Evolutionary Thought

What I think I am, what I think I was created to be, what I think I should be...

In the end it is only what I choose to be that matters.

I cannot think of a more simple synopsis of the meaning of life: thoughts and actions. I am made of that which is acted upon, but I am that which acts; I build, I begin, I create, I complete. I also dream, and imagine, and believe, and think, but the substance of these is in the action. Without action I am merely that which is acted upon.

Choice is the end of life, and the beginning; but if I do not choose I never live, I only exist.

Evolutionary theory has a new twist: self-determination. Self-determination recognizes that there is natural order in all things...snow flakes, lipids, genes, etc; when acted upon, everything changes to a more ordered state.

There is a wonderful step forward in this line if thinking, but the idea of a rock self-determining in the midst of a magma flow is quite absurd since the elements that compose the rock and every other kind of element for that matter have no self, they are not that which acts but that which is acted upon. So what does determine this order? Does it change? Are there exceptions? How did the order come to be? If we understand the workings of this order where does that lead? If we understand the workings of this order can we determine the end results? Can we change the results within the framework of this order? Points to ponder.

Family Vacation

On the 14 of June we arrived home from a long anticipated family vacation. We left home on the 29 of May en route to Denver Colorado for the Mason Family Reunion and arrived late in the afternoon. Grandpa Mason provided us and everyone else rooms in a posh hotel for three or four nights and we enjoyed being reacquainted with aunts, uncles, and cousins (and lots of second cousins at this point).

This is the over head picture of the pizza party we had on Saturday night, it was mostly Galbraith's, but then most of the family are Galbraith's, more than two thirds.

One of my favorite parts of the family reunion was staying up till two or three a.m. playing cards with Dad, Nathanael, and Ryan; we did that two nights running. It was fun to just relax, talk, and tell jokes and stories with them; it's kind of a tradition that Dad and I started at the first Mason Family Reunion in 1997.

We went to the Denver temple on Friday and that was the first time that I have been in the temple with all of my married siblings at the same time; eight of us are married now. We did a sealing session with Grandpa and the spirit and experience were great. I think that was the most poignant moment in the whole reunion for me except possibly the fast and testimony meeting we attended with Grandma and Grandpa on Sunday. I got up to bare testimony and testified about families in our Heavenly Father's Plan and paid tribute Chet and Mary Lou Mason as the great patriarch and matriarch of our family.

On Monday the 2 of June we packed up and headed for Utah and our great friends the DeMille's.