Of Crockpots, Crackpots, and Conference

Julie served up a hardy meal of 16 bean soup last week, straight from her slow cooker, and gave us a bag of the beans to boot. When I saw that Greg's kitchen was barely fair, or fairly bare,, I promptly bought a small slow cooker for him too. Then a few hours before we left, while he was still at work, I started some 16 bean soup in it of his own. He said he ate it for several days, and pronounced it "scrumptious!" I've been scouring the web for easy meals since then, and I think I've hit the crockpot jackpot. If anyone cares to join us in our current crockpot craze, here you go: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

Now on to crackpots. n. An eccentric person, especially one with bizarre ideas. adj. Foolish; harebrained: a crackpot notion. Traumatic experiences can turn almost anyone into not exactly a crackpot, but certainly someone with major problems to overcome. I took Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, along with me to Denver, and read it aloud to Brianna as the boys chauffeured us in luxury. I've meant to read it for years. At last, I have, and even as I finished it, I knew I need to read it again. There is so much to absorb. This, for instance:

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate."

"Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to act in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him -- mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."

Two messages ring loud an clear to me from this book: We can rise above our past, our present, all of our difficulties, and choose to overcome them, not to be eternally victimized by them; it is our duty to find and put meaning and purpose into our lives. But as I said, there is much, much more here to chew on.

I've heard Man's Search for Meaning quoted in general conference before. Wouldn't it be something if I heard it again this very weekend? I will be listening, intently, when prophets and apostles speak!