Compasion

I have been looking since my last post for something inspirational and uplifting to put in my blog, but I cannot say the last several weeks have been incredibly uplifting. Have you ever felt like death has been following you around. In the last little while I have had two of our employees at the golf course who were good friends of mine pass away. My bosses mother passed away, and then we had a murder at the golf course.

It should have came as no surprised to me that someone had died in the basement of our neighbors house. The house in which this occurred was still under construction and my father, brother, and myself had spent several weekends and some day's in between at this house installing the furnace. On one day we had met the young man who had died in the basement of this home. His name was Lorne. I guess he was what you might call a "lost boy". His family is polygamous and he somehow he had become a drug addict as he had been out in the world. You could tell that the drugs had done a job on his body and mind. While I barely knew him I was very sad to hear of his passing.

Part of the reason I felt so badly for him was that the circumstances by which he passed away reminded me of a similar experience I had seen when I was fifteen. Our neighbors and some of our greatest friends would allow the kids in the neighborhood to work for them in the summer. The money for kids our age was good, but the work at times was pretty heavy especially when you were lighter than some of the lumber you were asked to carry.
Mark who was the owner of the construction company and boss off all of us kids always had a way finding "strays" and taking them in and giving them work. That summer one of those strays was a man named Van. Van had been a drug addict and at that time was still a fairly heavy drinker. He had at one time as I understood been a fairly successful man but had smoked it all away. Mark would often leave us at his apartment to get a hungover Van out of bed and to work. As a fifteen year old boy I never really knew what to think of Van. Sometimes I would feel bad for him, others I was repulsed by him, and some days I was just annoyed. One day I had been left to get him to work. This Particular day he was particularly slow in getting out of bed and When he finally go out of bed he seemed to have little interest in getting to work quickly. I stood in the hallway for some time getting more annoyed as the minutes passed. Finally we made it to his car and were on our way to the job. We pulled out of the drive way and he promptly lit up a cigarette. I had never really been around any one who smoked and didn't want to be plus I had, had enough of him. I snapped at him telling him to put the cigarette out while I rolled the window down. I think I took Van by surprise as he reluctantly put out the cigarette and became very quite. I think i said some other things but i can't remember exactly what, what I do remember is that several months later Van died.

I didn't really see Van again after that day and remember thinking good riddance when he died. Sometime later I was told he had been baptised and had really gotten his life straightened around. I felt horrible for what I thought about him. I could never really see the worth of his soul as Mark could. After Van I have never looked at people who had fallen on tough times the same way.

Over the years i have seen Mark time and time again take in people whom most probably wouldn't touch with two ten foot poles. Time and time again he manges not only to help them, but inspire them to be better people. Lorne was one of those people Mark was helping. He was trying! Mark stopped by our house today after Lorne's funeral. He didn't need to go but he did. He told us how touch he had been by the service, and how strongly it had affected him. I find that type of compassion inspiring. I have often wished that I had shown Van that same type of compassion.

Here we go!

This first post may be a little more somber than I would like but i found some inspiration in it. last Friday at the golf course in which i am employed a murder occur ed. Now, I didn't know the person, and we were not open for a golfer to find the body (it was at found at 5:30 am after the police receive a tip). The young man was essentially executed write there on the golf course.

We were shocked! (I think most people would be, at least I hope they would be.) After a small amount time the shock among the staff passed and we were almost fascinated with happenings at the crime scene. It was as if it were a scene out of CSI. For the next few days I watched the news read the papers hoping that I would be able to find out a little more detail about what occurred. Names were released and suspects arrested, the case seems very open and shut. It probably is, But not necessarily for everyone.

On Monday after work I received a phone call from my sister. Here voice was unsteady and unsure (I don't pretend to know how she was feeling). She proceeded to tell me that the young man who was killed at the golf course had been one of her students. He was not just a student, but a student whom they (the counselors and herself) had put a great deal of effort into helping.

You may ask what is so inspiring about this tragedy? Well, I found several things. first, there are always people who will care about you, but you often have to put forth the effort to find them. Those people will not often tell you what you want to hear. From what my sister told me I believe the young man was trying very hard to find those people. I found his efforts though ending tragically inspiring. Having listened briefly to my sister I could tell she had cared about this student (I can not remember for sure but I think she had talk to us about him on a few occasions). I have always found that My sister cares. We argue, and sometimes don't see eye to eye, our solutions to problems might not always be the same and we often give each other a hard time, but she cares. I could not do what she does, or work with the kids she works with (I don't imagine there are many that could). She often carries their burdens as well as her own. She tries to teach when others would simply order and yell. She is strong, though I often think that she doesn't believe that she is. She is inspiring to me!

Why???

Well, to be frank 2008 was tough, difficult, trying, not as planed, horrible, awful, horrific . . . Ok it my not have been as bad as those adjectives make it sound and i am 100% sure that other people have gone through a great great deal more than me, but it was definitely not what I hoped for or expected. Often at the beginning of the year we tend to look back and reflect about the past year and then make resolutions for the next. Let it be known that I am definitely not one to do that but this year I had promised a friend that I would give the first lesson of the new year for the Elders quorum. That first lesson is often about the new year and the resolutions we are making etc. I, not wanting to really head down that path decided to give my lesson on inspiration. Oddly this topic made me look back at some of the choices I made, as well as some of the experiences I had over the past year. Much like i expected it was quite depressing! I thought to myself that inspiration should be well . . . Inspiring. Inspiring, enlightening, uplifting, moving, were all the adjectives I should using in this lesson and really they were all feelings I should be having while I prepared. In pondering I realized that inspiration was all around me but that life, relationships, and the like had beaten me down such that I just wasn't noticing it. With that said i decided that a little reflection now and then was not such a bad thing, but also that I needed to look a bit more for those small moments of inspiration that are all around but sometimes we don't notice them because either they just seem to common or because we are just a bit oblivious. Anyways, that's why!!!

I hope that as I write this I may be able to put some of my thoughts down with great emphasis on those things that inspire me, and perhaps ( I really don't expect that to many will read this) someone else might find a little bit of inspiration in the things I write.