2061: Good Timber!

 I have been thinking about what to put on this blog today!

I think I'll put paintings I've done over the years, until I can remember how to do photos from my phone!  This painting I did for a granddaughter of mine, Brittani, when she graduated from high school.  This is about 16 by 20 inches.

Then a few years ago she got married, and I painted her another:

 

This is of the mountain on the east side of Ogden, and is about 24 by 30 inches.  I added the horses and trees, so it would be more interesting to look at!   

I took art starting in junior high school in the 7th grade, through high school, and in my first two years of college, at Dixie College in St. George, Utah.  I have taken several art classes since, during my life.

This blog I hope to keep interesting to readers, and I believe I now will copy a poem I read just last week.  I truly enjoyed our General Conference this past weekend.  Our Prophet is President Dallin H. Oaks, who years ago was the President of BYU and got his Law degree, and helped in the Utah State Government before he was called as an apostle.  For those readers who aren't aware of how our Prophet is called, they are men who have been very faithful leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, of which I am a member.  Then, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as Jesus had, they help lead our Church, following the current Prophet, until they become the longest living Apostle, and they are "set apart" by the remaining of the Apostles, and then another Apostle is called to fill the vacancy.  It isn't an election or trying to get any calling notice at all.  It is all done by revelation and inspiration by those who are in authority.  It is Jesus' way!

A day or two before Conference I watched a video by Tyler Griffin, who has a YouTube post called "Faith Insights", which I really enjoy!  It was about the Prophets and Apostles who would be talking in the upcoming Conference, which was April 4th and 5th.  You can go to YouTube and find many of them to re-listen to.  In Brother Griffin's post, he showed pictures of many of several of the huge redwood trees, and compared them to the strength of the Prophets and people who we would be watching and listening to.  He quoted a poem, named "Good Timber" by Doughlas Malloch.  It is below:

              Good Timber

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got it's share of rain,

Never became a Forest King

But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share

Of sun and sky and light and air,

Never became a manly man

But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:

The stronger wind, the stronger trees;

The further sky, the greater length;

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,

We find the Patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life.

     

I found this on the internet, and I will add things like that at times.  My mother wrote beautiful poetry, and I will add hers now and then.

My mother, Ruth Allen Miles, taught school for 40 years!  The last year she taught, she had the grandmother of a current student, and also the mother.  I don't know if it was a boy or girl.  My father, Orson Pratt Miles, (no relative of the original Orson Pratt) was on the front lines in World War I, and it affected all his life.  He was such a gentle and kind soul, and having to shoot real live people was more then he could live with peaceably.  He was a barber, and had a room in each home we lived in, and took as many customers a day as he could.  He always gave free haircuts to anyone who had a missionary out, who was a Temple worker, etc.. and the Shivwit Indians who lived close, or others he wanted to be kind to. 

Ruth taught school 6 years before her marriage, and the rest after, starting when I was in the second grade!  I will close this time, and hope each of you are having a good day, and make up your minds to be HAPPY!