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…)

On the sweetness of Mormon life. (more…)

Christian gentleman and friend of the blog Arakawa is mulling humor in heaven.
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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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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…)

Christmas is fundamentally a family holiday. We should celebrate the Christ child, but we don’t need to be lugubrious about it. We don’t need to suppress family fun because the family is in the image of the Holy Family and pleasing to God. Your family relation is part of the deep spiritual core of Christmas, as two overlooked passages of Christmas scripture show. (more…)

Last night I had a dream. I lay it out in sequence below but the dream was all at once. (more…)

[Editors–we hope that this unusual account of a Church-run focus group, along with the ensuing discussion, will be of general interest]

The church was mostly quiet last night. Brother and Sister Markoff were in the cultural hall with their two younger children planning the stage arrangement for the Christmas program Sister Markoff has been rehearsing with Primary children for the past month. There was no sign of anyone downstairs around the bishop’s and clerks’ offices. Back upstairs, outside the Relief Society room, a few middle-aged parents sat waiting and talking. More arrived. Brother Fletcher joked that we were going to find we had came for a half hour presentation encouraging us to prepare for senior missions. Some continued along that theme that we had actually been summoned to discuss lowering the age for senior missionaries. A quarter before eight, the Relief Society door opened, and four priests and six laurels walked out. In we went, where a man in his young thirties sat dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and tie.

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I’m going to swim out into deep waters in this post. Stand by with lifesavers. (more…)

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An economist’s studies led him to the insight that failure and unexpected obstacles are major drivers of innovation and creativity. But innovation and creativity aren’t just virtues for the workday. Creativity–creation–is the fundamental attribute of God. What starts out as an economics principle becomes an insight into the fundamentals of life: it is when we are desperate that we become the most godlike. We blaze brightest when thrown into the fire. (more…)

Elder Christofferson preached Sunday that the aim of the gospel is to draw down “perfect justice and infinite mercy” from heaven. The phrase stuck with me. Perfect justice and infinite mercy. (more…)

Reading complaints a few weeks back that too many Latter-day Saints marry before completing courses of higher education, I felt concerned that a natural corollary of that is that people who don’t complete a college education shouldn’t marry at all. Perhaps the unfolding 21st Century for many will be less like the 20th Century abounding in middle-class families and more like earlier ages when bunk houses, barracks, brothels, servants’ quarters, convents, and monasteries absorbed many whose economic limitations put marriage and children out of reach, and those who want a different future will have to choose paths of their own bucking prevailing trends.

The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia has put out “Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America” There is such discussion of the Great Crossover (mean age at first marriage passing age at first child), and a running theme is that delayed marriage plays out differently for the two-thirds of the nation that doesn’t complete a college degree.

A summary can be found at Washington Post: link. Coming at the topic from another angle, perhaps you’ll enjoy “Settle Down” by Kimbra. Or perhaps you won’t, if your tastes in song and dance don’t run that way.

I am my father’s oldest child, born when he was 40. He died at 83, so while he lived he was even in memory always older than me. I’m now 46, and I remember having a 46-year-old father. I also have a child who is forty years younger than me, and thinking of him, I am glad for my father that I was born to him.

From mysliveroflife.blogspot.com

In Spring the gardener finds out death.
He finds which limbs did not o’erwinter.
Some stems twig and bud and bloom,
Some stems splinter.

I lost a limb some seasons back,
Of my flesh, my firstborn daughter.
Time dried the break, but I still lack
The fruits–a moiety of laughter.

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