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?

Science! 

Happier, more attractive politician were more likely right-wing.
Faces with disgust, left-wing.

More Science! 

Regarding fitness, athletes had more attractive faces than non-athletes, more particularly for women, leading the researchers to say, ‘good is beautiful, beautiful is good’.

Elder and Sister Oaks gave a fireside where they encouraged our people to get married, get married earlier, and have children, and have more children.  All very gentle and with due acknowledgment of difficulties and caveats.

Sixty years ago this would have been commonplace cliches.

Twenty years ago it would have been bland social conservatism.

2023 its fiercely radical.

Christ to Peter:

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Also in scripture:

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

There is no contradiction.  It’s just that order is backwards.  You die by the sword (of the word) in order to live by it

In general, the word of God is portrayed as something dangerous.

I am not come to send peace; but a sword.

A nation cannot die because her dead cannot die.

(more…)

Act 1

I dreamed about a steampunk alternate history where a steampunk American battleship-submarine, either through alliance or through loan, came steaming to the rescue of the Kaiser.

But the world was the house of my parents.

I saw the American battleship-sub do battle with a couple of Italian ships rising from the floor waters at the entrance to their bedroom–all the ships had the raw look of WWI tanks complete with truly giant rivets– and then submerged and resurfaced to fight again at the entrance to the narrow back hall on the other side of the bedroom (long since gone after the remodel 10 years ago).

(more…)

Just as there are some ways in which faith seems to be a fluid or a type of electromagnetic field (and glory too), some parts of the scriptures sound like they are talking about magic, especially involving blood.  Most but not all in the Old Testament.

Here is the scripture I just ran across that made me think of it. (more…)

I know this is a contradiction in terms, but even so I want an organized Calvinball League my kids could go to.

They’d go for water balloons and doggerel and get scores that were incommensurate with each other, meaningless but still somehow meaningful and to be treasured.