; whatever hell you've lived through, even when you thought you couldn't survive it; and even though you may feel like there's no hope left for you, be it due to health or age or job loss or shattered dreams or self-doubt or what the adversary is whispering to you or whatever it may be, there is always hope.

Always.

What's Wrong with Me?

A couple of years ago, a very distressed friend called me up on the phone and told me that he needed a friend he could talk to. Naturally, I told him that I had the time available for that, and he said that he'd come over within a few minutes.

When he arrived, he sat down in a chair, let out a deep sigh, and asked me one question: "What's wrong with me?"

Talk about your loaded questions!

No, seriously, he went on to explain that a girl he had been dating had just broken up with him, in spite of all of his efforts to make their relationship work. After analyzing things in his mind, that was the conclusion he had come to - that there must be something "wrong" with him that made her not like him back the way he hoped she would. I honestly do not remember how I answered my friend's question, but I do remember that we had a good discussion about dating and women - you know, two of the greatest mysteries of the universe.


I've thought of that experience a number of times since and whenever I've had to face a breakup of my own. My friend asked me a question that, I'm sure, many of us have asked ourselves after being rejected by someone. I don't think there are any easy answers to it - if there is even a good answer at all. "The heart wants what it wants," as the saying goes, and sometimes the heart wants really odd things or things that aren't good for it in the long run. The heart can plumb loco at times.

John Bytheway gave an excellent talk on CD, one that I refer to often when it comes to matters of the opposite sex and dating, in which he discussed the issue of likability. He said that an audience member from one of his firesides came up to him once and asked the question, "How do I make people like me?" The answer, he said, is that you honestly can't make people like you. There's that whole free agency thing, you know, that we all fought for in the preexistence, after all. Nevertheless, though we can't make others like us, what we can do is make ourselves likable. And there's plenty of good advice given in the scriptures on that subject, given in the form of possessing such qualities as kindness, charity, love unfeigned, humility, patience, etc.

In retrospect, another answer I might give my friend would not be an answer to his question at all but to ask a different question in its place: "What's wrong with this girl that she doesn't like my friend and see what a great person he is?"

Whatever the appropriate question(s)/answer(s) may turn out to be, I believe that self-improvement - i.e. making ourselves likable - is always a good idea. It's also a good idea not to give up trying to find that someone who will like us, warts and all - or there is the potential that opportunities will be missed. (Believe me, I know many people of my same age and in my same situation who, for all intents and purposes, have given up completely or at least appear to have done so.) When we find that someone, the rejections and the disappointments will fade into obscurity, while the "likability" can grow into love and other, greater things. If we do the very best we can, we have the promise that it can last for quite a long, long time, to boot.

Well, that's how I see it. Unless movies and TV have lied to me, it will also come with a swelling of music and a sparkly vampire with bad hair and makeup and little-to-no acting skills.