Some men on my mission were better missionaries than me. I was in awe of them. They had so much life and fire.

When I ran into them after my mission, I was surprised. I now seemed to have much more life than they did. They seemed dull and insipid. (more…)

This insight has no doubt long since occurred to every one of you, but my brain woke me up at 3:30 this morning with the urgent information that the Restoration truth that God has a body, (and therefore that we are meant to be bodies, we are bodies), inevitably leads to the Restoration emphasis on families,. Families consisting of marriage (the bodily union of the sexes, i.e., sexuality) and the natural results of bodily marriage (children). Eternal bodies = eternal families.

Once the boy Joseph saw the Father in the flesh, it was inevitable that the man Joseph would spend his ministry trying to work out marriage and sex and ancestry and posterity.

There you have it, from my 3:30 AM brain to you. I gotta start eating something differently in the evenings.

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A young group of thrushes did everything together. Above all, they sang to each other.

Then their was a shift in the winds and a change in the seasons and they scattered in migration.

The next year one of the thrushes returned to the same spot. He had enjoyed his winter in the tropics but he had missed his friends intensely. Sadly many of them had not returned to that place

He made new friends. Though the song wasn’t quite the same the young bird still valued these friendships and was determined to hold on to them. He would sacrifice his tropical paradise to keep close to his friends. He would put up with cold and privation.

As winter approached, the bird’s determination was fixed. One by one, all the other songbirds flew away.

Moral: friendship and loyalty are hard virtues to practice by yourself.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LWxnHuVEwUg

A green shoot.

Apparently they have institute at the Y now and encourage freshman to go to it.

The institute director is a super social starter and is apparently massively encouraging dating and such.

Last time my daughter said that he announced he was giving 20 bucks to the first couple he saw leave holding hands. (more…)

We keep wondering when the next great apostasy will be and what it will look like.  Wonder no more.  Modernity is the great apostasy.  We are in it. Have been for years. (more…)

Bookslinger’s interesting comment on our last post made me realize I needed to improve my definition of a Pharisee.

What is a Pharisee? (more…)

Understanding virtue is a virtue.  Seeking virtue is also a virtue.  Therefore there can be virtues and vices in our understanding and pursuit of virtue (or more generally of things that are good).  That raises the possibility of a meta virtue set.  A set not about virtues or goods themselves, but about how one seeks them or knows them.

The virtuous and vicious ways to think about virtue I will have to think more about.  Hopefully our own virtue sets are in the virtuous category!  For now, lets turn our attention to seeking virtue.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis talks about how the Adversary likes to tempt you into one vice by having you reject the other one.  It may have been Luther who said that we are never so likely to fall off on the left side of the horse as when we’ve just remounted after falling off the right.  Surrounded by cruelty, the old deceiver hopes to tempt you to cruelty.  But his secondary temptation is to tempt you to be too soft.  Surrounded by smarmy hypocrisy, he hopes you will become another smug virtue signaler.  But if you loathe that, becoming a proud open sinner will do just as well.  Political systems like ours that tend towards two dominant factions have that problem.  The obvious errors of the other coalition lead us to commit our own opposite errors.  I read widely and indiscriminately.  I read druids and narrow minded Christian chauvinists of various stripes and Nietzcheans and bland moderate policy guys and the whole gamut.  What I notice is that some of the most extreme elements are often mirror images of each other.  There are real and serious problems with modern Christianity (many of which restored Christianity avoids, but not all).  Various thinkers see them stark and clear, and so embrace the opposite errors.  No Ned Flanders, therefore Conan! (more…)

This isn’t a post on the sweetness.  It’s more about the bittersweet tenderness that can come from being part of a ward full of people.

You are in a very small ward with little musical talent.  Your daughter plays the organ, your other daughter conducts, your wife plays the piano for primary, your other daughter is the primary chorister.  You are of less account.  But you did put together a ward choir for Christmas despite no skill or experience along those lines.

Then the ward burgeons.  Dozens of new people move in within a year.

One is a lady who has a degree in choral something.  She has Opinions.  She expresses them.  Especially to the Bishopric.  They appoint her to be in charge of all music in the ward.  She makes herself the new ward chorister and primary chorister.  She changes lots of things because the were done Wrong before.  She suggests Improvements in the playing of your daughter and your wife.  She offers to give them lessons.  Irritatingly, not all her changes are bad ideas.  Some of them are good ideas your family tried to implement and met with resistance.  Some of them are good ideas you didn’t think of.  Irritatingly, she sometimes tries to be tactful.

Your dominant emotion is not bitterness or anger.  It is tenderness.  Tenderness without a clear object.  Do you feel tender for her?  For your family?  Or for the whole human condition?

In the full swing yesterday of preparation for a convivial foregathering, I came to the donning of the raiment, laid out as it had been by one’s faithful manservant.  But where I had looked for vim and zip I saw clothing in the soberest of cuts and color.  “Jeeves,” quoth I, “why this solemnity of garb?  Why these dim-hued items of apparel?”

With his usual tact, Jeeves broke to me the news.  Stout fellow.  One’s feelings were dashed stirred up.

The wolf went in fear of the lion. Until finally the wolf crawled to the lion on his belly and begged to be allowed to hunt for the lion if only he, the wolf, would be allowed to keep his life and eat of the leftover scraps.

The lion gave his regal assent. (more…)

In CS Lewis understanding of the terms enjoyment and contemplation,

Glory is contemplated enjoyment.

Feeling the approach of death, a man determined to find out to which of his three sons he should leave his broad acres.

He called the three sons to him and asked, “what will you do with this inheritance should it fall to you?”

The first son said, “Father, I will work to keep the land prosperous and if need be make good acquisitions to expand our holdings.  I will marry a wife who knows her away around the mangement of a farm.  I will work very hard.”

The second son said, “I will buy plate armor and destrier.  Already I have some skill of arms!  With the instruction I can purchase, I will become a famous knight and put down spooks and goblins in all these parts and abroad!”

The third son said, “when I am old I will have three sons.  I will call my three sons together.  I will ask them what they will do with my inheritance . . .”

The man laughed.  “Bless your impudence,” he said.

Then he gave the inheritance to his oldest son.  He had had in mind to do that all along.

There once was a great wizard who by his arts learned the logic of sleep.  He found that every sleep deficit must be paid for or it would turn into general malaise, specific ailments such as a trick knee, or above all an earlier end to life.  Old age, he came to believe, was nothing more than the accumulated sleep deficit of a life time.

By his arts he was able to probe the secret of his own sleep deficit.  It was a staggering sum.  He could only recover it by sleeping for days and days, and who had time for that, or would be able to?  Nonetheless returning to the flush of good health was attractive, not to mention long life, so he fully intended to find time and means to recover his sleep deficit.  In the meantime he kept on with his affairs.  Unfortunately, from time to time he even added to his own sleep deficit.  There was always something pressing.  He had aches and pains, but he was used to them.

He became old and withered.  He felt his life force growing thin.   Finally the whole issue of sleep deficit became urgent.  He researched like made some method of regaining all his lost sleep, and on the very verge of death cast the spell that put himself into an enchanted slumber. (more…)