Diagramming sentences teaches you a good deal about language.  It also makes you realize some odd things about it that you had taken for granted before.  Grammar is not the Platonic form of language.  What it is is a good tool.

The West doesn’t think much about virtue.  We do have a rich and neglected treasury of practical experience out there, and a decent amount of engineering knowledge, for those who look for it.  We also have thinkers who address first principles and meta-ethical questions.  What is the nature of the good? and so on.  What we don’t have is anything in between.  It is as if the study of biology knew evolution (along side stockbreeders who knew practical things) but had never invented anything like taxonomy.

A while back I accidentally invented a sophisticated tool for investigating virtue.

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A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

And by chance there came down a certain woke priest that way; and when he saw the man he returned to Jerusalem and launched a campaign for travel control, so only licensed travelers with adequate provision to defend themselves against robbers would be allowed out on the road. Those he met were impressed with his compassion and wealthy caravanners donated to his campaign. #CareforTravelers

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[For previous discussions of the Benedict Option, see here]

In reducing his signature idea to book form, Rod Dreher set a clear, if daunting, task for himself: 1) Describe the challenges that serious Christians face in the modern world due to increasing secularism, and 2) Propose solutions to meet those challenges. (more…)

On Sunday, I taught some 9- and 10-year-olds about the creation of the Doctrine and Covenants. We talked about how almost all of the revelations in it came through Joseph Smith, although there are also sections by John Taylor, Brigham Young, and Joseph F. Smith. I also took the liberty (sorry/not sorry, Curriculum Department), of directing their attention to the Official Declarations at the end, regarding the cessation of polygamy and the extension of the priesthood to blacks.

“Wait, so we used to be racist?”

Well, of course they didn’t know. (more…)

I have nostalgia for lives I’ve never lived.

I was just driving through a tiny foothills Spanish colonial landgrant.  There are a few small adobes, willows and cottonwoods by the streams, a twisted apple tree, a few cattle, stacks of firewood, everyone related.  And I felt a strong sense of the distinctness and value of their life.  And an attraction, like nostalgia.

That’s what the best tourism usually is.  Nostalgia for unlived lives.  Imaginative communion with them. (more…)

Like many Mormon missionaries, I was the catalyst for a fair number of overdue weddings.

Been together for years, have several kids together*, can’t imagine living their lives separately, just never got around to an actual wedding. Indeed, it was usually impossible to tell which domestic arrangements were official until you asked them at the end of the fourth discussion. Happily, the goal of preparing for baptism was all that some of them needed to take the plunge (no pun intended).

Then there were the others, with the common refrain: “Why does it matter if we get married? We’re already together. It’s just a piece of paper.” (more…)

12 years ago my first daughter died of cancer. This is what I wrote on her birthday that year, with slight updates since. Today would be Betsey’s 16th birthday. Happy Birthday, Betsey Pearl.

Every year, this day seems to come by sooner.

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This is a story of two friends in an airport.

“I don’t get it,” the one friend said. “Your life is so constrained. So narrow. You are standing in here in this little line. You won’t leave it. And then you’ll stand in another line and you’ll shuffle onto an airplane with an assigned seat you’ll have to sit in. It’s so suffocating. Me, I love my freedom too much to ever do that. By rejecting all these rules, I get to wander around wherever I want. I can go down to the luggage return or even out to the parking garage. I get to experience the airport to its fullest. There no limits. Whereas you, you just stand in line. Why do you do it?”

“I am flying to Paris,” the other friend said.

I.

“Mottramism” is a term that Rod Dreher has periodically employed to denote an unreflective acceptance of eccesiastical authority. The term was coined by Mark Cameron, who describes it thus: (more…)

A friend said, forget politics, the basic program for righting the world is three simple steps.

1. Get yourself together.
2. Get a good family going.
3. Get your kids to repeat steps 1-3.

He’s right.

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What’s the right way to act when you disagree with the Church?

I’m not asking this question because it’s some sort of novel situation I find myself in. Far from it. Who doesn’t have disagreements with the Church? Even with the prophets, dead or living? Even with (*installs lightning rod*) the Word of God itself as recorded in the scriptures? There are thousands of pages of scriptures, conference talks, Church policies, Sunday School lessons, half-remembered anecdotes from your batty old aunt about how they used to run things in the pre-war M.I.A., etc. The odds that you could thoughtfully ponder all that and not find some points of honest disagreement are astronomical. (more…)

A certain man fell among thieves, and was robbed and beaten and left for dead.

A Levite walking by took a selfie pic with a concerned face, and posted it to Facebook, with the comment that somebody should do something and it was time to stop the hate. It got lots of likes and re-shares.

And a priest walking by also saw the man, and a took a photo, and tweeted it, #NoMoreRepublicanSpendingCuts. And lo, the hashtag trended, and a celebrity did retweet it. And verily the counter hashtag, #VictimLivesMatter, which shared a clip of a Democratic congressman calling for an end to oppressive policing in the Jerusalem area, also trended.

And a Samaritan passed by, who possessed not even a smart phone, neither did he watch the news. And he had compassion on the man, and bound his wounds, and took care of him.

Who then was this man’s neighbor?

Every year there is an end to Christmas day and an end to the Christmas season.  It is always a bit melancholy.  Each of us will have a last Christmas of our life.  That will be a bit melancholy too.

Our kind of Christmas will end someday too.  Someday there will be a Last Christmas within the circle of the world.

But this year I have had an intimation that at the true last Christmas, Christ will be there.  It will not be sad at all. (more…)

Helpless as a Baby and Helpless as a Child–what we learn from Christ taking on the feeble helplessness of an infant.

How we are Mary and Overlooked Christmas Scriptures and We are Joseph and Mary and Holding the Messiah–four essays on being a father or a mother or a recipient of revelation. See also this brief meditation on the comparison between Mary and the tree of life.