I keep discovering that all my most bouncin’ ideas turn out to be pale echoes of stuff already found in the scriptures.

For instance, the home as a fortress from which we sally out to wreak havoc on the devil.

Proclaim it abroad.  You are the knights of the spiritual feudalism.  The vikings have been looting the spiritual landscape unchecked.  Have been.  But now you are erecting extraordinary fortifications of the soul, such castles as the world has not seen, from which you sally.  Beat the drums, counsel together, your family is going to war.

Against the current

Comrades on the wall

I sat down to read D&C 88 because I like the verses about establishing a house of order, and God chuckled.
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In the middle of an article about social media of all things, somehow something significant was written:

The idea that motherhood is a woman’s highest calling may not be unique to Mormonism. But Ann Duncan—associate professor of American studies and religion at Goucher College and the author of an upcoming book on women who view pregnancy as a spiritual experience—says the Mormon conceptualization of motherhood is truly distinct, and it’s one of the reasons Mormon women are so conspicuous online. They have a strong sense that their voices matter. (more…)

Bringing children into this horrible world would spoil your carefree happiness. Here, have an antidepressant.
-Screwtape

A bull was gazing longingly over the fence into the next pasture.

“What’s the attraction of that pasture?” asked a pigeon on the fence.

“It’s greener,” said the bull.

“But look at all the hills,” said the pigeon, “they are greener too.”

The bull looked around. “Yes” he said, “now I want to roam all the hills, grazing there too.”

Moral: The vignette came to me first. I am undecided if the moral is something about ambition and desire being limitless. Or if the moral is that you need somebody to help you elevate your ambitions.

If you had invested one talent–let’s say around ten thousand dollars–back in the dawn of the Christian era, at a moderate rate of 1% real return compounding, you would now have $5.4 trillion dollars. Almost as much money as USG printed last year.
Haha, just a little joke, friends.

Of course you’d never get that sustained level of interest, not in mortality.

The light of truth. The light of Christ. He is the light of the sun and the power thereof. He is the light of the moon and the power thereof. He is the light of the stars and the power thereof. The earth also, and the power thereof. The light in all things, even the power of God which sitteth upon the throne.

-thus D&C 88:5-13.

Now, one might say truthfully that glory = power plus light. Righteous power = power plus light. But the scriptures say that you cannot even really separate the two concepts. Power without light is ultimately not actually power. Light without power is ultimately not actually light.

Always take your prescriptions. It’s all the fun of the lottery without the horrifying risk of unearned wealth.

D&C 86 says that the “tares” aren’t rooted up because the faith of the “wheat” is weak.

For a long time I have lightly entertained the notion that the date of the Second Coming is variable. I speculated our righteousness can put it off, just like Sodom could have been saved if there were even 10 righteous people there.

But this section says the opposite. It says it is the feebleness of our righteousness that keeps putting off the Second Coming.

Model: the situation keeps getting worse until no one with weak faith is left one way or the other.

Wryly, one might say The beatings will continue until faith improves.

Gresham’s Law of Supply Chains.

Empty containers drive out fulls.

It seems that everyone now agrees that the bottleneck is yard space at the container terminals. The terminals are simply overflowing with containers, which means they no longer have space to take in new containers either from ships or land. It’s a true traffic jam.

— Ryan Petersen (@typesfast) October 22, 2021

I dreamed that I decided to become a novelist. Surprising myself the dreamer (not myself the person in the dream) I cranked out quite a bit of good dreck that got popular. Then my ambitions increased and I decided to become a great novelist. (more…)

Here are a few more insights on righteous dominion. The quality here is high.

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We are all reading D&C 121 this week.

Here are some of the best JG posts on righteous and unrighteous dominion.

They are really good.

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it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, in regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people, both in this place and in the land of Zion—

4 For a permanent and everlasting establishment and order unto my church, to advance the cause, which ye have espoused, to the salvation of man, and to the glory of your Father who is in heaven;

5 That you may be equal in the bonds of heavenly things, yea, and earthly things also, for the obtaining of heavenly things.

6 For if ye are not equal in earthly things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things;

-thus D&C 78:3-6

Like some of you, I have developed an allergy to the concept of equality, as who wouldn’t if the whipmasters shouted “equality” with each blow on you of the lash.  But that is the fault of the whipmasters, not the (sadly much abused) concept.

Paradoxically, I have become more alive to the idea of a group of people joining together as peers because of some great animating friendship and cause.  Like it says right there in those verses, “to advance the cause.”

But that isn’t the point of this post.

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How did I miss this gem from SPDI?

On Pills, Blue and Red

Here is an analogy I don’t think I’ve ever seen made (though it must have been): the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil <=> the Matrix’s “Red Pill.”

Something is lost when you start chowing down on red pills. You gain knowledge, but you lose innocence.

Adapting yourself to the world is (by definition) a utilitarian endeavor. We can become uglier even as we become more successful.

That’s the start.  He then treks off into Adam and Eve, sex roles, and on and on.

The stuff about sex roles strikes me both as deeply wrong, but also in some way I cannot put my finger on, a lot more right than my current notions.

What if you are the hero farm boy in a fantasy novel, but there is no Dark Lord of Darkness for you strike down, no One Ring to throw into the cracks, not even a Mt. Doom?  Just creeping malice and sludge and miasma and mediocrity?