Dear Paul, Melanie, Rob, Roice, and Ben,
cc: file, Diane Cluff, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, and Lloyd and Luana Warner.
Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief,
thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my
children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members.
Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.
"As I was finishing the thoughtlet last night the sun computer decided to
reboot. The Mail Tool I use does not have a save option like Eudora, nor
does it have a spell check. Since it was midnight, I just went to sleep.
Didn't even take time to read from any of the books I have started.
I have got in the habit of getting up early on Sunday mornings and ironing
my shirts. Normally I just use the time to think about my week and other
important stuff. Yesterday, however, I turned on the television and
flipped through the channels until I got to channel 23, which is AMC here.
There was Spencer Tracy sitting in a boat with a large shark next to the
boat. I instantly recognized the movie as `The Old Man and The Sea.' I
left the TV on and started ironing shirts. Yes, I am the same guy who
never wanted you kids to watch television on the Sabbath. There was
probably less than a third of the movie left at 7:00 Sunday morning.
As I ironed shirts and the movie finished up my mind went back to fifth
grade and Mr. Holeman's book reports. I probably have time and space
mixed up, because I remember the old Junior High Building down across
from what is now Southern Utah University and not the South Elementry,
closer to the new High School where Mr. Holeman's class was. I remember
getting extra credit for drawing pictures of something from the book.
I remember Melissa Thorley getting very upset at me because I read all
23 of the Tarzen books and drawn pictures for extra credit. And in my
mind I tied the movie to 5th grade. The movie was released in 1958,
about the same time I was in 5th grade. With no firm details in my mind,
it seems like Ernest Hemingway's book `The Old Man and the Sea,' which
was written in 1952, was the first book I read from which I actually
thought I felt someone else's emotions. As I ironed the white shirts,
I stop long enough to make note of phrases in the movie which resonated:
<![CDATA[ `I just went out too far!'
`A man can be destroyed but not defeated!'
`What if they came in the night? I'll fight!'
`He fought a useless fight.'
A Cuban tourist looking down at the remains going out to sea: `I didn't
know sharks had such beautiful shaped tails.'
To the young boy he mentored: `My hands will be ok in a couple of days.
I know how to take care of them.']]>
As the camera zoomed in on the rope burns on the old man's knarred hands,
my mind jumped to my Dad's hands and to my Grandpa Hafen's hands. Then I
looked at my lily whites, ironing a white shirt, and I longed for a
different place in time and space. Over the last few years I have
discovered more tears than I ever thought existed, outside of the stories
written in books.
There is something magical about a good book. Something which triggers
our imagination and allows us to be transported across the ages and
through the universe. Quoting from `Mapping the Next Millennium' by
Stephen S. Hall (.../9817.html):
<![CDATA[ `The brain shrinks territory like a map, but astronomer Alan Dressler would
argue that maps also stretch the brain. In creating or looking at a map,
scale is not brought down to human dimensions, but rather human thought
inflates or shrinks in order to inhabit the size of the newly accessible
geographic domain - cosmologists think big and molecular biologists think
small, because those are the dimensions of the domains they think about
all the time. The process demands not only intellect, but creativity and
imagination. Dressler describes it this way:
`My approach is to try to get people to drop human scale completely.
And when they think of something, they go into that scale. If you're
going to think galaxies, you've got be galaxy-like. You've got to be
God-like. You better be able to move, you better be able to think,
"I can travel from this galaxy to the next and hold one in my hands."
And that you can do. But if you don't expand yourself to that scale,
I think it's hopeless.'
Dressler seems to suggest that humans project themselves into the worlds
around them by some mysterious process of geographic (or spatial)
imagination; the map is the launching pad for that act of imagination.']]>
Just as maps launch those of us with some spatial intelligence, books
launch any who have an imagination. Maybe this is why I am so enamored
with those who are able to write clearly and concisely and in a way which
stirs my soul. My ongoing struggle with words came out last night as
Melanie, Rob, and I played Boggle. The score was respectively: 32:18:10.
There are those I know to whom words seem to come so naturally.
Your Mom for instance. However, this week she called me for the first
time in months, and she was so upset she was at a complete loss for words.
After learning she had gone to a family reunion last weekend, I assumed it
was the Sharp family, and had called her Aunt Martha Sharrock to ask if
she felt your Mom would change her mind about me. She told me no, at
least not in the near term. Your Mom said she was upset because I was
`checking up on her,' and what she does is none of my business. Maybe
she knows me better than I know myself. Maybe there is some unconscious
truth to her accusation. From the overreaction, I drew the conclusion
there is some kind of a relationship, however slight, between your Mom's
fear of death, Martha's husband's suicide, and how your Mom feels about
me. Death can be very scary, even in context, and even in books.
Remember Rick Hawthorne? Remember when we got news his son Roice was
killed in a freak car accident? Roice probably knows Rick better than I
do now, as he has visited him (and his daughter Tracie) in Florida, and
went to a wedding with them in California recently. Repeating myself,
for those who don't know, I had the opportunity to teach Rick and Pat
when I was a missionary, and the opportunity to confirm Rick and give
him the gift of the Holy Ghost. He is now a published author (see
http://www.rfhawthorne.com), and every once in a while he writes me a
note which touches me to my core (see .../9728.html). This week I
received the following e-mail from Rick (paragraph breaks removed):
<![CDATA[ `Roice,
Having just read your 16 and 24 May 98 Thoughtlets, once again, I was
spiritually moved upon by your writing, and now must respond in some
way. ... I want to tell you that I know the Lord blesses the faithful.
Sometimes simultaneously through heart-breaking challenges. It's as if
He had to hand-pick a trial, specifically tailored for you to master.
One that would epitimize the most difficult thing you could face --
perhaps even more difficult than death -- a divorce. Not that He
planned it, necessarily, but knew ahead of time, that you would face
such a challenge. ... Losing money wouldn't be a challenge for you.
You are intelligent enough to make it back. No, that wouldn't break you
-- spiritually or temporally. Kids going through the growing pains of
exercising free-agency. Now, this is tough on you, as it is me. But we
both know, that all of your children and all of mine are choice spirits,
born under the covenant and are all good, honest people with caring
hearts. That won't break you either. We both know, through all our
concerns for them, that they will be alright in the end. ... The
challenge you are now facing, to me, is the most difficult hurdle
that Roice Nelson could ever face. Circumstances which seemingly,
destroy the very fabric of everything we hold sacred and important. A
kind of rejection, a kind of eternal cancer that is very difficult to
see any kind of mending opportunity. With death, as we experienced,
there is an automatic mending tool. The fact is we die. The Plan of
Salvation allows for those temporary separations. We know, through our
faith, that reunions will occur all over the earth, with living families
being reunited with our ressurrected dead, the morning of the First
Ressurrection. With divorce, I know for you, there doesn't appear to be
an acceptable solution. Herein lies your greatest challenge. A
challenge which is going to make you an exalted God. ... To some, even
in the church, your circumstances may seem too easy, maybe even a
blessing. Each of us, faces challenges, that when kept in perspective
of each one's abilities, experiences, and short comings, are just as
difficult for them, as other peoples challenges are for them. None of
them are easy. The trick is exercising enough faith, to place the
problem in the Lord's hands, and allow him to guide us through it. I
believe, deep down in my heart, with every fiber of my being that
somehow, in ways that we know not of, that the challenges you face
will be successfully overcome. The key is faith. ... Be patient with
the Lord and with yourself. ... And have faith in knowing that the
Lord is blessing our lives. Even now as you read this, in the present.
I know the Lord is in control of His plan, and we are key players, in
these last days in that plan. I thank-you for exercising the faith
needed, to give me the confidence to petition the Lord and find these
truths out for myself. And I pray that the Lord will strengthen you to
rely on him, as you keep these circumstances in perspective. Don't sell
yourself short, or be too critical with blame as to why things are,
right now, the way they are. ... I know you don't have time, and maybe
no interest in this book project of mine, but as an analogy permit me
just to explain what happens ... it celebrates the strength of the human
spirit. She's motivated to continue to live. It has a happy ending.
... Paraphrased ... "Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, will, mind
and strength, and lean not unto thine own understanding, and all things
will work together for our good." It's going to work out!
God bless,
Rick']]>
Remember reading the `Hobbit' and `The Lord of The Rings' together in
our family devotional? It always worked out for Frodo, even when things
looked the absolute blackest. Saturday Rob and I went to the airport to
pick up Roice, who flew in for Ben and Sarah's wedding this next weekend.
Roice, it was nice how you volunteered an explanation as to why you didn't
send an e-mail to me last week. It was disconcerting when you said you
didn't send an e-mail the previous three weeks because you are depressed.
Don't go down that road. It's much more healthy to pick out some good
books and read. I hope you will all remember Rick's words: `It's going
to work out!' Whatever problem any of us face, it's going to work out.
Not necessarily like we planned, and yet it's going to work out. So we
need to enjoy each moment, each day, and each week (Thoughtlet).
My example was my Dad, and I hope I'm somewhat of an example for each of
you. Dad faced a lot of challenges. Certianly the shutting down of Nelson
Meat Packing Plant was one of his most personal challenges (.../9721.html).
And yet it worked out. He worked. He read Tony Hillerman and Louis
L'Amour books. He had written out the following and posted it on the
bulletin board by the phone:
<![CDATA[ 'There are only 2 things to worry about -
either you are sick or you are well.
If you are well there is nothing to worry about.
If you are sick there are 2 things to worry about -
either you get well or you will die.
If you get well there is nothing to worry about.
If you die there are only 2 things to worry about:
either you will go to heaven or to hell.
If you go to heaven there is nothing to worry about.
But if you go to hell you will be so busy shaking hands with friends
you won't have time to worry.']]>
I know it is possible to worry about the inconsequential, even when
momentarily distracted by memories of books from long ago while ironing
shirts. Things like whether there needs to be more water put in the iron.
It was funny that after `The Old Man and The Sea' finished, the next movie
was Johnny Westmiller staring in `Jungle Jim and The Valley of The
Headhunters.' The older, civilized version of Tarzan reminded me again
of the importance to me of books. I really got a kick out of the bad guy
named `Arco' (at least that's what it sounded like to me), the plot being
tied to the discovery of oil in a map area quickly brushed across with a
wave of the hand which we know today as Nigeria, and the good-guy/bad-guy
or cowboy/indian themes (see ../9819.htlm). Maybe what helps keep our
perspective about the consequential is tied to what we read in books.
I just got a new book called `The Mind's Past' by Michael S. Gazzaniga.
On pages 1 and 2 it says:
<![CDATA[ `After the brain computes an event, the illusory "we" (that is, the mind)
becomes aware of it. The brain, particularly the left hemisphere, is
built to interpret data the brain has already processed. Yes, there
is a special device in the left brain, which I call the interpreter, that
carries out one more activity upon completion of zillions of automatic
brain processes. The interpreter, the last device in the information
chain in our brain, reconstructs the brain events and in doing so makes
telling errors of perception, memory, and judgment. The clue to how we
are built is buried not just in our marvelously robust capacity for these
functions, but also in the errors that are frequently made during
reconstruction. Biography is fiction. Autobiography is hopelessly
inventive.']]>
So what are these thoughtlets? As hard as I try for accuracy and fairness,
truth and integrity, relevance and humor, I guess I have to admit they are
just hopelessly inventive little autobiographical books."
I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life. If you ever want to download any of these thoughtlets, they are posted at http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or you can e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.
With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)