Life - The passing of Jeff Akers

This week has been a sad one.  My sister, Sandy, had to make the difficult decision to take her husband off of life support after he had a seizure and hit his head.

Jeff had struggled pretty much his entire life with alcoholism.  He started drinking when he was 16 and at two different times he had serious falls while drunk where he broke his neck and his back, so he had a rod in his neck and I think he also had a plate in his head. He and Sandy both have struggled with these issues, but in their own way they were good for each other because they each understood the struggles they both faced.  They complained incessantly about each others' problems, but in the end they kept each other company and filled a void in each others' lives. Now he is gone and I am not sure how Sandy is going to do.

Jeff managed to get a couple of DUIs in recent months and as part of his second sentencing the judge ordered him to go through an in-house rehab program for at least 6 weeks.  He was allowed to choose which program he wanted to go through and he chose a facility up in Liberty where he was able to stay in a cabin with a bunch of other men who were all working through the 12 step program together. I believe he chose that place mainly because it was the cheapest option, but it sounds like he enjoyed being up there and he was allowed to have visitors a couple days a week.  It was not a facility with any medical staff on hand though, and they required participants to go off of everything cold-turkey, including any prescription medications they were taking, so that meant Jeff could not have any of his medications for anxiety or pain either. He had been up there for 3 weeks and had already had two seizures and they told him that if he had another seizure then he would not be able to stay and participate in the program. He was afraid the judge would send him to jail so he really wanted to finish the program, but last Tuesday night he had another seizure while he was standing up and when he fell he hit his head. I got a call around 11 pm from Dakota asking if I could go stay with his kids so that he could go to the hospital with Sandy, and I guess my mom also went to stay through the night as well.  Dakota and Natasha got home around 2 am and said that he was basically brain dead and would most likely be removed from life support in the morning :(  The next morning McKenna and Ryan, Troy & Tonia, Jeff's son Brett, and my mom were up at the hospital and I got there just after the ventilator had been removed and he passed away.  Jeff has pretty much been estranged from his son for most of his life, but Brett came to see him a couple years ago when he was in the hospital, and he came and brought his little boy to say good-bye. 

So sad to see a relatively young man gone too soon because of bad life choices. We were unsure whether he would make it through a severe pneumonia episode a couple years ago when he had to have surgery so that doctors could clean out all of the infection in his lung, and throughout that recovery he continued to smoke.  That was another vice he could just never let go of. After seeing the toll that such habits have taken on various members of our family you would think that it would be a lesson for anyone to never go down that path, but it still draws people in every day, and too many people cannot break free from it once they are in the clutches of addiction. Sandy said he was really happy the last 3 weeks of his life though, being sober and living up at a beautiful place in the mountains. She and my mom & Kent had visited him on Easter, and the day before that McKenna and Ryan had gone up to let Parker participate in the Easter egg hunt.

The rest of this week has been filled with comforting Sandy, making arrangements with the funeral home for the cremation, and scheduling a memorial service. My mom went to her house over the weekend to help her pack up Jeff's clothing so that she can donate the items to various places like the rehab facility where he was at, the homeless shelter, and the DI.  My mom's cousin, Kathy, and her husband now live out at Westwood Village where my grandma lived for years, and they have reserved that clubhouse for us to have a memorial service next Sunday.  I don't know if Jeff's son will come to the memorial service, but I know his brother is going to come down from Washington.

Sandy will get a little bit life insurance money and we are pushing her to put it towards the purchase of a mobile home in a nice park someplace like Westwood Village. She definitely does not want to stay where she is at as she hates the stairs and would likely fall further into depression.  If we don't stay on her to do something useful with the money I am afraid it will disappear on frivolous stuff.

Jeff Akers at Evva's 1st Birthday party 2017

Thoughts About “Rough Stone Rolling”, and Religion in General

4/15/2019

I started to put some of my thoughts together regarding Rough Stone Rolling and religion in general, and then I got distracted, so now I have to go back and re-listen and remember what I wanted to write about.... lol  Here is what I have written so far though:

My Thoughts About “Rough Stone Rolling”, and Religion in General

There has been some upheaval in my family in recent months related to religion.  I suppose there comes a point in most people’s lives when they take a serious look at what they value and believe and where they get their values and beliefs from, and that point has come for some members of my family. With the myriad of religions and life philosophies that abound in my family you would think that it would not be that big of a deal what anyone decided on this topic, except that where the change in direction took place took several of us by surprise so it has led to broad religious discussions among several members of the family.

In the past few weeks I have also pondered my values and beliefs once again and I took the time to read a book that has apparently played a big role in some discussions. The book is called “Rough Stone Rolling” by Richard Lyman Bushman and I am just a few chapters from the end. The book is about Joseph Smith and the early history of the LDS church and it relies heavily on diaries, affidavits, speculation, and witness statements from that era, as well as some modern speculation.  Quite honestly there has been almost nothing in the book that I did not already know, but I can understand how some of the history would be alarming to anyone who is reading it for the first time; it was alarming when it occurred as well, which is why Mormons were so persecuted and why Joseph Smith was murdered. 

 

My writings may take a few weeks to organize as there are several aspects I would like to address.  At night my mind ponders things while I lay in bed and then I forget those thoughts once I sit down to write, so initially I will jot down a myriad of thoughts as I read, then I will organize them into topics with coherent reasoning and flow later on (hopefully).

Man-made vs God-made

I suppose the primary issue comes down to what religions are man-made and what religions are God-made, or at the very least what gospel doctrine has truly come from God. If anyone is going to relegate the LDS church to just being another man-made church, then certainly all other churches fall into that category as well, including Christianity since Christ’s church and priesthood no longer existed after his apostles all died.  Non-Christians will relegate Jesus to being a made up or exaggerated story, Jews & Muslims will say he is not the Savior, and atheists will go even farther by stating that even God is a man-made story.  So where do you draw the line in deciding if historical accounts regarding God and Jesus and eternal life and a Plan of Salvation are really true?  Maybe it’s the Hindus or the Buddhists who have the truth.  If Joseph Smith’s interpretations and expansion on his understandings of God’s plan are all his own imaginings, then he was at least smart enough to make up a story that reaffirmed the Jesus story and Christian doctrines.  Kudos to him for attempting to give a leg up to Christians in his efforts to define God and gospel doctrine.  Christians who face uncertainty regarding how factual the stories of Jesus are should be even more enamored of a religion that provides additional accounts supporting the resurrection of Christ.

Even without the question of what core doctrines are true, in today’s world I want to be a part of a religion that is doing good in the world, so even if the LDS church’s founding is considered questionable by some, the church that has grown out of that has become a great force for good in the world.  We donate millions of pounds of food and clothing and millions of hours of service to people all over the world.  We have a better welfare program to help the poor than any government and probably better than any other church as well.  Yes, we build Temples, and everywhere that a temple is built the property values go up and the area is beautified, which is a much better use of church funds than having your local pastor using your donations to build his personal mansion. Having church leaders who volunteer their time rather than receive a salary also says a lot about commitment to a gospel that teaches good Christian principles. Some people who are critical of the way the church uses the funds that are donated also do not have an understanding of the laws regarding the tax status of churches. In order to retain the tax status of a 501(c)(3) an organization is required to spend a certain percentage of its revenues each year on its mission. While the church does provide significant aid to members and non-members around the world, that is not its only mission. In 1981 President Spencer W. Kimbal clarified the mission of the church as threefold:

1. To Proclaim the Gospel
2. To Perfect the Saints
3. To Redeem the dead  

Then in 2009 a 4th point was clarified. 

                4. To Care for the Poor and Needy

I would dare say that spending money on building churches and Temples is well within the necessary expenditures of a church.  And like I reiterated previously, it's certainly better than spending it on the pastor's house.

Being true to oneself vs family. 

This topic reminds me of the great mathematician John Nash in A Beautiful Mind when he came up with his Nobel prize winning negotiation/strategy theory.  When both parties pursue what they really want everyone loses out, but if both parties take the top prize off the negotiating table they can come to a mutual decision.  There comes a point in the pursuit of self that if you put yourself above all else and your own wants and needs above others, you become selfish and you and everyone around you loses out on what could otherwise be a great relationship.  When all parties decide to stop putting themselves as the end goal then they can discuss scenarios that are mutually beneficial. Now I am certainly not trying to say that everyone in a family has to be of the same religion to have good family relationships, but I do think that how some topics, such as religion or politics, are approached can lead one’s passions to a more selfish leaning.  I have one family member in particular that I think is like that and her selfish pursuits will leave her pretty lonely in her old age because she has missed out on many meaningful family relationships.  I think I experienced some of that when I reached the point in my life that I wanted to pursue my own dreams, knowledge, beliefs, and desires.  I eventually realized that I also wanted to participate more in the lives of my children and that there were aspects of my children’s beliefs and desires that I could accommodate without sacrificing my own person in the process. I reached the point where being less selfish gained me and my family more and it was worth it for me to put mutual desires ahead of some of my personal desires. That is true of many human interactions. I would never deign to decide for another person where that line is in their personal interactions, but it’s something that everyone ponders at some time in their life.

Other Christian Religions vs LDS Teachings

The LDS church is a Christian religion, regardless of how other Christian churches define Christianity. We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, baptism by immersion, the Holy Ghost, and everything else Christ teaches. I think the only significant difference in the core of the gospel is that we believe the Godhead is three distinct persons rather than one person. So if one were to do away with all of the additional interpretations and expounding that Joseph Smith or other LDS prophets have done and only sought to whittle our beliefs down to just what is contained in the New Testament, then which other Christian religions have any more authority to teach that gospel than the LDS church does?  I don’t think any of them do. At best they are equal to the LDS church in their authority to teach Christ’s gospel.  Christ’s church died away when his apostles died.  So for my efforts, I would rather belong to the LDS church where I can get everything Christ taught as well as additional insights that could be true as well, and if those additional insights are not true I still have not lost anything because I am still believing in and following the core gospel of Jesus Christ.

As for the New Testament, if you want to start digging into who decides what is true and what isn’t, there are many other gospels that were not canonized when King James brought religious leaders together to decide what to put into the Bible.  One of the books they decided not to include had tales of Jesus playing magical tricks on other kids when he was 5 years old and stories that were not so different from Joseph Smith’s early years living in a population of people who believed in magical powers. When you start down the path of trying to discredit any religion you will find exactly what you are looking for. Read Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code by Bart D Ehrman if you want so more interesting historical insights into the Bible. 

Following After Your Own God

Years ago a Sunday School teacher made a comment that has always stuck with me.  He said. “Everyone follows after their own God”.  Basically he meant that regardless of whether you belong to the same religion as someone else, you are still going to follow after those teachings that suit your desires, personality, and values. No two LDS people believe in the same way or have the same faith, nor any two Catholics or any two of any other religion. At some point in your adulthood you realize that you really do have the freedom to believe and live as you wish regardless of what religion you belong to.  I realized that when I became active again.  I don’t have to make my life into what other LDS people makes their lives; I can live the way I want to.  The point is to draw closer to God and Jesus Christ and I can do that regardless of whether I want to follow every little iota of the LDS culture.  If I can draw closer to Jesus and also participate in mutual activities with my family and neighbors under the umbrella of the LDS church, then I am not losing anything by being a member. I can choose whether I want to be a part of temple covenants, I can choose whether I want to abide by the law of tithing, I can choose whether I want to abide by the word of wisdom, etc.  And whether blessings are realized from those choices is up to me to decide, and my personal choices do not have to fall in line with someone else's choices for us to have a meaningful relationship. The strength of my testimony and faith is for myself, and if or when I choose to share that in a meaningful way with someone else does not mean that I think that they are less than me if they do not have a similar testimony, nor would I wish for them to think I am less if I do not believe the way that they do.

 

The biggest hurdle that one must learn, and that is probably a significant downside of the culture among many LDS members, is the purpose of guilt and shame.  Sadly, many members of the LDS church have grown up in an environment where guilt and shame are used as weapons of manipulation. Guilt and shame are supposed to be feelings that come from within when one feels remorse for something they have done.  If guilt and shame are being put upon you from someone else, then that is manipulation.  For those who have experienced such manipulation it is damaging and harmful and you should be standing up to such persons and condemning such behavior.  Your relationship with God and Christ is personal and you have been blessed with the free will to pursue that relationship in your own way.  Yes, the LDS church teaches things that you could do to further your growth or understanding and to serve others but you are ultimately free to say, “No, I don’t want to do that”.  "I don’t want to go on a mission", or "I don’t want to live the word of wisdom", or "I don’t want to be married in the Temple".  There are good things that can be learned by pursuing these things and many can testify of blessing they feel they received by following such admonitions, but sharing those testimonies of their own experiences should not be construed as meaning that you are less than they are if you decide that is not a path you want to follow.  I realize that for parents there is the responsibility to teach their children the difference between right and wrong, and teach about God and Christ, how to pray, and what it means to feel remorse and seek forgiveness, but if it’s being done in a way that is manipulative and harmful then the children are learning the wrong message.  If children are feeling alienated, shamed, stressed, or bullied about church rather than feeling Christ’s love and knowing their value regardless of how well they adhere to an LDS lifestyle, then the greatest teachings of the gospel have been missed. You are not an evil person going to hell just because you follow after your own God and you do not need to feel guilty if you choose to belong to the LDS church without adhering to every single teaching.  I understand that for some it gets tiresome when there are members who try to push, cajole, guilt, or demand that your step up and live more of their definition of being a good saint, and it makes you want to be inactive or find another church, but I think that in many locations and areas of the church the culture is changing and many members are taking to heart what President Uckdorft meant when he taught, “Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you do”.  I am an LDS member who is not perfect, and I have many family members who are LDS, and they are happy and content with their lives without feeling the need to be active, but they also do not feel the need to disavow the religion they grew up with either, because they are comfortable following after their own God even while staying a member of the church.  I don’t condemn anyone for wanting to search out other options, and in fact I think it’s the best thing for them to do if they feel the need to search more fervently regarding what it means to follow Christ’s gospel or any other aspects of just what God’s plans for us really are.  I want the open dialogue and I’m confident that in the end we will still be a strong family that is contributing strong children with good values to the world.

*UPDATE* I do not want to minimize the importance of God's commandments by pushing free will, I simply want to emphasize that our free will is just that... it's not under the jurisdiction of anyone but ourselves.  Feeling genuine guilt and remorse for not obeying God's commandments is different than being shamed by someone else who wants you to feel guilt when you believe you have done nothing wrong. Genuine feelings of guilt and remorse can only come to you through your own path, and until you recognize those feelings and want to repent it's really not the business of anyone else to direct you unless you ask for such help and direction.  I guess that is part of the responsibility for parents, to teach their children how and where to find such direction.  Prayer, of course, would be the first thing I would direct someone to do who was questioning their faith.  The scriptures would be the next place I would direct them to. Then if someone is still feeling like there is more to be studied, there is a big world out there with a lot of ideas that many people are eager to share. Go for it. I have met good people from many different spiritual backgrounds and there are many life philosophies that teach the basic principles that God wants us to live by. I am sure there are many adequate philosophies to get us to a satisfying place in the afterlife, but of course being from an LDS background I will always ponder whether "adequate" is enough, and whether doing more and learning more will gain us more in the afterlife. We shall see.

A Note About Priesthood

What is the Priesthood power that comes from God?  Is it real?  Are the keys spoken of in the Bible and the laying on of hands real avenues to accessing God’s power?  I believe there is an energy that connects us all, whether you want to call it Priesthood power, karma, or other terms that have floated around, it’s there.  When people share stories of prayers being heard, miraculous healing, visits by person’s who have died, I believe it. Our soul holds an energy that exists even after our mortal body dies. Scientists have proven that when a body dies and the soul leaves it there is a drop in weight, which means the soul has matter and exists; where does it go when the body dies?  The gospel attempts to answer this question and provides a plan for what happens to us both before and after our mortal existence.  

I watched a youtube video recently that was used to help atheists see the logic of a God and it did a great job of putting a scientific explanation on the existence of God.  A guy sets down a large thick book with probably millions if not billions of characters and words in it, then poses the question, “What if I told you that this book with all its pages and ink just came together all on its own with all the pages aligning and the ink dropping onto the pages in perfectly formed words and cohesive meaning?  Do you believe that could happen?”  Of course the person says no, so the dialogue continues, “You mean you believe someone literate and intelligent enough to write in an understandable language would have to have created this book?”  Yes, of course.  The discussion continues by introducing the topic of the basic building block of all life known as DNA.  In recent decades scientists have made great discoveries in the realm of DNA studies such that they have been able to zero in on what DNA sequences it takes to make a hand, or muscle tissue, or bone.

(Side note not in the youtube video: Scientists have even been able to get more accurate genotyping such that they have just in the last 5-6 years declared that South American lineages include up to a third of the same genotype as Middle Eastern genotypes, which lends credibility to the idea that there could have been people who came from Jerusalem to settle in the America’s.  Rough Stone Rolling was published in 2007, before this new information was known).

Anyway, scientists are slowly learning to unravel the language of DNA and are translating it so that they can understand it and even manipulate it. It’s literally billions of characters of information that is formed into a cohesive language of life that is not random, as scientists are able to translate it.  If a book cannot accidentally fall into place with characters and words and language intact for an understandable and usable message, why on earth would anyone believe that the code for DNA, this great book of life of everything living in the world, just fell together accidentally?  It came together through intelligent means, using characters and language every bit as complex as the most profound literature in any library.  This great book of DNA has a creator.

I have heard a similar example as described in the previous paragraph using a globe, where the person presents a globe or a model of the universe and poses the same questions about the likelihood of this model coming together all by itself, and then generalizing to the idea that the real earth did not accidentally come together either. The thing that hit me more with the DNA discussion, however, was the idea that DNA binds people through time.  I kind of think that part of what is meant with regards to sealing families together has something to do with that great book of life our creator wrote with DNA.  I think it’s one of the reasons why there is a religious concept about marriage being between a man and a woman.  The only true way a child and a family are bound is through DNA and the only true way a child comes into mortal existence is through a male and female relationship.  Of course this idea would be highly offensive to those in adoptive situations or those who were conceived in rape or incest, but regardless of how human relationships come about, DNA is how the true tracing of lineage is done and I can’t help but think that since it was written by our creator and is the most significant aspect of our mortal bodies that it could be significant to our eternal bonds in other ways as well. This is just my own pondering though… it’s not something that has ever been presented by the church as far as I know.

Magic, Faith, and Believing

One thing that tends to turn some people off with regards to the founding of the church is Joseph Smith's ties to "magical" beliefs and what some believed were simply the makings of con artists. In today's world I would compare it to the myriad of fortune tellers, tarot card reading, tea reading, and other fringe groups that still believe in such things. It's reasonable to wonder why God would bring his gospel back among a population like that instead of a more trustworthy source, but name for me a more trustworthy source?  If it had been a world-renowned archaeologist who found the Book of Mormon, would a church ever have grown out of such a discovery?  No.  The book would have ended up in a museum as just another historical record.  If God really did plan for this record to be known to the world in such a way as to be a second testament of Jesus Christ, then it had to come out among a people that 1. Would believe, and 2. Would build up a church that would bring people unto God and Jesus Christ to learn of the atonement and eternal life.  I would daresay that how that church would develop was left to the imaginings of those humans that God had placed his trust in, so it matters not so much to me what or how operations of the church developed, but simply that the church was developed with the primary goal of bringing people unto God and Christ, of which it has done and continues to do. If someone wants to question the legitimacy of the organization of the church and the priesthood power, then I would refer them back to my previous comments about following after their own God. You are not obligated to believe in anything even if you choose to continue an association with the LDS church. In the end everyone makes their own relationship with God and will continue through the eternities with whatever they build in their heart and mind and soul in regards to that relationship.  But like someone who is close to me once said, "I would rather live by the gospel teachings I have learned and reach Heaven to find that it wasn't true, than to not live by the gospel teachings I have learned and reach Heaven to find that it was true.  If it does no harm to live by the gospel teachings, then what have you lost?"

Some even question whether there really was a book of gold plates, but I believe the witness testimonies that the book existed. Regardless of other human failings on the part of Joseph Smith or any other church leaders, I cannot dismiss the testimonies of those who witnessed his dictation of the Book of Mormon to those who acted as scribe for those dictations. To be able to have such a book roll out with no drafts or revisions, and to be able to simply pick up where he left off after any breaks without the scribes refreshing his memory as to where he left off is not a normal bringing forth of any book no matter how well-read someone is, and would certainly be beyond the capabilities of someone with such a limited formal education as what Joseph Smith had. None of the speculations presented about the possibilities of him getting information from other authors or even some wild speculations of him having a photographic memory rise to any semblance of logic in explaining how the Book of Mormon was written.

More on this later....