For as many as heeded them, had fallen away.

Sometimes the great and spacious building (GSB for short...) is far away on a hill and you look on it longingly, with the looming and foreboding sense of being left behind. What you really want is to feel accepted, and to feel important. And the more you think about how unhappy you are, the more you drift away from that blessed hill which giveth the fruit of eternal life. The siren's song takes you... warning cries and voices fade with the static and buzz of background and you move almost imperceptibly at first, but move you do and soon you're far from what's most important. You leave to seek what you already had, happiness and joy, in means and methods that cannot and will not produce such.

Sometimes the GSB is in your face, mocking your happiness and insulting your peace. It tries to make you ashamed of your blessings by telling you that you deserve more. The tricky part here is that if you are convinced that you're above you're blessings, then you really do have cause for shame, but not the way you've been convinced to feel it, and definitely not for those reasons.

Both these approaches appeal to your selfish pride, and try to undermine your spirituality by telling you that you are not happy with what you have and that you deserve more. Such suggestions insult the Lord's providence and good will in blessing you with what you need -- sometimes very different from what you want.

But what do you do when you know the adversary's game plan, and you don't move from your spot, but you still feel the emptiness of your position and the desire to be loved and accepted in the way that only the evil one can provide? I don't have the command of my emotional faculties to move those feelings out of the way on a whim. Even Nephi lamented that he too often gave the enemy such power over him and his heart. I suppose you press on, and you ignore the galling calls of the denizens of the great and spacious building.

big red couch

The other day my folks came up to visit and we watched a bit of the news before going to grab a bite to eat. Right now, the only seating downstairs is a really dirty old brown couch whose pillows and cushions are sunken in. It also only seats 3 comfortably. You can fit 4 on there, but your knees start to slightly touch - you know, that "Why are you touching me?" kind of feeling that creeps in and makes you wildly out your element kind of knees touching.

So Mrs. Sixline and I wanted to purchase a sectional. Furniture store prices: $1200. Creepy salesman in converted garage warehouse discount furniture store price: $900. Craiglist/Classified Ads price: $350. We went with the final option. AND, to all you penny-pinchers out there, we took this directly out of savings and did not financially compromise ourselves in the slightest.

So now there's a humongous red sectional downstairs. It's fabric and not microfiber. If the sweet old lady who sold me the couch is to be believed, the couch was show furniture in a model home that sat in the same spot in front of the window for 3 years. Long time to have a model home, I know. So anyway, it's faded as all get out but I'm sure my intelligent and prodigious wife will find a way to re-dye the furniture. There's zero stains, wear and tear marks, and no sagging at all to the cushions. It's not completely comfortable because you really need an ottoman to go with it, so I'm sure we'll be scouring Overstock.com or the same classified ads to find it. Loading up the couch into my truck was a joy- because Mrs. Sixline is expecting, I did the whole thing myself.

So now we have to find out whether or not we want to keep the brown turd, how we'll re-arrange, and whether or not that TV will end up mounted to the wall. (More than likely yes. Anyone got any pointers on mounting those things? I don't want to buy a $120 mount only to find out it blocks where I connect cables.

oh no, i suck again!

I kept putting it off and I never registered to vote.

Oh well. :(

Alma 12

I've heard several times now from people that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lied to them. They were not told that Joseph Smith married - and propositioned to marry - women who were already married themselves. They were not told that there are certain similarities - some of them stark - between the rituals of Freemasonry and the rituals of the LDS Temple Endowment. They were not told that Brigham Young wrote racist things. They all - to the last person - found these things out and felt duped and have since decided the Church was deceitful.

To be fair, I understand the frustration of their position. No one wants to be duped. No one wants to believe in a system of beliefs that aren't logical or rational.

At times, though, I've wanted to have experiences that made me able to relate in a positive way to those who have left the Church because of anger over being lied to. Frankly, I'm not sure how to respond to the claim that they were lied to. Certainly they feel deceived, I'm not going to deny them the right to feel the way they feel. But I keep coming back to the hope that if I can relate to them, and say "I went through the same thing and this is how I kept my testimony" then hopefully they can follow my example and keep their testimony alive as well.

But it's not on my shoulders to save these people. As a personality trait of mine, I have a hard time hearing the criticisms that are leveled against the Church without feeling defensive (negative connotation implied) and trying to defend the Church - with varying degrees of success (mostly "un-.")

It pains me when they're right. Why can't I go and look at the papryii? Why do Egyptologists say that Joseph Smith got the Book of Abraham wrong? Why did Brigham Young write those awful things? Why did Joseph Smith marry women who were already married?

I'm aware of the answers that are there. Some satisfy the curiosity and some do not. I do not believe the Church has lied to me. I think the Church has done its best to teach me faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and how to endow myself with power from on high to endure to the end. On the more embarrassing or 'sticky' parts of history and belief it has been silent-- never forbidding me to explore and to learn, nor encouraging me.

In short, I believe that as long as your heart is soft, the Lord will keep revealing more and more until you understand everything in full. Having the answers that will quell any concern for someone else is impossible; they must seek that light on their own.

Heroes

Man, this show seems like it exploded without any real foresight. How many plot twists can there be? They just keep introducing new characters and changes in story - with sexy results! That South American chick who kills people when she gets stressed is the worst. Skimpy outfits and trysts with the Indian doctor dude.

Come on, folks. What happened to actually writing?!

Go Phillies. Go Rays.

Wake me up when September ends

I will have a son. No, I didn't do the "WHAT A BOY!" exclamation only to have the doctor tell me that what I was referencing was the boy's leg or arm or something. I'm just glad to have a kid. Knowing it's a boy didn't really make me that excited in the beginning. It was like knowing what you were going to get for Christmas, but not seeing the present wrapped under the tree. Now that Mrs. Sixline is showing, I'm actually excited. I like to come home, rub her small protruding belly and smile. I always ask "How's my son?" And she always responds "We're doing great!" So there's been a lot of schmoopieness at our home in the past few days. Like newlyweds and those who are just falling for each other, I think first-time parents are allowed to be bubbly and excited at this. Just not in public, right? That's right.

So October is here and baseball is full of un-surprises. We shouldn't have been surprised that a Torre managed team with Manny Ramirez caught fire for the post-season. No, Alfonso Soriano, you weren't a part of the Yanks' success. It was all Torre. Steinbrenner, you're a cotton-headed ninnymonggins for letting Torre go. Morons run the most powerful franchise in baseball, it's only redeeming factor... Anyway, the Angels once again were post-season pwnd by the Red Sox, but at least the Rays are not going to back down. They've got swagger and poise, two of the most overused adjectives for young teams that don't know how to lose and aren't afraid bleeding because they've never bled. Boston will have to be on top of it. Unlike most post-season victories which are decided by bullpens, I think the ALCS will be decided by starting pitching. If you can last 5+ innings giving up only 1 or no runs, your team will win. More than 2 runs or less than 5 innings means you're a goner. From the NL I like the Dodgers if the Sox beat the Rays, and the Phillies otherwise. I just would like to see Manny go back to Boston. Very good October thus far. (Moron Cubs. HA!)

Politics, schmolitics. They're liars. Every one of them. I like to check Factcheck.org as of late to see who is full of the most bull. (Thanks Kermit for the link.) It seems as though all the zip and pizazz that McCain had as a follow-your-heart senator are gone. He just seems to be grumpy, and thanks to the media which is full of its own problems, I hear from him very seldom. That wouldn't be a problem except that when I do hear from him, I only hear the point that he's a better leader for war-like tumultuous times. A strong case, yes, but I think that with Obama as the CIC, strong allies like NATO and the EU will be more willing to work with us against Iran, Russia, and possibly China. In fact, I don't think that China necessarily poses a war-time threat to us. We're very much economic bedfellows, and while that's no guarantee, it's better than the pwnage we get from OPEC - half of whom hate our guts.

So yeah, man... life's good.