Mosen Francisco had remarked to Ignacio one day that living with a saint was no easy matter.  Ignacio had answered him: “Dear Mosen, living with anyone, even a normal person, is no easy matter.”

-Gironella, Even the Cypresses Believe in God (Harriett de Onis trans., 1958)

In Spanish,

Mosén Francisco había comentado un día con Ignacio que la convivencia con un santo era difícil. Ignacio había contestado:

—Querido mosén, es difícil la convivencia con cualquiera, con una persona normal, con quien sea.

I was tickled.

If you were wondering about Elder Oaks’ talk to the young adults, wonder no more.

122k to 90k in 10 years is catastrophic.

A follow up to the post about the Reflection Index, with all its valuable comment, and Friday’s post suggesting that if we are complaining, we should be complaining that the Church doesn’t fail enough or spectacularly enough.  And lo, Laman and Lemuel murmured because Nephi wasn’t lost sometimes.

A good start

Let the stream of consciousness and half-formed thoughts begin.

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I have in mind a Judaism, Christianity, Restored Christianity progression using C.S. Lewis quotes. (more…)

You are deacon watching

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I stumbled across a lesser known form of service recently.

Through an odd set of circumstances I ended up doing a thing for several days where the circumstances were configured for me to be both an authority and to have charisma.  For a wonder, I didn’t flub it.

But my only real model for that kind of role is church, so I put on my church personality, which includes asking how people are doing by name and all that sort of thing.  A little pastoral counsel mixed in with the other presentations I was doing, that kind of stuff.

To my surprise, it really touched people.  It was moving to them.  Having an authority figure interested in them felt good.

Now that I’m back on my normal bland track, situation-derived authority and charisma gone like the snow, I have reflected on that experience.  And on other experiences I have had when I was on the receiving end.  When some person of character and authority and charm took an interest in me and pushed through my usual seesawing between wariness and fangirlishness to really make a connection.  It felt so good.  And at key junctures, changed the direction of my life.

I had a boss like that one time.  Everyone who worked there was unnaturally productive and agreed that the office felt like heaven.

These experiences have also been common for me inside the home, both now and when I was young.

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Do you want to be astoundingly happy?  Do you want to glow with glory?  Do you want to know true love?

Christianity is the doctrine that most people are answering no, Bruce Charlton says.

Which is true.  Much of my life consists of answering no.  All the squalid little compromises and mediocrities and tired timewasters that do not lift the spirits (if it lifts the spirits, its not a timewaster), interspersed with those shining moments and those quiet moments and those family moments and those church moments when I say yes.

This is cool, via OwenBroadcast

I think the originating pair is supposed to be an English pirate and a Spanish Senora.  Then the dichotomies continue all the way up.  Dad looks like a stone cold killer.

In praise of failure, and Matthew 25.

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“At least within the Church, those who feel a need to be a bit shocking still have tattoos and piercing available. You have to feel a little sorry for the John Waters types of the world who have to keep reaching farther into the absurd as past deviances become normalized. Sometimes it can be unkind not to at least pretend something disturbs us. Forty years ago Mrs. Howell could present the Skipper with a gold earring and it was a funny little joke.” —September 7, 2005

In the eighteen years since, the tattoos have grown to Lydia proportions, requiring some to take up more grandiose abuses of the flesh, cheered on by an army desperate to embrace everything and appear shocked by nothing. And with reference to fasting from corporations, every corporation this month is celebrating this escapism from reality.

“Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death.”

Big Corporate Fast Update (more…)

Two thoughts that ruminate in my mind.

First, how long can we be governed by cowards? This is not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know. It can’t be a stable situation. And the depths of cowardice are shockingly deep. People will say anything to not be unpopular.

Second, there is an incident in the life of Elijah that rests on my mind.
He has been hunted and was in hiding after cursing the land with a drought, but that is over now. It is time to confront the king and his enforcement of the worship of Baal. Elijah meets the king’s steward, Obadiah, who is a righteous man and had saved a hundred prophets. And he tells the steward to tell the king a message. What he says for Obadiah to tell the king is literally is ‘Behold Elijah’. This is usually translated ‘Elijah is here’. And that is true. But there is a second meaning.

Elijah’s name means

El (God) –

i (personal possessive – my) –

jah (Jehovah)

or simply, he was to tell the king, Behold! My God is Jehovah! 

Elijah was telling the righteous steward to not only tell King Ahab where he was. He was telling him to boldly declare his testimony, with the full knowledge of just how King Ahab would react. (spoiler warning, Ahab is friendlier to white whales, than true believers) Elijah told the Steward to say “My God is Jehovah!”

Now I wonder, are there places I need to declare my discipleship more boldly?

Boyd K. Packer’s Parable of the Debtor is good. But I think it could be added upon. I have in mind hybridizing it with Elder Uchtdorf’s story of the man who ate saltines on the cruise.

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Inspired by EC’s comment and some of the ongoing boycotts, today I am inaugurating the Big Corporate Fast. For one month I and whoever will join me will fast from Big Corporate.

The contours of this fast will be up to you. It should be some combination within reason of:

Buy local. Buy direct. Don’t buy at all.

For this month, as much as reasonably possible, I will be fasting from Amazon and Walmart and Target and big chains and big media.

As much as I can, I will be getting my groceries at a local place.

I will not eat at a national chain.

If I have products or services I need, I will go local or go direct instead of going through a national chain or a big retailer.

If I can get a similar products in generic or from a smaller corporation or used, I will.

If my only source is Big Corporate, I will do without or make it from scratch as much as I can.

As much as possible, I will stay off Big Social Media.

As much as possible, I will not use the big paid streaming sites. I will read books from the library, pop in a DVD, jam with friends and family, listen to music I already have.

As much as possible, I will stay away from live sports, paid Hollywood, and other aspects of Big Corporate Entertainment.

Example: I want to order a new pen for my journal. Instead of getting it from Amazon like normal, I ordered direct from the manufacturer. It cost a little more, but not much.

The goal here is not something grandiose like bringing corporate America to its knees. Sure, we can eventually get enough people to do it that there may be a noticeable dip in corporate sales for a month. That would be great, but that’s not the point. The point is to be free. Are you a helpless consumer or are you the kind of person who makes choices? It’s going to be wonderful to discover what you don’t have to be hooked on. It’s freeing to say, hey, you can’t force me to engage.

I am excited about doing this. Please let me know if you can join with me.

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Science! 

Happier, more attractive politician were more likely right-wing.
Faces with disgust, left-wing.

More Science! 

Regarding fitness, athletes had more attractive faces than non-athletes, more particularly for women, leading the researchers to say, ‘good is beautiful, beautiful is good’.