On My Honor...

I received some very exciting news this week. I am being awarded the Silver Beaver by the Grand Canyon Council of the Boy Scouts of America. This is the highest award a Council can give, and I can hardly believe I was nominated, much less chosen! I will actually be presented the award in January, but they let me know now. When I think of the Silver Beavers I know, including my father-in-law, I am humbled to think I have been admitted to this club.

I love the Boy Scouts of America. It has been an honor for me to work with them in shaping the lives of young men. This is the last remaining organization I can think of, outside the church, that stresses personal character and integrity, and that teaches young men to make moral decisions.

I wasn't much of a Scout when I was a Scout. I was scrawny and didn't really have the vision of the whole thing. I never made Eagle (I had to settle for eternal Life!), but I have been a dedicated Scouter ever since catching the vision at Woodbadge in 1998. That experience, along with all the other Scouting experiences I have had as an adult (Woodbadge staff, Philmont, Order of the Arrow), changed my life for the better, and hopefully for good. It is easy to be of service to a cause you really believe in. Thank you, Boy Scouts of America, for what you have done for America's youth for the last 100 years, and for this old man in the last 12!

Hold on!

This morning our Stake President drew this exponential curve on the blackboard in our Priesthood leadership meeting. He asked us where we thought we were on that curve, and most of us said we were somewhere around the area I have circled below:

I agree. The rate of the growth of evil in this world is increasing, and Satan is parading things around as "normal" that were not even talked about in polite company just a couple of years ago. Little children are being exposed to evil in ways my generation can hardly comprehend.

When we visited Emily and the kids last September, we spent one morning at the park. They have a merry-go-round there. I have always enjoyed those things.

On a merry-go-round, if you are out at the edge of the toy while it is spinning around, you are going to feel a LOT of centrifugal force, trying to push you off. The only safe place to stand on that toy while it is spinning is right in the center. Any distance from the center increases the force pushing you off.

That is how it is in the world today. If we are not centered, we will not be able to stand the forces that are coming. The center is Christ, and the best place to stand to stay close to Him is the Temple. We simply must spend more time there if we and our family are going to stand. We need to make our homes like the temple - free of the noise and confusion and distraction of the world, free of the influences of evil. So much is at stake. I hope everyone in my family will renew their efforts to hold to the Center (Christ) for safety.