When snow attacks!

Last night Tim and I went on a walk and spent some time by the duck pond south of campus. It was fairly late and it had been snowing lightly for a bit but nothing significant. As we sat watching the ducks dive for food and chase each other around the pond a guy came walking down the hill from campus and stood at the other end of the pond. Just stood there. He was probably there for about 10-15 minutes before a person with a flashlight started down the hill. At first Tim and I thought they could both be campus police and for whatever reason they were taking turns at the pond. The flashlight guy walked the tree line for a minute before moving toward the pond and around toward the first guy who proceeded to walk back up the hill the way he came without talking to flashlight guy. To me, this seemed to confirm the possibility that they were working together but when flashlight guy got around to where we were sitting he started asking us if we knew anything about the guy who had been there. Officially a creeper, methinks. It made me really glad that I hadn't been there by myself, who knows if he'd have tried to approach me.

I figured last night that the snow wouldn't be anything big even if it went till morning because it wasn't sticking to anything but when I woke up we had about 4-5 inches on the ground and everything was coated in a thick covering of powdered sugar. On the way up to campus, the ramp blessedly clear, Chelsea and I did not totally escape the snow as handfuls of it began to drop from the trees above us like bombs. We both got hit a couple of times but the worst was when some of it nailed me right between my glasses and my face, getting into my eye and stinging more than water has any right to. No, Chelsea, my protective lenses of prescription did not save me that time. Altogether it was an entertaining walk for us and I bet those around us gleaned some humor from us as well when great globs of snow fell right in front of us as we walked. We probably looked like little kids afraid of the snow but it was a lot of fun :)

In my sociology class we discussed an article about self-image, self-love, and self-esteem. Reading it was an interesting experience because the author is going against everything that we grow up hearing about how we have to have good self-esteem and love for ourselves before we can really love anyone else. On that level it was somewhat uncomfortable and irritating because, of course, we don't like being told we're wrong, but on the other hand, the whole thing just rang true somewhere in my mind. Most people would recognize that someone who is self-absorbed is selfish and that's not a good thing to be but the idea here is that selfishness is a disease shared by those who are our stereotypical view of "self-absorbed" and those who are viewed as having "low-self-esteem" because both involve a person who is concerned with and focused on themselves. This is not to say that we should have a bad self-image. To me, this means that we should, instead, have no self-image. Perhaps this seems a bit esoteric and I suppose it is but we didn't make ourselves and we never can fully control how others view us so how can we have any self-image to begin with? I'm butchering this, haha.
Okay, when I was reading along in this article before class I was thinking about the scripture in Leviticus 19:18 that says "love thy neighbor as thyself." Growing up, I have heard so many times this scripture being applied to the need to love ourselves but the author makes the point that nowhere in this scripture does it allude to that. It is saying that we should love others at least as much as we love ourselves instead of judging them. I can't paraphrase this next part well enough so I'll type it out for you:

But contrast Leviticus 19:18 with what Christ says to his disciples
in John 13:34, in his last instructions to the first Twelve: "A new commandment
I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also
love one another." As John later points out, this "new" commandment has
been a commandment from the beginning (1 John 2:7,8). The law of Christ
fulfills the law of Moses by showing us what the law of Moses meant, so in giving
a new commandment, the Savior was revealing what stood behind the old one.
As I read these verses, just before his sacrifice Christ gave this new, fulfilling, and
basic commandment about love, a commandment in which we are told,
first, only to love one another. No qualifiers for that love are given.
Then, so there can be no mistaking this new commandment for the old
one -- so we can really understand what kind of love the love of our
neighbor should be -- we are given a new standard for that love: we are
told to love one another as Christ loves us, not as we love ourselves.
Later that night, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the next day, on the cross,
Christ's suffering for us gives profound punctuation to the new commandment
and the love of which it speaks. Christ commands a love that empties
itself (to use the language of Philippians 2:7 -- "made himself of no
reputation" in the King James translation), a love that seeks not its own
glory, but the glory of another (John 8:50).
-- Self-Image, Self-Love, and Salvation, James E. Faulconer, pg 14

Mmm. Did you know that there was no such concept as self-esteem until very recently? It's true. The concept was created and pushed by, as much as it pains me to say, psychologist as the profession began to emerge. Funny how a world that existed without it for thousands of years is now so dependent on the idea. Funny how, in a world that says we need to focus on ourselves, get ourselves totally straightened away before we can truly pay attention to others, missionaries who have done nothing but serve others for two years come home and become depressed when "real life" sets in and they are consumed with thoughts of "my life," "my education," "my future." Funny.
Faulconer makes another excellent point [in my opinion] a few pages before this excerpt. He says:

In the second place, when the scriptures speak of God's love,
it is always his love of something other than himself --
of his children (Galatians 2:20, 1 John 4:11, and Moses 1:39),
of the world (John 3:16 and D&C 34:3). There are no
scriptural references to Divine self-love.
-- Self-Image, Self-Love, and Salvation, James E. Faulconer, pg 12
[italics added]

All throughout this class I was reminded of the words Pres. Hinckley's father wrote to him while he was serving his mission: "Forget yourself and go to work." Honestly, I believe this applies to more than just those serving in the mission field because our lives here are a labor for our salvation and that of others and to succeed, to save ourselves, we must forget ourselves.