Watch Matt as he dances his way around the world. Makes me want to go with him!
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Category Archives: Inspiration
Fascinating how this train is levitated and propelled by MAGNETISM!
Check out the City Creek Center in Salt Lake City. Already a wonderful city, Salt Lake is really becoming a masterpiece! Be sure to watch the Conception Tour.
If you’re ever in the Tucson area, don’t miss the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Part zoo, part botatical gardens, part hands on desert experience, the museum is dedicated to learning and teaching all there is to know about the vast Sornoran Desert. I’ve never had a zoo or gardens experience like it. The place is outstanding, beautiful, intimate and welcoming.
A while back on a Midweek Activity with the youth at the detention center we went into the gym and played Blind and Deaf Referee. Teams each take half of the court. The referee is blind folded and has a headset on playing loud music. He has a whistle which he blows at random. If the ball is in your end of the court when the whistle blows the other team gets a point. So… the object of the game is to keep the ball out of your end of the court. Obviously the referee is blind and deaf to keep him from favoring one team or another. It is always fun. I like it because players of all skill levels can enjoy themselves.
On that particular night a young man participated whose athletic prowess was exceptional. Later, I asked him if he participated in organized sports. His answer was no. There could be a million reasons why not. I didn’t discover his reason, he seemed embarassed. Maybe his parents can’t afford to pay for uniforms. Or perhaps transportation to and from practice is a challenge. Maybe his dad doesn’t have the political clout some other kid’s dad does. Could be the community he lives in ran out of voluteers. Or, possibly, the coaches quit because the parents only wanted babysitters and expressed no interest in either watching or supporting the program. In some places elitism prevails. In others appathy. In every case, the tragedy is that enormous talent, not just athletic, goes unnoticed, unrewarded and underdeveloped.
To get some idea of what I’m talking about here, get a load of this video.
The Ute Indian Tribe has a reservation in a neighboring town. Few of their kids participate in sports at the local High School. Some have elegibility problems, most just don’t get excited about the competetive, do or die culture sports has become. Still, if you visit the Tribal Gymnasium on a Saturday morning, you’ll see some of the most fantasitic basketball around. I was invited over once by my friend Bobby, Grandpa Bob, as the kids call him. I showed up after the game had started. I found Bobby and took a seat behind him. We exchanged greetings and I asked him which team we were rooting for. He gave me look that was at once, exasperated and quizzical. “Both! ” Bobby showed me that it wasn’t about winning and losing, it was about fun, companionship, teamwork and skill development. It was some of the most beautiful basketball I’d ever watched. The teamwork and ball handling were incredible! I’d rather watch those kids than any High School, College or Pro basketball I’ve ever seen. It was clearly more fun and the talent was unbelievable.
We could learn a great lesson from our Native American friends. Nobody gets left out. Everybody’s talent gets developed. There is no elitism and everybody gets included. Show me any High School in the United States and I’ll bet I could find talented kids who are better than those on the court or field. Why are we not reaching out to these kids?
I wish High School sports, in particular, was intramural. Everybody who wants to play plays. Then if you have to compete with other schools, choose an All Star team and have a tournment. Think of the kids! Give them a chance to develop their skills. Keep them off the bus (road trips) and on the court. Think of the money we’d save. Think of the talent we’d develop. In our local High School there are 1000 students. Ten of them play basketball. What is wrong with this picture?
Here’s a great story that illustrates what I mean.
I can’t even pretend to imagine what it took to conceive of and produce this. Wonder and enjoy!
YOU COULD WIN A FREE COPY. READ THE ARTICLE TOO DISCOVER HOW.
I don’t often review books. I make exceptions only when the book is exceptional. Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage by H. Wallace Goddard, PhD, is exceptional!
Casting off conventional “wisdom,” Dr. Wally gets right to the root of successful, happy marriages and for that matter, successful, happy lives. His approach is based entirely on the Atonement, Merits, and Mercy of Jesus Christ. No more tricks and techniques, no more fooling around with each other’s behavior or feelings, Wally teaches us the true nature of love and change. The book is refreshing, motivating, readable and hits close to home. Without being preachy, Wally teaches fundamental principles that are full of warmth, compassion and believability. I wish every married couple had and studied this wonderful, bright work of love and testimony.
So pleased, am I with Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage that I’m going to give away a copy on the 15th of March. If you’d like to have your name entered into the drawing please indicate in the comments of this article.
Booklogged and I enjoy and warm and joyful marriage. We’ve learned many of the things Dr. Wally teaches, in the marriage school of hard knocks. We affirm that the principles are true. Oh, how I wish I’d had this book in the earlier moments of our marriage, where I could possibly have avoided inflicting so much pain on her. I did have Wally in those days, though, (he’s a personal and very dear friend) and he was, even then, catalyst for much of the progress I was able to make. Why? Because even 20 years ago, Wally understood better than I, the goodness, kindness and love of Jesus Christ and the impact my Savior could have on every facet of my enormously imperfect life.
My Nephew has built backyard luges for several years. Some are long and loopy. Some have interior rooms and tunnels the track runs through. This year he went for altitude! Check it out here.
Before Stephen E. Robinson and Believing Christ, before James L. Ferrell’s, The Peacegiver, before serving at the county jail and later, at the juvenile detention center, before learning to engage, rather than merely reading, The Book of Mormon, before addiciton recovery and my connection with LDS ARP, all of which have taught me about the love and atonement and mercy of Jesus Christ; before all of that, was Wally Goddard. I had grown up with lots of mistaken, mythical and nonsensical notions about God and my relationship with him. Wally was the first to help remove the scales from my eyes. This was long before he was famous. He had not published; he had no PhD. In those days the only thing I ever placed before his name was brother.
It is interesting though, that as I read his writings today, there is little that doesn’t echo from the days we pondered life together in our youth. I rue that I wasn’t prepared to better understand what he was trying to teach me back then. While it is clear I didn’t get much of what Wally had for me; it is also clear that he busted the first cracks in the crust of false notions that had me encased in fear, frustration and darkness. Back then, Wally was to me, a solitary voice in a culture of tradition, self sufficiency, anxiety and threat. I, for example, subconsciously thought that God was holding me by the scruff of the neck, out over hell, just waiting for an excuse to drop me. Had I ever articulated those words, I hope I would have recognized how foolish they are. I never actually put it in those terms, though. Instead, it was more like script silently written into the software of my thought processes. Script, which I may have and often did disagree with, but script which still controlled my response to the circumstances of my life. Wally initiated for me, the long laborious process of rewriting that script.
Wally is now more renown and has written several wonderful volumes that are as fresh and cutting edge as things get in Mormondom. There is no heretical fringe type thinking, just honest, faithfilled truth that so many of us have missed in our lives. You can read his Myth of the Month columns at Meridian Magazine or explore a collection of wonderful articles at his blog, Dr. Wally.
