The antique piano

This is the piano I grew up on.  They don't make them like this anymore; and for how old it is, it's still in great shape.  Truthfully we don't know exactly when our piano was built, but the most recent date engraved on the soundboard is August 18, 1882--interestingly enough, precisely 128 years prior to the day I returned from my mission.  Let's take a peek inside this beauty:

 

I wish this old piano could talk and share its story.  It only came into my family's possession in 1988; so as far as it's concerned, I'm still fairly new.  I want to know who played this piano before me.  I want to know how it got to the place where my parents found it, and where it stopped along the way.  Was it the background to a saloon somewhere?  Or did a more wealthy family put it in their parlor?  One of these days I'd like to write such a story.

But, here and now, I know this piano is part of our family, and will continue to be as long as I have anything to say about it.  I've played on it my whole life, and I'm delighted that my children will also play on it.  The arrangement is that when I'm married and moved out of the house, I will inherit the piano.  And so the story will continue onward into the next generation of pianists (and the fact that my wife and I won't have to take time to save up for a piano is also a huge plus).

Until then, starting today, it is in the care of my older brother, who will protect it, play it, and love it.  But just moving the thing proved a most impressive feat; as I said, they don't make pianos like this anymore.  It's almost as tall as me, and quite a bit heavier!

But you know, a house without a piano just feels . . . kind of empty.

Guess it's time for a new one!

Past Blast: Pink

A tribute to the group of friends I was with when this picture was taken, with whom I still hang out.  I think this was sometime between November 2007 and February 2008.

Ten movies

Monday's post was on a topic much heavier than I am prone to write.  So, I thought I'd do something light and fun today.  School's out, the weather's beautiful, and life is just good, so why not?

The Warrior at Books, Bones, Bricks, and Bullets has issued a challenge for fellow bloggers to list their top ten favorite movies.  Narrowing it down to just ten was kind of tricky for me, because I like a wide variety of films, and my favorites depend on the day.  But the following represents the most general of my usual listings, so here they are, in no particular order, as of today, May 4, 2011.  Movie titles are links to trailers.


Princess Mononoke

The Lord of the Rings:  The Fellowship of the Ring
--The whole trilogy is up there, really, but I picked only my favorite out of the three movies so as not to dominate this list.

Saints and Soldiers

Final Fantasy:  The Spirits Within
--As with The Lord of the Rings, I only put my favorite Final Fantasy movie on this list.  Truth be told, this one actually doesn't feel very "Final Fantasy," but I like the movie anyway, and they at least included a Cid.

The Best Two Years
--You can't cover the entire experience of a mission within the length of a movie, but what is depicted here is absolutely one-hundred-percent accurate, and funny as heck.  Ah, good memories!

The Phantom of the Opera

Big Fish

Tangled

August Rush

The Time Machine


Anyone share any of these?  What would your list look like?

Celebrating death

Ten years from now if someone asks me where I was when I heard about the death of Osama bin Laden, I'll answer that I was at a friend's house after a nice dinner and some episodes of Doctor Who, and that I initially received the news by text from my brother.  We all stuck around for a while before heading home, watching the various reports and the President's speech, and taking in what was going on.

It'll just be one of those days in American history.

Another such day happened ten years ago.  I was getting ready for school when my mom told me about the first plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers.  It was big news, but I didn't get a picture of just how big until I got to school and every TV in the building was on.  We watched all day as our lives and our country were changed.

At that time there was also footage shown of celebration over the attacks.  In some parts of the world, where the terrorists found support and America was an enemy, people ran out into the streets rejoicing over what had happened. 

Fast forward ten years, and we see something similar in our own country:





To be honest, I'm saddened at what we have become.

I do not mourn the loss of Osama bin Laden.  I admit that at some point in the past ten years, like perhaps many others of us, I too participated in at least one conversation about what I might do to the terrorist leader if I ever met him.  He was responsible for the murder of thousands, and he will be held accountable before God. 

But I am not God.  It is not my place to call for bin Laden to "rot in hell," or to cast any such judgment as to his fate.  As imperfect, mortal humans, we are incapable of dealing true, complete justice.  Only God can do that, because He not only knows a man's actions: He knows his heart, mind, and every circumstance and detail.  As much as we can do, no matter to whom, vengeance does not equate with justice.  And I will not celebrate the death of another human being--even a man with so much innocent blood on his hands.

Of course I understand that thousands have lost loved ones because of this man.  For the rest of their lives, they have to live with the empty seat at the dinner table, the flowers on the grave.  My heart goes out to them.  I believe in self and national defense, and indeed, we had something to defend.  I don't know if I would have felt right not taking action after the attacks; and, given the option between keeping bin Laden in prison or sentencing him to death, I likely would have chosen the death penalty.  I do not deny that.  But I would not have enjoyed it.  If an intruder broke into my home and threatened my family, I would shoot.  I would do what I had to do to protect my family.  But I would never be happy I killed or even just hurt someone.  Not even in self defense.  I'd actually be saddened that it had to come to that.

This can be a good day for America, but it shouldn't be because Osama bin Laden has been killed.  If that is the reason, it is not a good day, because celebrating death makes us no better than our adversaries.  No, what would make today good is the fact that we remain a free nation, even after the horrific attempts of others to take that freedom away.  And while I don't rejoice in the death of this man, I am grateful that the search for him is over and that no more lives will be taken at his hands.  If there is anything to celebrate, it is those things.

There is a quote shared with me by my friend Sarah that I feel says it best.  It has spread rapidly over the Internet during the past day, and while we may never know who really said it (it's inaccurately attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr.), the message is its true value:

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

I pray that America will keep that in mind as time goes on.  Now, with Osama bin Laden laid to rest, I turn my attention to what happens next.  Should be an interesting ride.

Moving mountains

Many people have questioned the literal truth of the Lord's declaration that by faith mountains may be removed from their place.  Plainly there would have to be a purpose in harmony with the divine mind and plan, in order that faith could be exerted at all in such an undertaking.  Neither such a miracle nor any other is possible as a gratification of the yearning for curiosity, nor for display, nor for personal gain or selfish satisfaction.  Christ wrought no miracle with any such motive; He persistently refused to show signs to mere signseekers.  But to deny the possibility of a mountain being removed through faith, under conditions that would render such removal acceptable to God, is to deny the word of God, both as to this specific possibility, and as to the general assurance that "nothing shall be impossible" to him who hath faith adequate to the end desired.  It is worthy of note, however, that the Jews in the days of Christ and since often spoke of removing mountains as a figurative expression for the overcoming of difficulties.  According to Lightfoot and other authorities a man able to solve intricate problems, or of particular power in argument or acumen in judgment, was referred to as a "rooter up of mountains."

James E. Talmage (Jesus the Christ, p. 396)

Matthew Cunningham: now available for $2.99

Over the past year or so, LEGO has been selling a special line of collectible minifigures that come one to a pack, and include unique accessories that haven't before been seen from the LEGO mold.  They're like crack to the fanatic like me.

What makes these things so fun is trying to collect them all.  See, you don't know what you're getting until you open the pack, so you've either got to figure out the code of dots on the packaging or be really good at identifying pieces with only your fingers.  (Or, if you have the money, just buy a whole case and get the complete set that way.)

So, naturally, when the fourth series of these figures came out a few weeks ago, I was on it.  And I gotta hand it to LEGO: they really know their market.  Take the skater minifig for example--I can't quite put my finger on it, but he looks like someone I've seen quite a bit around the Lego aisle.

It's eerie, really.  Give him jeans and a hoodie, and replace the skateboard with an ice cream cone, and . . .

. . . he looks extremely familiar.  I swear I've seen this guy before . . . but where?

Oh yeah.

The old crew

And it came to pass when they had arrived in the borders of the land of the Lamanites, that they separated themselves and departed one from another, trusting in the Lord that they should meet again at the close of their harvest; for they supposed that great was the work which they had undertaken.  --Alma 17:13


This is an exciting time for me.  Friends are getting off their missions, and many of the acquaintanceships of high school are being restored.  Only a few guys are still gone, and that won't even be for very much longer yet.  There is much to be happy about.  But there is no reunion of friends I look forward to more than with the missionaries who have left from my own ward.

I have my friends who I met in school or on the mission, and then there are also the guys from my ward.  It's not that I love one group more than the other; wherever their origin, my best friends are my best friends.  There aren't necessarily favorites in such dealings.  It's more like apples and oranges: I love apples, but they're not oranges.  I love oranges, but they're not apples.  If I've gone a while without tasting one, I'll be excited when it comes back into season and incorporate both into my regular diet.

Yet even without merely playing favorites, what makes the guys from my ward so different that I am so eager for their reunion is that these are the people I grew up with.  An old saying goes that it takes a village to raise a child, and this was the village that raised me.  I was with this same group of guys in every Sunday School class until my mission.  We went to preschool together.  We played baseball and jumped on the trampoline and built a clubhouse.  In Boy Scouts, they were my troop.  It was they with whom I spent my summers around a campfire.  And it was around a campfire, gazing from the flame to the stars and back again, that I had the deepest philosophical discussions and made the most important decisions of my young life. Those were more than just "good times"--they were my defining moments.

That's one thing about the Church organization that makes it mean so much to me: a ward is a bond more like "family" than "friend."  We've never been the group of guys that calls each other up on Friday night and says "Let's go do something" (though it would be a lie to say we haven't done that at least a few times in the past).  Yet there's a closeness such that we don't have to hit the town in order to keep it going, and we're always there when we need each other. 
 
I said before that this is an exciting time for me.  Another one of these young men returned to my ward from a mission last week.  Only one remains away, and there are only a few months left until he joins us, too.  The old crew is coming together again, and with it, a piece of my identity that has been scattered these past few years.


And now it came to pass that as Alma was journeying from the land of Gideon southward, away to the land of Manti, behold, to his astonishment, he met with the sons of Mosiah journeying towards the land of Zarahemla.

Now these sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the time the angel first appeared unto him; therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God.  --Alma 17:1-2