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| Thursday, May 23, 2013 |
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Heh, he wasn’t saved just so he could be their branch president (though I’m only saying that because I think his rationale is lame—God could have truly saved his life all those times just so he could be the branch president). “Are there activities you would no longer consider prudent?” I think that, as long as there are no age-related concerns, there aren’t activities that aren’t prudent with age. Certainly as a kid/teenager/young adult you’d do some dumb things, but those are not prudent at any age. “Are there things you once would have enjoyed, but now seem too risky?” Nah. “As many things carry some risk and accidents do happen, where do you draw the line?” When you have more to live for, you tend to minimize the risks, at least if you are smart. Frankly, I don’t want my daughter or my wife to haunt me in the afterlife for ending my life early over a stupid adrenaline rush. |
Before I had dependants I would have thought about participating in several activities that I now consider too dangerous (motorcycle riding, sky diving, circumnavigating the world on a sailboat, climbing Everest, eating ice cream with every meal). Once my kids are grown and are no longer dependant on me, I might consider doing some of those things. Everyone makes their own value judgments, but the pain that is felt upon the loss of a parent is so intense that I couldn’t voluntarily impose that risk on my little ones. This is to say nothing about the economic, social, and psychological impairments that result. Therefore, I try to make choices that responsibly limit the risk to my life – I eat properly, I exercise regularly, I don’t fly single engine planes at night over large bodies of water, I don’t drive a car made out of fiberglass, etc. These choices may make me boring, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay. Besides, a nice biproduct of this approach is that at 75 I could be healthy enough to sit in a small inn in Positano, Italy looking out over the ocean enjoying my gelato after breakfast. |
I quit riding broncs in the rodeo when I got married, though I didn’t consider that dangerous. It was more a matter of our financial situation since I wasn’t very good at it. I have enough life insurance now that my wife probably wishes I would hold apples on my head for novice archers to target. |
Oh, and I pity the fool who thinks being a BP is something the Lord would perserve a person for (which I think only happens in rare instances anyway). While it’s an important calling, it’s nothing compared to the responsibilites of being a husband and father. |
Perhaps all those chastity allegories many of us were raised on about staying as far from the edge of danger as possible are applicable in these more literal contexts as well…. |
Geeze. The number of times I almost died. More than I can count. Probably way too much solo mountain climbing to justify now that I have kids. Ditto with kayaking, climbing, ice climbing, and even some of the long distant wandering and hiking. |
That’s a great question, ESO. I don’t really think that we have a duty to protect our own lives, because protecting oneself always boils down to being selfish or cowardly. There’s a tendency to treat mortality like a handicapped parking space. Some people get irritated by empty handicapped parking spaces, because they imagine that if it weren’t marked “Handicapped,” they could park in that very convenient spot themselves. But they’re fooling themselves. If the spot weren’t handicapped, it would be full just like all the other non-handicapped spaces nearby. Death is like that. Someone smokes and gets cancer when their 60, and we say, “If only they hadn’t have smoked, they’d still be around.” But the truth is that they’d probably be dead from something else very shortly anyway, just like everybody else around them. That said, I disagree with KyleM. I think that the Lord could preserve someone’s life just to be BP, even if it’s a bit odd for a BP to say so himself. Shoot, I think that the Lord could preserve someone’s life just to be a visiting teacher, home teacher, primary chorister, or nursery assistant (though I emphatically do not think that the Lord would preserve someone’s life so that she could effect a Waldorf-style nursery). |
That said, the attitude that I express (and that is embodied in Clark’s comment) is a quite common one among men. We learn this from Hemingway (directly or indirectly): that men’s lives are disposable; that the highest purpose of manhood is to put oneself in harms way to either earn a living or support a lost cause; that one measures his manhood by the intensity and the brightness of the flashes of the courage he displays in unpredictable, uncertain moments. It follows from these that a cavalier attitude toward danger is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for manhood. |
Dan–I think we agree. Jota G–good point on maintaining health KyleM–I am sometimes inclined to think God did preserve his life only to torture him with having to be a branch president Eve and Clark–good points. DKL–I’m with you on the nursery! But, do you really feel no responsibility to be there for your kids? I was quite a dare-devil in my youth, but the older you get, the more you realize all the things that could go wrong. And of course, although I realize it would take a freak accident for me to fall out of my roller coaster car, I would hate to die and have my poor kids say: if only she had loved the thrills a little less, we could have had a mom who drove us to the mall. My husband laughs at the thing we for recreation. Skiing, sky diving, speeding: they are all the same to him–things that will end in death or injury. He claims we think they are fun only because we have health insurance and Africans would never be so stupid. |
“I think that the Lord could preserve someone’s life just to be BP, even if it’s a bit odd for a BP to say so himself.” Perhaps, though I think in most cases dumb luck plays a bigger part than divine intervention in surviving near death. Of course I am one of those fools who believes I have my own agency, so I believe divine intervention is quite rare. Except in the Old Testament where Jehovah smote at will. |
For instance, there is this account where one test pilot fondly recalls the help he gave to get a friend reinstated to flight status so the friend could die in the air like a man: Not long after that, I got another wild idea and called on Dr. Lamb one last time on behalf of a great guy, my next-door neighbor, whose need for help was more critical than mine. Capt. Phil Neale, test pilot and TPS graduate had been medically grounded for life, with all courses of appeal exhausted, due to a heart problem induced by a staphylococcus infection. That time I enticed Larry with the promise of a gourmet dinner, and Martha is one who could deliver on that promise. He flew to Edwards for dinner at our home with Phil and Barbara. Phil was released back to flying status in short order and became a major player in our most widely reported AST event. He was a changed man, so happy to return to the flying. He died testing a new French helicopter but I know he had replaced a life of despair and accepted such risk for the life he relished, as so many of us did. |
“I am sometimes inclined to think God did preserve his life only to torture him with having to be a branch president.” Being Branch President makes waterboarding look like playtime in a Waldorf-style nursery. |
ESO, To your list of things that are dangerous, you need to add the most brutal, the most bloodthirsty, and the most reckless and imprudent pastime of all. I speak of church basketball. |
Mark–the good thing about being a branch is we have no basketball court. Our men go out and shoot guns. |
KyleM: Perhaps, though I think in most cases dumb luck plays a bigger part than divine intervention in surviving near death Agreed. |
DKL: but if the “real man” allows himself to die or be killed, he can no longer be a bread-winner for his family and a Defender-of-Lost-Causes. There’s a time to go out in a blaze of glory in battle, like a Klingon, or like what’s-his-name that went around with javelins killing Lamanite kings in their sleep (although he did it once too often and got sloppy and got killed that last time.) But there’s also a time, after it’s become a lost cause, to submit to be taken into captivity (Jews in Babylon, Limni’s people, various Jaredite kings, etc) so that you can assure the survival of your offspring, and continue your family’s or group’s dynasty. That’s why unmarried childless 19 year olds make the best cannon fodder and are drafted before married men. |
“but if the ‘real man’ allows himself to die or be killed, he can no longer be a bread-winner for his family and a Defender-of-Lost-Causes.” Luckily, the peer and societal presure relents upon death. It’s the only time us men finally catch a break. |
You haven’t lived until you’ve taken a stock car full-throttle into the turn inches away from another car’s fender. Good times. The release form you signed warned you that “YOU MAY DIE.” |
kyle: according to reports of church leaders who’ve had visits by the spirits of previous church leaders, priesthood holders are kept just as busy on the other side. queuno: I’ve jumped out of (or stepped/walked/ran out of) “perfectly acceptable” airplanes 289 times. Other than sacred spiritual experiences, skydiving was the most adrenalin-pumped rush I’ve ever had. |
Hands-down, the most dangerous thing I do each month is the few regular trips I make to downtown Denver for court hearings. I risk horrific injuries every time I merge onto that interstate. There is nothing else that I am doing, or ever have done that is that dangerous. |
I believe it was Elder Faust who spoke on this subject. If I recall correctly some LDS boy scout leaders took a dangerous hike somewhere in southern utah and both leaders lost their lives. The boys had to be rescued. His message was, if you take unnecessary risk for thrills you may not have the protection of the Lord. Don’t gamble with your life. |
Jared, if you take every precaution, you “may not have the protection of the Lord.” As countless careful people have found out before now. |
Why is it that we assume that death doesn’t accompany the protection of the Lord? |
If he had managed to kill himself then the next poor schmuck would be bishop. In fact maybe the person who should have been bishop did die in a terrible accident and this guy was never the top choice. It is terribly bad logic to claim that just because you’re alive you’ve been preserved for a purpose. |
ARJ, I’ve been preserved until this day to say you are right. |
“There are no coincidences.” What happens is net result of the sum of all decisions and actions that went before, both our’s, everyone else’s (past and present), and God’s. It all fits together somehow. Sometimes, God let’s us have our way according to our agency. That is, our individual agency combined with the sum total of everyone else’s agency too. Sometimes God has his way, no matter what we do. Existence (life, the Universe, everthing) is a huge integral equation. |
I won’t argue with anyone who claims their life was saved for a higher purpose. I was hit by a drunk driver when I was 19. I’m pretty sure the same driver killed someone else two weeks later because the vehicle description and mode of operation were so similar. I believe very strongly that my life was spared for a purpose. I’m not a branch president or bishop, and I’m way too unorthodox to believe I ever will be. But I have a wonderful wife and three wonderful children who have blessed my life by being able to know them. |
It really annoys me when people choose to have children but then refuse or neglect to get life insurance. Maybe I’m getting old and judgmental, but it really bothers me. I think it is short-sighted and one could argue too adventurous not to plan for and provide for your dependents should something happen to you. I’m especially bothered by it if I’m related to them, and I might be called upon to contribute financially in the future if something happened to them. |
Bookslinger – I hope to jump out of an airplane one day. DCcLemon – I agree with the life insurance. It also annoys me when people choose to have children and then opt to live in truly dreadful school districts in the name of “oh, it’s a hip urban downtown area”. When someone has children, their education and where they will be raised trumps hipness. (Then again, I’m a PROUD product of suburbia.) |
