Judging or doing judgment in the earth is, according to their capacity and position, required not of judges only, nor of rulers only, but of all men; a truth sorrowfully lost sigh of even by those who are ready enough to apply to themselves passages in which Christian men are spoken of as called to be “saints” (i.e. to helpful or healing functions); and “chosen to be kings” (i.e. to knowing or directing functions). . . . All true sanctity is saving power, as all true royalty is ruling power; and injustice is part and parcel of the denial of such power.

John Ruskin, Unto This Last 

(I put in the italics)

Three crows set on a fence rail. “We’re not a very diverse bunch,” said one crow. So he caught a fish and dropped it on the rail, while another crow dragged a mole up there and the third crow cajoled a calf into balancing there precariously. “Much better,” said the crow.  “Now we have diversity, and equality too.”

Any valid form of asceticism is aesthetic.  Aesthetic because it fits into a larger pattern of creation.  Asceticism for its own sake is asceticism which uglifies.  It is gnostic, creation hating.  Gnostic is evil.

The more individual and distinct we become, the more we become like each other.

(Dusting off the Archives)

Authenticity is integrity with the element of time irrationally and wickedly stripped off.  It is trying to be true to yourself right now, without regard to being true to who you were and especially to who you will be.  The honest seed sprouts and flowers.  The authentic seed falls on stony ground and stays a seed, then a withered caricature of a seed, then a husk.  Authenticity is death.

In Mormon terms, where damnation means the cessation of progress, authenticity is damnation.

(more…)

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Ephesians 5.

These can be challenging verses.  Enough so that the official Church header to this chapter has the extremely mealy-mouthed description “Husbands and wives should love each other.”  Right.

It has been suggested that one way of making sense of these verses is to see that Paul is giving people permission to do what they might want to do anyway but that their culture might tell them not to.  For instance, in Roman culture and other cultures of the empire, a man loving his wife could be seen as unmanly.

Another possibility is that Paul is giving people a way to elevate the role that their culture expects of them.  Instead of just being something you have to do, it becomes something that moves you more towards God.  For instance, in a culture like that prevailing in ancient Rome where women were very much expected to do as their husbands told them, Paul is giving them a gospel pattern for this cultural expectation.  In a bourgeois culture where men are expected to be affectionate and dote and cater to their wives, Paul is giving them a nobler way of doing it.

These are possibilities.  I don’t know if any of them are true or not.

In D&C 92, the Lord tells Williams to be a lively member of the United Order.

Scriptures about being active, having energy, being quickened–we think those are about accomplishing more.  It’s good to accomplish more.  But we may be looking beyond the mark.  Being lively is itself beautiful.  It reveals what is glorious about being alive.  It and stillness and contemplation seems to be the two states that God loves best.  Those are also the two states where the glory of being human are most manifest.  A child playing energetically, a child at rest.

God loves deeds, great or small.  To praise deeds is to participate in the divine nature.

Mostly we praise people to cheer them up or make them like us.  The right reason is delight.  Paradoxically when you praise from delight they are then much more likely to cheer up or like you.

The best smell in church is old cigarette smoke on someone’s clothes.

The best sound is a crying child.

The best touch is straightening a son’s tie.

The best taste is water.

The best sight is the one blurred by tears.

The sensations you sense outward and in.

I read a book recently called a Month in the Country.  It’s billed as an idyll.  It isn’t, but it has parts that are.  Moments of peace, as the sun rises, seen from the belfry of a country church.

I think that writing an idyll is one of the most difficult tasks a writer can have.

The high-school book A Separate Peace is not an idyll, but it has its moments.  Those are what give the book its power.

The Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy are idylls in homespun.

Put your recommendations below.

Some ruins have to be hunted by archaelogists.  Others stand out in the open.

There is one such that is barely even a ruin at all.  Inside there is nothing to be seen, only dirt and scrub.  But the walls still stand unfallen, as proud and erect as when they were built thousands of years ago.  The marvelous techniques the builders used still puzzle archaelogists.  There is nothing like it in the world.

Over the gate there is a beautifully wrought inscription.  Translated, it is believed to say something like, “I, the Farsighted One, built these walls to stand forever for the greater protection of my people and my family.”   Underneath it and to the side there is a straggling,less well-made inscription that has been ravaged by time.  It is reconstructed to say the following:

“He raised taxes for these cursed walls until the people fled.  He fought wars for tribute for these cursed walls until the people were died.  By arts he drew strength from the soil to sustain these walls by magic until all the strength of the soil is gone.  Where now are those abundant fields full of grain?  Gone, all gone.  He is dead.  We, his family, make this inscription before we too flee.  May this place be cursed.  May it be an inhabitation for dragons and for owls.”

The walls still stand, unfallen, as proud and erect as when they were first built thousands of years ago.  Inside there is nothing to be seen, only dirt and scrub.

Inspired by D&C 86:4.

The male archetype of evil is a specific being, Satan.  The female archetype of evil is a symbol–Babylon, the Great Whore.

The male archetype of good is a specific being, Jesus Christ.  The female archetype of good is a symbol–Wisdom.

So, concrete male but abstract female.  What does it mean?  I personally have no idea.

(more…)

But whoso breaketh this covenant [of the priesthood] after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come.

And wo unto all those who come not unto this priesthood

-thus D&C 84:41-42

It made me think of some of our work on progression through a virtue set, where refusal to take up power and authority is a sin, acquiring it and then rejecting it is a terrible sin, and so is acquiring it but not wielding it with the appropriate limits.

Three crows met to brag on a fence rail.

“Friends,” said the first crow, “friends, I am a world class deceiver.  I tell mostly truths, I work to get the details correct, and then I tell the Big Lie.  So huge that no one can believe I would make it up entirely.  They think there must be at least something there.  I get experts, I get emotional narratives, I get ordinary people to come forward as witnesses.  I have planned techniques and fallback positions for when people question the lie.  I am one fine liar.”  And perhaps the crow was telling the truth about himself, who knows.

“That approach is infantile,” said the second crow.  “I don’t say untrue things at all.  I just lie by omission.  I will paint the victim as the aggressor by leaving out who struck first.  I will get other groups to tell my lies for me, then I just quote them.  It’s so professional, the way I do it.”  Perhaps that crow was also telling the truth, who knows.

The third crow smirked.  Finally he said, “I just lie.  I tell big lies and little lies.  I tell lies constantly.  I contradict my former lies.  I say whatever would be convenient at the moment.  I contradict myself in the same sentence.  If someone calls me on it, I lie and say I didn’t.”

“Hey,”  one crow cawed to a nearby grazing cow.  “Which one of us has the best approach to get you to believe stuff?”

The cow ignored them.

A certain lamb was being loaded onto a livestock trailer for the trip to the slaughterhouse.  As the tractor-trailer drove off, the lamb squirmed its way through the tightly pressed sheep to catch a glimpse out a ventilation hole, a glimpse of the pastures the lamb was leaving behind.

“At last, freedom at last,” the lamb exclaimed.  “No more fences, no more herd dogs!”