His Majesty has been much preoccupied lately.
Friend of the blog SPDI wrote a post recently that starts with political science and ends with stirring the blood:
The answer is: everything is doomed, but the more interesting question is: “And then what?” And the surprising answer is, “Well, then they get un-doomed.” And what’s more: all the work put in before is not for naught:
The one raised to happiness according to his desires of happiness, or good according to his desires of good; and the other to evil according to his desires of evil; for as he has desired to do evil all the day long even so shall he have his reward of evil when the night cometh.
So: it is good that you’ve noticed a downward slide in society. But that should not make you despair that it’s unrecoverable, or applies to every individual, and nor should it make you despair from seeing the far ending, because you haven’t looked far enough.
Tyler Cowen, an economics professor who writes at Marginal Revolution, lists “a few examples of where I have changed my mind due to economic evidence.”
“7. Mormonism, and other relatively strict religions, can have big anti-poverty effects. I wouldn’t say I ever believed the contrary, but for a long time I simply didn’t give the question much attention. I now think that Mormonism has a better anti-poverty agenda than does the Progressive Left.”
I’ve seen Cowen touch on this before. He is from New Jersey and teaches at George Mason University in Virginia and styles himself as an information omnivore who enjoys taking in lots of cultures at the ground level. I don’t know what specifically he has observed about the poor who embrace Mormonism. A week ago I took a day from work to fill my quorum’s assignment at the bishops’ storehouse near Andrews Air Force Base, a couple dozen miles from the George Mason campus.
Christmas seems to bring out the child in all of us.
So perhaps it should not have surprised me to find His Majesty playing with Tinker toys this morning.
Each holiday has its own character and its own image. Our American 4th of July is about sun, noise, grilling, healthy flesh. The image of Thanksgiving is a good appetite and the stuffed extended family lolling about afterwards, desultorily playing at games. Christmas is unusual–it has two main images
The first theme is the happy, domestic one. It’s the family gathered around the tree. Lights are dim. There’s probably a fire and a fireplace. People are happy and smiling.
The other image is the spiritual feeling of the clear, cold night sky with the remote and beautiful stars. Christmas spirituality is the spirituality of looking up at the night sky when everything is still.
Our normal image of the birth of Jesus combines the two. We see the cozy stable, warmly and dimly lit by a lamp, with the small family gathered in around, and the animals gathered in, and the shepherds and such. Then around them the night and the stars, especially the one bright star.
Easter is a morning holiday. Christmas is perhaps more about Christmas Eve than Christmas morning. Certainly there are more rituals associated with Christmas Eve then there are our Christmas morning. Christmas Eve is when the candles are lit, when the children act out the nativity, when we dig dirt to fill our paper bags for luminarias, when we set up the stockings and put out milk for Santa.
The other night holiday is spooky. Christmas Eve isn’t. But the night, the clear, cold night, still takes the holiday out of the ordinary.
Sunrise and sunset are great for casual glancing enjoyment in passing. But if you really look at them they seem to demand something more. You see that there is a glory about them that approaches the transcendent. You want to have an appreciation that is worthy of the site. You want to commune. And you can’t. If you try–when I try–frustration results.
For many people, Christmas is a pretty frustrating holiday. I love Christmas, personally, but I understand the frustration. Christmas isn’t only a time to have a shindy. There is a spiritual element there, a grandeur, and it demands that you reach out for it, and your reaching always never quite succeeds. You never fully commune.
Today I told my family that I had had a dream. When they were grown, I said, and I and their mother were gone, I dreamed that on Christmas Eve when all was quiet and still, when the only light was from the tree and the dying fire, I would be permitted to return. I would be permitted to sit by the tree and remember when they were young. Perhaps, I told them, if they briefly awoke they might hear the sound of rocking, and know that the old ties were still there.
The truth is that I already spend part of Christmas Eve night that way. After the children are all gone to bed and I’ve finished wrapping and bustling, I usually sit by the dying fire for awhile. I contemplate the lights, and think of Christmases that have gone, and the Christmases to come when my children will be grown. My wife says I puzzle her. For someone who loves Christmas so much, she says, I can get remarkably melancholic about it.
Remembering old days, my childhood days and my children’s, that will not come again, is part of the melancholy. Another part is my inability to fully penetrate into the heart of Christmas. I have never fully gone inside.
But I keep trying. Because there is a voice that whispers. It promises that someday I will be at the very manger, and all the old Christmases will be one.
G. tells us his muse is a goober. Mine is a crusty old retired Sith Lord.
A bull was grazing in a field near a stream. Now in that country there was a flock of escaped parrots who busied themselves in other people’s matters. (more…)
One practice of the Latter-day Saints is to bear testimony of the gospel. In particular, one worship service each month is devoted to members bearing testimonies to their wards. Another practice is to joke about baring testimony. That is when instead of carrying an edifying message to hearers, saints lose track of their purpose at the pulpit in excessively revealing ways, sharing stories of family trips, or health concerns, or experience with sin that others may not feel at ease hearing about so intimately.
Last week I spent several hours with the first chapter of John (“In the beginning was the Word, . . .”), and a minor repeated detail of John the Baptist’s ministry was noticeable:
“John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.”
“And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.”
“And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.”
So, the homophone isn’t so wrong after all.
(Trigger Warning for…everything)
SCENARIO 1:
Terrorist: Let everyone on this list of political prisoners free by midnight Friday or I will blow myself up in a public place and kill innocent bystanders.
Society: We don’t negotiate with terrorists!
SCENARIO 2:
Abused wife: He says if I ever leave him, he’ll kill himself, and I believe him.
Society: Girlfriend, you cannot let him blackmail you into spending your whole life with an abuser just because he says he’ll kill himself. He’s accountable for his own decisions, and you need to do what’s right for you and your kids.
SCENARIO 3:
LGBT Activists and Fellow-Travelers: If you don’t change your whole belief system to accommodate every conceivable sexual orientation and paraphilia, teenagers will kill themselves and their blood will be on your hands!
Society: Sounds serious, you’d better give them what they’re asking for unless you want kids to kill themselves. (more…)
Some of our most cherished Mormon practices and traditions are valued nearly as much for their “unintended” results as for their stated objectives. A couple of examples: (more…)
His Majesty was snorting at his newspaper when I brought him his pancake this morning.
Snip. Snip. … Snip-snip.
His Majesty has been somewhat sullen at breakfast lately. Part of it was the widespread perception in the media that Cthulu did better than His Majesty in the last debate. Part of it was the season of the year: I think His Majesty suffers from a touch of SAD (Sith Affective Disorder), which flares up around this time of year, but usually passes around early January. And I figured part of it was that the Imperial tummy has been unhappy. For several days, His Majesty could hardly choke down his meals, which left him feeling bloated and suffering with heartburn for hours afterwards. He convinced himself that it was gastroparesis, which he knows has been making life miserable for a young friend of mine.
I recently watched an episode of “The Jim Gaffigan Show” with a bit of dialogue that perfectly encapsulated a thought that’s been bouncing around my head for a while. For those who aren’t familiar with Jim Gaffigan, he’s a “clean” but still very famous comedian who is basically a stereotypical Irish-American Catholic dad from the post-War era; his wife is more devout than he is, but he still is fully supportive of raising his kids as Catholics, with all that entails. He plays himself on the show, which is based on his real life.
In this episode, Jim’s wife invites their local parish priest, a gregarious young man from Africa named Father Nicholas, to go to Jim’s next stand-up, without asking Jim first. Jim hates the idea because he’s convinced that having a priest in the audience will kill the mood, but he gives in and takes Father Nicholas anyway. Right before they walk into the comedy club, they have the following exchange: (more…)
There is always a certain meanness in the argument of pure evil, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.
— Darth Waldo Emerson