It’s no mystery why a world that rejects the nameless virtue would reject heroes. At first glance, its no mystery why that same world would embrace celebrities. (more…)

One kind of creativity is making unexpected connections. Wodehouse excelled at this kind of creativity. I just read where Fink-Nottle, on a vegan diet, started weeping at a sunset, because the color reminded him of a nice, underdone slice of beef.

Most of my creativity comes to me second hand. Providence makes the connections for me. “Look on this picture, and on this,” Providence says, and all I have to do is look, and think. (more…)

Peace like a river. (more…)

This post is about discretion and legalism. It follows up on the post The Virtue with No Name, or the Best Mormon Essay You’ll Read This Month. (more…)

No, not this essay, goose. Another essay. Which will be revealed to you later.

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The temple presents the Garden of Eden experience as a basic archetype that underlies human life. The temple–prepare to be shocked–is right. (more…)

When you think about the conditions that make choice meaningful, the need for atonement and the inevitably of damnation both pop out. (more…)

“At the time of the ground-breaking, Mayor Michael Nutter hailed the project at 18th and Vine Streets for its projected infusion of millions of dollars into the local economy, as well as the 300 construction jobs it would create.

“Church officials contend the worship site is much-needed to serve the Philadelphia area’s estimated 35,000 parishioners.”

. . .

“The temple’s building contracts also give hiring preference to union-affiliated Mormon workers in the Philadelphia region. But none could be found, aside from one carpenter who may join the team when his skills are needed during the project’s later stages.” (link via Millennial Star)

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“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”—John 12:24-25

Blessed are the gentiles, because of their belief in me, in and of the Holy Ghost.

3 Nephi 16:6

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O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee?

—Psalms 89:8

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Quince Rufus Pack at age 94 in 1952 remembers his life:

My dance hall was used by the people for any of the public dances, parties and so forth that they had. One night Fred Robinson had his wedding party and dance. Some of the fellows brought some liquor with them and really made a drunken brawl out of the party.

Two or three days later the Stake President came to see me and told me that if I didn’t quit selling liquor in my dance hall they would have to discontinue holding M.I.A. in my building. Now, I didn’t sell liquor in my store and like I said those fellows at Fred Robinson’s party brought their own. I tried to explain that to Lewis Pond, our Stake President, but he was angry and so was I and before long we were really having an argument.

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What if our imagination should become as a little child’s? What if receiving the kingdom of heaven as a little child mostly meant imagining it differently? Not stern and beautiful like Milton, but jolly and abundant.

Last night I came home to my little boy wearing a red bath robe with a red bandanna on his head pirate-style, a garbage bad tucked into his neckline for a beard, and another garbage bag dragging behind his red trike. He was Santa Claus, he said. My littlest girl was wearing a tan quilt with sticks stuck in her braids. She was the reindeer. The reins were from a swing.

The imagination of children is whimsical. They don’t see the unseen world as eldritch or fey. To them, the transcendental and supernatural are friendly, fun, whimsical, domestic.

The childish imagination is Calvin and Hobbes, Narnia, the Hobbit. When the Abrahamic trial comes, it trusts, because it believes that something golden must lie out there in darkness.

“If you’re thirsty, you may drink.”

They were the first words she had heard since Scrubb had spoken to her on the edge of the cliff. For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink,” and of course she remembered what Scrubb had said about animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time, and the voice was not like a man’s. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the lion.

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the lion.

“May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

Even Lord of the Rings has childlike elements. It has hobbits, the Shire, the last Homely House, Strider. Even its orderliness, its insistence on getting the details right for their own sake, is childish.

Perhaps, instead of standing in awe at the works of God, we should wriggle with delight.

Sarah Alydia Terry Winsor (1857-1950), my great-great-grandmother, as remembered by her niece Orilla W. Hafen in 1961:

Aunt Lydia was one of the girl telegraph operators of pioneer days. The Deseret Telegraph line was extended from St. George to the mining camps of Pioche and Ely, Nevada in 1872, and it was found necessary to open an office in Hebron. (more…)

Today would be Betsey’s 13th birthday. This is what I wrote on her birthday nine years ago.
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