When are we going to learn?!

Would somebody please speak out about this besides me? I am tired of going to socials, meetings, or any other sort of gatherings where the host furnishes an assortment of store-bought cookies. Naturally, the good cookies go fast. This includes the chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies, sugar cookies, and sometimes even the snickerdoodles.


But there is always an abundance of left-over raisin cookies. Let's wake up, people!

Buy less raisin cookies!

The history of Samuel Brooks, Sr.

I haven't been blogging much this summer. After having finished my administrative degree in June, I was looking forward to writing in here a lot more. But something came up...

I don’t think I’ve really ever explained my major focus of this summer that just ended: the autobiography of my grandfather, Samuel Brooks, Sr. (1886-1962). Several months ago, I told my father that I would be willing to take the autobiography that his father typed in 1960 and retype it into the computer, adding photos, editing it, etc. Initially I thought I would be spending a few short hours simply typing, but as questions arose and my interest increased, my labor turned into complete absorption. All summer long I typed, read and reread, asked my dad questions for clarification, scanned photos, visited St. George for a photo-seeking tour, and scoured the Internet for additional info. After adding in Sam Sr.’s military journal, which included info about his courtship with my grandmother Winnifred Parry Brooks, dozens of pictures, and over 200 footnotes, what began as a 50-page autobiography turned into a 100-page document. My brother Pete sent it to a printing company where we had 25 copies bound in soft covers, and we gave copies to each of my siblings and their children. I was extremely pleased with our final product.

Yesterday (my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary) I presented a copy of the history to my father and mother. We read excerpts aloud, discovered facts about our family history many of us never knew, wept, and rejoiced.

I cannot help but wonder if I was perhaps some sort of small tool in the hands of Heavenly Father to help my grandfather’s story and life lessons to be told to his descendants. I look forward to meeting my grandfather someday, who died five years before I was born. But now I know him.

Homo high

My friend Will recently sent me some information about California's proposed AB 2567 bill, which would make May 22nd an official day commemorating homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality in California government schools in honor of the anti-religious, sexual-anarchy agenda of Harvey Milk, the late San Francisco supervisor who was a homosexual activist. Will was outraged about this. This was my reply:

Hay Will,

This whole Harvey Milk thing is udderly unbelievable, and a bunch of bull. It seems the ho-moo-sexuals will be pulling for their agenda for-heifer, or until they get their way. It really gets under my skim. I don't know... maybe we need to put this issue out to pasture for a while, or perhaps form a Graze-Straight alliance to meat-iate between the two groups. If those who are a little "light in the hoofers" successfully steak this claim, who knows what their next beef will be. I for one think it's a little jerky of them, and affirm that in no way should we cow down to them.

At any rate, I just wanted to throw in my 2%'s worth on what I consider a pour decision.

Con leche,
Timbo

P.S. If this goes through, I'll be calling in sick with you.

Why Neil Diamond and U2?

Why I like Neil Diamond

1. He writes his own stuff.
2. His songs are a familiar memory from my childhood.
3. He is not content or complacent with his success. Even at 67, he is still willing to mix it up and take risks.
4. In that vein, he is unafraid to bare his soul.
5. He sings a variety of genres: rock, pop, African, blues, gospel, country, even classical.
6. Durability and ability to adapt. He has been around for over 40 years.
7. Great voice.
8. For the most part, his lyrics are not inappropriate or explicit.
9. Fun to sing and dance to. My kids love his stuff.
10. He genuinely loves his audiences and fans.
11. His unabashed patriotism expressed in “America.”

Why I like U2

1. Passion.
2. Willingness to speak out about political issues and religion.
3. Willingness to take a stand.
4. Desire to improve humanity. Just look at the stuff Bono does regarding poverty, starvation, and disease (www.one.org). He puts me to shame with his Christ-like acts of service.
5. They have an ability to laugh at themselves, to mock their own celebrity.
6. Great voice.
7. Catchy music.
8. No throw-away songs on their albums. Their songs are full of meaningful, well-thought-out lyrics.
9. Incredible concerts, ability to connect with the crowd and create an intimate setting; overall stage presence.
10. Willingness to dream, to experiment.
11. They fight the trite and reach for art.

....

For the first time in months, the number of e-mails in my in-box is down to single digits. Feels sooooooo good.

I have been typing and editing my grandfather's history. Wonderful, interesting account. If my grandfather were alive today, he'd be 122.

Peace and love,
T.

Windows

Life is full of windows:

- To look through
- To breathe through
- To find an answer through
- To reconsider one's own life


In my life, there are four panes to my window, as explained by the Johari picture:



1) The Arena is what both others and I know about me;


2) The Façade is what I know about myself but others don't;

3) The Blind Spot is what others know about me but I am unaware of; and finally,

4) The Unknown is what neither others nor I know about me.

After this last year of my administrative program, I have had lots of my Façade chipped away, sometimes brutally. And I have had much of my Blind Spot move to either a personal or public awareness. This has been uncomfortable but very growthful.

This concept was introduced to me in a class last year, yet I have returned to it time and time again. It helps me acknowledge and understand my identity.

------------------- Side note coming:

It's fun to sing "Volaré," replacing that word with "Johari."

Hah!

Pensamentos

Going underground,
Thinking.
Much on my plate,
The future uncertain.

*

I love cool water after a fatiguing, hot summer day.

Typed Words

Embrace who you are, even if it is age.

From March 25, 2008:

The flow of the personal journal,
The meditating prayer,
The praise we give to God,
Hoping He is there.

Friendless times disappearing,
A new change up on the rise;
Syllables of Spring are waking,
And awaking my sibilant eyes.

Doubtness and Darkness departing,
Clarity taking the helm;
Godless is gone and my heart sings,
Charity breeding a calm.

Remember the cycles, for there are many

Penetrating winds of blow,
An ice cap on my chest;
Profundities too bleak to seize,
A million wished I’d have pleased
A heart well wounded throughout time
A lonely forest for the mind
A jealous guard protects the mine
And reach out on a precipice
For something more divine than this
A Voice is calling for your bliss
Not offered in the Void’s abyss
But treading gently on the moss
The ferns and cresses yield the dross
The burden weighted by the cross
That I insist to carry.

Weighted down I fear to tread
With reverence near your heavy head
For pickled brains need old adults
Whose life-tick barely yields a pulse
For duty stands to watch the wings
And silence anyone who sings
But sung I have
And sing I may
And sing will I beyond today
Not chained by food, grades, money or a Norm
So indefinable in this stimuli storm.

I am content to bake alone;
Simmer, incubate;
Find my prime and percolate;
Rise above and look beyond, --
This migrant stop is but a pond.
Move on!

Jump in the river!
And if you fall out,
Jump back in!
It just might wash away my sin
And bring me, baptized, cleansed anew
To where I should and what to do.
There is no life in stagnance
There is no joy in mud
There is no preacher worth his fluff
Whose “Sermon says” says it’s enough.

I want sunbeams Heavenward,
I want life beyond our sky;
And if my dream is trampled here,
Resurrect us both before I die.

Breathe some room in openness,
Give sway to open paths.


From 3-30-2008:

The flow of passion brings a curse,
Defamatory in name;
A bronzéd heart so cauterized,
By dancing near the flame.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I want fire in my bones
And fire in my belly

Some Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins

He lived from 1844-1889. He dared to break rules when writing. He used his words like clay, like paint. He worked them until they became some new form. He preferred his poetry to be read aloud:




“God’s Grandeur”

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.




“Pied Beauty”

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.




“The Windhover”

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Sometimes we stare so long

“Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.”

- Alexander Graham Bell

My sister looks like the lady from Enchanted

See for yourself. Photos alternate between the actress and my sister.

Soul, Link, Connection

Bono and Bill Hybels

Go to You Tube and search for Bono and Bill Hybels. He interviewed Bono about his belief in Jesus Christ. It is profound and thought provoking, condemnatory and inspiring.

Peace out.

Amendment to last blog

Someone wise told me that if you criticize somebody, it is overwhelmingly likely that you possess the same problem you are attacking. So if yesterday I said that others were being negative and critical, it means that I have been fighting it too.

Viva esperança!

Thoughts

Maybe I'm going to the wrong places, or listening to the wrong people, but I've been hearing so much negativity as of late I can barely stand it. Criticisms, contentions, and gossip. Blanket condemnations. Things you would never dare say in the person’s presence. Anger. So many people are angry with others. Yeah, it's easy to get sucked into the vortex of negativity. But where is the guidance (and following) of the Holy Ghost? Where is forgiveness? Where is mercy?

E-mail

Apart from those friends who live far away, or emergencies, I CAN'T STAND E-MAIL.

It is a waste of time.
Too much typing.
Too much.

-----------------------------(sigh)-----------------------------

Here's Neil:

U2 Pics

Idolatry, Age, Movies

It is glorious to have a few days off. I am listening to music. I don’t care if this blog doesn’t make a ton of sense. Sensing feeling.

Idolatry is very subtle. It can creep into me very easily. It is not a good a thing. A distraction.

As I get older I get more tired. And I don’t think it’s because I’m older – I just have more responsibilities, and I give them more attention than to exercising or sleeping. When I exercise regularly I still feel young.

And that’s another thing – age. I swear age is so much a mental thing. In my mind I’m 20. Twenty. And I know who people who were 40 even when they were in high school, you know? I don’t want to mention anyone out there by name, but some of you who read this blog are way too old for your bodies! A couple of weeks ago a guy names Gary Stoddard came to Sunrise Elementary School and performed for the student body. He was a one-man band – amazing. He must have been about 45 or 50, but the man had an infectious enthusiasm that defied his body. Mentally he was about 23! He was delightfully entertaining, a quick wit, a local Robin Williams. I laughed and marveled at his enthusiasm and talent the whole hour. Here’s his web site: http://www.whateveryouimagine.net/

Movies. There is so much total visual CRAP out there that we so nonchalantly swallow. I strongly recommend Screenit.com before watching anything PG or worse. Come on, now. No message can be so indispensable that you have to rake yourself through filth. So many Mormons want to watch crap and still live their religion. Garbage in, garbage out.

“Life flows on within you and without you.”

If you don't agree with me, discuss.

U2 in action

I read that they're recording a new album.