Elder Bednar spoke in conference on the theme of the Savior saying “Abide in Me, and I in Thee.”

One of the men in my quorum was pretty touched by it.  He said he knew he was supposed to get closer to Christ but it was pretty moving that Christ also wanted to get closer to him.  Big truck, soft heart.  He said he loves coming home and people meet him at the door, or the little ones run out into the yard.

I thought of that prodigal son painting, where the father has run out onto the road.

I have a particular for thinking that going to heaven will be going home in just that way.  In the words of the old song, “we will all come out to greet you when you come.”

When we say “heaven is our home,” we are not primarily making a doctrinal point but a phenomenological one.

We were talking about Isaiah proclaiming woe for those who call sweet bitter and bitter sweet and somehow the conversation revealed that we had opposite interpretations of this passage from Lehi

15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/2?lang=eng

I interpreted the tree of life as sweet and the tree of knowledge as bitter.  She interpreted them the opposite. (more…)

A crow on a fence spoke to the bull in the field.

“Your bellow is not beautiful,” said the crow. “You should try to sound more like a nightingale. ” The crow squawked triumphantly at what it evidently considered to be a real zinger.

The bull replied,  “Nightingales sing beautifully, no doubt.  What my herd needs to hear is the bellow of a bull. ”

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Loosely inspired by Father’s Day, I intended to put together a JG collection on “becoming as a little child.”  While so doing I started to wonder if we were also meant to become as an adult, and if so, what does that mean?

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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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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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In praise of failure, and Matthew 25.

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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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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.

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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

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