The Nephew's Mite

Admittedly, my last post ended on a bit of a downer. But that's not to say the weekend was a total washout. For, no sooner had I finished my last post when I reached into one of my pockets and found: a treasure that was a crumpled-up dollar bill. And suddenly my perspective changed altogether.

I couldn't believe that, in my frustrations about my car, I had completely forgotten all about it and what it represented.

At the aforementioned family get-together, it was also a birthday party for all of those in the family with October birthdays, myself included. Two of my siblings and their families had each given me a copy of my favorite film of 2014, The LEGO Movie, on DVD.

Great minds think alike and all that.

My six-year-old nephew had, just before gift-giving time, collected a $1 bill from Grandpa for scoring a goal in Saturday's soccer game, which is a deal Grandpa has worked out with all of his grandkids. Some of them really take him to the cleaners on it, but the deal goes on nonetheless.

Back to gift-giving time: This same nephew gave me, as a gift, the same $1 bill that Grandpa had given him for scoring a goal. Now, a buck is not a whole lot of dough to us big kids, but to a six-year-old boy, well, it was all that he had.

It was a very humbling moment, and I was grateful for the gesture. Six-year-old nephew is like that. He'd shave your back for a nickel. He's my buddy.

In retrospect, it has made me think of the scripture in St. Mark 12:41-44:

"And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."

Six-year-old nephew has a heart and soul that big. I'm lucky to be his uncle and also his friend.

Chucking It

I spent part of Labor Day afternoon with Angry White Nephew, who is not only related to me by blood but who is also one of my best buddies. Autumn is nearly upon us, and with the weather still warm but yet also gradually cooling down a few degrees here and there, we made another venture over to the Splash Park in Kaysville for some fun in the sun.

Afterward, we went over to one of the local greasy spoons to pick up some ice cream, like you do when you're an amazing uncle like the Angry White Loner is . . . ladies. *wink wink*

AWN said that he was craving something Oreo-flavored, and that sounded good to me, too. So, we ordered a large shake, presumably for the two of us to share. I knew he wouldn't get through it all, and I figured I would help him finish when he got tired of eating what his little tummy could. All of this was implied, at the time, which is probably my fault in the first place.

As the time came for us to leave, I dumped the contents of our tray, napkins and such, into the trash can and turned around to see that AWN was standing by another trash can, also empty handed. He had chucked the contents he was carrying into the trash. In other words, the still mostly full milkshake.

After taking four or five bites out of it, he had chucked the whole thing. "I didn't want to eat any more," he explained.

Granted, AWN is just six years old and is in the first grade. He doesn't yet understand too much about the value of money nor the reasons why we don't waste food (first-world problems, huh?). We could have very easily also taken it home and put it into his freezer for him to finish later had he not let me help him finish it up. Either choice would have been acceptable, I told him.

I'm not angry about The Chucking, though I tried to calmly explain to him on the way home why we don't throw away that much food. I don't love the kid any less, and I don't hold grudges about things that insignificant.

The English literature minor in me, of course, has, in the three days since, read a little bit more into the Chucking incident. Like when we give a family member or a friend or a co-worker or a member of our neighborhood or ward or even a significant other something that we feel is of great worth because we want to share it, they then take a few bites and realize they don't like it, and they chuck it.

These "milkshakes" we give them might be another kind of food but might also be such things as our time; cooking, cleaning, or a number of other household chores; a book, TV show, movie, even a YouTube clip we think is worth sharing; a simple act of service; going out of our way to do something nice or complimentary; and, in the dating world, giving our very hearts and souls to someone . . . only to see them tossed away nonchalantly as a thing of little or no value to the person receiving it.

Sadly, a Chucking of one sort or another of the type mentioned above, or any number of other possibilities, probably happens to each of us far more than we'd prefer it. It's disappointing, and sometimes it can be downright heartbreaking. Some would respond by simply refusing to give anymore if that is that sad result of giving.

I understand that. I don't think anyone would blame someone who believes that no good deed goes unpunished this way.

Nevertheless, I'm still of the opinion that giving is good. That the people who receive what we offer with gratitude, and who give something of their own in return, are the people worth hanging onto and not letting go of. We may grow a little wiser and/or a little more selective, over time, about what we give out and whom we give it to, but it's still a great choice to make: to give.

Especially to AWN. Because we have an understanding now.

Hot Guy Saves the Universe

The Angry White Loner and his five-year-old nephew have been hanging out a lot lately, usually by playing video games or with LEGO bricks, or, combining the best of both worlds, playing LEGO-themed video games. Because that's just the kind of awesome uncle the AWL is.

At five years old, my nephew is too young to see The Avengers, which is rated PG-13, and many of the other popular superhero-themed movies now making guys exclaim "Cool!" and women pass out. Through the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes video game, however, I've been introducing him to the likes of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and so forth.

A recent conversation with him went like this:

Nephew: Who is that guy?

AWL: The one with the bow and arrows?

Nephew: Yeah.

AWL: His name is Hawkeye.

Nephew: Hot Guy?

AWL: Your mom sure thinks so, yeah.

Why It Matters

On Friday, a federal judge overturned Utah's Proposition 3, passed in 2004, which defined marriage, under Utah state law, as a contract entered into between only a man and a woman. I just read in tonight's paper that, in the three days since, more than 700 gay marriages have already taken place across the state.

This is all happening so fast—much faster than I was prepared for. I didn't think we'd have to cross that bridge here in Utah for a few more years at the earliest.

And yet, here we are. "Tomorrow" has come. Some rejoice in that fact. I have been somewhat surprised to see more than a few of my LDS friends join in their jubilation.

As a result, many conversations have taken place, some more heated than others, over the past few days. Personally, I have engaged in discussions about the issue with family, friends, and even a few mere acquaintances, both in person and on Facebook discussion boards.

Earlier today, one friend posted a link on my wall that read, in part:

"Should a particular religion’s faith document (referencing the Proclamation on the Family) become law for everyone? Is the Bible the Constitution? Churches can still believe and practice what they want and not impose those beliefs on secular law. And do you really want to make legal or illegal everything the Bible endorses or opposes? Do you really want to go there?"

To paraphrase: "Why do you care, Angry White Loner, whether a man chooses to marry a man or a woman chooses to marry a woman? It's all about love, not hate. What does it matter to you whom another person chooses to love? How dare you impose your hateful, ignorant, outdated, homophobic religious beliefs on society."

I've pondered a great deal over both these questions and the possible answers over the course of the weekend. (Having strep throat tends to leave you with a lot of time to think about a lot of things.) And I've come up with two main points to sum up why this issue does matter a great deal to me personally and why it should matter to us all.

1) Two months ago, in the October 2013 general conference of the Church, Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said:

"Each day is a day of decision, and our decisions determine our destiny. One day each of us will stand before the Lord in judgment. We will each have a personal interview with Jesus Christ. We will account for decisions that we made about our bodies, our spiritual attributes, and how we honored God’s pattern for marriage and family" (emphasis added).

Though the world may not care what I, personally, believe on the matter, and may discount my opinion as someone unqualified to opine, the Lord cares what each and every one of us thinks on the matter and whom or what ideals we choose to follow in this lifetime. The day will come when we will have to account for it, face to face. And His opinion of us matters. He will want to know where and with whom we stood when all of this was going on.

2) Because of my nieces and nephews, it matters. A lot.

That thought occurred to me yesterday while I got to spend some time with them (at arm's length, of course, because I'm currently under the weather) at our bi-monthly family dinner.

I care for all nine of them a great deal. Hopefully, more will join us in the next few years. If and when I have kids, I will feel the same way about them, too. Next to their parents, grandparents, siblings, and other aunts/uncles, I care for them more than anyone else on this Earth. I want them to be happy and healthy and to succeed and grow and to live up to their potential. I also worry about what the future may bring them, though it is with cautious optimism. I hear a lot of optimism from President Monson and the other General Authorities when they speak.

As a family, collectively speaking, we are teaching these children that "marriage between a man and a woman is essential to His eternal plan" and that "children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother." Following this teaching is the only pathway to true, lasting happiness and a fullness of joy, both in this life and in the eternities. The God we believe in is a God of pure, perfect love, not of hate, and one who wants us to return to live with Him—though we have to do our part.

Already, however, the world is telling these children, either directly or indirectly, that this doctrine, as it is found in the Proclamation and in the mouths of 15 modern-day prophets, seers, and revelators, is outdated, stupid, wrong, changeable, hateful, discriminatory, bigoted, and other, worse adjectives that I won't mention here.

I cringe at the thought of this happening, though I know, sadly, one day, it will. I want to protect them from these detractors who are, in reality, the hateful, spiteful ones. I will fight with everything I possess to prevent it from happening. I will try to be the best example I can be of someone who honors God's pattern for marriage and family. Never, however, will I resort to bullying, fear mongering, unkindness, shunning, or any other tactic unbecoming of a follower of Christ to do so.

On a different friend's wall, I read this other thought:

“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”
― Augustine of Hippo

Family and friends, the wheat is being sifted from the tares—even within the membership of the Church itself—and the five wise virgins are filling their lamps with oil, while the five foolish ones are being "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14). Nevertheless, the way to go is clear, if we will but hold to the rod and "not be deceived" (D&C 52:14) by false prophets, secret combinations, and other wolves in sheep's clothing.

I Should Be So Lucky

Luck . . .

It seems like it's never on my side. If I drop a piece of buttered toast, and this happens more often than I'd like to admit, it usually lands butter-side down. I also enter my fair share of contests, drawings, and games of chance but never win any.

Until Wednesday, that is. And it happened twice.

On Wednesday afternoon, I checked in for my usual bi-weekly plasma donation appointment, because that's just the kind of giving and chivalrous guy I am, to learn that I had won a random drawing for a $75 Visa gift card to spend on anything I wished.

Wednesday was also, coincidentally, my niece Kylee's 16th birthday, so I used part of the funds on the card to take her out to lunch and to buy her a gift card of her own at the mall. Like I said, giving and chivalrous guy and all that.

Later Wednesday night, some friends and I made our monthly visit to the Nickelmania arcade out in Midvale. I *ahem* used some of the funds from my aforementioned gift card to pay for my entrance fee, as well as a bag full of nickels to spend. Among other classic arcade favorites, I tackled The Simpsons Game as Homer, beating the game alone from start to finish.

Yes, sometimes, the Angry White Loner does things to remind himself about the loner part of his name.

Anyway, I finished off Mr. Burns at about 10:55 p.m., just five minutes prior to closing time at Nickelmania. And I still had a bag of nickels, more than half full, in my possession.

I then moved over to one of the games of chance at said location, one that requires three nickels per turn and which then allows you to push a button to drop a bouncy ball, which lands in one of several open holes and wins you a certain number of tickets. In four minutes' time, I managed to dispense of most of my remaining nickels and won forty or so tickets in the process.

Down to my final two nickels, and needing three nickels to take a final turn, I remembered that I still had an extra nickel in my wallet, and I played one final turn. At 10:59 p.m., just seconds before closing time, the ball bounced into the Monster Jackpot, giving me a whopping 1,260 additional tickets.

My good fortune gave me enough tickets to buy a safe piggy bank gift for my friend Modern-Day Muse, whose birthday also fell on Wednesday. Close to 1,000 other tickets were left over to save for my next visit to Nickelmania. 'Cause there ain't no swag like Nickelmania swag.

All told, I may have used up my decade's-worth quota for good luck in one 24-hour period. If that's the case, then so be it.

I'd rather be lucky than good.

Giving and Receiving

I attended a very thought-provoking institute class last night. Our discussion revolved around the idea of giving vs. receiving. It's a timely topic because, well, I think it relates directly to the spirit of the Christmas season in which we now find ourselves.

For me, the pendulum has swung both ways on giving and receiving over the years. Hopefully, experience and time have taught me a few things about it.

When I was growing up, Christmas, to me, was all about receiving. I eagerly awaited the arrival of the JC Penney catalogue, devouring the pages of the toy section and wishing for the newest and most popular LEGO, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Voltron, and Transformers sets, then spending many sleepless nights and restless days each December, awaiting Santa's arrival and (admittedly) also trying to spy on my mom's secret cache of presents, usually hidden somewhere in the basement.

Fortunately, it was a phase I grew out of as the years passed. When I became an adult—notice that I do not use the phrase "grew up," as I may be in that process for many years yet—Christmas shifted to being all about giving rather than receiving. My mission certainly helped a lot with that, as I had the blessing and the privilege of giving two years of my life to the full-time service of my fellow man. Since that time, it's certainly still nice and appreciated to get gifts from family members and friends, to be sure, but perhaps my favorite thing about the holiday now is observing the looks on my nieces' and nephews' faces as they open their gifts.

In a very real sense, the whole process has gone full circle.

As far as giving and receiving goes for all other kinds of gifts, our teacher correctly pointed out, I think, that it is both blessed to give and to receive. Who among us hasn't prayed about and sacrificed for and labored for a present that, to you, was a significant gesture of love from the bottom of your heart, only to be disappointed and heartbroken when the person the gift was intended for either didn't accept it or treated it as a thing of naught? I'm sure we all have at one point or another.

Many dating experiences certainly apply here. But that is a post for another day.

In other words, a gift both has to be given and received, and it is as much of a virtue to receive a gift as it is to give one. Such is the case with the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which cost the best blood of the history of humankind—the greatest gift ever given, along with the gift of life itself and the bestowal of free agency. Each of us has to make the individual decision whether or not to receive this gift.

At any rate, that's what I got out of it. Now, I must be off. I suddenly have a hankering to dig out my old Optimus Prime action figure.

Decisions, Decisions

The other day, I took my nephew to dinner at the local Burger King - because that's just the kind of guy and uncle the AWL is.

After we had ordered our food, we made our way over to the soda pop dispenser to find that it had mysteriously been replaced with this strange, new object:

My reaction to it was none too different from the monkeys' reaction to the appearance of the monolith in the opening scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And if you haven't seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, may I recommend it? It is a fine film-watching experience provided you happen to recently have had surgery and are taking either Oxycontin or Lortab for pain.

At any rate, we learned that this strange new device is the new, 21st-century version of the soda dispenser. Speaking of movies, the Hill Valley café of the year 2015 probably had one of them in Back to the Future, Part II.

It turns out that it is quite an amazing machine. I've since discovered that the local Wendy's has one of them, too. By touching the screen, you not only get to choose the soda that you want to drink, but you can also choose a particular flavoring of that soda - Lime Coke (not that anyone would actually choose to drink Coke unless he/she had lost a bet), Strawberry Fanta, or Cherry Dr. Pepper, for instance.

I'm pretty easily entertained and amazed sometimes, and this machine did not fail to entertain nor amaze me. Its very existence also creates a rather difficult conundrum for me, as making important life decisions is not really my forte.

In my college days, for example, choosing my class schedule and then registering for those courses was a much-dreaded exercise and was pure mental torture.

So, how can I be expected to choose something as important as one of more than 100 combinations of soda? I ask, to no one in particular.

The world may never find out.

The Darndest Things

A couple of days ago, I got to spend the bulk of the evening tending my five-year-old nephew Jackson. Spending time with any of my nieces and nephews is always an educational experience, and this was no exception to that rule. Sometimes, they teach me how to take a different look at life from their innocent and unique points-of-view. Many times, they teach me patience and understanding. Almost always, I learn a great appreciation for the great people they are, as well as the people they are becoming.

On this particular Thursday night, I took Jackson to the local McDonald's for dinner, during which he proceeded to burn about 20,000 calories per hour by running and climbing up, down, inside, outside, and around the rocket ship playground. At times, I got exhausted just by watching him.

One of his favorite things to do, and something I had to ask him not to do more than once, was to climb up on the outside of the rocket - the part with no safety net attached to it. I asked him to come down and then talked to him about the dangers of climbing up there.

Five minutes later, I looked back up at the rocket to see he had climbed on the outside yet again.

Me: "Jackson, what did we just talk about?"
Jackson (without missing a beat): "Zombies?"

The funniest part about that response is that is was completely in earnest. You see, Jackson is lately a bit more obsessed with zombies than most five-year-olds. It is a topic that often comes up in his conversations; he's both fascinated and frightened by them.

There's also Uncle Crack.

Uncle Crack is Jackson's imaginary friend. According to Jackson, Uncle Crack is my brother - but also not, somehow, his Dad's (Mike's) brother, as well. He is much like the "Not Me" of the Family Circus comic strips and is usually the one to blame for things that go wrong wherever Jackson goes.

At another point, Jackson approached a little girl playing games on her iTouch and asked if he could have a turn if, he added, "your grandma will let me."

"I'm not her grandmother; I'm her mother," the lady replied defensively.

I also watched with admiration as Jackson instantly made friends with the other kids on the playground - and became the sort of leader of the group. Every few minutes, he could be heard to tell his playmates, "That's my Uncle Paco," and he'd point out where I was sitting to them.

You can learn a lot from a kid. Most of the time, they just want someone to listen to them.

They will want to talk about zombies.

Shuffling Off the Mortal Coil

For those who have followed my blogging through my older blog, Disconcertingly Choppy - and, let's face it, that may be as many as a dozen people - as well as those who know my family and extended family personally, then you may remember that my nine-year-old niece McKenna got a hamster, which she named Hammy, for Christmas. She was very excited about getting Hammy as a pet and has taken good care of him in the four months since that time. Around the house, it was not unusual to see Hammy rolling around in his hamster ball or just being held and cared for in McKenna's hands.

Well, a couple of days ago, Hammy left us. Someone, and I won't say whom, squeezed Hammy a little too tightly, and in an instant he became Peruvian food. (I've tried hamster twice - both times in Peru, in those "when in Rome" situations - and, incidentally, and it tastes like chicken. I don't recommend it.) McKenna, surprisingly, wasn't upset at the person who did this (accidentally, I might add), but was she was rather grief stricken by it and was somewhat inconsolable throughout the day.

Rather than have the traditional family home evening that night, we instead held a graveside service for Hammy, who was laid to rest in the backyard. McKenna talked about what a great pet Hammy had been, and we all bowed our heads in a moment of silence. As you may recall, this was on the same day as the explosions at the Boston marathon, and feelings were tender all around.

A wise person once said something along the lines of: "Death is an important tool. It teaches us to tell each other that we love each other."

I'm paraphrasing here, but I appreciate the sentiment. When tragedy strikes, and it will affect us all to one degree or another, it's often the only thing we can do. I believe it applies to all instances when we're affected by death - be it terrorism that takes human lives untimely, or unintentionally enthusiastic hugs, or everything else between and beyond.

And so, my friends, let me take advantage of this opportunity to tell you that I love you, collectively and individually. I realize that a blog is not the ideal means for doing this, so take it for whatever you may think it's worth. I'm not great at expressing it vocally, as my "love language" tends to be either spending quality time or performing acts of service, but please know that I am truly grateful for the relationships I feel the Lord has blessed me with in my life, be they family, friends, co-workers, or even acquaintances who may yet become lifelong friends.

Hammy would want it that way.