The Honest Woodsman

Today I was thinking about one of my favorite classic stories, the tale of the Honest Woodsman. The Greek version of the fable goes like this:

Once upon a time there was a woodsman who was out to work cutting trees to support his family. While cutting a certain tree, he loses his grip on his axe, which causes it to go flying into the river. The man is much grieved by this, seeing as the axe was the only tool with which he could provide the means to feed his wife and children. Depressed and despairing, the man consigns himself to sit on the bank of the river and mourn his loss. He had hardly been seated for five minutes when, to his suprise, Hermes suddenly appears to him and asks what is wrong. The man explains his situation to the messenger of the gods, and Hermes offers to dive into the river and retrieve the axe for the poor woodcutter. The man gladly agrees. Hermes enters the water for a few moments, then returns holding an axe that is made of pure gold. The god presents it to the man, but the man refuses to take the valuable tool, saying that it does not belong to him. The kind Hermes sets the axe of gold on the bank and dives into the river again. This time, he returns with an ax made of pure silver, but the woodcutter refuses to take it for the same reason as with the golden axe: It did not belong to him. The man explains to Hermes that his axe is just a regular one with a wooden handle. So, Hermes dives in a third time and returns with the axe that the man recognizes as his own. Overcome with joy, the woodsman repeatedly expresses gratitude to his benefactor. Hermes is impressed with the honesty of this man, and tells him that he has passed his test. As a reward, Hermes tells him that he gets to keep all three axes as a gift, then disappears. The woodsman goes home a very wealthy man.

Meanwhile, a jealous neighbor watches this event take place. As soon as nobody is watching, he hurredly goes to the river and tosses his own axe in, then pretends to be in sorrow. Hermes appears to him as well, and asks him what the matter is. The second man lies and says he accidentally lost his axe, and Hermes dives into the river and returns with another axe made of gold. The neigbor greedily clames it as his own. Displeased with the neighbors' lack of honesty, Hermes delivers a blow to the man's head with the blunt end of the axe, and as a punishment leaves the other man's axe at the bottom of the river before disappearing.

So, the moral of this story is that honesty is the best policy. Being honest may be hard at first, especially if there are immediate consequences, but the blessings we recieve in the end far outweigh the instant gratification of being dishonest. Being dishonest only postpones inevitable grief. It is far better to be honest in our dealings with others and with ourselves.

The Accordion

One fine Sunday afternoon I was sitting at someones house when the corner of my eye caught something that intrigued me. There, sitting under a birdcage, was an old accordion. Since I love music, and as I had never in my life actually seen a real live accordion before, naturally the first thing I wanted to do was go play with it. So, after having a marvelous dinner, I did exactly that. My excited hands carefully lifted the hand-held organ out of its storage place, placed my fingers in what seemed to be the correct areas, and began to mess around with it. The ancient instrument sounded like it was still in tune (although I have absolutely no idea how a properly tuned accordion is supposed to sound). I could already see it in my minds eye: People dancing with joy as I performed vibrant melodies on that accordion. However,despite its good condition, it took no longer than 5 seconds for me to realize that accordions are complex and challenging instruments. There was a keyboard on one side, and a whole lot of little black buttons that do who-knows-what on the other. It proved to be a little more than my simple brain could handle. My efforts were noble, but the sound quality of my performance could be considered dismal at best. Eventually I was able to work out a coherent rendition of "Scarborough Fair", but only just barely, and it came after several failed attempts. Needless to say, I was considerably less optimistic about my career as an accordionist as I returned it to its spot on the shelf.

I think my main problem with the art of accordion playing was that I didn't know the basics. In order to become an expert, I would have to learn some simple things first. Things like how to hold the instrument, what the little buttons do, the names of the notes on the keyboard, ect. Once you have the basics down, you can begin to handle more complicated things, such as playing a song or practicing your technique.

Learning the Gospel is like learning how to play an accordion. Sometimes we get excited about something that we don't fully understand. We might dive ourselves into a 'deep' doctrine with expectations of how that knowledge will affect us. However, if we don't know 'the Basics', we may quickly find confusion and frustration with something because we don't really know how to apply it.

Simple lesson learned: When learning the Gospel, start with the Basics. Faith in Jesus Christ, Scriptures, Prophets, ect. The deeper knowledge and understanding will only come after we have got the simple things down.

Jeremiah

My favorite prophet in the Old Testament is Jeremiah. I have recently been studying the book of Jeremiah in the Bible, and there are many things that we can learn from the life of this great man. He lived in a time when the people of Jerusalem were very wicked. Many of the people had already been carried captive into Babylon, and yet they would not listen to Jeremiah's warnings that the city would be destroyed if they would not repent. Jeremiah faced opposition from a multitude of false prophets. These liars told the people that they were righteous, that they could keep doing whatever they wanted, and that Jerusalem was safe. The persecution of true prophets became so intense that Jeremiah was cast into prison several times, and many of Jeremiah's fellow prophets were killed. It was during this time that the prophet Lehi and his family were instructed to leave Jerusalem for a land of promise. Jeremiah was not so lucky. It was his lot to stay and do everything he could to save a doomed people. Eventually, he had to endure watching the destruction of Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.

The thing that impresses me most about Jeremiah is that he never gave up. Despite all of the persecution that he was subjected to, he continued to to his best to preach salvation unto his people. Even after the destruction of Jerusalem, he still did his best to help the people by fulfilling his role as a prophet. Let us all have the same endurance that Jeremiah had. Because we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives, we can endure to the end, even if things seem like they are never going to get better. We can always have hope. So lets never give up.

Vision

Vision is an interesting thing. It is the sense that allows our brains to take waves of light reflecting off of everything and interpret them into a distinct perception of our world. In High School Psychology Class, I once learned that vision is the most overpowering of the five senses. It has the ability to hold our attention and distract us from any sound, smell, taste, or feeling. For example, you are reading a book and your mom has been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes, but you have no idea what she said the whole time you were distracted by your book. The sound of her voice certainly entered into your ears, but since your eyes and mind were so busy, your brain simply chose to ignore the sound signals. They might as well not have existed.

Spiritual vision is a lot like physical vision. Without any sort of spiritual vision, we become spiritually blind. We don't have any idea who we are, where we came from, or where we are going. We simply exist, wandering around in the metaphoric darkness. It is very difficult to get anywhere in life if you can't see where you are going. This is why gaining knowledge about the gospel as well as a personal testimony is so important.  When we have a firm vision of what we can accomplish, we can then exercise faith and begin moving in that direction. Like physical vision, we will not easily be distracted when we have an intese focus on our spiritual goal.

Starvation?

How long does the average person last when they go without any food or water? Not very long. Our physical bodies require frequent, consistent nourishment in order to function properly. When these basic needs are not satisfied, the resulting malnutrition has devastating effects. Indeed, if we go too long without any form of substance to sustain ourselves, we would starve to death. So, in order to keep ourselves from dying, we do certain things every single day. We eat food. We drink water. We sleep at night. They are very simple things, but they are things we must do in order to stay alive.

Our spiritual selves are the same way. There are certain things we must do in order to keep are Spirituality safe from starvation. Things like reading the scriptures, saying your prayers, and going to church are the basics we must adhere to if we want our spirits to survive. It is no wonder that Jesus Christ Himself is given names such as "the Bread of Life (John 6:33-48" or "Living Water (John 4:10-13)" in the New Testament. If we do the small things every day that bring us closer to Christ, we can be assured of the promise found in the sixth chapter of John, verse thirty five: "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

Cicadas!!

So here I am in Lebanon, TN and it turns out that this year is the year where all of the 13-year-cycle cicadas come out of the ground and swarm everywhere. In the trees. On the fences. Squished bug corpses covering the sidewalk. Its kind of nasty. Oh, and they make lots and lots of noise. One by itself isnt too loud, but when you've got 8000+ bugs in a single tree and you walk under it, your ears start hurting. Like you just spent 3 hours at a rock concert. The only good thing is that they are harmless, don't carry any diseases, and they are edible. (Note: Just because something is edible does not mean that eating it is a good idea.)

So I guess I am fortunate to be able to see these incredible bugs, seeing as they only come out every 13 years. A mission only lasts for 2 years, and one of them happens to be the same year that the cicadas come out. Lucky me! This earth has so many interesting things in it that you never really think about too often. I will always be grateful to my Heavely Father for giving me the opportunity to spend some time here. The Earth really is a beautiful place. One of my favorite shows to watch back home was Planet Earth. I am continually amazed at some of the creatures, scenes, and phenomena that are portrayed in it. Sometimes I wonder if we as humans will ever be able to discover it all. The Creation of this planet only gives us a small inkling of how smart God really is.

Music

So here is a picture of me and my little bro (the skinny one) with our guitars sitting on top of a hill in our backyard some time ago. I figured a nice way to get my thought process going for this blog thing is to find a cool picture, stick it on here, and then write some paragraphs underneath it to tell you why its important. Anyways, there are several reasons why I decided to put this picture up here. Firstly, I love playing my guitar, and since I had to leave my guitar back home when I left on a mission, this picture makes me happy when I look at it. Secondly, it reminds me of the wonderful acoustic music that I used to listen to all the time. Lastly, it has a picture of me with my little brother, who I love very much.

Today I would like to focus on the music aspect of this picture. Music has had a very powerful effect on my life. Wether I am listening to Classical, Jazz, Acoustic, Indie, Bluegrass, Rock, or Techno, it all just puts me in a good mood. I have a habit of only listening to music that makes me feel good and presents a message that I agree with. A lot of the newer more popular music is full of garbage that I dont like, so I usually didn't listen to the radio back home. Several of my friends and peers think I am wierd because I dont like a lot of the stuff people listen to nowadays, but I could care less. I've noticed the difference in my life between when I would conform or when I would listen to uplifting music and decided that the latter option is much more prefferable. When I listen to music that isn't vulgar or immoral, it puts me in a better mood and I am more likely to do the things I am supposed to do as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

God likes music, too. Consider the 150th Psalm from the Old testament, which reads:

 "1) Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his ^asanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.

 2) Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.

 3) Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.

 4) Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and ^aorgans.

 5) Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

 6) Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord."

Obviously, music is something that God has given us, not only to praise him, but to make ourselves happy as well. When we use music the way it was supposed to be used, we will become closer to God and have happier lives in general. We can be inspired to be good Christians and be more inclined to do good in the world, rather than be one of those people who listen to hateful tunes and sulk around all the time because it makes them depressed. So next time you plug something in, no matter what genre it comes from, make sure you listen to something that makes you want to be good.