Friends, its that time of year when you have a million happy bustling things to do and so, in fear that you might have a free moment, we post our Christmas page.  Please see above in the header bar.  May we suggest that you particularly check out Holiest Madness?

Merry Christmas!

I personally am grateful for any time you spend here with me this season, and don’t begrudge it at all if the time you have to spare for your JG friends is not as much as you would like.

For those who stick around, I am going to try a little experiment, starting tomorrow.  It’s going to be an episodic Christmas fairy tale, I’ll be posting one small episode per day from tomorrow until Christmas, and then 12 more for the 12 days of Christmas.  God willing.

I already have some concepts.  The plot will involve the Tree Son and the Star Maiden and, I think, the God Child.  Probably an ogre named Big Black Dack.  No guarantees.  Any suggestions or ideas?  Comment below.

The Daughterperson No. 1 had an interesting conversation with me about peace.

What vice distorts peace, she wanted to know. It was a fun chat.

The likely answer is complacency, stagnation, apathy . . . and that led in some interesting directions. Because the opposite of that vice is ambition or striving for excellence which is an aspect of glory

PEACE : Complacency/stagnation

Reckless ambition : GLORY

(more…)

Let’s talk about Christmas and Easter and how they work as holidays. For lack of a better term, maybe we’ll call it vibe engineering.

Yes, Christmas is a bigger deal than Easter as a holiday and there are extremely good reasons for that. If you want to make Easter a bigger deal for you (as per the Brethren in April conference), you need to understand something about holidays and apply your knowledge. You can’t just willpower your way into feeling more celebratory.

Each holiday has certain holiday flavors to it. Thanksgiving for instance has Family, Heritage, and Gratitude. Those all organically flow from the nature of the holiday and the time of year it is at.

Christmas has a lot. There is a strong Family element, both for traditional reasons, because it is celebrating something that happens overnight so a morning celebration is appropriate which is when you are more likely to be with family, and mostly because the holiday is celebrating the formation of the Holy Family.

It has Gifts, both because of tradition, the wise men, and also because its a birthday and we associate gifts with birthdays. And because Christbaby is a gift. (more…)

The church announced that Patrick Kearon was ordained an apostle yesterday. He was baptized on Christmas Eve 1987 at age 26, so I went looking for the last time someone baptized as an adult was later ordained an apostle. I had to look back farther than I had guessed.

Ulisses Soares was a child when his parents were baptized, and he was baptized at age 8.
Dieter Uchtdorf likewise.
John Widstoe was baptized in April 1884 at age 12.
Charles Penrose was baptized on May 14, 1850 at age 18 and ordained apostle July 7, 1904.
Anthon Lund was baptized about 1856 at age 12.
Marriner Merrill was baptized April 1852 at age 19 and ordained apostle October 7, 1889.
Albert Carrington was baptized July 18, 1841 at age 28 and ordained apostle July 3, 1870.

So, the last apostle prior to Elder Kearon to be baptized at age 20 or older was someone born in 1813, when Joseph Smith was seven.

When you cuss in your prayers, God gets irked.

It turns out.

Snow began to fall on 29th November – second anniversary of Storm Arwen, which was the most destructive storm in this region for a century; and has continued being added to since.

It is not very deep snow, but it has persisted for five days so far; and is proper snow – covering every twig of every tree – and the leaves have not yet fallen from the oak in our garden; and thick enough for sledging and snowmen.

–Bruce Charlton, with a personal touch.

I haven’t been to his place in a few weeks, so I was interested to see that roughly the same thing has been on our minds lately.  This post in particular really spoke to me: (more…)

You taste the fruit of the tree and for one impossible moment the sweetness explodes in your mouth.

For one impossible moment you have the knowledge of paradise and you still live in it.

(more…)

You have never not been on the cliff’s edge leaping.

Plans make heaven roll with laughter.

There is no control, only the deed and submission to the deed.

(more…)

You have never not been on the cliff’s edge leaping.