What does it mean when you dream that a high school con artist couple tries to fake a dinosaur skeleton out of some odds and ends dinosaur bones they scrounge up and accidentally make a genuine skeleton of a species hitherto unknown to science?

I have a thousand interests and none of these are it.

For unknown reasons as I was replacing parking brake drum shoes (which were naught but useless rusted steel, and had so been for at least the two years I have owned the vehicle until I finally got around to doing something about them yesterday), it entered my mind to voice the BYU Cougar fight song as if recited by Dana Gioia. As the sounds issued forth, they actually fit the intent.

I was introduced to Dana Gioia through a link from this site to the Gently Hew Stone blog five years ago, for which I continue to be grateful. With Seamus Heaney dead, Gioia was what I needed. So I hope the following, though done in humor, may be recognized as coming from an admirer and not a mocker. I somewhat wish I could use a faux Gioia voice instead of my own all the time.

So, here it is:

If you liked that, here’s another take with different strengths and flaws:

Finally, that which is naturally the culmination of this indulgence:

Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward.
34 Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.
35 Behold, I do not condemn you; go your ways and sin no more; perform with soberness the work which I have commanded you.
36 Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.
37 Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet; be faithful, keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Amen.

I have a recurring dream.  Sometimes there is a mountain range.  Sometimes there is just a mountain. (more…)

Pity the babe whose mother, having assigned a pet the status of “child,” hasn’t demoted the animal now that she actually has a child.

Think about the mystery of the dispensations.  Yes, nations fall away and need the Gospel refounded for them.  But that is not all dispensations are.  They seem to have a pattern among them, and the contents and style of each dispensation differ.

Why us?  Why are we the last dispensation?

(more…)

The only hard currency is the favor of God and the respect of quality men.

Lies and thefts are the fire in which every Rome burns.

Murders are an advanced stage of the disease. They are not the disease.

The thoughts of others
Were light and fleeting,
Of lovers’ meeting
Or luck or fame.

Mine were of trouble,
And mine were steady;
So I was ready
When trouble came.

-A.E. Housman

The crows sure loved to talk and gossip. One day they swarmed a hog over and hover. “It must be because he is silent so much,” a bystander observed. “Oh, no,” said a crow taking a momentary break from the harassment. “Its because when he talks he doesn’t always say what we want.”

We are on a high mountain, or so it seemed to my little girl who hiked to the top of it with me. “Do you see the trucks on the freeway? From here they look like toys.”

“No!” she says, “they are toys. I am going to pretend they are all toys.”

“OK, knock yourself out.”

“Look at the toy trucks and the toy houses all over and its all toys, they are so cute!”

Silence.

“Dad . . .”

“Yes, sweety?”

“There is a giant and we are his toys.”

Ross Douthat.

to argue that the American future depends on pushing our birthrate back above replacement level . . . remains an eccentric argument to many people: an interesting idea, maybe, but not a particularly urgent one, and certainly not the sort of issue that would make the cut of questions for a presidential debate.

Which is a bit crazy, when you stop to think about it. Whether a society is reproducing itself isn’t an eccentric question; it’s a fundamental one. The birthrate isn’t just an indicator of some nebulous national greatness; it’s entangled with any social or economic challenge that you care to name.

Why the dearth?
(more…)

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid

Peace, but not as the world understands peace. His peace is different. The world sees peace as the absence of violence. They make a desert, and call it peace. The Savior makes the desert blossom like a rose, and calls it peace. His peace is a synonym for victory.

But not victory as the world understands it either.

The victory that is won by God as a newborn babe.

Peace on earth, good will to men.

I want to be direct about something suggested poetically before.

In Matthew 25 Christ tells us how the Judgment will go.

He will put his sheep on his right hand.  Because they fed him when he was hungry. Dressed him when he was naked. Gave him a place to sleep when he had no home of his own.

The goats he will drive out into the darkness at his left hand.

Both groups, he tells us, will be surprised.  The sheep will not think of themselves as having done something particularly virtuous.

“When did we feed you? Clothe you? Takes you in?”

Christ will reply, “Inasmuch as you have done it into the least of these my brethren, you have done it into me.”

Which we take to be a lot of rhetorical flourishes saying, “be charitable to the poor ” Except those times we help the poor are the times we feel ourselves particularly virtuous. None of us would be surprised the Lord gave us credit for our soup kitchen service.

So no. It is not rhetoric. This is literally what will happen.  We will get credit for literally clothing naked people.

In other words, for the children we raised.  We clothe them in flesh and then in clothing for decades. We feed them for decades. We house them for decades. An infant is the least of us.

Christ is literally saying, “if you raise a child, I will treat you as if you were my own father and mother. What I would do for Mary and Joseph, I will do for you.”