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Jack of All Trades

There is a commonly misquoted phrase that says, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” However, the full quote attributed to William Shakespeare actually reads, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one.”

Possessing skills in multiple areas is valuable. Today it is even more valuable than in the past.  Learning even a little bit about business, philosophy, physics, coding, economics, gardening, ranching, construction, etc. may put you in a position of immediate value in almost any group.

Become a T-shaped person.  This is a person who has specialized knowledge and skills in a particular area, as well as the desire and ability to make connections across different disciplines. 

I have personally found that expanding my learning in other broad areas of interest have made my expertise in medicine, health and diet so much more rewarding. It is why I have my own ranch with horses, goats, chickens, ducks and dogs. It is why I’ve studied European Swordsmanship and Martial Arts. It was the driver for getting trained in hypnotherapy. And, it is why I love riding motorcycles. All of these interests have played a role in deepening my medical expertise.

“Like chess masters and firefighters, pre-modern villagers relied on things being the same tomorrow as they were yesterday. They were extremely well prepared for what they had experienced before, and extremely poorly equipped for everything else. Their very thinking was highly specialized in a manner that the modern world has been telling us is increasingly obsolete. They were perfectly capable of learning from experience, but failed at learning without experience.

“And, that is what a rapidly changing, wicked world demands, conceptual reasoning skills that can connect new ideas and work across contexts. Faced with any problem they had not directly experienced before, the remote villagers were completely lost.

“That is not an option for us. The more constrained and repetitive a challenge, the more likely it will be automated, while great rewards will accrue to those who can take conceptual knowledge from one problem or domain and apply it in an entirely new one” (David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World).

It is possible that in an earlier world, where change occurs slowly, specialization represents and provides a significant competitive advantage. However, in today’s ever-changing world, integrating your specialist skills with a variety of other skills becomes a new and powerful competitive advantage.

In a world where you have the freedom to explore the things you’re curious about, don’t limit yourself to just one. Definitely be an expert in one particular field, but don’t be afraid to go out and learn about topics that aren’t directly related to your specialty.

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

Magic In the Void

You’re standing at the grocery checkout line.

“How are you?” the cashier says muffled behind her mask.

You mumble, “fine thanks,” and wait for the little black box on the counter to beep “Insert Your Card.”

Then, groceries packed in your bag, you hurry back to your car and back to your real life as soon as possible.   With your family and friends you are the real you.

But, with everyone else . . . the sea of clerks, cashiers, tellers, operators, receptionists and waiters . . .

You are the robotic consumer.  Insert your card . . . Enter your PIN number . . .

You are a cog in the machine, just another blank-faced human perpetuating the dehumanization and castrating commercialism.  And, so the lines are drawn.

Subconsciously, all that “transactionism” is a dead spot in your life, a black hole . . . something you have to “get through.”

But, for the true creator, there is no limit on his or her art.

Every moment is an opportunity to create meaning, to create joy, to tell a story . . . even for the stranger.

When you FORGO that moment . . . when you spill that opportunity upon the ground, you not only lose the chance at creation, you lose your chance at reclaiming your POWER.  You become a slave to the dehumanizing system that saps your power drop by drop with every transaction allowing it to estrange us from each other unchallenged.

Why come home from your daily errands, chained to the commercial robotic scripts when you could be shining as the sun, creating art wherever you go.  If all of us are caught up in the machine, then it is time for you to gum up the works.

Make them laugh, make them blush, make their tight jaws fall agape.  Become the bright spot, the light that fills their feculence filled day. 

Not to make friends. . . Not to be nice. . .

But, because every human interaction is a chance to make magic in this crazy human circus.  And, those interactions heal the immune system, heal the body and heal the soul. Make some magic today.

Four Types of Intelligence Quotients

According to Psychologists, there are actually Four Types of “Intelligence:”
  1. Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
  2. Emotional Quotient (EQ)
  3. Social Quotient (SQ)
  4. Adversity Quotient (AQ)

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

This is the original measure of your level of comprehension. You need IQ to solve math and formulas, memorize things, and recall lessons.

Emotional Quotient (EQ)

This is the measure of your ability to maintain peace with others, keep to time, be responsible, be honest, respect boundaries, be humble, genuine and considerate. This comes from correctly formed attachments with parents, grandparents and siblings over time (Read Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld)

Social Quotient (SQ)

This is the measure of your ability to build a network of friends, and maintain it over a long period of time. This can only be gained once appropriate interpersonal attachments are formed. 
People that have higher EQ and SQ tend to go further in life than those with a high IQ but low EQ and SQ. Most schools capitalize on improving IQ levels while EQ and SQ are played down. A man of high IQ can end up being employed by a man of high EQ and SQ even though he has an average IQ.
Your EQ represents your Character, while your SQ represents your Charisma.  Give in to habits that will improve these three Qs, especially your EQ and SQ.
Now there is a 4th one, a new paradigm.

Adversity Quotient (AQ)

This is the measure of your ability to go through a rough patch in life, and come out of it without losing your mind. When faced with troubles, AQ determines who will give up, who will abandon their family, and who will consider suicide.  It determines who can maintain a ketogenic or carnivorous lifestyle in the face of family and friends claiming that “eating all that bacon will kill you.”
This is where the previously formed appropriate parental attachments come in to play.  It is where the character was able to individualize. It is where life experience is gained by parents exposing children to other areas of life other than just academics.
Kids should adore manual labor (never use work as a form of punishment), sports, reading and the arts. Develop their IQ, as well as their EQ, SQ and AQ.  They should eventually become multi-faceted human beings, able to do things independently of their parents.
Do not prepare the road for yourself and your children. Prepare your children and yourself for the road.

Living With Pandemics and Potential Nuclear Warfare

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[Adapted from “On Living In An Atomic Age (1948), by C.S. Lewis]

Too many of us spend way too much time thinking about the global pandemic, economic collapse and nuclear war.

“How are we to live in this era of nuclear threat, escalating inflation and rampant viruses?”

I am often tempted to reply, “The same way you would have lived in the early twentieth century when the great depression hit, or like you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of tuberculosis, an age of paralyzing polio, an age of syphilis, an age of air raids, and age of railway accidents or an age of motor vehicle accidents.

In other words, don’t begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, you and everyone you love have already been sentenced to death before the threat of viral pandemics or nuclear warfare was ever invented: and a high percentage of use were going to die in unpleasant ways.  You and I have a great advantage over our ancestors – antibiotics and anesthetics – to this day we still have them.

It is perfectly ridiculous to go whimpering about the day with long drawn faces because the great scientists of our time have added one more chance of a painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.  None of us get out of this alive.  None.  Not one.

My first point in this monologue is that you and I must pull ourselves together.  If we are all going to be destroyed by a virus, skyrocketing inflation or a nuclear bomb, then let that destruction, when it comes, find us doing sensible human things like praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing golf (scratch that – I hate golf), chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of chess or darts – not huddled together like frightened sheep, thinking about viruses or nuclear warfare or gasoline prices.  They may break our bodies (in my experience, any microbe can do that) but, they need not dominate our minds.

“But,” you will reply, “it is not death – not even painful and premature death – that we are all hot and bothered about.  Of course, the chance of that is not a new thing.  What is new is that the virus or the bomb or climate change may finally and totally destroy civilization itself.  The lights may be put out forever.”

This brings us much nearer to the real point.  Let me try to make clear exactly what I think that point is.  What were your views about the ultimate future of civilization before the pandemic appeared on the scene? What did you think all this effort of humanity was to come to in the end?   The real answer is clear to almost everyone who has even a smidgeon of scientific background; yet, oddly enough, it is hardly ever mentioned.  And the real answer (almost beyond doubt) is that with or without viruses, nuclear warfare and economic collapses the whole story is going to end in NOTHING.

The astronomers hold out no hope that this plant is going to be permanently inhabitable. The physicists hold out no hope that organic life is going to be a permanent possibility in any part of the material universe. Not only this earth, but the whole show, all the suns of space, are to run down. Nature is a sinking ship, and we are but passengers.

Nature does not, in the long run, favor life. If Nature is all that exists — in other words, if there is no God, and no after-life of some sort somewhere outside Nature — then all stories will end in the same way: in a universe from which all life is banished without any possibility of return. It will have been an accidental flicker, and there will be no one even to remember it.

No doubt a nuclear bomb may cut its duration on this present planet shorter that it might have been; but the whole thing, even if it lasted for billions of years, must be so infinitesimally short in relation to the oceans of dead time which preceded and follow it that I really feel no excitement about its curtailment.

What the wars and the weather and the pandemic have really done is to remind us forcibly of the sort of world we are living in and which, during the prosperous periods before 1914 and 2021, we began to forget.  And, in reality, this reminder is actually a good thing.  We have been awakened from a pretty dream, and now we can begin to talk about reality.

We see at once (when we have been waked, no “woke”) that the important question is not whether a virus or a nuclear weapon is going to obliterate our “civilization.” The important question is whether “Nature” — the thing studied by the sciences – is the only thing in existence? Because if you answer yes to the second question, then the first question only amounts to asking whether the inevitable frustration of all human activities may be hurried on by our own action instead of occurring at its own natural time. That is, of course, a question that concerns us very much.

Even on a leaking ship that is known to certainly sink sooner or later, the news that the boiler might blow up now would not be heard with indifference by anyone.  But those who knew the ship was sinking in any case would not, I think, be quite so desperately excited as those who had forgotten this fact, and were vaguely imagining that it might arrive somewhere.

It is, then, on this second question that you and I really need to make up our minds.

Let us begin by supposing that Nature is all that exists. Let us suppose that nothing ever has existed or ever will exist before or after except this meaningless play of atoms in space and time: that by a series of hundredth changes it has (regrettably) produced things like — conscious beings who now know that their own consciousness is an accidental result of the whole meaningless process and is therefore itself meaningless – though to us, it feels quite significant.

In this situation (in which the Oxford Handbook estimates 25-50% of civilized countries seems to believe is the present reality), there are really only three avenues of action:

(1) You might commit suicide. Nature which has blindly & accidentally given me for my torment this consciousness which demands meaning and value in a universe that offers neither, has luckily also given me the means of getting rid of it. I return the unwelcome gift. I will be fooled no longer.  (I do not recommend this avenue.)

(2) You might decide simply to have as good a time as possible. The universe is a universe of nonsense, but since you are here, grab what you can. Unfortunately, however, there is on these terms, with inflation and gasoline prices so high so very little left to grab — only the coarsest sensual pleasures is really left. You can’t, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person, and of her character, are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genes.

You can’t go on getting any very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is a pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it.

You may still, in the lowest sense, have a “good time”; but just in so far as it becomes very good, just in so far as it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into real warmth and enthusiasm and joy, so far you will be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the universe in which you really live.

3) You may defy the universe. You may say, “Let Nature be irrational, I am not. Let it be merciless, I will have mercy. By whatever curious chance it has produced me, now that I am here, I will live according to human values. I know the universe will win in the end, but what is that to me? I will go down fighting. Amid all this wastefulness I will persevere; amid all this competition, I will make sacrifices. Be damned to the universe!”

I suppose that most of us, in fact, while remain materialists, adopt a more or less uneasy alternate position between the second and the third attitude. And although the third is incomparably the better (it is, for instance, much more likely to “preserve civilization”), both really end up shipwrecked on the same rock. That rock — disharmony between our own hearts and Nature — the is obvious in the second. The third seems to avoid the rock by accepting disharmony from the outset and defying it. Yet, it won’t really work. In it, you hold up your own human standards against the idiocy of the universe.

That is, we talk as if our own standards were something outside the universe which can be contrasted with it; as if we could judge the universe by some standard borrowed from another supposed realistic source). But if Nature — in the space–time–matter system — is the only thing in existence, then of course there can be no other source for our standards. They must, like everything else, be the unintended and meaningless outcome of blind forces. Far from being a light from beyond Nature whereby Nature can be judged, they become the only the way in which anthropoids of our species feel when the atoms under our own skulls get into certain states — those states being produced by causes quite irrational, unhuman, and non-moral. Thus, the very ground on which we defy Nature crumbles under our feet. The standard we are applying is tainted at the source. If our standards are derived from this meaningless universe they must be as meaningless as Nature.

For most modern people, thoughts of this kind must be thought through before the opposite view can even get a fair hearing. All Naturalism leads us to this in the end — to a quite final and hopeless discord between what our minds claim to be and what they really must be if Naturalism is true. They claim to be spirit; that is, to be reason, perceiving universal intellectual principles and universal moral laws and possessing free will. But if Naturalism is true, they must in reality be merely arrangements of atoms in skulls, coming about by irrational causation. We never think a thought because it i s true, only because blind Nature forces us to think it. We never do an act because it is right, only because blind Nature forces us to do it. It is when one has faced this preposterous conclusion that one is at last ready to listen to the voice that whispers: “But suppose we really are spirits? Suppose we are not the offspring of Nature . . ?”

For, really, the naturalistic conclusion is unbelievable. For one thing, it is only through trusting our own minds that we have come to know Nature itself. If Nature when fully known seems to teach us (that is – if the sciences teach us) that our own minds are chance arrangements of atoms, then there must have been some mistake; for if that were so, then the sciences themselves would be chance arrangements of atoms and we should have no reason for believing in them.

There is only one way to avoid this deadlock. We must go back to a much earlier view. We must simply accept it that we are spirits, free and rational beings, at present inhabiting an irrational universe, and must draw the conclusion that we are not derived from it. We are strangers here. We come from somewhere else. Nature is not the only thing that exists. There is “another world,” and that is where we come from. And that explains why we do not feel at home here.

A fish feels at home in the water. If we “belonged here” we should feel at home here. All that we say about “Nature,” about death and time and mutability, all our half-amused, half-bashful attitude to our own bodies, is inexplicable on the theory that we are simply natural creatures. If this world is the only world, how did we come to find its laws either so dreadful or so comic? If there is no straight line elsewhere, how did we discover that Nature’s line is crooked?

But what, then, is Nature, and how do we come to be imprisoned in a system so alien to us?

Oddly enough, the question becomes much less sinister the moment one realizes that Nature is not the end all be all. Mistaken for our mother, she is terrifying and even abominable. But if she is only our sister — if she and we have a common Creator — if she is our sparring partner — then the situation suddenly becomes quite tolerable.

Perhaps we are not here as prisoners but as colonists: only consider what we have done already to the dog, the horse, or the daffodil. Nature is indeed a rough playfellow. There are elements of evil in her. To explain all that would carry us far back: I should have to speak of Power and Principalities and all that would seem to the modern reader most mythological. This is not the place, nor do these questions come first.

It is enough to say here that Nature, in her different way, is much alienated from her Creator, though in her, as in us, gleams and rays of the old beauty remain. Yet, they are there not to be worshipped, but to be enjoyed. She has nothing to teach us. It is our business to live by our own law, not by hers: to follow, in private or in public life, the law of love and temperance even when they seem to be suicidal, and not the law of competition and grab, even when they seem to be necessary to our survival. For it is part of our spiritual law never to put survival first: not even the survival of our species. We must resolutely train ourselves to feel that the survival of Man on this Earth, much more of our own nation or culture of class, is not worth having unless it can be had by honorable and merciful means.

The sacrifice is not so great as it seems. Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs. Those who care for something else more than civilization are the only people by whom civilization is at all likely to be preserved. Those who want Heaven must have served Earth best. Those who love Man less than God do most for Man.

Why Do You Do That Sword Fighting Thing?

I was asked, recently, by a friend, “Why do you do that sword fighting thing?”

As I’ve pondered this question, I found my answer in the words of Jack Donovan.

“Strength, courage, mastery, and honor are the alpha virtues of men all over the world. They are the fundamental virtues of men because without them, no “higher” virtues can be entertained. You need to be alive to philosophize. You can add to these virtues and you can create rules and moral codes to govern them, but if you remove them from the equation altogether you aren’t just leaving behind the virtues that are specific to men, you are abandoning the virtues that make civilization possible.

“Plato at one point in time compared men to dogs. One of the great tragedies of modernity is the lack of opportunity for men to become what they are, to do what they were bred to do, what their bodies want to do. They could be Plato’s noble puppies, but they are chained to a stake in the ground—left to the madness of barking at shadows in the night, taunted by passing challenges left unresolved and whose outcomes will forever be unknown.

“If you are never truly challenged in a meaningful way and are only required to perform idiot-proofed corporate processes to get your meat and shelter, can you ever truly be engaged enough to call yourself alive, let alone a man?

“Men cannot be men—much less good or heroic men—unless their actions have meaningful consequences to people they truly care about. Strength requires an opposing force, courage requires risk, mastery requires hard work, honor requires accountability to other men. Without these things, we are little more than boys playing at being men, and there is no weekend retreat or mantra or half-assed rite of passage that can change that. A rite of passage must reflect a real change in status and responsibility for it to be anything more than theater. No reimagined manhood of convenience can hold its head high so long as the earth remains the tomb of our ancestors”

Sword fighting encompasses it all.

I’ve come to realize that training with the sword, against other men, fulfills a masculine yearning and desire I’ve felt for over 50 years.  Why would God include hundreds of chapters of wars and sword fights in the scriptures? Because, the nobility of prophets and kings, their strength, courage, mastery and honor, was often forged at the hilt of a sword.

That’s why I sword fight.

Watch the video below and you can see where sword fighting provides the repeated opposing force, risk, hard work and accountability that are prerequisites of success.  Sword fighting is really just rapid short and very exciting lessons on life.

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I hope you enjoy watching as much as I enjoyed participating.

 

That Pivotal Day 77 Years Ago

I was reminded this morning of today’s profound meaning.  Upon looking at the date, June 6, I remembered that 77 years ago tremendous sacrifice was made on our behalf.  The U.S., Canadian, and British allied forces, 160,000 of our bravest and strongest young men, invaded and captured the Nazi-held beaches in Normandy, France, in 1944. That is 77 years ago today.

Over last 21 years of my medical practice, I’ve had the tremendous privilege of caring for a few handfuls of these men that served on the beaches of Normandy or parachuted into France.  They rarely talked much about it, but there was something in their eyes.  Many of them have already passed on.  But, their nobility and honor brings me great joy when I see them or remember visiting with them.

Today, the day they called D-Day (the “D” simply stands for day and the term denotes the starting of a distinctive military field operation) marked the beginning of a 3-month strategy known as Operation Overlord.  Many historians believe this strategic action determined the course of World War II (1939-1945) by paving the way for allied expansion into France.

You really should take the next nine minutes and watch some recently colorized footage of our 18-26 year old grandfathers protecting our countries and pushing back German troops from France.  It is actual black and white footage that has been colorized.  You can watch that short nine minutes of footage here.  I am just amazed at the hundreds of thousands of young men that sacrificed to push back fascism and communism for our sacred freedoms today.

The totality of Operation Overlord was an elaborate orchestration of events aimed at opening a new western front on the Atlantic that could put pressure on Nazi Germany, along with the advancing allied forces from the south and the east. Here is another nine minute video that summarizes D-Day and Operation Overlord in a very understandable way.

To those men, their wives and families, I tip my hat, and I thank you.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service and willingness to sacrifice you all for our freedom and peace upon the earth.  Wherever you are, may God bless you and your families.

The Habits of Happiness

Recent research reveals that those who are the happiest have three daily habits that they are consistent in following:

  1. Think of three new things you are thankful for each day and write them down.
  2. E-mail a two minute positive note or send a card to someone new every morning to praise them or thank them.
  3. Spend a few minutes each day writing about the most meaningful moments of the past 24 hours.

You will be amazed at how powerful these three simple habits are in bringing joy and happiness to your life.

Man is Messy

There is this feminist notion that masculinity is a basket of “good” and “bad” characteristics that men can pick and choose from. The pleasant qualities are things like provision of food, provision of funds, providing a home, duty, honor and procreation. The “bad” or distasteful characteristics are things like intense strength, lust, violence and furious indignation.

The project of radical feminism has been to convince men, and women alike, that men must rid themselves of all the distasteful qualities and characteristics of their nature. If they don’t, they threaten, the “toxic male” will no longer find acceptance in the feminized world in which we now live.  The term for this is emasculation.

And yet, you cannot cherry-pick the parts of masculinity that you are happy with.  Just as an engineer cannot keep the abutments and dispense with the footings of a wall, bridge or building, the man is the totality of strength and weakness built in perfect tension and relationship to each other. The man is much like a high tension bridge.  You cannot have the strengths without the foundation spanning the weak points.

In every textbook or class on biology, the male and female of a species are dramatically different and can never be expected to act, interact or look similarly.  But, ask any woman and the majority will tell you that men are looked at from the female mind as a hairy, misbehaving woman.

When a man seeks to rid himself of the “nasty parts,” pointed out and perceived as “bad” by the female, the bridge collapses.  You cannot bridge an ocean without tension, without a mass of steel suspended in configurations of terrifying force and power, that steel welded together with white hot heat and molten flux.

The solution is not to rid yourself or conform. It is to admit, acknowledge and own every aspect of your gender, no matter how ugly, volatile or untidy it may appear to the opposite sex.

Man is messy.  He always has been. Try to bury that fact and your gender will bury you.

Denying the mess is a recipe for repression, misery, malaise, fatigue and heart disease.

Make no mistake, when you go off script and embrace the mess, you will feel, and appear, dangerous.

Feminism will treat your masculinity like a loaded gun because unapologetic fully-embraced masculinity IS a loaded gun.  You are dangerous.  That’s what it means to be a man.

Uncocking the hammer does nothing but emasculate you, and render you a useless tool, a dull blade, to your family and the world at large.

The lie is that you can get rid of the “nasty bits” and retain your masculine power.   In truth, you have two choices.

  1. Be dangerous, yet well disciplined
  2. Scale yourself down to a cap gun . . . shooting blanks.

Be warned, the second choice sounds great, and actually is initially pleasant to the females in your life, but it leads to depression and the modern male malaise.

Chose wisely.

If you’re reading this, trying make a choice barraged by voices on all sides . . .  If your reaching has reached its limit . . .  If all the tendons of your soul are straining to hold it together, feeling like their about to snap . . . You’re not alone, my friend.
I can’t fix it for you, same as you can’t fix it for me.  However, I can at least assure you that you’re no stranger to me . . . That your fears are my fears, your longings are identical to my own.
I see you not as some washed-up, broken down grizzly bear, but as one of our finest.  An honorable, noble, disciplined dangerous man yet in the fight, nose split, teeth broken . . . Spitting dust and blood for the hundredth time . . . Swaying in his boots, but still standing.
There is hope.  Read about it here.
Much love always,
DocMuscles

(Adapted from Bryan Ward’s Third Way Man)

Broken Honor

Something is broken. Something shifted over the last 100 years causing a dramatic change to the average man.  As a young boy, the only reason I ever heard about Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated war heroes of our time, is that he is a distant relative.  My father told me stories about him. Audie Murphy was an icon of male history, a true hero.

But something happened to our culture.  Men with the character of Audie Murphy disappeared, and the average male metamorphasized over a generation.  The men of today often lack the basic skills of daily living. They are increasingly immature, anxious, and depressed. They increasingly experience fatigue and malaise and are often bereft of motivation.

I’ve been practicing medicine for over 20 years.  Each year, more and more men show up in my office feeling depressed, anxious, lethargic, and fatigued.  With the backdrop of a pandemic disease like COVID-19, these men are more frequently suicidal than ever before.  And, the majority of them respond poorly to medication and counseling.  Why is there an increasing manifestation of malignant male malaise and depression?

It’s not their lousy childhood, crappy job, lack of desire, or failure to grow up that cause’s these symptoms.  It’s not a lack of serotonin, dopamine or norepinephrine.  And, it’s not even low testosterone levels.  Although these are signs, symptoms and secondary effects of the primary problem.  The problem is lack of honor.  Honor has been lost by both men and women.  But, this lack of honor has a uniquely deleterious effect upon the man.  Honor can be learned by women, however, it is not part of their true nature.  Honor is an instinctual subconscious characteristic found in the men of our species.

The feminization and emasculation of men, the emancipation and objectification of women, and the sexual liberation both sexes in our society has played a huge role in suppressing and repressing the need for honor.  Though many claim we are “better off,” changes to our view of the sexes has removed our desire to hold and retain honor, especially among the younger generations of men.

What changed in the picture above?  Honor is gone.

Honor is Directly Tied to Manhood

Across every culture, and across all of known time, honor and manhood are instinctively tied together.   Honor has been and always will be central to a man’s masculine identity.  Men would go to great lengths to win honor and to prevent the loss of their honor.

In all of classical literature, honor is the central theme because it is central in the life of a man.  It is part of his subconscious identity.  The poems of Homer, the plays of Shakespeare, the writings of the Stoics, the chivalry of the knights and the gallantry of the Victorian Gentleman are all based upon the “fields of honor” where men defend their manhood.

I find it enlightening that penned upon the greatest document of governance ever written, the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers “mutually pledged to each other [their] lives, [their] fortunes and [their] sacred honor.”

Honor is foundational.  It resonates throughout Christian doctrine as well.  It is part of the Ten Commandments, “Honor thy father and thy mother…” (Exodus 20:12).  Men have been commanded to “give honor to their wives.” (1 Peter 3:7) And, even God himself told the ancient prophets Isaiah and Moses that the fall of Lucifer was because he sought God’s honor, which is His power. (Isaiah 14:12-14; Moses 4:1)

What is Honor?

We throw the word “honor” around a great deal.  But, if you actually ask the question, “What is Honor?” most people scratch their head and struggle to answer.  If you press a person long enough, you’ll probably get an answer like, “being true to a set of personal ideals,” “doing the right thing when no one is looking,” or “being a person of integrity.”

Honor is instinctual in men.  Men define their character around honor, duty and obligation.  This is an inborn trait of the male protector and provider.  A man will do something for his mother out of duty and obligation.  Not because she nagged or pressured him, but because taking care of her is part of his definition of himself as a man.  He may hate it or despise the activity, and he may complain about it, but not doing it is not even an option. Not because he is afraid of upsetting his mother.  It’s because honor, duty and obligation define who he is on an instinctual level.

The Medieval period added “integrity” to its code of chivalry to temper “reflexive” honor (we will discuss this later).  In our society, honor has been watered down and emasculated to the point that it is now defined almost identically to integrity. However, honor does not equal integrity. They are two different characteristics.

Even Mr. Webster himself watered down the definition of honor when he defined it as “adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct.”  That closely resembles his definition of integrity, “the quality of being honest (doing what is right) and having strong moral principles (following a conventional standard of conduct).”  These two definitions are almost identical.  Yet, honor is not integrity.  Webster’s definition above is not what Homer, or Shakespeare wrote about.  And, that definition is NOT what our Founding Fathers pledged upon the Declaration of Independence.

The Anthropologist Frank Henderson Stewart makes the case that honor comes in two types: Horizontal Honor & Vertical Honor.

Horizontal Honor

Horizontal honor implies mutual respect of two equal men.  But this isn’t the watered-down feminized version of respect that pervades our culture today.  This is not the I’m a human being and you’re a human being and we should respect each other because of “social equality” type of respect.  No, this is honor that is contingent upon an unyielding adherence to a standard maintained within a group.

Horizontal Honor hinges upon three essential elements. The first is a code of honor.  This is a standard that must be reached by any member of the group to receive respect within the group.  There are rules that outline achievements of the standard and rules that delineate how that honor is lost.  Any definition of honor that cannot be lost, is not actually honor.

An honor group is the second element. This is a group of individuals who understand the honor code and have committed to live by it.  Anyone and everyone within the group understands the code and lives by it.  The members of group must therefore be equals and hold respect for others in the group, being both their equal and living and maintaining the standard of the honor code.  Honor is then rendered based on the judgment of others in the group, and therefore the opinion of those members must matter to you.  This respect is rendered in a two-way street.

These honor groups must be exclusive.  If anyone and everyone can be a part of the group, regardless of their adherence to the code, then honor becomes absolutely meaningless.  Egalitarianism (equality of social, political and economic status) and honor cannot coexist.  Social justice destroys honor and the honor code.

Lastly, the honor group must be a tight-knit, intimate group. In a society of people that is governed by respect, a member’s knowledge of every other member and face-to-face interaction is essential.   Honor cannot exist in a society where anonymity dominates.  The rise of social media, and the increased anonymity that comes with it, chips away at the maintenance of honor.

Honor is all or nothing. You either have it, or you don’t.  A person who fails to live up to the group’s code loses his honor.  He loses his right to the respect the other members of the group provide.  This creates shame.  The recognition that one failed to live up to the code is shameful.  For honor to exist, a healthy feeling of shame compels one to check one’s behavior.   When one cares not for the respect of others in the group, honor loses its power to compel living according to the standard.

You either have the respect of your peers within this group or you don’t.  Bringing dishonor upon yourself by failing to meet the minimum standards of the group (or showing disdain or indifference for those standards) results in exclusion or excommunication from the group, including the accompanying shame.  Failure to conform results in your membership card being revoked.

The last semblances of honor can be heard among men in our culture today when they talk about taking away each other’s “man cards.”  Men actually understand this at an instinctual level.  Horizontal honor is essentially the need to actually hold the man card.  It is recognition that you are a man among other men.  Losing one’s man card is an echo of the punishment for violating the original code of men – the honor code.

Vertical Honor

Vertical Honor isn’t about mutual respect between two men of equal stature.  It is about giving praise and esteem to those “who are superior, whether by virtual of their abilities, their rank, their services to the community, their sex, their kinship, their office, or anything else.” (Honor, Frank Henderson Stewart, p.59).

Vertical honor is hierarchical and competitive.  Vertical honor goes to the man who not only lives the code, but excels at the code.  Vertical honor cannot exist without horizontal honor.  First, you must hold the man card.  Excelling at protecting or providing then defines the vertical honor.

The feminization of our society, along with an insistence of social justice for all, makes horizontal honor in-existent, and vertical honor thereby becomes despicable, loathsome and to some, even “toxic.”

There is this feminist notion that masculinity is a basket of “good” and “bad” characteristics that men can pick and choose from. The pleasant qualities are things like provision of food, provision of funds, providing a home, duty, honor and procreation. The “bad” or distasteful characteristics are things like intense strength, lust, violence and furious indignation.

When a man instinctively acts upon his role as provider and protector, gender roles that are repressed in today’s culture, he naturally bases his actions around those things that bring honor.  Being an honorable provider and protector requires the man to excel at those things that are perceived by the feminist as “messy,” “bad” or “toxic.”  Honor is an action word and can only be demonstrated through action.  When that man begins to be true to horizontal and vertical honor, today’s society sees him a “toxic male.”

Men thrive on admiration of their honor, especially vertical honor.  It literally recharges a man’s batteries.  These are the trophies, awards, points and accolades that come from distinguishing yourself as a provider or protector.  It’s why men are drawn to messy tests of their strength, power, and manhood against other men.  It’s what drives a man to run a marathon, become a prize fighter, learn martial arts, to be a hunter, build a home, design cities, write revolutionary computer code, complete medical school and residency, and on, and on, and on.

Honor as Defined by Our Forefathers

Honor as our Forefathers understood it was two-fold: respect from the group (horizontal) and praise from the group (vertical).  Implicit in this definition of honor is that it depends upon the opinion of others.  You may have a sense of honor, but that just does not cut it.  Others must first recognize your honor before it can actually exist.

I can hear some of you say, “Wait a minute, Doc, honor is universal to men and women. What about the honor of women?”

Yes. You are correct.  However, honor differs between the genders.  Though codes of honor have varied across time and cultures, in its most primitive instinctual forms, honor was usually related to chastity for women and courage for men.

During the periods of history when governments did not exist, professional military’s were few and far between, and there was no one to enforce the “rule of law,” the moral force that governed the tribe and maintained survival was “honor.”  Men were expected to act as the tribe’s protectors, a role in which strength, courage and vitality were essential.  If the man was not physically strong, then he was expected to contribute through mastery of a skill (shaman, medicine man, scout, black-smith, weapons maker, shepherd, etc.) that provided benefit to the tribe.  Honor is the driving force that motivated men to fulfill these expectations.

Demonstration of courage and mastery provided horizontal honor as men.  That honor provided privileges of being a full member of the tribe.  As they excelled at the code, the were granted even greater status and more privilege within the tribe (vertical honor).  However, cowardice, laziness, and weakness were shamed as unmanly causing loss of access to privilege within the tribe.

Defending Your Honor

Defending your honor or reputation was a matter of life or death for many of our ancestors and forefathers.  It is literally instinctual in the male.  Even into the late 19th century, one could not get a good job as a lawyer or politician without maintaining one’s honor.  Thus, to maintain privileges, men were highly motivated and tremendously vigilant about maintaining their honor.

Insult to one’s reputation or honor, or the honor (chastity) of a female member of your family, required immediate remedy. If you were hit, you hit back. Saving face was supreme.  Retaliation was necessary to prove you still had the courage that made one worthy of honorable status. The chasity of a female member of your household could be remedied by the courageous act of the protector. Dueling was a common and acceptable means of defending that honor.

Defending honor can lead to what anthropologists call reflexive honor.  This was inspiring and, also, problematic.  When taken to the extreme, reflexive honor becomes an “irrational pissing contest” between men, clans or even communities.  This could destroy a community.   So, as societies became more civilized, they attempted to temper the male instinct to retaliate when honor has been maligned.  This tempering is what brought about the honor code of chivalry with the Medieval knights and the gentleman’s code of the Victorian era.

A Man’s Honor vs The Group’s Honor

Concern for one’s honor is both selfish and selfless.  On one hand, men want to be respected as men, respected in the tribe and desire the privileges of membership (horizontal honor).  Membership in the tribe entitled the person to gain vertical honor and status through worthy deeds.  One’s reputation for strength and honor also kept other members of the tribe from picking on them or casting them out.

A man’s honor benefited the tribe as a whole. Each individual’s reputation for courage and strength added to the group’s courage and strength.  The more formidable a tribe’s reputation, the less likely other tribes would try to bother them.  This is why men who do not care about the tribe’s honor are shamed by the group.  Disloyalty of an individual puts the whole group at risk.

20th Century Honor is Depressing

In the 20th Century, urbanization and anonymity dissolved the intimate face-to-face relationships that honor requires.  People have grown uncomfortable with violence and shame.  Individuals feelings and desire have been elevated above the common good of the tribe or society.  People began forming their own personal honor codes and refused judgement of those codes by anyone but themselves.  This transformed honor into a concept synonymous with personal integrity.

Yet, the instinctual male defines his character around honor, and true honor has been whitewashed into personal integrity, the man experiences depression.   Honor is the moral imperative of men.  Obedience is the moral imperative of boys.

As a child, you did the right thing out of obedience to authority and out of fear of punishment from that authority.  As we mature, we begin to recognize that our behavior affects others and the needs of groups to which we belong.

Honor is a moral imperative. As we age, we begin to operate and act out of honor instead of out of obedience to authority.  Men begin to recognize that they have a role to play in helping the group to survive or thrive.  Men recognize that their individual actions add to the strength or weakness of a group.

Honor in a Man Begets Love

The mindset of honor is different.  When men function from a mindset of rules and laws, they do the bare minimum they can without being punished. Or they push the law to see how far it bends.  When men function from the mindset of honor, they seek to pull their own weight, and then add further to strengthen the group.

Honor moves a man’s motivations to act from the base, childlike fear of authority, to a higher, nobler respect that becomes love.  The love of family, love of church, and love of country are all borne of honor.  A man will NEVER let those he loves (or himself) down by slacking off.  Love, from the perspective of a man, is born of his honor and strengthens his honor.

If a man leaves his church, or is disinterested in and organization, it is likely because he’s lost the sense of mutual respect in the horizontal honor of that group or congregation.  He has lost faith in that congregation’s ability to provide the innate horizontal honor he seeks.

Not only is honor a more mature moral imperative than obedience, it is often a much more powerful motivator.  Social pressure, the very thing that drives honor, is more powerful than rules and laws in getting people to do things.   Studies show that people are more likely to change their behavior when they think their respected peers are watching them.   The key driver is respect of peers considered to be equal in group or standing.  We are still social animals at heart – we still feel motivated by shame, loneliness and/or desertion.

Lack of Honor Breeds Ineptitude

Without honor mediocrity, corruption and incompetence rule.  Honor is based in reputation and when people stop caring about their reputation, shame disappears.  When there is no shame, people devolve into creatures with little inertia that do the very least they can without getting into trouble, getting fined or getting fired.   This breeds a culture of mediocrity, corruption, and blatant incompetence.  You can see this in any business or customer service network today.   People no longer have any fear of their history following them and have no incentive to perform with excellence.  Instead, we have a culture of employees with mind blowing ineptitude.

This lack of honor has resulted in a society that now relies upon obedience to rules, regulations and restrictions to govern behavior.  The minutia of rules in your office, town, city, community, and state seem innumerable is because they are.  We must now be policed by external authority to constantly check behavior in the absence of honor.

Honor Creates Meaning

The reason people tend to like old movies and books better than the modern variety is honor.  It’s not nostalgia, or talent or lack of topics.  The drama of old literature captures our attention because the characters had to operate in a culture of honor.

Honor provides structure to navigate and push up against.  The struggle of moving up through a group by following a code, avoiding shame and earning honor.

The reason reality shows have become popular is that these shows create temporary groups of people experimenting with unique situations forcing the creation of and adherence to the groups temporary honor codes.   Otherwise life is mundane and boring.

Without honor life feels like a great charade with our own self-constructed realities that lack comparison, competition and esteem of others.  Life seems empty and insubstantial. Evil runs unchecked. Good goes unrewarded. True merit goes un-honored and everyone gets a participation trophy that holds absolutely no meaning.  Everyone gets a piece of the egalitarian pie that does not nourish or satiate our hunger.

Arlington Cemetery – horse drawn casket for fallen soldier

Every Man Needs a Platoon

We are all part of large groups that provide us identity and belonging.   You might be associated with a political party, a company, a church, a company, a town, a state or a nation.  Yet these groups are usually too large to provide the intimacy necessary for honor to thrive.  In these groups, no one really cares if you are living honorably or not.  We must give up the notion that honor can be revived at the macroscopic level.

Initially, I thought each of us needed a community or congregation.  That may work, but I realized the average size of a military company is 150 people.  This is also “Dunbar’s number.”  It is the maximum number of people in which stable social relationships can occur at any given time.  It is the maximal number in a group in which honor and shame can govern effectively before rules and regulations are required to govern behavior.  Interestingly, this is also the number of people to which ancient villages would grow before they would break off to form separate settlements.

Withing each military company, there are 3-5 platoons consisting of 16-44 men.  Platoons are the smallest “self-contained” unit in the army.  Each one has a medic, radio operator, headquarters element, and forward observer.   A platoon of men usually sleeps together, eats together, fights together and, under severe conditions, dies together.

I have always been fascinated by comments made to me by soldiers when asked about their allegiance to one another.  This was reinforced by journalist Sebastian Junger in his book, War.  Soldiers admit they would risk their lives “without hesitation for anyone in the platoon or company.”  This sense of identity, loyalty, and brotherhood drops off in groups larger than the platoon or the company.

Junger states, “For some reason there is a profound and mysterious gratification to the reciprocal agreement to protect another person with your life, and combat is virtually the only situation in which that happens regularly.”

Only a small percentage of those in the military are directly involved in regular firefights.  The rest serve in support roles.  Though support roles experience an honor culture in degrees lower than combat soldiers, it is of a more profound degree than civilians.  Other than combat soldiers, police officers and firefighters are the only others who experience a similar degree of honor.  They may not have their lives directly threatened every day, but they constantly work under the risk that they could, and they know that their comrades are willing to risk their own lives to protect them.

Where Do You Find A Platoon?

Not all of us can be a soldier, police officer or firefighter, even if they if they wanted to be.  Yet, every man can, and should be part of a small, tight-knit honor group.   This may be a sports team, men’s group at church, fraternity, professional group, etc.

If you can’t find one, start your own. It doesn’t have to be formal and you don’t need a lot of people.  2-3 people are enough to start.

For your physical survival and your psychological health, you need to be part of a group.  Men want meaning in their lives, meaning that comes from being a part of something larger than themselves.  But, if you are like me, until I understood the importance of honor groups, we are often unwilling to trade some of our individualism to get it.

Studies done decades ago showed that men who belonged to a group that was close-knit showed less fear when jumping from an airplane than groups of men who shared only weak ties. The studies demonstrated that men could also withstand greater pain from electric shocks when they were part of a highly-bound group, as opposed to one with loose associations. The military found that tightly-knit units suffer less cases of mental breakdown, depression and PTSD than units where morale and bonding is low. The reason for these findings is that men in a tightly-bonded group both know that the man on either side of him has his back.  The fear of dishonoring their brothers drives them to overcome their own fears and move forward and not let others down. One of the men Junger interviewed said, “As a soldier, the thing you were most scared of was failing your brothers when they needed you, and compared to that, dying was easy. Dying was over with. Cowardice lingered forever.”

Men of Today Must Have Honor to Survive

Men around us in society break down and cave to depression and stress, just fighting their individual battles.  I see it every day.  They lack the strength to deal with life’s difficulties because they don’t have honor pushing them forward.  They don’t have honor because they lack a platoon.

The core of honor, then, is this – to act in such a way that does not let the man on your right and the man on your left down when they need you most.

Conclusion

People talk about wanting honor. They desire the end, but do not want the means.  Honor, then, will only live on in small units and platoons of men willing to accept and carry the burden and responsibility that must accompany it.

James Davidson Hunter put it this way, “We say we want a renewal of character in our day but we don’t really know what we ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of a creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates, and compels. This price is too high for us to pay. We want character but without unyielding conviction; we want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the authority to insist upon it; we want moral community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it.”

Are you one of those men of honor? Or, will you settle for the pain and depression of living true to only a part of yourself?

Are You the King or the Second Queen?

When you were a boy, much like me, you likely dreamed of the day you would be a king.  You dreamed of the day you would marry a beautiful maiden, have children, own lands . . . You dreamed of the day you would be loved, feared, and venerated.
You saw the way of the king, and you knew in your belly that this was your call:
  • To build the kingdom that you dreamed about
  • To live a life of benevolent power
  • To be admired, respected and beloved.
But somewhere along the way, the dream was corrupted. For we saw that kings can be craven.
We saw that some kings can be cruel.
And when the queens of the land bristled in unison . . . men, seeking to appease them, broke their scepters over their knees. And, men, the world over, resolved not to be king, but to be a second queen.  They resorted to work in cheerful cooperation as a second wife, without the danger or the terror that lives within the man, that husband king.
Thus, the path of misery for man, and wife alike, was paved. . . the emasculated king, living his life as a second queen.  Yet, man was never meant to take a wife and father children only to relinquish his God given dominion to become the “second queen.”
You and I, we come to marriage and family for kingship:
  • To provide safety and shelter for your queen and her cubs
  • To ravish the queen and see the animal heat in her eyes
  • To live in glory and honor
  • And when called upon, to willingly go heart-in-mouth into the fray
You may not have servants or lands or chests of gold. But, if you have a wife, if you have children, if you have an audience to serve . . . you have everything required for true, abiding kingship.
For a king is king not by the command he claims for himself or the fealty others pay him.  He is king by pressing and wielding his dangerous power to the noble service of others in the creation of value and honor.
Kingship is the exercise of dangerous magic nobly.  It is an exercise in unconditional love applied. Through force of will and force of imagination, you make your visions manifest.
Kingdoms are not won, they are not granted, they are not inherited . . . Kingdoms are CREATED.
Do not wait for your wife to become the queen. Do not wait, grumbling, for her to adulate or serve you. The principle buried by the softened souls of this civilization, by generations of absentee fathers, by generations of fatherless homes, by generations of men without their scepters is this . . .
It is the KING that makes the queen, not the other way around.
You stare foggy and angry at the hole in your drywall, at the un-replaced light bulbs, at the broken fence in the yard . . . at the mind-numbing banality all around you.  Yet you want to feel alive again . . . deeply, lastingly, the way you dreamed as a young boy that you would feel when you became king.
That feeling doesn’t come from a manicured yard, a check in the mail, or even from some bestowed title from an Ivy League tower.  It comes from indwelling and OWNING the role you’ve already won. You “have” a family, but it will not glow until your breathe everything you have into it . . . until you animate it with all your might and mind and heart and lungs.
Why are you waiting for some outside appointment? Rise up. Stand up. Throw out the box of cereal.  Give the macaroni to the neighbor. Eat the bacon, fire up the smoker. Take on that task that’s been gnawing at you for months.
Create your kingship NOW.  Do it TODAY: one kiss, one meal, one light bulb, one filled hole-in-the-drywall, one meal, one poem-in-the-lunchbox at a time.  Stop sitting there braiding each other’s hair.
BE THE DAMN KING because the queen is already taken.  Whether or not she returns that love does not matter.  It is the act of loving her that actually fires you, it is not the reciprocation.  Any love or adoration she returns is immaterial.  The essential magic has already happened inside you.  The fire has already been lit.
“Why would I kiss that mouth?” you say. “Why would I gaze into those cold, bitter eyes? How could I treat as queen this woman who sneers and scorns so unbearably?”
And that, there, is the double-bind that has been holding your very kingship, holding your marriage captive.  This love, this respect, this adoration you long for her to give to you . . .
It is not hers to give, but for YOU TO CREATE within her.
You see, it is the KING that molds the maiden into the queen, into her best and highest self.  Not with silence or criticism or ultimatums, but with acts of imagination and love.  No matter how deep your disillusionment, it is the only way.  You must create the queen.
The power is within you . . .
Click Here Now To Learn How.
(Adapted from Brian Ward’s Third Way Man)

Ten Reasons Why I Will Never Support Black Lives Matters

I have been very vocal this week about the new narrative for racism that permeates every air-wave and smartphone across the country, “The criminal justice system is to blame.”  The logic states that Black men are being rounded up for little reason by a White-run criminal justice system dedicated to the eradication of a burgeoning minority middle class.  If it weren’t for the dastardly system, all would be well.  All is to blame on “white privilege” they claim.  And, the narrative is being driving by the organization called Black Lives Matters.

Phoenix, Arizona May 31, 2020 – CNN

A significant number of the ketogenic and carnivore world “elites” have significant buy in to this narrative and have come down hard on my position during the last week.  I’ve been called a white racial supremacist, a bigot, a fanatic, and I’ve even had a few death threats arise in my “in-box” because I disagree with the agenda of this organization. But those of you who know me, know that I don’t make statements lightly.  Any time I take a position, it will be based in scientific fact.

All of this has occurred as protests, riots, looting and murder have flooded the news, social media feeds and airwaves of the world.  Anger that justice has not been served was the initial outcry.  True it is that any life unjustly taken deserves restitution.  Yet, in the attempt to make things right, I refuse to join with a movement that stands for nearly everything wrong and evil in this world.

As of today, more innocent lives have been taken (20 as of today’s count) since these violent protests began over the horrible death of George Floyd.  But what about the other black lives that have been lost in the chaos.  What about the Black business owners that lost their businesses?  What about the families of those that lost fathers and mothers to this violence in response to violence?

Minneapolis Minnesota, May 31, 2020 – FoxNews.com

“Dr. Nally, you don’t have to agree with everything.  Just because it’s on their website, doesn’t make them bad.  Just agree with the good things this movement is doing.  Just drop to a knee with your sign and show your support for the good parts,” I’ve been told by quite a few people I used to admire.

Let’s apply that logic to other examples.  Would you hold your church social on the lawn of the Playboy Mansion because Hugh Hefner was a Methodist who believed in God and had a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life” on his nightstand table?

I am not a racist. Just because I disagree with your position on social justice does not make me a racist either.  The definition of racism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities, and that racial differences produce an inherent prejudicial superiority of a particular race.  I do not view, interact with or treat anyone of a different skin color any differently than I would treat my own family.

This may offend you, but according to scientific evidence, “white privilege” isn’t real.   If it were a real issue, you would not see statistical success of the Asian populations in the United States.  Just look at the graph of ethnic incomes below.

And, it’s not just income.  Asian students score higher on educational testing like the SAT.  How does the argument of “white privilege” explain this anomaly? It doesn’t.  If race provided privilege, then these graphs would be notably different.

Those of us that have been raised to abide the law, pay our taxes, set aside our instinctual urge to provide justice by allowing for due process in the civilization we’ve contributed to, act with civility toward leadership, give honor to the experience of our parents and our elders, follow basic civil instructions, provide for our families, protect them and serve our neighbor are horrified that someone would claim we are “subconsciously racist.”  This is an attack on and an attempt to verbally disarm the good men and women of this country by creating guilt, claiming that because of your heritage, a part of you is unwilling to protect your neighbor.

Because of this, I cannot sit idly by and watch this country spiral down the drain without making my position  loud and clear.  Based upon additional thoughts I contemplated after reading Ryan Bomberger’s article in TownHall this morning, here are:

Ten Reasons I Will Never Support #BlackLivesMatters (BLM)

  1. Their Premise Isn’t True.  I despise racism.  It is never appropriate.  It is even worse when racism is used as a political weapon like is has been this week. According to the FBI’s latest homicide statistics, a black man is 11 times more likely to be killed by another black man than by a white man.  The comprehensive 2019 study by PNAS, “White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.”  Even the Washington Post’s database on police-involved deaths put this into perspective.  In 2020, among those killed by police officers (all male):
      • 2 Native Americans
      • 9 Asians
      • 46 Hispanics
      • 76 Blacks (Incidentally only 9 of those 76 Blacks were unarmed)
      • 149 unlabeled individuals
      • 149 Whites (whose deaths are never reported by national mainstream media.)

“White Privilege” – @AmyDC – (Satire Image)

2. Goals for Forgiveness or Reconciliation are not Present. On none of the Black Lives Matters websites are there any mention of healing wounds, forgiveness or moving forward.  You cannot talk about the sins of distant past and expect to move forward if there is no intention of forgiveness.  Ask any counselor, psychiatrist or physician, when your spouse brings up old wounds or grievances with every argument, does the marriage get better?  Absolutely not.  They’ve never forgiven you and neither will Black Lives Matters.  Their paradigm is not centered in any gospel of forgiveness.  It is a prejudicial oppressor/oppressed race theory paradigm that is completely flawed.  This seems strange when the majority of Blacks in the U.S. are Christian (79%) and profess a belief in Jesus Christ. 

Most Christians believe that we are individually responsible for our own actions and, not Adam’s transgression from the fall (that was the whole point of the atonement of Christ).  Yet, belief that white people living today are responsible for the slavery their for-bearers participated in is diametrically opposed to Judaeo-Christian philosophy.  I am not responsible for my father’s transgressions and neither are you.  You can’t stand on both sides of the fence.

What is the solution? Whether you are a believer or not, Jesus Christ taught an inspired model that leads to peace and harmony — to love God first, and then to love our neighbors as ourselves. I don’t pretend that either of these pursuits is easy, but in the 50 years I have been upon this earth, it is the only action that yields the promised fruit.

3. The Focus is 100% Black Power.  That’s all you’ll ever see on their websites at M4BL and BLM.  Both of these organizations focus on “organizing and building Black power across the country.”  This is not what Martin Luther King promoted.  He promoted “God’s power and human power.” That’s dramatically different.  I agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s statement, that “hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”  Only this kind of love and empathy can inspire us to do the rigorous work of rebuilding bridges of cooperation instead of walls of segregation and alienation.  I will happily stand and march with the principles outlined by Dr. King.

4. Both Organizations Heavily Promote Homosexuality and Transgenderism.    “We foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.”  Any group that claims normative thoughts and attractions as a heterosexual male or female are abnormal is embracing confusion, dubiety and promotes chaos.  These are the last people I want my children associating with.  Loving every human being is NOT the same as loving every human action.  Teaching from this platform is teaching half-truths and is devious and vile.

5. Black Lives Matters Intentionally Ignores and Suppresses the Importance of Fatherhood.  From their own website: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”  Notice “fathers” is intentionally missing from that statement.   We know from years of research that every “village” that has fatherless families is a village that suffers higher crime rates, higher drug usage, higher abortion rates, higher drop-out rates, higher poverty rates, and so much more.

Prejudice, hate and discrimination are learned behaviors.  We are not born with them. This is why parents, family members, and teachers must be the first line of defense. Teaching children to love all, and find the good in others, is more crucial than ever. Oneness is not sameness in America. We must all learn to value the differences.

How does the absence of a father play a role in this? Isn’t it interesting that the ethnicity that is the most successful at income and education is also the group that has the lowest number of fatherless homes.

6. They Demand Reparations.  On the same BLM website above, they demand, “Reparations for . . . full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education . . . retroactive forgiveness of student loans, and support for lifetime learning programs.”

Ummmm, question?  What about the mixed racial peoples?  Will the white half of their bodies have to pay the Black half of themselves?

7. Complete Abolition of Police Forces.  These people assert that complete abolition of prisons, police and any other institution related to civil safety is their goal.  Across 30 cities this week you’ve heard the cry, “Defund the police!”  This would leave total anarchy in any community. Yet, police chief’s and commissioners around the county have begun to stand with these groups at the behest of their officers.  Reforming department codes to control use of force, continued training in use of aggressive force and monitoring systems that identify officers who abuse these policies have been show to be effective and are essential, but abolishing police forces is utter insanity.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, people who buy this mindset are guilty “Of not understanding the difference between the fire department and the fire.”

8. BLM IS Anti-Capitalistic. They declare  “We are anti-capitalist. We believe and understand that Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system.” The video and recordings that identify incidences of police brutality and misuse of force are captured on phones and body-cameras that were made possible by capitalism.  We have known for over 100 years that the best way to raise people out of poverty is capitalism.  Capitalism is what makes the United States of America the most charitable nation on the earth and the nation with the most freedom.

9. Collin Kaepernick Supports It.  I want nothing to do with a man who idolizes Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and worships Malcom X (check out his social media feeds and you see all the proof you need).  Malcom X was an anti-integration, pro-violence member of the Nation of Islam (virulently racist).  Interesting that this #SocialJusticeWarrior is absolutely silent about the fact that he makes millions from Nike whose entire Executive Leadership Team is White, and according to Kaepernick makes its shoes in the most “murderous regime in the world.”

Colin Kaepernick – NYTimes.com

10. Not All Black Lives “Really” Matter. The pro-abortion Black Lives Matter further declares: “We deserve and thus we demand reproductive justice [aka abortion] that gives us autonomy over our bodies and our identities while ensuring that our children and families are supported, safe, and able to thrive.”  Aborted children don’t thrive.

Many even argue that Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger, a strong believer in eugenics, intentionally used abortion to lower the Black birth rate.  Something is amiss when over one-third of all abortions occur in Black mothers.

BLM has claimed solidarity with “reproductive justice” groups since February 2015 and have been officially adopted into the Democratic National Convention platform since August 2015.  Sorry folks, you cannot simultaneously fight violence while all the while celebrating it by destroying lives before they take their first breath.

Will I be ostracized from the keto/carnivore community for my position?  Probably, but my conscience is clear, and I can sleep at night.

Does Jung & Myers-Briggs Typology Effect Obesity?

Sitting around the dinner table this evening we began discussing personality types.  As a fun exercise, we each took the Jung Typology Test based on Jung and Myers-Briggs findings about personality.   If you haven’t taken this personality test, you might find it quite interesting and the topic of hours of conversation around the dinner table  . . . as we did this evening. The test is free on-line and takes about 10 minutes.

jung
Carl Gustav Jung – Swiss Psychiatrist & Psychotherapist

The actual Myers-Briggs Type Indicator costs about $50.00 and includes an interpretation by someone trained in giving the test. It differs slightly in its questions and the way the testing is interpreted.

Both tests provide an interesting insight into your individual psychological preferences regarding four categories.  According to Carl G. Jung’s theory of psychological types published in 1971, people can be characterized, first, by their preference or general attitude about the source of and how they express their energy:

  • Extraverted (E) vs. Introverted (I)

The second preference is one of the two functions of perception, or related to how they perceive information coming from either the external or internal world:

  • Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)

and the third preference relates to how one processes the information that they have received, acting as one of the two functions of thought or judgement:

  • Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)

Isabel Briggs Myers, a researcher and practitioner of Jung’s theory, proposed that the fourth preference related to how one applies or implements the information that he or she processed above.  She proposed a judging-perceiving relationship as the fourth dichotomy influencing personality type in 1980:

  • Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

Each of these dichotomies represents an opposite pole of preference and each of us have a dominant pole toward which we gravitate.

Based upon your dominant traits, a personality type index is assigned.

PersonalityChart

Kim and Lee studied these personality preferences and how they relate to diet, health and propensity toward obesity.  Their findings were interesting in that expression, perception and judgement did not seem to have any bearing on  health or obesity. However, the application of judgement vs perception did play a role in health. Judging (J) means that a person organizes all of his or her life events and, as a rule, sticks to those plans. Perceiving (P) means that he or she is inclined to improvise and explore alternative options.

Significantly better dietary and health behaviors were identified in those preferring Judging (J) versus those preferring Perceiving (P) traits.  Those preferring the Judging (J) behaviors included eating breakfast, regularly eating three meals a day, smoking less, exercising more and having a lower tendency to nocturnal eating.

The findings show that the use of  Jung Type or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator may be helpful in identifying and index those with a Perceiving (P) trait that would benefit from dietary and exercise education, nutritional counseling and/or behavior modification programs.

It has been my experience that those with a “P” type dichotomy preference would benefit greatly from daily food planning and journaling.

So, what is your Jung/Myers-Briggs type?

Just for fun, and because my kids were very curious about what each personality type would appear as in character, I’ve included the Jung/Myers-Briggs Disney typing.

I’m an ENFJ, just in case you’re curious.

Disney Character Personality Types

References:

  1. Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types (Collected works of C. G. Jung, volume 6, Chapter X)
  2. Briggs Myers, I. (1980, 1995) Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type
  3. Kim BS, Lee YE. College Students’ Dietary and Health Behaviors related to Their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality Preferences. Korean J Community Nutr. 2002 Feb;7(1):32-44. Korean.

 

Interview With God

May God’s choicest blessings be yours today and through the New Year. May you experience the restoring Grace that emanates from the child born in a humble manger and through whom this world receives access to light, truth and eternal life.

Thank you, each, for your friendship, service, love, kindness, and  for helping me to nobly live in the present while looking to the future.

Merry Christmas!

Principles of Life for Consideration

automn image

Over the years, I have collected quotes, bits of wisdom, quips of life and principles of living.  I have taken them from a number of sources, friends, family and thoughts that have just come to me while reading, pondering or out riding my horse with my family.  I have made a point to try to write these down and I thought that I would share them with you today.  Some of them apply to health, obesity, weight and others just apply to being a gentleman. Some of these I struggle with and maybe you do too. Some of them I am good at, and some of them I need to work on.  Let me know what you think:

  • Ponder each night upon the events of the day, and make a goal for tomorrow.
  • Never cancel dinner plans by text message.
  • Every action in public should be done with some sign of respect to those present.
  • When entrusted with a secret, keep it.
  • When in the presence of others, do not sing to yourself, hum to yourself, or drum fingers or feet.
  • If you cough, sneeze, sigh or yawn, cover your mouth.
  • Being old is not dictated by your bedtime.
  • Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point.
  • Of all the things a leader should fear, complacency should head the list.
  • The great man is not only responsible for harvesting his own success, but for cultivating the success of the next generation.
  • Vitality is shown not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.
  • Smile when you pass a stranger.
  • Know the words to your national anthem.
  • Even if your dance moves aren’t the best, making a fool of yourself is much more fun than sitting on the bench.
  • A suntan is earned, not purchased.
  • Don’t sleep when others are talking, don’t sit when others stand, don’t talk when you should hold your peace, don’t walk when others stop.
  • Don’t remove your clothes in the presence of others or leave the privacy of your home half dressed.
  • Don’t bite your nails in the presence of others.
  • Avoid turning your back on someone who is speaking.
  • Don’t lean upon or kick the table upon which someone is reading or writing.
  • Always be the first to remove your hat, salute, or extend your hand to your equal or superior.
  • Let your speech with men of business be short and comprehensive.
  • Whenever writing or speaking, give to every person his due title according to his degree and the custom of the time.
  • Let your recreation be manful, not sinful.
  • Don’t talk with food in your mouth.
  • It is the duty of the senior ranking official within the group or company to unfold his napkin and begin eating first; however, that same official should begin with-in time and demonstrate enough dexterity that the slowest may have the necessary time allowed him to partake of the meal.
  • Avoid strife in disagreement with a superior, but always submit your judgement to others with modesty.
  • Associate yourself with men and women of good quality if you esteem your reputation, for it is better to be alone, then in bad company.
  • Don’t point.
  • Keep your promises.
  • The only things that evolve on their own in any organization are disorder, friction, and nonperformance.
  • Morale is really only faith in the man at the top.
  • No great invention was ever made without true exercise of imagination.
  • All bleeding stops . . . eventually.

Outside of the Box

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

– Mark Twain

Why should we limit ourselves to thinking outside the box.  Can’t we just get rid of the box?

True discovery consists in seeing what everyone has seen . . . then, thinking what no one has thought.out-of-the-box

People were burned at the stake because they refused to believe the Earth was not the center of the universe. They were beheaded because they had a sneaking suspicion that the world was not flat.

Is it really that hard to accept that our weight gain and diabetes is driven by a hormonal signal, and not by gluttony or caloric intake of fat?diabetes global warming

The challenge with the current thought model on the cause of obesity is that it does not account for metabolic syndrome. In the practice of medicine over the last 15 years, an interesting pattern has emerged.  I noticed that there was a spike in fasting and postprandial insulin levels 5-10 years prior to the first abnormal fasting and postprandial blood sugars.  These patients were exercising regularly and eating a diet low in fat.  But they saw continued weight gain and progressed down the path of metabolic syndrome.  10-15 years later, they fall into the classification of type II diabetes.

The only thing that seems to halt this process in these patients is carbohydrate restriction.  Fasting insulin levels return to normal, weight falls off, and the diseases of civilizations disappear as insidiously as they arose.

So you tell me, is the world flat?  Is the Earth the center of the universe?

Low-carb is bad

Dreamers & Doers . . .

What-It-Means-to-Find-the-Perfect-Balance-030

Dreamers & Doers . . .

The world, generally divides men into those two general classifications, but the world is often wrong. There are men and women who win the admiration and respect of their fellowmen. They are profoundly worth while individuals. Dreaming is just another name for thinking, planning, devising – another way of saying that a man or woman exercises his or her soul. A steadfast soul, holding steadily to an ideal that first sprouted as a dream, plus a sturdy will determined to succeed in any venture, can make any dream come true. Use your mind and use your will. The two work together for you beautifully if you’ll only give them a chance.

(Adapted from B. N. Mills)

The Gateway Called Death

The life of a close friend and patient was recently taken. This has been weighing upon my mind of late, as a similar event occurred in the life of my sister a few years ago.  I looked over the words and passages I wrote a few years ago, and for some reason, felt strongly that I should include them here.  I write this blog to help those struggling with weight, diabetes and the diseases of civilization.  One of those diseases frequently affecting weight is the depression and fear that accompanies the death of a loved one.  Often, the answers science offers are not enough and we are required to rely upon our faith.  I share some of that with you here.

I have spent the majority of my professional life in the acquisition of knowledge and its application in the relief of significant illness.  My greatest foes have been ignorance, disease, distress, disability and, ultimately, death.  I come in contact almost daily with seriously ill patients facing the very real prospect of death.  Of necessity, I have come to look upon death as a formidable foe to be fought.  For all conscientious doctors, death’s gateway from life threatens us as the prospect of individual defeat.

The famed scientist Madame Marie Curie returned to her home the night of the funeral of her husband, Pierre Curie, who was killed in an accident in the streets of Paris.  She made this entry in her diary:

“They filled the grave and put sheaves of flowers on it. Everything is over. Pierre is sleeping his last sleep beneath the earth. It is the end of everything, everything, everything.”

GatewayBUT IS IT?

What is this thing that men call death,
This quiet passing in the night?
Tis not the end, But Genesis
Of better worlds and greater light.
O God, touch though my aching heart,
And calm my troubled, haunting fears.
Let hope and faith, transcendent pure,
Give strength and peace beyond my tears.
There is not death, but only change
With recompense for won;
The gift of Him who loved all men,
The Son of God, the Holy One.
(G. B. Hinckley)

However, every patient of every doctor, if followed long enough will pass away. The first rule of surgery is that “all bleeding stops eventually.” The inescapable rule of life is that no matter how good your treatments are, all patient’s will meet the undertaker, eventually.
When this happens, and it happens to all of us, a sense of sadness naturally prevails regardless of the age or nature of the deceased.

If death is to happen to all of us, then why do we feel sadness at the death of a friend or loved one?

This sadness is caused by the feeling of loss tied to three age-old unanswered questions:

  1. Did you and I exist before we were born, and if so, where were we?
  2. Why are we here together and what is the purpose of this life?
  3. Where do we go when we die?

Are there answers to these questions?

When science does not have the answers, I have found great hope and answers in hidden within the teachings of my faith. I share them with you, not to preach or offend, but in hopes that you might find peace and solace in your life as I have in mine.

The spiritual leader Wilford Woodruff said “that if the people knew what was behind the veil, they would try by every means . . . that they might get there, but the Lord in his wisdom has implanted the fear of death in every person that they might cling to life and thus accomplish the designs of their creator.” (The Gateway We Call Death, Russell M. Nelson, p.96)

The Lord explained to Moses, “For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39)

This work and glory is referred to by a number of names including The Plan of Salvation, The Plan of Redemption, The Plan of Eternal Progression, The Plan of Happiness and others.

I often speak with people that say to me, “I just want to be happy.” Or they question me asking, “Will I ever really be happy?”

Happiness is the object and design of our existence . . . and well be the end thereof if we pursue the path that leads to it.  Along this path lies virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness and keeping the commands of our Creator.  So how does this help us find happiness in the face of the death of a friend or loved one?

The answers are found in contemplation of the the three age-old questions.  First, where were we before we were born?

The Old Testament prophet Job, one of the more ancient writers of the Bible, gives us some insight. The Lord asked him the same question: “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where was thou when I laid the foundation of the earth . . . when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:2-7)

You and I must have been somewhere – the Lord asked us where we were. And, who were all the “sons of God shouting for joy?” Why were they shouting? Where were they?

The apostle, Luke, in the New Testament answers those questions years later as he lays out the genealogy of the human family.  He starts at Christ and then names each subsequent father leading up to ” . . . Enos, which is the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.” (Luke 3:38)

The apostle, John, must have had some idea of a pre-mortal existence because of the way they phrased the question to Jesus Christ about the man who was born blind, “Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2) The question was not “could he have sinned before he was born?” but instead, “who did sin?” Christ’s answer implied that both were possible, but neither was the case in this situation.

Paul writes to the Hebrews, “Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of our Spirits, and live?” (Hebrews 12:9) We are also given instruction to open our prayers with a phrase like, “Our Father in Heaven.” Hence, He is the Father of our Spirits, our Heavenly Father, our spiritual Father.

We then are brothers & sisters in the spiritual sense, and Jesus Christ is our elder brother, being the firstborn spirit child of God.  If this is the case, then all of us, including you and I, were among the sons and daughters of God who shouted for joy along with Adam.

The Lord explained to Moses, “I have created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually before they were naturally upon the face of the earth . . . for in heaven created I them.” (Moses 3:5) In addition to this, we learn from Moses that a council was held in heaven in which you and I were present. At this grand council, the plan to create this earth, including the fall of Adam, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ was presented and accepted.

There was, however, someone who opposed this plan. Lucifer rebelled and was cast out of heaven with those who chose to follow him.

If all this is true, then it means you and I accepted this plan and here we are. Accepting this plan as described by the prophet Abraham is defined as accepting our First Estate.

So, the first question is where did we come from? We came from the presence of God, the pre-mortal spirit world, in the company of all our spirit brothers and sisters.

Second question, why are we here? Trying to wrap the whole of this question into a nutshell gives us the following answer.

First, on the eternal perspective, progression requires that we each have our own physical mortal body that has the capacity of becoming refined, immortalized or glorified through the process of death and subsequently resurrection.

Second, we had to be sent somewhere outside of the presence and powerful righteous influence of God our Father to prove ourselves, to exercise our own agency, and determine in this life the nature of our life to come – the life after death. One of the prophets, Jacob, tells us that Adam & Eve were expelled out of the Garden of Eden into a “lone and dreary world” and on a probation of sorts, where a person could chose from a myriad of different things that were either good or evil. It is necessary for man to taste the bitter to enable him to appreciate the good, is one way to explain it.

The ancient prophet Alma calls this a probationary state, a time to repent, to grow, to learn responsibility, and to prepare for the next life. (Alma 12:24, 42:4)

Said the Lord, “And thus did I, the Lord God, appoint unto man in the days of his probation – that by his natural death he might be raised in immortality unto eternal life, even as many as would believe.” (Doctrine & Covenants 29:43)

Obtain a Body . . . Prove Ourselves . . . Get Experience . . . this is your first estate.

Some of us live 80 years, some of us live 50 years, some of us live 39 years, and some live only a brief few years on this earth. Will you and I be given as much time? There are laws to be learned and lived, ordinances to experience, and covenants to be made and kept, and faith and obedience to demonstrate in this life.

Third, where do we go from here? Where will I go when I die? Where have friends and family that have passed on gone to?

The penitent thief on the cross being crucified with the Savior, Jesus Christ, asked the Him the same question. The Savior responded with this answer, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

Christ died in the literal sense that you and I will die. He underwent a physical dissolution by which His immortal spirit was separated from His body of flesh and bones, and that body was actually dead. While the corpse lay in Joseph’s rock-hewn tomb, the living Christ existed as a disembodied Spirit. Where was He?  We naturally assume that he went where spirits of the dead ordinarily go. He was in the disembodied state a Spirit among spirits. He went to the Spirit world.

We know that the spirit world is not heaven, as the Savior, on the third day after his crucifixion, met the weeping Mary Magdalene and said: “I am not yet ascended to my Father.” He had gone to Paradise as he told the penitent thief, but not to the place where God dwells. Sprit Paradise, therefore, is not Heaven, or the place where God the Eternal Father and his celestialized children dwell and make their abode. Spirit Paradise is a place where dwell
righteous and repentant disembodied spirits between bodily death and resurrection. Another division of the spirit world is reserved for those disembodied beings who have lived lives of wickedness and who remain impenitent even after death.

The ancient prophet Alma explained to his son Corianton who was confused on this matter, “Now there is must needs be a space betwixt the time of death and the time of resurrection.” (Alma 40:6) “Now concerning this state of the soul between the death and the resurrection, behold it has been made know unto me by an angel that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to God who gave them life. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happens, which is called Paradise, a state of rest from all their troubles and from all care and sorrow.”
“And the spirits of the wicked, yea, who are evil – for behold they have no part nor portion of the Spirit of the Lord; for behold they chose evil works rather than the good; therefore, the spirit of the devil did enter into them, and take possession of their house – this is the state of the souls of the wicked, yea, in darkness, and as a state of awful, fearful looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them; thus they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection.” (Alma 40:11-14)

The Spirit World is therefore quite a unique place.

Another apostle and scriptural historian, Bruce R. McConkie, explains from the Savior’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus, “The spirit world is divided into two parts: Paradise which is the abode of the righteous, and hell which is the abode of the wicked. Until the death of Christ, these two spirit abodes were separated by a great gulf, with the intermingling of their respective inhabitants strictly forbidden.” (Luke 16:19-31)  We know that Christ visited this spirit world because the apostle Peter’s biblical account tells us the following: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” (1 Peter 3:18-20)

When Christ visited the Spirit world, he also organized the affairs of this kingdom such that the righteous spirits began teaching the His gospel to those who had not heard it and those who were disobedient or wicked.  Although, there are two spheres within the one spirit world, there is now some intermingling of the righteous and the wicked that inhabit those spheres; and when the wicked spirits repent, they leave their prison-hell and join the righteous in spirit paradise. Hence Joseph Smith said, “Hades, Sheol, paradise, spirit prison are all one: it is a world of spirits. The righteous and the wicked all go to the same world of spirits until the resurrection.” (Teachings, p. 310).

Life, work and activity all continue in the spirit world. Men and women have the same talents and intelligence there which they had in this life. They possess the same attitudes, inclinations, and feelings there which they had in this life. They believe the same things, as far as eternal truths are concerned: they continue in effect, to walk in the same path they were following in this life. (Mormon Doctrine, Spirit World, McConkie) The prophet Amulek said, “That same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in the eternal world.” (Alma 34:34) Thus, if a man has the spirit of charity and the love of truth in his heart in this life, that same spirit will possess him in the spirit world.
Family and friends who have passed away with the spirit of joviality and happiness will find it will carry them forward in the gospel and in the teaching of the gospel to many others on the other side.

When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, Mother, may I meet you
In your royal courts on high?
Then at length, when I’ve completed
All you sent me forth to do,
With your mutual approbation
Let me come and dwell with you.
(Eliza R. Snow, “O My Father,” Hymns, #292)

This post mortal world is a place to await resurrection. All will be resurrected. The Atonement of Jesus Christ ensures a universal resurrection. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor 15:22) Judgment will then, after the resurrection, be passed on all according to individual works and obedience while in mortality. The great prophet Nephi says, “For by grace are they saved after all they can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23) Said the Savior to His disciples, “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more, but ye see me because I live and ye shall live also.” (John 14:19)

Inheriting the glory that Christ has been resurrected into is conditional and is based upon the laws by which individuals choose to govern their mortal lives.
Said the prophet Alma, “The plan of restoration is requisite with the justice of God; for it is requisite that all things should be restored to their proper order. Behold, it is requisite and just, according to the power and resurrection of Christ, that the soul of man should be restored to its body, and that every part of the body should be restored to itself.
“And it is requisite with the justice of God that men should be judged according to their works; and if their works were good in this life, and the desires of their hearts were good, that they should also as the last day, be restored unto that which is good.” (Alma 41:2-3)

The righteous who understand and live the truth will be resurrected to receive a glory in heaven referred to as Celestial and Paul refers to this as comparable to the glory of the Sun. In this celestial kingdom also known as the Kingdom of God, marriages and eternal family relationships are secured, eternal progress and progression is uninterrupted forever and ever.

The less valiant who choose the lesser law will be resurrected to receive a glory Terrestrial that Paul compares to the glory of the moon. They chose not to enjoy that which they could have enjoyed. These would not accept the words of the prophets in this life and died in their sins, but accepted afterwards.
And to the undisciplined, wicked, liars, sorcerers, adulterers, whoremongers, and the unrepentant who are shut out in spirit prison until the Savior finishes his work (D&C 76:85), they will be resurrected to a glory Telestial or that equivalent, as Paul puts it, to the “glory of the stars, for one star differeth from another star in glory.” (1 Corinthians 15:40-44)  The remainder will become attached to Perdition, those who refuse any part of the Atonement of Christ – those that are cast off forever, as the scriptures say, into outer darkness.
What of those that have taken their lives prematurely when the Lord has said, “Thou shalt not kill”? Are they consigned to spirit prison and later a telestial glory?

Another of the Lord’s modern day apostles, M. Russell Ballard, recently stated that there are “some things we know, and some we do not . . . [the] judgment for sin is not always as cut and dried as some of use seem to think. . . the Lord recognizes differences in intent and circumstances: Was the person who took his life mentally ill? Was he or she so deeply depressed as to be unbalanced or otherwise emotionally disturbed? Was the suicide a tragic, pitiful call for help that went unheeded too long or progressed faster than the victim intended? Did he or she somehow not understand the seriousness of the act? Was he or she suffering from a chemical imbalance in their system that led to despair and a loss of self control? Obviously, we do not know the full circumstances surrounding every suicide. Only the Lord knows the details, and he it is who will judge our actions here on earth.” (Liahona, March 1988, Suicide: Some Things We Know, and Some We Do Not)

Said the prophet Joseph Smith: “While one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard . . . He is a wise Lawgiver, and will judge all men, not according to the narrow contracted notions of men, but ‘according to the deeds done in the body whether they be good or evil,’ . . . We need not doubt the wisdom and intelligence of the Great Jehovah; He will award judgment or mercy to all nations according to their several deserts, their means of obtaining intelligence, the laws by which they are governed, the facilities afforded them of obtaining correct information, and His inscrutable designs in relations to the human family; and when the designs of God shall be made manifest, and the curtain of futurity be withdrawn, we shall all of us eventually have to confess that the Judge of all the earth has done right.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 1938, p218)

When we are judged, the Lord will take all things into consideration: our genetic and chemical makeup, our mental state, our intellectual capacity, the teachings we have received the traditions of our fathers, our health, and so forth.

That is the plan. Those are the answers. Death, then, is a gateway.

Upon the cross he meekly died
For all mankind to see
That death unlocks the passageway
Into eternity.
(Hymns, #184 – “Upon the Cross of Calvary”)

“The keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name.” (2 Nephi 9:41)

To live, to love, and to be loved are the essence of what is important in this life.  Those we have known and passed on have lived great lives, they were loved and are still loved.

Mourning and tears are normal – in fact, they are a healthy reaction. Mourning is one of the purest expressions of deep love. It is a natural response in accord with divine commandment: “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die.” (D&C 42:45)

By mortal standard time, it’ll be much longer than we like till we see our loved ones again. By eternal standard time – “We’ll see you soon.”

Until then watch. There are another set of hands you should look for, pierced at the palms and at the wrists. You will recognize His hands when you see them. You will recognize Him when you see Him. His hands are always open. The brightness of His eyes and smile will warm the darkest recesses of your soul. When you meet Him, touch his hands, feel the mark in his side, and bow at His feet. He knows you by name. He knows each of us by name. He will offer you the peace, the rest and the love that you seek.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die . . . A time to weep, and a time to laugh, at time to mourn, and a time to dance . . . a time to get and a time to loose . . . a time to embrace . . . and a time to love.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

This death of which I speak eventually comes to all. It comes to some in childhood, to some in ripe old age, and to others in the prime of life. To some it comes by natural means, anticipated and expected, to others it comes without warning, unannounced. It may come quietly in the peace of the night, or it may come violently in the confusion of an instant, but assuredly, it comes to all.

To you my beloved friends, patients and family, remember His invitation.  “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

This yoke is a conviction, a way of life; it is called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It does not take away challenges, disappointments, frustrations, pain or sorrow. But, when lived, it lifts burdens, lightens loads, and makes life bearable. It empowers you with light and strength from on high to learn and grow from experiences in spite of whatever life brings.

This is my conviction. This I know to be true. It is what brings hope in the battle against the inevitable foe, death. May it bring you the warmth of heart and the solace of soul that it brings to me as I ponder its meaning in my life and the lives of my family. May the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation bring you comfort in knowing that those we care about have passed through the gateway we call death to look forward upon immortality and the Glory of the Savior Jesus Christ.

Learning

CowboySunsetThe challenge with learning is that it is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. It’s what we think we already know that often prevents us from learning. The mind is much like a parachute, it works very best when it is open. It helps to recognize that the problems we face today cannot be solved with the same thinking that created them. And, the secret to fixing the problems is to not focus all of your energies on the old, but to build upon the new.

The Fire Within

I recently read this counsel given at the Northland College by Principal John Tapene in 1959.  It still applies to us today. It is a state of mind that applies to life and to all that we do, including our approach to weight loss.  I paraphrase it below.

We frequently hear the cry from our teenagers and young adults, “what can we do, where can we go?”

My answer to them and to you is this: Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons and after you’ve finished, read a book. Your city or town doesn’t owe you recreational facilities and your parents don’t owe you fun. The world does not owe you a living.

Fire WithinOn the contrary, you owe the world something.  You owe it your time, talent and energy so that no one will be at war, in sickness and in loneliness as we have been in the past.  In other words, grow up, stop being a crybaby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone and not a wishbone. Motivation is a fire from within.  If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are, it will only burn very briefly.  Start behaving like a responsible person.  You are important and you are needed.  It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday.  Someday is now, and that somebody is you.