First week of BYU Idaho has been... interesting. If I said it was fantastic I would be lying, If I said it was terrible I would be over exaggerating. My student account with all the schedules announcements and email capabilities one needs on a first day of school were held hostage by the Health Department. They refused to let me learn until they could stab me with a needle. My schedule flip flopped about twice everyday. Turns out you need a car for Auto Mechanics! And you have to take math 108 before you can know what on earth they're talking about in Pre-Calc. Finally got a pillow halfway through the week. But hey, if it all went smoothly it would be boring.
The thing with living in Mormon land is you have to get used to their schedule. In no other place in the world does the whole town shut down for Monday night Family Home Evening and Tuesday afternoon devotional. Out here if your not Mormon you might be really confused. Heck I am Mormon and still don't know whats going on here.
But I must say this school has something special. The spiritual education blends in so much with the secular you can hardly tell them apart. Its so refreshing to look at religion out of the context of Sunday school and look at it in the context of science, sociology, dance, English, and history. My math class has yet to discuss any spiritual but if it does this blog will be the first to know. Considering our teacher it may never get there. First day of class: "If all of you get 100% on a test I will take you to my favorite restaurant. But that won't happen. You know why? You're all just a bunch of dogs."
"Do you know what restaurant I'm talking about? Its down by Idaho Falls near- aw, I'm not going to tell you where it is, I want to eat alone not surrounded by all you dirty bastards."
I jerked my schedule around to get him for a teacher. Naturally.
Read a great speech given at a devotional at BYU Provo back in 1979. Its title, Love is Not Blind.
It speaks of the college experience and how the pursuit of knowledge can pull back the curtain and reveal how uncertain life can be. The law system is composed of contradictory principles instead of hard fast rules, our families aren't what we thought they were, friends go off the deep end, or you have doubts or suspicions about the church (in this case LDS church). Brother Hafen quotes "I believe that it is always better to give the Lord and his Church the benefit of any doubts we may have when some such case seems too close to call. I stress that the willingness to be believing and accepting in these cases is a very different matter from blind obedience. It is, rather, a loving and knowing kind of obedience." When faced with apparent contradictions brought up by obtained logic or knowledge its best to not be two types of person. The pessimist. This person belittles, finds fault and ridicules. He doesn't place faith in that which doesn't appear to be perfect. The second is actually the optimist. He sees things as ideal as they ought to be and refuses to entertain the thought that there may be a missing piece to the puzzle and he has to profess faith over knowledge. This can be scary for him. Also missing a home teaching appointment is unacceptable. We want to be the third person. To illustrate he shares this fitting example of women. "Some stupid people started the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through everything, therefore women are blind and do not see anything. They can hardly have known any women. The same women who are ready to defend their men through thick and thin... are almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of their excuses or the thickness of their heads... Love is not blind; that is the last thing it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind." Whether it be faith in your God or in your spouse or a friend, accept that nothing is perfect. No one has all the answers. That's why we have faith. This earth experience just wouldn't be the same if those who we trusted and relied on were perfect and knew everything. The only person with all the answers is God above and he's not about to give us the cheat sheet to this test. On my two year tenure as a missionary it would have been easy to give up when no one would listen to you for weeks on end and those who said they wanted to learn actually just wanted to make you happy long enough to get you off their backs. It would have been easy... except I knew it was true, what I was doing was right and a little bit of faith could do a heck of a lot of good for that one soul searching for a rope. Faith. Love that is not blind.
See you just don't come out with great stuff like this at a state school.
Lately I've been obsessed with the Uilleann pipes. They are beautiful. They are temperamental. They are not for the weak of heart. If they didn't squak at the slightest oncoming of humidity I'm sure they would be in every school band. Hear for yourself.
Beautiful. But still my heart belongs to the bagpipes. As proud, majestic and strong as the highlanders meant them to be. But hey if I was $2,000 richer... now accepting donations....
So with BYUI being the dating central of the nation you would expect that that would mean I'm already engaged.
No.
Though I know a guy who got home from Japan a month before me and his wedding is scheduled for this next summer.
Actually this last week I've been riding the 3rd wheel. The unnecessary third wheel. I'm riding more tricycles than bicycles. I do pretty dang good on a unicycle though. Pretty dang good. With all the cycle riding going on here hopefully I can hop on the right one.On that note I'll check out for this week.
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