1 January 1992
After a gap of many years, I have once again decided to make entries in a journal. When in my late twenties, after listening to a particularly stirring talk on family history, I pulled together papers, photos, and documents that might jog my memory and commenced recording my life’s story. Ultimately there was a fairly large collection of audio cassette tapes stored in my office at the new house in Graham, Washington.
Sometime directly thereafter, Kim and Natalie, looking for tapes to record music on, gathered them all up and recorded over them. Dumb me, I had not yet labeled them and had stored them in a cassette case in the top drawer of my roll-top desk where I thought they would be out of the way. My charming wife Maureen had suggested the girls look in my office to search for empty cassette tapes, ergo the disaster. Whereas the efforts to that date were lost, many of the stories were reinforced and many more still form a substantial part of my memory.
Life has been full; many very important things have gone unrecorded. I view this as a tragedy. With the wisdom of age, I see much more clearly the need to maintain a personal record of my thoughts, actions, struggles, and accomplishments. Likewise, a family historical record would now be of immense value as we face new challenges.
Perhaps it would be appropriate to observe that my lovely wife and I were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the 29th day of July 1969, in Kent, Washington. Other than the day I met my sweetheart, and the birth dates of our children, no other event has had greater impact in my life.
Some years later, during a period of intense study I was blessed with a definitive, and extremely powerful, revelation that Christ lives. As my mind wanders back to this event chills still run up and down my spine. Perhaps someday I will record this immensely personal experience, but for the present I will simply say that I know that Jesus was and is, the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, he who was prophesied to visit the earth in the meridian of time. I was also privileged to receive further insight about the universe and our place in it. It seems that in a galactic sense, we are somehow immensely important to it all as we are intimately connected to the totality of all of creation. Simply put, we are children of God, and eternal in nature. We carry the spark of deity, which is our source. The Spirit of God resides within us, hence the Savior’s admonition to seek heaven within. "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17;21. KJV
Within a short period of time after the dramatic revelatory experience noted above (perhaps two months later), I would have another witness of the divinity of the Lord, this time it included more knowledge than ever I wanted regarding the reality of an adversary. Maureen was present during the entire event and was well aware of the first. I think the latter experience alone is sufficient to say that Maureen and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are unseen forces that surround and affect us that are not well understood. Some of these forces appear to be frightening, at least as viewed through my eyes at this time. Until I am further matured in these regards, spiritual exploration at this level seems to be ill advised. Whereas I fear to write the details of this particular event, suffice it to say, it resulted in a clear and deeply rooted knowledge that the name of our Savior has immediate power over the adversary. I am absolutely convinced that we are spiritual beings having a mortal experience, not the other way around.
At this writing I am forty-five years of age having been born on 10 July 1946, in Long Beach, California to Leonard L Neal and Shirley Nored. I have one older sister and no brothers. My sister's married name is Sherry L Meinberg.
Thirty years ago, on the evening of 10 November 1961 at a high school football game, I met the most fantastic girl; her name was Maureen. It was lust at first sight, but a powerful love was soon to follow. Feelings of déjà vu were close at hand, and it seemed as though we had known each other before. Echoes of the pre-existence perhaps? Whatever it was, we were drawn to each other in a fundamental way that seemed greater than simple attraction and the desire to be loved.
Maureen and I were married on March 7, 1964, at the First Baptist Church in Long Beach, California. Actually, we were earlier married in Mexico on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, however the State of California would not recognize the marriage due to my age. Girls could be married at 16 with their parent’s permission, guys had to 18 with written permission. We were both just seventeen. We ultimately had to secure our parents’ written permission, and I had to get a judge’s permission in order to be married within the State of California. Of course, no one then thought we would stay married; after all it was the early sixties. But at this point in our lives, some twenty-seven years later, we have reared seven children from birth, raised another for several years, have enjoyed nine foreign exchange students, and are blessed with three remarkable grandchildren.
At some point in the future, Maureen and I will probably share more intimate details of our past. Elements of which may be a surprise to our children and grandchildren, but I have no fears regarding their feelings in these matters. As the children get older, and hopefully more mature, they begin to view things through the lens of wisdom gained through experience. Responses to new information and the instant reactive judgments that we are all guilty of, at least to some degree, soften when viewed through the circumstances of time and cultural events. Maureen and I simply grew up in another time and things are not now as they were. I crave to be united to a baby girl I’ve never known.
The culture and lifestyle that Maureen and I were reared in has changed. Some of these changes are good; many are not. Frankly I shudder to think of the trials and tests that each of our children will face in the future; nevertheless, I have great faith in each of them. We are a close family, certainly more so than most, and hopefully this will serve as a grounding force throughout all their lives. I trust in their ultimate judgment and adaptability, the latter allowing for survival under circumstances of uncertainty.
A focus on spirituality provides a window for all of us on as to the meaning of life, and it is within its context that we are able to hear the whispers of our eternal purpose. To the degree we embrace the knowledge of our source, we will surely gain greater peace and wisdom in this life as we prepare for the one to come.
I am incredibly blessed with a richness of family that would have been impossible for me to even comprehend at an earlier age. There is no doubt that within family one experiences the heights and depths of life. Certainly, my greatest joys, deepest melancholy, and the greatest frequency of life's growth opportunities have come within my family experience.
Maureen is a wonderful woman and an exceedingly excellent wife. In many ways it seems an almost unholy task to try and list her attributes simply because I would surely fail to make mention of many of her more important virtues. Over time, I am sure to relate my feelings and experiences in these regards, but for now some basic information about her is appropriate. Maureen Gail Donnelly was born on 31 March 1946 to Joseph Philip Donnelly and Jane Ellen Dowling. She is the oldest of five children. Their names in order of age: Maureen, Joseph-Michael, (Joseph Michael Donnelly is known primarily as Mike but in certain business settings he goes by Joe), Marsha, Margaret (nicknamed Peggy), and Laura. All are alive at this writing.