Embarrassing as it is, I stumbled upon more of dad's writing in the wedding journal given to Sarah and I over six years ago that we basically have never written in as a couple. It is more or less advice for our new journey. Again, I will attempt to transcribe it as close as possible to what he wrote.
1 25 May 02
Dear Daughter and Son,
No one ever gets out of this world alive.
Resolve therefore, in the years to come, to
maintain a sense of values.
Take care of yourselves. Good health is
everyone's major source of wealth. Without
it, happiness is almost impossible.
Resolve to be cheerful and helpful. People
will repay you in kind.
Avoid angry, abrasive persons. They are
generally vengeful.
Avoid Zealots. They are generally humorless.
Resolve to listen more and to talk less. No
one ever learns anything by talking.
Be wary of giving advice. Wise men don't
need it, and fools won't heed it.
Resolve to be tender with the young,
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic
with the striving, and tolerant of the weak
and the wrong.
2 25 May 02
Sometime in life you will have been all
of these.
Do not equate money with success.
There are many successful money-makers
who are miserable failures as human
beings. What counts most about success
is how you achieve it.
Resolve to love next year someone you
didn't love this year. Love is the most
enriching ingredient of life.
Be not neglectful to entertain strangers, for
thereby some have entertained angels
unaware.
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be
in silence. As far as possible, without
surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and
listen to others, even the dull and ignorant;
They too have something to say.
3 25 May 02
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are
vexations to the spirit. If you compare
yourselves with others, you may become vain
and bitter; for always there will be greater
and lesser persons than yourselves. Enjoy
your achievements as well as your dreams.
All work is honorable, however humble;
you positive sense of responsibility toward
it is a real possession in the changing
fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your
business affairs; for the world is full of
trickery. But let this not blind you to
what virtue there is; many persons
strive for high ideals, and everywhere
life is full of heroism.
Be yourselves, especially do not feign
affection. Neither be cynical about love.
for in the face of all aridity and
disenchantment it is as perennial as the
grass.
4 25 May 02
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully
surrendering the things of youth. Nurture
strength of spirit to shield you in sudden
misfortune. But do not distress yourselves
with imaginings. Many fears are born of
fatigue and discouragement. Beyond a
wholesome discipline, be gentle with
yourselves. You are children of God's
universe, no less than the flowers and
the stars; it is your spiritual birth-
right to be living at the time, and
whether or not it is clear to you, have
no doubt that the universe is unfolding
as it should. Therefore, be at peace with
your Heavenly Father and cultivate a
strong testimony of the atonement of
our dear Savior. Whatever your labors
and aspirations, in the noisy confusion
of life, keep peace with your souls. With
all its sham, drudgery and broken
5 25 May 02
dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
In conclusion may I counsel you of the
sacrament of marriage. Sexual intimacy is
not only a symbolic union between a man and a
woman - the uniting of your very souls - but
it is also symbolic of a union between mortals
and deity, between otherwise ordinary and
fallible humans uniting for a rare and
special moment with God himself and all the
powers by which He gives life in His
wide universe.
Human intimacy is a sacrament, a very
special kind of symbol. It is an act that
unites you with God and His limitless powers.
You are imperfect and mortal; He is perfect
and immortal. But from time to time, indeed,
as often as is possible and appropriate - you
should find ways and go to places and create
circumstances where you can unite symbolically
with Him and, in so doing, gain access
6 25 May 02
to His power. Those special moments of union
with God are sacramental moments, such at
kneeling at the marriage altar, or blessing a
new-born baby, or partaking of the emblems
of the Lord's supper. These are the moments
when you quite literally unite your will with
God's will, your spirits with His spirit, where
communion through the veil becomes very
real. At such moments you not only
acknowledge his divinity, but you also quite
literally take something of that divinity to
yourselves. Of such are the holy sacraments -
you will never in this life be more like God
than when you are expressing that particular
power. Of all the titles He has chosen for Himself,
Father is the one He declares, and creation
is His watchword - especially human creation,
creation in His image. His glory isn't a
mountain, as stunning as mountains are. It
isn't in sea or sky or snow or sunrise,
7 25 May 02
as beautiful as they all are. It isn't in art or
technology, be that a concerto or computer. No -
His glory - and His grief - is in His children.
We - you and I - are His prized possessions, and
we are the earthly evidence, however inadequate,
of what He truly is. Human life is the greatest
of God's powers, the most mysterious and
magnificent chemestry of it all - and you
have been given it, but under the most serious
and sacred restrictions. You - who can
make neither mountain or moonlight, not one
rain drop or single rose - have this greater
gift in an absolutely unlimited way. And the
only control placed on you is self control -
self control born of respect for the divine
sacramental power it is.
Surely God's trust in you to respect this future
forming gift is an awesomely staggering one.
You who may not be able to repair a bicycle
or assemble an average jigsaw puzzle
8 25 May 02
can yet, in all your weaknesses and imperfections,
carry this procreative power which makes you
so very much like God in at least that one grand
and majestic way. Nothing so earth-shatteringly
powerful is given to you to create a human body, that
of wonder of all wonders, a genetically and spiritually
unique being never before seen in the history of the
world and never to be duplicated again in all the
ages of eternity: a child - your child -
with eyes and ears and fingers and toes
and a future of unspeakable grandeur.
Imagine carrying daily, hourly, minute to minute,
virtually every waking and sleeping moment of your
lives, the power and the chemestry and the
eternally transmitted seeds of life to grant
someone else his or her second estate. James
Talmage gives this caution: "It has been
declared in the solemn word of revelation, that
the spirit and the body constitute the soul of
man; and, therefore we should look upon
9 25 May 02
this body as something that shall endure in the
resurrected state, beyond the grave, something to be
kept pure and holy. Be not afraid of soiling its
hands; be not afraid of scars that may come
to it if won in earnest effort or won in
honest fight. But beware of scars that
disfigure, that have come to you in places
where you ought not have gone, that have
befallen you in unworthy undertakings;
beware of the wounds of battles in
which you have been fighting on the wrong
side."
Poetry to ponder:
We came not in with proud firm martialed
footsteps in a measured tread
Slow pacing to the crash of music loud.
No gorgeous trophies went before -
No crowd of captive's followed us with
drooping head -
No wreath of laurel sceptured us nor
10 25 May 02
crowned, nor with its leaf our glittering lances
bound.
This looks not like a triumph, then they
said - with faces darkened from their
early pride.
Through wind and sun and showers of
bleaching rain, yet red in all our garments
deeply dyed.
With many a wound upon us - many
a stain, we came with steps
that faltered, yet we came.
-0-
If thou of fortune be bereft
And in they store there be but left
### #### ##* two loaves;
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
*(I forgot the poem for a moment)
11 25 May 02
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and,
If God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
the --0--
I wish you^ choisest blessings of eternity
/
/ Love, Dad Skelton
Brain get
tired, never mind my writing fingers
It is interesting to read the poetry from him. I cannot tell if certain things are from memory or if they are transcribed incorrectly. Either way, his imperfections make him who he is, and it is the spirit behind the words that matter most. Some of these things I really hesitated to put out here on a public website, thinking I may be casting pearls before swine. Not that I am directing that comment to anyone specifically, it's just the nature of the beast.
