Plans? What plans?

Jared and I set out from the house this morning to pick up my sister and her two girls for a nice kiddie movie and a trip to the Botanical Gardens.

Oh how happy we were about leaving early and missing traffic and our wonderful joy filled plans.

Then, we arrived at the theater to find a prim black ink on cheap white paper note taped to the inside of the conspicuously empty theater indicating that there would be NO movie today. Not today, tomorrow, next week or anymore with the Regal Cinema backing.

Yes, sirree Bob, the theater HAS BEEN SOLD!!!

Why did no one call me?

Talk about inconvenience!

So, tails tucked firmly between our legs and our ears laid back and whimpering, we decided we were no longer in charge.

Driving on to the Botanical Gardens, we figured that we would 'deal with it'.

How thankful I am that we GOT to deal with it!! The Gardens were WAY more fun than the kiddie movie would have been and it was a perfect day to take in the beauty gathered by man into one lovely setting and nurtured by God into a miniature Eden of the South.

Plants, flowers and a profusion of bees and butterflies kept the garden lovely and humming. Dragonflies darted around the waterlilies and the pathways that wound around the ponds. The sun was shining just enough and the breeze kept us from melting away (although a few pounds wouldn't have been missed on me!).

Sometimes, being reminded that my plans aren't always worth following through is a good thing.

Today was that day.

Cat and Mouse

Have you ever watched what a cat does when it corners a mouse?

Sure, there are some who just gobble them up, but MOST cats prefer to play with the mouse first.

There is a lot of batting it around and letting it run off a bit only to be heart-poundingly captured yet again. Then, just when the mouse has resigned itself to the inevitable fate, the cat relents just long enough for the mouse to taste freedom before being reeled in for the kill.

OPEC is a lot like the cat and we gas guzzling consumers are most assuredly the mice.

They know we NEED the gas as surely as a junkie with the DT's needs the next fix. We can't stop. Everything we do - EVERYTHING - depends upon the gasoline in the tank.

We have forgotten how to ensure our own survival and have become slaves to a system that we can't escape. Teasing us with temporary fixes, OPEC's cartel knows that we will be back. We can't live without the trickle of fossil fuels in our tanks.

We have other resources. And we have smart enough people to make something different. But the reality is that greed runs the show as surely as the hungry cat who wants a bit of sport before the dinner bell rings.

Jared and I have taken to the open road (or sidewalk, as the case may be) and are walking to his therapy appointments. I can't stand to watch the needle fall from the "F" to the "E" at a pace that would make a marathon runner look weak. At about nine miles to the gallon on a old handicap van, I feel as decadent as if I were driving a Hummer without all of the bling.

And dang it all, if I am going to have to pay the price for the bling, why can't I SEE the bling?

The fact is, whether you are driving a Tin Lizzy or a brand new Ferrari, they all need gasoline. Even the people who are mortgaging their automotive future on recycled french fry oil have a problem.

Ethanol doesn't produce the same MPG as gasoline. Apparently there is nothing like burning up "a dinosaur in your tank" to make that trip on Route 66 (and if you are too young to catch that reference, I am truly sorry for you).

And the limited choices on just where you can get the raw material from greasy spoons across the nation and how to turn it into actual fuel is dicey at best. There are actually waste collection services who, in seeing a new opportunity, have leapt into the breech and are turning fat into fuel. Who knew?

So, in my own ode to the sheiks and potentates of the world, I am eating more salad and using my OWN fossil fuel around my mid-section to carry my carcass where I need to go. If the walk is further than a mile, I will be riding my old, but trusty bike. I suspect there will soon be a whole lot of other people who will rebuff the Arabs and burn something instead of gasoline - like gumption.

We have more at stake here than a tank of gas or who gets the mouse.

We have the very real possibility that we will, by our own demand for gas and oil, become a dependent caliphate that begs for subsitance instead of standing on our own two feet and making the needed decisions to cut the umbilical cord to the Arabian Penisula and the greasy cartel.

Enough ranting for now.

It's time to shower.

While I am more than happy to burn my fat as a gasoline substitute, it still produces an unpleasant and polluting exhaust. So, I will take a quality and timed shower.

Meanwhile, remember that there ARE a great number of people who have never owned nor thought about having a car. And they have lived an entire life never thinking of themselves as being deprived.

Maybe it's time we do the depriving. We need to cut off the cat and become better mice. The bait is becoming too expensive to use.

To quote the words of Ali ibn Abi Talib of Saudi Arabia: "A man's measure is his will."

The question we need to ask ourselves is are we mice or men and in either case, is our will worth the bondage of a gallon of gas?

Get Your OWN Dirt

When you get right down to the bare elements that are the building blocks of life on this planet, you come to a conclusion that, for some, is hard to bear.

We can't create life without the interposition of those elements and means provided by our Father in Heaven.

Years ago, Daddy told this story:

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.

The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."

God listened very patiently and kindly to His Child and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let's say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great! We have test tubes and cloning and all kinds of ways to win!"

But God then added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."

The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him, smiled and said, "Oh, no, no, no!! You go get your OWN dirt!"

One time, Daddy used this story in a talk he was giving in sacrament meeting. A physician in the congregation was taken aback, not comprehending what he was talking about, and asked him what he intended by his remarks.

Daddy then reminded the man that we have never had a single case where a scientist in the absence of the bounty of this earth has created a speck of life from nothingness. Not much else was said after that uncomfortable reminder and the conversation drifted toward topics that were more easy to contain.

I have reflected upon that many times over the years and realized that anything from our intellectual acumen to our physical traits didn't come from us as a sudden creation from 'our own dirt'.

All that we have and are was planned and carried out from beginning to end by Him who is greater than us all. Without his interposition and care, the creation would fail. Without his shielding protection, our world, as we know it, would collapse. There would be no future, because there would be no past upon which to build.

Arrogance is an interesting quality. While we must have a spark of initiative and a willingness to step out beyond the norm to achieve in life, we are honor bound to remember that we didn't do ANYTHING without the help of our Father and others in His creation who made our path possible.

I love the notion of a 'self-made man'. It sounds so utterly delicious and so decadent. Like a rich dessert you know you shouldn't partake, but you indulge yourself anyway. But as with all indulgences, it has a price to exact. Our ego becomes our enemy as we allow that natural man to not only become an enemy to God, but to become the nightmare of eternal destruction that can destroy our opportunity to truly be all that God the Father intended.

So, I sit and think about that from time to time when I am feeling my oats and begin to think that I am "all that and a bag of chips". Thankfully, the Father hasn't removed my oxygen (though it must have been a sore trial for Him to let me keep breathing during those times!).

And I am thankful that he gave me a wise Father on the earth to share the story about keeping the ego in check. And a reminder that when I feel like I am so very wonderful all on my own to check the source of 'my dirt'.

For most assuredly, I didn't create it. And whatever measure of success I think I have achieved was not mine at all.

Terrorists and Television

While wars and calamity have been part of the human equation since Cain slew Abel, I can't help but believe the global reach of television, internet and print media have contributed to the feelings of 'righteous martyrdom' that the terrorist feel when they kill innocent people.

That they know they will be honored and remembered forever as well as being villified by the families of the people who were killed matters not at all in the balance of their 15 minutes of fame.

Everyone gets to choose their path to heaven, Nirvana, paradise or whatever status they believe they will be eligible to receive. But they don't get the right to murder innocent people to push their agenda forward.

There is NEVER an acceptable way to force someone else to capitulate to your will under the banner of a religion.

No matter the name branded upon the flag and the fervent belief that they are in the right, when people are being killed to forward an ideology of religion, there is a problem.

I am thankful that in the Articles of Faith held dear to me and members of my chosen faith teach that we are to leave open the choice of worship for everyone else and to expect that they will respect my choice to do the same.

Articles of Faith #11 states:

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

If only the respect for choice were extended across the globe, how much violence and suffering could be eased?

But if the media refused to cover ad nauseum the acts of violence that occur, would they decrease because they weren't getting their 'fix'?

I don't know the answer to that, but I have to wonder if there isn't some direct line from the act to the publicity to the duplication.

I wish I could say the world would know peace sometime soon. But I fear that we are in for more of the same until God Himself says that it's been enough and the bloodshed must end.

Maybe that's why I read my news online. I don't want to see the gory videos and I can selectively cherry pick what I want to read.

Maybe that is the antidote. I am not oblivious, but I am not willing to subject myself to nightmarish images that will haunt me for days.

So I'll take a daily dose of choice and refusal.

God bless us, if it is right that He should.