1. There once was a good man in a good land with a good people. They made him king.

When his kingdom was sore pressed by enemies and not all his valor nor the urgent spells of his magicians could turn them away, it so happened that a loyal man-at-arms sought an audience, saying he had somewhat to offer. The king received him, of course. The man spoke with fervor and sincerity. “Sire!” he said. “I will will my life force, the mana of my soul, to you! With that extra might, you will save the kingdom!” The king was horrified. ”  You would die.  I forbid it,” he barked. “You cannot stop me,” the man said. Zeal gleamed in his eyes, and then his eyes were blank. He fell to the floor. Potency rushed into the king, who vomited.

Others did likewise, to the increasing horror and rage of the king. Filled and overflowing with literal power, the king won the battle and the war. and freed all.  A universal golden era set in. (more…)

It is easy to forget that the Star Wars we know and love, is actually a remake from the 1880’s.

See also

We talk a lot about how the Gold Plates were recovered from Hill Cumorah. But we don’t talk as much about where they ended up. That part just isn’t as clear.

But we do have descriptions of the Cave where the plates were left. Interesting to see a library of other plates just waiting to be released.

And of course, the enigmatic writing on the Sword of Laban –

“This sword will never be
sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world
become the kingdom of our God and his Christ.”

As Pres Nelson has said, there is much more to come!

Historical descriptions of Cumorah’s Cave

“Be good, be good,” the father duck said

“No, be great, be great,” the father duck said.

A tyro fire starter will often put on too much wood.  Wood burns, more wood equals more fire, therefore heap up the wood, its all very logical.  But too much wood too fast chokes out the flame.  You are best to start small and add wood as you go along until you have the fire you wanted.

Not if you want a bonfire though.  For the biggest of bonfires, the wood needs to be in place already.  The fire will get too big and too hot to safely toss more logs on as it grows.

The bonfire builder puts all his wood in place before he starts the fire.  Instead of a heap, though, its stacked in layers, often teepee style with plenty of air gaps so the fire can start small and then reach up to the next layers of wood with its flame. (more…)

One wishes to be an au courant hep cat and all that, fully up on the vibe and so forth, and so the dashed cry goes up from all and sundry, whither classified documents for elegant display in one’s tastefully appointed crib?

The Bingos, I am told, were reduced to the expedient of using cheap Chinese knock-offs.  Many such cases, as the fellow said.

Nonetheless, with a certain amount of relief and whatsit, frightfully hairy adventures having been undertaken, I can announce that the Wooster garage now doubles as a bijou SCIF.

A soul came to the great angel, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, as terrible as an army with banners.

What do you wish

The soul looked down and would not answer.

What do you wish

The soul steeled himself to answer though his courage fled.

What do you wish

(more…)

We have an extremely old minivan, 240k miles, that had basically stopped working.  The oil pan wouldn’t maintain pressure past a mile or two of driving, plus something or other seems to have gone wrong with the electrical system, it went for a couple of weeks of nonuse and when we tried to start it again it wouldn’t start even with jumping.

We also have a friend who is in a financial crunch right now and needs a vehicle badly.  She has quite a bit of experience driving truck and asked if she could maybe baby the vehicle back into being and drive it for a few days where she had a particularly acute need for transportation.  The lovely one has been giving her rides so we said sure.  She lives 10 miles out of town, though, so we warned her she probably wouldn’t even make it home.

It was one of those unaccountable things–as soon as she tried the minivan it started right up.  She made it home.

A few days turned into a couple of weeks.  One of our other vehicles went down and was going to be in for repairs for a bit.  We asked for our minivan back.  Of course, no problem, she said.  Our daughter drove it to the gym, where it promptly died.  It couldn’t be jumped.  Our friend happened to be nearby, heard about it, and came to help us get it going.  As soon as she turned the keys, it started right up.

Well, we can take a hint.  “Why don’t you hold on to it,” we said.  Yesterday at church she drove up with several other people without transportation who the ward had been giving rides to.  She’d been driving all over to get them.  “You sure know how to baby along this vehicle,” I said.  “To tell you the truth,” she said, “I haven’t done anything with it.  It just runs.”

P.S.  I think I have more spiritual experiences of this flavor because I’m willing to tell on myself.  It tickles my funny bone.  The Saga of the Minivan that Would Only Run When Given Away.

None can know how difficult it is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, but those who have tried—tried hard, and have not ceased to try. . . . Demands unknown before are continually being made upon the Christian: it is the ever fresh rousing and calling, asking and sending of the Spirit that worketh in the children of obedience. When he thinks he has attained, then is he in danger; when he finds the mountain he has so long been climbing show suddenly a distant peak, radiant in eternal whiteness, and all but lost in heavenly places, a peak whose glory-crowned apex it seems as if no human foot could ever reach—then is there hope for him; proof there is then that he has been climbing, for he beholds the yet unclimbed; he sees what he could not see before; if he knows little of what he is, he knows something of what he is not.

— thus George MacDonald

I have been pondering the abundance of child sexualization in the media, even in children’s cartoons.

And I realized, that if you have an identity that revolves around sex, then your entire worldview will be understood in terms of sex. Anyone who doesn’t do this, will have to do it very deliberately and with difficulty.

In this sense, once we have the sexual revolution (yes, heterosexual as well as homosexual and *-sexual), then child sexualization is inevitable. If you have destroyed the underpinnings for why not, then you can’t be surprised to see it happen.

Your inability to imagine it happening is an insubstantial barrier to it actually happening.

If you accept a premise, then you can’t be shocked that you also accepted the conclusion. Of course, these two are rarely packaged together.

Babylon is a jealous idol, as well as a cruel and duplicitous one.

There is beauty all around when there’s love at home.

Addiction is a very common metaphor for sin (or maybe addiction is just one type of sin).  What I want to do in this post is describe what is actually going on with addiction a little more clearly in a way that will help us with our own and others’ struggles with sin.  I am going to use terms from the psychiatric-medical complex but I’m using them from the perspective of my own experience and observation of sin; I’m not bothering to make them medically or psychiatrically accurate.

This photo of a tree growing out of a ruin is going to tie in at the end.

Let’s begin:  we believers have a folk  understanding of “addiction” as any behavior you have an unhealthy inner compulsion toward, so we call lots of sin addiction.

(more…)

Brother McConkie did a deep dive into the story of the man sick with the palsy. The story is not a parable but this talk felt similar to Elder Bednar’s.

Let’s talk about the story. But first, let’s give one answer to the question Brother McConkie starts off with.

How do you show God you love him?

Answer: you spend time with him. Most of all in prayer when you pray in such a way that we can call “talking to God.” Sometimes you just need to talk to God. I love it myself when my kids come to me and say, Dad, I just want to talk to you, I don’t care what about.

And now for the story.

(more…)

Owen Broadcast give the longest possible variation of the correct answer to the question, “Are Mormons Christians,” which is

Yes, but . . .

its been a minute since we had a thread about a nice semi-electric topic. therefore, it is time for another

?? american theology thread:

ARE MORMONS CHRISTIAN

[and why. an actual poking into this that isnt just fishing for likes and in group pat on the backs] pic.twitter.com/IJnoMdvm5D

— owen cyclops (@owenbroadcast) January 24, 2023

We had just one of the guys at Elders Quorum teach the lesson.  It must be his time, he gave a talk in December.  I don’t know exactly what he does for a living but he’s a driven business type, and when he gets up to talk he’s feeling stiff and formal, kinda driven.

One of the other guys raises his hand before he can even say anything.  He’s startled but calls on him.

The brother is grinning as he talks.  “Hey, I was just wondering how your presentation went.  Did the big bosses stare out the window like you thought?”

The context here is that in his talk last month, this guy told us about how he had to give this big presentation he was working night and day on, but in the past the big bosses at the national level this presentation was for usually just fiddled on their phones instead of paying attention.

The teacher’s eyes lit up.  “No!” he says.  “They were alert to it!”  There’s some laughter, some more conversation around the room, a  couple of jokes.  2-3 minutes later, the teacher takes us back to the lesson.  But now as he starts talking about it he’s relaxed, and the presence of the Spirit is instantly palpable.

Why does a little chewing the fat invite the Spirit like that?