Musings on Life and Living

Those who know I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (i.e., I am a Mormon), may know that we seem to place a large emphasis on not our living families but also our family histories. The LDS church is known for its extensive Family History Libraries and Centers throughout the world, for its free online program, FamilySearch, and maybe even our partnering with the International Genealogical Index to digitise census, birth, marriage, and death records. Growing up in the church, I never really did much with family history. Sure, from time to time I would write out a four or five generation pedigree chart, but I didn't know my family's stories. (There were a lot of reasons for this that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say that there were a lot of hard feelings when my parents left Pennsylvania and then left the church they had both been raised in.) As a young adult, I first began to dabble in family history when I was asked to lead and...

July is a special month for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is the month we celebrate Pioneer Day: July 24, 1847. This was the day that the first party of Mormon refugees arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and Brigham Young, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, looked upon the desert and proclaimed, "This is the right place!" The Latter-day Saints had fled their city of Nauvoo, Illinois, in February 1846, about a year and a half after their prophet and leader, Joseph Smith, Jr., had been assassinated with his brother, Hyrum, in Carthage, Illinois. This was the latest of many migrations the Saints had made in their 16 years as an organised religion. They had moved from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois and, after Joseph's death, sought to find a place where they could worship God "according to the dictates of their own conscience" in peace and freedom. (The Salt Lake Valley was, at the time, a part of Mexico...

We live in a college town. That means that many of our friends are college students; more particularly, many of them are graduate students. (The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign being a Research I institution .) What this means for us is that many of these dear friends come into our lives for a period of approximately five to seven years and then leave as they accept jobs elsewhere. Gretch and I have now been married for nine years, one month, and three days. (And yes, I am always counting.) Each summer we have said goodbye to friends as they have graduated and moved all over the nation (or occasionally even overseas). But this summer seems to have been particularly jarring, likely because many of our friends who have moved were people we helped move in and welcomed to our community, especially our faith community. They have been the best of friends; in fact, many of them are like family. As I have dealt with the emotional roller coaster that has accompanied these...

[NOTE: This is an email I sent to my United States Representative, Rodney Davis, regarding President Donald Trump's budget proposal.] Dear Representative Davis: I've been reading through Pres. Trump's budget proposal and I am just getting angrier and angrier. I am a fiscal conservative who believes strongly in a smaller, smarter, more efficient federal government that returns power to local and state governments and clears a path for non-governmental organizations to make lasting, sustainable changes in our communities. The problem I have with this budget is simple: it doesn't do any of these things. It will not result in a more efficient government, it will result in just confusion. It will not empower state and local governments, it will harm them by removing resources and support. It won't clear a path for NGOs, it will make it more complicated. Here is one example that I directly impacts our community in the 13th Congressional District: the eli...

[NOTE: This is a letter I recently sent to my United States Representative, Rodney Davis, in regards to H.R. 610, a bill recently introduced in Congress. Much of the text was inspired by a Facebook post that I modified and then shared publicly. Feel free to use this text as a template for your own letters to your Representatives if you feel so inclined to contact them.] Dear Rep. Davis: I am writing to you in regards to H.R. 610, the so-called “Choices in Education Act of 2017.” It may sound like having a school voucher system is a good idea. As a fiscal conservative, I believe there are many instances in which competition and choice improves the overall quality of the organization, program, or system. However, public education should never be about pitting one class, one school, one district, or one state against another. Public education is about teaching all children in all settings. This is enshrouded in our Illinois State Constitution, which states in Article X Section 1: ...

[The following is an email I sent to Senator Rob Portman, R-OH, friend and close ally of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, whom I supported throughout the Republican presidential primary campaign. I sent a similar message to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL. As with my letters to Sen. Duckworth and Sen. Durbin, I share because I think it is important to make my voice heard as clearly as possible on the issues that matter most to me.] Dear Senator Portman, I recognise that I am not a constituent of yours. I have never lived in Ohio and the likelihood of that ever happening is slim. However, I have been a great admirer of yours ever since your friend, and the man I supported in the Republican presidential campaign from Day One, Gov. John Kasich, stood by you. I have spent considerable energy learning more about you, examining your positions on the issues that matter most to me, and believe I would have voted for you if given the chance. It is with this in mind that I reach out to you, no...

[The following is a letter I sent to both Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, my United States Senators, as well as Senator Lamar Alexander, Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, regarding the upcoming confirmation hearing for Mrs. Betsy DeVos, President-Elect Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education. I share it here because I think it is important to stand up for what I believe in, whether it is popular with others or not.] Dear Senator, I write to you as a fourth grade teacher in Urbana, Illinois, and as a future administrator of a public school somewhere in our state. By way of biographical background, I am a registered Republican election judge and have cast my ballot for members of that party more often than I have cast ballots for members of your own party. I share my political views because I think it is important for you to know that many of your constituents, regardless of political affiliation, are alarmed by the pro...