I Don’t Like Ike

I normally do not talk about myself on this blog, but humor me this one time. My family and I live in Houston. We recently lived through Hurricane Ike. The city had asked everyone outside of the flood zone to stay in Houston and “hunker down.” So we hunkered. We thought Ike would be scary, and I was honestly bothered that something so scary had such a silly name. Ike! Come on National Weather Service, you can do better than that. Why not Igor? Ice Man? Insecticide?

On Friday, we boarded up the windows. It made the house very dark and a little depressing. We have three kids. We expected the storm in the middle of the night. Once our baby was a sleep, we let the other two kids watch Scooby-Doo. Once the kids were asleep, my wife and I began to watch CNN. Anderson Cooper and Company honestly did not provide much information, but did a good job scaring the crap out of us: Galveston faced “certain death” and Houston was “starring down a barrel of a gun.” The common thread through all the reporting were images of people getting pounded or preparing to get pounded by the storm. We waited for our pounding.

Once the hurricane did hit, it hit. The wind howled. The electric power was gone. Lights flashed though I do not remember much thunder; maybe it was drowned out by the fierce wind or maybe the lights were power transformers exploding. My wife and I were amazed—and thankful—that as the storm screamed, our kids somehow slept through most of it. The howls of the storm were broken up by various crashes, clangs, and bangs. With every new sound, we had to wonder, are we going to make it? Is our house going to withstand the storm? Can our kids really still be asleep?! The storm had been raging for four hours or so before our son woke up. He looked up at me and said with a sound of desperation, “Daddy… I am hungry.” He seemed completely oblivious of the storm outside. I pretended that the storm did not bother me either—pretended I had not spent the night panicking. When the other kids woke up, they were not too concerned about the hurricane either. The only time the storm scared them was when the wind whipped and caused the power lines to set off fireworks of sparks. Once that passed, they went back to ignoring the storm.

When the wind left, it was so exhilarating. But soon, we settled into the long task of assessing the damage, coping, and trying to help others along the way. While giant tree limbs were scattered around our house, none of them were on the house. Our fence had blown over. Our car had a small ding or two that it did not before the storm. Still, no major damage. Some neighbors were not so lucky. As we saw the destruction of the storm, I think it was the first time my kids appreciated the power of the storm. The hurricane was as bad as it sounded: huge trees were knocked to the ground—or on houses or cars—as if they were only an afterthought.

The initial response of people was pretty remarkable. Nearly everyone we saw outside wanted to know how we were even if they did not know who we were. People talked about being grateful or blessed. People helped each other. A day or so after the storm, I saw some city workers picking up limbs of trees. People waved, honked, and occasionally cheered them on.

The hurricane also showed me that people are far from perfect. Many, many people did not prepare for the storm despite many, many warnings. Many people were not prepared for life without electricity and closed stores and gas stations. Once gas stations and stores opened, people made a run on them. Many people have complained that people butted in line at the gas stations, even as others had waited in line for hours. I actually witnessed this today as I drove by a gas station. To the rejoicing of those in line, the police did too. I am not sure what the charges were or if there were any, but the Houston police made many people happy by appearing to punish the cheater.

So, what would I do differently? Here are a few of things. First a small thing. After the storm, my wife and I have examined various 72-kits and the like that we have collected over the years. (Our 14th wedding anniversary came about 24 hours after the storm left.) Some of them date back nearly to our wedding. Yes, we have at least kept several of these current, but could have done better. Fortunately, because we did not have to leave our house and had food on hand, we have not had to eat the food in the 72-hour kits. My wife and I have decided to put better food in them and keep them updated. We are also going to stop storing Jolly Ranchers, which for some reason beyond me made their way into each of these kits and without exception they had all melted and made a sticky mess.

Second, we are going to keep more big garbage bags on hand and more water. The bags would have made the clean up much easier and the water—even though we did not come close to running out—would have provided piece of mind and allowed me to share more effectively.

Third, ice is nice. People clamored for ice more than just about anything. My wife had the sense to freeze a bunch of milk and orange juice, which kept things cold. If I do this again (please no!), I would freeze more stuff ahead of time.

Fourth and most importantly, the storm made me realize again that the things in life that are important are people and not the things. I am thankful that the people in my life are safe. I am grateful to have good neighbors. I am glad that people in my community and in my church are willing to help each other. And, even though life is not always easy, life is good.

Mormons Like Analogies

The other day, a Mormon friend told me pain she endured listening to a talk at church. She reported that the speaker based his talk on an analogy: "The gospel is a lot like football." The speaker made the following points: football requires action, the gospel requires action; football requires you to be mentally engaged, the gospel requires you to be mentally engaged; practicing football with good players improves your game, hanging out with uplifting people improves your life. All good points, but I guess it did come as somewhat of a relief that the speaker did not try to find a gospel analog to "in football you wear a jock strap" or “after a football game, the locker room smells like death warmed over.”

My friend went on to make the point that she has heard essentially the same talk in various forms: the gospel is a lot like golf, the gospel is a lot like playing an instrument, and so on and so on. Upon reflection, I noted that since the Olympics, I have heard Mormons talk about how living the gospel is a lot like preparing for the Olympics. “It is my hope and prayer, Brother and Sisters that as strive to be more righteous, we may learn to swim like Michael Phelps… or any other creature of the sea.” (Okay, I didn’t hear that quote, but I wished I had.) Anyways, it occurred to me that my friend is right: when it comes to spouting off analogies, Mormons are like automatic sprinkler systems… or is it auctioneers at the state fair—I forget. Analogies ranks high on the list of stuff Mormons like.

It’s not just the ward house where you will hear analogies. General Authorities of the church love them too. And why shouldn’t they? They are Mormons. Just consider some of the analogies we have heard during the past few general conferences: The gospel is like a recipe; making mistakes in life is similar to an airplane flight off a few degrees; becoming a better person is similar to an athlete training for the high jump; prioritizing our life is like the old marketing scheme of the Sears Roebuck Company; and—a personal favorite— spiritual rebirth is like pickling cucumbers.

Some Mormons rely on analogies arising out of popular culture. So don’t be surprised if you hear analogies relating gospel topics to movies like "Star Wars," "Lord of the Rings," and "Battlestar Galatcia." The same friend who got me thinking Mormons and analogies told me about a guy in her old ward in England. He talked about the gospel being just like "Braveheart" and even likened the Mel Gibson's character to Joseph Smith. Fetch! I would have loved to heard that talk. In all frankness and as a public service to Mormons, I do add a cautionary side note that I would not recommend that Mormons liken anything in a sacrament talk to "Sex in the City" or "Big Love."

Those who really want to push the analogy talk often try an object lesson. While this is still fair game during most of church, the church very recently asked Mormons not bring in objects for object lessons for sacrament meeting talks any more. While I do not think anyone left the church over this, some people understandably felt disappointed. Does that mean that the person that talks about resurrection can’t bring in the glove and tell us that the hand represents the spirit and the glove is the body? It seems that if this is going to happen over the pulpit—at least within the rules—people will have to resort to using their imaginations and perhaps a little pantomime.

On a personal note, I admit that I do feel a little sad about this. One of the better Mormon talks I heard this year had a great prop—the parable of the stinky sandal. Though another friend recently told me that in some ways she felt that this was a good thing. Apparently in her ward, a memorable object lesson proved quite the distraction. Apparently, the speaker likened sin to a chain. To illustrate his point, this Mormon literally wrapped his body with a twenty-pound dog chain as he spoke. While the chain rattled and banged on the pulpit and floor, what really distracted the audience was that the weight of the chain began to pull on itself, causing the speaker to begin to choke because he had wrapped the chain—among other places—around his neck. Ultimately, he was okay, but still, it was a little worrisome for a moment.

Hum... So a guy completely unnecessarily wrapped a dog chain around his neck and almost choked to death because of it... I don’t know, to me anyways, it seems that there is analogy in their somewhere.

* If you have an analogies you have heard or wished you had heard, this is the place to share them.