cc: file, Mom, Sara and Des, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Charles and Diane Cluff, and Claude and Katherine Warner, Forest and Amy Warner, Ivan and Chell Warner, and Eric and Renee Miner
"It was a quiet week in family cyberspace. Roice made two chess moves, and Ben committed to another game with `Go ahead and start a new game. I'll even let you move first.' A friend I taught and baptized on my mission, Rick Hawthorne, sent me the first email I have received from him, thanks to Roice providing him my address. And my sister Sara sent an update on Grandma Nelson falling twice, spraining her ankle, and the trials of getting her from the bed to the toilet and back. She also said that the address http://www.walden3d.com/wonderScientist (cap sensitive) is fine for her new commercial site for her and Laura Cotts work: Wonder Scientist© designed to Helps Parents Teach Children Science Concepts (http://www.cpsc.suu.edu/users/penny/wonderScientist.html is the current address). I had promised Sara I would get the site up by yesterday. However, I have had some major distractions this week, and didn't get that far. This broken promise did give me the topic I would like to write about this week, namely to forgive. Sara please forgive me for not accomplishing what I said I would when I said I would.
This little experience is symbolic of my need to please others, to make and meet schedules, in short to strive to be perfect. I have been driven my whole life to be the perfect son, then after my conversion in 1968 at age 18, to be the perfect church member. Needless to say, as you kids and your Mom know better than anyone, I have too often failed in these meeting these personal and unrealistic needs. So when you fail, at least what seems like a failure at one stage of your life, in achieving the impossible dream, what do you do? Roice, what do you do when you get your first `B' in one of the toughest engineering schools in the nation? Ben, what do you do when your Dad is finally able to beat you again at chess? Paul, what do you do when you can't play the saxaphone quite as well as you wanted to at an important performance? Melanie, what do you do if you gain 8 pounds? Sara, what do you do if a friend won't talk to you? Rob, what do you do if you forget something important to you? I think it starts with accepting there are limits, continues with forgiving ourself and then others, and requires us to re-evaluate our needs in light of learning we exceeded a limit.
The key I would like you each to think about is forgiveness. Why would someone start something like these thoughtlets? I started this effort because I love you, because I have a big ego and think I can say something that will be useful to you, because I dream of an extended eternal family that knows and cares about each other, and specifically because communication is not as good as it could be in our nuclear family. Why isn't it as good as it could be. Probably because I have tried too hard, have set too high of goals without having the emotional tools and without providing the support necessary to reach these goals. I don't really know how to wrap words around what is slowly becoming clearer to me. I do know several of us are at a stage we need to forgive ourselves for past mistakes, forgive others for their errors, and go forward making better choices. For me, this process starts with me. I hope that sharing my effots through this medium is found to be a positive effort along these lines.
There is a difference between forgiving and forgetting. The Savior taught us how to do both. I'm not sure of all of the relationships between the two, but it seems like to forgive is the first step. I expect that forgetting comes with complete repentance and the associated redirection in our lives. Let me give you a personal example. When we were growing up, Sara and I would cry ourselves to sleep night after night because of the aruging and screaming going on in the kitchen and dinning room. We were grown with kids of our own, before we realized we both had felt the same way in our separate bedrooms. It is pretty easy to point fingers, to pass blame, and to shame the participants. However, none of these choices does any good for anyone. I have spent a lot of time thinking about these days, feeling somehow responsible for what was going on in the other room, and trying to understand the root causes. It is has been fairly easy to find a basis in both nurture and nature with the overlaying imprint of personal freedom of choice.
As a specific example on the heredity side of the scale, it is possible to follow through family histories of similar behaviors from John George Hafen to Adolf Hafen to Paul Hafen to Pauline, Tony, and Glenn Hafen, to me, to some of you kids. The specific trait I am implying can be followed is the ability to process emotional language. The books I have been reading refer to this as the inability to put words around emotions before the emotions are acted on. This is a physical disability that takes a lot of learning to overcome. Of course, there are traits in each different genealogical line, and it is not currently within our power to map all of these traits. However, computers are making this more and more feasible.
So as you kids each think over the mistakes I have made, please put my intent into the equation. Remember there is a nature and a nuture component, not that either are an excuse for wrong choices. Be quick to point out the wrong choices in a non-judgemental way. Most of all be quick to forgive yourself when you make a mistake, forgive others for their mistakes, and work on the repentance and forgiving. I am. Sara, I will get the wonderScientist page done as soon as possible."