On the sweetness of Mormon life.

Your daughter comes to you. She says, I read your post on how I’m spoiled rotten. (She never reads your posts.) She says, it was funny. You’re funny, daddy. Will you play with me?

You play with her.

The temple ceremony has got a lot more streamlined lately,  Less participation, quicker, easier to run more people through.  There is no more live endowment anywhere, for example.  The latest change I hear is eliminating the witness couple.

My wife and I have had some very spiritual experiences as the witness couple.  One was on our honeymoon.

Let’s riff.

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Ok, in all seriousness, this says far more about the quality of AI checkers than anything else. Really they are just a fig leaf to comfort educators.

Still, the humor of it all did not escape me.

A pal of mine who is some kind of nob invited me to a shindig last night at a gentleman’s club called the Old Cap.  Quite the impressive pile, one approves.  There were women among those present, one expects that these days, but without particular reference to the gentler sex one feels that the club’s committee needs to be a dashed sight more selective in accepting members.  Wield the old black ball with a sprightly hand, my dear selection committee members, forsooth.  I observed to my pal that the American style of architecture preferred its gargoyles inside instead of out, what ho, what ho.   He was a bit shirty about it.

The bash, or doings, were of the most peculiar kind.  Rather a ritual sort of thing, don’t you know.  After a good deal of this and that, a doddering old fellow, some kind of mascot one presumes, stood up and began a rather extensive recitation regarding the “state of the union” while acting in the character of the U.S. President.  One gathers the whole thing partook of the jocose.

This guy is mostly out to lunch, but still a fun read from an outsider about the style of our temples.

This came to me in a half-dreaming state, so it is somewhere between brilliant and ridiculous.

It is after World War 3. Not so much post-Apocalypse, as post-war boom, a kind of post-post-Apocalypse.

But the Earth’s population is now a tiny fraction of what it used to be. In contrast, technology has taken an incredible leap forward, if not moral righteousness. And the Resurrection Machine is created. At first it is just immediate family that is brought back. But then we start going further and further back. We repopulate the earth until it can no longer contain us. Then we begin to colonize space.

This is not a horror movie. This is genuine wonder and celestial dream, mixed with the Law of Unintended Consequences and humanity at its extremes. It is the Future meets the Past, and how we work that out, and both are understood and taken seriously.

That is my problem with Star Trek, for all its tech, you rarely see the consequences of really revolutionary tech, apart from an occasional transporter accident involving evil twins.

Alas, this all requires a knowledge of history, to do this properly, that far outstrips my own humble education.

There’s an idea I want to get down even in a rough form.

I have got unreasonable amounts of mileage over poking and prodding at some of the doctrinal oddities of the restored gospel.

Here are two of them:

1.  This world is the worst of all possible worlds, no other world would have betrayed Christ; and
2. Only the Jewish remnant of Israel in the 1st Century AD would have killed Christ, any other nation would have repented.

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I had a nightmare last night.  I was reading a book with the quote from President Woodruff about the prophet not leading the Church astray.  A finger reached over my shoulder to point at the line and a voice behind me said, “The Prophet will not lead the Church astray.”

When I woke up this morning I was pretty sure that the the actual Woodruff quote was phrased differently but when I looked it up, nope, that’s what he said, the prophet will not “lead” the Church astray.  So score one for my nightmare I guess.

I like this girl named Columbia, so I gave her a balloon.

She cried.

This isn’t really a sweetness post, but it starts with some sweetness.

Yesterday my youngest daughter climbed up on my lap, snuggled into me, and said “Daddy, it would make me so happy if you played Feast or Famine with me.”  (It’s a Joseph-in-Egypt themed boardgame of no great appeal).  I put her off but said I’d play a game with her later, which ended up being an even worse game called Googly Eyes, something like that, which was pictionary with colored lenses that distort your vision and a Candyland style board.  The thing is, it really did make her happy.  She was delighted to be playing with me.  That made me happy too. (more…)

I was reading a scholar’s discussion when I came across this passage:

The comparison Nietzsche makes between the Higher Men and the Ubermensch in Zarathustra seems to me to be the relevant passage. For all their higher natures, the Higher Men are trapped by No-saying, their creative potential is locked away because they are first and foremost against degeneracy. The Yes-sayer can be truly creative because he is not against degenerate modernity, but careless of it in his positive-passion for his life-project. Degeneracy no longer matters to him.

Existentialism and especially postmodern inessentialism never seems to achieve that independence, it is always against and rarely for. Being against degeneracy gets you higher but prevents any ultimate escape from degeneracy. You’re always tied to it by your No-saying.

I don’t know anything about Nietzsche myself.  What caught my eye in this passage was the resonance with the virtue types.  (Wm. Jas. first twigged to the connection between the virtue types and some of Neitzsche’s commentary many moons ago). (more…)

A bromide, platitude, or cliche is just a truth with its power shorn off.

You have never encountered a full bromide, platitude, or cliche, in all its burning weight of Glory.

1. There once was a good man in a good land with a good people. They made him king.

When his kingdom was sore pressed by enemies and not all his valor nor the urgent spells of his magicians could turn them away, it so happened that a loyal man-at-arms sought an audience, saying he had somewhat to offer. The king received him, of course. The man spoke with fervor and sincerity. “Sire!” he said. “I will will my life force, the mana of my soul, to you! With that extra might, you will save the kingdom!” The king was horrified. ”  You would die.  I forbid it,” he barked. “You cannot stop me,” the man said. Zeal gleamed in his eyes, and then his eyes were blank. He fell to the floor. Potency rushed into the king, who vomited.

Others did likewise, to the increasing horror and rage of the king. Filled and overflowing with literal power, the king won the battle and the war. and freed all.  A universal golden era set in. (more…)

It is easy to forget that the Star Wars we know and love, is actually a remake from the 1880’s.

See also

We talk a lot about how the Gold Plates were recovered from Hill Cumorah. But we don’t talk as much about where they ended up. That part just isn’t as clear.

But we do have descriptions of the Cave where the plates were left. Interesting to see a library of other plates just waiting to be released.

And of course, the enigmatic writing on the Sword of Laban –

“This sword will never be
sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world
become the kingdom of our God and his Christ.”

As Pres Nelson has said, there is much more to come!

Historical descriptions of Cumorah’s Cave