Any valid form of asceticism is aesthetic. Aesthetic because it fits into a larger pattern of creation. Asceticism for its own sake is asceticism which uglifies. It is gnostic, creation hating. Gnostic is evil.
(Dusting off the Archives)
Authenticity is integrity with the element of time irrationally and wickedly stripped off. It is trying to be true to yourself right now, without regard to being true to who you were and especially to who you will be. The honest seed sprouts and flowers. The authentic seed falls on stony ground and stays a seed, then a withered caricature of a seed, then a husk. Authenticity is death.
In Mormon terms, where damnation means the cessation of progress, authenticity is damnation.
In D&C 92, the Lord tells Williams to be a lively member of the United Order.
Scriptures about being active, having energy, being quickened–we think those are about accomplishing more. It’s good to accomplish more. But we may be looking beyond the mark. Being lively is itself beautiful. It reveals what is glorious about being alive. It and stillness and contemplation seems to be the two states that God loves best. Those are also the two states where the glory of being human are most manifest. A child playing energetically, a child at rest.
God loves deeds, great or small. To praise deeds is to participate in the divine nature.
Mostly we praise people to cheer them up or make them like us. The right reason is delight. Paradoxically when you praise from delight they are then much more likely to cheer up or like you.
The best smell in church is old cigarette smoke on someone’s clothes.
The best sound is a crying child.
The best touch is straightening a son’s tie.
The best taste is water.
The best sight is the one blurred by tears.
The sensations you sense outward and in.
Sexual temptation can be pretty strong sometimes, especially when the desire is new and in the full flood of youth.
This is a post about desire. Any desire. But we will do that literary thingo, synecdoche or metonymy or whatsit, where we focus on a part to stand in for the whole. So we will be looking at sexual desire and sexual temptation.
Let’s look at the teenage years or early adulthood, when the desire is strong but chastity still means celibacy. I am writing from a guy’s perspective but I think, mutatis mutandi, you could translate it into a girl’s perspective too. (more…)
On the sweetness of Mormon life.
A sort of impromptu testimony meeting. A sister has a sweet moment to share. Youth temple trip, dinner, everyone got their phones out to compare family history. The old game–who is related to whom? The app has that function now. Some surprising cousins, not everyone related, but all having fun.
What great energy. We need more of this, not less.
Some ruins have to be hunted by archaelogists. Others stand out in the open.
There is one such that is barely even a ruin at all. Inside there is nothing to be seen, only dirt and scrub. But the walls still stand unfallen, as proud and erect as when they were built thousands of years ago. The marvelous techniques the builders used still puzzle archaelogists. There is nothing like it in the world.
Over the gate there is a beautifully wrought inscription. Translated, it is believed to say something like, “I, the Farsighted One, built these walls to stand forever for the greater protection of my people and my family.” Underneath it and to the side there is a straggling,less well-made inscription that has been ravaged by time. It is reconstructed to say the following:
“He raised taxes for these cursed walls until the people fled. He fought wars for tribute for these cursed walls until the people were died. By arts he drew strength from the soil to sustain these walls by magic until all the strength of the soil is gone. Where now are those abundant fields full of grain? Gone, all gone. He is dead. We, his family, make this inscription before we too flee. May this place be cursed. May it be an inhabitation for dragons and for owls.”
The walls still stand, unfallen, as proud and erect as when they were first built thousands of years ago. Inside there is nothing to be seen, only dirt and scrub.
And thus we saw, in the heavenly vision, the glory of the telestial, which surpasses all understanding;
And no man knows it
There was a large heap of wood in the campfire ring. But when the man tried to light it, it would not light. The wood was laid too thickly. The flames choked out. Much of the wood was punky and would by no means take a light.
The man removed bad wood and more bad wood and overstocked wood until all that was left were a small stick and three twigs. But those caught the flame and burned with light.
D&C 59 v. 15 encourages a glad heart and cheerful countenance, but not ‘much laughter.’ WJT points out that this verse is specifically talking about ordinances and sacraments. The implication is that some laughter is fine when performing ordinances.
That is the gospel I know. I was recently down at the temple with family at a sealing performed by an old family friend. He smiled a lot and laughed some and so did we all.
A gospel like this I am compelled to believe.
One of Our Favorite Poems, introduced to Us on this very blog, is Nothing in Heaven Works as It Ought. That captures something real about heaven. But my actual image of heaven is some combination of impossible blazing glory and genial garrulity out on the front porch. Somehow the combination makes sense to me.
Let’s think about how we progress through the virtues.
A virtue set is static. Here are virtues and vices that relate to each other.
Its true that real men and women tend to experience a mix of most virtues and vices to greater and lesser degrees all at the same time. That mix changes over time. We can become more or less virtuous. Our existing virtues become stronger. Our branches grow. The real experience of virtue is growth, repentance, and change. A virtue set is a terrain. We move around on it.
There is a lot of precedent in the scriptures.
For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.
-thus 2 Nephi 28:30.
That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day
-thus D&C 50:24.
We have the Plan of Salvation which moves us from stage to stage. In mortality we have dispensations and the Law of Moses giving way or being fulfilled in the higher law of Christ. We have the concept often preached in the Church and elsewhere that we need to move on from negative virtues (thou shalt nots, direct commands) to positive virtues (thou shalts, open-ended principles). It is a wicked and slothful servant who must be commanded in all things.
What if for fun we rearrange the virtue set as a virtue chain?
If there are two types of virtues, maybe the two types are male and female. WJT says maybe, though he’s just trying the idea on, he’s still working it through.
Only later did I realize the correspondence between Ahuric/Devic and male/female. By simply exploring these models of good and evil, without thinking of sexual identity at all, I had inadvertently arrived at a possible explanation for the eternal nature of sexual identity — the necessity that good be expressed in two complementary forms rather than in a single asexual Supergod.
-thus WJT
Looking at lists of Ahuric and Devic virtues, I found that the first list made me think of Jesus Christ and the second of Our Lady. This led me to the tentative conclusion that these two types of good corresponded to masculine and feminine, and that the Ganymede model helped to explain why the two sexes were necessary and eternal.
–thus WJT. He also discusses some problems with the idea. This post is one you will definitely want to read.
Also this one on the two types and eternal sexual identity.
Let’s mull it over.
The Lord praises sheep, wheat, tame olive trees, etc bc they take no thought for their own nourishment – everything they get they give away If there is no Cultivator obviously this is a very stupid way to live.
The parable of the olive trees in Jacob 5 introduces gradations of tameness & wildness The lord of the vineyard doesn’t just kill the wild & save the tame – he gradually prunes away the hard, woody, wild portions of each tree.
But we also learn that tame branches are prone to decadence & decay – & the solution is to graft strong, wild root systems with hungry, tame boughs that will draw out their strength It’s not just “tame good, wild bad”, both are necessary which is why both are allowed to persist
-from ExDeJCB
Emeritus general authority Tad Callister recently published an essay in the Church News called A Fence at the Top or an Ambulance at the Bottom making a fairly standard LDS point:
you were asked, “What is the greatest challenge facing our nation today?” how would you respond? The economy, national security, immigration, gun control, poverty, racism, crime, pandemics, climate change? While each of these is a valid concern and deserves attention, I do not believe that any of them strikes at the heart of our greatest challenge — a return to family and moral values. To put our prime focus on other challenges is to strike at the leaves, not the root, of the problem. It is, as some have noted, to put an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff rather than a fence at the top.
Later he took it up several notches.
He [Satan] disguises his plan of attack with alluring labels such as “pro-choice” for abortion, “love and compassion” for endorsement of same-sex marriage, and “environmental emergency” for promotion of a zero-growth population agenda.
There was an online brouhaha from online brouhahaers. And the editor of the Church News responded to them favorably.
D&C 42:2 — Don’t let your goals and your focus get in the way of alert watchfulness. Optimizing to take 100% advantage of current circumstances is a trap.
42:45 — Weep for those who die.
42:52 — Those who believe enough to ask for a blessing but do not have enough faith to be healed will receive exaltation.
I suppose from the eternal perspective the healing that we so long for is basically a parlor trick.
42:68 Wisdom and answers to prayers are described as two separate things. Wisdom is like glory, its all over the scriptures, seems to have some transcendent meaning beyond the ordinary use of the word, but doesn’t get a lot of attention
42:80-81 Pretty old school take on adultery. Not a lot of sympathy and ‘we love you, man’
43:33 “And the wicked shall go away into unquenchable fire, and their end no man knoweth on earth, nor ever shall know, until they come before me in judgment.”
Huh. I certainly thought we knew the fate of the wicked. Could it mean that we do not know the fate of any one wicked person until the judgment because we do not know their heart and their potential for redemption? The idea that our picture of the afterlife is still simplified and leaves stuff out tastes good to me.