For my recent birthday, Torrie give me a new set of scriptures.

The scriptures are a dark green color that has recently been discontinued. Luckily Rachel was able to snag one of the few remaining copies at the Distribution Center for us. Thanks, Rachel! I really like the color. I love the new book smell.

However, I have a lot of mixed emotions with starting a new set of scriptures, since I have used the previous ones since I turned 16. There's a lot of memories, notes, and sacred experiences in there. They were worn, wrinkled, folded, and colorful. The new scriptures feel cold, bare, black and white.

However, I am changing as well. The biggest change - on her way in early October - is pushing a change in my scripture study.

Seminary Study:
I had one of those two-colored pencils. You know, red on one side, blue on the other? Although the lack of a "safe" end of the pencil did result in more errant red/blue marks, it was rather handy on making scripture mastery scriptures stand out.
I was studying to understand the scriptures and gain a testimony of the power of scriptures.

Missionary:
As I entered the MTC, my scriptures began to get more colorful. The combination of having to delve into the scriptures like I never had before and the state of mind that comes up with being in the same room for hours at a time resulted in a rainbow of verses that approximately lined up with the six missionary discussions that were being used at the time.

As a result, my old scriptures are covered with a plethora of potentially confusing color combinations:
Red - Scriptures I liked and decided to mark while I was in high school.
Blue - Scripture mastery scriptures.
Light blue - Basic doctrines of the gospel: Nature of God, Prayer, Holy Ghost, Prophets
Green - The Gospel of Jesus Christ: The atonement, faith, repentance, baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, enduring to the end.
Purple - The Restoration of the Gospel - Priesthood Authority
Brown - The Plan of Salvation - Pre-earth life, purpose of this life,
Orange - Sacrifice, Tithing, Word of Wisdom
Yellow - Second Coming, Everything else

During the mission I noticed a change in my scripture study. I was no longer studying for myself, I was studying for the people that I was teaching. My set of Italian scriptures became a personal teaching treasure trove, with multiple colored tabs in strategically locations across the side in order to teach with precision and help give the Spirit a better chance to have an effect on the people I was teaching.

So I think that with the upcoming addition of a baby girl to our family, my next scripture study coloring system is going to focus on my main role as a husband and father, with secondary foci being my responsibilities as a home teacher, member missionary, and whatever callings I may have at church.

Any ideas? I'm wondering about maybe coloring by situation - how to recieve answers to prayers, how to repent, encouraging passages, etc. I may have a special color for rhetorical questions that the scriptures ask. Maybe something for my own personal responsibilities? I'd appreciate any feedback that anyone has out there. One thing is for sure - there's no one right answer to how one should mark scriptures, otherwise they would come that way.

Full disclosure: This is a soapbox post.

So last Tuesday Rand Paul became the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. If you follow the news, you may have heard the media finally catch on to some of the politically uncorrect things that has said. One of the things that the left-wing media finally caught onto was his unhappiness with one provision the Civil Rights Act.

I know, I know. Civil Rights Act. You can’t be against civil rights!

Here’s a link to a transcript of the conversation he had on the Rachel Maddow show: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/rand_paul_telling_the_truth.html

Basically he disagrees with the law in that it tells a private business owner how to run his/her business. He’s okay with the public aspects of the law: desegregating public schools, voting, public water fountains, etc. However, he disagrees with the part of the law that says you as a business owner can’t decide who you are willing to sell to.

I personally believe it’s morally wrong to not allow someone to eat at the lunch counter just because of the color of your skin. But if you own that lunch counter, shouldn’t that be your choice? While I personally wouldn’t make that choice, shouldn’t someone be able to? If you want to lose out on that source of revenue, shouldn’t that be your choice?

That’s what Mr. Paul thinks, anyway. It comes back to the reason why he’s running for Senate – he believes there’s too much government interaction in the lives of citizens. While in this instance I don’t agree with him, I think it’s a good point that should be debated.

Let me bring up another point to shed some light on my frame of reference. Here’s a quote from a former state supreme court justice, Dallin H. Oaks.:“Law has at least two roles: one is to define and regulate the limits of acceptable behavior. The other is to teach principles for individuals to make individual choices. “

And you know what – I believe he’s right. There’s incredible teaching power in the law. If something is against the law, which usually means it’s bad. I picture five little elementary school kids about to do something wrong and one of them whispering, “We shouldn’t do this. It’s illegal.” So in that case, a provision saying that you can’t discriminate based on race at your business makes total sense. I think we can agree that a lot of good "teaching moments" have come from this particular provision of the Civil Rights Act. (I know that race relations still have a long ways to go in our country....on all sides.)

Back to my original point. I don’t believe Rand Paul is against civil rights. I’ve already seen many news articles that just say he’s against civil rights and don’t go any further. Let’s not dismiss him outright for his lack of political correctness – I’ll admit, I find it rather refreshing – and instead have a real discussion on what his platform is. Let me put it a different way - If Rand Paul is made the next senator from Kentucky he’s not going to call for a return to separate ice rinks, swimming pools, lunch counters, etc. However, he is going to attempt to reduce the size and reach of the federal government. Is that a good thing? Would that be good for the citizens of Kentucky and the nation? That’s what we should be talking about.

If we as a country are willing to listen only to headlines and not explore important issues to any depth, we’re not going to get anywhere.

Off my soapbox. Thanks.

Chess.

I think I have a lot of the skills necessary in order to be good at Chess. I’m fairly smart, especially at analyzing things. That’s what I do for my job, and I think I'm good enough at it. Maybe not the best in the world, but I'm okay.

However, I’m really bad at Chess. The only people I can ever beat are my siblings, and that was like five years ago. (I’m talking to you, Connor.) Basically – if you’re good enough to want to accept my offer to play chess with you, you will beat me.

The other day Torrie had a meeting in our house, so I was banished to the bedroom. After reading for awhile, I decided to play some chess. I turned on the computer and promptly lost to a Level 3 computer opponent.

So what’s my deal? There are two major obstacles to my professional chess career.

1. Lack of Patience

Chess isn’t the most exciting sport. In fact, it’s kinda boring. Have you ever watched two other people play an actual chess game? The answer is yes, probably one – the epic battle between Screech and in an episode of Saved by the Bell. Eventually, at some point in the game, I’ll hit a point where I’ll have the following conversation in my head:

That looks like a good move. But wait, I should plan out my next move after that. What if it’s really a bad move and he could kill me? Hmm…well, that piece over there couldn’t kill me…neither could that one…well, I’ll just move it. I can always just click undo if it was a bad one.

And you know what? It usually ends up being a bad move. His Queen will take my Rook and I’ll have to click the Undo button. It’s a dumb mistake. If I took longer and thought it out more, I could easily catch those silly moves. But I don’t, so I don’t. A lack of patience dooms my chess abilities.

Another part of patience: Good chess involves looking ahead two or three moves. You need to have a long-term strategy to win any game. I don’t even know what a long-term strategy would be in chess! I end up being all react, react, react. Oh sometimes I’ll see an opportunity to tag team between two pieces and take out one of the opponent’s pieces, but it’s pretty much seat of the pants, oh that looks like a good move, I’ll try that. Not a good recipe for success. What I need to do is slow down. Maybe read some books on chess strategies. Practice. But let’s be honest – that’s probably not going to happen.

2. I feel bad

Here’s the other thing about chess. It’s hard to see that there’s any luck involved. There’s no rolling of dice. There’s no card that comes up. It’s all intelligence. If Torrie beats me at Parcheesi (which she does frequently) then I can console myself with the reasoning that, although I may have had a better strategy, it was just the luck of the dice. My epic game of Yahtzee, mentioned in the previous post? Luck. Skill is not involved with rolling four yahtzees. Even a large strategy game like Risk is somewhat dependent on the roll of the dice. While strategy might lead you to win a majority of your games, if you keep rolling the dice and landing on Boardwalk with a hotel on it, you will lose.

Not so with Chess. If you beat the other person, you are smarter than them. That’s just the way it works. That definitely raises the stakes of the game. Either I can’t handle the pressure, or I feel bad for the person that I may beat, so I don’t play to my full potential. I’m going to opt for the latter. (I know this argument really doesn’t count if I’m playing against the computer.)

So now that everyone knows my weaknesses…anyone want to play some chess?