Make Good Choices

Those words came out of my mothers mouth every time that I left her presence. As the time gets closer and closer to having my own child, I am sure I will echo my mothers advice when our baby comes. 

There are so many choices that one faces in their life, I would even suggest that throughout a whole lifetime there are infinite choices. I cannot think of a single arbitrary choice that I have made in my life. Each choice that we make is connected to who we are as individuals, it forms our personality, our present, our demeanor, our self-worth, our energy and our spirituality. 

Everyday I encounter a movement that has taken hold in subtle and not so subtle ways. I have heard it called moral relativism, in which individuals choose for themselves what is right or wrong, instead of 'making good choices'.

Let me see if I can define this emblem of moral relativism; the other night, my wife and I were watching a show on Netflix and the plot of the show that we were watching was this: A man had recently lost his wife, and to cope with raw wounds of loss he decided to dress up as something that she had cherished while in this life, a clown. This man continued to wear this costume for months, eventually it started to affect his coworkers in the workplace. The HR department received numerous complaints and eventually it lead to some intervention, the man received an ultimatum, dress according to the dress code which he agreed to, or be terminated. He took this grievance to a lawyer (ok yes the show was Drop Dead Diva) and his lawyers main argument was that he was continuing to exceed his goals and that he was a good employee. 

So the man wanted to dress like a clown and he wanted everyone to be ok with it. While watching the show my wife said something that was profound "So he wants to change his actions, but does not want the consequences." That is where, to me, moral relativism has its flaw. There are constants in life and when we make any choice, those constants push back, resulting in consequences, good or bad. So it is within our power to make choices, it is not necessarily up  to us choose our consequences for the choices we make. 

There have been many times the words "make good choices" have been spoken to me. I have also said these words many times. It is one of my favorite 'momisms' that I have received. To end, I would quote my mom and say,

"Make good choices"

Can you dress a turkey?

I know that it is way past thanksgiving, but I want to share one of my favorite stories that has to do with the star of thanksgiving, the turkey!

About 6-7 years ago, my dad received a phone call from the elders that were serving in our ward in Nebraska. I was close by and I could hear frantic noises in the background. 

I wasn't able to glean much of what was going on. After the brief phone call my dad told me how their phone call went. 

"Hey Boshop Kemper, do you know how to dress a turkey?"

"Of course, what's going on?" My dad replied with wonder. 

"We just got one and we didn't know what to do with it. " The elder on the phone was freaking out. 

"Is it dead?" My dad asked, he was half joking. 

Their frantic reply met my dads sarcasm, "We don't know!"

My dad's simple wisdom told them, "Bring it over and we will check it out."

A few minutes later the missionaries Malibu came down our driveway. When they got out neither one wanted to open the trunk. After some coaxing from my dad, the elders opened up their trunk to a very dead turkey. 

My dad is very much like the Pharisees of old, he is a big rule follower, so it totally freaked him out to dress the turkey without knowing if he was treading over the law. But that was the quickest I have ever seen anyone dress a turkey. 

After the deed was done, my dad called his good friend, Tom to see if keeping a hit turkey was legal. It turned out that it wasn't and Tom told my dad to throw it all away. 

A Very Good Place to Start

My name is Dan.

I am a 23 year old that lives in Portland, Oregon. I am married, with a baby on the way. I am the lazy grazer.