I was in Sacrament meeting feeling separated from the Savior.  Yes, I have spiritual feelings.  Yes, I feel his presence in my life.  It is not enough.  I feel a hole.

But I know myself.  When the veil finally breaks, I probably won’t feel some kind of ecstatic reunion, I will probably just be too overwhelmed to feel anything at all.  And after that, I know this is incredible to say, but I know myself, it risks becoming routine.

The sense of separation I have now is necessary so that in the future the end of the separation never feels routine.

Scribblers have spilled lots of ink on why George RR Martin can’t finish his Song of Fire and Ice.  For technical reasons, he has too many viewpoint characters, one says..  For character reasons, he’s old and fat and lost his drive, another says.

I have my own theory.  I think he is fighting reality and losing.

Here’s a truth about the world we live in.

The good man always wins in the end.  If he hasn’t won, it’s not the end.

Stories reflect that truth.  Even tragedies have to.

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A lot of being a parent is gross. A little kid isn’t sinning when they mess their little diaper nor is it obviously some kind of trial from which the youngster will develop personal character. It’s just gross. But perhaps being the parent is a preparation for Godhood. He is with us always, every time when we are on the pot.

Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them

In the midst of them — Metaphor? Vibe? Some kind of spiritual physics we know not of?

In recent years we have been hearing more Second Coming talk again.  But instead of hearing about preparing for the calamities and misery that will precede it, our brethren have been talking about it as a blessed relief from all the ills of the world.  (It must get pretty tiring up there where they are).  I remember a talk a few years ago, maybe from Elder Cook, where the real longing in his voice for the Savior to come and put an end to all the gross evils was obvious.

In the words of the meme, ‘the Second Coming solves this.”

But one of the sections we just read in the Doctrine and Covenants is even more optimistic than that.

Brothers and Sisters, welcome to another installment of Talking About Things After Everyone Has Moved On to Something Else.  For our select audience  only.

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My teenage daughters have a delightful custom of putting on favorite conference talks while we cook and clean up on Sunday.  This Sunday it was Elder Holland on why understanding the Fall was important to understanding the Atonement.

Coincidentally, I had been thinking about the logic of Eden and the Fall on the drive to Church and during the Sacrament, for no particular reason.

What I am going to tell you is that the story of Eden and the Fall has a deep logic to it that connects with the basic and unavoidable features of mortality and progress.  It’s a fount of philosophy.

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Wherefore, I will that all men shall repent, for all are under sin, except those which I have reserved unto myself, holy men that ye know not of.

-thus D&C 49:8

I don’t know what this means and I wish I did.  There is no context to speak of.

There are two references I could find.  One from Spencer W. Kimball which doesn’t address the holy men part.  The other was added by a later editor in a footnote in the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, to a statement by Joseph Smith saying that God had reserved Enoch unto Himself.

Doctrine and Covenants 46 on spiritual gifts.  Here are some unexpected points

• Ask in the Spirit according to the will of God in the name of Christ (vv. 30-33)
• Ask the Bishop if you don’t know what  your gifts are (v. 27)
• Ask for gifts with prayer and thanksgiving (v. 7)

On that last point, I think I had a genuine insight of sorts.

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Stasis + Misery = Hell

Stasis + Happiness = Eden

Growth + Misery = Mortality

Growth + Happiness = Heaven

Pride is climbing a hill and building a house there for the view of the plains.
Humility is scaling the summit and learning you still haven’t touched the sky.

We were so busy Mother’s Daying yesterday we forgot to put anything up.

The JG salutes mothers.

There was a man who fell into a shining portal and woke up in another world.  At the very first he thought he was just somewhere foreign, or in the past.  He appeared in what seemed to be a normal village from old times, children running around, a busker juggling for coins, blacksmiths, tanners, a market square for crafts and foods…but he soon discovered he was a in a land of magic.  Wizards worked spells.  Warriors developed their talents until they could leap across streets and bring down lightning with their sword.

Oddly enough, the people of that land were as impressed with the novelty of his background as he was with theirs.  A land of … tech nah loe jee? But when he insisted that Earth had no magic they didn’t believe him.  Every place had some magic.  Scholars assured him that it was a natural law–every land and every dimension might have a different form of magic, but magic they had.  He in turn assured them that Earth didn’t.

One day a chance remark of his led the people he was with to explain to him how babies were made.  The mother had to collect and work a series of powerful spells (long, arduous, dangerous) while the father had to go on a series of dangerous quests for rare alchemical ingredients (long, arduous, dangerous) and then they jointly had to seek a boon from the Gods.  It was all they could do to barely maintain their population.  All of their feats and might were earned in the service of eking out a child or two.

“Weird,” he said, “that’s now how we do it on Earth…” and then he explained.

The people were dumbfounded.  They were struck with a vision of a world so magical that nearly any man and woman, who wished, could work the greatest feat of magic known merely through love and the workings of their bodies.  The rumor of the magic of Earth spread like a wildfire throughout the land.  It created decades, centuries, of wistful art and literature about the fantasy of a land where even the very flesh was magic.

There are so many wonderful Madonnas with child. From my LDS perspective, I wish there were also some Madonnas with children.

There once was a land that was blessed with the greatest wizard of all time.  He just spent his time muttering and wizarding in his high tower, so from a practical standpoint his presence didn’t make much difference.  But everyone agreed it was neat.

But one day God put it in the heart of some tradesmen and yeomen to ask the wizard for a great gift for the people.

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