4 Ways Scouting Builds Boys Into Faithful Priesthood Holders

I try to follow a strict "no controversy" policy here on my blog. That means I generally refrain from posting about things like current events, politics, and even religion (though I do moderately discuss my faith from time to time). I also attempt to stay light-hearted, though my posts do get a little heavy now and then.

It's not that I don't have opinions on important subjects; any of my Facebook friends could tell you that's a long way from the truth. But I think everyone could use a break from the depression and contention that has taken over social media. 

That's why, when I could have been complaining here about the healthcare system or the roads, analyzing the election, or railing against conservatives and liberals alike, instead I've written conspiracy theories about Thomas the Tank Engine and Lego, griped about my kids' pajamas and how hard it is to name a boy, and confessed to crashing into a Wendy's and being (apparently) worth abandoning in Canada. 

Image credit: Gifrific

You can get your news and commentary from plenty of other websites; I'm just here to (hopefully) make you smile between news outrages and Internet debates.

But I'm going to diverge from my typical practice today and flirt with a hot issue. And, if you'll bear with me, I'm also going to narrow down my target audience for this post to just my Mormon peers--though I think much of what I say can still apply to anyone. I'll try to place hyperlinks wherever necessary to help explain some jargon.

The Issue

So, the Deseret News published an interesting headline this week: "Boy Scouts of America announces that it will allow transgender youth in boys-only program." The article began:

"The Boy Scouts of America said Monday it will begin accepting transgender boys in its boys-only programs, which is a move away from its long-time practice of determining eligibility by gender as stated on a birth certificate.

"In and around Utah, many wonder how that policy change will affect the Boy Scouts’ relationship with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BSA’s first sponsoring unit with more than a century’s history as well as its largest chartering sponsor."

Naturally, the article attracted a lot of attention, and I made the mistake of looking at the comments. That's right, I violated the First Rule of Online Sanity: never read the comments.

The upset reactions came as no surprise. Some people demanded the Church cut ties with the BSA--an increasingly popular sentiment at least since the 2015 allowance of gay Scoutleaders. Some accused the BSA of abandoning its values. Some questioned the moral courage of Church leadership for remaining involved in Scouting. One guy said he was returning his Eagle Scout award to BSA headquarters, and another said he was removing his Eagle from his resume.

Lots of angry people.

I'm not here to argue whether the Boy Scouts of America did the right thing. I'm not going near that.

No siree, Bob. Can't stand worms.
Image credit: Web2Carz

I have a different point to make. And this is why I'm specifically talking to the Mormons, whose Church has been the BSA's largest chartering sponsor for decades.

I want to address a specific type of comment I noticed in the dark pit--the type that ran along the lines of, "Scouting offers nothing of value because it doesn't build boys' testimonies, help them develop Christlike attributes, or prepare them for Priesthood responsibilities and missionary service."

Well, brothers and sisters, I don't speak for the Church, but I believe that line of thinking is narrow-minded and erroneous. And I can back my opinion up. Here are 4 ways Scouting builds boys into strong, faithful Priesthood holders:

1. It's About More Than Camping

Close your eyes and think "Boy Scouts." Chances are you saw that iconic brown uniform, a campfire, and a tent. Am I right?

Outdoor skills are usually the first thing people associate with Scouting, and there's nothing wrong with that. But camping and survival are only a small part of what Scouts learn.

For example, my Personal Management merit badge required me to plan and follow a budget for three months.

For the Citizenship in the Nation merit badge, my Scout troop wrote letters to our Congressional representatives.

The Family Life merit badge included extensive discussion on what makes an effective father.

All three of those badges are required to earn the Eagle Scout award. Many other badges are available that teach boys science, trades, arts, business skills, and more things that will aid them as adults. I got a more well-rounded education in my Scout troop than I did in school.

Following a budget. Family relations. These sound like the kinds of things that help boys become good fathers. Isn't that the most important Priesthood responsibility a boy will ever have?

They might as well just call it the Fatherhood merit badge.
Image credit: meritbadge.org

2. Scouting Teaches Everyday Character

I can still recite the Scout Law:

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

And the Scout Oath:

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

And even the Scout Slogan:

Do a good turn daily.

Those are the kinds of things I learned at church on Sunday. But I also learned them during the week at my Scout meetings. Scouting taught me how to be a good person just as much as church did. Living the Scout Oath during the week reinforced Christ's teachings in my character the way nothing else could.

I know Scouting isn't the only way boys can get exposure to important Gospel principles during the week--after all, they also have mutual activities, family home evening, and seminary--but isn't it good to have a program like Boy Scouts, outside a purely home or spiritual setting, to help boys understand that what they learn in church applies all week? 

This is everyday character we're talking about--not simply a religious practice. On top of that, Boy Scouts learn how to study and apply new ideas, diversify their skills, serve others, and take care of themselves. In other words, you show me a good Scout, and I'll show you a prepared missionary.

3. Scouting Helps Boys Find Their Strength

At twelve years old, I was the small, scared, unathletic runt of my Scout troop. I could hardly swim. I couldn't ride a bike. I lost my breath playing HORSE.

Can you imagine how much it terrified me that the Swimming merit badge was required for my Eagle? Or how it discouraged me to have basketball stars in my troop?

I didn't think I could go very far in Scouting.

But I had a good Scoutmaster. The boys in my troop always had my back. And I swam. I hiked. I camped. I learned impossible knots. I served. I grew.

I didn't just survive; I thrived.

Three weeks after my fourteenth birthday, I finished my Eagle project. Just a few months later, I shared a Court of Honor with a friend in my troop, where friends and family had gathered to celebrate our hard work.

Earning my Eagle is one of the hardest things I've ever done. At twelve I doubted I could do it. But in Scouting, I found strength I didn't know I had. I found the courage to do hard things.

You know what else is hard? Serving a mission. Holding high standards of behavior in college. Living the Gospel in a world that increasingly tries to drown religion out.

Scouting prepared me for all of that. If I can pass a swimming test; if I can hike fifty miles with thirty pounds on my back and one cup of food per meal; if I can tie a sheet bend and a double half-hitch; then I can keep my faith intact in 2017.

"Hold to the Rod?" Not a problem with my prusik hitch!
Image credit: lds.org

4. Scouting Can Build Unity in Quorums

I mentioned a minute ago that the boys in my Scout troop had my back. Those boys also happened to be my deacons' quorum.

In church we learned and carried out our Priesthood responsibilities.

We passed the sacrament.

We gathered fast offerings.

We served our ward members.

It was meaningful, and we grew a lot.

But it was in Scouts, as a Scout troop, that we truly learned to love and serve each other. We kept each other safe at camp. We cheered each other on in fitness tests. They taught me physical skills, and I helped them out with the more academic stuff whenever they needed it.

Nothing bonds a group of boys like gazing at the Milky Way around a campfire and talking about life.

We worked hard and achieved great things together. I believe because of Scouting we became a unified Aaronic Priesthood quorum. To this day we're all still friends.

One Final Note

Don't get me wrong: I think Church activity and deep, abiding testimony are more important than Scouting. Building faith and learning and carrying out Priesthood responsibilities should take priority over all the other skills boys learn in Scouts. But Scouting is a good means to a good end.

I also get that not everyone has had the same experience with Scouting that I did. Some troops don't have good leaders. Some boys just are not engaged--many aren't even engaged at school, home, or church. But I don't believe the problem is with Scouting. Let's all reflect a little.

Scouting's not a perfect program, by any means, but we can't forget the good it does. If the Church comes up with something new that does as good a job, or better, at combining both the temporal and spiritual to teach our boys, I'll be the first to jump on board.

But in the meantime, Friends of Scouting is always welcome at my door. I'll be glad to donate.

---

If you want to read more on this topic, check out Bradley D. Harris' Trails to Testimony: Bringing Young Men to Christ Through Scouting.

How Disney Made Symphonic Music Terrifying

Think back to your childhood.

All the way back. I'll wait.

Were there any movies you just couldn't stop watching as a kid? Anything that, despite your parents' desperate pleas for mercy, you had to see every single day? 

My two-year-old has already passed through one of those phases. A few months ago, not a day went by without hearing that sad Land Before Time music and being reminded, once again, that Littlefoot's mom was dead.

Why, Don Bluth, why?
Image credit: Heroes Wikia

It could be worse. A nephew of mine used to watch Elmo in Grouchland every time he came to visit. Eventually he moved on to Cars, but almost an entire decade later my brain still occasionally sings, "Welcome to Grouchland--now scram!"

I had my own movie obsession as a kid. I knew how to work the VCR by the time I turned three, and was even kind enough to rewind--just so I could immediately watch my movie again. My favorite movie enchanted me, inspired me . . . and left me pretty messed up, too.

Ah, yes. Good ol' beautiful, creepy Fantasia.

Crocodiles dance-chasing a lonely, appetizing hippo. Zeus raining judgment down on merry fauns and centaurs. Mickey Mouse going all ax-murderer on a walking broom.

I soaked that in every day.

Mickey likes to dance with all his victims.
Image credit: Movie Fone

Looking back, I don't know how Fantasia didn't leave me psychologically damaged. Then again, I did grow up to be a writer, so maybe it did.

But one part of that movie always freaked me out.

I can already hear you crying Night on Bald Mountain--that one at the end, with the giant demon rising out of the mountain and ghosts and goblins and skeletons dancing around like everyone in the local village has just sacrificed their firstborn child.

That one is pretty creepy. But nope, you'd be wrong. I loved Night on Bald Mountain.

Loved it.
Image credit: ComingSoon.net

You know which part of Fantasia could have ruined my whole childhood, though? Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring--or, as anyone who's seen Fantasia knows it, "the dinosaur one."

That song plays in my worst nightmares. And it's not just because of the dissonant chords in the string section. It's not just the blaring brass motifs. It's only partially the horrifying climax that proves you must never, under any circumstances, encourage the trombone section.

It's that first, quivering solo bassoon line, hounded by a pack of woodwinds lurking in the darkness as the animation drifts slowly through the void of space.

It's that primitive inferno of an Earth, the world that would become my home, empty of all life.

It's those untamed lava flows that pick up rocks the size of houses and toss them to and fro until they crumble and the molten rivers swallow everything that's left.

It's that menacing Tyrannosaurus rex who shows up in the middle of a peaceful lunch and sends the wide-eyed herbivores scurrying as the string section, suddenly possessed with blood lust, pounds out every heavy footstep.

It's the killing of a desperate Stegosaurus, marked by powerful low brass as the Tyrannosaurus gloats.

It's the desert death march of all kinds of thirsty dinosaurs, tongues wagging, weak legs giving way one . . . by one . . . by one.

It's the footprints in the mud that lead to piles of bone, the muscle, skin, and sinew long departed.

It's the rumbling of the Earth, the opening of chasms, the shooting up of mountains, the devastating, final tidal wave, that each wipe clean all traces of this planet's old inhabitants, accompanied by screaming brass and frantic strings.

It's the quiet at the end. The desolation. The frigid moonrise.

Image credit: Fanpop

That affected me as a three-year-old. At a tender age I learned that I was small, I was nothing, in the scope of a vast universe. In the emptiness of space, I was alone. And nothing sent my toddler heart pounding harder than the thought of utter, complete loneliness.

I learned the terror of a swift but hard-fought death. I saw the ugly, wasting face of extreme thirst. Something told me I, too, would someday leave my ghostly footprints in the mud.

At three years old I understood the universe could squash me like an insect. At three years old I knew the Earth could wipe away the evidence that I had ever lived.

Right now you're probably thinking, Wow, those are some really heavy thoughts for a three-year-old to have. Well, kids will surprise you. Here's a fun fact: In kindergarten I came home from my first earthquake drill with an annoying nervous tic. For months, it seemed, I braced myself for sudden doom by whimpering every few waking seconds. I had seen Fantasia; I knew what an earthquake could do.

Nothing good.
Image credit: American Geophysical Union

I know the Disney animators based their scenes on what the music made them see, and not what the composers had originally intended. But you can't convince me that Stravinsky didn't have gory dinosaur murder-fests in mind when he wrote Rite of Spring. That song freaked me out. And someday I will give Igor Stravinsky a big, fat piece of my mind.

But I still watched that movie every day. It was my favorite, after all.

So, yes, I'll take that hellish piece the demons dance to on Bald Mountain. Just please keep Rite of Spring away from me.

5 Practical Writing Tips from Ancient Blog Posts

Several months ago I started reading through old blog posts from my high school days, following them one day at a time exactly ten years since I wrote them.

I've had a great time playing back my boisterous, adventurous, sometimes egotistical and reckless senior year of high school from the perspective of my adult, married, college educated, balding, round, creaky jointed, stay-at-home dad self.

Man, it's like I don't even know you anymore!

I've learned a lot, though. For all his imperfections, seventeen-year-old Nathan has actually ended up being better than I've remembered him. He made some dumb decisions, but at least as far as the most important stuff was concerned, he had things pretty well figured out. I've been too hard on him.

I won't burden you with a crazy long list of observations. My younger self would have done that; that's one of the good changes I've made. But I have noticed how those old blog posts illustrate some practical writing advice.

So, without further ado, here are five writing tips from my old blog posts:

1. Set a Timer

Many of my old blog posts have time stamps before 3:00 PM--some barely after 2:30, even.

Why is this a big deal?

Because school didn't get out until 2:10. With crowded hallways, locker meetups, and fluid carpool arrangements, I rarely ever made it home before 2:30.

These weren't tiny blog posts, either. I often chronicled my school day in extensive detail.

"So what?" you might say. "You were writing about stuff that happened at school. Anyone can just spit out details about their day."

That's what I said, too--until I saw a post about a writing exercise I'd done in one of my classes.

The teacher had given us five minutes and a starting sentence, and I had ended up writing two-ish decent paragraphs. Nothing fantastic, but it was more than I've been able to produce in that same time frame my entire adult life (except perhaps in university exams).

I am not a fast writer. As much as I appreciate the freedom of a terrible rough draft, and as thorough as my late-draft editing process is, perfectionism still stymies my creative output. I get jealous of my wife, who can pump out an entire chapter of a story in the time it takes me to write a few good sentences. But when I set a timer, I surprise myself at what I can create.

2. You're Your Own Worst Critic

Inspired by a teacher's challenge to write 150 publishable words per day, I shared a story on my blog in nine short installments titled "Black Tiled Concourse." I based the story on a dream I had about a lunatic who used a machete to kill two people and himself inside a shopping mall. It started out okay, I guess, but when I posted the last installment I expressed great disappointment in how the story had turned out.

Commenters were quick to tell me how much they enjoyed the story and the way I wrote it--especially the ending. And not even a week later, I wrote another blog post to announce that my story had won an award in a contest at school; the office had called me out of class to present me with a freaking medal.

I still hate that story. It may never see the light of day again.

But readers liked it. They saw something in it I could not.

Image credit: Strange Beaver

Writers should be critical of their own work. They need to solicit feedback, learn their craft, and pay attention to how they can improve their writing. They need to revise, draft, and revise again.

But if I'm too hard on myself, I'll never publish anything. A different pair of eyes can go a long way--and chances are, a reader will appreciate my work far more than I do.

3. Pay Attention: Life Has All the Best Ideas

Maybe I'm just uncreative, but my old blog is full of stuff I simply couldn't make up on my own. From the friend who performed handstands on a moving train to the teacher who kept a binder of his students' best excuse notes, high school gave me lots of interesting character traits to draw from in my writing.

But it didn't stop at character development; high school also showed me random situations I could not have dreamed of for a novel. For example, once I saw a teacher squeeze an egg so hard it burst and sent its yolk across the room into a student's eye.

Another time, a friend and I swiped our psychology teacher's drunk glasses and staggered all around the school during the morning announcements.

Yet another time, the girl I asked to prom responded by delivering pink balloons with pig faces to my first period class; the floating bouquet followed me all day.

It's a Sly Pig!

If you need a good idea for a story, scene, or character, you need only pay attention. Life will give you more ideas than you could ever use.

4. Just Write--Even When It's Hard

Once every couple weeks or so on the old blog, I'd start a post by saying something along the lines of, "I was going to write something else, but I'm too tired/I don't want to, so here's this instead."

One time I actually wrote, "I really want to post something else right now, but I don't have the energy or the motivation to start on it. [. . .] This post is just filler until then. Sawdust in the meatloaf."

Nasty.
Image credit: Lady Goo Goo Gaga

The thing was, I still wrote something. It was often just a random stream of thoughts, but I ended up producing more than if I'd taken the day off. And usually by the time I finished, I found the motivation to start working on whatever I had planned to write before.

Writing is an exercise. Some days you need to take more time to get warmed up before a run. Some days you work different muscles than you're used to working. But it all serves to make you stronger.

5. Make Time for Your Goals

Another common opening line on my old blog basically went, "I know I promised so-and-so I'd go to bed on time tonight, but I just got this great idea/spark of energy at eleven-freaking-o'clock, so I'm gonna post about it then get to work."

Yes, I took the time to write an entire blog post just to tell the world that I was up at an ungodly hour when I could have not told anyone and used more of that time to actually work on stuff. I don't get it, either.

This is how it's supposed to work.
Image credit: OwlyCat95

But young, crazy Nathan was on to something. I had goals. I had ideas. And I knew that if I wanted anything to come of them, I had to carve out time to make it happen.

With three kids under three, sleep has become a luxury I can't afford to sacrifice. But there are other ways to carve some writing time out of my day. For example, the rough draft of my novel is going down in a spiral notebook so I can take it everywhere--breakfast, the bathroom, the freeway, you name it. Because nothing says "go-getter" like one hand on the steering wheel and the other on a notepad.


Those are just a few ideas I've gleaned from my old writing. Have you discovered any others from old projects of your own? Tell me all about them in the comments!