There is something unfakeable about catching someone laughing in their sleep. It’s as if in sleep they have fulfilled the Savior’s command to become as a little child.
Inspired by Zen’s wonderful fable of the Idols of Babylon
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Some atheists have argued that the apparent fine-tuning of our universe for life is explained by there being many, many universes, billions and billions, till one just happened to come along that had just the right variables.
In programming they have genetic algorithms–if you don’t know exactly how to achieve a result, try a bunch of variants, see which ones work, then try variants of the successful.
One approach to cracking a password is the brute force approach. Just try a billion possibilities.
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Once there was a race of idol-worshippers. A missionary-monk came and mocked their idols. Then he cast them down. Nothing happened. The people began to reflect how unresponsive the idols had been. Yes, clearly the missionary was right. These were false idols.
But how to find true idols? No problem!
They set to work building every kind of idol they could. Every shape, every substance. They just had to try all the possibilities until they found one that worked. It was a huge undertaking. They had to mobilize their whole society. But once they found that one true idol, it would be worth it.
I have a vision of a great city, vast and ancient, with a wide central thoroughfare flanked by towering idols of gold and silver, stretching endlessly to the horizon. They rise like monuments to power and permanence—monolithic, gleaming, immutable. They must be immortal; they have always been there. But permanence is an illusion. The greatest of these idols, proud and unyielding, begins to collapse under its own immense weight. Its fall is not isolated. As it buckles, the force of its descent leans into its neighbors—lesser, but still mighty—who were never built to bear such burden. They too begin to falter, transferring the weight ever downward.
The pressure cascades, from the grand to the great, the great to the middling, the middling to the modest. Each crumbles in turn, passing on the impossible load. Eventually, the burden finds its way to the smallest and most numerous of idols—those the world barely noticed before.
Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on one’s view—there are a great many of these lesser idols. Their black-robed priests and priestesses, once obscure, now find themselves thrust into prominence. For a moment, they are treated as oracles, saviors, bearers of meaning. For a moment, the world believes they might hold the avenue together.
But the moment is brief. The expectations placed upon them are vast, unsustainable, absurd. The burden of Babylon, the cumulative strain of a collapsing hierarchy, proves too much. One by one, they too are crushed, not solely by their own weakness, but by the weight of all that fell before.
In desperation, new idols are sought, researched, invented. They are hurriedly placed where old idols once stood. But these fresh creations are fragile, unproven, and often misunderstood—especially by those who never grasped the old ones to begin with. This continues day and night, without rest.
Some hope that the weight might now be shared, distributed evenly across the field of idols, old and new. They believe such balance might save the structure. But this belief is born not of insight, but of blindness—a failure of imagination. They cannot conceive of a world without idols, without the avenue, without the golden towers.
But gravity lacks such limitation. It does not dream. It does not compromise. It only pulls.
And it is perfectly willing to reveal what the worshipers of idols could never fathom: that the avenue might one day lie bare, all idols fallen, the sky unshuttered, and the earth waiting.
Nothing left but footprints in the dust and a shattered plinth bearing the words: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.
There once was a man who always told the truth. It was not just that he never lied. He always told the truth. It was very peculiar talking to him–words and phrases we take for granted he found difficult and had to qualify or elaborate on. He could not function as a normal human being.
However, he never died. He continued to age but instead of growing weak and feeble like we do he just grew into further stages of adulthood, stages that we normal humans, contaminated by falsehood, have never seen.
Eventually his unending life grew weary to him. But that same thing that committed him to truth would not let him seek death.
Elder Soares talked about covenant confidence. That’s another phrase like ‘the covenant path’ that I never heard when I was a kid. It’s great.
It also appears to be of extremely recent vintage. I couldn’t find any reference prior to 2024.
We sat around last night swapping our favorite stories from conference while eating my experimental dessert. Conference was great, the dessert was not.
Elder Holland’s story of Easton, the deacon with muscular dystrophy bringing the sacrament to his father. It made a huge impression on my Teacher.
The three-year old and the five-year old who bit each other. A huge hit with many different family members.
Brother Lund’s story of Alan and his deacons.
Elder Soares burying his second child.
Brother Tai’s kids wondering if it was the same sky as the one they lived under.
Elder Kearon’s car was also a huge hit with our numerous Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang fans.
Brother Palmer’s fallen willow.
Elder Uchtdorf’s embarrassing branch.
Brother Theodoris-boom (not his actual name I’m sure, just what I heard) telling a pioneer story about his parents slowly winning back their family and friends.
By the way, did you catch that Brother McClune’s mother is still alive and has 200 descendants? What a winner!
A certain man found a pearl of great price in a field and he went and sold all he had and bought the field.
The pearl was indeed a great treasure.
It turned out that the the field was also. Rich, fertile soil that brought prosperity to his family for generations to come.
There may be pearls for you in this General Conference. Beautiful treasures of layered wisdom that will remain with you forever. Go and get rid of all your other time commitments to find them.
But don’t neglect the field. Even the talks that don’t stick with you for the rest of your life, which will be most of them in the ordinary course of things, are fertile soil for growth and fruits to come.
This month’s Going Against the Grain Award recognizes newly called Seventy Motoshige Karino and his Wife Merei.
“Motoshige Karino, 52, Togane, Japan; Representative Director, Modere Japan GK; currently serving as president of the Chiba Japan Stake; former bishop, mission presidency counselor and stake presidency counselor; wife: Mirei; seven children.”
Only such as those two ignore the scorn of the world, set aside fear, and realize the happiness and fullness available to those who want it.
You have heard of someone who is land-poor or house-poor. They have a great, big shiny asset, the kind that fulfills every dream of riches, but the owner neither feels rich nor always lives rich because the mortgage and maintenance eat up all their income.
Almost all the stately homes of England are open to the public or even owned by the public and its not because the British aristocracy is just that generous. Maybe a bit, but mostly because the stately homes were stately millstones about their necks.
Blenheim Palace — the seat of what was one of Britain’s richest and most successful families — open to the public to help pay costs
Same with power. All power costs something to maintain and someone can be objectively quite powerful but not feel it because almost all their power goes to maintaining their power.
In the New Testament there is a centurion who gives us a very vivid image of power. “I say go, and he goest.” To the one going, its pretty obvious that the centurion is very powerful. It may not feel the same way to the centurion. He more or less *has* to tell the soldier where to go or he quickly loses the ability and its not exciting to give the soldier his orders. It doesn’t feel like power. It feels like responsibility. Even delegation is hard and in some ways requires more effort than just doing it yourself or micromanaging.
So with power as with wealth, we might say that how it feels depends not on the total amount but how much you have left to use when all your obligations and debts and maintenance costs are accounted for. Delta power or net power.
(Stick with us on this one until the end, the end is where they payout is).
I accidentally came across this old draft post. It was the title and nothing else. The subject was interesting but I couldn’t tell whether I was for it or against it.
I guess it depends on what kinds of attacks we are talking about, and also and extremely importantly, whether the person doing the attacking is in fact more Christian.
Christ can attack me all he wants for being less Christian than He is (and He sometimes does, though not usually) and its all for the good.
People tied up in knots that I don’t have opinions about whether Christ broke his eggs at the big end or the little end, not so much.
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
Milton’s Satan got it wrong. These were not his choices.