Monday, February 5, 2024

Talk from December 2023

 The Prodigal                 12/09/2023

Good morning everyone, I am grateful to be able to share a message during this holiday season. I know most everyone likes to give the bishopric a hard time when they are up here at the beginning of their discourse, so as my gift to them, I will refrain from doing so. 


Today I’d like to talk about one of Jesus’ most famous parables. Elder Uchdorf also spoke about this parable in the last conference session, so I will also be pulling some material from there as well as from my own thoughts. 


He mentioned that it has been called by some, the greatest short story ever told. It has been translated into many languages all across the world, and perhaps not a day has gone by since its initial telling, that someone somewhere hasn’t made a reference to it.


It starts like this: A certain man had two sons. We learn that one of these sons was feeling brash. Perhaps he felt that life in his fathers house was stifling, that dealing with his fathers traditions and rules was holding him back from his full potential to experience all that the world had to offer. Whatever his reasoning, he asserted himself and requested his half of the inheritance so he could go live his life on his own terms. You might know this parable by the name “The Prodigal Son” 


Now, from my reading of this parable in Luke 15, the word prodigal is never actually mentioned in the scriptures. I have read it several times over the last couple of weeks and it wasn’t until preparing this talk that I focused on what the word prodigal even means. I like definitions, and I think that clarity is important, especially when we are talking about what is arguably Jesus’ most famous parable, especially since Jesus apparently never actually said it. Now, I have always taken the definition from context, and the only context I have ever had was from the chapter summary. Jesus shares this parable right after telling the parable of the lost sheep that the shepherd searches for and finds, and a lost piece of silver that a woman searches for and finds. The story is about a lost son, who returns and is celebrated, so I thought that prodigal had something to do with the moral of the story, that the uppity son was lost, and then found. But I was wrong.


When I went to the dictionary, I found that there are two similar definitions. Prodigal means wastefully extravagant, or giving on a lavish scale. I think, based on these two similar but very different attitudes, we can see how the definition applies to the story. And we all know it. I mentioned earlier the attitude of the younger son. According to the first definition, he is prodigal with his inheritance. The scripture says: “And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.” We don’t know how long the inheritance lasted, but like Elder Uchdorf, I always thought this son likely” felt a thrill of adventure and excitement.” That “at long last, he was on his own, free from the principles and rules of the culture of his youth.” We all know the story. He goes, rejects his fathers way of life, wastes his fathers efforts and even his reputation, on riotous living. Wild and uncontrolled behavior. Likely he didn’t think his luck was going to run out. He had finally made it, on his own. He was finally his own man.


And then his luck ran out. Famine. Maybe he was already running low on funds when the famine hit, maybe not. That’s not part of the story. All we know is that according to the scripture, “he began to be in want.” “No man gave unto him.” He had hit rock bottom. He went to work for someone who had more resources, and that guy sent him to feed the pigs. Terrible. I can imagine that the folks listening to the story were revolted. Pigs are unclean, and he wasn’t any better than a pig, eating with the pigs and taking care of the pigs. I think of the movie Willow when Bavmorda says at the top of the castle wall “ you’re all pigs” and then everyone turns into a pig. It’s hilarious. But probably not for this kid. We know the story from here. He runs back to dad after all his bad choices and bad luck. He maybe sees the error of his ways, and is determined to repent and make things as right as he can. 


Now here is where the other definition of prodigal pops up. The father is out looking at the path “and from a great way off, the father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” The son apologizes and asks for a job, saying that he isn’t worthy to be a son anymore. But the father wasn’t going to allow that. He called to the servants and said “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.” I think he was especially giving, and even forgiving, on a lavish scale. The second definition of prodigal. The son's reception was rich, and lavish. The best clothes, the fancy jewelry, the fatted calf! A lavish feast and celebration, and freely and joyfully given with only the best of intentions. 


For me, this season, I’d like to think that this story isn't so much about the son who messed up as it is about the father who understands his child and loves him anyway. A father who provided everything that his children needed for his family to be happy. A safe home, comfortable living conditions, rules and boundaries and instruction, but saw that his kid might have needed to learn to be happy the hard way. It speaks to me of our loving Father in Heaven, who prepared a plan for us to receive our eternal inheritance. He has given us the knowledge of the gospel of His Son Jesus Christ, who’s birth we celebrate this  Christmas season. He has given us commandments to keep us on that strait and narrow path, and scriptures to keep us on that path and guide us back into his presence. He has given us the greatest gift ever: his Son, so that through Christ’s atonement, he can say “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” 


Brothers and sisters, I hope that during this Christmas season we can all remember that God has given us all the best gifts. He has been more than generous in the way he has blessed and continually blesses our lives, we should in turn be generous and share the joy those gifts and blessings bring us with the people who mean the most to us.

Thursday, June 3, 2021

The Boat, the Island, the Park

 It's Thursday! My sister Bonnie has been sending out weekly emails to members of her family, and it seems like such a good idea to take a few minutes and remember the good things that happen during the week. I don't know that I will ever be as regular as she is (you can see by the number of posts that I did well for a couple of years and then things kind of petered off). No matter, any opportunity to write down some family history is an opportunity to be taken. We went out to Point Robinson Lighthouse Park on Monday with Andy, Aaron and Courtney, Matt and Wayne and Jaaron and Elise and our respective families. It was our first sunshiney/outdoorsey trip of the year and it was pretty great. Great weather, the beach was nice, a pretty great grass area with picnic tables and of course a lighthouse. The ferry ride was neat, albeit short, and we saw some kind of dolphin/porpoise pod from a moderately close distance. I didn't know there were dolphins in the Sound, but I saw them so they must be there. 

At the park the kids tried to fly kites, but the wind was not steady enough and they got frustrated pretty quickly each time they tried to fly them. They also played lacrosse. The adults played on the beach, and we did corn-hole (beanbag game) up next to the picnic tables. Andy, a few of the girls and I hunted for beach glass. Matt asked for a piece of beach glass at least 10 inches in diameter, as measured by his large hands, and I was pretty sure that given the meager supply on that beach, we wouldn't find anything remotely close. Found a few nice pieces, a few "too new" pieces, and then Andy and I were walking along the beach talking about how to make millions of dollars, when he stopped and picked up the biggest piece of each glass I have ever seen. It was probably 7" in diameter, and even had barnacles on it so you know it's legit. Anyway, we walked back towards the group, because now what was the point and showed it to Matt and I had to eat crow and proclaim Andy the winner of beachglassing. I did find a pretty cobalt blue piece later on, and everyone knows those are the best so really, I won in the end. 

We all had fun until we realized that none of us brought sunscreen. We are still dealing with the sunburns days later, each in our own way. Me, with lidocane aloe, Rachel with her oils and a new yogurt salve that she found on the internet, Ammon by being mad at us and taking cool baths, and Noah by not wearing shirts. Emma I guess found either Elise or Courtney who put sunscreen on her, and so she was mostly fine. Noah only had to not wear shirts because he wore sweatpants to the beach. I asked him why he wanted to wear sweats to the beach before we left, and he said he wears them everywhere, and why should the beach be special. I chuckled and told him it was going to be hot, and wouldn't he rather be in shorts, but he said no. So Noah got the last laugh, because it was only his arms and the back of his neck that got burned, not his legs like everyone else. He was hot, but at least he wasn't burned. 

After the beach, we went to go get some dinner at a burger place on the island called Island Queen. Not Dairy Queen. It was not cheap, and I don't know that I would actually recommend that place to anyone unless they didn't have anywhere else to go, which we didn't, not really. It was pretty expensive, and the portions were not so big to the kids disappointment. We ordered them kids meals for $10/each. Ammon and Emma got corndogs, and Noah got a grilled cheese sandwich. They come with fries, a small drink and an ice cream cone. When the food came out, I chuckled because I saw the corndogs... They were about 4 inches long. It was like they had taken a bun length hotdog and cut it in half. It was pretty funny to watch the kids faces as they realized what they got! Noah's "grilled cheese" wasn't much better, it was just a burger bun with some melted cheese, probably microwaved. And the ice cream cones they got afterwards were two scoops of ice cream, about 1.5" in diameter. We realized later on that the restaurant charges a dollar for those cones. 

After eating, we went back to the ferry terminal. The Petersons lagged behind a little, but it wasn't a big deal, because the ferry wasn't supposed to be there for another hour or so. We were all expecting to wait a while. However, when we got there, they were still loading the ferry from the earlier time! Matt and Wayne left the restaurant a little earlier than the rest of us and were safely on board which was good, because Wayne needed to get home, and waiting would have put him in a time crunch. But Aaron and I were able to squeeze into two of the last three spots on the boat! We frantically called Jaaron to see where he was, but then a truck came around the corner, and that was that. The truck got on and the Alldredges waved goodbye to Vashon Island, leaving the Petersons to spend the next hour by themselves waiting for the next ferry. It was pretty funny. I thought about making a sympathy sign and sticking it on their door, but Rachel said it would just be rubbing it in. 

Here are some photos I took!




Wednesday, June 2, 2021

It's Been a Rough Year

 I guess the thing to do is talk about how our family has coped this last year with Covid-19. 

 

So, at the end of 2019, word was just starting to come out about this new virus that was apparently coming out of China. Its a coronavirus strain that they think made the jump from bats(?) to humans. It is a pretty contagious disease (maybe), that has caused lots of illness around the world. There is a big battle right now over how deadly the virus actually is, and how the government counts coronavirus deaths, and whether or not hospitals were ever overloaded with COVID patients, and how the government and pharmaceutical companies fast tracked a vaccine, and how the government and all the doctors are telling everyone how we all need to get the vaccine or else we are bad citizens (which just makes me not want to get one), and the whole world getting basically shut down for a whole year while everyone tried to figure out how to stop a virus from spreading (which didn't work), and people wearing masks, and making masks being a new business opportunity for lots of individuals and organizations, and everything getting really expensive because the world shut down and companies ran out of stock of everything. Toilet paper was a precious commodity for a while. Also, the Church made everyone do church at home. And no one could see anyone or go anywhere, because of lock-downs. Schools did virtual classrooms, I work remotely still, Rachel's music classes were over Zoom (a video calling program), kids had Zoom birthday parties, people had Zoom weddings, Zoom Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then there was Zoom church. It has all been pretty interesting. Now, with a vaccine available, governments are slowly allowing people to do stuff again, but only if you wear a mask, or have a gold star on your chest (not really) or a vaccination card that can be lost, stolen, forged (easily) or lie about your vaccination status, because there is no central directory that anyone can access (yet).

ANYWAY! Our family has had a pretty good time though it all. We still went to California to the Bohlin's cabin, we went to families houses, had real birthday parties, went to Arizona to stay with Pat and Judy for a week. We did our best to include everyone who was not scared for Thanksgiving and Christmas, got our Christmas tree from the same guy at work. We pulled Noah out of public school and put him into a home school group that met regularly in person, and Ammon kept attending his own home school group. That was kind of a logistical nightmare, planning on where those groups were going to meet on which days and scheduling it so we could get them to different places. Since I was working at home, I was able to take some of that responsibility so Rachel could keep her music studio open. She helped teach one group, and I taught the outdoor class for the other group.

Church has started up again, meeting for sacrament and 2nd hour classes, but the timing still hasn't been figured out in our ward at least. I got called to be the Assistant Ward Clerk, and that has been an eye opener into the state of the ward. I now know lots of things that I don't want to know. I am also now responsible for maintaining our neighborhoods well property. So I have to go over to the pump house every other day or so and monitor how much water is being used, how much chlorine is in the system and send reports to the county Health Department. fun stuff.

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Musings, and Other Nonsense




I want to catch up on some of the things I am working on. We are doing a couple of big projects and I think it is time to talk about some of them. The first on is the conversion of our garage into a workout room/music studio for Rachel's music classes. We are getting so close to being done. I have insulated and sheetrocked the garage walls and ceiling, installed lights and plugs, painted and trimmed out windows and walls and doors, put carpet down in the workout space and just last week, I bought carpet tiles to do the floor of the studio space. It has been a long project, because I haven't been able to clean out the garage until about two weeks ago, so we are just now going to start and carpet the floor. That has been waiting now for about a month or two.
Related image


We also started working on putting the back yard together again. That has involved making kids pick up rocks in the yard for quite some time. It was good work for them, and on the plus side, now I have about 10 yards of cobblestones to line all the yard paths, build fire pits, and any number of other uses. We are even going to put in a meditation maze in the rocky area under our horse chestnut tree:

As a part of getting the yard ready, I cut down three trees in the yard, three pines that were not very nice to look at. One was rotting in the center, and the other two were just kind of in the way. So I had a friend come and help cut them down. We got lucky and only hit one fence (chain-link, that popped right back up once the tree was off it) and nothing else in the yard. I have been splitting firewood for several weekends by hand. It's a good workout, especially since these were 40yo trees that had a ring of branches every three feet. And then stump removal has been the other issue. I have been burning one of them out, and that has been fun. I drilled out the middle, and a hole or two in the side and lit it up. It wasn't going fast enough so I added some air. I also decided to try melting some aluminum. It worked.




We also had 72 yards of topsoil brought in to plant grass, since I was never going to be able to remove enough rocks to make enough of a difference: 

The landscaping guy says this isn't enough, so when he cones to do the yard work, he will bring more. He says the dirt I bought (for way too much) will make a pretty top dressing...

We also had new windows installed on the ground floor of our house. I don't have any pictures of this, but it has made a BIG difference in our heating bills. They are triple-pane, argon filled, foam filled fiberglass framed, low-e coated, and a ton of other things. I took the heat vision camera home from work one day to see if it really made any difference, and while I don't have the photos to back up my claims, I can tell you that it really does.