The Least of These

"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:40)

The last few weeks, this verse has been on my mind a lot, along with the overall concept it's talking about. Whether you're religious or not, the message is the same: how we treat those who we view as being of little consequence reflects on our true character.

I would venture to say we've all had experiences where we've been treated poorly by someone because they didn't consider us important. I've certainly had my share of those experiences and continue to do so. The last few weeks it seems I've had quite a few. Obviously, I'm someone who falls into the category of "the least of these my brethren". I'm not famous, I don't have a lot of money, and outside my circle of friends and family, I'm an unknown. 99.9999% of the people who meet me have no idea who I am and likely won't ever interact with me again.

Two instances earlier this month really had this on my mind. I had the opportunity to sing the National Anthem for the Mid-American Conference Wrestling Championship as it was hosted by Kent State at the MAC Center. Prior to the meet, I was aware that one of the coaches for a fellow conference member school knows a family member who works at that school, so I figured I'd introduce myself. It ended up that there were actually two coaches that knew this family member, so I met both of them and had two completely different experiences.

Getting ready to sing and then singing at day 1 of the Mid-American Conference Wrestling Tournament, hosted by Kent State the second weekend of March. I ended up singing for three wrestling meets this season!

The first coach, I caught just after a match for one of his wrestlers, so I guess he was too focused on that or the adeneline was still flowing or something. Even so, I introduced myself and walked with him and asked if he knew my family member. He replied "yeah" and then I said something to the effect of "I saw that you all were coming that you knew [my family member] so I figured I'd say hello." His reply as he kept moving was "yeah, yeah," and he walked away. OK... Obviously, I wasn't someone of importance to this coach, even enough to give a minute to. My family member said this coach was very intense and focused and didn't take time to "chat", but it still had me thinking. I really don't care how "intense" or "focused" you are. It doesn't take a massive amount of effort to acknowledge someone and be polite even if you're rushed or really can't talk. A simple "it's nice to meet you" would suffice. If the person can't take a hint, "excuse me, I have to run, but nice to meet you" works. I was simply blown off, made all the worse by having previously observed him conversing quite cordially to those he knew better. So yeah, since I wasn't someone he knew and clearly wasn't someone "of consequence", no need to take any time to be polite. Not impressed. I remember thinking I was definitely the "least of these". Was he outright rude? No, but I know when I'm totally being blown off by someone.

Conversely, the next day (I sang both days of the tournament), I met one of the other coaches from the same school. This coach also knew my family member. Now, I recognize that in this meeting, I was standing on the floor getting ready to sing (whereas the day before I met the other coach in the lobby a good hour after I sang) and it was before play started (so nothing to distract him), but still, a much better meeting with this other coach. He took the time to acknowledge me and even "chat" a bit, especially once he realized the connection we had through my family member. We conversed no longer than two minutes. I was of the same "consequence" to him as the other, but what a difference.

I had some other experiences earlier in the month when I attended the Arnold Sports Festival Expo in Columbus. While there, I had the chance to meet some of the people I follow on social media. Now, I've mentioned a few of them in an earlier post and that while I follow them, I hardly elevate them to some kind of super-being. I also have some kind of standards for following, so I've continued to follow as I've seen their posts because they are largely positive, real, and if we somehow interact, it's also positive. As cool as that is, though, meeting in person is a completely different element to social media. Social media can give you a sense of how someone really is, but obviously, people can put on a facade. Granted, meeting in person briefly doesn't exactly give you a total glimpse of their character, but if they're willing to interact with fans in a positive way, that's a pretty good start and a lot better than most. Meeting in person is an important element to me. Social media is great and all, but face-to-face interaction is far more meaningful and important to me, especially for those I interact with more regularly. I realize that's not always possible with some of the more famous celebrities I follow (like professional athletes), nor would I ever expect a large amount of time, but for the vast majority of people, it's not out of the realm of possibility to meet briefly, whether it be in situations like the Arnold Expo, or I happen to be in the same town as that person due to travels and we do little more than converse for a minute or two and shake hands.

Those I met in Columbus thankfully did not disappoint. They all seemed very genuinely good people who appreciated the support of their fans, and heck, a few of them even recognized me from social media (mostly Instagram) interactions. Considering it was a day before my birthday, those little things made my day and really made the weekend a special one for me at a time when a lot isn't going as planned in my life, so it was very much appreciated!

The first place I went once I got to the Arnold Expo was I waited about 20 minutes to get into the Beast Nutrition booth since four of the people I followed were there. First guy I met was Greg Clausen...if I look short it's because he's 7'0. Great guy! I had seen some stuff about him well over a year ago and vaguely knew about him last year when he competed in one of the fitness competitions at the Arnold. I briefly saw him from a distance right after he competed last year and have a random picture, but I couldn't even remember his name. This year, though, mostly through Instagram, but also Twitter and Facebook, I've interacted a few times, so he even recognized me slightly. Heck, I even got a free t-shirt out of it! Score! I enjoy following Greg's social media posts because he mixes in a lot of humorous posts with those related to fitness and working out, plus he's not all about just pushing his product all the time. It's important to laugh, so I really appreciate those! Check him out on Instagram: @7footphysique; on Facebook: The 7 Foot Physique Competitor; and on Twitter: @7footbodybuilder

Next I met Amber Orton and her fiancee Brandan Fokken. I started following Brandan after following Greg, and then that led to Amber (Amber and Brandan are engaged...you may have seen a meme they're featured in...), mostly through Instagram for both, and now Twitter too, and Facebook for Brandan (who manages three Facebook pages!). Both have been very friendly via Instagram and they knew who I was based on some of the comments I had made recently. Brandan even knew that my birthday was the next day. Again, small things that made the day a little more special. Like Greg, Amber and Brandan have a lot of humorous posts they share on social media that make me smile, plus they often post recipe ideas for people who may be looking to make changes in their diet. In other words, they make fitness seem like something that's attainable for us mere mortals :). Bonus points: I saw Brandan just before I left at the end of the day while everyone was packing up to leave and shook his hand and thanked him again. Again, very cordial and he wished me a happy birthday again. Class! Check them out on Instagram: @brandanfokken and @mishkadawn; on Twitter: @BrandanFokken and @amberdawnorton; and on Facebook: Team Bodybuilding.com Athlete Brandan Fokken and Amber Dawn Orton- National Level Bikini Competitor/Fitness Model  

After going to the Blue Jackets game, I came back to the Beast booth and got a picture with Tobias Konechne, another great guy who I had been following on Instagram because of his connections with Greg Clausen, Brandan Fokken, and Amber Orton. Tobias was just kind of out in the booth (the others were behind tables), so it was easier for me to steal in and get a photo without having to wait in line again (the line to the Beast booth was long all day). Tobias isn't a super-active Instagram poster, but that's because he's pretty busy not only with his career, but his family too, which I think is awesome! Always happy to see dads who are proud of their kids! Check him out on Instagram: @tobiaskocnechne and on Twitter: @TobiasKonechne

Rob Bailey's booth for Flag Nor Fail literally had huge lines leading to it the entire day (mostly to get pictures with him and his wife Dana Linn), so I avoided it as long as I could. By the end of the day, though, it was either now or never and the line had died down a bit, so I figured I might as well! Just before I was near the front, Rob came around and personally talked with and greeted every person in line and thanked them for coming, so I was able to get this picture. It was a really nice gesture, especially considering how long they'd been working that day and that weekend. Soon after that I got a picture with the lovely Dana Linn Bailey (below). They both might look super tough and unapproachable, but the opposite was true. Not only are they grateful for the support, but they're genuinely nice and seemed to be really fun people; people that are easy to support. Look them up on Facebook: FLAG NOR FAIL; Instagram: @flagnorfail and @danalinnbailey; and on Twitter: @flagnorfail and @daydayKnucks

In the end, I strive as much as I can to treat people like I want to be treated, so I value when others follow the same Golden Rule. It sounds so simplistic, but really, so many problems in the world would be solved if people just thought about how their actions affect others and acted accordingly. Thanks to those I interact with, no matter where you are in life, who treat me with respect, but overall are just nice to me. Whether because of your belief in God, Karma, and/or you just want to be a nice person, how you treat the "least of these" is a reflection on your true character, not how you treat those you know or know of.

Blog Book and Birthdays

I mentioned a little while back about the blog book I was making; well it finally came on Friday, March 5. It contains all my blog posts from my first MySpace blog, so it ranges from June 2006-March 2008 when I stopped using MySpace to blog and started using Blogger full-time. I originally got the idea of a blog book from my friend Jessica Kay as she had done that some time ago to her blog as a way to archive it. I had tried putting one together several months ago using the service she had used, but at least then they didn't offer the option of using Blogger to publish a blog from; you had to have one of the other blogging sites. A solution I tried was opening a mirror to my blog on one of those sites, but it didn't transfer the pictures and it just became a headache, so I gave up until a few weeks ago. The biggest challenge from this was getting the MySpace blog posts into this one as well as the comments from those posts. If there was some kind of automatic way to transfer blog posts from MySpace to Blogger I certainly wasn't aware of it, so I did them manually, one at a time. Even that wasn't quite so simple as I had to go through the "Edit HTML" tab on Blogger to eliminate the MySpace text formatting and background. Once I figured out exactly what needed to be done (like copying text from the posts and the comments directly to the HTML instead of the Composition area), it got a little quicker, but still took some time given the amount of posts. I also made sure to tag them and place them in the original time they had been published on MySpace.

The next challenge was where the two blogs overlap in February and March 2008 as I was starting one and closing out the other. When putting a book together, you simply specify a date range of posts for the program to put in a given book. Because I wanted just the posts from MySpace in a book, I had to figure out a way to remove the 2 Blogger posts that are dated before my last MySpace post in 2008. I had hoped it was just as simple as just deleting the posts from the book itself before publishing, but it wasn't that simple. The book software essentially "takes a picture" as a representative told me, so you can't actually edit the book once it's been "captured" from the blog posts. That was annoying to me because it doesn't truly "take a picture", so there are instances where the pictures are in a different arrangement than they were on the blog itself and then the captions below get all weird (Blogger needs a picture caption feature). She suggested that I save the posts I didn't want in the book as drafts and then put the book together before republishing the posts again, essentially hiding them for a little bit. It worked, so thankfully I won't need to do it again as the book for my 2008 blog posts was already created before I added my MySpace posts.

Overall I like how it turned out. It certainly isn't perfect, but that's mostly my fault in missing little things from typing and then not catching them before publishing. Also, if you do use this service, make sure your pictures are in JPEG format because it won't recognize anything in PNG. As I said, my biggest problem was not being able to edit the layout of the pages in the book, but I did like being able to choose a cover picture, back cover picture, inside cover picture (all with captions if you want) and I could add pages in the book, which I did to include the Christmas newsletters from 2007 in full size. The cost is fair, though it certainly isn't cheap. This book was 57 pages long and cost about $38.00 for the hardcover. There are other options to make it cost less. The base cost of $24.95 for a hardcover includes up to 20 pages and shipping and then 35 cents per page after that, so if you blog as much as or more than I do, it can start to get pricey. Anyway, the company is SharedBook if you're interested. I would highly recommend it!

On a side note, I had a great 28th birthday! I appreciated all the birthday wishes via Facebook (it's such a great reminder!) and the cards I got. I think I most enjoy hearing from so many people on my birthday more than anything, some of whom I rarely hear from much any more. The day itself was relaxing (I didn't sub and we didn't have Akron After-School but I did have a callback at Weathervane for "The Wedding Singer" auditions) and I got some very cool presents like tickets to an Indians game in May and a $50 Amazon.com gift card (which I just used!) to get the two books I had wanted. I also got an interesting "History of the Simpsons" book and some new warm-up pants, not to mention some money :). Now I am looking forward to my upcoming trip to Utah in less than a month!!

Congrats Lynn and Happy Birthday Jesus!

OK now that I have your attention...

For starters, yes, April 6th is believed by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be the actual date of Christ's birth in Bethlehem, though you will find little obervances of it anywhere in the Church. We still celebrate Christmas along with everyone else, even though we recognize that December 25 is not his actual date of birth. I think this falls into "spirit of the law" vs. "letter of the law," as it's not so much when we celebrate his birth but more that we do celebrate and remember it. Christmas is so much a part of world culture, it just makes sense to celebrate it then along with everyone else. Mormons aren't unique in our view of Christ being born on days other than December 25th as it is relatively common knowledge nowadays that the date of Christmas was fixed in December in the early Christian Church (earliest records show it sometime in the 3rd century AD) in order to replace the pagan winter solstice holiday that existed near then (the winter solstice is around December 21). In the LDS (Mormon) Church today, April 6th being the actual birthdate is more of a trivia answer than anything, though it is significant in the early history of the Church. April 6, 1830 was the day the Church was officially organized in Fayette Township, New York, near Waterloo. It is also the day the Salt Lake Temple was dedicated in 1893. The Church's annual General Conference is held on or near April 6th as well every year and then six months later in October (semi-annual conference). We just finished conference for April today, and it was a little different since it is the first conference with a new Prophet (Thomas S. Monson) and an entirely new First Presidency, plus a new member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It was a wonderful conference and a historic one at that with all the changes.

On a totally different note, I had a great experience last night with my Ridinger side of the family. My aunt Lynn was formally inducted into the Kent City Schools Hall of Fame along with nine others from the 2007 and 2008 classes. It all got started over four years ago when my mom was talking to Roosevelt activities director Emma Owen (Lynn's former high school field hockey coach) about nominating Lynn. It certainly wasn't an overnight process. My sister Becky took the lead in it (mostly by default as she was still at Roosevelt when the whole process started). She kept at it, doing some behind the scenes research on Lynn's career both at and after Roosevelt. My part was limited as I did some "undercover" work getting information straight from Lynn herself to include in the bio. Lynn's name had been in the nomination process a few times, but she did not make it to the "final round" until 2007, so it was during last summer that Becky was writing the paper about her and I did my covert questioning (I'd make a great spy!). We found out some time in June I think that Lynn had received the nomination and we were both thrilled, of course! The induction ceremonies are done now on a two-year basis, so Lynn was inducted in 2007, but the formal ceremony included both 2007 and 2008. The dinner before and the dessert after was wonderful (better have been for $35 a ticket!) and the ceremony itself was a lot of fun with Coach Nemec being the MC. He was hillarious.

Lynn was inducted along with nine other honorees, six of whom are still alive. All have accomplished great things during and/or since their days in Kent and almost all are graduates of Roosevelt. I found it interesting that most of the honorees mentioned how the Kent community played a key role in their development and ultimate success. It certainly made me wonder what Kent would be like if more of our success stories were still in the community or returned. It's a great place to raise a family and go to college, but in between there is little that keeps the post-college graduates and pre-settled family people here, so many leave and settle elsewhere in nearby or distant communities, in search of a good job and/or a more active lifestyle that fits them better. That seems to be a problem throughout the state that we have a problem keeping our younger people, particularly in my age group.

Anyway, the whole process of getting Lynn nominated actually originated with my mom several years ago. We always knew that Lynn was the first female athlete in school history to receive a full-ride scholarship to a division I school (Central Michigan University), so we figured that would be a good place to start. We got the ball rolling by talking to Emma Owen, the current activities director at Roosevelt (retiring this year) and Lynn's former field hockey coach. I remember the initial talk about that, but I dodn't remember exactly when it was. In any case, by the time it actually started getting serious with paperwork and the like, Becky was the only one left at Roosevelt, so she became the default ring leader of the nomination process. It didn't seem to get serious until this past summer, 2007, when Lynn made it to the "final round" so Becky had to write up a longer paper detailing Lynn's accomplishments. This involved some research from Grandma and Grandpa Ridinger and what was at the house, as well as my part in the "undercover operation" where I asked Lynn some stuff without her having any idea as to why I was asking, other than me being me. It worked perfectly and she made the cut for the class of 2007, which we found out after a rehearsal in Kirtland for the show we did last summer. In researching Lynn's accomplishments, we also discovered many things we didn't know, like how she coached a gold-medal winning team at the 1983 National Junior Olympics.

Notes on pictures: 1. Katie and me with Lynn in front of the Hall of Fame after the ceremony on April 5th at Roosevelt High School in Kent; 2. Lynn giving her acceptance speech with her display at the ceremony; 3. Record-Courier page which had short bios on each of the inductees; 4. Record-Courier article in the April 7th issue about the ceremony.

I'm 26!

So I am now officially 26 years old. Honestly, I always assumed I'd be married by now, but I guess not. In fact, growing up, I always said that 26 was the ideal marriage age (it's actually pretty close to the average age in the U.S.). This is the first birthday I've celebrated at home since 2004. Since my 19th birthday in 2001, I've only celebrated 2 others at home, counting this one, due to my mission and being at BYU-Idaho for three years. Today wasn't too bad and I really enjoyed the presents I got from Mom and Katie to go along with the present I got from Becky a month ago (she gave it to me before they moved). Mom got me a Kent State basketball shirt, a nice blue shirt, and a new pair of denim shorts. Katie got me the EXACT gold fitted KSU hat I asked for (sent her a pic with size too) =) and a "Captain Planet" t-shirt. Yes, Captain Planet was one of my favorite cartoons growing up. Becky got me a Kent State jacket (seen in yesterday's blog) that I've been wearing as often as the weather has allowed me (it's actually a pretty warm jacket!). My dad gave me a $25 Visa gift card. I still have get-togethers with both sides of the family. Not sure when we're getting together on the Derby side, but on the Ridinger side, we're getting together next Sunday. I can't wait because I picked out a really good cake =).

Anyway, the real fun was, as always, in Primary today. I've said it a million times, but if it weren't for Primary, I'd have a hard time being motivated to come to church every Sunday. I've always said my calling is the best ever...I get all the benefits of being in Primary PLUS I get to do something I enjoy (and need to improve on) and I don't have to put a whole bunch of extra planning or effort into it. So today in Junior Primary (ages 3-7) Sister Horning had a lesson on the address of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon, which is found in Mosiah chapters 2-4. In the actual story, people from all over the Nephite nation gathered in the capital to hear what was to be King Benjamin's last address. All of them camped out in tents outside of the city and so many came that King Benjamin built a tower so more people could see and hear him. He also had what he said written down so more people could read what he said. To Latter-day Saints, this is pretty much how our General Conferences work...the prophet and church leaders address the entire church at once and all of it is recorded so we can read (and now watch) it again. The Conference Center in Salt Lake holds 21,000 people so lots can see it in person (I've been there on three different occasions), plus it is broadcast over satellite to the remainder of the church around the world. The Conference Center also contains translation facilities which allow the talks to be translated live into something like 80 languages.

Back to Primary, we made "tents" for the kids out of chairs and sheets and had one of them stand on a chair to be King Benjamin. That honor fell on Sam Mars, age 4, who had a rough start to the day, but reminded us that "when we're all done here we should put our toys away." He also asked if "there were any bad guys" in the story of King Benjamin. Unfortunately for Sam, the story of King Benjamin is not much of an action story! Sam was also moving around a lot, so Sister Horning said "Hey King Benjamin, you need to stand still." I added "hey, you're OLD," as King Benjamin gave the address shortly before he died. It was an all-around fun time and got the point across about the story. At the end of the day, the kids sang our happy birthday song to me (usually I'm the one playing it) and I got a little bag of Hershey's kisses, our standard birthday gift for all our Primary kids and teachers.

Notes on the pictures: 1. getting everything set in the tents; 2. the kids in the "pink tent" and Sam (far right) wait; 3. Sister Lisonbee showing Jed and Tony where we are in the Book of Mormon; 4. Curtis Rohal "looking up" where we are in the scriptures in his tent; 5. Sam Mars being King Benjamin while the Primary teachers have a laugh. Every Sunday has something fun; 6. The kids watch from their tents; 7. Tony Jeppson gives his talk while his mom (left) watches with Sister Custer. He did a fabulous job, by the way, and did not need any help reading it. Kids in the Church start speaking in front of groups at a pretty young age!