Thoughts from ME

In the LDS religion we have our own hymnal that we sing from. The same hymn book is used across the world with little variation. There is one song in particular that is popular. It's called "I am a Child of God" and it is taught very young to our youth. While I will be the first to teach about and testify of the reality behind the words, I don't particularly care for the song. There are two instances in my life, however, where the song has played a significant role. The first was on my mission. While a missionary in Virginia, we were teaching a family. One inactive husband, one beautiful mother, and two awe-inspiring-crazy-tae-kwon-do-ing boys. We sat with the two boys in the living room and played the song as a video which can be found at the end of this post. We taught the boys the words and together we watched the video as the parents stood talking in the next room. I will never in all my life forget the feeling I felt as those two boys testified of the reality...

I'm reading a book written by a very inspired woman. Her name is Rachel Remen, M.D. I have taken forever to read this book. This in itself surprises me. I cannot remember the last time it has taken me weeks to finish a book. Interestingly, I have read this book at an appropriate pace - I know this because I read a bit here and it's exactly what I need to hear. I read a bit there and it's exactly what I need in that moment. I feel as though God is handing me small moments of clarity . Dr. Remen says, "The pattern of our most fundamental beliefs is reflected in the smallest of our behaviors. If this is so, breaking up the pattern at any one point may eventually free us from it. The way in which we go into the grocery store may tell us everything about the way in which we live our life. {sidenote: She's referencing Carl Jung here who would ask his patients where they had been just before they had come to him - whether they had just been running errands, like the gro...

I found this incredibly moving and therapeutic. For you.

This was my response to a prompt for a secondary application for medical school. The question was "How have your experiences serving others contributed to your personal growth?" "I know that as we serve other people we begin to receive glimpses of ourselves. It doesn’t come all at once like a flash of lightning, a lightbulb flickering to life. But rather it approaches us like the sunrise. We gain vision of who we are bit by bit. Those pieces come quicker and with more ease the more we serve. I was raised by a compassionate woman. With her example and the teachings of my religion, where serving man is serving God, I was taught the power behind service. But it wasn’t until I had my own experiences that I truly understood. As a missionary in Virginia I came to love serving other people. I learned I love the chance to see them, to ask them questions, or just to work alongside or for them. As I spent time working in people’s homes, in their yards, just sitting with the...

A.E. Housman: "He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?  He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,  And went with half my life about my ways."

I think the body is phenomenal. In neurobiology we did a lab once where we take a thin metal pick and get it really cold and then in a marked 1X1 square on a partner's arm, you lightly touch the tip of your pick. In that small box, there will only be pinpricks where you can feel the coolness of that pick. Your receptors for the sensation of "cold" are only every little bit across your skin. If you were to do the same thing but with a warmed pick, you would experience the same thing - only on certain points in that 1X1 square would you feel the warmth of that pick. Isn't that fascinating?! One of the reasons I appreciate summer (there aren't many of them) is that only in summer do I get the chance to experience one of my absolute favorite sensations. When the sun is high and the day is blazing - so hot you can feel the concrete through your sandals, feel the skin burning on your cheeks, feel the sweat budding on your lip - on those days, occasionally you walk pas...

Garth Stein in his novel "The Art of Racing in the Rain" speaking from the perspective of a canine named Enzo said, "To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life..." I have six older brothers. That is what I tell people when they ask about my family. Six older brothers. I have lost one to mystery, one to death, and momentarily lost one behind high-closed-depressing walls. I have one who loves to joke and makes swords and knives and shields out of duct tape for his sons. One who serves his country and daily lives with a gigantic dose of faith and fortitude and praises God with that life. I have one who loves to sing off key with his windows down, who reads the world around him with a keen inspecting eye. The love they each have for the wives and their children. I remember riding on their shoulders, their backs, their knees. I remember having food stolen off my plate. I remember bandaged knees...