The past with the clarity and beauty of a Bruegel landscape

Why is living in the past so popular a pastime?
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Here is a Mormon model of the pre-existence. Christ presented a plan for us to experience mortality and Satan presented an alternate plan. Christ’s plan allowed full scope for our free agency, so we’d sin, which He would repair by atoning for the sin. Satan’s plan restrained our free agency through repression and tyranny and disinformation/propaganda and who knows, so that we wouldn’t sin. We voted to accept Christ, but Satan and his followers wouldn’t accept the vote, like king-men. Consistent with their plan, like king-men they then went to war to get by force what they had lost by vote. They lost this confrontation too and were thrown out. But the war continues. It has become a bandit resistance campaign of subversion and sabotage.

The model is wrong. (more…)

Bruce Charlton’s commenter Arakawa has derived his own version of the amphibious synthesis of time and eternity. (more…)

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…)