In Which I Am Alive

A friend once asked me what I feared most. The conversation had consisted of answers along the lines of spiders, snakes, rapists, the like. My response: "Being wrong." I was terrified that I was going to die, and find out that everything I ever believed in was wrong.  That I would wake up, look around and realize, "Hey, this is hell, not heaven!" But today, I realized...I could handle that. Well, not the being in hell part. That would suck. Just the being wrong part. That if I died and was having a good old heart-to-heart with God, or St. Peter, or my great-great grandmother-- whoever shows you the ropes and answers your questions after you die-- and was told, "You know, your beliefs were great and all, but the Baptists were actually a lot closer to the truth" I'd be a little confused, but I could take it. That if I learned that the Trinitarian conception of the Godhead was a lot closer than the Mormon one, or that the prophets have made mistakes a...

Hey friends. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, I was thinking about starting a blog (actually, I had to for a class) and I was trying to think of a URL for it. Around the same time, I watched a documentary on the life of an LDS concert pianist named Reid Nibley (Yes, Hugh's brother). When Reid was asked what advice he had for young piano students, all he said was, "Practice beautifully."  That little phrase changed my perspective. Previously I had practiced mechanically, trying to memorize songs, perfect technique, all that jazz. But how much more enjoyable, how much more wonderful can practicing be, if every second that I'm at the piano, I am striving for beauty, for emotional connection with music, for purity in sound and feeling? And outside of music, what if we lived every second like it mattered, not like it was a practice for something later? I decided to take Nibley's "Practice Beautifully" one step further, and use the phrase "Li...