On the sweetness of Mormon life. (more…)
On wounded feet, He stands triumphant over death. With pierced palms and scarred wrists, He holds out unending grace.
-thus Jeffrey R. Holland
Elder Christofferson once preached that the aim of the gospel is to draw down “perfect justice and infinite mercy” from heaven. The phrase stuck with me. Perfect justice and infinite mercy. Infinite mercy, sure. But who among us struts so cockily that he wants perfect justice? Who among the wise can know that he is more sinned against than sinning? None.
But the truly wise know, even the justice that condemns you is joyful.
His Majesty was somewhat put out this morning.
Did he also experience all the small acts of kindness, and service, where people went out of their way to “lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees”? Did he experience the joy that the lonely feel when one reaches out to them to let them know they matter and are cared about? Did he feel the hope restored when we visit someone who is sick or in prison and cheered their hearts? Did he feel the relief of the overwhelmed when someone paused to share their burden with them? Did he feel the relief we feel when someone forgives us of our screwups and mistakes, or when someone shows us undeserved mercy?
-thus Jon Goff. Read the whole thing.
It reminded me of the Royal Largesse theory of the atonement. It gives a Christmas flavor to Easter doctrines.
Sometimes I wonder if there is really any hope for His Majesty.
A man will always be judged, full stop. A person will always be judged, full stop. You will always be judged for everything you do for every second you are doing it.
The judges are God, everyone else, and yourself.
Thing is, you want it. You want to be judged and found worthy.
The other day, when we were getting ready to put the kids to bed, our oldest pulled one of us aside and described a day he suddenly remembered from a few years ago, “when I was little.” It was nothing very unusual, just a funny way we were sitting next to each other and talking. But he recalled it with what was clearly a lot of fondness. Here was a seven-year-old waxing nostalgic about the good old days when he was four, and we thought how much more of this he has to look forward to, how many more years he has to pile up good memories before he leaves the nest for good. And all of us will have this to draw on for the rest of our lives.
-the Tracinskis
Today would be Betsey’s 14th birthday. This is what I wrote on her birthday ten years ago.
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The fear of change is the fear of death. They are not similar fears; they are the same fear, only manifested in different circumstances. (more…)
This is a dream. (more…)
I’ve discovered this week just how much His Majesty can be a pain in the
G. mentioned in passing the other day one of those quirky Mormon teachings that I’ve been curious about for a while: “Satan rules over the water.” The origin of this teaching is Doctrine & Covenants Section 61, in which the elders have to halt a river voyage when they see “the destroyer riding in power upon the face of the waters.” The Lord declared to them, “Behold, I, the Lord, in the beginning blessed the waters; but in the last days, by the mouth of my servant John, I cursed the waters.” D&C 61:14. And then later on: “I, the Lord, have decreed, and the destroyer rideth upon the face thereof, and I revoke not the decree.” D&C 61:19
What I wonder is whether “the destroyer” who rode upon the face of the waters was, in fact, Satan, or if it was instead a destroying angel sent by the Lord, as in the days of the Passover. (more…)
What do people collectively want? It’s hard to say. Voting gives you one kind of answer, but voting isn’t nuanced. Voters can only say yes or no to ballot questions as phrased and as they understand them. It’s possible that with more explanation they might feel differently, or with even slightly different phrasing they choose the other option. Or else they can only select between candidates. Different voting systems give different answers. Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem says that no voting system can ever perfectly capture voter intent. Polls are even more fallible.
That’s where the concept of the General Will comes in. What if someone knew the people well enough to have an intuitive, almost literary, sense of what they wanted? That’s why dictatorships claim to be democracies. They say they’re giving the nation what it really, collectively, wants.
The reason it’s hard to know what voters want is because it’s hard to know what a voter wants. Individuals are something like a collection of people over time. No man can step in the same river twice, the Greek said, because it’s never the same man. The mind is always engaged in editing memory to fit the needs of the present, which it wouldn’t need to do if we were really fully the same throughout, if we always had the same end in view. (more…)