Consider this verse–

he was thus pondering—being much cast down because of the wickedness of the people of the Nephites, their secret works of darkness, and their murderings, and their plunderings, and all manner of iniquities

shortly followed by these verses–

4 Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments.

5 And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will.

6 Behold, thou art Nephi, and I am God. Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels, that ye shall have power over this people, and shall smite the earth with famine, and with pestilence, and destruction, according to the wickedness of this people.

7 Behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and thus shall ye have power among this people.

8 And thus, if ye shall say unto this temple it shall be rent in twain, it shall be done.

9 And if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou cast down and become smooth, it shall be done.

10 And behold, if ye shall say that God shall smite this people, it shall come to pass.

Nephi had overcome the world. He had earned God’s trust.

(more…)

A man was sobbing by the side of the road. A passerby stopped and listened to him and hugged him. The passerby said, “I care for you. I feel sorry for you. But there are others out there suffering as much if not more, and I want to make it clear that I care just as much and feel just as sorry for them.”

cockiness distorts confidence.
cockiness contradicts humility.
timidity distorts humility.
timidity contracticts confidence.

-thus Bookslinger

I can’t upload images today for some reason. Otherwise, you’d see a virtue chart here.

But what is really interesting is the synthesis of the opposite virtues and the opposite vices.

Confident Humility sounds like a contradiction. So does Arrogant Timidity. But they are common enough that they are almost archetypes.

Perhaps this is what Helaman meant when he spoke of growing stronger and stronger in humility.

Bruce Charlton has a wonderful post on God’s purpose.

For me, now, this is the key to the specifically Christian concern with love; it is by love that unique individuals are able-to choose-to cooperate in harmony (as we can imagine would happen in an ideal family).

Culminating in this vision of eternity,

My favoured analogy for Heaven is with an idealised wholly-loving extended family of immortals; continually being added-to by new and unique people – by descent, marriage, adoption, and true-friendship; but always – because of their mutual love – working together, and cohering in their work; because they each work for each other, as-well-as for themselves.

As above, so below. Because that is also the ideal vision for this life. Penhurst the poem.

Ever larger, ever-loving, that is the formula.

but you should also read Bruce Charlton post for the intellectual tool of reverse causality. It is a potent form of inquiry.

Helaman 3 speaks of the Saints getting “stronger and stronger in their humility.” I’m sure the primary meaning is that they became more humble. But I also like to think that their humility made them strong.

Who is stronger, the man who boasts he doesn’t need to be planted to take a blow, or the man who looks for granite on which to brace his feet?

(Follow up: in Helaman 4, the people realize they have become militarily weak in their transgressions).

Vague or esoteric speech comes from a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence in oneself, lack of confidence in one’s listeners.

Often quite justified.

A boy was set to watch a flock. After awhile he saw a peculiar thing come creeping over the hill toward the flock.

It had a sheep’s skin and wool, slightly askew. But it walked strangely low the ground. There were glimpses of what seemed to be darker fur down below. It seemed to have sharp teeth. And its eyes were set straight ahead like a predator.

It’s hide could appear tilted a bit because of a spine condition, the boy reflected. The same spine condition could cause a peculiar walk. The darker fun could just be mud. The teeth, well, the animal is far away, perhaps I am mistaken. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if some few animals in the flock had far-away binocular vision like a predator the better to see predators sneaking up? Finally, who am I to judge? I must be charitable.

So,

“Sheep!” the boy cried.

A crow with a malicious twinkle in its eye suggested to a goat kid that it come play in some sewage run-off.

“But that’s sewage,” the kid said.

“Look on the bright side,” replied the crow.

“Well . . . it’s organic, and mostly water. I’d be 80% bathing in a stream. This is fine!” And in the kid went.

Moral: The wise man looks on the bright side of circumstances he cannot help. The fool looks on the bright side of circumstances he can.

There is an interesting passage in the Screwtape letters about folks who don’t think their appetites for food are disordered because instead of eating hyper quantities of food they are just hyper particular about the foods they eat. Vegans, basically.

Remember, appetites are good.

Babies won’t wait.

A feisty essay by a mother of 5.  Hardly a line it that I do not wish I had wrote.

For example,

There is no political ideology more vibrant these days than the baby-hating anti-natalist movement. It is pure No Lives Matter nihilism, dedicated to stopping humans from reproducing. It goes beyond abortion, even. Terminating children already in the womb is messy. This movement instead wants to convince you never to have them, and if you must, no more than 1.5. They wish to arrest potential children—those not yet conceived, the souls who exist as hazy figments in God’s imagination—from being willed into being.

 

It’s all the predictable result of 50 years of dual-income economic policies, anti-family social norms, abortion on demand, birth control pushers hooking prepubescents on the Pill, and climate harpies who see each baby as just another unwanted carbon footprint.

 

If you dare to visit mainstream millennial social media, like TikTok, you will encounter an army of self-sterilizing lunatics who shout their abortions, peddle their sex show livestreams, and brag about how many SSRIs they take. These young people, mostly girls, have been brainwashed into committing genetic suicide.

 

Even worse, they do it with joy. They are following the Pied Piper of Despair right over the cliff, along with the babies they’ll never have.

(more…)

It is with great whatchamacallit that I can report that yours truly has a spot of a gig with the Biden campaign.  They want ol’ Bertram as a speech consultant thingummy.  They put it to me that I was positively known for my lucidity and gift of blarney and all that, the words positively flying from my lips like bread from the hand at a Drones’ Club dinner.  “What ho!” said I, “I accept.  Dashed humbled and honored, you know the the thing.”

This post is about sex.

Specifically, a concept called activation.

(This is a dry post.  Not a titillating post.  But use judgment if the post is not for you.)

The flesh has its hormones and its natural drive for sex, sure.  But its a mistake to think that sexual desire is just some kind of purely natural phenomenon.  Instead, sexual desire is often activated.

Activation means that thinking about sex, seeing reminders of sex, being exposed to pre-sexual activity or to stimulants, make you feel more sexual desire.

To an extent, sexual desire is like static electricity.  The charge comes from somewhere. (more…)

The President has suspended the au pair visa.  Consequently the market for domestic au pairs has boomed.  This is an opportunity for LDS girls.

An 18-year old I heard of just accepted an au pair position with a quality (non-LDS) family down in DC that she heard about from friends of friends.  She wasn’t even looking.  It will be wonderful experience for her being paid to practice motherhood and being able to see a second exemplary family (besides her own) from the inside.  All her needs are met so if she is thrifty she will come out in one year with somewhere around $15k or even more in savings. (more…)

Ideologies are rickety. Belief systems are rickety. It is impossible to do without one. You cannot understand the world without trying to make sense of the world, and you cannot make sense of the world without using a framework. The ideology is the framework. But it is rickety. It is not the world you are perceiving. The map is not the territory. This is true of our map also. “For now you see as through a glass darkly . . .”

Some ideologies are more rickety than others. But I don’t think there is any sincerely held belief system where a person cannot use it to perceive some angle on real truth and real beauty.

Imagine a bare, plain room. A kind of shed or warehouse. There is light streaming in from a high window and over there someone has built themselves a rickety little platform of stools and scraps. They are looking out the window and describing the wonders they see. You must imagine that they are choked in the throat and crying because outside is so beautiful. The people in that room are gathered around and what the man up there describes is so transporting that they are crying also. In their enthusiasm they devote more attention to building up the platform.

They first forget, and then cover, the window.

In the real parable of Plato’s cave, those who see the shadows do not reject the message of the one who went outside. They only confuse the message and the outside.

It is an aggravation that SJWs have no sense of humor but it is a disaster that they have no sense of tragedy.