The great secret is to relish greatly and yearn greatly.

Buddhists at least in the western Yoda-style version say you should try to get rid of your yearning because it causes you dissatisfaction with your current lot. Even in our own tradition dragons are miserable evil creatures because they always want to hoard more gold and/or fear losing what they already have.  So much so that they don’t enjoy the gold they lie on. It is the absence that drives them, not the possession.

Common sense tells us that its basic human character to feel dissatisfaction with what you currently have if you are desiring more than what you currently have. Ambition and contentment don’t play nice together.

But common sense lies.  It is possible. Everyone loves babies while still working to have them grow up. That’s ambition and contentment at the same time.  Part of the fun now is the potential they will grow into then.

The master man is the one who loves his little house and his little family, his small yard and his climbing rose . . . and who loves them like a Jove!

While in his mind’s eyes still seeing so vividly he can taste it, and working like a madman to achieve it, the great house on the hill with broad tree-dotted acres of lawn rolling down to the sea, where several generations of superb, aristocratic descendants come and go.  That vision is part of why he loves what he has now so madly.

Every man a holy pirate king! Gleefully running your gold through your hands, eyes glittering at the uncharted seas that still lie unplundered before you.

“Be still and know that I am God” while also daring all.

15 years ago my little daughter died of cancer. This is what I wrote on the birthday she never quite made it to that year, with slight updates since.

Today would be Betsey’s 19th birthday. Instead she is always not-quite 4.

Happy Birthday, Betsey Pearl.

We miss you. We hope you are happy where you have gone.

The greatest festival of the kingdom is the releasing of the waters of growth from their reservoir in the mountains every spring.  Each family has their own little gate and their own channels that run to their land and on this special occasion, they release them all together.

The occasion is special for many reasons.  Tradition, the holiday sense of fun and excitement, the feasts, the games.  But most of all, it is the waters themselves.

These waters have strength and power beyond ordinary waters.  They are literally magical.   They carry a fresh scent with them, wiping out the must of winter.  Everywhere they go, the land brightens, the green of the plants deepen, and nature grows.  To drink from these waters is to be renewed.

The time of the waters is a time of joy, of renewal, of happiness, of spiritual peace.

The second greatest festival of the kingdom is releasing the waters at midsummer, when they bring furthered growth, coolness, and happiness and joy.

The third greatest festival of the kingdom is the final release at the end of the summer, when they soften the land, ripen the harvest, and gladden all hearts.

Well, not all hearts. (more…)

I went to G.’s essay from last month on “How to Survive a Disaster” to leave a comment, but no more comments can be added there, so this addendum is here, a link to a Washington Post article by Meagan Flynn about a factory in Pennsylvania manufacturing polypropylene to send down the supply chain to manufacturers of face masks and surgical gowns. “For 28 days, they lived on a calling in a factory.”

Because a physical body is so central to the Father’s plan of happiness and our spiritual development, Lucifer seeks to frustrate our progression by tempting us to use our bodies improperly. President Russell M. Nelson has taught that spiritual safety ultimately lies in “‘never taking the first enticing step toward going where you should not go and doing what you should not do.’ … As human beings we all have [physical] appetites necessary for our survival. ‘These appetites are absolutely essential for the perpetuation of life. So, what does the adversary do? … He attacks us through our appetites. He tempts us to eat things we should not eat, to drink things we should not drink, and to love as we should not love!’”10

One of the ultimate ironies of eternity is that the adversary, who is miserable precisely because he has no physical body, invites and entices us to share in his misery through the improper use of our bodies. The very tool he does not have and cannot use is thus the primary target of his attempts to lure us to physical and spiritual destruction.

-thus Elder Bednar,

Your appetites are good. Satan attacks them for the same reason he attacks anything great and beautiful. (more…)

Bruce Charlton hit on a pretty meaningful question.  Is heaven static or dynamic?  The Saint Christian view of heaven is very dynamic–millennia of progression followed by forever of creation–so when I got old enough to digest the scriptures on my own I was surprised that the consistent image of heaven in holy writ was static.  Peace.  The end is come. Never more to go out.  Enter thou into my rest.  The gospel, in other words, has the static view and the dynamic view.  Our lives have both also.  There are sometimes when we want to be out and doing and striving attracts us.  At other times we just want to be done.

Some thoughts.
(more…)

Writer Harrison Smith of the Washington Post has crafted an excellent obituary for an 100-year-old World War II ace, Edward Feightner. I recommend you read it all.

“By the time he graduated in 1941, he had compiled some 250 hours in the cockpit and wanted only to keep flying. The Army seemed a good opportunity but had a long wait list for aviators. And while hanging around the airport one day with his future still undecided, Adm. Feightner watched a Navy pilot land his plane, stride through the hangar in a gleaming white uniform and step inside a yellow convertible, where he gave a ‘big smooch’ to the blonde behind the wheel and sped off down the road.

“Adm. Feightner flew to a Navy recruiting station in Michigan and enlisted that same day.”

“He was a very aggressive fighter pilot, and he was still driving that way at 93.”

“Adm. Feightner often attributed his survival in World War II to luck, noting that while he was sometimes shot up he was never shot down.”

Easter.

I am the Resurrection and the Life.

Easter and Isaiah 53

The Strange Doctrine of the Double Atonement (in other words, why both Gethsemane and the Cross?)

Unexpected Lessons in Theology from Dead Economists

the Royal Largesse Theory of the Atonement

The Meaningful Choice Theory of the Atonement

My favorite– Easter in Picture and Words

This is why we can never lose hope in our circumstances. God doesn’t play fair. When the devil has jumped His last checker He places a queen and multiple rooks on the board.

From Francis Berger, Escaping Raskolnikov’s Delirious Lenten Dream.  Recommended by Bruce Charlton.

I was advised that Metropolitan Opera is making recordings of their productions available during this time of at-home confinement, a different one free each day. My young daughter dislikes when I play radio opera on Saturday afternoons, which I do because there is no fuller use of the human voice, but she found herself drawn into the video streaming’s excellent reproduction of one of the comedies.

One thing I didn’t know when I began viewing Parsifal Thursday night is that it is four and a half hours long. Past midnight I felt tired, but I was not tired of watching it. In fact, I arrived at Good Friday about when the opera did; Act III transpires on Good Friday, so that felt appropriate. Sacramental communion and a people who are cut off from it, and the mercy of Christ’s atonement, is the central matter in the story. I was very glad to have taken it in before Easter. Those inclined could draw parallels between the fool/hero Parsifal who restores administration of the sacrament and Joseph Smith, prophet of the restoration of the fulness of the gospel. (more…)

Has the coronavirus infected you? Probably not. Can you name anyone you have been with last month or the month before who is infected? Probably not. (more…)

https://youtu.be/ubmnYp91e6c

Welcome Back, at long last, to the TBM Podcast!

Episode 12 is our long-awaited “Books for Boys” episode, recorded several months ago. It was rumored that this episode lay in a secret chamber along with the 116 lost pages of the Book of Mormon. Some even wondered if “the real Episode 12 is all the friends we made along the way.” But joyfully, here it is for your listening pleasure. (more…)

There was one suspected coronavirus infection of someone who works in a different building of my facility, but that person tested negative. It is a funny kind of epidemic that so far is not known to have infected any of the 2,000 people where I work, and we have each been asked to report in if we become sick or possibly infected. I searched for a “list of famous people infected by coronavirus,” and the list compilers had to dig pretty deep in coming up with “famous” people. Besides Tom Hanks, Idris Elba, Placido Domingo, Rand Paul, and a couple basketball players, I’d never heard of any of those people. Most of them are like Olga Kurylenko, best known (if known) for a role in a James Bond movie a dozen years ago. Does anyone reading this personally know someone who has tested positive for coronavirus infection? (more…)

The day after the bishop authorized and requested that men and youth of the priesthood provide the sacrament of the holy meal to their own families there was another e-mail. The second was from the elders’ quorum president reminding his quorum where in the scriptures we will find the prayers. That was all the prompting I needed.

(more…)

The best way is the the long-term way of thinking: building or rebuilding beautiful architecture and infrastructure that lasts; planting trees and gardens wisely and well, with an eye to the end result perhaps 20-100 years in the future; being good stewards of the land for future use and enjoyment; accumulating wealth for descendants; learning from the mistakes of ancestors and healing the wounds of abuse and sorrow that have been passed down through families; and preserving the best of our culture while discarding the dross.”
-thus E.C.

O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.

-thus Jacob, 2 Nephi 9:29.  That scripture wasn’t even mentioned in the lesson manual, but its what everyone wanted to talk about.  That says a lot about where we are at these days.

They generalized it to include the rich and the famous and generally everyone who has high status in worldly terms.

The conclusion of the discussion was that the problem with the learned and the clever and the successful wasn’t that they  had too much learning or smarts or success for their own good.  It was that they had too little.

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