Seven of Everything

This is a continuation of the previous posts: Keeping the Proper Focus in Life . and Does Grace Really Save You? Here I want to explore the full extent of the pole vaulting analogy. I'm going to outline the fourteen graces mentioned in the previous post and describe how each one is symbolic of the God's plan of salvation for us, his children. The first element is the person. The person is symbolic on many different levels. He could be symbolic of you, the individual. He could be symbolic of the family unit or an organization, like a church group or unit, an entire church body, a company, a state, a nation or the world as a whole. Ultimately, the body of Christ is represented here. He is the life of the world . We are to become like him. The second element is the pole. This is symbolic of the word of God, the iron rod , or all truth. The word of God can be learned through two methods: One, through hearing the words or reading the writings of His authorities, and two, t...

This is a continuation of my blog post titled: Keeping the Proper Focus in Life . Here, I want to explore two aspects of the pole vaulting analogy - grace and works. I initially joined the track team when I was a sophomore in high school because I had seen my oldest brother do it and I loved running. He blazed the trail and I gained the courage to try something new that now seemed possible. My senior year, after joining pole vaulting, I knew I would need help because I had no skills. I relied on my teammates to teach me the rules. I trusted the most skilled members of the team and treated the one with the personal trainer as a coach. I practiced as the season progressed and when the time came we went to our first track meet. I signed in with the officials and when they said it was time to start, I ran down the track, placed the pole in the box and jumped. The bar was set to the minimum height which I had to pass to continue on; that height was eight feet. (To give you an idea, the...

I just finished a book called All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. This is my summary of the book and principles of square foot gardening. Some of this material is quoted from the book. This is in order of chronological set-up not necessarily "seven structure" order: 1 Box size and Placement 2 Build up 3 Nutrient Rich Soil Mix 4 Grid structure 5 Plant 6 Water 7 Harvest 1 - Standard square foot gardening is done in squares of up to four feet in one dimension. A square foot garden would typically consist of several 4X4 foot squares. The idea behind the size is to optimize the amount of food grown in a small area. It does not take any tilling and is not organized in the standard single row style. You could think of it like putting four rows together, thus optimizing your garden space. A typical person's arm reach is comfortably two feet long, and therefore to reach in more than that would get difficult. The four foot maximum dimention is so you can...

Several times in the past, including recently, I have had a sore, stiff neck. Usually this is caused by overexerting myself. Most recently I went down to Lake Jackson Texas to join the Mormon Helping Hands and clean up fallen trees all day after Huricane Ike. Whenever I get a stiff neck it makes me think of Laman and Lemual as well as other wicked men in the scriptures. I felt like I could understand what was meant in the scriptures by having a stiff neck, not after actually having a physically stiff neck, but after understanding that the head of the body is symbolic of God. God is the head of the body, the head of the church, and needs to be our head in life. The head gives instructions to the body and the body follows. When God asks us to obey we need to follow. It is obvious that whenever there is a reference to stiffneckedness in the scriptures it is in reference to someone who chooses not to obey. When you have a stiff neck it is difficult to turn your head. The full range of moti...

My senior year of high school I decided to try pole vaulting. There were not very many people on the team that did pole vaulting and we needed more people, so I decided to try it out. Shanna Mailloux on the team had a personal trainer and was very skilled at pole vaulting; we often went to her for advice. One day we asked her to watch us and give us suggestions on how to improve. When it was my turn, I ran down the track towards the bar. After reaching the bar and inevitably messing up, I went to her to see how I could improve. She quizzed me to see if I could tell her what I did wrong and I tried to think of what it was. She asked me where my eyes were while I was running. So I told her that I looked at the box, the bar, her and the other girls standing by. She was very pretty and so were most of the girls on the track team. Then, she proceeded to teach me a lesson that I will never forget. I have heard it many times before and since in various forms but mostly theoretically, here it ...

The compost cooking process: 1) Air 2) Water 3) Heat 4) Organic Materials 5) Mixing 6) Structure 7) Rest 1 - A compost pile needs to breath. This allows for aerobic decomposition. If it does not breath the compost goes through an anaerobic fermentation; this causes foul odors, amongst other things. Aeration is necessary for rapid odor-free decomposition. There are two typical methods for aeration. Turning the materials is the most common or forced air systems usually for larger piles. Oxygen is needed for the soil organisms as well. 2 - All living things need water. A compost pile has a host of living things both being broken down and doing the breaking down. If the soil is too wet the air is removed causing anaerobic fermentation. If it is too dry there can be no chemical reactions to break down the materials. It needs to be moist like a sponge. The proper moisture level is about 55% to 65%. You can take a handful from the pile and squeeze it and it does not drip with wat...

So the other day I was thinking about how bad the rating system currently is. And so I came up with seven areas that I think movies should be rated on. Today movies are rated good, not so good, bad and really bad. Well not exactly but you get the idea. I think each of the seven areas should have positive and negative ratings. Many of you may think that this is over-complicated and it probably is but I think if there were a good better and best mentality for movie ratings then the movie industry might want to out do themselves by making better and better movies instead of worse and worse. And even if that didn't work at least it would give families who are trying to teach correct principles a better view of appropriate movies. 1) Family 2) Agency/Consequence 3) Discipline 4) Authority 5) Body 6) Film Quality 7) God 1 - Movies that promote family as an important unit is needed. Movies that promote family values would get a positive rating and those that promote immorality, divorce, e...