a dear friend shared this with me yesterday and i love it

the greedy the people
(as if as can yes)
they steal and they buy
and they die for because
though the bell in the steeple
says Why

the chary the wary
(as all as can each)
they don't and they do
and they turn to a which
though the moon in her glory
says Who

the busy the millions
(as you're as can i'm)
they flock and they flee
through a thunder of seem
thoguh the stars in their silence
say Be

the cunning the craven
(as think as can feel)
they when and they how
and they live for until
though the sun in his heaven
says Now

the timid the tender
(as doubt as can trust)
they work and they pray
and they bow to a must
though the earth in her splendor
say May

e. e. cummings

what is a friend?

a friend is:

someone who does your laundry for you when you have been to busy to do it.

someone who sends a meaningful text just to say hello and "thinkin bout ya".

someone (who might be your mom) who loves you unconditionally.

someone (who also might be your mom) with whom you can talk about EVERYTHING under the sun and still be friends afterward.

someone who gives you a ride to wal-mart on sunday because you have no more food.

someone who you dated and who shows that they still care about you.

someone who can sing showtunes with you like nobody's business.

someone who you can tell about your chihuahua.

someone who shares beautiful art, music, and words with you on a walk home, or in an email.

someone you can chat with for two hours that pass like a few minutes.

someone who uplifts and inspires you.

to all my wonderful, amazing friends: i love you so much, and know that the kindnesses you show me never go unappreciated.  thanks for helping me get through a rough couple of weeks.

why i oppose prop 8

What an election year! There are some crucial campaigns that will be decided by the vote in November. Other than the presidential election, the campaign I am most interested in and concerned about is the one for marriage equality in California. The other day I made a feeble attempt to explain my position to the "Yes on 8!" table at school, but I would prefer to do it in writing on a blog that practically no one reads, if only to collect my thoughts and examine the issue further.

Of course I am sympathetic to the cause of marriage equality (hence voting no on prop 8) because I am gay. I realize that I cannot completely divorce myself from my situation to look at the issue completely objectively, but neither can anyone else. However, I have thought about this a lot over the summer and even more this semester, and have come up with a few specific reasons why I oppose prop 8:

1. I look to the case of interracial marriage for an illustration of another form of marriage that was looked upon as immoral, unnatural, and unnecessary. Prior to 1967, when the Supreme Court decided that banning interracial marriage was unconstitutional, there had been many movements to define marriage as being only between people of the same race, as well as legislation passed banning interracial marriage. Today, that would seem unthinkable to many to keep people from marrying because of something they did not choose--their race. I assume that the love between people of different races is the same as that between those of the same race. I simply see too many parallels between interracial marriage and gay marriage to not support a movement that would bring equal treatment and equal rights to all people.

2. When I talked to the Prop 8 people on campus, one of them told me that gay couples already have 99% of the rights of married people and so there is no need to give the term "marriage" to their relationships. The domestic partner laws suffice. To me, this smacks of "separate but equal": Black and white people both have the same right to water, but the black people need to go and use their own fountain. Rosa Parks can ride the bus with everyone else, but she'll just need to sit in the back. Still, she get's 99% of the same transportation as everyone else. That argument just doesn't fly with me. In Alma 30:7 we learn that it is "strictly against the commands of God that there should be a law that would put men on unequal grounds." Prop 8 sounds like such a law to me.

3. Some say that this debate is over the definition of "traditional marriage" and not an attempt to keep rights from people. I cannot help but wonder what tradition we are trying to uphold. Heterosexual marriage has been no picnic, especially for the millions of women who have been mistreated, abused, forced to have child after child with no recourse to birth control, and denied any right to hold property rights or have a say in family matters. Of course, there are wonderful marriages in this world where husband and wife enhance one another and create a beautiful family. However, I hesitate putting marriage up as a shining example that has "traditionally" been good for society. Patriarchal society, perhaps. I also do not understand how same-sex marriage would harm heterosexual marriages, especially religious ones. It seems to me that most men will still be attracted to women, and most women to men. If they grow up in a religion, they will most likely remain in it and marry in it. Our species would reproduce even with basic libidinal instincts. It seems ridiculous to suggest that allowing gay people to marry would somehow destroy that.

4. Opponents to gay marriage often use fear tactics to get people to vote against it. They say that religious liberties will lose respect, that traditional families will be ridiculed, that children will be taught *gasp* about gay relationships, and that free speech will be inhibited. I have read much on both sides on each argument, and while many of those proposed consequences have roots in reality, they are exaggerations. Advocates of traditional marriage also express concern for children being raised by gay parents, thinking that they will either become gay themselves or will grow up thinking homosexuality is "normal." The gay parents I have seen are among the most attentive, loving parents I have ever witnessed. You know they care about creating a good family because they have to fight to adopt children and obtain documents proving their legitimacy as a family.

My greatest reaction to the Proposition 8 broadcast I attended last Wednesday was feeling cheated on both ends. The whole time I was looking at the church leaders on the screen, my eyes begging them for an answer to this question: "You say that I as a gay member of the church can only remain a good member if I am either celibate or if I marry a woman. However, should I decide that those options are unfeasible, and pursue a long-term relationship with a man I love, you would deny me the opportunity to commit myself to him through marriage and create my own family based on the very principles I have learned in the Church. What do you want me to do?!?! How am I supposed to feel?!?!" All I can say is that the participation of my church in the ProtectMarriage campaign has been hurtful and divisive for more than myself.

With good conscience, I simply support what I feel is right and pray that God will help us all.

God is Love

I had such a beautiful experience this afternoon. My roommate and I attended ward choir practice for the first time today, and since things are just getting started we decided to do a hymn sing-in. Each of us chose a hymn to sing, and I noticed the hymn "God is Love" (#87) and requested it. And so we sang:

Earth, with her ten thousand flow'rs,

Air, with all its beams and show'rs,

Heav'ns infinite expanse,

Sea's resplendent countenance-

All around and all above

Bear this record: God is love.

Sounds among the vales and hills,

In the woods and by the rills,

Of the breeze and of the bird,

By the gentle murmur stirred-

Sacred songs, beneath, above,

Have one chorus: God is love.

All the hopes that sweetly start

From the fountain of the heart,

All the bliss that ever comes

To our earthly human homes,

All the voices from above

Sweetly whisper: God is love.

By the time we got to the third verse, I was so touched by the beauty of what we were singing that I got chills. And a bit teary-eyed. This song today was a reminder of the God I believe in, one who loves me, who loves all of creation, and who is ever present in our lives if we allow him to be. While sitting in that room with those people I had barely met, I felt such love and such powerful energy that by the end all I could do was reverently, "sweetly whisper: God is love."

i've read this passage from "walden" about 7 times already this week

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

some thoughts on volunteering in hospice care

Yesterday I felt so posh as I walked down Main Street in Salt Lake and into a high rise of condominiums, pushing the call button and taking the elevator up 11 stories to see a family benefiting from hospice care. The condo was about what I imagined, nicely decorated though perhaps a bit outmoded (some walls were completely covered in mirror). The lady of the house greeted me, showed me where the cranberry juice was in the fridge, and then introduced me to her husband. He, like all other hospice care patients, is terminally ill and he looked like it more than the other people I have visited with. He was lying on his bed, naked but for the brief clutched to his groin, and an aide was trying to help him get into his wheelchair for a sponge bath and a bed change. I stood by, holding the wheelchair in place as the aide lifted the man and placed him in it. For all the sagging skin, I imagine he has lost some weight due to the cancer, and his joints appeared swollen while his flaccid muscles seemed to hang from protruding bones. I could see the shape of his femur quite clearly. Yet his face held a certain dignity, and he vocalized his concerns and his desire to do as much as he could by himself.

This striking scene represented one thought in my mind: no matter what we do in life, no matter what our career is or how much money we make, we can find ourselves dependent on someone to wash our body, change our briefs, and hand over the pee bottle when needed. How is that for the end of a life?

But there's more. While I was sitting in that gentleman's bedroom, his daughter who lives nearby came over. She crawled on the bed, kissing her father's taught forehead, and asked him if he wanted something to eat, with such love effusing from her eyes that it was impossible not to smile. She returned with toast and soft-boiled eggs, which she fed to him slowly and carefully. She even shared her cigarette with him. Later, when his wife returned, the three of them were gathered together on his bed, smiling, laughing, talking about the gigantic calculator his wife had just bought (a Brookstone model--it was enormous).

The redeeming value of seeing people who are suffering and dying is seeing their loved ones gathered around them, making their last weeks/days/hours precious to them. They need one another to the very end. I have been impressed in this way each time I meet the family of the hospice patient. I see the concern and love in their interactions with their loved ones. A wife sponging the lips of her unconscious husband as he struggles to breathe. A social worker massaging a dying woman's dry hands with lotion that smells like freesia. A grandson visiting his grandfather who has large, visible tumors on top of his head. These images will stay with me forever.

As I've been able to live a little in the shoes of hospice workers, I come to believe more and more in the mission of hospice care: to help those who are dying to pass away with dignity and humanity. Once again I have been reminded that people matter, up to and even beyond their last breath. A human being is such a powerful, beautiful creation, always deserving respect. I feel so blessed to have observed and participated in the dying process of a few individuals this summer, each of whom was a unique, beautiful, valuable soul.

the faceless millions have faces

It happens when I pass by a large town or city on the freeway. It happens when I walk in large crowds. It happens when I’m at the largest waterpark in the nation, looking around at all the half-naked bodies surrounding me. It’s a feeling of awe at the amount of people there are in the world, most of whom I will never know, never learn to care about, never speak to. Looking at a town from the freeway, I realize that each house and business represents the livelihood of many people, and the town itself seems like another world to me, one which I will never enter. When I was at Denver’s WaterWorld last weekend, I was amazed at the sheer number of people there in their swimsuits, amazed at the amount of people who chose the same recreation that afternoon. There was something unifying about being with a few thousand park visitors all in swimsuits (which often don’t leave much to the imagination, I realized)—and everyone was comfortable and recreating happily. This feeling I’ve described can be awe-inspiring in a positive way, but it also has a shade of fear along its underside, a fear that my individuality might be lost in this crowd of humanity. If there is such a diversity of people and so many people, am I even important? Do my aspirations, worries, relationships, and opinions matter?

Sometimes we hear about the “faceless millions” (or billions if you will) that populate Earth. The thought that helps me through those overwhelming moments where I feel so inconsequential against the swarms of strangers I see is that these “faceless millions” do indeed have faces. And feelings. And families. And priorities. And opinions. Just like me.

So then I find myself contemplating the middle-aged, bikini-clad woman at the park. She will never know me, and I will never know her. I have no idea of the triumphs and failures she has experienced during her life. The stretch marks of childbirth and the graying hairs on her head provide a few clues to her experience, but unless I actually go to her and open myself up, she will always remain a stranger. Yet I don’t want her to remain a faceless stranger, because I am determined to recognize that she matters. Her opinions matter, even though I might not agree with them. Her relationships matter, even though I might not be able to help them in any way. Her unexpressed heartaches matter, and I pray God that there is someone in her life that can listen to them and help her, because I cannot. I’m just a stranger.

Obviously, it’s impossible to meet every person in a city, let alone the world. I don’t think that’s the point. Those people who do come into our lives are suddenly transformed from “faceless strangers” to people we care about, people we dislike, people we try to help, and people we avoid. Those are the people God has given us to work with, and it is with them that we can have a direct influence. While it isn’t always a bad thing to think on an impersonal, global scale, I’m more concerned with those who I know personally. When I think of the first time I met someone who has become a close friend, I am amazed by all the experiences, feelings, and thoughts that we have since shared. A single human being is such a complex creature, and it is beautiful when two complex beings with so much hidden in their depths can come together to share parts of themselves with one another. So as I go through life and see strangers around me, I will try to remember that they do have faces, and that their lives are every bit as meaningful and important as mine. Most likely, I won’t ever meet a small percentage of the people on this planet, but I hope and pray that I will be more than a “faceless stranger” to those I do.