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…)
Our esteemed JG co-blogger John Mansfield has a theory that Mormons are retreating socially into their extended families, and worries that the Church is turning into something like a confederation of clans (have I got it right, JM?). He goes so far as to posit that the custom of cousin marriage might make inroads in a more insular Church.
I don’t really see the trend of extended families becoming more important than other Church associations, possibly because I live in a far-off land where most Mormons are transplants without extended family around. But I do observe a trend that might be related. (more…)
Overheard from a missionary:
Our families are worth the world to us.
We are worth the world to God.
You know the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. It ends this way:
“But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child said.
“Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?” said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, “He hasn’t anything on. A child says he hasn’t anything on.”
“But he hasn’t got anything on!” the whole town cried out at last.
The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, “This procession has got to go on.” So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn’t there at all.
Now you will know the rest of the story: (more…)
His Majesty didn’t come to breakfast the other day.
Knowledge is a form of love. Knowledge without love is like sex without love. (more…)
Political science professor Benjamin Knoll has put together an analysis of suicides among those 15-19 years old as correlated with the Mormon percentage of states’ populations. (link) There are elements of his analysis that are odd and unhelpful for understanding anything, but the one big fact at the heart of his data is interesting to me. The suicide rate for this age group in Utah is double what it was five years ago. (more…)
Now, repentance could not come unto men except there were a punishment, which also was eternal.
glennterryart.com
Adam and Eve were created from the dust, the scriptures tell us. We haven’t escaped that lowly origin. Dust is where we come from, dust is who we are, and dust is where we are headed. (more…)
Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath and told him to take his bed and walk. That must have been against the Sabbath customs, because the local Pharisees milked the guy to find out who’d told him to walk around carrying a bed, and then went after Jesus when the guy talked. (more…)
His Majesty has been much preoccupied lately.