Rookie

I am a 49 year old rookie to blogging. I am starting because of my experience in reading our friends' blog recently after the death of their young daughter. I was impressed by the their willingness to share such a painful experience. I was also impressed by the tremendous outpouring of love, sympathy and even empathy they received from family, friends, and people they have never met who responded to their posts. It brought meaning to the phrase, "we are here together to help one another."

I've titled my blog, "the selfless life," not because I have achieved it but because I believe in it. I tasted a little bit of what heaven must feel like by being a part of a community who gave selflessly of their time, resources and love to comfort the parents of Lucy, the young girl who left us to return to her Heavenly Father. 

The last thing I want this blog to be is a pulpit. Though I am a devout member of, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," I am open to all people of all religions that ernestly seek to love and understand each other, and live honestly.  I don't believe that selfless living is exclusive to Mormons.  Mostly, as I learned from my friends' blog, I just want to share the experience of trying to live a selfless life devoted to loving and serving others.  

I suppose I will make many references to "Mormon" things, i.e., "The Book of Mormon," and the Mormon lifestyle (which doesn't include polygamy) of family, friends, and wards, and missions, and missionaries, and lots of time at church.  Occasionally, it will include references to priesthood, and prophets and to Jesus Christ, our Savior.  These things make up a large part of the influences in my life. To not share them would be to not represent my real life experiences.  (I'll try to keep the double negatives to a minimum.)  

I don't pretend to be a professional writer. If I was trying to achieve some type of literary excellence I would just write a book and be subject to all of the criticism and re-writes that process entails. I haven't figured out how to include pictures or music. I will. When I am tired of writing I won't make any conclusions, summaries or good-byes. I'll just stop writing. That's all.