Week 3 of the Big Corporate Fast — 10 days to go, its not too late to join!

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On the sweetness of Mormon life.

The prayer is “Good morning, heavenly Father.”  You wonder if this is a new thing.  You like it.  You ask afterwards.  No, she says, mental hiccup.

The sister missionaries are speaking.  The first one tells about making fun of the elders who were asked to speak over Mother’s Day.  Now its her turn.

The other told about calling her dad from the emergency room.  He didn’t answer.  She left a message.  “Dad, I’m in the emergency room, I’m probably dying.”  He called her back later.  “So I hear you are dying.  Sorry I didn’t pick up earlier, I was at Costco.”  She knew her dad would know she wasn’t dying.  Her dad knew that she knew.

For Father’s Day, I have been thinking about the Father.  (Some insights courtesy of my ward Sunday School). (more…)

Newfangled Primary songs are one of my pet peeves.  I hate planned obsolescence and avoidable generational disruption.  My kids had to learn Give Said the Little Stream from me, consarnit.

Have mercy, Primary music leaders.

2 Samuel 22 is a psalm in which David is full of the awe of God.  It is submissive but exultant.  It almost has an air of “though he slay me, yet will I trust God.”

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It is hard but virtuous to hear other people’s miracles when that same miracle has been denied you.  It is hard to love them, hard to share their joy . . . but it is virtuous.

Reminiscent of the nameless virtue.

[This photo shows the tracks left by my son Saturday night a week and a half ago as he sped off with his bride from the wedding reception to begin their honeymoon. I took the photo Monday morning.]

Thinking on yesterday’s post warning that “Births are not Well in Zion,” a number of things we could potentially do better came to mind, and I will elaborate on one: Start early.

Wise counsel I have heard a few times from a friend in our elders’ quorum meetings is: Whatever it is you want your children to know three years from now, talk to them about that now. (more…)

Mosen Francisco had remarked to Ignacio one day that living with a saint was no easy matter.  Ignacio had answered him: “Dear Mosen, living with anyone, even a normal person, is no easy matter.”

-Gironella, Even the Cypresses Believe in God (Harriett de Onis trans., 1958)

In Spanish,

Mosén Francisco había comentado un día con Ignacio que la convivencia con un santo era difícil. Ignacio había contestado:

—Querido mosén, es difícil la convivencia con cualquiera, con una persona normal, con quien sea.

I was tickled.

If you were wondering about Elder Oaks’ talk to the young adults, wonder no more.

122k to 90k in 10 years is catastrophic.

I have in mind a Judaism, Christianity, Restored Christianity progression using C.S. Lewis quotes. (more…)

Do you want to be astoundingly happy?  Do you want to glow with glory?  Do you want to know true love?

Christianity is the doctrine that most people are answering no, Bruce Charlton says.

Which is true.  Much of my life consists of answering no.  All the squalid little compromises and mediocrities and tired timewasters that do not lift the spirits (if it lifts the spirits, its not a timewaster), interspersed with those shining moments and those quiet moments and those family moments and those church moments when I say yes.

This is cool, via OwenBroadcast

I think the originating pair is supposed to be an English pirate and a Spanish Senora.  Then the dichotomies continue all the way up.  Dad looks like a stone cold killer.

“At least within the Church, those who feel a need to be a bit shocking still have tattoos and piercing available. You have to feel a little sorry for the John Waters types of the world who have to keep reaching farther into the absurd as past deviances become normalized. Sometimes it can be unkind not to at least pretend something disturbs us. Forty years ago Mrs. Howell could present the Skipper with a gold earring and it was a funny little joke.” —September 7, 2005

In the eighteen years since, the tattoos have grown to Lydia proportions, requiring some to take up more grandiose abuses of the flesh, cheered on by an army desperate to embrace everything and appear shocked by nothing. And with reference to fasting from corporations, every corporation this month is celebrating this escapism from reality.

“Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death.”

Big Corporate Fast Update (more…)

Two thoughts that ruminate in my mind.

First, how long can we be governed by cowards? This is not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know. It can’t be a stable situation. And the depths of cowardice are shockingly deep. People will say anything to not be unpopular.

Second, there is an incident in the life of Elijah that rests on my mind.
He has been hunted and was in hiding after cursing the land with a drought, but that is over now. It is time to confront the king and his enforcement of the worship of Baal. Elijah meets the king’s steward, Obadiah, who is a righteous man and had saved a hundred prophets. And he tells the steward to tell the king a message. What he says for Obadiah to tell the king is literally is ‘Behold Elijah’. This is usually translated ‘Elijah is here’. And that is true. But there is a second meaning.

Elijah’s name means

El (God) –

i (personal possessive – my) –

jah (Jehovah)

or simply, he was to tell the king, Behold! My God is Jehovah! 

Elijah was telling the righteous steward to not only tell King Ahab where he was. He was telling him to boldly declare his testimony, with the full knowledge of just how King Ahab would react. (spoiler warning, Ahab is friendlier to white whales, than true believers) Elijah told the Steward to say “My God is Jehovah!”

Now I wonder, are there places I need to declare my discipleship more boldly?