There were two brothers who had ambition.  Once their parents died, they set out through means fair and only a little bit foul to acquire as much power and possessions as they could.

It was a hard struggle.

They made enemies.

At last they owned all that they could see and were the men in their community whose decisions mattered.  There were limits to what they possessed, of course.  Two men can only manage so much.  And there were limits to their authority–they had enemies, they could only push so far without provoking a reaction.  But they had all the reasonable targets for their ambition and as much property and power as they could reasonably expect to hold.  They could at last relax a little.  They held a great feast to mark the completion of their aims.

A few days after, the lean brother came to the stout one.

“Brother,” he said, “I am giving it all up.  I am leaving everything behind.  I am going to go to a far country with only the clothes on my back, where no one knows me, where I have no credit nor reputation.  I am going to start with nothing there.  Everything here is yours unless you want to come with me.”

“What? Of course not”

The stouter brother was appalled.  It would be extremely difficult to hold his position with just him.  It could be done, just barely, but it would require unremitting toil.  And he would miss his brother.  He brooded for a bit and then burst out in an exclamation.

But his leaner brother had been brooding too, because he also burst out in an exclamation.  It was the same exclamation, and at the same time.

“How can you be satisfied with so little?”

For no real reason, I wrote a silly rhyming word on my whiteboard at work.

“Boogie woogie”

Some coworkers added to it.  “Loosie-goosie”  “humbug” “hankie-pankie”

Another colleague came by and wrote “hysteron proteron.”  It was awkward, because this colleague thinks I’m literate and expected me to know the term.  Whereas I’d never seen it before.  His explanation was cursory, we were both embarrassed, so I looked it up more after he left.

It’s a rhetorical figure where you invert a sequence to emphasize the more important latter part of the sequence or just to add a flourish.

Born and bred

The article I read translated it (pretty loosely, I think) as “first last.”

This was earlier this week.

That night, I read a Nevil Shute book where one guy gets a cold.  Why?  Well, he sheepishly admits, he joined a great club called the Hysteron Proteron where they live one day backwards.  They start with a formal dinner early in the morning and end with a little breakfast and he ended up outside in the damp at an unusual hour.

OK.  That wouldn’t be the first time I learn a new word and start seeing it everywhere.  Though its a highly unusual new word.

The next morning we read D&C 29 which spends verses and verses on the gospel saying that the first shall be last, and the last first.

I don’t understand why.  I am already the kind of person who is going to think a verse about the first being last is important because I have a taste for the mysterious and for paradox.  I don’t need any supernatural highlighting.

I sometimes think that reality is just kinda filled with meaning and connection and some of it is directed from above with a purpose and some of it is just kinda there.

***

I dreamed and it felt like a significant dream about a man who went online as ‘nurnin.’  But I don’t known any nurnins.

Satan said, give me thine honor, which is my power.

-D&C 29.

Honor is power.

There is an overwhelming amount of pointers in scripture towards a metaphysics which is based on honor, glory, and power, which is almost completely ignored.  The few people who do address it have silly reductionist things to say about it.

And the righteous shall be gathered on my right hand unto eternal life; and the wicked on my left hand will I be ashamed to own before the Father;

28 Wherefore I will say unto them—Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

29 And now, behold, I say unto you, never at any time have I declared from mine own mouth that they should return, for where I am they cannot come, for they have no power.

30 But remember that all my judgments are not given unto men; and as the words have gone forth out of my mouth even so shall they be fulfilled, that the first shall be last, and that the last shall be first in

That “but” looks like its going to be a qualification on the apparent eternal state of the damned.  But the revelation launches into a discussion of spiritual and temporal creation and never addresses damnation again.  I don’t know what to make of it.

31 For by the power of my Spirit created I them; yea, all things both spiritual and temporal—

32 First spiritual, secondly temporal, which is the beginning of my work; and again, first temporal, and secondly spiritual, which is the last of my work

Creation is first spiritual, then temporal.  Easy enough.  But what is the inverse part at the last mean?  First resurrection, then the sanctification of the soul?  First the millennium and then the celestial earth?

On the sweetness

A sister gives a talk about her dream job.

She got it about a year ago.  She felt inspired to take it.

It has been rough on her family with her out of the home.

Last week a young lady taught a lesson to the young women on the Proclamation on the Family.  She, the sister with the dream job, felt inspired to go back to being at home.  So she gave notice.

Could this meeting be a zoom?

Could this zoom be a phone call?

Could this phone call be an email?

Could this email be a text?

Could this text be unsent?

 

Could we in silence retreat to the forest?

Could we, by game trails & forgotten paths, vanish into the trees?

-thus Louis Evans

Women connect, men synthesize.

Not completely sure its true or kind.

But our ironclad policy is to post whatever pops into our heads.

I recommend this talk by Elder Maxwell about Joseph Smith.  His literary bent shows him the rhythm and contrast, the tragic poetry, that lies in Joseph Smith’s life and in ours.

Great courage, great strength, great passion — and going peaceably to his death.

After a glorious visitation, a laborious implementation.

Remarkable manifestations, along with constant vexations.

Befriended by heavenly notables,  betrayed by some of his earthly friends.

Receiving keys and gifts, but  the painful loss of six of his eleven children.

That is Joseph Smith’s poetry.

When you come to passages in your own life that are troubling, keep reading.  Dauntless the slug horn to your lips set and blow.

P.S.  I loved this passage.

President Young said that those who knew Joseph could tell when “the Spirit of revelation was upon him, … for at such times there was a peculiar clearness and transparency in his face.” (In Journal of Discourses, 9:89.)

Other posts from the Priesthood session of the April 1992 General Conference

Marilyn Nielson The very best available

My children, my children,

my jewels of my heart.

Time, death, and distance

will ne’er long us part.

Romans held actors and actresses in great contempt. They classified them as a form of prostitute. The plays they acted in were often extremely lewd and they often just were prostitutes. The Roman attitude makes sense and one wishes we could adopt it. It is hard to think of a single redeeming feature of our celebrity culture. (more…)

My wife says that I have a subconscious rule that I must move things from one place to another at least a hundred times before I can bring myself to give them away. Suffice it to say, if you need help in this, there are better experts than I to teach you.

-thus Brother Bradford, from his talk Unclutter Your Life.

It is not really a talk about clutter. It is a talk about systems, and means and ends, and goals. (more…)

The one Lord,
from the two branches hung,
three days in the grave,
the four quarters saved

In mortal terms, a father is someone who went from thinking it would be fun to gleefully and dangerously blow up stuff with his friends to thinking it would be fun to gleefully and a little less dangerously blow up stuff with his kids and his friends.

Mortal fathers, by natural design, have a lot of fun with their kids in the rough and tumble.

God is the Father.

(more…)

I dreamed an old-fashioned general of the French type and his intelligent friend were seated at an outdoor cafe, talking.

“Young officers who are wild are better than young officers who are spiritless,” the general said  [I think I read this somewhere recently].  “The wild ones you can sometimes teach self-discipline too.  The spiritless ones cannot be taught spirit.”

“But wouldn’t it be better if you could teach them spirit?  That would be wonderful.”

The general is shocked.  “Why?  You don’t like the wild officers?”

“No, no, that part is fine.  But if you could have *all* your officers have both spirit and self-discipline, what a fantastic force you would be.”

The general is deeply shocked by the suggestion.  “Absolutely not.  It would never do.  The great mass of bland officers, we rely on them to keep the spirited ones checked.  A whole force full of self-disciplined officers with vigor and dash and self-purpose, it staggers my imagination.  It would be chaos, sir.  Chaos.  The Army would dissolve.  The nation would dissolve.  The world, sir, the world would dissolve.”

The friend is deeply disappointed in what this reveals about his old friend the general.  “Yes,” he said, and then certain words of remonstrance that I do not now recall.

Repentance is the path to greatness. That is the path we have to choose.

We could also say it is our path to glory or goodness or heaven. All true. We were meant for greatness but we are not yet great. We are too illformed as yet. So we must change.

We can imagine someone who doesn’t need to be change to be great. They only need to develop further who they are inwardly. Christ was like that, I think. We are partly like that too. We were meant for greatness, the seeds are already there, we are just unfolding them. But for us it also means changing who we are. We have contradictions inside us.

Where we are, and where we have to go to get to our destination explains why ‘strait is the gate and narrow the way.’ We will all wander. But if we wish to arrive at greatness, eventually we are going to have to choose a path that leads there. “Why can’t I be saved in my sins?” is morphologically the same question as “why can’t I go to Paris without having to go to France?” (more…)