Thank you for your comments, guys!  Amy, you are coming?  Ah, crap!

Just kidding.  We would love to have you here.

Kat, thank you for the question.  I will attempt to answer that here.

First off, for the record, I am a firm believer in the theory that any situation you find yourself in life, you share in the responsibility for that situation.  No one is completely innocent.  In fact, the more I experience in life, the more I am convinced that the old excuse “I did nothing wrong!” is a load of steaming bull crap.  I just don’t buy it anymore.  Sure, there are situations in life where everything concerning a situation would make one party appear completely guiltless.  Here I grant concession to the victims of random acts of violence and senseless chaos—I don’t think you need to do anything in particular to provoke stupidity.  It is true that anger and violence are on the increase in our society and sometimes the acts of violence are random—senseless, unprovoked, meaningless.  Additionally, there is such thing as mental illness, and dealing rationally with someone who is a few cards short of a deck is pointless.  Granting these exceptions to the rule, let me focus more specifically on relationship problems, although I do believe that this rule can and does, more often than not, apply to every interaction we have in life.

There was once a person in the early history of the Church who approached the Prophet Joseph Smith with a problem.  This person was very upset and felt that they had been victimized.  They came to the Prophet, I think, not looking for answers, but expecting him to do something for them—to vindicate themselves.  The Joseph, however, was a little bit too smart for that.  The following is the gist of his response, as I cannot find the exact source and therefore cannot quote it exactly (this was from the Lectures on Joseph Smith by Truman G Madsen):

“Brother, whenever someone comes to me with a complaint about something I have done, I think about it.  Then I pray about it.  I ask God if I have done anything in my life that would give cause to these accusations.  And brother, often, if I think about it and pray about, I find there is something.  And there wells up within me a deep sense of repentance to my Heavenly Father and a great love towards the person who came to me.”

Even if Joseph didn’t actually say that, from what I have learned about him, I would not be very much surprised to hear that he did.  Regardless, it teaches a principal which I find consistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Specifically, the idea of personal responsibility.

What does it serve anyone to enter a situation with a “I’m right, you’re wrong” mentality?  Does it help the situation?  I haven’t met very many people who want to believe that they are in the wrong all the time: it is depressing.  In our religion, which focuses on improvement and striving towards the example of Jesus Christ, it does not take long before we find yet another area in which we fall short.  I think it is natural for someone to want to believe that they are not part of the problem.  This is delusional thinking, however, and does not benefit anyone.

Even though we fall short on a regular basis, we have to come to terms with 2 facts: 1) Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ know that we fall short on a regular basis.  Hence, the Atonement and the principle of repentance.  Their patience is eternal and will be sustained so long as we are willing to walk the path.  2) Depression under these circumstances is understandable, but you have to identify the source.  Who wants you to be depressed about falling short?  Do you read anywhere in the scriptures or hear from modern-day prophets the idea that we need to beat ourselves to death because of our mistakes?  If you think about it, that attitude is not from God.  He wants us to get back up and move on, not wallow in self-pity and self-loathing.  Think about which spirit your are listening to, and it should wake you up pretty fast.

The whole purpose of this tangent was to make one point—when I talk about ‘showing-up’ in relation to my family, I include myself in that mix.  I am not here, writing about this, with any intention of pointing the finger at anyone but myself.  I cannot control anyone else’s behavior but my own.  If I seek first to cleanse my inward vessel, then perhaps not only I, but those around me will benefit when my ‘cup runneth over’, right?  And maybe, just maybe, someone else will see my behavior change and be inspired to change themselves.

‘Showing-up’, to me, means something very special.  I love to write and I do love to talk, but anyone who knows me well knows that I can be a very quiet person.  I have always had the philosophy that “God gave you two ears and one mouth, which means you should listen twice as much as you talk”.  Sometimes the worst of situations is settled simply by another’s willingness to listen.  By listening, of course, I do not mean simply hearing the vibrating air funneled into our eardrums.  Listening implies something active.  It is an understanding as much as being quiet for periods of time.  Most people just want to be understood.

Keeping that attitude in mind, even though I do value words tremendously, there comes a point where you either have to ‘put-up or shut-up’.  As the saying goes: “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care”.

This statement, to me, encapsulates the whole essence of ‘showing-up’.  Showing-up in someone’s life (or the lack thereof) is that difference between speaking and acting.  It is an active, physical presence in someone else’s life.

Let me use to examples here from my own life.  I use these not to make anyone feel bad or to feel good, necessarily.  I use them because they are a good contrast and I believe will illustrate my point.

When we took Asher into the hospital last Sunday, I was nervous.  I was not sure what was going to happen, but, regardless, I wanted to give him a Priesthood blessing.  This can be done by myself, but I chose to call someone to assist, just in case.  I called my Dad.  I didn’t have to say more than a few words before he left his birthday dinner (sorry dad!) and rushed to the hospital to be with me, my wife and my son.

He showed-up in my life.

I cannot express in words what that meant to me and what it means to me now.  No, retrospectively, that probably wasn’t necessary to have him drop everything and come down to be with me.  But I needed him, and he was there.  My dad is very good at expressing his feelings, which I do appreciate.  But, he doesn’t need to express them because he acts on them.

Example number 2: (disclaimer: Kat and Mike, I know that you have already made amends for this, so please don’t take offense to this—you guys are great!)

When I graduated from college, the only people that came to support me were my wife and my dad and Lucy.  Brooke’s family is mostly out of state, but my family all lives close by.  I realize that everyone had an excuse, but in 20 years, will I remember the excuses?  Do I remember them now?  Or will I remember the fact that no one showed-up for me that day?  Will any of you remember those excuses?  Were they even that important to begin with?  I realize that (hopefully) no one actively thought: “Screw Andy!  I’m staying home!”, but actions do speak louder than words.  Actions are the final say for the true meaning in our minds.  They are the evidence.  Even if we can convince ourselves otherwise, our actions convict us.  It hurt a lot, honestly.

And here is where the conviction for myself enters, because, given these ideas, I begin to ask myself: “Have I showed up in the lives of my family?”; “Have any of them been hurting and I wasn’t there?”; “Would any of them trust me enough right now to let me be there for them if they needed it?”; “Would I even know if they needed me?”

Ouch.

Family relations have been nearly at the forefront of my mind lately.  Yes, there is the day-to-day stuff that gets in the way, but behind all that, this lingers.

Dad gave me a sobering thought a few months ago when I was complaining to him about how badly our family relationships sucked.  I told him at that time that I felt like doing what I am doing right now—reaching out to others.  He told me he wanted to give it a shot first.  I do believe he has made real progress, but I still felt like I needed to do this.  Anyway, what he told me was this:

It is really up to us, as brothers and sisters, to determine what we want out of this relationship.  Dad’s family gets together every couple of years and has a party, usually around Christmas time.  They do things every once in a while to have fun, but mostly their relationship as a family would best be described as “pleasant, cordial, yet distant.”  Dad told me that if this is what the family wants, then that is what the family will get.

This was sobering because it told me that, despite my desires, maybe the Clark family is headed in this direction.  Maybe that is what the Clark family wants.

I don’t.

In my mind, from my childhood, I have a very idealistic view of what my family was.  Sure, my brothers tortured me, but I still came away from my childhood, going into my mission and even coming home from my mission with the opinion that the Clark family was the closest, best, strongest family in the whole world. 

We have been drifting for some time now.  Certain siblings stay closer to certain others, but, as a whole, we are not what we used to be.  Let’s face the facts here, because putting make-up on its face won’t make it any less ugly.

In my patriarchal blessing, I had a pretty unusual promise made to me.  I don’t feel comfortable sharing the exact language here, but suffice it to say, it indicates to me that I have an important role to play in my family.  I am not sure what that means exactly: I don’t even know if I can make a difference in the direction in which we are headed.  But let me tell you what I do know.

I love my brothers and my sisters.  We have differences, but we have a lot in common.  We are a family, which is a very important thing to Heavenly Father.  If I am to play any type of role in my family, it will be through His power and His grace, of which I am absolutely confident.

I am the youngest in the family, which essentially means that my older siblings have gotten quite good at writing what I say off as me being too younger to really understand any better.  If any of you have that impression, I need to tell you right now that you are dead wrong.  True, I do not have the same experience as you guys do.  True, there are probably a lot of things that you guys know better than I do.  But God has given me gifts and talents and wisdom through His Spirit, and what I have to say is important.

Our family can be so much more than it is now.  If I start showing-up for you in your life, will you do the same for me?  I have taken the first few steps in that direction and I am determined to continue.  Please forgive me for not being there for you—I am sorry.  But things can change in an instant if we let it, do you know that?  Do you believe that?

Do you want that?  Because that is the ultimate catch-22.  If we aren’t all on-board, then the ship sinks and we all drown.  Kind of a paradox, but I still believe it to be true.  We are only as strong as the weakest link, but what if every link were strong?

What would the Clark family be like then?

I have an idea, and it makes me weep with joy to think of it.