There was joy in heaven when my servant Warren bowed to my scepter; and separated himself from the crafts of men;
Therefore blessed is my servant Warren, for I will have mercy on him, notwithstanding the vanity of his heart
D&C 106
Can all that be twenty years ago? It seems not long ago that I used to ride on my shaggy chestnut pony along the old fence of our garden, and, standing up in the stirrups, used to pick the two-coloured poplar leaves. While a man is living he is not conscious of his own life; it becomes audible to him, like a sound, after the lapse of time.
Oh, my garden, oh, the tangled paths by the tiny pond! Oh, the little sandy spot below the tumbledown dike, where I used to catch gudgeons! And you tall birch-trees, with long hanging branches, from beyond which came floating a peasant’s mournful song, broken by the uneven jolting of the cart, I send you my last farewell!… On parting with life, to you alone I stretch out my hands. Would I might once more inhale the fresh, bitter fragrance of the wormwood, the sweet scent of the mown buckwheat in the fields of my native place! Would I might once more hear far away the modest tinkle of the cracked bell of our parish church; once more lie in the cool shade under the oak sapling on the slope of the familiar ravine; once more watch the moving track of the wind, flitting, a dark wave over the golden grass of our meadow!
–Diary of a Superfluous Man, Turgenev
Mediocrity is the Great Filter.
We have met the stagnation event, and it is us.
From TV station KTNV in Las Vegas:
“History’s greatest question is a little closer to being answered and the best answer gets half a million dollars.
“Back in February of this year, Las Vegas businessman Robert Bigelow announced he was offering over $1 million in prize money for the best answers to the question about life after death. (more…)
Without great hopes, I expect I will see this.
This is a must read thread.
the Book of Mormon has some fantastic quotes but is more notable imo for its narratives, which have been fertile ground for artists since its first printing. In this thread I'll present Book of Mormon art and summarize some of its stories. https://t.co/w5yIHBT4iD pic.twitter.com/HtbQpCwOJV
— Jesse Abraham Lucas ?? (@JesseLucasSaga) September 8, 2021
Is it a coincidence?
A couple of weeks ago I had what felt like a compelling truth come out of the blue. It wasn’t about anything in my own life or my own thoughts at the time.
The more individual and distinct we become, the more we become like each other.
Just a few days ago, inspired by some fluff news article I read, I wrote the Crow of Diversity.
In the comments, PH said something really insightful (always read the comments!):
Diversity=being different
Equality=being the same
Yesterday I was catching up on a couple of weeks of Bruce Charlton’s Notions. I read this (here BC is quoting someone else):
Equality is actually a property of unformed matter, matter untouched by the creative breath of spirit, which is why you see it most at lower levels of evolution. The more life evolves, the more unequal it becomes because the freer it becomes and yet within that inequality there is also a spiritual oneness.
To realise the truth of this apparent contradiction is one of the major goals of the spiritual path. It and it alone explains the mystery of love.
It is not a coincidence.
There’s a new LDS podcast called Spiritual Arson.
Here’s some ideas I got from them
Whom would Jesus sit with? The sinners. Yeah, but who are the sinners? Who are the people we actually loathe? The answer is going to be real uncomfortable. We don’t mind sitting down with fornicators because we officially view that as sin but our society doesn’t, so its pretty stress free. If you want the real shocking impact of what Christ was doing, if you really want to have to grapple with it, imagine him sitting down to eat with racists who use the N-word. Or substitute whatever else would be horrifying and unthinkable. We think of the Pharisees as the Jewish equivalent of the crazy Church people. In reality they were the Jewish equivalent of the opinion makers and the intellectual fashion setters.
The Spirit gives you peace in tension, not peace from surrendering to make the tension go away.
The Father doesn’t want small children. He doesn’t want small gods.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we could take other churches under our wing? If they could trust us to vet their pastors against prog?
Elder Holland wants to know what is the matter with BYU.
Three years later, 2017, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, not then but soon to be in the First Presidency where he would sit, only one chair — one heartbeat — away from the same position President Nelson now has, quoted our colleague Elder Neal A. Maxwell who had said:
“In a way[,] [Latter-day Saint] scholars at BYU and elsewhere are a little bit like the builders of the temple in Nauvoo, who worked with a trowel in one hand and a musket in the other. Today scholars building the temple of learning must also pause on occasion to defend the kingdom. I personally think,” Elder Maxwell went on to say, “this is one of the reasons the Lord established and maintains this university. The dual role of builder and defender is unique and ongoing. I am grateful we have scholars today who can handle, as it were, both trowels and muskets.”[10]
Then Elder Oaks said challengingly, “I would like to hear a little more musket fire from this temple of learning.”[11] He said this in a way that could have applied to a host of topics in various departments, but the one he specifically mentioned was the doctrine of the family and defending marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Little did he know that while many would hear his appeal, especially the School of Family Life who moved quickly and visibly to assist, some others fired their muskets all right, but unfortunately didn’t always aim at those hostile to the Church. A couple of stray rounds even went north of the point of the mountain!
My beloved brothers and sisters, “a house divided against itself . . . cannot stand,”
Elder Holland went on to mention that one should not use their commencement address to come out. Yet the way he spoke was kindly and encouraging. He could have been much much sterner if he wished. (more…)
The easiest idyll you can write is childhood in or school. Maybe young love too. Some stage of life the reader had already grown being.
It allows you to write in worries or conflict for a bit of plot — will Santa make it though the creeks are swollen with rain? Who will win the house cup? — but the reader is too adult to fear them, all is well, all will be well, the hiccups in the character’s life if anything only add to the sense of deep peace.
And here, for those who will hear it, is my theodicy.
My dear, precious Wormwood,
Of course, I, I myself, as a tender and loving Uncle, am happy to help you get your Temptation & Sin Numbers up. We need those souls damned! And I certainly don’t need any more phone calls about your absolute glorious incompetence. (more…)
I got it from here. There’s source data there too.
If someone tells you all is well in Zion, punch ’em.
