My Visit with Mr. Zippy

A heartfelt thank you goes out to all of you who have expressed concern and even included me in your prayers during my recent carotid artery surgery and ongoing recovery.
I'm mending well, and hope to see all of you soon.
I even miss one or two of you.
Meanwhile, here's my presurgical poem to my doctor:

Doctor, in your surgeon's coat,
Won't you please come slit my throat?
(With apologies to Dr. Anhtai Nguyen)

I Wonder

Having just viewed the DVD movie version of Gerald N. Lund's "The Work & the Glory", his written words still impress me more than the screenplay, even though both versions stirred my soul with the eternal truths woven throughout.
I wonder, though, will this book and movie perhaps bring others to that with which I and others like me have been so richly blessed?
Will others come to realize and make these same choices in their lives, regardless of the difficult consequences of and opposition to those choices?
I wonder.
And, as I wonder, I also have learned that WAL*MART now has both the book and DVD for sale.

The Value of Longsuffering Friends (a letter to one of mine)

Thank you.
Sitting here, temporarily homebound since my supernally successful surgery last week, has been frustrating as well as productive for me in many ways.
There has been a purpose and a pattern manifested to me in all of this about the lessons God has been so patiently trying to teach me for such a long, long time now.
(I'm also very much aware of His repeated intervention on my behalf while He continues to try to get my attention)
In the midst of all of this, I perceive a preparatory caution of another great event (choice?) forthcoming soon in my life.
No, I don't yet know it's nature or circumstances - only that it will be soon, as well as an important personal decision and challenge.
This has caused me much reflection and wonderment.
Last night, as I prayed for guidance and then also thought about all the folks in my life, especially those who have made such a positive impression and a difference in it (not many), you were at the top of that "A" list.
A friend told me once that I "don't suffer fools gladly".
He just was being kind, and trying to put a positive spin on my impatience, arrogance, mule-headed and often irreverent demeanor.
Perhaps Don Fishel said it better when he once told me that I "am as subtle as a train wreck".
That's true, and I've never much felt inclined to soft-pedal my opinions, nor to long endure the company of those whose opinions are inconsequential (or even "stupid") to me.
You, however, are one of those (I can count all of you on the fingers of my hand) who have earned my profound respect and admiration.
More so than even those select few, you have been privy to parts of my personal history, opinions, and fears that I have kept locked away from the rest of the world and even my own family.
Even some of my local and Stake Priesthood leaders once abandoned me when I was most in need of help, and, while that hurt most of all, it also was a precious lesson for me about judging others, tolerance, patience, compassion, and forgiveness (most especially on my part).
It taught me that, regardless of our callings and position in the Church and life, we all just are doing the best we can, and we sometimes come to imperfect conclusions.
How fortunate we all are that "it is by grace we are saved, after all we can do" (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Book of Mormon - 2 Nephi 25:23), and that God takes our well-meaning but often clumsy efforts and decisions, and molds them to His own purposes for our ultimate good.
Such was and always has been the case with me.
And yet, you have put up with all of this from me without complaint, and always have been so wondrously supportive of and positive to me.
If you and I were Roman Catholics, I would petition to have you elevated to Sainthood.
Is it any wonder why I always have included the welfare of you and
yours in my personal prayers and also on the Temple Prayer Roll?
Thank you.

Once Upon a Dream

Naps have been very much the order of the day as I currently recuperate here at home from surgery, and , with those naps, sometimes comes dreams.
In my Patriarchal Blessing (29 November 1969), I am promised many wonderful things, many of which have come to pass in miraculous ways.
Among those promises is that one day, "I will know as I am known".
Many other things have been promised me in that Blessing; things which I understand and appreciate better as I experience more and more of life.
Still, it always has perplexed me as to how God sees me and what He thinks of me.
In a recent afternoon dream, I was standing with angels as we watched me struggle and stumble through life.
It amazed me to realize the efforts that were going on all around me; to influence me for good, but also for evil.
As I watched, time after time, I would seek to lift myself up from my own selfishness and foolishness, only to stumble as I became confused and distracted from Eternal goals.
The angels would sadly shake their heads and weep, but then they would start all over again with me.
The patience and love of those guardian angels who ministered to me was a marvelous work and a wonder to behold.
Never once did they give up on me, even when I had all but given up on myself.
As I looked about in my dream and beheld the heartaches all of us endures throughout life, and often bring upon ourselves (with a vengeance), I marveled over and over again at the love and patience of Our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ.
There's more, but words fail me.....except that I know that the only way we can fail is just to give up.

Diamonds in the Rough

At about 5:20 AM this morning, as I was walking through the prison compound and on the way to my case management office in Housing Unit #4, I passed the Segregation Housing Unit, where the most troublesome (even for a prison) inmates are kept on absolute lock-down.
It is the nature of these guys to spew profanities from their cell windows to anyone walking by, but, this morning, one poor soul yelled out to me, "Thank you, Mr. Kump! You do your job."
Then, later in the morning, one of my coworkers told me that the inmates in his therapy group told him that I was "pretty cool", and they even looked forward to my "stupid jokes", even as they also told him that they were embarassed to admit that they liked them.
Finally, a mafia kingpin,who has been imprisoned at Roxbury Correctional Institution many years, somehow found out about my upcoming surgery, and he told me on the walk that he would be asking his sister, a Catholic Nun, to include me in her parish's prayers.