Snow began to fall on 29th November – second anniversary of Storm Arwen, which was the most destructive storm in this region for a century; and has continued being added to since.

It is not very deep snow, but it has persisted for five days so far; and is proper snow – covering every twig of every tree – and the leaves have not yet fallen from the oak in our garden; and thick enough for sledging and snowmen.

–Bruce Charlton, with a personal touch.

I haven’t been to his place in a few weeks, so I was interested to see that roughly the same thing has been on our minds lately.  This post in particular really spoke to me: (more…)

You taste the fruit of the tree and for one impossible moment the sweetness explodes in your mouth.

For one impossible moment you have the knowledge of paradise and you still live in it.

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You have never not been on the cliff’s edge leaping.

Plans make heaven roll with laughter.

There is no control, only the deed and submission to the deed.

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You have never not been on the cliff’s edge leaping.

The conventional approach is to get  help when your marriage has trouble.  But why worry about your marriage when its awesome?  Its already awesome.

Wrong.

When your marriage is awesome is precisely when you should be working to make your marriage better.  You are that close.

The conventional approach seems to me to like a horticulturist with plenty of tips on how not to fall off the ladder, but nothing more, as if being on the ladder were the summum bonum.  It is not.  Stretch out to the edge of your fingertips to pick the fruit.

General Conference Debrief–

Elder Cook’s talk on being a peaceable follower of Christ, despite what you’d think, was not about going around being nonviolent.  It was about the problem of evil and what to do about it.
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On the sweetness . . .

The man who prays at Church looks nervous.  “Dear kind graceful heavenly father . . . “

I just realized that ‘”rejoice” means “take joy again.”  I am swift on the uptake.

The point of gratitude isn’t to give yourself double the happiness.  But that is its effect.

A young man had remarkable spiritual experiences and was very happy.  But one morning he woke up and found that he just didn’t believe.  There may have been reasons for it–he thought of some himself–but he eventually decided that if ti was possible for a mood like to come on to you, everything you experienced was just moods, including the spiritual experiences.

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Simultaneously the most American and the most universal of holidays.

We have much to be grateful for.

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. 

James 5.

The cankered gold that eats the flesh like fire is obviously a spiritual metaphor.  But in our prosaic way, we got to talking about what kinds of reactions can actually corrode gold.  We couldn’t think of anything and a little research shows there isn’t much under normal conditions.  Gold cleans up nicely.

Then someone mentioned Alas, Babylon.  There are some striking passages about irradiated gold which slowly kills the wearer.  If you want to really get what James is saying, read Alas, Babylon.

Long-time perusers of this web site may remember the birthday greetings issued here to Ken Mattingly following his 75th, 80th, and 85th birthdays. This morning at breakfast looking through the pages of the newspaper I noticed the photo above and knew why it would be appearing. (more…)

Does the Garden of Eden story tell us anything about the types of social pressures that men and women are most vulnerable to?  Eve was hit by general social pressure and an appeal to increase her status, whereas what got Adam was a pretty woman and/or domestic appeals.

Does that generalize?  Dunno.

Yes, I know there are profound doctrinal truths and mythopoetic insights to be garnered from the Garden of Eden story, but I happened not to be thinking about any of those.  I happened to be thinking about this instead.  So sorry.  Our normal insight suppliers have experienced 48% YoY cost increases, so we are offering these substitutes instead.  ICantBelieveItsNotInsight!

I reckon as how I owes my pard  Elon a apology.  Yessirree, I’m right sorry.  I was out doin’ a mite o’ bird huntin’ and maybe took a shot that I oughtn’t to have took.  It shore is tough being as quick on the draw as I am.    I jest ain’t never poached a rocket before.