The greatest festival of the kingdom is the releasing of the waters of growth from their reservoir in the mountains every spring.  Each family has their own little gate and their own channels that run to their land and on this special occasion, they release them all together.

The occasion is special for many reasons.  Tradition, the holiday sense of fun and excitement, the feasts, the games.  But most of all, it is the waters themselves.

These waters have strength and power beyond ordinary waters.  They are literally magical.   They carry a fresh scent with them, wiping out the must of winter.  Everywhere they go, the land brightens, the green of the plants deepen, and nature grows.  To drink from these waters is to be renewed.

The time of the waters is a time of joy, of renewal, of happiness, of spiritual peace.

The second greatest festival of the kingdom is releasing the waters at midsummer, when they bring furthered growth, coolness, and happiness and joy.

The third greatest festival of the kingdom is the final release at the end of the summer, when they soften the land, ripen the harvest, and gladden all hearts.

Well, not all hearts. (more…)

I went to G.’s essay from last month on “How to Survive a Disaster” to leave a comment, but no more comments can be added there, so this addendum is here, a link to a Washington Post article by Meagan Flynn about a factory in Pennsylvania manufacturing polypropylene to send down the supply chain to manufacturers of face masks and surgical gowns. “For 28 days, they lived on a calling in a factory.”

Because a physical body is so central to the Father’s plan of happiness and our spiritual development, Lucifer seeks to frustrate our progression by tempting us to use our bodies improperly. President Russell M. Nelson has taught that spiritual safety ultimately lies in “‘never taking the first enticing step toward going where you should not go and doing what you should not do.’ … As human beings we all have [physical] appetites necessary for our survival. ‘These appetites are absolutely essential for the perpetuation of life. So, what does the adversary do? … He attacks us through our appetites. He tempts us to eat things we should not eat, to drink things we should not drink, and to love as we should not love!’”10

One of the ultimate ironies of eternity is that the adversary, who is miserable precisely because he has no physical body, invites and entices us to share in his misery through the improper use of our bodies. The very tool he does not have and cannot use is thus the primary target of his attempts to lure us to physical and spiritual destruction.

-thus Elder Bednar,

Your appetites are good. Satan attacks them for the same reason he attacks anything great and beautiful. (more…)

Will there be more or less attendance on Sundays after Christ’s New Testament Church-restored re-starts public meetings?  And if it changes, will whatever change (more or less) continue very long?

I assume faithfully/regularly-attending members will continue to attend. But…
(more…)

Bruce Charlton hit on a pretty meaningful question.  Is heaven static or dynamic?  The Saint Christian view of heaven is very dynamic–millennia of progression followed by forever of creation–so when I got old enough to digest the scriptures on my own I was surprised that the consistent image of heaven in holy writ was static.  Peace.  The end is come. Never more to go out.  Enter thou into my rest.  The gospel, in other words, has the static view and the dynamic view.  Our lives have both also.  There are sometimes when we want to be out and doing and striving attracts us.  At other times we just want to be done.

Some thoughts.
(more…)

Writer Harrison Smith of the Washington Post has crafted an excellent obituary for an 100-year-old World War II ace, Edward Feightner. I recommend you read it all.

“By the time he graduated in 1941, he had compiled some 250 hours in the cockpit and wanted only to keep flying. The Army seemed a good opportunity but had a long wait list for aviators. And while hanging around the airport one day with his future still undecided, Adm. Feightner watched a Navy pilot land his plane, stride through the hangar in a gleaming white uniform and step inside a yellow convertible, where he gave a ‘big smooch’ to the blonde behind the wheel and sped off down the road.

“Adm. Feightner flew to a Navy recruiting station in Michigan and enlisted that same day.”

“He was a very aggressive fighter pilot, and he was still driving that way at 93.”

“Adm. Feightner often attributed his survival in World War II to luck, noting that while he was sometimes shot up he was never shot down.”

I was advised that Metropolitan Opera is making recordings of their productions available during this time of at-home confinement, a different one free each day. My young daughter dislikes when I play radio opera on Saturday afternoons, which I do because there is no fuller use of the human voice, but she found herself drawn into the video streaming’s excellent reproduction of one of the comedies.

One thing I didn’t know when I began viewing Parsifal Thursday night is that it is four and a half hours long. Past midnight I felt tired, but I was not tired of watching it. In fact, I arrived at Good Friday about when the opera did; Act III transpires on Good Friday, so that felt appropriate. Sacramental communion and a people who are cut off from it, and the mercy of Christ’s atonement, is the central matter in the story. I was very glad to have taken it in before Easter. Those inclined could draw parallels between the fool/hero Parsifal who restores administration of the sacrament and Joseph Smith, prophet of the restoration of the fulness of the gospel. (more…)

Has the coronavirus infected you? Probably not. Can you name anyone you have been with last month or the month before who is infected? Probably not. (more…)

Welcome Back, at long last, to the TBM Podcast!

Episode 12 is our long-awaited “Books for Boys” episode, recorded several months ago. It was rumored that this episode lay in a secret chamber along with the 116 lost pages of the Book of Mormon. Some even wondered if “the real Episode 12 is all the friends we made along the way.” But joyfully, here it is for your listening pleasure. (more…)

www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/04/07/report-wuhan-funeral-homes-burned-people-alive/

Monty Python: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU0d8kpybVg

Isaiah is the Shakespeare of the Old Testament because is the high point of Hebrew literary forms.
He is also the George Lucas/Joseph Campbell of the Old Testament, because of his heavy reliance on archetypes. In order to really understand Isaiah, you must be able to understand the archetype he is speaking from, and which he may have made up on the spot. And that requires a degree of knowledge of 700 BC current events. Because according the Jewish legend, and I affirm this to be true as well, Isaiah has dual fulfillments. What he says about Egypt and Assyria did happen then, but the greater and more interesting fulfillment, is in the latter days. And there is good and bad prophesied about them both. (more…)

For the Soul (the Kindle ebook, that is).