I had a strange dream about the temple lately, and now I may have found the key.

I recommend very much the book Plain and Precious Things.  Books, I think, recommended it awhile back and I finally got around to reading it.  Its a highly readable, plain language discussion of ancient temple ritual symbols and how they show up all over the Book of Mormon in a way that deepens your understanding of the message.  It stretches the bounds of probability a bit towards the end but the bulk is extremely compelling.

Plain and Precious Things describes two major ancient ordinances which seem to combine modern ordinances.  The Day of Atonement started with a baptism before moving on to the sacrifices.  The “Peace Ordinance” had initiatories, the sacrament, and an endowment all built in.

Plain and Precious Things says that the ‘throne’ was an important part of the temple worship and that the ‘rock’ was treated as equivalent with the ‘throne’.  We know that the Rock is a symbol for Christ but is also a symbol for the throne of Christ, the seat of his Majesty.

So now lets look at the dream. (more…)

John C. Wright is in fine fettle. His latest is as good as ever he has been. If you haven’t been reading it yet, rejoice! Now you can.

Each update comes with a comment from the editors (the conceit is that the text itself is a classic work that requires commentary of the sort you might see on an edition of the Odyssey or the Illiad). The updates are here. The story so far is here.

Because it seems some small requital of the pleasure the story gives me, I drop a few dollars into his patreon every month. But you needn’t, the story is free.

I love you like a bushel of apples,

like late harvest peaches still warm from the sun.

I love you like dew on the pasture,

like home Sunday dinner when the churching is done.

I dreamed of a temple built only by hand, and lit only by sunlight.

In it, for each new ordinance you did for yourself, you started back at the beginning and did anew every ordinance.

A young man came for his endowments.  He brought with him a building stone and his family.  He and his family had hewn out the stone themselves, and hauled it themselves.

One of these bright, soft fall mornings, if you walk down the dirt road along the orchard, and take the turn where it bends out of sight in the haze… (more…)

Sane and insane are orthogonal to true and untrue.  Sane people believe some untrue things.  Some truths are only for the mad.

Some lessons from the end of the Book of Mormon.

• It is both true that our side is our side and that our side is wicked.  I am all for core America, but are we free from divorce, childlessness, greed, dishonesty, betrayals, and all the rest?  Would that we were.

• It doesn’t have to get better.  The signs that things are getting much worse for us could be true.  People who think we can just go through the normal processes and are bound to come back are, I fear, taking for granted something that is not at all sure.  There is no guarantee that this election is a normal election, or that the  Revolution against us is going to subside or even stagnate.

• Suppose the President wins due to an election fraud challenge or something.  It would not be a sign that we were wrong to think we were and are on the brink of disaster.  It is still hopeful, though!  Because it means God is giving us another chance to repent, and thinks we are able to do so.

When people point to all the natural disasters and wars and coups and such happening around the world as proof that we live in end times, I have had my doubts.  Don’t modern communications mean we would be much more aware of such things, so the increase would only be apparent but not real?

Although other scriptures use different language, I was interested that Moroni said the Book of Mormon would come

  in a day when there shall be heard of fires, and tempests, and vapors of smoke in foreign lands;
And there shall also be heard of wars, rumors of wars, and earthquakes in divers places

(more…)

There is a place you can go.  You say hello to God, he says hello to you, then he hands you a list.  It is a list of all your sins.

You check off all the sins you are willing to repent of, then you hand the list back to God.

The name of the place is called “Judgment.”

Every day the flock trekked down all the way to the  river for a drink.  They went the same way every time; it was the closest point in the river, and the path had been trodden smooth.

One day, when they set of, an alert member of the flock said she saw some flickers of movement away off at their destination along the river.  The ram halted the flock for awhile and sniffed the air.  “Wolves, perhaps,” he said, and headed off the path into the rough country alongside the path to cross to a different point on the river.

At that, however, another member of the flock who was already showing signs of distress became even more agitated.

“You are breaking the norm!” she bleated.

Moral: We sometimes try to allay our fears with tried and trusted normalcy, when it is our normal course that has made us vulnerable to danger.

Random thoughts from the end of the Book of Mormon

*  It’s droll to read the Book of Mormon as a historical document.  You know, with the same scepticism we usually give to ancient documents.  Except that you are treating it as a real document, which drives the sceptics mad.

There are limits to doing that.  Because if the Book of Mormon is real, it is inspired.

That said, and just for fun, here is what I would infer from the ending of the Book of Mormon if I were reading it as just a document from some ancient civilization.

(more…)

I was out in the high desert this weekend, morning and evening.  I could see the horizon and all the clouds and sky.

I saw the sunrise and the sunset–fortunately I had something else to do so I was able to appreciate their full beauty, I didn’t have to stand there consciously trying to have an aesthetic experience.

I noticed something I have seen before.

Sunrise

Until the sunrise is over, every time you glance over it is more wonderful.  The first pale light of dawn is timid.  Then after that brighter every time, different colors, and the angles shift.  Even if you expect it to be better you still aren’t prepared when you look up again for the actual shock of beauty.

But the day itself is fairly bland unless there are plenty of clouds.

Perhaps there is a metaphor in there for why God mostly conceals his presence from us.

Sunset

The colors shift and the brightness fades.  It is probably the exact physical inverse of the sunrise.  But this time the quieter colors are the more beautiful.  Again, every time you look up and see the sunrise, you are again shocked at the beauty.  You weren’t expecting it.  There is something about the black line of the horizon, the dark clouds limned with almost imperceptible hints of deep, deep red, and the still faintly blue sky far above them that is almost heart-stopping.

I noted the paradox this weekend. The sunrise becomes more glorious as it brightens.  The sunset more glorious as it dims.

Each one because it is becoming more itself.  It is working out even further its inner logic.

But for the twilight, especially, it is because even a dimmer light shines brighter when its surroundings have gotten that much more dark.

And the night itself is not bland.  Either the stars in the heaven appear, or else like the last two nights, the moon rises over the horizon.

The light is not defeated by the going down of the sun.

You are the Light in the Twilight of the West

Why is the Left so unwilling to leave anybody alone?  Why can’t they just be content with their victory?

There are many true answers to that question.

But Bruce Charlton has the truest answer of all.

And by this demand; Leftism reveals its weakness to those with spiritual-eyes to see: that any single individual person who dissents in thought (no matter how apparently obscure) is a significant threat to The Agenda at the level which matters most: i.e. the spiritual level.

The individual has never been so objectively empowered as here-and-now. 

The Global Establishment demands that you, specifically (no matter who you are), decide to be On Their Side.

When the demonic powers view our planet; any dissidence, any one Godly Christian, stands-out of this world like a blazing beacon.

(This, ultimately, is why there is “no hiding place”.)

 

Of course it is vital to The Enemy to persuade Christians that Resistance Is Futile…

Meanwhile, by everything they actually do; Leftism makes clear that any resistance, by any person, anywhere is In Fact a colossal threat to The System – at its primary and spiritual level.

Your faith is not futile.  You shine all the more beautiful as the light of our society fades.

A great post from Bruce Charlton from anyone who is interested in revelation and the Light of Christ and the inward promptings of the soul.

On the steppe, when one tribe got big and genocidal and attacked the tribe next to it that tribe fought for a while and then fled, usually by launching a genocidal attack on the next tribe further on.  You got these domino effects.

(The Mfecane I mentioned yesterday worked like that also).

But the Nephites at the end stopped fleeing the Lamanites. Why?

Maybe they were completely surrounded by the Lamanites in great depth.  But that is not the picture we get from anywhere in the Book of Mormon, nor from the ending period.

Maybe they realize that in fleeing they would have to leave behind many of their people to die, especially the women and children.  But if they were all that wicked, why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they act on the wicked principle of each man for himself and devil take the hindmost?  King Noah and his wicked priests did.

That is one question – why didn’t the Nephites flee?  It actually takes quite a bit of courage and cooperation and self-sacrificing spirit, in other words, virtue, to stay and fight to the death when you have a chance to run away.

Here is the second question. Why didn’t the Nephites desert?

(more…)

200 AD — the children of Lehi live in a perfect society with visible miracles and deathless men who had seen the Christ walking among them

210 AD — wicked churches deny the Christ and try to kill the Saints

230 AD — They split again into warring Nephites and Lamanites

How quick the fall.

Why?  Or better yet, how?  Nearly every adult in 210 would have had the living experience of being part of that ideal gospel world.  10 years later, they are trying to burn people.

Corruptio optima pessimi.  That is the Book of Mormon’s answer.  When those most blessed of the Lord reject Him, the Spirit of the Lord withdraws completely and they perish.  With the ordinary wicked, the Spirit of the Lord continues to strive, so they can still muddle on.  Not so those who reject God, whom God rejects. (more…)