My ‘Heaven on Earth’

Nothing makes a person reflect on life more than being under the weather and locked away isolated indoors. Quite recently I found myself in these circumstances, and being an outdoor loving person, it didn’t take long for cabin fever to set in. I couldn’t imagine how my garden would survive for a few days without me.

By local terms I am a relatively newcomer to this area having just recently (30 years ago, as of July) moved my family into the Big Horn Basin. I had just completed a 20-year career in the United States Air Force, and we were searching for a quiet place to finish raising our family. It didn’t take long to realize we had indeed found our “Heaven on Earth.”

Allow me to turn back to being confined to the house for a few days. This was not my idea of a vacation by any means. I found myself turning on the television to pass the time. The view of the world we live in, through television, is a pretty depressing picture. The news is filled with violence and anger. I see negative political adds, road rage and people taking advantage of their neighbors and having it portrayed as normal and acceptable behavior. I feel like we have become numb to the gradual decline of our society. What was unacceptable even 10 or 15 years ago is common and tolerated in our world today.  A few hours of national news coverage is depressing, but it also makes me feel extremely blessed to live where we do. I can only hope that we appreciate the oasis we live in, that we call the Big Horn Basin.

I am not saying that our Big Horn Basin communities are perfect, because we are far from perfect. What I am saying is that we have something that is lacking in many of the larger areas of the country. We have a strong set of values that still include a respect for the family unit, compassion for one another and a great base of volunteers who always show up when someone is in need of a hand. I think it is good for us to continually remind ourselves that the second great commandment is to love one another. We can do this most effectively by serving one another. We need to remember that the person we might be angry at today is a child of God just like us.

I love serving on our local Interfaith council where we join together with leaders of all faiths to work on community needs. This group helps bind us together as a community and shows us that we have many more similarities than we have differences. Every individual is capable of making a difference in the strength of our communities by simply taking a moment to think before reacting and increase our compassion one to another. This Big Horn Basin is our “Heaven on Earth,” and I pray that we can work together to keep it that way.

(Ed Riding is the Bishop of the Byron Ward, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).