Quotes I have Put Together Using Real Leaves, Bamboo, and Flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Foundation of Life

It was the summer of 2010 and my husband was super excited for us to buy our first home. We currently were living in 400 square feet of space and it felt more like a storage unit rather than a home. Our budget for finding a home was around $100,000, but for most home owners, we also were looking for a few other specific things and with a budget so low, I wasn’t real sure how possible our “must haves” would be. We wanted a large garage, a descent sized yard, and a good neighborhood. We didn’t want to live on a busy street. I wanted the ability to have a space in our home for a day care and we didn’t want our home to have structural problems that would lead to a lot of headaches. 

As my husband was working closely with our realtor, and I amazingly had some time off from work, we ventured into Bountiful, Utah to look at a few homes on the market in our price range. One of the homes on our list looked to be way too nice for the listed price, but we thought, what the heck, lets go see it. We arrived about 20 minutes before our realtor was set to arrive, so we decided to check out the property on the outside and check out the surrounding neighborhood. To our horror, many of the homes in the neighborhood had serious problems from what we could see on the outside. One in particular looked like the extreme home version of the leaning tower of Piza. We found a sign that explained what was going on in that particular community. The community was suffering from a landslide that had developed much quicker than had been expected and the home we were going to look at was smack dab in the middle of the border of where this landslide had been marked to be occurring. Despite the news, we decided to check out the house since we were there. When we stepped inside the home, we found that the house was indeed being affected. The foundation was not solid, but shifting. The garage had a huge crack in the cement floor and many of the doors were very difficult to open and close. We were devastated. Devastated that we wouldn’t get a dream home for the price we wanted, but more than that, we were devastated for the community that was losing their homes to causes beyond their control. Many of the homes looked completely fine, but slowly, one by one, the beautiful homes on the outside, the stable walls, the leak proof roofs, and the newly painted homes, would all succumb to an unstable foundation. Everyone was dealing with the sickening truth that without a strong foundation, even the best built homes could not stand. It was heartbreaking. 

This got me to thinking. Well, I think a lot, but it got me thinking about one of the concepts I feel very passionate about. I, like all of us, have certain ideals that are very dear to my heart. They stem from many of life’s experiences. For me I have a great love for children who are challenged with Autism and I feel very strongly that early intervention with the behavior modification program called Applied Behavior Analysis is key to helping that child overcome the struggles Autism brings and allows the child to become more than they or their parents could ever dream of becoming. Perhaps you feel very passionate about ending abuse, helping the poor, protecting the environment, recycling, protecting the life of an unborn child, finding a cure for cancer, and the list could go on and on. With these issues you feel strongly about, there is almost always a very emotional string attached to why you feel the way that you do and having someone come in and stomp on what you feel passionate about is something that you truly cannot understand because it doesn’t make sense to you in any way. I, like you, don’t want that either.

For each of us to go after the dreams we have, we may forget that there is a very important element that allows this step to be made. What is this element? The element that broke the well built walls and roofs of the homes in Bountiful was the foundation with which they were built upon. Nothing that was built mattered when the foundation with which it was built upon was unstable and cracking. It didn’t matter how well anything was built in this area. It didn’t matter how great the house looked or even how unfair it was to the homeowners who were losing their homes.  Without a strong foundation, their work was meaningless and crumbled. We, like these homes must realize this. We may have many many things that we are passionate about, but all of these dreams we have mean nothing if the foundation with which we build it is crumbling. If we want to protect our dreams and our ability to pursue them, we must realize that there is something much greater that we must protect before we can protect our dreams. What is this element? What is this foundation that allows us to build the life we dream of building? It is freedom!

Truth

Much of the time I forget about the amazing miracles I have witnessed in my lifetime. The last 150 years has been filled with tremendous breakthroughs in technological advances. Great minds have unlocked mystery after mystery this universe holds and because of these discoveries; our lives have been blessed in innumerable ways. Why I complain about my car breaking down or my cell phone receiving bad reception is truly ridiculous when you think about how people in most of the world’s history could never fathom such devices to ever exist. With the existence of these great technological advances come many blessings we forget to acknowledge. One of those great blessings is the ability to accomplish many things in one lifetime that would have taken many lifetimes without the technological advances we have today.  

Despite the joy and the ease of life that have been a result of these technological advances, the truths that were discovered were not always welcomed with open arms. Galileo met fierce opposition to his discovery that the earth revolved around the sun and not the sun around the earth. George Washington died partly as a result of a well known medical practice called blood letting thought to heal many ailments by doctors throughout the centuries.

These examples show that what society believed and what was really true were completely different. Neal A. Maxwell described this concept in a beautiful way. He said, “The theology of truth about man, life, and the universe does not depend for its validity on acceptance by many, or even any. Only eight people were right about the weather in Noah’s time when being right really mattered.” Spencer W. Kimball phrased what Galileo and the Wright Brothers must have felt in this statement: “Sometimes small seeds of truth have to fight a mountain of falsehood.” We have seen these concepts played out numerous times throughout history and it continues today. Why is it that we are afraid of the truth or too lazy to seek it, and how does one seek truth? 

To find truth we must understand that there is a formula for every truth in this world. If you do not follow the formula for that specific truth, the result will be something different. To build an I-Pad that works like an I-Pad, you cannot follow the steps that are used in growing a plant. You also cannot grow a strawberry by planting a seed for a cactus. I can’t follow the formula to make peanut butter and expect the same formula to work on making my hair color go from dark brown to blonde. Plus that would be even messier than color already happens to be. Everything in this life has a formula by which the fruits of that formula are produced. If we want to find truth, then we must follow the correct formula that will produce that specific truth. We as humans do not make up that formula. We can only discover it and follow it. No matter how hard we try, it is not within our power to change it. We may think that that formula doesn’t work because it seems absurd, but isn’t space flight, cell phones, television, and vehicles absurd to almost every person who has ever lived on this earth? Just because it may not make sense to our human logic does not change the fact that truth is truth even if no one believes it and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it.  

Douglas Callister wrote a wonderful article in which he explains an experience his brother had with one of his classmates in medical school. “One of my brothers is a physician. During medical school he was assigned to study anatomy in companionship with an agnostic. Their education eventually required that the two of them carefully examine and dissect a cadaver. They studied the incredibly complex yet harmonious systems of the body. They noted the body’s power to correct its own deficiencies and to send healing antibodies to the place of injury or infection. They learned of over 150 trillion cells within the body. If set end-to-end, these cells would encircle the earth more than 200 times. Today medical students learn of more than 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) of DNA in one human body. My brother and his fellow student learned of a brain that continually receives signals from 130 million light receptors in the eyes, 24,000 hearing receptors in the ears, 10,000 taste buds, and hundreds of thousands of receptors in the skin, with specialized commissions to recognize touch, vibration, cold, heat, and pain. My brother and his friend became silent as they contemplated the miracle they were examining. Sensing the moment was right, my brother challenged: “Coincidence is a marvelous thing, isn’t it?” His agnostic classmate responded, “You win.” 

Like the pioneers who discovered the amazing complexity of the body as explained above, I too admire and love the example of so many of the technological, scientific, and medical pioneers in our history that refused to remain in the dark. Who decided to be a seeker of truth and accept the truth no matter the consequence. They knew that truth builds upon truth. Their example inspires me every day! As I close I want to end with another great truth that scientists have discovered that I find absolutely fascinating. It was brought to my attention and written about by Douglas Callister. He explained as follows: “This earth departs from its orbit of the sun by only one-ninth of an inch (2.82 mm) every 18 miles (29 km). If, instead it changed by one-tenth of an inch (2.54 mm) every 18 miles, we would all freeze to death. If it changed by one-eighth of an inch (3.18 mm), we would all be incinerated.” Now that is pretty precise stuff! Coincidence?

The Short, Longer Way vs. The Long, Shorter Way

The Short, Longer Way vs. The Long, Shorter Way

There is a story that is told by Shmuley Boteach in his book called 10 Conversations You Need To Have With Your Children that was taken from the Talmud. This is the story in Shmuley’s own words:

“One day a man was traveling to a city, and he came to a fork in the road. He didn’t know the best way to the city, and he saw a young boy standing at the fork so he asked him, “How do I get to the city?” The boy said, “Well, it depends. Do you want the long, shorter way or the short, longer way?” Now, the average person who hears that question would want the short, longer way—you want what’s easiest first, right? So the man said he wanted the short, longer way, and the boy pointed him in the right direction. The short, longer way took the man straight to the city, but not to one of the city gates. He tried to find his way to the gates, but he got lost, and he even tried to scale the walls. When he couldn’t manage it, he returned to the fork in the road, frustrated, and again addressed the boy. “Didn’t you say this path was shorter? he asked. And the boy responded, “And didn’t I also say that it was longer?” The boy pointed him in a different direction this time, the long, shorter way, which was somewhat more roundabout, and did indeed take longer, but it led the man straight to the gate. “

This story reminds me of two boys that have influenced my life in a tremendous way.

Their names are Tom and Joe (names have been changed). When I knew them, I could see that they were so similar, yet so different. Listening to music, bouncing balls back and forth, and splashing in the water were the activities they both loved. Yet beyond that, their lives were very different. Tom was making excellent strides in his reading abilities and in many ways reading at his grade level. He loved to play on the computer and he could eat many different foods. He didn’t like a lot of food like many kids, but he would eat them. His favorite food specifically was “McDonalds” chicken nuggets and French Fries along with any kind of cheese pizza. He was learning to play basketball. He could write his ABC’s and many other words. Using the bathroom by himself was a cinch. If he wanted something, he didn’t hesitate to ask for it. He knew what different concepts meant like: up, down, behind, and under. He could sit in a chair nicely like a child should be able to do. He could go to the store and act appropriately like a mother would hope a child would do without screaming and crying hysterically. He liked lots of different movies and was in the process of learning to bathe himself. He could get dressed by himself and he could tie his shoes by himself. Obviously I could go on and on, but I believe I covered the general and important things a child his age should be able to do without a problem.

Now I want to turn your attention to Joe. Like I said earlier, he thoroughly enjoying rolling and bouncing a ball back and forth between himself and another person. Occasionally he had the desire to line blocks up, typically in an organized manner dealing with the shape, size, and color of the blocks. He loved humming to music that he was familiar with and his vocabulary consisted of saying the words: mom, more, milk and he could use sign language to say please. He loved to bang his hand on windows, throw anything he could out of an open car window (which wasn’t so great when it was your big CD case with all of your CD’s in it), and he loved to scream at the top of his lungs all of the time (bottle of Advil please!). He could use a fork only if you were right there helping him. He would only go to the bathroom by himself if you took him. He would eat some food by himself if it was finger food, but he was also very picky about what he would eat and you had to make sure he didn’t throw his plate. Running out the door and into the street was something that would happen if you were not watching him like an eagle, and when he would get upset, he would throw things and bite himself.

Before you read any further I want you to imagine in your minds from what I have said what ages you believe these boys to be?

The age in which I describe them at this particular stage in their life is as follows: Tom was 6 and Joe was 15.

If both of these boys were typical children, the differences would seem absurd, but the thing is, these boys are not typical children. Yes, the 6 year old seems to have a life full of skills that pretty much match dead on with his age group, but the 15 year old’s skills tend to match the skills of a 2 year old boy.

To further explain, both Tom and Joe were diagnosed with a social disorder called Autism. Many of you may know what Autism is, others may have no idea. I didn’t know when I first started working with Tom. In the world of Autism, the range in the severity of the Autism is very broad. Typically though, children with Autism struggle with the social world. Language is a very difficult concept to grasp, along with all the skills we take for granted like answering and looking at someone when your name is called, reading a book, asking for something you desire, learning to write, using the computer, sitting in a chair, watching a new TV show or movie, eating new foods, going to new places, brushing your teeth, using the bathroom, washing your hands, taking a bath, driving a car, crossing the street by yourself, and understanding many other basic concepts. The list can go on and on, some kids grasp these concepts easier than others, some have difficulty with all of them, some have difficulty with some of them.

Both of these boys are obviously different, but they both have severe Autism and surprisingly Tom’s list of skills and abilities at age 3 years old were very similar to the Joe’s list of skills and abilities at age 15. Tom was diagnosed with Autism at age 2, and from that point on, he was fully immersed in a 24/7 program for children with Autism. I don’t know when Joe was diagnosed, but he unfortunately was not able to go into a program that provided the total learning immersion that children with Autism need, especially at the youngest age possible.

What is heartbreaking and revealing at the same time is the fact that people with severe Autism have very little ability to choose the right path for themselves. For both Joe and Tom, if they could have had their day to day lives their own way, they would have chosen to watch a fan turn, a toilet flush, line up blocks one by one, splash in the water, roll a ball back and forth, and listen to music all day long. They would have been content their entire lives and never have known that greater joy was out there.  

So, at age 2, their lives started down different paths. Tom’s path started down what is known as the long shorter way and Joe’s path started down the path that is known as the short longer way. For Joe’s parents and Tom’s parents, they did not necessarily know exactly where the path that they chose would lead. Tom and Joe were age 2 at two different time periods. The knowledge about Autism and the schools that were available to both of them were different for both Tom and Joe. I am not blaming either parent. I am just showing you that despite what ignorance or knowledge was available, going down a certain path has its consequences, good or bad. History is filled with people going down a certain path out of ignorance and people going down the same path with pure knowledge, but despite the intention behind the choice, the consequence remains the same. For example, doctors in the 1800’s use to prescribe heroin as the “safer” alternative for people to take while they were trying to quit morphine. The doctors finally stopped prescribing this alternative when they realized just how addictive heroin really was. I can only imagine the heartache that was brought into the lives of people who were trying to stop one addictive substance only to end up with another.

As Joe stepped each day on the path that led down the short longer road, his days consisted of doing whatever it took to satisfy his immediate need. Some basic learning did go on and hard work was put in, but for the majority of the time, the biggest concern was to keep him content. If he threw a fit while learning a skill, most of the time whatever he was learning was dropped and he got to do what he wanted instead. He didn’t know anything else and he didn’t desire anything else. He lived day in and day out with this outlook. Now, today, his life represents that of a child who is typically 2 years old.

As Tom stepped each day on the path that led down the long shorter road, his days represented a drastic contrast to Joe’s. The program that was taught by his teachers was also incorporated into his life by his mother and me. It was important to stay consistent and apply the principles for change 24/7. Tom’s days were far from easy for him, his teachers, and his mother. They were filled with many tears of frustration by him and a great deal of resistance. What normally would take a child no effort at all or little effort to learn would take Tom weeks, months, and even a year to accomplish. To get Tom to just hold a pencil and sit in a chair nicely took weeks of constant and consistent effort. It took him an entire year to learn how to write his ABC’s, but this didn’t happen until he mastered sitting in a chair and holding a pencil. Then he had to learn to put the pencil on a piece of paper, then to draw a horizontal line, a vertical line, a diagonal line, and then a circle. After that, his teachers worked with him on each letter. After a year, he finally accomplished writing all of his ABC’s. All the skills he learned were done one small step at a time. A larger task was cut down into much simpler tasks and each task was built on another previous learned task. Each task was filled with constant daily effort, rewards, tears, huge fits, failure after failure, and then slowly each task was mastered. If you were to watch the learning process of getting Tom to view a new movie, and you didn’t know that that was happening, you would think he was being tortured by some invisible creature. Like this example, many of the skills that Tom was taught were viewed by him in the beginning as sheer torture, but in the end, the same skills became some of the greatest sources of joy he had in his life. If Tom had had it his way and the way Joe had it most of the time, he would have stayed within the elements that brought him contentment in the moment, but because of his mother and his teachers, he learned of a new world that brought even greater joy, independence, and a life that was much easier for him and others around him in the long run.

As I think of their lives, I cry out of sadness for what was missed with Joe. I wonder how different his life could look if he only followed the path of the long shorter road. To see what could have been is heartbreaking. I cry with joy when I think of Tom’s example and how drastic of a difference making the most out of our own life can be as long as we do the hard thing in the moment rather than what is easy. To see what he is capable of despite all of the odds against him leaves me with a sense of how much more I am capable of accomplishing that I have not even tapped into. If Tom can accomplish so much against the greatest odds, one small simple step at a time, each and every one of us has no excuse to feel like we can’t do whatever it is we desire to do. It doesn’t matter what challenges we have been given, what matters is what we choose to do despite the challenges we face. In closing, I want to share with you what I once heard Denzel Washington say: “Do what you have to do, so you can do what you want to do.” I couldn’t agree more.

My Thoughts

This blog is also a journey into the innermost workings of my brain. What I write about is rarely a subject I have even come close to mastering and like the title of my blog, I hope to ever increase in becoming better. I don't claim to be an amazing writer, but I do love to read inspiring words and I do love to write. I hope that what I have come to learn will help you as well.