No Coincidences

Tag: music

  • Jesus Christ

    Jesus Christ

    At church last week, we had an uplifting meeting focused on music. Ivy and Sage even participated, singing my new favorite song:

    That evening, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hosted an interfaith concert. Beth and I took Ivy as a special treat for being such a big kid lately. It was a sufficiently uplifting Sunday.

    This is Holy Week.

    Latter-day Saint traditions haven’t normally had a big focus on Holy Week (not sure if that’s supposed to be capitalized…).. I don’t even really know what it means. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has asked its members to have a little more focus on Easter this and recent years.

    I had a blog post already prepared for this week. I rarely stray from my plans. But during church on Sunday, a thought came to me:

    When was the last time I wrote a post completely focused on Jesus Christ?

    I hope my blog is Christ-centered. I think pretty much every post should have something to do with Him. But I realized I hadn’t given my simple testimony of Him in some time.

    I don’t have anything extraordinary to say since this wasn’t planned. Except that everything about Jesus Christ is extraordinary.

    This is my humble testimony and my small reminder to the world.

    Jesus Christ, under the direction of God the Father, created this Earth that we now reside on. He was our Brother. We were part of the council that decided to come to Earth.

    Jesus Christ was born to a virgin in Bethlehem. He was the Creator of this Earth. He could have been born anywhere. Instead of being born in a royal palace, He was born in a manger, amidst farm animals, in the humblest of circumstances.

    I marvel that He would descend from His throne divine
    To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine,
    That He should extend His great love unto such as I,
    Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.

    Jesus Christ lived and grew, just like us. He walked this Earth that He had created. Then He began to preach.

    Jesus Christ quickly amassed followers and a reputation for His powerful words, teachings, and miracles.

    Jesus Christ went to a garden called Gethsemane. There He began the process we now call the Atonement. 

    Atonement: Reparation for a wrong or injury.
    Atonement: the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ.

    He paid for every sin. He paid for every wrongdoing. He felt every suffering, injustice, pain, sickness, heartache, loneliness, fear, hurt, and tear. He experienced it like it was His own. The sheer weight of this task made Him bleed from every pore in His body. A mortal body with an immortal soul. Our Brother.

    I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,
    Confused at the grace that so fully He proffers me.
    I tremble to know that for me He was crucified,
    That for me, a sinner, He suffered, He bled and died.

    As if this weren’t enough, He allowed Himself to be arrested, spit upon, and beaten. He carried the cross that would be used to kill Him.

    He allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross. Nails through His feet. Nails through His hands. Nails through His wrists. 

    I think of His hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt!
    Such mercy, such love and devotion can I forget?
    No, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy seat,
    Until at the glorified throne I kneel at His feet.

    He suffered and died so we could be reconciled to God. He suffered and died so we could one day go home with Him.

    Then the glorious, most fantastic, most amazing news the Earth had ever heard. Death isn’t the end.

    Three days after His death Jesus Christ raised up the body He allowed to die. 

    He keeps the nail marks in a resurrected and perfected body. Why? I ask my daughters this often. Why does Jesus Christ keep the marks of the nails in His perfect body? “To remind us that He always remembers us.”

    Oh, it is wonderful that He should care for me
    Enough to die for me!
    Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

    He lives.

    Our Savior. Our King.

  • Suns Experience

    Suns Experience

    Last week I got to play on the Phoenix Suns court. It was an awesome experience, one of the coolest things I’ve ever gotten to do. Huge shoutout to Robert, his wife Brooke, and Blake for making it happen. We got exclusive access to the court and were able to play pickup for three hours. Well, some of us were able to play for hours… more on that later.

    Some basketball thoughts from playing on a real NBA court.

    First, those lights are bright. When I’d shoot from the corners, if I watched the ball arc up before it got to the rim, I’d be blinded by the lights. If I looked up unconsciously while playing, I got blinded. Never thought about what it would be like to actually play under the “bright lights.”Speaking of the corners, it is a tight fit. Shooting an NBA three from the corner gives barely enough room for your feet. If you take a step back at all to try to explode toward the hoop, you’re stepping out of bounds. I have size 10 shoes. I don’t know how the size 20s even do it.

    Speaking of the lights, part of the package with getting to play on the court was we got to watch the Suns play that night against the Orlando Magic. We got to watch from the suite level with food and drink included. I’ve been to many Suns games, but this was a unique game to watch due to having been on the court just hours earlier. These things I mentioned like the lights and the tight space from the corner were things I considered more than I ever had before. The other thing that stood out to me that I’d never thought about before was how hectic an environment this was for NBA players to play basketball in.

    Basketball is a refuge for me. It’s therapeutic. Playing on an NBA court with thousands of people watching cannot be therapeutic.

    An NBA game is a chaotic and hectic experience. Of course, there are the thousands of people watching, yelling, and trash-talking. That’s crazy in and of itself. But what struck me the most after having played on the court was how loud the music was. While we played, we had a pretty chill March Madness game playing on the big screen with the volume on what I’d guess was around medium. It was still distracting. Watching that game later against the Magic I was focused on the NOISE, the MUSIC, and the BASS.

    It is pandemonium at an NBA game. For some reason I’d always thought the NBA players were a bit sheltered from the noise. After playing on the court, I realized it’s the opposite. They are at the bottom, center of a dome. All the noise and chaos are amplified on the court. It gave me my first true appreciation of home-court advantage. That chaos is one thing, but when it’s a chaos you’re not used to, (on the road visiting another stadium) with fans heckling you the whole time, it’s complete sensory overload.

    So, back to my time on the court, unfortunately I got hurt the beginning of the second game. I was running and just stepped wrong and twisted my ankle bad. It actually happened at almost the exact spot where Kevin Durant twisted his ankle while doing a routine warm-up layup a couple weeks earlier.

    Probably exactly what my ankle looked like, same spot.

    After I rolled my ankle, I at least got to see what it was like to be treated like an NBA player for a moment. Multiple trainers checked on me and brought me ice. It was a bit embarrassing. I got to spend the rest of the pickup session jealously watching with ice on my ankle from the sideline.

    Here’s the part where I insert what I learned spiritually from this experience.

    I’ve twisted that ankle at least 3 dozen times, not exaggerating. It’s never fun. It’s always painful.

    That night, I was laying in bed with my ankle propped up on pillows. I’d already discarded the ice that was on it. It was the middle of the night and my foot was THROBBING. It hurt.

    It hurt badly enough that I started praying for relief. I don’t want to be dramatic. I know that on the pain scale, what I was experiencing was pretty mild. But still, it hurt. That’s when I started thinking about every groin pull, every sprained ankle, every concussion, every headache, every upset stomach, every scalping, every stitch, every ingrown toenail, every scratch, every bruise, every heartache, every heartbreak, every disappointment, every fear, every doubt.

    How could He have felt it all?

    Here I was, writhing in pain, whining, praying for relief, over a sprained ankle. And He felt every sprained ankle of every person that ever did or would exist, all in a moment. He felt it all. How?

    I ponder often on the Atonement. I’ve tried to wrap my head around it. It’s not something we can wrap our heads around. That’s the point. He did something unimaginable. He did something incomprehensible. And he did it for us.

    I believe (I know) that Christ felt it all that night at Gethsemane. I don’t know how; I can’t understand it. But I know He did. It’s why I write about Him, it’s why I think about Him, it’s why I serve Him. Because for a long time, I tried to forget what He did for me because of guilt, or incomprehension, or selfishness. But now I think the most important thing I do outside of anything with my family is write about Him.

    I think the most important thing I do for my daughters is teach them about Him. Few things bring me as much joy as when Ivy sees a picture, I ask, “who’s that?” And she replies, “Jesus.” I hope someone reads this that needs to remember Him and what He did for us. When you think about what He did for us, ultimately it must make us more loving because we’re considering a love that is unfathomable. That makes us better.

  • Korean Children’s Choir

    Korean Children’s Choir

    When I was watching General Conference and the Korean children’s choir started singing “I Love to see the Temple” in a language I did not understand, something amazing hit me. 

    I don’t know why this thought was spurred by this song from these children.

    That feeling was this-

    I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. 

    How blessed I am to not only be on this earth at a time when His church exists, but to be a member of that Church.  Jesus Christ’s Church.  His Church! 

    As I listened to words I didn’t understand but music I could never misplace, and as the spirit filled me and tears filled my eyes, I realized something.

    If I lived during a time when the Church of Jesus Christ did not exist on the earth, I would have forever lived my mortal existence with a hole in my spirit and my experience.  It occurred to me that if I lived in any other dispensation, I would have felt a distinct emptiness within me.  Maybe this realization happened at that moment because at that particular moment, I was so filled to the brim with a spiritual feeling that I’ve come to rely upon so heavily.

    What a challenge it would have been to live in a world without the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness.

    We live in a difficult and challenging world.  But amidst that challenge I am a 30-minute drive from 3 different temples. 

    How blessed I am.

    I am so grateful to live today, with the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ fully present, and His Church in full force.

    What would I have done without it?

    Maybe God knew I could not endure that emptiness.  Maybe that’s why I’m here at this moment.

    For whatever reason I am here now, today, I am grateful for it.  Grateful beyond measure. 

  • Content and Media

    Sometimes members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are weird.  If you’re a member of the Church and haven’t fully embraced this, it’s time to get on board.  Peter stated,

    “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  

    1 Peter 2:9

    Peculiar, weird. Same thing.  So, take comfort in this if you haven’t already.

    I have many nonmember friends that thought I was weird long before I started going back to church.  That’s mostly because I am weird.  We won’t go into more detail on that.  Since coming back to church though, my nonmember friends have found tons of other reasons to find me weird.

    I will quickly list through some of them:

    1. I don’t do anything on Sunday anymore (not even basketball)!  This comes up all the time.
    2. I stopped listening to a lot of music I used to listen to.
    3. My language changed; the words I use drastically changed.
    4. I started inviting friends to church and dinner with the missionaries almost constantly.
    5. I stopped partaking of some beverages.  Luckily, I never drank coffee.  But when I tell people I don’t drink coffee they almost fall over in shock every time. 
    6. I stopped wanting to go to certain places – like bars.
    7. I slowly stopped gambling.
    8. Finally, and what I’ll talk about here, I recently stopped watching rated-R movies.

    Yeah, this is one I didn’t think we actually followed.  For nonmembers out there, yes, we’re advised to avoid rated-R movies.  I’m going to elaborate on how I came to respect and appreciate this counsel.  It wasn’t until very recently that I started this and I’ve been going strong for a few months.

    My decision to stop watching rated-R movies starts with a particular movie.  It is called Hateful Eight.  I’m not going to go into detail about this movie because that defeats my purpose.  The gist was this. I started the movie and then there was a particular scene that unfolded about midway through.  The end of the scene left me feeling… icky.  I don’t know how else to describe it.  I had to leave my house at that moment and decided I was going to finish the movie later.  It took me some time to get back to the movie.  I started to realize I didn’t know if I wanted to finish the movie.

    For the record, I’m the kind of person who tries to finish something once I start it.  Miserable book?  Gotta get through it.  Boring movie? Maybe the ending is good.  But I started asking myself, do I REALLY want to finish that movie?  I talked to my roommate Chris about it.  He seemed to actually understand where I was coming from, which surprised me.  “Hateful Eight…” he said trailing off, “yeah… there’s a lot in that one.”  I went on to talk about it and learned the part I came to wasn’t even the part he thought I was talking about.  Apparently it got worse after that!

    So, I decided I didn’t want to finish that movie.  Since I was cutting movies off midway through for the first time, I started to think more about that icky feeling I had experienced.  What was it?  I started to realize that particular movie made me feel dark and dirty.  There was an image stuck in my mind I couldn’t get out.  It was unpleasant.  It wasn’t something I wanted in my mind.

    My favorite book, Visions of Glory has a whole section about the entertainment we choose to take in.  What we view and listen to alters us.  It either brings light or darkness to us.  That’s what I felt after that scene. Darkness. 

    I know to many people this may be strange.  I know to some people, cutting some of these things out of our lives seems impossible.  The point I want to make is that it can be done.  I didn’t get rid of all of those 8 things listed above overnight.  In some cases it took years actively going to church to change habits.  The biggest point I want to make is that I’m much happier since making those changes.

    I’m not saying everyone has to cut out rated-R movies. But I am saying that if you did, you might be surprised that first, you’re capable of doing it, and second, how you feel about doing it.  The same goes for Netflix and the endless streams of content we take in.  There are good things and there are bad things.  Sometimes the bad is hard to see. You don’t realize it’s “bad”.  That’s why I appreciate this guidance with rated-R movies.  Why chance it?

    There’s a quote from Visions of Glory about spiritual gifts.  It reads,

    “I observed that there are many people who are governed by the voice of Jesus Christ, who are like lanterns being carried through darkness.  They push darkness away by their approach, and the dark angels must depart.  Evil beings are powerless to penetrate it and are compelled to depart.”

    At some point I decided I wanted to be a lantern.  The idea of being given a chance to provide light to someone’s life and missing that opportunity because my light was dimmed, hurts me.  I don’t want that to happen.  I’m not perfect, but I’m trying.  I’m not judging what anyone else chooses to watch or listen to. However, I am telling you what you watch and listen to is important.

    We in the Church are peculiar.  We must be.  The world needs more lanterns.