D&C 86 says that the “tares” aren’t rooted up because the faith of the “wheat” is weak.

For a long time I have lightly entertained the notion that the date of the Second Coming is variable. I speculated our righteousness can put it off, just like Sodom could have been saved if there were even 10 righteous people there.

But this section says the opposite. It says it is the feebleness of our righteousness that keeps putting off the Second Coming.

Model: the situation keeps getting worse until no one with weak faith is left one way or the other.

Wryly, one might say The beatings will continue until faith improves.

Gresham’s Law of Supply Chains.

Empty containers drive out fulls.

It seems that everyone now agrees that the bottleneck is yard space at the container terminals. The terminals are simply overflowing with containers, which means they no longer have space to take in new containers either from ships or land. It’s a true traffic jam.

— Ryan Petersen (@typesfast) October 22, 2021

I dreamed that I decided to become a novelist. Surprising myself the dreamer (not myself the person in the dream) I cranked out quite a bit of good dreck that got popular. Then my ambitions increased and I decided to become a great novelist. (more…)

Here are a few more insights on righteous dominion. The quality here is high.

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We are all reading D&C 121 this week.

Here are some of the best JG posts on righteous and unrighteous dominion.

They are really good.

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it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, in regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people, both in this place and in the land of Zion—

4 For a permanent and everlasting establishment and order unto my church, to advance the cause, which ye have espoused, to the salvation of man, and to the glory of your Father who is in heaven;

5 That you may be equal in the bonds of heavenly things, yea, and earthly things also, for the obtaining of heavenly things.

6 For if ye are not equal in earthly things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things;

-thus D&C 78:3-6

Like some of you, I have developed an allergy to the concept of equality, as who wouldn’t if the whipmasters shouted “equality” with each blow on you of the lash.  But that is the fault of the whipmasters, not the (sadly much abused) concept.

Paradoxically, I have become more alive to the idea of a group of people joining together as peers because of some great animating friendship and cause.  Like it says right there in those verses, “to advance the cause.”

But that isn’t the point of this post.

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What if you are the hero farm boy in a fantasy novel, but there is no Dark Lord of Darkness for you strike down, no One Ring to throw into the cracks, not even a Mt. Doom?  Just creeping malice and sludge and miasma and mediocrity?

In circles where manhood still has nominal rhetorical value, there is a tendency to say

Real men do X

Real men don’t do Y

Where X and Y are whatever the speaker happens to be for or against.

Real men brush their teeth

Real men don’t disrespect their wives

Don’t mistake us, my poppets.  We are four square for brushing your teeth and respecting your wife, preferably at the same time if possible.

But we are against mindlessly inserting “real men” in front of every piece of good advice (or, sometimes, bad advice).

It comes across as manipulative and meaningless and makes the concept of manhood pretty empty.

What there needs to be is some connection to an actual concept of manhood.

Elder Holland makes the connection here

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Imagine some stodgy old town that has stodgy old town meetings.

Except one day some incredibly brave youth stands up and says something incredibly brave that shocks literally everybody, maybe something like the truth is that there is no truth. He says everyone should just look out for themselves and never mind the rest, lie a little if they need to, there is no truth and morality so do whatever it takes to be comfortable and have a few of life’s little pleasures.  It’s so brave because he may well lose his job and his fiancee over what he is saying.

That is the fundamental myth of modernity.  Society LARPs it every day.

The myth is in the air we breathe, so much so that I’ve struggled to write it in a way that shows it’s absurdity.  The truth is that there is no truth …get out.

By him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God

-thus Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon

Worlds, plural.  He is the savior of multiple worlds.

But I want to focus on the begotten part.  There is a lot of interesting mysticism in the scriptures about how we becomes sons and daughters of Christ, how the Son is the Father and so on.  But this revelation first emphasizes the Son’s status as the Begotten of the Father and then says that we are begotten sons and daughters of Father through the Son.  To me, the obvious answer is just that we take on Christ’s identity.  We are part of Christ, we are the body of Christ, and so in becoming Him, we become what He is–the Son of God, the Daughter of God.

Great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory

And to them will I reveal all mysteries, yea, all the hidden mysteries of my kingdom from days of old, and for ages to come

Yea, even the wonders of eternity shall they know, and things to come will I show them

And their wisdom shall be great, and their understanding reach to heaven;

and before them the wisdom of the wise shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent shall come to naught.

For by my Spirit will I enlighten them, and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will

–D&C 76:6-10

His purposes fail not,

neither are there any

who can stay his hand.

From eternity to eternity

he is the same,

and his years

never fail.

–D&C 76:3-4

Here are my Conference top two. (more…)

Christofferson, the Covenant Path

Obedience can be good.  Independence can be good.  But there is a tension between them.

They both have bad versions–unthinking conformity, prideful rebellion–and it should interest you that Satan appears to aim for both.  The conformist rebel is one of the defining archetypes of our age.

Covenants reconcile the tension between obedience and independence.

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On the sweetness . . .

A strange ward.  A woman gets up to speak.  It’s a full on blue collar ramble.  She’s talking about her alcoholism, taking a shot at her addict exhusband, boasting about her lawn ornaments (!), and talking about service and repentance, all mixed together  She says she was floored when they ask her to be Relief Society President.  I am in the back laughing and laughing but also crying by the end.  It was pure and beautiful.

There was a farmer with land that had been in the family for years and generations.  Every day he walked the land with his boys.  He checked on the pasture.  He watched each one of his cattle.  He knew them by name.  He checked the brightness of their coat and the brightness of their eye, so he could tell if they were less than at their peak.  He repaired fences.  He drained wet spots and pulled noxious weeds.  He tried slow and careful experiments here and there, introducing a new clover in one field, growing chestnuts in another with grazing in the understory.  But his fathers had created deep rich pasture so he was slow and careful to modernize too much on every whim of theory.  He milked and drank the rich cream with his boys.  He told them stories as they did their rounds.  “This is where we went ice sliding the year the creek ran over.  That dead stump there?  That’s where Grandpa killed a bear.  No, not the bearskin by the hearth, that’s a different bear.”  He educated them that way, and by being with him as he did his work.  They were also taught by the storms and the sun and the stars at night.

There was a lord with a small city that had been in the family for years and generations.  Every day he walked the city with his boys.  He checked on the roads.  He smelled for sewer or pollution.  He talked to the shopkeepers and police and families.  He knew them by name.  He knew their houses and their way of dress and could tell if they were less than at their peak.  He would step in and direct traffic if he saw a snarl.  If the kids at the school seemed restless and quarrelsome, he would declare a holiday and put on a parade.  He found lifeless areas of empty buildings and rebuilt them for families and little shops and home industries.  He did experiments here and there.  A neighborhood nuclear generator over here.  A community managed homestead as the center of an HOA over here.  But his fathers had built a happy and prosperous people so he was slow to modernize too much on every whim of theory.  He collected his taxes and decorated his ancestral home with beautiful art made by his own people.  He told his boys stories as they did their rounds.  “This is where your great great grandfather–our founder– and his neighbors confronted a gang.  This is where we had the wrestling exhibition when I was a young man and our city stood off every challenger.”  He educated them that way, and by being with him as he did his work.  They were also taught by the storms and the sun and the swirl of human life healthily lived around them.  And even by the stars, because this was a town that cherished its darkness at night, and where everyone was safe even without lights.