His Majesty was in a happy mood this morning.
God expresses Himself differently to some of us. Whether because we can take more of Him than others, or whether because He has to condescend even further to our particular level, I cannot say.
Until Sunday, my latest example was in the temple, where laughing at myself brought me into harmony with the Spirit, who was also laughing at me. (more…)
Mormons have a very broad and democratic collection of biographies of their 19th Century predecessors. This is due to two causes. The first is our belief that family bonds have eternal significance which leads us to seek familiarity with our dead and to leave records that will allow our descendants to know us. The second is that the first Latter-day Saints felt they were eyewitnesses of something important and wanted to leave a testimony of it. Thanks to these factors, it is easy to find research on hundreds of second-tier associates of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and tens of thousands of multi-page biographical essays on nobodies written either first-hand by the nobodies themselves or by their children. These are of most interest to direct descendants of these people, so today most of those 19th Century Mormons are each known in detail to a few percent of present-day Mormons, but we like hearing the stories of others’ kin too.
A few of my favorites: (more…)
A traveler on a long journey came to a ford. Due to recent rains, the stream was swollen to a flood. The traveler was perplexed to know what to do and exercised his mind for a solution. (more…)
Last night Elder Cook spoke to the young adults of the LDS Church. My two older sons attended the broadcast in our stake center. (more…)
The story of Adam and Eve, Mormonly understood, makes a mockery of the idea of salvation under the Law.
The standard Christian view is that Adam and Eve were given a strict commandment not to eat the fruit, the Serpent tricked them into eating it, so God in his anger cast them out of Eden. The Mormon view is that Adam and Eve were given two commandments which could not both be fulfilled, so one (don’t eat the fruit), had to give way to the higher one (multiply and replenish the Earth). Adam fell that men might be.
Elder Oaks explained, more clearly than I can ever hope to, the Mormon belief that what Adam and Eve did was a “transgression,” not a “sin”:
For reasons that have not been revealed, this transition, or “fall,” could not happen without a transgression—an exercise of moral agency amounting to a willful breaking of a law (see Moses 6:59). This would be a planned offense, a formality to serve an eternal purpose.
The obvious theological objection to our doctrine would be: “God is perfect and perfectly just, so why would he give a commandment knowing that it could not be fulfilled? How is that fair?” As Elder Oaks says, the need for such a transgression has never been fully explained, and I admit that this one used to bug me a little when I was younger. Eventually I shrugged it off; it was a one-off deal, so why think too hard about it?
Then I served a mission, got married, had kids, and realized that God gives impossible commandments all the time. (more…)
The gentlemen here have some interesting answers to prayers. God, it seems, trusts us enough to unbutton a little. (more…)
“What do you think?”
“I already told you.”
“You know the answer.”
“Duh!” (As in “The answer should be obvious.”)
And after petitioning to “please bless so-and-so”, “What are you doing to bless so-and-so?” (more…)
They say that marriage and fatherhood takes away your fire and turns your blood to water. Daddies, they say, play it safe.
Ha! (more…)
Panaca, Nevada goes back to 1864 when it was Panaca, Utah, a couple years before Nevada’s boundary was moved another degree east to the 114th Meridian. It was an agricultural community supplying mining camps. “Tranquil and religious, Panaca never had an easy relationship with its rambunctious neighbors, but it has outlasted nearly all of them.” Today with a population of 900, it is the only dry town in Nevada. There is a Panaca Nevada Stake of the LDS church, a Panaca 1st Ward, and a Panaca 2nd Ward. The last time I was there was two nights before the 2012 eclipse. The next morning I visited graves in Enterprise, 50 miles east of Panaca.
A weird crime occurred there Wednesday evening. (more…)
At the end of my row was a Navajo man without much temple experience. The workers were helping him through the ceremony. Meanwhile I was going through the ritual motions in a particularly brusque fashion. I caught myself doing it. I realized I had unconsciously decided to affect being the old hand who has seen it all before. I laughed at myself. (more…)
His Majesty was playing marbles with the cats this morning.
[Note: I did a Google Image Search for “Mickey Mouse Evil,” and it came up with this image, which is more apropos for this post than I could have hoped for.]
This is not a Robert Ludlum novel. These are some thoughts, hopefully not too disjointed, about Mormons and The Benedict Option.
I. “Eeek! A Mouse!”
A few months back, we went to Disneyland with my side of the family. It’s a cliché among BYU fans to note how much BYU gear one sees at Disneyland. Now I know why; even if you aren’t looking for them, Mormons are EVERYWHERE in the Magic Kingdom. You might think that I only noticed the because I’m Mormon. But my undergraduate school is one that, based on size and distance from L.A., you would expect to be on rough parity with BYU at Disneyland. Instead my college was outnumbered probably 10-to-1.
So yeah, Mormons love Disney. Back in the days of Walt himself, this would hardly warrant mentioning. Christians like good, clean family fun, and Disney = good, clean family fun.
But not all Christians like Disney. (more…)
11 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 15th birthday. Happy Birthday, sweetheart, it’s been a long time and always getting longer.
(more…)
My oldest will be old enough for Kindergarten in the fall. The small talk question of the moment from our fellow parents is, “Where are you enrolling him?” In our school district, that’s more than a geography question. It’s a big district with more or less open enrollment, and they’ve done an admirable job of making sure there is an abundance of options. Gifted programs, foreign language immersion schools, charter schools with a patriotic focus, etc.
He won’t be going to any of those, however. As we’ve anticipated since before he was born, he’s going to be homeschooled.
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you homeschooling? Is it for academic or moral reasons or what?”
No one asks these questions of parents who send their kids to the Japanese immersion school. (more…)