The following appeared in a ward bulletin this past week. It was forwarded to me by a friend. Edited only to remove identifying information. [The friend noted: the person who wrote it is new and feels very inadequate and would probably feel horrified to know it was being discussed in the public sphere. But, well, it needs to be.] Thursday, February 14 at 6:30 pm the Relief Society is hosting a Couples Dinner and Fireside. Come enjoy a nice evening with your spouse and gain some insight on how to strengthen your marriage. We will have dinner and babysitting in your home provided. If you want a babysitter please let Jane Doe know so she can arrange it for you. If you live outside of Kolob and would like to stay the night in Kolob…let Jane Doe know and we can arrange that as well (staying with members, not a hotel ;)). Can you tell we really want you to come?! Single sisters, we haven’t forgotten about you. You can support your ward family by letting Jane Doe know if you would like to babysit for a family that evening. Our ward becomes stronger as our families and marriages are strengthened. Boom. A couple’s evening is a great idea! Maybe not on Valentine’s Day — a day when single sisters (and brothers, hello?) might already be feeling alone — but I don’t have a problem with events that are specifically…
Year: 2013
Guest Post: Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability Part 5: The “Greater Sin”/ Sane Repentance & Forgiveness
[This is the fourth in a series of guest posts on Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability. The first three installments are available here: Part 1:”Exceeding Sorrowful, Even Unto Death” (Mark 14:34), Part 2: Causes and (Mis)Attributions, Part 3: Fractured Images of God, Self, and Others, and Part 4: Accommodations in LDS Activities and Meetings] Now knowing a portion of my background, you can probably guess I’ve had opportunity to give a fair amount of consideration to the concepts of personal responsibility, repentance, and forgiveness. Please take this post as exactly that, my own considerations on these topics, long thought out, studied, prayed about, discussed, and applied, but still open to question/ suggestion/ correction/ reinterpretation. This is also about individual, rather than institutional forgiveness, though I’d love to hear insights from any who have served/ are serving as church leaders where their judgments about people are required in their church work. We’ve talked a bit about accountability in relation to mental illness. I want to start by saying I don’t think repentance and forgiveness are necessary where there is no accountability for error. Learning, yes. And sometimes even apology and explanation. But repentance, no. While acknowledging that someone who has hurt or offended us did not or may not have intended nor be aware of the harm done can allow us to keep moving forward without getting wrapped up in judgment or a desire for vindication, it is not the same as forgiving. When we forgive,…
Quirky Questions in Mormon Theology: Can there be an odd number of people in Heaven?
Well, if they’re Mormons, there will definitely be a number of odd people in Heaven! ::rimshot:: So, let’s see. There’s a popular LDS belief that only married couples get to Heaven. But is that really church doctrine? And could there be an odd number of people in Heaven? Sort of. Maybe. Ish. D&C 131 reads: 1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; 2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; 3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. 4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase. Does this mean, only paired, married couples in Heaven? Maybe. But it’s complicated. Let’s run through some ways in which an odd number of people could get to Heaven: 1. The possibility of a gender-specific rule. The D&C only says that men who aren’t sealed don’t-go to the highest degree. So maybe women who aren’t-sealed are eligible for the highest degree just fine. Of course, this might be an area where the male pronoun is meant to include both. But it might not. If church members believe that men and women have different sets of rules in lots of areas, why not here? 2. The possibility of celestial polygamy and/or polyandry. Yeah. We’ll just mention this one and…
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
(Assuming, of course, that Maria is a full-time ordinance worker at the Washington, D.C., temple.) Did you know that the Church owns an apartment building in Maryland? That it houses temple ordinance workers there? And that the apartment building is, legally, a convent?
How a concussion made me think of Stephenie Meyer and Francis Hutcheson
Last semester, my first semester studying Greek, I sustained a mild concussion. I have mostly recovered now. I still have problems with bright lights that makes nighttime driving intolerable, but for the most part, I’m functioning normally. But for a few weeks there, I couldn’t think straight. It hurt to concentrate. Reading even a light novel was difficult, and translating Greek was nigh impossible. Just looking at Greek letters caused me pain. But my handwriting was spectacular. Any notes I took about lectures I attended during that time are the most clearly written, beautifully precise notes I have ever taken. Sketching was fine too, so the concentration required to look and draw was painlessly available to me. It was strange to experience this involuntary shift in my capacities. I tend to think that what I think, how I think, is what I am. But if my cognitive functions are subject to physical manipulations, some of which are outside of my control, can I think of my thinking self as my self? Stephenie Meyer’s adult sci-fi book The Host is a science fiction romance exploration of the connection between emotional, intellectual, and spiritual development with the particulars of physical embodied experience. In that way, it is a very Mormon reflection on purpose of mortality and morality. For Meyer, the particulars of human embodiment includes deliberate agency and unintentional feelings of passion, vulnerability, and need. This naturally results in social structures, the…
Thrown Into This Mormon Life
This is the third and final post on Adam Miller’s Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology (Greg Kofford Books, 2012; publisher’s page). This post covers the short (two pages) and easy-to-discuss essay “Shipwreck.” It’s about what happens when you discover that you are Mormon. What does that mean? How does it change your life? As theology goes, this is a very accessible question. I expect everyone (this means you!) will weigh in with a comment because we have all at some point made this momentous discovery of Mormonism and grappled with the consequences.
Guest Post: Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability Part 4: Accommodations in LDS Activities and Meetings
[This is the fourth in a series of guest posts on Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability. The other installments are available here: Part 1:”Exceeding Sorrowful, Even Unto Death” (Mark 14:34), Part 2: Causes and (Mis)Attributions, Part 3: Fractured Images of God, Self, and Others, and Part 5: The “Greater Sin”/ Sane Repentance & Forgiveness] During graduate school (in a different field of study), I worked in the university’s office for staff and students with disabilities. I learned a great deal about the Americans with Disabilities Act, and about how individuals with a variety of disabilities qualify for and obtain accommodations in their work and schooling to enable them to do the work they otherwise (disability aside) are able to do. As a neophyte, I was most surprised by accommodations given for “invisible” disabilities. For example, did you know that an individual with certain types of anxiety can qualify for a handicapped parking permit, giving them accessibility to classrooms and other needed campus resources they would not have without this accommodation? And that students with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities can have “readers” and “note takers” (or technology that does the same)? Extended test time, special accommodations like calculators for testing, someone to type for a student or help edit spelling errors on papers, someone to fill in test bubbles, extra notes or outlines of lectures from professors… these were all new to me, and frankly, some seemed a little like cheating initially. But I…
Earthly Father, Heavenly Father – Earthly Mother, Blank
This week a number of my Facebook friends shared a video from the Mormon Channel, titled Earthly Father, Heavenly Father. It kept showing up in my timeline, and finally I watched it. I’m generally a fan of the church’s public relations offerings, so I expected to like this short. I mean, who doesn’t love fatherhood? Instead, the film made me sad. Before playing the video, I saw the blurb underneath: Men on Earth have the opportunity to become fathers and experience some of the same joys that our Heavenly Father feels for us. Fatherhood is a divine responsibility to be cherished. What is the female corollary? Women on Earth have the opportunity to become mothers and experience some of the same joys that our Heavenly Mother feels for us. Is this true? Does she watch us? Interact with us? Listen to our prayers? What does she feel for us? How do we know? Within the first few seconds, we see a quote from James E. Faust: Noble fatherhood gives us a glimpse of the divine. What is the female corollary? Noble motherhood gives us a glimpse of the divine. Is this true? In what ways does noble motherhood reflect divine motherhood? The video gives an analogy between a father caring for his family and Heavenly Father caring for all his children on earth. He goes to work, provides for them, and they are pretty oblivious to his efforts. This video…
Church History Conference
There is a Church History Conference at BYU March 7-8 entitled “Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World” (see details below). I find two things interesting about this conference: 1. The structure of the conference itself. The Church History Department and the BYU Department of Religion are co-sponsoring the conference, and while most of the lineup consists of BYU Religion professors there is also a significant lineup of non-BYU scholars, including Richard Bushman, Matt Bowman, and Kevin Barney. This strikes me as something different than I might have expected. 2. The content of the conference. To date much of the discussion about Joseph Smith and the ancient world has been a polemic between those who see Joseph’s knowledge and use of ancient themes, symbols, practices, and the like to be clear evidence of divine intervention, and those who see Joseph as a crafty religious plagiarist, creatively selecting a la carte from the various ancient studies resources he came across in early 19th century America. Again, the content of the conference appears to be taking a different tack. If nothing else, this conference strikes me as another sign that Elder Snow (who will speak at the conference) is following in the footsteps of his most recent predecessor as head of Church History. Once again, while Bro. Arrington may have lost some key battles, it looks like he won the war. Thoughts? ****** Conference Program: Symposium Committee Lincoln H. Blumell (Co-Chair), Department…
Literary DCGD #5: A Scene in Virginia
The spirit of revelation described in D&C Gospel Doctrine lesson #5 isn’t always credited with all that it deserves. During our lives, I think, we often receive inspiration that we don’t attribute to anything but our own decisions, while that inspiration makes subtle changes, pushing us towards the better. Other times personal revelation is very clear, appearing as the kind of direct communication whose source is all but undeniable. The following poem is an example of when and how personal revelation can appear, along with a meditation on nature and how it should turn our vision o the truth.
On Complaining
Rosalynde here expresses some of the concerns that I have about the methodology of the Wear Pants and GC Prayer efforts. I want to add a few more thoughts:
Literacy and orality in Mormonism
It would be surprising, and disappointing, if Mormons didn’t sound a bit odd when we speak, or if Mormon verbal art were indistinguishable from any other literary text.
Mormonism: How Thinkable Is It?
This is the second post on Adam Miller’s Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology (Greg Kofford Books, 2012; publisher’s page). In this post I’ll discuss Chapter 8, “The Gospel as an Earthen Vessel,” a suggestive symbol that Adam borrows from 2 Corinthians 4:7: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”
Guest Post: Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability Part 3: Fractured Images of God, Self, and Others
[This is the third in a series of guest posts on Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability. The other installments are available here: Part 1:”Exceeding Sorrowful, Even Unto Death” (Mark 14:34), Part 2: Causes and (Mis)Attributions, Part 4: Accommodations in LDS Activities and Meetings, and Part 5: The “Greater Sin”/ Sane Repentance & Forgiveness] I appreciate the input and insights from those who have experienced depression and other mental health challenges firsthand. Many of the comments have focused on physiological causes and medical helps. I’d like to briefly explore some emotional and psychological factors and their effects and treatments before we discuss implications and applications for church service and church leaders. My own background will provide useful context here. I was raised in the church by parents who had and have continued to regularly serve in prominent callings (including bishoprics, RS presidencies, & full-time missions). They also had unrecognized and untreated mental health issues that made it impossible for them to provide the type of love, stability, nurturing, or teaching needed for children to feel safe, secure, autonomous, happy, or functional–to the degree that they lost custody of children in 3 different U.S. states. Each of my siblings has spent tremendous energy and personal resources to get to places of safety, obtain treatment (medical and psychological), learn healthy patterns of thinking and behavior (including more accurate images of God), and find constructive social support that enhances rather than diminishes their ability to act and not be…
Literary DCGD #4: Interview with David Whitmer
I think that we often think of witnesses as something outside of the event, added to fill a particular need or satisfy the desires of the world. But I wonder if this perception might not be incorrect, if witnesses are not, in fact, an important part of the process of communicating truth. A testimony is, after all, what a witness provides, and, at least in the church, it is hard to imagine communicating truth without testimony. In the fourth D&C Gospel Doctrine lesson witnesses to the Book of Mormon are an important part of the story of the scripture’s preparation. And the following poem provides, I think, an idea of the role of the witness, along with a lot about one of the three witnesses, David Whitmer.
Guest Post: Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability Part 2: Causes and (Mis)Attributions
[This is the second in a series of guest posts on Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability. The other installments are available here: Part 1:”Exceeding Sorrowful, Even Unto Death” (Mark 14:34), Part 3: Fractured Images of God, Self, and Others, Part 4: Accommodations in LDS Activities and Meetings, and Part 5: The “Greater Sin”/ Sane Repentance & Forgiveness] The church’s web page about mental illness includes a brief list of potential causes. These can include physiological and/or behavioral factors. Mental health or functioning can be compromised due to heredity; birth defect; oxygen deprivation at birth or later; biological trauma (concussion, brain clot, hemorrhage, tumor, seizure activity, bacterial infection); medication, drugs, food, additives, environmental hazards, or other substances that effect brain function; nutritional deficiencies, sensitivities, and anemias; sleep deprivation and its opposite–prolonged bed rest or other immobility/ limitation of physical movement… Behaviorally, mental health can be hampered by child, spousal, or elder abuse, neglect, or abandonment; untreated mental illness in, or substance abuse or poor modeling by a parent or other caregiver; an extreme mismatch between parental and child personality or temperament; food insecurity; prolonged or extreme economic hardship; being a witness or participant in war, violence (including rape and other forms of sexual attack), accident, illness, injury, or other trauma; imprisonment, forced relocation, theft, or other curtailment of liberty or autonomy; divorce and other losses; a variety of continuous stressors; and (yes) guilt over personal sin & transgression. Usually, difficulties stem from a combination of…
Literary Lorenzo Snow #2: For Baptism
[I am traveling for the 4th annual Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference — please excuse the delay in posting this.] From the beginning of Mormonism, Baptism has been a central focus of our preaching. Baptism must be done in the correct manner and by the correct authority, and should be followed by the gift of the Holy Ghost. And this is the focus of the second lesson in the Lorenzo Snow manual used in Priesthood and Relief Society. Of course, our baptisms have always been accompanied by hymns, and the following hymn appeared in Emma Smith’s first hymnal in 1835 and in subsequent hymnals through 1841, but disappeared thereafter. It was likely sung at baptisms during the first decade of Mormonism (perhaps even the baptism of Lorenzo Snow).
Literary DCGD #3: The Young Seer
[I am traveling for the 4th annual Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference — please excuse the delay in posting this.] Of our mythic founding stories, the First Vision is surely the most important. It appears regularly in manuals and conference talks, as well as in the missionary lessons, where it is among the first things that converts to Mormonism learn. So naturally it is a frequent subject for Mormon poetry. But most of the poetical treatments of the First Vision that come to my mind are descriptive, tell what happened instead of the role of the First Vision in the ages. And even when that role is discussed, I haven’t seen a more unusual approach than the excerpt below, which brings rich imagery to its view of the initial event of the restoration.
What Mormon Theology Looks Like
This is the first of several posts discussing Adam Miller’s Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology, a little gem published by Greg Kofford Books in 2012 (here’s the publisher’s page on the book). After some preliminary discussion about why there has been so little Mormon theology done (compared to say LDS history) and what Mormon theology might look like, I’ll discuss some of Adam’s observations in Chapter 6, “A Manifesto for Mormon Theology.” Adam, of course, is a permablogger here at Times and Seasons and will likely be adding his own additional enlightening thoughts in the comments.
MR: Samurai Jesus: A Review of Takashi Miike’s “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai”
The Mormon Review vol. 5 no. 1 is presented here, with Jonathon Penny’s review of Takashi Miike’s 2011 film Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. By Jonathon Penny Open on a gaunt, intelligent looking man—Tsukumo Hanshiro—seeking the indulgence of a retinue of samurai at the palace of a feudal lord. He claims to be a ronin, a lordless samurai, left to wander in poverty after the dishonor and dissolution of his clan. His request: to commit ritual hara-kiri so that, it is explained to us, he might regain some of the honor he has lost. There is skepticism. Not two months before, Chief Retainer Saito informs him, another ronin from the same clan made the same request. This one, Chijiiwa Motome—younger, more gaunt, and with less bearing—sought an audience with Lord Li, delayed the ritual, fidgeted and fretted. There was skepticism. Takashi Miike’s resume reads like the inside cover of a pulp novel. He has directed film after film whose English titles, at any rate, smack of that Hong Kong irony we all thought Kurt Russell was lampooning, if we grew up in the 80s, or that Tarantino was satirizing, if we grew up later: “Bodyguard Kiba: Combat Apocolypse [sic] 2,” anyone? How about “Rainy Dog”? “Full Metal gokudô”? “Blues Harp”? “Andromedia”? “Ichi the Killer”? “Ninja Kids!!!”? I’ve never bothered with any of them, though I did see “13 Assassins” (2010) and I indulged in “Sukiyaki Western Django” (2007). (Hey, it was…
Should Women Pray in Public?
So it looks like All Enlisted (the people who brought you “Wear Pants to Church Day”) is now starting a campaign to have a woman pray in General Conference. It prompted this repost from BCC which references this piece from Rosalynde Welch. I want to look at just one line from Rosalynde’s essay:
Guest Post: Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability Part 1:”Exceeding Sorrowful, Even Unto Death” (Mark 14:34)
[This is the first in a series of guest posts on Mental Health, Mortal Life, and Accountability. The subsequent installments are available here: Part 2: Causes and (Mis)Attributions, Part 3: Fractured Images of God, Self, and Others, Part 4: Accommodations in LDS Activities and Meetings, and Part 5: The “Greater Sin”/ Sane Repentance & Forgiveness] Not many years ago, a younger sibling of mine sought to stop her unbearable emotional pain by ending her mortal life. While she succeeded in completing her suicide, she did not consciously chose this path, and she is not fully accountable for her desperate and tragic actions. In some ways, she is in a safer place, as she is now beyond reach of some of the individuals, circumstances, and influences that had power to destroy her soul. I also believe that many of her challenges continue, and some may even be greater. I do not know the ultimate destiny of her soul. But I know for sure that God’s love, watch care, influence, empathy, and grace go with her beyond the grave, that the Plan of Happiness, Salvation, and Exaltation is for her, as much as it is for me, and you, and all of God’s precious children. Christ endured the emotional pain that my sister endured specifically so that He can now succor her. As I have mourned and been mourned with through this tragic loss, and as I observe and mourn with others bearing similar and…
Times and Seasons 2012 Mormon of the Year: Mitt Romney
After due consideration the staff of Times and Seasons has selected Mitt Romney as the 2012 Mormon of the Year, our annual designation of the Mormon who had the greatest impact or influence on Mormons and Mormonism during the year.
Sorry, Murphy
Despite a heartfelt campaign led by his children, LDS baseball star and former Massachusetts Boston Mission President Dale Murphy was not inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame, according to the results announced this afternoon. While that result was expected, the fact that fellow Mormon Jack Morris was also not selected was almost as suprising as the fact that the BBWAA selected none of the eligible players this year. The group last failed to add any players to the Hall of Fame in 1996.
Guest post: Failure, by Nate Curtis
No one sets out on a path with the intent to fail. In late 2009 I took the last major hike with my father before he died. We decided to do the Tapeats Creek/Deer Creek loop, a trail in the Grand Canyon that we had done several times over the years, and is considered by many to be not only the most difficult hike in the Grand Canyon, but among the hardest hikes in North America. It was the first hike my father had done in the Grand Canyon when he was 14 years old, and it was the first hike he took me on in the Grand Canyon when I was 12 years old. He used to tell a story of a pudgy kid from Houston (himself) who had never even seen a valley, much less the Grand Canyon. A boy who descended into the depths of those sandstone walls and emerged 20 pounds lighter and fully converted to the Canyon’s mystery. The trail is not easy. Just a few weeks before our trip, an experienced hiker in good physical condition attempted to hike the trail alone. He became lost and for some unknown reason began to navigate his way down a large cliff. After descending a ways he realized he could go no farther down, and lacked the strength to climb back up. Stranded on a ledge, he soon died from exposure to heat and dehydration. It was…
Finding My Heavenly Mother, Part 4 (Literary Edition)
Also see part 1, part 2 and part 3. In a 1944 essay (“Is Theology Poetry?”), C.S. Lewis remarked, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” As one who embraced Christianity later in life, Lewis had a keen appreciation of how a new discovery of belief can throw a bright reflected glory on the world and everything in it. The mind, which craves new connections of any kind, takes a special delight in those intellectual connections that carry an associated weight of affection. Who has not noted with pleasure the increased sweetness imparted to a beautiful place by the remembrance of a few precious moments shared there with one’s beloved? How much more, then, might we linger over a place, a picture, a happy turn of phrase that brought to mind some past or promised communion with the divine, assaulting our senses with a sudden tingle of the holy. Like Lewis, I have been in the habit of finding God everywhere, illuminating everything. And besides amid the glories of the natural world, nowhere for me does the spirit of God breathe more vibrantly than in literature. The scriptures of various religious traditions are, of course, replete with references to God. But I’ve encountered beautiful spiritual insights in books by authors from Victor Hugo to Friedrich Nietzsche. Since “discovering” my Heavenly Mother, I…
Why I Listen to Screamo
So here’s a piece about multidimensional optimization algorithms, a genre of music named after and including a lot of primal screaming, and my mission. Several examples of said musical genre, screamo, are included so I hope you have a broad audial palette. I’ll start with a short story from my Mormon youth. On one particular day I remember being in the backseat of a minivan full of my fellow teenage Mormons as we drove to or from some weekday church activity. We were listening to the radio when Bullet with Buttefly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins came on and I started to sing along. This song is sonically tame compared to what we’ll be sampling shortly, but my enthusiasm was met by unanimous horror from the rest of the van. This, it seemed, was not what good Mormons listened to. While someone gave me a mini-lecture on musical standards, the radio dial was hastily changed from alternative rock to top-40. My own misgivings–was I bringing the devil into this vehicle?–were laid to rest as Christina Aguilera instructed us all on how to rub her the right way in order to convince her to “give it away”. I was pretty sure that, next to that, Billy Corgan singing “And I still believe that I cannot be saved,” wasn’t any worse. As my mission approached, I partook of a great deal of the kind of folklore we have built around them. First there was…
Literary DCGD #2: Praise ye the Lord
The second Doctrine and Covenants lesson makes the point that this modern scripture talks and teaches of Christ. That focus was easy to find in many Mormon poems and hymns, but the following poem has the advantage of talking about the Lord for what He has done for the Latter-day Church. Eliza R. Snow probably needs no introduction for most members, as her poetry still appears frequently in our hymnals. And in this poem her combination of praise for the Lord with references to the latter-day work makes this a good match for the lesson.
Literary Lorenzo Snow #1: Provo Sunday School
I love the first lesson in the Lorenzo Snow manual. It seems like Snow’s love of learning is second to none among latter-day Prophets. And his statements about learning are wonderful: “Though we may now neglect to improve our time, to brighten up our intellectual faculties, we shall be obliged to improve them sometime. We have got so much ground to walk over, and if we fail to travel to-day, we shall have so much more to travel to-morrow.”
A Mormon holiday: Purgation Sunday
As others have noted, Mormonism does not have much of a liturgical year, and the role of holidays in Mormon theology is quite attenuated. I propose we designate the first Fast Sunday in January as Purgation Sunday.