...for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/rom/12.19?lang=eng#18)

I wanted to write this up, because this has been driving me a little nuts and it poses me more questions than answers right now.

Perhaps by writing up what I know and understand will help me with my answers.  Or at least ease my mind about these things.

Recently, if I haven't posted info on this recently, a "friend" of mine confessed that he had inappropriate sexual conduct with his daughter. He & his wife adopted this child as an infant.

I'm surprised and shocked at what he did!

Obviously.

Well, my thoughts have been circling around and around about forgiveness and justice for his sins.

Let me back up a second or two here.

This last Christmas, I really noticed the theme behind Christmas movies and stories, including The Story.

All of these stories are almost all about redemption.

Christmas Carol, is about redemption.  Scrooge's friend Marley warns him about his sins and gives him opportunities to learn about his errors and in general path towards redemption.

When Christ was born, this is the start of mankind's redemption.

While He was alive, Jesus taught us the rest of the Gospel and fulfilled the Judaic Laws.

Men could repent the whole time before His birth, but it wasn't until His death and resurrection, that we could receive a full remission of our sins.

God gave us the laws.

These laws exist to help us live our lives as He would have us.

However, if Laws are to exist, there must be a punishment for breaking these laws.

Without some form of redemption or repentance, the punishment will be given.

Jesus died and atoned for our sins.

What this means, is that when we fully repent of our sins, he will take our punishment.

In essence, he will atone or take those lashes meant for us.

Everyone has a chance at redemption.

EVERYONE.

Where does this head with regards to my friend?

Well...

There are many, many forms of sin.

What he committed is horrible!

In my opinion, all sexual and abuse towards non-adults is an abomination before God!

With the exception of punishment for those breaking laws, I believe that any form of abuse towards ANYONE is a sin!

Abusing someone is taking away their rights & freedom.

The abuser performs actions against the victims by taking away their rights & freedom.

Whether verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual, it's all WRONG!

Now, vengeance...

I really, really hate knowing, hearing and learning about things like this.

My memory has a been really good tool for me, but it is also a cruel curse.  I remember and can recall terrible things I've done and things I've seen & heard.

For me to learn that a friend has done this terrible deed is very hard on me.

Emotionally, I want to cry, shout, throw things and in short, throw a tantrum because of his actions.

Getting to the message here:

What should happen to him?

I cannot say.

There are lots of things that I would like to have or heard done to him.

Yet, it's not my place.

Since he also has a chance at redemption...

Should he forgiven?

Will he be forgiven?

Can he find a true repentance for this sin?

Or does his repentance for this sin only lower the punishment?

With his repentance, is it going to be where he's "paroled for good behavior"?

Will he get punishment, but not the full brunt of it?

I don't know.


Should I be worried for him?

No.

Well, as a Christian...
And just in general for who I am...
I do worry for him...

BUT

I want justice and punishment to be delivered for this abhorrence!

Here's my problem.

He's not my family.

I'm not related or connected to his family in anyway, but by him.

Yet, why I do I feel so much pain for his family over this?

After I learned that this happened, I offered to help his wife with their computer needs and try to liquidate his radios & equipment.

While, I am going to buy & trade work for his HF radio & associated equipment, it's not the reason why I'm doing this.

My intent of helping them was not to buy or take his stuff...

I don't know, I feel that they need my charity.

I cannot afford to give them any finances, I can give them my time...

In short, since I am not going to get any sort of Vengeance for this, and it's not really my place...

I can get peace...

More importantly.

I can give of my services to his family.

I don't necessarily know why I need to do this...

I just need to.

So like what the fuck? Seriously! What the Fuck!? (WTF)

A friend of mine, a fellow HAM radio operator and coworker had been missing or not responding to emails or text messages for quite sometime.

Today, I asked another coworker & friend who sits near/next to him if he'd heard about him.

This other coworker said he knew a little and then sent me a link to a prison/police booking site.

My HAM radio friend's fucking mug shot was there along with a brief summary of why he was arrested.

The booking summary indicated that he was arrested for sexual misconduct with a minor.

When I saw that, I almost burst into tears!

The page indicated that he was arrested back in January.

That fucker!

Since it had been almost a month, I looked for his home phone so that I could contact his wife.

See, I had loaned him someone else's CW/Morse code paddles.

The owner of the paddles wanted them back.

A few hours ago, I stopped in at their place to pick up the paddles and give his wife my sympathy and offer her any assistance.

I didn't press my friend's wife for any details, and she didn't offer any except that it involved their adopted daughter and that she knew about it for a little bit.

How long? I don't know as I didn't need to know.

She just said that she couldn't live with it, so she and him went to the police station and he confessed to it.

I offered to help her liquidate his radio equipment so that she could continue making house payments and utilities.

He was obviously fired from work, so she needed the funds to make up for the loss of his income.

That fucking asshole!

His wife and I chatted for about an hour, but I stayed away from the actual details of when & what happened.

I really like his wife, she's a really, really sweet person.

I hope that she and their children can get through things quickly.

While I don't know his wife & children very well, I do feel a great deal of love and devotion towards them.

May God bless and keep them!

He lives!

This is not a tribute to Mary Shelley or Bram Stoker...

For quite a number of years now, it seems, that the week or two before Easter, I start to feel very close to my Savior, Jesus Christ.

The last 2-3 years or more, instead of listening to my usual motley mess of music, I listen to music about the life, trials, death and resurrection of Christ.

One of the MP3s that I have is from Glenn Beck.

If you can find it, listen to it.

Usually, on Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, he plays this at some point in his show.

If you get a chance to listen to it, I hope that you enjoy it.

As for me, I will always be thankful for the sacrifice that God made for us of His Son, Jesus.

That Jesus willingly went through the trials so that we, wayward, and stubborn people could live and be redeemed of our sins.

Thank you...

whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

The title of this entry comes from Matthew 5:39.

Over the past month, I have been simply giving in on arguments with Ellie... "do what you feel..." or "do what you want..."

I don't know if lying down on many arguments is really helpful to our family's financial situation.

This also applies to a broken tail light, because I was very SLOWLY backing out of my drive way, and tapped the wheel of a front loader that had been left in the middle of the street.  For whatever reason, the tail light assembly exploded.

If I had tapped the thing with my bumper or another car, I wouldn't have even left any marks or paint...

I left a message with the supervisor of the work crew, who met with me the other day... basically he said that it wasn't their fault.... Instead of arguing, I just gave in.

One thing that I haven't been giving in on recently, only because it's been part of our refrigerator warranty, is with Geek Squad over our ice maker repair.

Back in early July, we called to have the ice maker repaired.

One of their contracted repair guys stopped by the week after, looked at it and said that it needed to be replaced.

As of today, the ice maker still hasn't been repaired.  Due to travel and a busy July & August, we never thought much that it hadn't repaired yet.

Well, the past week or so, we started calling them, only to have no one call us back.

On Monday, I called and someone said I'd get a call back within 24 hours.  I said if I didn't get a call back in 24 hours, that at hour 24.5 or 25, I was going to call them and raise some hell.

At hour 25 of this period, I did call them, and over the next 30-45 minutes, I finally got connected to their escalation manager.

He personally guaranteed to call and make sure things were moving.  After speaking to him for several minutes, I finally realized that he was going to do it.  He sounded like me, when I was lead escalation handler 5-6 years ago.

Many times I hated working on escalations, only because most of these customers, the problem was due to their hardware or environment.

When I was done with them, I had basically walked all over them, and they thanked me for it.

It wasn't that I purposefully walked on them, it's just that I was able to fully prove why the problem was theirs.

I taught this same type of method to the newbies.  This process is what I called "parallel" testing.  What it means is that you run parallel types of tests that simulate/do the same things our software did.

Like VSS backups.  If the software used VSS to backup various parts of Windows, you then used Windows tools/commands to also use VSS to do the same backup.  If the process also failed, then it was out of our hands.

Circling back to my original start of this post...

I don't know if it's good that I "lay down" or "give in" on so many things.  Part of it is that I'm tired of arguing with people about anything.

Perhaps, its that I feel my blood pressure rise and heart rate start to soar...

Dang it's warm now!

This morning when I got up, it was 43 degrees F.

Now, it's closer to 80 degrees F.


I'm actually sweltering in my little office, and wished that I had the AC unit still in the window.

Oh well, at least I'm done with my work today.

Part of the day was spent in the non-work pattern of "wasting time", but not too much was wasted actually.

I was doing a lot of testing where I had to run full diagnostics, so while tests were running I was playing games or watching videos.

I found a YouTube channel/comedian that I really like.  Michael Jr.

He's a very clean comedian, and a christian dude who's trying to do good through his comedy.

One thing that's interesting about him, is that he doesn't swear or go into "dirty" or "sex" "jokes".  If you want to call some of the other comedian's dirty/sex routines "Jokes".

Some are "funny", but Michael is clean and classy.

He reminds me of Red Skelton in the fact that Red Skelton never swore or had to discuss inappropriate things to make people laugh.

Now, I know that I often blog with swear words, but if you noticed I try really, really hard to keep things clean and upright other than my foul language. (i.e. I don't tell dirty jokes or escapades.)

Well, I'm done for the day and I need a shower.  I'm starting to smell like a freakin' sweaty horse.

Lord, it is good for us to be here...

A little over 13 years ago, when I was 25ish, I was asked to give a talk to the congregation at church.

I was freshly divorced, attending a young single adult congregation.  I had been alone and celibate for nearly three years, from the time that my ex-wife had left me.

During the time that I was alone, I really discovered God, and when I joined this younger congregation, I felt that I was in the right place, at the right time.

So, when I was asked to talk, I had just finished reading through the book of Matthew, in the New Testament, and the line "Lord, it is good for us to be here" really stood out to me.

Here it is in context:

 1 And after six days Jesus taketh ^aPeter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,

 2 And was ^atransfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

 3 And, behold, there appeared unto them ^aMoses and ^bElias talking with him.

 4 Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. (Matthew 17:1–4 KJV).

I started to speak to my young single peers, and I expounded to them, that it was good that we were there, in a chapel dedicated to the Lord.

Feeling moved by the Holy Ghost, I then explained how I had been named before I was born, but not the name that my mother had expected to give me. (I posted this previously. Read it here.)

Also, my over the years, my mother often told me about the dedication prayer at the chapel that I had attended as child.  That it was foretold that many great leaders would pass through its doors.  Now this is true, many great leaders have passed through its doors to go on into the higher leadership of our church.

Do I consider myself to be a great leader?

These days, I question it greatly.

Back then, as I stood before that congregation, I felt that I was going to be a great leader unto many of them.

Most of the congregation was younger than I was and I was considered an "old man" at 25.

I was able to share my experiences with them.

Ellie, my wife, was not a very active member of that congregation.  On a Monday, she showed up for an hike up a local butte. (I know it looks like butt, but it's pronounced beaut, like beaut-i-ful.)

When I saw Ellie, I knew that I had found the person I was going to marry.  That night, after the hike, we decided to head over to someone's house to watch Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail, and eat pizza.  Which I funded... (Hey, I was making 28k-29k/year as single guy at the time, and I had extra $ on me all the time, since I had a roommate and we split costs.)

As we started grabbing pizza and seats, I noticed that someone else had sat next to Ellie on the couch, and I offered the guy the corner seat at the couch, as the "most comfortable" place to sit, so that I could sit next to Ellie.  :)

I was so compelled to ask her out, that I almost pulled my Palm Pilot out to ask her out. (Yes, I was a geek back then, and carried a PDA, long before Smart Phones)

It was probably better that I didn't.  Aside from looking like a geek, I didn't want the other guys there to know that I wanted to know Ellie better.  (Dating in a young congregation like that was almost like fighting a battle.  I'd seen some guys/gals sabotage future relationships in the interest of attracting someone's attention.  

Many of us referred to make-up as "War Paint", as many of the gals were always looking for their future husbands.

When I told Ellie that later on that I was going to use the Palm Pilot to ask her out, she said she'd been embarrassed if I had.

So I called her at home, the next day and we made a date for Saturday night.

This was my third date for the week.  I had planned on taking one girl to lunch on Weds afternoon, and I had another date planned with a girl to go bowling on Friday night, then another one with Ellie Saturday.

Now, I know many of you are going...

Holy COW!

Were you a player?

No!

I just figured out that I hadn't really met enough girls to choose one and settle down.  I also knew what I was looking for in a wife, after my previous marriage.

On Saturday night, we went to dinner and a movie.  During the movie, I felt strongly compelled to reach down a hold Ellie's hand.  I was SCARED!  I'd never felt this way about anyone else before.  Not even my ex-wife.  So, I grabbed her hand, and we never really let go until our date was over.

The next day, at church, I sat behind her, and passed her a note, asking her if we could go out again... She said "yes".

So, over the next few weeks, I tried to get her on the phone, but she was busy with school so I left messages with her folks.  I figured, if she said "yes" to another date, I'd try to contact her weekly to get my second date.

I finally got with her almost a month later, and we really clicked.  It was like we were waiting for each other.

Eventually on one of our dates, about a 6-7 weeks after we met, I was really quiet and she asked me what I was thinking... So I spilled my guts....

"It'd be nice to be married."

I knew I took her by surprise. At first, she said no... As we continued to go out on dates that week, she started asking about plans to get married.

To wind up this story, we got married about 3 1/2 months after first meeting.

Our marriage has had rocky moments, but I still love Ellie now as much as I did then.

God Bless!

Coincidents?

Several years ago, I was asked to speak the congregation at church.

The topic I was given was "The Lords Tender Mercies".

I'm certain that many you who've read my blog entries, up till now, would expect this to be the last thing anyone would want me to do.  Considering my swearing and general negativity... (Recently)

What I wound up doing, the day that I was writing this talk, was listening to music on my computer and doing various research on the topic.

As I listened to the MP3 player, I started paring down to just instrumentals, and finally down to one song.

This song starts out very slow & quiet.  You can hear the drones starting to fire up, followed by the chanter playing "Amazing Grace".  As the song progresses, additional pipers join in, and the music & sound swells!

The song itself was written by John Newton.

He was involved with the Slave Trade in the 1740's.

During his time as a sailor, he was known as a very profane person, who even shocked other sailors with his words and behaviors.

On one of his trips in 1748, he was in a violent storm.  It was during this storm that he begged for mercy from God.

This didn't end his slave trading career, but it did eventually lead him to stop around 1755 and pursue Christianity.


A movie by the name of "Amazing Grace" was filmed, that showed how he helped to influence Britain's involvement in the Slave Trade.

The term "tender mercies" shows up in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

In The Book of Mormon, Nephi is writing about his father's preaching, and how the people want to take his life.
Here is how his testamony is strengthened: (1 Nephi 1:20)

But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender ^cmercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of ^ddeliverance.

 In the Bible, Jacob prays to God that he is "not worthy of the least of all the ^bmercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant;" (Genesis 32:10 KJV)

Now when, I finished delivering my speech, I sat down, knowing that God had directed me to say those things which were needed to those in attendance that day.

What struck me as "Coincidental" was that I watched shortly after how many others referred to "John Newton" and "Amazing Grace".

This is referring to other speakers at church, not just in my own congregation, but also people on TV/Radio.

I was thrilled that I had been shown the "Tender Mercies" and others had also received the same inspiration.

God Bless you!

Mental fog is finally starting to lift.

Over the weekend, I went into a mental funk, which continued to roll with me this morning.

I got up, dressed for work, then pretty much sat here doing nothing for more than an hour.

The boss contacted me and started reviewing some info he was looking at from my work.

Finally, part way through, I told him I needed to call him because I couldn't understand which item he was looking at.

After chatting, I got the gist of it and now I'm ready to roll.

The pain in my knees & hips is really the force behind my med use recently. My head has hardly hurt.

My older sister and I have been texting & chatting about a Mandolin she bought a while back and wasn't using. She said she'd ship it to me if I wanted it, which I do.

She said she's going to figure out how much it'll cost to ship it tomorrow.

Speaking about instruments, I need to pull my banjo out tonight after work and start to practice my part in a duet with ol Zeke.

Zeke's a good ol boy. He and I get along pretty well, and have fun. I'm glad we bumped into each other and became friends.

I'm starting to feel like I can continue life, even when my uncle's is coming to an end.

My wife mentioned the problems with Korea, since we're on the coastal side of the North Western United States.

There is nothing more that we can do, except to keep living life, and keep our food & ammo stores ready.

If Korea does shoot the missile, and it hits an American city, we might have some of the only protected food in our area. It'll be a hell of a shit-storm nightmare for our communities in this area.

I don't fear/worry about the threat of the attack, I feel very at peace with God and myself.

I'm just really glad that I don't live in the large cities up and down the Pacific coast line of the US.

If I was in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, etc. I'd probably lock myself in a lead lined shit house and kiss my ass good bye... If the impact didn't kill me, then what's left over will.

God bless.

Was I experiencing depression?

Last night I felt numb... I mean I had body/physical pain, but a numb mind/attitude.

I slept OK, when you consider a 9 year old girl is cramping right up next to and often kicking or laying on you.

For normal sleeping I finally remembered to use my cpap mask and I feel a bit more relaxed, but my left hip hurts like hell.

I did take a couple of pain pills and now I don't ache so much.

Peace is returning again to me and while I worry that my uncle is going to die very soon, I'm not afraid now. He will finally rest his mortal shell and his spirit will return to his family and friends and Jesus.

God bless...

Uncle Update... No Chemo treatment or drugs today.

I just got home from taking my uncle into his chemo appointment.

When we were talking to the doctor, my uncle, wasn't certain that he wanted to try it anymore at all. He was really, really in a freak out state.

Having experienced enough of those myself, I can understand him being in a freak out state.  He seemed as though he wanted to bolt from there and not ever come back.  Since he's in a wheel chair and dependent on me for transportation he stayed.

I'm afraid that this is the next chapter in "The Beginning of the End", where he just slowly starts to drift into a medicated world completely.

Tonight, I hope I can have the Bishop go with me to visit him and give him a blessing and speak words of comfort to him.

I don't feel sad, I just feel peaceful and comforted knowing that I'm doing the right thing for him.

Despite my uncle's shortcomings, he is a good decent man.

I pray that I will have the strength and humility to have the Holy Ghost with me so that I may be able to administer to him.

Is it a "Good Friday"?

I wasn't raised as a Catholic, I was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, so I never understood the purpose of "Good Friday".

Even now, I don't understand the purpose of it, but I have started my own tradition recently.

Many years ago, it was a joke between friends & brothers that "Good Friday" wasn't that good for Jesus.. He got killed...

Even reading that line above now, brings me to a different mindset and feeling.

Jesus had been sentenced to death by crucifixion!  A death sentence that's more of a torture test for anyone who's healthy and strong.  Imagine getting those large nails/spike driven through your hands, wrists and feet.

Today, I am still a "Mormon" and I hate that word.  The term "Mormon" comes from "The Book of Mormon".  I hate that word because it's thrown around as a slur against members of my religion.

So, going back to my observance of Easter and when it really made a large difference to me.

Some 13-14 years ago, I joined a choir at church and we sang Christmas hymns.  We had fun and then did quite a number of hymns for Easter, several months later.

While we were practicing, our choir director had mentioned that she reads of the Crucifixion each year from the New Testament, from each of the Gospels. (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)

To date, I haven't done this yet, and I am trying to do it through this year, with concerted effort.


I recorded the live show of our concert, and listen to it during my work day.  Last year, I added Glenn Beck's Easter program where he, in his own way, details the last days of our Savoir.

Knowing that God is Jesus's Father, I wonder how, as a father, God dealt with watching His Son being crucified?

Did He sit there in angst and pain watching people mocking, hitting and spitting on His Son?

Do you think that perhaps He might want to reach out and send His angels down to save His Son from the torture of Crucifixion?

As a father myself, I have a hard time watching my own children getting hurt and going through pains.  Unlike God at that time, I can reach out and grab them, lift them up and out of danger and ease their pains.

If my children get hurt, I can give them a bandage or Tylenol.

I know that my above questions and thoughts might invite controversy, but rather I want to have any of the questions I post here to be rhetorical.  I want to have my questions invite you to question your own feelings of life and perceptions of the Crucifixion of Jesus, who is Christ, the Savior of mankind.

God Bless you this Easter season, and may you take some time to enjoy these thoughts.