We’ve passed through a much snowier than usual winter in my part of the country. How much more? So much more that shoveling away yesterday’s half-foot led to the fatal heart attack of a 60-year-old woman. (link) Those who celebrate Equal Occupational Fatality Day know that workplace deaths of men outnumber those of women by more than 12-to-1, as they should. I wonder if fatal heart attacks suffered by snow-shoveling woman are even more rare. I’d never heard of one before, while such fatalities for men are proverbial. I would be feeling pretty lousy about myself and my sons if that woman had died on our street.

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The heavens declare the glory of God.

It is an old truth that becomes new every time you go out in the twilight, or see the sky on a clear night, or witness the dawn.

I am half-persuaded that urbanization and the indoor life tracks with the rise of atheism.

From a dozen years ago in LDS Church News:

“Helen Green, 90, is the oldest living member of the first branch Sunday School started in Lubbock. She made the journey with other family members from her home in Orem, Utah, to attend the dedication. Musing outside the temple before her dedicatory session, she recalled the days when the branch Sunday School was held in a courtroom with west Texas Church pioneer and Texas Tech professor J.O. Ellsworth presiding from the judge’s bench, the speakers giving their talks on the witness stand and the rest of the congregation often fitting comfortably in the jury box.”

Bruce Charlton’s commenter Arakawa has derived his own version of the amphibious synthesis of time and eternity. (more…)

Love and glory are of the fundamental attributes of God and reality. Love is unconditional whereas glory is earned respect, or conditional love. They are deeply intertwined and complementary. (more…)

The man is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

Thus St. Paul.

He says it in the middle of some deeply reactionary stuff about women keeping their head covered in church and such so this particular teaching gets lost. But as with an illusionist’s trick, the part that draws the eye isn’t the important part.

So what does Paul mean?

I don’t know. But sometimes my life as a husband and a father feels like I could say ‘she is my glory.’ I feel like I do a lot of scutwork out in the world and a lot of discipline and order and stabilizing at home to make possible the little circle of domestic intimacy that she creates. Because of what I have to do to make it possible, or because I am the sort of person who does what is necessary to make it possible, I can’t fully be a part of it. But all the same that circle validates all my efforts, it seems to me.

On the sweetness of Mormon life. (more…)

“Because young men and young women ages 12 through 18 are a vital part of hastening the work of salvation, please invite and encourage them to attend the Saturday evening sessions of the stake conferences in 2014.” Thus the First Presidency was quoted regarding the schedule for our upcoming stake conference in March.

A couple months ago when an employee of the Church’s Research Information Division asked me and others of my ward what the Church could do to help families prepare youth for mission, I said a more coherent message was desirable. Is the great value of 18-year-old missionaries that they are simple (19-year-olds not being simple enough), or is it that they are prepared despite their youth? If this is the answer, I like it.

I now have to come up with a babysitter, though. Maybe the neighbor gentile girl will be available. Thinking about it, maybe I will stay home with the younger Mansfields. My thoughts are conflicting. The adult evening session has always been the more insiderish part of stake conference, for people willing to go to church on a Saturday night. I want the youth to be part of that, but can it remain that with a bunch of teenagers dragged along by parents? In particular, I fear an overdose of focus on the youth of the noble birthright during the inauguration of this change that I wouldn’t mind missing.

Christian gentleman and friend of the blog Arakawa is mulling humor in heaven.
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“At the beginning of that 40-year period [1890 to 1930], bread was the country’s single most important food and 90 per cent of it was baked in homes by women. By the end of the period, bread was still the country’s number one food, but 94 per cent of it was baked outside the home by men. With the exception of a few, mostly rural, households, bread production had been almost entirely displaced from the realm of women’s work and the space of the home.”

From “White bread bio-politics: purity, health, and the triumph of industrial baking” by Aaron Bobrow-Strain, quoted by Steve Sailer.

Fer mah gift, I was durn pleased to unwrap a hootin’, tootin’ sure nuff SpaceX pillar o’ fire. Yeehah!

Original Post

Many of you know that ACA cancelled my family’s private insurance.  New Obamacare insurance would cost us several hundred  dollars more a month, increasing our premiums by 150%.  It would also dramatically increase our deductible by 150%, but paying the massive premium increase would mean we had no money in the budget left over to pay actual medical bills.  To afford healthcare insurance we would have to not afford healthcare.  We have been a little desperate.

We’ve prayed and researched. We think we’ve found a solution.  We’re joining a Christian healthcare ministry (also known as a healthcare sharing group).  Specifically we’re joining the Christian Healthcare Ministries.

I know many families are looking pretty hard at their healthcare situation right now.  This post is about what I think is a decent option for Mormons and others.  I hope it helps anyone who is looking for an out from a bad insurance situation.   Please share it with anyone who might benefit.

At the same time, this post is a request for anybody who knows anything about Christian healthcare ministries to share what they know.  If you have had a good or a bad experience with a healthcare ministry or sharing organization, please tell us about it in the comments.  I and others who read this would benefit.  The more information the better.

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A day for regretting eating a second helping of stuffing, for raking leaves with the rakes the red-clad elf left under the tree, for puzzling out your daughter’s new boardgame, for testing new firearms with your brothers, and for listening to the Spirit on how you can do good.

Our ward Primary President introduced the singing of “Silent Night” this way: (more…)

There is only one Christmas. Each year it comes a little more into view. (more…)