You are deacon watching
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.
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.
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.
Some time ago I listened to a podcast on the conundrum (from a certain point of view) between our lowliness before God and our own desire for more and greater things for ourselves which desire we sense in some aspect is right. Put crudely, whose kids are these? Is God their Father or am I?
The man thought the answer was stewardship. We possess what we possess as stewards for the owner and thus we and God both have them in some sense.
There is some scriptural basis for this idea. I don’t like it all the same. I wrote in my notes, similitude, not stewardship.
These relationships we form here are not just on someone else’s behalf. They are not even practice. The relationships we make are the foundation of eternity.
Sonship, not stewardship.
The blessing of burden
Lowing, the oxen
pull steadier with the load
In a world where people are having trouble ‘adulting’, and where both lower and higher education are in complete shambles, it behooves us to understand what ideal education looks like. And what it is for.
I was pondering AI, and what jobs it will eventually replace and I thought, ‘At least spirituality will be something machines can never do.’
Then I realized that is what a Urim & Thummim is.
(Because it can be obtained on no other principle).
Not only does absolute power not corrupt absolutely, the purpose of this life is to learn to exercise power without being corrupted.
-thus EdJCB
There are three symbols for Jesus in Lehi’s dream. (more…)
Maundy Thursday
The last supper — This is my body, this is my blood — Gethsemane (meaning oil press, symbolically meaningful) — The betrayal.
God is love, Christ violently drove the wicked from the temple. Turn the cheek, wield the whip. Lion and lamb.
I decided to do something a little different this time. Instead of looking over my notes, I am going to just list what struck me from memory. (If you want to do the same, jot down what you can before you read further).
I also am going to record my impressions.
Hopefully Elder Ballard will not frown if I say that I am thankful for the conference, my personal experience was the best I have had in years, and thankful for you. For me this was like the conferences of old, the most spiritual its been for me since President Nelson’s legendary talk about the 8 keys to revelatoin.
Royal triumph entering Jerusalem — In the mouth of babes and little children —
— If these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out.
