Theory of Everything

Contradicting Parents

2010-11-29T10:47:00.002-07:00

Yesterday in my primary class the lesson was on Jonah, and the discussion turned towards where the Bible came from and biblical inerrancy. At one point an 11 year old kid that comes to church once a month with his Grandma suddenly perked up and started paying actual attention to the lesson. He raised his hand and said, "So, like dinosaurs could be real?"
My mind raced through everything I know about who teaches that dinosaurs aren't real, everything our church teaches about dinosaurs, evolution, science, and reconciling scientific evidence with contradictory religious belief. I was trying to formulate an answer that wouldn't offend the sensibilities of whoever taught this kids that dinosaurs are a myth, while still being as accurate as I could.
All at once I remembered that our church doesn't teach young earth creationism, and biblical inerrancy. This kid's parents (or whoever) shouldn't be surprised that he's hearing things in Sunday school that contradict those beliefs when they're sending him to a church that doesn't teach those things.
I have enough trouble teaching the things I don't agree with that actually are church doctrine, I'm not going to twist myself in knots to teach things I disagree with that aren't church doctrine.

On ownership

2009-04-06T21:17:00.002-07:00

This Time article points out that touching something increases feelings of ownership, which is something to keep in mind when shopping to help people avoid buying things they don't need:

To prove the power of touch, the researchers placed two products, a Slinky and a coffee mug, in front of 231 undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin. About half were told they could touch the products, while the other half were prohibited from fiddling with them. Students were then asked to express their sense of ownership of the products and to indicate how much money they were willing to pay for each.

The results were clear: those who touched the items reported statistically significant higher levels of perceived ownership. They were also willing to pay more to purchase the products.

I came across the article through the consumerist a few days ago, and it has been in the back of my mind. When my husband came home from work today and asked me if I had heard about the earthquake in Italy, I was not at all surprised. He served his mission there, though he never actually served in the city that was hit. As I considered how this event occupied his mind in a way it did not occupy mine I considered again the notion of ownership.

Though I know about Italy, I've never been there. I've never stood on the streets and heard people speaking Italian all around me. The habits, the idioms, the weather, the smell is all abstract to me. On the other hand I've been to other places. I've been to Sweden and placed my hands on the tombstones of my ancestors. I've sat on the couch in 'the house' at the family farm. That place is real to me, and I feel a sense of ownership towards it.

The article I linked stresses the feelings of entitlement that come with 'ownership.' On the other side of that is, I believe, a feeling of responsibility, or stewardship. In other words, one cares about what happens to those things they feel ownership of. When I've seen the herds of bison in Yellowstone park, I'll care if I hear that they are in danger of becoming extinct. When I've watched a live performance of Carmina Burana I'll care when I learn that it won't be performed anymore. When I've been to a foreign country, I'll care when I learn that there is a tragedy affecting that nation.

It is possible to care without experiencing these things first hand, but doing so makes the feelings come more easily. And so, it is not enough to just read about places, people, things, animals, or whatever. Experiencing something first hand is vitally important for developing a sense of ownership and stewardship for the world around us.

My best nursery idea

2009-03-26T14:51:00.005-07:00

You know that awful scratchy carpet that is on the bottom half of the walls of every LDS church building in the world? This carpet hold up felt pieces like magic at just the right height for nursery kids.
In our nursery we keep a little bag of felt pieces in different shapes and colors. The littlest ones just like putting them up, rearranging, hoarding etc. The older ones like sorting, or naming the shapes and colors or making scenes on the wall with the felt.
I've also had good experiences with using felt glued to the back of pictures to hold up illustrations for lessons. I have a bag of animal pictures with felt glued to the back that is very very popular among the nursery kids.
This same idea also works on some pews for quiet fun during sacrament meeting.

Mouths of Babes

2009-03-25T14:18:00.006-07:00

When our oldest was about two years old and just barely talking our drive to church was rather long and involved freeways and all that. One Sunday on the way to church he said "cow?" We shrugged our shoulders and thought that he was probably just thinking about cows. Next week at the exact same spot he, again, said "cow?" At this point we were perplexed. "Maybe he's talking about cars? Hey Nils, say 'car.'" To which Nils said "Cai!" Hmm.
Next week, we get to the same spot and Nils says "cow?"
The weeks after that we started looking all around for anything that could be cow related. This went on for a few months and was rather frustrating. He wanted us to say, "Yes, that is a cow." But we never saw any cows and so did really believe that there was a cow. I was rather convinced that there was some graffiti or something that he thought looked like a cow, but we thought looked like words.
Until one day on the way to church I happen to look up at just the right moment to see this.

A random fiberglass cow on a pole that is visible for barely even a second. It appears just as you come out from an overpass, and disappears behind the ground almost immediately thereafter. You quite literally have to look in just the right spot at just the right time to see it at all. And our poor toddler who spent the whole ride to church gazing up out the window saw this cow every week, and by the time he said "cow?" it was gone.
I'm sorry we ever doubted him.

Constructive Criticism

2009-03-23T19:32:00.002-07:00

Last night my husband attended a Stake priesthood meeting. During this meeting there were the usual exhortations, and among them was the injunction for all the married men to ask their wives "What can I do to be a better husband." Which my husband dutifully did.

Hmm.

My first thought was a smarmy self-righteous, "I choose to not dwell on your faults." We had a good laugh for a few minutes by trying to make that statement even more ostentatious.

My next thought was that if there was anything important that he needed to be doing for me or the kids I would have told him already. Just as I was getting ready to say that my husband preempted me by saying "I would hope that you would tell me without me having to ask like this."

After that there was the thought that if there were things I wanted him to do that I wasn't telling him about then they weren't the sort of things that matter all that much. I think he'd look nicer if he wore his shirts differently; he knows my opinion, and I know that they're his shirts and he's the one who is actually wearing them.

Then we discussed the fact that I would be really bothered if I had gone to a stake Relief Society meeting and had been instructed to ask my husband how I could be a better wife. He agreed that that did seem rather inappropriate and we talked for a few minutes about why one is A-Okay but the other is not. He put forth the idea that despite the ideal there are large cultural forces at play that result in men doing much less relationship maintenance than women.

As the conversation progressed I realized that the whole time in the back of my mind I had been searching for things that I didn't like about my husband. And sure enough when you look for those sorts of things you can come up with quite a list. Perhaps my first answer hadn't been so smarmy and self-righteous after all. That simple question, dutifully asked by my thoughtful husband upon instruction from a well meaning stake president who was trying to help out the sisters put me into a fault finding mindset which I didn't like at all.

So I gave my husband my answer ("Please find a way to let me know when you buy gas so I can put it in our budget spreadsheet.") and went to bed.

If my stake president were to ask how to be a better stake president I would ask him find a way to encourage husbands to do more relationship maintenance work without putting the wives in the position of having to look for their husbands faults.

Private

2009-03-17T12:40:00.002-07:00

As a teen and young adult I bore my testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting fairly frequently, about three or four times a year. Even though I am active, and friendly, and still have a testimony I haven't born my testimony once in over five years. What changed? I got married. For some reason bearing my soul to a room of strangers, acquaintances, and casual friends doesn't bother me a bit. But the instant someone I care deeply about is in the room you couldn't make me stand up if you tried. Bearing my testimony in front of my husband feels far too intimate to do in public.
Weird huh?

Poor Unfortunate Souls

2009-03-15T16:05:00.004-07:00

Several months ago at a Relief Society activity I had a curious conversation with a woman in my ward. She is an older woman who takes care of her appearance meticulously. At this activity she approached me, put her arm around my shoulder and said, "I just wanted to tell you that you are so beautiful!" I said a startled "thank you," and she continued "No, I really mean it, you are so lovely. And you don't even wear makeup. I think that if you wore makeup then you would look phenomenal." To which I jokingly responded "Well, you see makeup would just hide my beauty." She said "Oh no, makeup will enhance your beauty!" After that the conversation came to an awkward end and we went our seperate ways.

I went home confused and bothered by the exchange but didn't know what to make of it so I pushed it to the back of my mind and forgot about it. Months later, in some of my random musings I was thinking about makeover shows, and what a train-wreck the whole premise is. What it all comes down to is the fact that someone thinks their friends, family, or acquaintances are ugly, or at the very least not attractive enough (which they declare on national television in an attempt to 'help' said ugly duckling). I thought about how awful it would be if someone signed me up for one which isn't implausible given my unmade-up ways and comfy clothes.

All at once it hit me, the woman from my ward wasn't just giving me a compliment, she was trying to take me by the hand and start me on the path to learning how to be a better, more beautiful me. What she saw when she looked at me was a poor unfortunate girl, who either didn't think she was worth the effort (ie, "I'm too ugly for makeup to do any good, so why even bother?") or who lacked awareness of my own appearance the way that 7th graders lack awareness of how they smell.

But here's the thing about me. My mom is a beautician, I've been in several stage productions, and I have a sister who was a rodeo queen (read: beauty pageant on horses). I know how to apply makeup, I know how to walk down a runway, I know how to pose for photos, I know how to hold myself so that I look 5 pounds thinner. I know my season (winter), face shape (oval), I know how to dress to compliment my body shape. I know how to shape eyebrows, how to wax body hair, how to color my hair, how to give myself manicures and pedicures (even acrylics). I know how to do ridiculous hairdos, I know all sorts of hackneyed fashion rules and conventions. I know beauty, but I don't play that game.

When I turned 17, I asked two of my friends to go out to breakfast with me on my birthday. Our classes started at 7 am, so we agreed to meet at 6 am. I woke up at 5, showered, got dressed, did my hair a bit and arrived at the restaurant on time. My other friend arrived shortly after me, and the second friend arrived a good 15 minutes later than both of us. We asked my late friend if she had slept in, and she said no, she got up at 3 am, but it took longer to get ready than she thought. I was flabbergasted. It took her 3 hours to get ready for school, seriously? Not prom, not a date, not a job interview. School. I asked her why she couldn't just skip the makeup for a day and she looked at me as if I'd asked her why she didn't walk around naked. Her completely serious, non-melodramatic, dead pan answer was "I'm ugly without makeup." At that point it was my turn to look at her as if she'd said she was going to walk around naked. I'd known her since we were ten and I'd never once thought she was ugly.

Later, as I watched her and other girls around me I came to realize that nobody thought make-up made them "more beautiful." They thought makeup made them look less ugly. They didn't wear makeup to look nice, they wore it to look normal. And their opinions on makeup made sense given the way they used it. If you wear makeup every day, then that is how you normally look; you'd have to wear extra makeup to look extra nice.

That was when I stopped. I didn't want to think of myself as being ugly without makeup, and in order to avoid that trap I decided that I couldn't get used to seeing myself in makeup. From then on makeup was for special occasions, prom, dates, graduation, photos, etc. Now I refuse to include makeup in my basic daily hygiene. I am clean, my clothes are clean and neat, my hair is combed and styled, my nails are trimmed and clean, my eyebrows neatly shaped. I have good hygiene, and take good care of myself. I like how I look.

But here's what sticks in my craw about all of this. Makeup, and other forms of performed femininity are so pervasive and normative that it is natural for a kind hearted person to assume that I'm not doing all of this extra crap because I have bad self-esteem or poor hygiene. For a long time skipping the makeup was hard. I was plagued by doubt that I wasn't pretty enough without it. I worried that people, especially boys* would think I was ugly. I was concerned about my job and whether they would try to make me wear makeup. By now I'm perfectly alright if someone looks at my unmade up face and thinks that I'm an angry humorless feminist. I'm fine if they think I'm ugly. But the thought of people tsk-tsking under their breath and feeling sorry for my self-esteem makes me angry. I can control how I look at my own face, but I can't control what other people read into my behavior.

After realizing that the woman in my ward was trying to save me from myself I'm now paranoid about any compliment I get. People who fall all over themselves to compliment my trendy new hairdo make me squirm. It's almost like they're trying pavlovian conditioning-- they stroke my ego when I dip my toe in the beauty pool in hopes I'll keep it up. I wish I could wear a sign "I look this way for ideological reasons." Until then, the next time someone tries to talk me into wearing makeup by insisting that it just accentuates my features I'm going to respond with, "You're right! my husband really would look better with some eyeliner."

*Oddly enough unless I really have a lot on my husband can't tell if I have makeup on or not, and before I quit makeup altogether he refused to kiss me on Sundays for fear that I'd get lipstick on him.

Male Gaze and the Temple

2009-03-08T14:59:00.002-07:00

Among the many symbols in the Temple that I found confusing or hurtful was the veil that women wear on their heads and to cover their faces at times. I spent a lot of time reading varied interpretations of veiling coming from a wide array of sources- LDS, Catholic, Muslim, etc. One recurring explanation is that the veils are intended to shield the holy from the profane, and thus since women are veiled this means that they are holy. This always rang false to me, and failed to comfort me, because if you put a veil between God and me, it is obvious which side is profane and which side is holy. That men didn't wear a veil meant, to me, that men were less profane from women, and that God didn't need to be shielded from them.

Recently, while reading another instance of this sort of explanation the idea struck me that perhaps, at least as far as interpreting the Temple goes, I hadn't internalized the male gaze enough.

The male gaze is the idea that when viewing any sort of presentation the presumed audience is a heterosexual male. So, for example, movie directors assume that the audience would like the camera to linger on a woman's chest, rather than a man's physique. There are all sorts of reasons this is a bad thing, not the least of which is that girls and women have to relate to almost everything indirectly, by first imagining it from a male point of view and then interpreting that in a way that is applicable to themselves.

So when I go to the Temple, without my male gaze goggles on, I put on the veil, and then ask myself "what does this veil mean to me and my relationship to God?"

Perhaps what I should be asking is, "what would this veil mean to a man and and tell him about my relationship to him and what does *that* mean to me and my relationship to God?" In this way the reading that the veil denotes holiness could actually work, if you assume that the veil is there for men and not for women.

So perhaps the most feminist way to approach the Temple is to assume that everything there is actually for and about men.*

Public Service Announcement

2009-03-06T15:57:00.002-07:00

The other day in the store a woman walked by, saw my kids sitting in the cart next to each other and said "Oh, what cute kids! Are they twins, or irish twins?" After an awkward moment of stammering out some sort of answer, she then explained "Irish twins means that they aren't really twins, but look a lot alike." After she left I turned to my husband and said, "That's not what 'Irish twins' means."
So, lest anyone else accidentally insult a stranger while trying to compliment their kids, you should know that Irish Twins is a rude way to describe two kids born to the same mother within 12 months.

Moral Wrongs or Societal Ills

2009-02-24T13:32:00.002-07:00

Unwed motherhood seems to be the bane of our nation because it combines the moral failing of premarital sex and supposed root cause of delinquent childhood. I say 'supposed cause of delinquent childhood' because I am unconvinced. Certainly there are plenty of statistics that point to the correlation between single parent homes and a failure to thrive in children.

These kids do poorly in school, they engage in risky behaviors and commit crime. I'm inclined to believe that this has less to do with the marital state of the mother are much more to do with the financial state of the mother (present and future). It is the financial state of the mother that determines what neighborhood they live in, what school they attend, what daycare center they use, how frequently they see a doctor, and what sorts of extra curricular activities they can participate in. That single mothers are more likely to be poor is not an argument against single motherhood per se, but an argument against a society where caregivers are undervalued and herded out of the workforce.

The idea that single mothers are more likely to be poor due to some connection between their fallen state and their wallet is wrongheaded at best. First not all single mothers (parents, really) are ones that engaged in extra-marital sex. Divorce, death, and rape are all reasons why the 'righteous' may find themselves raising a child on their own. These parents at not excused from poverty due to their righteousness. Also, there are several financially successful single parents, who got their children either through adoption, IVF, or good ol' fashioned premarital sex. These parents aren't poor despite the unrighteousness of their behavior- and these parents have children that are likely to thrive.

And so it is that I can believe that a moral wrong, in this case extra marital sex, is not necessarily a social ill, and does not need to be regulation for our benefit. Governments and responsible parties should be involved in determining the actual causes of social ills (poverty), correcting those causes (helping single parents obtain gainful employment), and abstaining from moralizing the issue.

Why Gendered Language Matters

2009-02-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

Ads for Italian clothes designer Relish depict Rio de Janeiro police assaulting women (who are wearing fashionable shoes, that you want to buy. Really!). Officials in Rio are bothered by the ads, even trying to have them removed, though mostly because it tarnishes the reputation of the police force and the community.

In discussions of these ads women have described showing these ads to male friends and relatives who are bothered by the ads, but like the officials in Rio, are more bothered that it makes the police look like bad guys than by the sexual assaults depicted.

It seems clear to me that when these men look at these ads they identify with the police, and see *themselves* being implicated. When someone accuses you of a mugging, you probably care more about proving your own innocence than you do about the victim's lost his money or mental trauma.

At first I was inclined to say that at least we all agree that such behavior is unacceptable, especially from the police who are supposed to be a source of protection from this very sort of behavior. But as I thought about it I started dwelling on the idea that supposedly progressive pro-feminist men were looking at these ads and completely incapable of seeing how the sexualization of violence is the real issue because they were so hung up on defending the police and by extension themselves.

So here's the thing. There is no reason that men shouldn't be able to look at this ad and identify with the women and not the police. However boys do not read books about girls the same way girls read books about boys. Girls hear 'men' and train themselves to assume that they are included. Boys do not do the same. Groups of girls are called guys. Groups of boys are not called gals. All of these things conspire in the lives of men to stunt their ability to identify with a woman, or female character-- even for the five seconds it takes to look at this ad and imagine themselves being so brutalized by the police.

Turning the hearts of the children

2009-02-18T12:48:00.004-07:00

I did not grow up in a feminist household. My parents (read: Dad) are strict conservatives, and would likely even call themselves anti-feminist. But while they may not call themselves feminist, something has definitely changed.

When I was in high school my parents were called to serve in the stake family history center. Their advanced age, lack of young children and my dad's moderate computer skills were big selling points and they remained in that calling for several years. In the time since then my dad has thrown himself into his family history with great gusto. After retirement he started spending 2-5 hours daily doing family history research.

Because he spends so much time working on it, family history is his favorite topic of conversation these days. In the past few months especially I've really noticed a trend, I would come home from visits to my parents house with stories about awesome women (women I'm related to!), and kept thinking to myself "I've gotta write a post about that!" Now, surely I have just as many male relatives as I do female relatives, but dad doesn't tell stories about them. This could be for several reasons; maybe the men in my family history are a very mediocre bunch, perhaps since women's lives were so constricted the awesomeness threshold is much lower for women, or perhaps my dad focuses on the women more than the men.

I think it all started because my dad prides himself on being thorough and meticulous. He likes getting *every* piece of information that he can. And due to the practice of women taking their husband's name, finding information about women is difficult. So in order to find out everything he had to do a great deal of research about individual women, and he's come to empathize with them.

Just the last time I was home he was talking about a particular woman whose name he was looking for, and he had nothing to go on. Even her gravestone called her 'Mrs. John Doe.' About which my dad exclaimed "That was a person for crying out loud! It's like she didn't even exist."

He also talked about how awful it must have been to have 11 kids in 11 years. Then we got to talking about insane asylums, and how women were put there whether they were insane or not, and how the definition of insane for women was "isn't happy about having 11 kids in 11 years."

All of this has softened his stance on women having jobs, how many kids they should have, and how society still doesn't do right by women. My dad's heart has turned, but not to his fathers; his heart has turned to his mothers.

Illustrative graphs

2009-02-03T11:48:00.005-07:00

Long title: How to get girls to stop worrying so much about how they look.

Let's assume that for an individual 'Z' we can graph the compatibility of some number of potential mates on a graph with two axes. The X axis represents physical compatibility, and Y axis well call mental compatibility though in truth it represents all qualities that are not physically visible, such as intelligence, humor, spirituality etc.[1] Since this is all theoretical and not based on any actual measurements we can assume that compatibility is an absolute value, which is to say that the more compatible you are with someone, the happier you will be.

Now lets also assume that there is a minimum level of compatibility that you must have to maintain a successful marriage. Those in sectors 1, 3, and 4 are incompatible in some fashion and should not be pursued as a potential spouse. Whereas those in sector 2 are all good matches.

The way to maximize compatibility is to approach those in sector 2 in order of decreasing compatibility, based on some balance of the importance of the two axes. Here are two examples, one skewed towards mental qualities and one skewed towards physical qualities.

Before moving on let me restate that this is strictly addressing orders of approach. Also any person in sector 2 is someone our approacher, Z, would be happy with. Alright Here is the thing, humans are not psychic and have a limited capacity for looking at a person and knowing whether or not they would be mentally compatible. So we have to deal with the reality that all human patterns of approach are going to skew towards the physical, sometimes extremely so. This means that Z will be approaching people in sectors 2 and 4 equally.

Up until this point we've been talking about Z, and what would make Z happiest in a marriage. Now lets look for a moment at someone on the graph, who we'll call Q. Q knows Z and wants to date Z. If Q must wait for Z's approach then the best way for Q to speed up the process is to move up in the order of approach. Q must make itself more attractive to Z. If Q is already in sector 2, then the question is what is the best area for Q to focus on, mental or physical?

If Q improves mentally, then there is no advantage gained for a physically skewed approach by Z.

If Q improves physically, then a clear advantage is gained.

Now is also a good time to point out that if Q has to wait for Z to approach then Q is in 'competition' with the other people on the graph even if those people have no interest in Z. The only way for Q to move up in the order of approach is to be more attractive (esp physically) than the other people on the graph. Lastly, as I said before humans are not psychic and Q cannot know what Z will find more attractive, and so Q looks to popular culture, and other people to guess what Z might like.

Now lets talk about boys and girls, and how what I've been describing here influences the behavior of boys and girls. In our culture girls do not traditionally ask boys out. Which means that girls, more often than boys find themselves in Q's position. This causes girls, more than boys, to view other girls as competition, and to rate themselves against each other. It also means that, if a girl's goal is to have a relationship than the best use of her (finite) time is to have just enough mental qualities to be in sector 2, while being the most physically attractive girl around.

I believe that this is also what leads girls to obsess about what boys find attractive. Since girls don't actually know they have to guess, and are never certain and can never be comfortable that they've done enough. I also think, that since boys are so rarely in Q's position they are blissfully unaware of the dynamics at play here.

So what is my solution? Girls and Boys should feel equally free to approach each other romantically. Because in a society where girls must wait to be approached, while at the same time are told that marriage is a vital part of their lives and worth as a person then the best use of a girl's time is not in improving herself overall, but in focusing her attention on how she looks.

[1] I'd like to reiterate that these are compatibility ratings, and are subjective and personal. Which is to say that someone who may rank low on the physical or mental axis is not necessarily ugly, or stupid. They might be ugly or stupid, but it may just indicate incompatibility with the particular person on whom the graph is based.

Which Kingdom I'm going to

2009-01-26T21:03:00.003-07:00

There's a poll at BCC. The poll asks, "If you died today would you go to the Celestial Kingdom?"

The poll has three possible answers "Yes, the highest kingdom" "Yes, some kingdom" or "No." I hate questions like this. Lets look at the possibilities

First, you could answer "Yes, the highest kingdom." My initial response to that is, "well I'm glad you think so highly of yourself." It seems incredibly vain to unequivocally declare oneself worthy of the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. For crying out loud just translate me now, because I'm already perfect! On the other hand, there is the notion that a sort of fresh-faced confidence is in a way desirable. That you are faithful, hopeful, and so desirous to be with God that of course you'll be going to the Celestial Kingdom. This kind of honest optimism is certainly a desirable trait where it occurs naturally, but it is one of those things where you can't fake it until you make it..

At the other extreme you could answer "No." Answering the question this way gets into the whole believing Christ thing. Are you saying you aren't worthy because you don't believe that Christ has the power to cleanse you of your sins? Are you not even trying to repent. Don't you want to go to the Celestial Kingdom? Or perhaps you're engaging in some passive aggressive false humility, daring other people to let you say such horrible things about yourself. Or maybe you're indulging in some nod nod wink wink rebellion, that almost says "I'm too cool to go the Celestial Kingdom. Everyone knows the real party is going to be in the Telestial Kingdom." And on the other side of this one is a sort of real humility that just feels so awkward about saying how awesomely righteous they are that they go ahead and say no.

Then there is the middle option, the "Yes, some kingdom." This is the one for people who feel self conscious about either extreme. Dangerously aware of both the positive and negative feelings on each extreme this option appears to be moderate. However, all of the implications of the other answers apply here, just slightly watered down.

If the question had been a fill in the blank, rather than multiple choice I would have said "I know I'll be happy." I refuse to believe that God would create beings only for most of them to end up left out and unhappy, that sort of God is a jerk and not worth worshipping. I will try to live the sort of life that makes me good, and makes me happy, and I'll end up where I end up.

Cross posted at Waters Of Mormon.

The hiatus is over or An LDS Blog?

2009-01-26T19:13:00.005-07:00

I try to live my religion everyday, and not just on Sundays. While there is obviously room for improvement on this front, my religion will color everything I write because it shapes how I think. (Just for clarification I like my religion, so I want it to shape how I think. ) I wonder, though, if that necessarily makes this an LDS blog.

An instance I remember vividly was a post I wrote about modesty where a commenter took umbrage with my critical approach to the way 'we' talk about modesty. The commenter thought that 'we' meant 'the church' while I intended it to mean 'North American culture.' I do have issues with the ways modesty often is addressed at church, but that wasn't what I was talking about in that post. Perhaps I really should have clarified why I meant by 'we.'

That particular incident wasn't an especially big deal, but it did mark a change the way I thought and wrote about things that are not specifically, or exclusively LDS. I got this notion that, as an LDS blogger it was my duty to make everything I wrote somehow connected to the church. And that, while it was acceptable to have a few posts about unrelated topics, the meat of my blog should deal with hard hitting doctrinal issues. Or alternately that I should just abandon the idea of LDS blogging altogether, and write only about topics that are not specifically LDS, and that the fact that I am Mormon shouldn't be brought up at all.

So I stopped writing.

But there are things I want to write about. Things related to the church, things related to advertising and pop-culture, things related to knitting, things related to pets, things related to my kids, things related to gardening, things related to thrift, things related to feminism, things related to chickens. In other words, things I am interested in.

I'm resurrecting this blog, and issuing a warning to any who may comment here from now on; this blog is about things I am interested in. I am the cohesive unit, and I might not make it clear which particular facet of my interests and society I am addressing.

Here's to blogging, about whatever.

Confessions

2007-05-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

I feel like complaining. Feel free to share complaints too. Any comments that sound like "you should accentuate the positive, and not wallow in your own misery" will be summarily deleted. I'm taking this brief moment to wallow in my own, admittedly petty and middle class misery to get it out of my system. If my misery offends you, feel free to abstain from wallowing in it with me.
Let's get this pity party started:

I think my son would whine less if I were a better parent.
I feel inadequate when women with daughters the same age as my son talk about potty training their girls. (Even though I know girls are supposedly supposed to be potty trained earlier than boys.)
I hate that my husband doesn't thank me for doing all the housework, even though I don't thank him for going to his job. I feel like it makes me a hypocrite.
My son hates getting his diaper changed, which means that I hate changing it because He flails his legs, and squirms around for all he's worth. I'd let him sit in his poop all day if it wouldn't leak out and make a mess.
I think the pediatrician was annoyed with me for letting my younger son's circumcision heal poorly. I didn't know how to prevent it, and it was easy for him to fix.
I'm afraid to mention that I had my son circumcised for fear that the anti-circumcision crowd will swoop in to condemn me.
The floor of my house is messy, and most days I'll just put on shoes instead of sweeping it up.
I'm terrified of roaches, but I can't be bothered to sweep up the spilled food under my toddler's chair frequently enough to be sure we won't get infested.
I feel like a bad person for using paper-towels and disposable disinfectant wipes to clean because they're bad for the environment.
I repeat that line to myself as an excuse to avoid cleaning.
I claim to hate some things more than I do, so that I can feel like a good person for doing those things anyways.
I hate that dressing up and wearing makeup makes me feel better about myself.
I get depressed during the summer in Phoenix because I never go outside since the heat is nearly unbearable.
I've been using face wash on my butt hoping it will get rid of the blackheads-- it seems to be working.
I wish I didn't have breasts. They get in the way, and they'll only get worse as I get older.
I want to take tap dance lessons, but there are no intermediate classes for people my age. I can either take lessons with 10 year olds, or 60 year olds, or people my age who are *way* better than me and on their way to being professional dancers.
I want to play competitive soccer again.
Even if I found a tap class or a soccer team I'd have to wait until my baby is older to join because I wouldn't have enough time between feedings to do those things.
I haven't been to a dentist for nearly three years. A few months ago I finally got up the courage to call a dentist and set up an appointment. When I went to my appointment they wouldn't even see me because I was pregnant. The receptionist acted like they wouldn't treat me if they knew I was breastfeeding either. I don't know when I'll have enough courage to go back, even though I know I need at least one root canal, if not two.
I'm jealous of the friends my husband has at work, but am afraid to tell him because he'll tell me what I already know- that there are people at church I should try to be friends with, and that it's my own fault if I won't even try to make friends.

Infuriating

2007-05-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

Maybe it has to do with the fact that I was much younger and living a bubble at the time, but the whole R. Kelly sex-tape thing is news to me. Aside from all the classic 'celebrities are above the law' reading about it made me really mad. Consider the following:

Adult man urinates on your house or car, it's vandalism.
Adult man urinates on your dog, it's animal abuse.
Adult man urinates on another man, could probably be considered assault and would likely result in an arrest.
Adult man urinates on a woman and it's 'sex act.'

Things that are acts of simple violence on anyone or anything else become "sex" when it's done to a woman. I don't fall in with the 'all sex is rape' camp, but when things like this happen I can certainly see where they're coming from.

Fed up

2007-03-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

I am 39 weeks pregnant with my second baby. Every evening for at least the past two weeks (or more) starting at about 6:30 I start having contractions. They are, more or less, painless, spaced 10 minutes apart and continue until I go to bed around 10. I am at once incredibly fortunate, and unfortunate that this is how my pregnancies go.

Let me describe the delivery of my first baby. It was a Sunday, and though I was vaguely uncomfortable during church it was shaping up to be a day just like any other. At 2:45, shortly after our home teachers left, my water broke and I started having painful irregular contractions. After my water broke we left immediately for the hospital, and at 4:15 (90 minutes later) my son was born.

After the fact I was able to recognize that I was having what is called silent labor. I was most likely in labor for days, completely unaware and having painless contractions. By the time I was made aware that I was in labor I was already well into the transition stage. While this made for a blissfully easy birth (only 90 minutes of pain!) it has led to weeks of mental anxiety for me now.

You see, I don't want to have a baby in the back seat of any one's car, at home with just my toddler and cat to attend me, or at the grocery store or anywhere else in between. I don't want to have a baby at the hospital without my husband there, yet because my husband has a 30-50 minute commute, and the hospital is a 30 minute drive away from our house this is a very real possibility.

When I was told 2 weeks ago that I've started dialating I've been on pins and needles ever since. I've been afraid to go anywhere lest my water break while I'm at the store or library alone with my toddler. I reluctantly watch my husband leave for work every morning painfully aware that for the next 8 hours I'm on my own if I go into labor. I fixate on every discomfort and contemplate if it means I should go to the hospital or not. And every evening I sit quietly with my hand on my tummy (the only way I can tell when they start or stop) and time my clockwork-like contractions attentive to any change in sensation, reluctant to give up and go to bed. (Because who wants to get all ready for bed just to have to dash to the hospital once you get comfortable?) This also sets my nerves on edge and lowers my patience, which later leads to guilt for being short-tempered with my husband, son and cat.

Being constantly on edge like this has really taken its toll on me. I'm having trouble sleeping (on top of regular pregnancy sleep troubles), and I'm feeling more and more depressed. I'm starting to think that I'd take the hours of physical pain over this mind-numbing paranoia.

All of our trials are uniquely our own. I'm sure there are countless women out there who could handle this much better than I can, and there are probably quite a few who would do much worse than I. I'm sure there are even women who would chastise me for daring to complain about being pregnant at all, because that is a blessing that, for whatever reason, they don't have. Yet the comparisons aren't fair, I am now and always will be me. The difficulty others perceive in things that are easy for me should not lionize my success or validate my failures. Likewise the ease with which other people could handle my lot should not denigrate the trial that it is for me.

My Top 10 Fictional Male Role Models

2007-02-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

While reading Digg this afternoon I came across a list of the Top 100 Fictional Male Role Models (warning, the site is rather lewd, I don't know what pop-ups there might be or ads there might be). I was bitterly disappointed in the list. Not only was it filled with characters that shouldn't really be anyone's role model (Freddy Krueger, Borat, Keyser Soze) but it was also very poorly ranked (Zach Morris (yes, from Saved by the Bell) managed to rank 35th, above MacGuyver, Aragorn, and James Bond.) So I've put together my own top 10:

We're having power troubles here, so I'm posting this without links or commentary for now. I will return to fill it in later (maybe even with pictures!) as I've already lost it once and my son just woke up from his nap.

10. MacGuyver
9. Vincent from Gattacca
8. Horatio Hornblower
7. Wesley AKA Farm Boy from The Princess Bride
6. Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird
5. Ned Nederlander from The Three Amigos
4. Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption
3. Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings
2. Bishop Muriel from Les Miserables
1. Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter

Modesty

2007-02-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

There is a discussion going on at FMH that spurred a few thoughts for me, (actually it's a resurrected discussion, that seems to be turning into a free for all). The discussion moved on before I could submit my comments so, they're going here instead! (Good thing too, cause I haven't posted for who knows how long...)

1. Modest v. Appropriate
To be modest is to avoid the sin of pride and vanity. One does this by not seeking undue attention or praise, and by showing respect for one's self and God. Therefore, to dress modestly is to dress in an unassuming fashion, to avoid extravagance or extremes, to follow guidelines set by God and to display respect to one's self, peers, and surroundings. Displaying respect to one's self, peers and surroundings through clothing choices is what I term 'dressing appropriately.'

Modest clothing is not always appropriate and appropriate clothing is not always modest, though a modest person will seek to dress appropriately whenever possible. I find it extremely unfortunate that the vast majority of discussions on modesty focus exclusively on dressing appropriately, more specifically on women dressing appropriately. Modesty is a lifestyle that we are all commanded to live by, not a criteria for women's clothing choices.

2. Reflexive v. Controlled Response
I can't stop a bird from flying over my head, but I can keep it from building a nest in my hair.
In the discussions of appropriate dress for women (the ones often called discussions on modesty) a the thought frequently brought up that a woman's inappropriate dress causes impure thoughts in men. This thought normally continues along the lines of 'Impure thoughts are sins. Therefore, to prevent men from sinning, women should dress modestly.' This thought process is strikingly similar to a common bit of rape apologia that says 'Immodestly dressed women incite men to lust after and rape them. Therefore women should dress modestly to avoid being raped.'

I think that the initial statement is false; that is to say that a woman's inappropriate dress does not cause impure thoughts in men. A woman's inappropriate dress does cause a reflexive response in men. Reflexive responses are not impure thoughts, and are not sins. When men choose to grab a hold of those reflexive responses and dwell on them then they become impure sinful thoughts. Men, therefore, are not captive to the whims of inappropriately dressed women, because the first step in thinking impure sinful thoughts (or raping) is the man's choice to dwell on the inappropriately dressed woman.

3. Intentional v. Unintentional My husband is incredibly ticklish, and it would be very rude of me to tickle him when he's trying to talk to someone, or when he's trying to work, or other similarly serious situations. It is similarly rude for a woman to intentionally dress inappropriately with the goal of distracting the men around her. Even though the men may not be sinning when their reflexes react to her appearance, they still have to deal with the distraction, and must recollect their thoughts every time their reflexes go off. It is considerate and polite to dress appropriately at all times, and youth should be encouraged to dress appropriately.

The trouble is, such behavior is only rude when it is intentional, and all too frequently women, especially young women, are not intentionally dressing to distract men in a sexual way. They dress that way because the magazines said that it flatters their figure, because it's in-style, because that's how their friends are dressing, or simply because that shirt used to fit just fine three months ago. It is rather conceited of men to assume that women see themselves through men's eyes, and always dress with men's thoughts and reactions in mind. We should all be much slower to think of a woman as 'dressing like a whore' when she wears sexually inappropriate clothing, because chances are she's not doing it on purpose at all.

In summary, we do everyone a disservice when we make sexually inappropriate female dress the only meaning of immodesty because avoiding such dress has more to do with good manners than modest behavior, and we miss the opportunity to teach everyone the real benefits of a modest life. We do everyone a disservice when we blame women's appearance for men's sins because it restricts women and allows men to believe they are helpless and out of control. We are rude to men when we disregard their reflexes and the resulting distraction, and we are rude to women when we assume their clothing choices are made maliciously with men's reflexes in mind.

It's alive!

2007-02-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

It's true, I'm back. I've finished and recovered from my stint as a full-time guest blogger, and shall now return to posting my screeds here. Thanks to everyone who hosted me as a guest, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I think the challenge of writing for a larger audience did me good, at the very least it made me appreciate the comforts my quiet little site a bit more. As promised earlier here are links to all of the posts I wrote at all of the blogs I visited.

At Exponent II

Fleshpots and Manna
Horror Stories, Fairly Tales and Scriptures
Microcredit
At Arms Length

At Feminist Mormon Housewives

Hubris
Just for Women
Vicarious

At By Common Consent

Negetive Definition
Married to a Martyr
Playing with Fire
A Non-Christmas Post

At Times and Seasons

From Russia with Love
Tooth Bugs
Appropriate Requests
Perfection

Shopping for Shame

2007-01-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

I may have mentioned this before, but my school district had a comprehensive sex-ed program for which I am grateful to this day. In reading a few things recently about shame and embarrassment surrounding sex, I felt another wave of gratitude for the teacher I had.

One of the assignments she gave us involved filling out a table with information about various over the counter contraceptives. She told us that much of the information could be obtained from various sources, but that the form was designed to make it necessary to go to a store and look at the packaging in order to fill it out completely, and only complete forms would be given full marks.

A few years earlier I was dealing with menstruation. The first time I had to buy feminine hygeine products I was overwhelmed with embarrassment- a feeling that I picked up from my sisters, friends, and advertisements. I can also remember trying in vain to open the packing silently in the stall of a public restroom horrified at the idea that the tell-tale crinkling would give away the true nature of my visit to the restroom. (Incidentally I've heard that "Quiestest Packaging" is now a selling point for some hygeine products.) I also remember one day, simply saying to myself "Aw to heck with it!" From that point on I made a point of crinkling the wrapper as loudly as I could, then staring down anyone who dared to look at me. I made a point of smiling congenially and making idle conversation with the cashier of the grocery store when purchasing pads, almost daring them to try and make me embarrassed. That was a liberating change, and I quickly learned people just don't care that much, and the ones that do will be embarrassed by your brazen shamelessness leaving you in peace.

When completing my sex-ed assignment a few years later I was, once again, overwhelmed with embarrassment. I walked past the condom section two or three times, pausing slightly then rushing on. Finally, in the greeting card isle I had another "Aw, to heck with it!" moment. It was getting late, I had an assignment to do, and good grades meant a lot more to me than avoiding dirty looks from shelf-stockers. So I became as brazen as I was shy, and camped out in front of the condom display until I had finished my assignment. I quickly learned that, just like with pads, no one cared.

I realize now that her main goal in giving this assignment wasn't to teach us critical package reading skills, but to desensitize us to dealing with contraceptive items in public. In our "nod-nod, wink-wink, know what I mean?" culture, getting over the shame is a vital skill I think every teenager should learn. I still vividly remember that experience and call upon my those heartening memories any time I need to buy any sort of embarrassing item.

Getting Lost

2006-12-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

Once many years ago I got lost. It was awful- let me tell you about it. It was during my fifth year of girls camp and I was a YCL (youth camp leader). For those of you out there unfamiliar with girl's camp all 16 and 17 year old girls are assigned to a different ward and act as assistant leaders for that ward, and for the whole stake. Part of my YCL duties included going on the second year hike with the 14 year old girls and a few leaders. This hike had to be 4 miles long and we had to cook a meal on the trail. We started out at 8AM and hiked for two miles, we stopped to cook breakfast then continued the hike. It was around the third mile that things started figuratively going downhill.

The person leading the hike was a very experienced woman who had spend decades hiking the trails in the region both by herself and with her husband. There was one problem though, she has really bad self esteem. So when the girls started feeling tired they started complaining, and the ill-advised cries of "we're lost!" came from one or two voiciferous girls who hoped that making such statements would get them back to camp faster. The other leaders, who were not familiar with the area (and oddly enough were all men), heard these cries and 'held a meeting' to determine the best course of action. The lady in charge insisted that the trail would get us back to camp, but was 'less sure' of how many more miles it was. Finally the woman caved and agreed that we should try to find a different route. This was the first of many such meetings.

Over the next several hours we broke every rule of hiking and getting lost that I have ever heard of. We did all of the following at least once:
Left the trail
Jumped a fence
Kept wandering even after we knew we were really lost
Split up (The female leader took off on her own at the behest of the other leaders)
Went in circles

Had I been older and more forthright I would have spoken up. As a youth leader I was given the task of keeping track of the younger girls while the real leaders had ther many meetings, no-one cared to hear my opinions. It was only when the diabetic girl in the group started to complain of feeling faint that the remaining leaders were finally persuaded to stay put and wait to be found. I gathered the rest of the girls and commenced building a fire, thinking that if we did end up having to stay the night we would need a fire, perhaps those looking for us would see the smoke and at the very least it kept us busy (and hey, who doesn't like building a fire?).

About a half hour after the fire got built we were found (40 yards or so from a road) and a truck was brought to drive us all back into camp. The other leader who had gone off by herself finally arrived at camp at about 8pm, very tired and moderately dehydrated.

I suppose there are a few morals to my story. The first is that they really mean it when they say what to do when lost- Stay Put, Don't leave the trail and Stay together. Had we done that from the get go we would have been found much much earlier. Then again, I wouldn't have this great story to tell. The second, even though you may not be a real leader, you should still speak up when the real leaders are violating common sense. Lastly, when you know you're not lost you know you're not lost, letting others believe you know less than you know isn't humility it is foolishness.

She-Cop

2006-12-01T11:04:00.000-07:00

There was a news item that I found via Digg. The Reader's Digest Verision is this- A 200 lb 6th grader at a local middle school was tasered by a female school resource officer for attacking a female classmate. Many details about this are generally unknown (esp. to me), such as what level of force was attempted before bringing out the taser, the availability of other adults, the nature or severity of the fight between the students etc. One semi-important thing that is known, is that the boy was tasered twice, because after the first shock he attempted to continue the fight.

Whether or not the Taser was excessive force, or better or worse than a punch in the face was discussed at length in the comments on Digg, so I'm not too interested in discussing that. What I do want to take issue with is the number of comments to the effect of: "If this woman couldn't subdue the kid without resorting to a taser then she has no business being a cop." Comments such as these were frequently accompanied by assertions that the police force was so much more effective and less trigger-happy before women could become cops.

Part of the reason these comments bothered me is that my sister just recently graduated from the police academy and is now working as a baliff. Part of her training (and I am under the impression, all police training) included being tasered so that the police understand at least to some extent what it feels like, and to avoid potential tigger-happiness. Often they video tape each officer being tasered, and let them keep the video, a quick search on YouTube turns up a large number of videos like this. As a unrelated-yet-interesting aside, my sister showed us her video, and unlike all the videos I've seen of people being tasered she didn't make a sound. I'm not even sure that the small gasp I heard was in pain, or just a by-product of the involuntary muscle contractions. During the rest of the video all other other officers (mostly men) kept glancing at her sideways the newfound respect they had for her was obvious.

Back to the should women be cops issue: There is the obvious elephant in the room of statistical averages. While there are women like my sister who are bigger and tougher than the average man, women are more likely to be smaller, and physically weaker (at least in upper-body fighting strength) than men are. However, this does not mean that small women (and men) should not become cops just because they are likely to encounter someone bigger and stronger than they are. Just as there are statistical outliers among women, there are men who are bigger and tougher than not just the average man, but everybody. These large men are bigger than all cops, not just the female ones, and any cop would have to use a taser on these guys rather than attempt to subdue them with physical force.

Mostly I just wanted to get it off my chest that having a woman, even a small one as a resource officer in a middle school is not unreasonable. One would expect a trained adult woman to be larger and physically stronger than the vast majority of middle school students. That there are statistical outliers, like the 200 lb 11 year old involved in this incident, should not be used as an argument against employing women, or the small of stature in general, as police officers. Such an argument- taken all the way to its logical conclusion- would require hiring only giants as police. It would also negate the need for weapons because such large strong people would never need to use a taser instead of their own strength to gain control of a situation. And, oddly enough, I'm a big fan of a police force armed with tasers. Unlike a punch or whack with a nightstick the damage done by a taser does not vary with the cop using it, and can be more easily regulated than hand-to-hand physical altercations.

Success!

2006-10-30T14:26:00.000-07:00

The primary program was yesterday morning, and was a rousing success in every way. The kids all said their parts, even though one kid was too scared to sit on the stand and had to be escorted to the microphone by his mother to tearily deliver his part. They sat quietly and avoided making faces at the congregation. Lastly (and most importantly to me) they sang all of the songs perfectly and loudly! Even more shocking was that they sang without visual aids except for 'Follow the Prophet' in which there is a tendency to sing the verse about Adam over and over again except changing the names for the other prophets (ie, Noah was a prophet, first one that we know. In place called Eden...). Also after we were done singing the last song I looked out at the congregation and saw more than a few people wiping their eyes. And the kids had pizza, and got candy so I'm pretty sure everyone came out of this thing feeling good about it.

Now with next program a comfortable year away I am setting out to expand the abysmally small repetoire of the primary. As a group they know very few songs - so I've made a list of songs(below) that I think they should know. I plan to go through the list and find out which ones they secretly know, and which ones I'll have to teach them. We're starting out next week Thanksgiving style with "Children all over the World."

Here's the bulk of my list:
-I'm trying to be like Jesus
-Love is Spoken Here
-When we're Helping (we're happy)
-When Joseph went to Bethlehem
-Army of Helaman
-Teach me to walk in the Light
-Tell me the Stories of Jesus
-The Chapel Doors
-The wise man & the foolish man
-Stand up
-Reverently, Quietly
-Reverence is Love
-Rain is falling all around
-Our Door is always open
-Nephi's courage
-I'll walk with you
-In the Leafy tree-tops
-Jesus once was a little child
-My hands
-I feel my Savior's love
-I pray in Faith
-Every star is different

Any suggestions for songs every primary kid should know? (Keep in mind that this list excludes the songs they already know, so don't bite my head off for 'I am a child of God' not being on the list.)

Lifestyles

2006-10-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

Alright, I've been tempted to submit "A day in the life of Starfoxy" post for FMH , but I keep thinking it's too boring for it to be worth reading (I get tired pretty easily lately so I spend lots of time laying around). So instead I thought I'd just write up a 'lifestyles' post and just explain some details of how I do a few things that work out really well, or alternately really badly for me. (I may polish this up a little bit and sumbit it anyways, but we'll see).

I'm a big fan of lists. When there are things I need to get done I always make a list. I've always thought it would be neat to have a special notepad, or computer program/widget that I consistently use to make my lists, but I normally end up just writing it on some piece of paper and sticking it my back pocket. When I try to use the notepad or widget, I forget about the list and things remain undone. I've come to accept that I am a 'scrap of paper in the back pocket' kind of list-maker, and have decided not to fight with what is effective for me.

In that same train of thought I make a menu every week. I write down what meals I'm going to make and on what days. This helps me plan to use food I already have, or other leftovers before they go bad. It helps me put together a strict grocery list that I try desperately not to deviate from while at the store, and it helps me not buy food that won't get eaten (I know some of us don't have that problem, my mother in law has a hard time keeping enough food in the house). The other thing this helps me do is avoid saying "Aw hang it all, I don't feel like making dinner tonight, let's go out." It is an excellent tool for tightening the budget on several fronts without feeling it too sharply. (In our college days, when we both were working and didn't have kids, I made my husband split the meal-making with me 50/50. He would cook three nights, I would cook three nights and we'd eat leftovers one night. It was easy to do because he picked the meals he would make when I made the menu and would pick in advance which nights he would cook. This way he was committed to it, and it allowed him to eat the things I wouldn't choose to make. This whole arrangement tickled his mom to no end when she saw the list on the fridge while visiting.)

We have a cat who is not allowed on the table or countertops. He is also not allowed in the dishwasher, the washing machine, the drier, and he's not allowed to attack the curtains. When he tries any of those things I hiss at him, and if he doesn't respond, I spray him with a waterbottle. I've found that the waterbottle also gets Nils' attention. I try not to spray Nils in the face, but a spray at the back of his head is normally punishment enough for pushing computer buttons or similar crimes.

My desk is an absolute horror. Anything I need to deal with, but don't want to deal with right then gets put on the desk. I often eat while reading or watching stuff on the computer, so there's empty cups and a half-eaten thing of oreos on the desk rather frequently. I try to get the dishes off of it every evening. They never stay for longer than two days. About once a month or so I clean the whole thing off thoroughly and feel good about myself for a few days. But 90% of the time it is a disaster. However, I can always find what I'm looking for.

I hate labels. We're not talking, Loner, Punk, Looser, type labels, though I do hate those too. I'm talking about "Softsoap" "Suave" "Dawn" "Crisco" "Kleenex" or in general the stickers on the front of just about everything you buy. Seriously, tomorrow morning in the shower look around you and notice how many brand names are etching themselves into your mind, building your brand loyalty. They're advertisements you pay to put in your home and I hate having them in mine. I remove labels from products frequently (I leave the back labels on for safety reasons), buy the store brand, or buy in bulk and remove the outer packaging. I hate the products that are actually really good, but come in packaging that you can't de-label. It's a quirk my husband didn't know about until we got married. He thought it was funny, but has never complained- as long as he knows which bottle the shampoo is in.

I almost always have three or more crafts or projects going at the same time. I hate that about me. I really wish I could just work on one until I finish it before starting a new one. Right now, I'm knitting a scarf, crocheting a hat, braiding a rope which will be woven into a door-mat (for my parents), and putting up and hemming curtains. I started the scarf a month ago, the hat last Christmas, and the rope sometime in June. I also have a needlepoint I've been working on since I was 17 which means it's been unfinished for at least 6 years. (I've finished several other needlepoints since I started this particular one). I try not to think about that one, it makes me feel ashamed. There was a quilt that took me about two years to do. They all become an albatross around my neck before I'm even halfway done.

Ant, Aunts and Uncles

2006-08-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

I remember when my oldest niece was born. My brother held her up so she could see all of us in the room and said, "These are your uncles and aunts. Your uncles are my brothers. Ants are little bugs that crawl around on the ground." That little baby started first grade last week. She's got three younger sisters now, and many more cousins than she used to. The layout of her dad's (and my) family has changed quite a bit over the years too.

Last Saturday my sister, M, left her abusive husband, an event that all of us are glad for. She's staying with our parents, and has been trying to get legal advice. I spoke with her on the phone and she said that it feels weird to think that she will soon be divorced. She said, "There's just a stigma of being divorced, and I know that it was wrong of me, but I used to look down on people who had been divorced. Now I'll be one of them." By way of consolation I told her that she has, at least, successfully avoided being the 'Spinster Aunt.' That title has been given to our 31 year old unmarried sister T. We laughed and then went on, "yeah, and our brother T is the chubby funny uncle, and our sister J is the bitter childless carreerist..." At this point there was a slight pause and M said, "I guess that would make you the normal one." "Wohoo!" I cheered, "I win!"

There are still plenty of clichéd aunt roles that I can fill. The tragic widow, the holier-than-thou good sister, the bully with a henpecked husband, and the list goes on. There are so many ways our lives can go 'wrong.' All of us really will have something go 'wrong' with our lives. I avoided so many pitfalls by watching my siblings struggle, and by listening to their advice and accepting their assistance. Today I was blessed to see just how right my life is going. I worry that it won't last, but there's nothing to do except enjoy it while I can.

Hired Help

2006-08-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

In the wake of the Forbes debacle, I came across a comment that started with this:

remember- woman was created to be man's help meet, not the other way around.

Okay, there is, indeed, plenty of evidence for this assertion. Every scriptural account of the creation says that Eve was created after Adam. The story says that after Adam was created, God said, "Hey! He shouldn't be alone! Let's make a woman for him!" Now regardless of what you think about word 'helpmeet' you can't get around the fact that Adam was put here first, and all accounts indicate that he wasn't put here first to help prepare the place for Eve. Eve came after because Adam needed her.

Either way, we end up with an awful lot of people thinking that it is a woman's main job to help her husband. When we get to thinking about the help that men need, in a modern sense it often gets reduced to cooking, cleaning, and childcare. Some have asserted that there is a great deal of emotional work that women are predominantly held accountable for (ego stroking, remembering familial obligations, being pleasant company etc). My main question is, what is it that men do that is so important, and that they need so much help with.

According to the Moses 1:39, "For behold, this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." The main part of that puzzle that we are currently responsible for is providing mortal bodies for God's spirit children to dwell in, and that was one of the earliest (debatably the first) commandments that God gave to Adam and Eve. This would seem to indicate that the all important task of mortality is the bearing and raising of children.

Hey wait a second. Women were put on earth to 'help' men bear and raise children? I wasn't aware that 'to help' means 'to do for or instead of.' Now unless you're willing to assert that the most important part of having a baby is making the sperm, then you will have to admit that physically, it's the men helping the women have children. Also, unless you're willing to assert that money or income is the most important part of raising a child, then you'll have to admit that the model family that the church promotes, again, puts men in a position of helping women.

So, how on earth did we ever get the idea that women are here to help men? And what on earth are we supposed to be helping them with?

The Princess

2006-08-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

In dicussions of women's place within the Patriarchal order of the Church experiences where women have suffered abuse of some sort, or where men have exceeded their bounds are often offered as evidence that the organization of power as it stands is faulty. The most common response to such accounts is that such things are not intended. For example: "That is not what presiding really means," "If you think that having the Priesthood is about having power then you don't understand what it's really about." And, my personal favorite, "If he acted like that, then he didn't really have the Priesthood anyways."

I had these thoughts in the back of my mind as I came across this quote from Machiavelli's The Prince:

"Many men have imagined republics and principalities that never really extisted at all. Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall rather than his preservation."

Let us consider, for a moment, the raising of a child. My child, to be specific. Someday I would like for him to speak english, dress himself, use the bathroom by himself. It is widely accepted that the best way to teach my child to talk is to speak to him as though he already can. I should carry on conversations with him, and ask him questions as though I really expect a response. Granted, I should, perhaps, speak slowly and repeat myself often just so that meanings and pronunciations are more clear. However, it is obvious that I should not start him out with the "My name is..." and verb congugations that are used in language classes.
As for dressing, bathing, and using the bathroom, it is the height of folly to think that the best way to teach him to do these things could be to simply act as though he already can. Were I to treat my one year old child as though he could use the toilet by himself it would be most unpleasant for both of us.

I can imagine the Church power structure as it should be. It wouldn't matter that women wouldn't have official authority to change things because they wouldn't want anything changed, and even if they did they would only need to mention it to their husband, home teachers or bishop, and the problem would be understood, taken seriously, and addressed properly. I can see how this could be a very pleasant and clearly organized way of running things, and perhaps if God were to say so, the ideal way of running things. The problem I see with it is that people just aren't that good natured right now. As nice as it would be if things were like this, they aren't.

If you assume that bad behavior leads to unhappiness (wicked never was happiness), and also assume that the ultimate goal of existence is to be happy (men are that they might have joy) then the questions to consider are:
1. Is it more important to maximize people's happiness, or to most speedily make people good?
I suspect, given the conditions of mortality, that it is more important to make people good as quickly as possible.

2. Do people become good people faster when we act like they already are good people (and thereby allow them opportunities to be bad) or do they become good faster when we assume they will be bad and create safeguards preventing bad behavior?
I don't know the answer to this question, and I suspect that it varies widely between individuals and behaviors. All I know for certain is that creating safeguards to prevent bad behavior help to maximize the current happiness of individuals.

I personally feel that the best way to help us be good and treat each other better as men and women is to create safeguards that prevent bad behavior. I feel that an excellent safeguard would be to put women into positions of authority and status within the church. Because as it stands holding the priesthood is about having power, presiding is about 'being the boss' and men who don't really hold the Priesthood perform priesthood duties all the time. The Priesthood structure also gives a rather striking impression that men are more important, more worthwhile, and just plain better than women, even if it shouldn't.

The message we should be getting isn't the message we are getting. I'm sure it's because we aren't understanding it properly, but the fact of the matter is we aren't hearing what we're supposed to. I think the fastest way to fix this (and thereby increase happiness) is to alter how things are taught so that when we hear it, though we may be imperfect, we understand what we're supposed to.

Disconnect

2006-07-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

I almost never wear makeup. I think it is a waste of time. I looked fine without it when I was nine, and I look fine without it now. I stopped wearing it when I was 15 or so. After hearing one of my friends talking about her morning routine I decided that I didn't want to feel that I didn't look 'normal' without makeup. I never wanted to look at myself in the mirror and think that I was ugly *because* I was without makeup.

Here's the thing that gets me. I still feel ugly, plain, and self-conscious when I'm around women wearing makeup (which is all the time).

I have stretch marks from being pregnant. They are scars that remind me that I am a mother. They remind me of the miraculous things my body did, of the pain and sacrifice I made. Sometimes I feel like they are sacred scars, of the same type (though nowhere near the same magnitude) as Christ's scars. I never want them to go away even when I'm resurrected. They mean too much to me. But I still frown whenever I look at my tummy because I feel it's ugly.

Do those feelings ever go away?

The 'Hood

2006-07-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

So, with the many discussions of Priesthood and women, I've been thinking about the motherhood=priesthood idea. I find one major problem with it. LDS 'motherhood' isn't restrictive enough to afford it the same prestige that LDS priesthood enjoys. Let me explain:

There are countless men in the world who call themselves priests and claim to have the priesthood. We have no trouble dismissing them and their authority as false. They don't have the *real* priesthood like we do. Though their authority may be false, they are still responsible for large amounts of good. They still bring many people closer to Christ than they might otherwise have been. They still do great deeds of charity. There are some who abuse their power, but most are basically good people doing good work. However, despite the goodness of the work they do, it's still not done with proper authority, and many of their ordinances (baptism, sacrament/eucharist) will be ineffective.

Say we create a title for women, let's say "Priestess" for the sake of arguement. A woman becomes a priestess when she gets sealed in the Temple, and only when she is sealed in the Temple, because only then does she have the authority to enter into the 'true order of motherhood.'

Let's say that, as with the Priesthood, there are countless numbers of women out there who are mothers. They do great amounts of good, and bring many people into the world. They work hard, but since they are not sealed to their spouse and children their motherhood is ulitmately ineffective and will end at death. Only when one is sealed are they able to be true mothers in the way God intended. We have been using the term that describes the physical act of a woman spawning a child to describe a woman's God given spiritual duty to her children. By not recognizing the extra efforts LDS women go through to raise their children in a family and in the church we are effectively making the motherhood we seek to revere no more important than the motherhood of any woman in the world. So, since true motherhood is so important to our church why should they not recieve special recognition for their struggle to achieve and maintain Temple worthiness, and their efforts as *ordained and set apart* custodians of God's children.

A few points about how this relates to the motherhood=priesthood idea:
-It solves the common problem that a bad mother is still technically a mother. The irresponsible woman who gets pregnant and neglects her child is not a "Priestess" because she has not been sealed, and therefore has not been given authority to 'exercise' her motherhood. She is no different than a man claiming to have the priesthood who is not properly ordained.

-Since the title is given at the sealing it would (theoretically) prevent the ostracizing of non-fertile couples. A sealed woman without children is authorised to exercise her motherhood, but has not been given an opportunity to do so. She is still a Priestess.

-It does not help with the ostracizing of single women.

-It would further ostracize women married to non-member men. It could also potentially alter the way we view the Law of Chastity in regards to legal marriages. (If we start teaching that it is improper to have children outside of a temple marriage then it would follow that marital relations would have to be limited to a temple marriage too, which is perhaps why we don't have rhetoric like this.)

-It helps set the LDS definition of 'motherhood' above its purely physical roots. Being a Priestess is something one gains through worthiness, being a mother is a physical act. This way we don't have to twist ourselves into knots trying to make 'motherhood' mean something that the dictionary never will say it means. We can come right out and say, "We don't value motherhood, we value Priestesshood. We want you to be worthy righteous women who have become mothers in the proper way."

-It could either help, or exacerbate the mommy wars. It could help by taking the focus away from making dinner, sewing clothes, staying at home, etc, and moving the focus to the mother's spiritual worthiness and her efforts to instill testimonies in her children. It could hurt it by putting extra emphasis on making dinner etc and staying at home by viewing those things themselves as spiritual actions. Things associated with traditional motherhood become a Priestess' ordinances. For example 'Dinner on the table at 6' becomes a sacrament which will be asked about in worthiness interviews.

Making 'mother' a church office (like Elder) would do much to bolster the idea that motherhood=priesthood. It could have many positive consequences, and many negetive ones. Either way, as things stand, our current rhetoric about motherhood does little to convince me that it is the woman's equivalent of the priesthood.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always shape me.

2006-06-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

"It's only talk," and "It's just a joke," are, I believe, some of the cleverest lies out there. Perhaps it's my love of words, reading, and hearing my own voice, that lead me to it, but I believe that words are powerful tools and dangerous weapons.

It's a little known, and for some reason suprising (is it my spelling?) fact that I left high school with my eye fixated on an English degree. I arrived at college and had the understanding that I was likely to switch my major. This is where things get fuzzy; I'm not sure if my "I'll do this English thing until I decide what I *really* want" mentality came from a lack of committment to English, or from an over-committment to my belief in switching majors. The point being, I'm not sure that I didn't want to be an English major.

Anyhow, on to my more general point. I firmly believe that the words we choose to use continuously shape our understanding. Positive and negetive connotations travel with every word wherever it goes. The tone of voice used can often convey far more meaning than the word alone. For instance I knew a guy who said "fat" with such derision that I could feel his contempt for anyone to whom that term may apply, even if he was only talking about fat bike tires.

I'm inclined to see it as the common LDS thought that you can gain a testimony by bearing it. Normally the thought process says that as you speak the Holy Ghost will bear witness to you of the truth of what you are saying. In this way bearing testimony can be a leap of faith, a desire to believe, that is rewarded by increased confirmation. Whenever we speak we are, in a sense bearing testimony. Though the Holy Ghost may or may not be involved in our daily speech we are certainly outlining, and reinforcing patterns. Patterns of thought, tone, and action. I'm sure my friend didn't start out saying the word 'Fat' like he was spitting it out, but he certainly said it the same way every time he said it. By using it with contempt a few times, it became a contempt filled word. By making excuses for being a stay at home mom, I come to believe that I need excuses. By stating my beliefs in an apologetic way, I come to believe that they need to be aplogized for.

I remember a line from Gattaca where Antone is trying to convince Vincent that he doesn't belong at Gattaca, and can't succeed. Vincent's pithy response is "who are you trying to convince?"

I'm fond of an idea from CS Lewis, where he says that (paraphrasing) "it is useless to sit around trying to manufacture feelings. The best way to create a feeling of love for someone else is to act as if you already do love them." Part of that action, I believe, are the words we say.

The other side

2006-06-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

I was raised in a very conservative household. My parents would disown me if they knew that I called myself a feminist. To them feminists are every bad stereotype you can imagine. Man-hating, bra-averse, unwashed, baby-killers, who would like nothing more than to see every man in the world castrated. However, Janna's question at Exponent II got me thinking. She said

I'm curious about the feelings and thoughts of women who *are* completely comfortable with the traditional approach to [the Male-only Priesthood]. Why do they feel comfortable with and celebrate what Caroline describes as the God-Man-Woman hierarchy?

I'm not quite sure I know the answer, but given my background I think I can make a pretty good guess.

I think most of these women very much buy into the "women are more spiritual so they just don't need it." I think many LDS feminists really discount how attractive that idea is to non-feminist LDS women. I recall hearing that, and similar statements as a youth and feeling not just special, but down right countercultural. There was a "in-the-know" feeling about hearing things like that. You could look at the sister sitting next to you and have a little wink-wink nod-nod affirming that both of you knew who was *really* running the show. 'These poor hopeless lunks think they're running the church. We'll let you think you're in charge while we do all the important stuff behind your back.' While we congratulated ourselves on being so spiritual we didn't notice our Hopeless lunks run off to meetings that we would be forbidden to attend. Just like that classic line from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "The man may be the head, but the woman is the neck and she can turn the head any direction she wants." One forgets that the neck has no brain of it's own, and only does what the head tells it to, so oddly enough, she always wants to turn the head to the direction the head wants to go. (BTW I had a man I considered marrying tell me that line to make me feel better about him presiding over me. It didn't work.)

Part of what makes this approach so popular is really that it is so easy. First, it removes from women the commonly felt pressure to civilize men, and places it on the priesthood, or more accurately changes it into "supporting his priesthood duties." Women who felt that pressure from their mothers and peers are now free to say to themselves, "serving a mission will help him mature," or "he learns how to be a good man at church." In other words, "you other ladies can't blame me for my husband's slovenly ways because I support his priesthood."

It also allows women to glorify in everything that is feminine, even if they maybe shouldn't. Immodest dresses are readily overlooked if they're adequetely feminine. Spending too much on makeup and clothes is alright because woman is God's greatest, and most beautiful, creation. We gloss over most female failings, because women are more spiritual than men, they have no failings. (As a side tangent, I think it is very important to be aware of, and roust out feminine failings. If I can be a daughter of perdition, it means that I can have the knowledge and agency required to become one. One thing that many leaders are so quick to decry is that all these "sweet angels have corrupted themselve with masculine habits." That track is best counteracted by showing that the "sweet angels" never really existed.)

Next, there is a common (to me) joke about making money (it relates I swear). It goes like this:
Step one: [outlandish silly sounding thing here, like "patent prosthetic foreheads"]
Step two: ???????
Step three: Profit!
All we need to do is figure out what step two is.

As it relates to the topic at hand, the steps are as follows:
Step one: Allow only men to hold the priesthood.
Step two: ?????
Step three: Presto! Men and Women are completely equal before the Lord!

Many of these women are taking on faith that there is, indeed, a step two. They are also taking on faith that step two is probably beyond mortal understanding, so it's futile to try and figure it out. But what they aren't taking on faith is that our leaders, who we trust to advise us constantly assure us of steps one and three. We almost hear them saying, "It doesn't look like it makes sense, but just trust me, it does." The same way we might hear a doctor saying "It doesn't look like taking calcium supplements will cure your menstrual cramps, but just trust me, it does."

So there's my take on that. It may be disjointed, but that's how it goes.

Does the fact that you're going to Hell concern you?

2006-06-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

So I followed a link yesterday, that took me to an evangelical Christian site. The title of this post is taken from that site. Sometimes I enjoy reading things like that, it gives me stuff to think about, and this website delivered. There was a page about witnessing to Mormons which encouraged missionaries to learn the Mormon vernacular. at one point the author suggested telling Mormons that they are going to "outer darkness" because that is the closest approximation to Hell that we have. It went on to say that most Mormons will find that idea disconcerting because they believe that nearly everyone will live in one of Heaven's three kingdoms. More specifically, we believe that the only people in Outer Darkness will be people that have knowingly chosen it, and that what makes it miserable is the misery the people there make for themselves.

The author was right, I did find the idea of me going to Hell disconcerting, but for reasons they probably didn't expect. Consider this: Hell is a place where people who have committed even the smallest of sins are sent, by God, even if they didn't know that what they were doing is a sin. Furthermore God, the being responsible for bringing these people into existence, created the world and mankind so that by our very natures every single one of us cannot help but sin and will be sent to Hell unless we have the rare benefit of learning about Christ during our mortal lives. The earthly practice that most closely approximates willfully creating beings that are doomed to suffer? Having babies just to torture them to death.

My worldview allows for a God that is just, and will not tolerate sin, but one that is also merciful and isn't bound to send more than half of His children to eternal suffering.

Let's consider eternal suffering for a moment. Try this, draw a line on a piece of paper. Now, I hate to break it to you, but the line you drew isn't a real line. It's a limited approximation of a line, or a "line segment." A real line goes on for forever. Think about that for a moment. Not just to the edge of the paper, not just beyond the desk. A real line goes on beyond your house, your backyard, city, state, country planet, solar system and beyond. It goes on for forever. Now draw another pathetic attempt at representing a line parallel to the first one. Now I ask, how much area is between your two pathetic lines? A few square centimeters, right? Imagine, if you will, the two real lines, the ones that go on for forever, and ask how much area is between those two lines? The amount of area between those to lines is infinite. What if the lines started on left, but still went on forever to the right? The area between them is still infinite.

Alright, Lets say that the distance between the two lines is the limited, finite you. The left end points are the moment you came into existence. Let's now say that the area between the lines are representative of your suffering were you to be sent to Hell for eternity. "Wait a minute!" you say, "doesn't that means that my suffering would be infinite?" Let's say then that the sin you committed that got you sent to Hell was that you were born and your parents failed to baptise you before you died shortly after birth. Or even that your sin was stealing money from orphans.

"But," you say (and I do wish you would stop interrupting) "God *is* merciful. Christ suffered for our sins, and all we have to do is claim Him as our Savior, and we'll be saved." What of the millions of people who lived without ever hearing of Christ? They did not willfully reject Him. They had no chance to save themselves. Did God keep that chance from them on purpose?

Do these finite temporal sins and failings *really* require eternal, infinite suffering to satisfy justice? Does the fact that you believe in a God who is cruel and heartless concern you? It should.

Honest Voices

2006-05-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

[Wedding, group blogs, and family function have kept me from posting for awhile. Here's to getting back into a routine!]

I'm a Harry Potter Fan, (not a rabid HP Fan, but a fan nonetheless). There is a part in book five where Harry was passed over for a position of some merit, and after some embarrassing moments he has a second to himself to take it in. He asks himself what he was really expecting, and 'an honest voice said "not this".' I've been searching for that honest voice in my own mind, and have had some trouble finding it.

The honest voice was squashed out of me at a very young age, and I have severe trouble trusting my own opinions thoughts and impressions. For example, when I was 9 or so I was riding in the car with my family. The discussion turned to colors, and I proudly proclaimed that green was my favorite color. My sister quite seriously said "No it isn't." Instead of insisting that green was my favorite color I immediately wondered what was my favorite color, since it couldn't be green.

This lack of honest-voice has made itself known in many ways. For one, I'm often absolutely enthralled by the idea that Heavenly Father knows me better than I know myself. Though this belief is quite accurate, I take it to extremes, for instance hoping that Heavenly Father will let me know what my real opinions are, and maybe show me what it is I like to do.

Another way my missing honest-voice is evident is through the nearly constant stream of chatter in my head. I'm always re-convincing myself of my stance on issues, my beliefs, my likes, and my feelings. It drives my husband nuts because I will repeatedly tell myself and him the myriad reasons why the conclusion we came to was correct. "Another reason why it's a good idea to get a house is because blah blah blah..."

I'm not sure if the honest-voice is self-esteem or not. I know I'm a talented important person who is loved, but do I know that because my honest-voice tells me so, or do I know it because someone else told me what my opinion about myself is.

I think, in this world of advertising, opinion editorials, and bossy older sisters an inner honest-voice is a vital thing to have. We should all be able to ask ourselves "do I really need a hamburger to feel manly?" and honestly answer "no." To ask "what is important to me about toxic issue X?" and answer "the children!" To ask "What is my favorite color?" and answer, without second-guessing "Green!"

Sverige

2006-05-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

During the summer of 2001 my family took a trip to Sweden. We stayed for two weeks, and saw all sorts of great things. We saw the Alfred Nobel mueseum, we saw the largest lake in Europe, and we saw the docks of Göteburg. We bought wooden clogs, and saw professional glass blowers. The parts I remember best, though, were the days we spent with my mom's cousins scattered across a few smaller cities centered around Karlskoga.
When we arrived my mom's 'Spinster Aunt' cousin, named Ulla, picked us up from the Airport. She drove us around to see all of the relatives that we were to visit. Our relatives fed us, fed us, and fed us again. At every meal we were implored to 'take a second tour.' We were stuffed. The older people, who were obviously very excited to see and meet the children of their cousin who left so long ago, could barely speak to us. They didn't know English, and we didn't know Swedish. They pressed presents into our hands and muttered mysterious explanations.
There was one man, who looked exactly like my mom's brother. He talked to us the whole time, and we didn't understand a word he said. Ulla told him that we didn't speak, or understand Swedish, but he never gave up. The funny thing is that is exactly what my mom's brother is like. He doesn't care much if you understand what he's saying, he'll keep talking to you anyways.
My mom, with Ulla's help gathered names, birthdates, and cities, and parishes. Upon learning that we wanted to learn about our ancestors they took us to graveyards. In fact that is what we spent most of our time doing, eating and going to graveyards.
The graveyards were different there. In a graveyard in the US there are fancy headstones, and faded plastic flowers. In Sweden most of the headstones had a small flowerbed in front of the headstone, that families were responsible for maintaining. Our hosts told us that you could tell when a person's child had gone to the US because there were no flowers planted at their headstone. They all seemed to feel a deep loss because of those who had left. By leaving the emmigrants broke the family apart and the family the emmigrants left behind remembered those who left for generations.
I came to understand the desire to be sealed to a family. I had always thought, "if we're there together what does it matter if we're sealed or not?" These people, though I had never met them, were my family. I may never see those people again during this life, but I love them dearly. I know them. And my concern for their welfare goes beyond their mortal comforts. I need them, and know that they need me. We are not complete without eachother. They knew that they missed me and my siblings, but we had never known that we missed them.
One of the last houses we stayed at we sang a hymn, "How Great Thou Art," with the family. They sang in Swedish, and we sang in English. As we sang I looked around and my whole family was crying. After the hymn we laughed at our tears, and Ulla translated for our hosts: "They understand why you are crying, they feel it too." I still cry every time we sing that hymn. I think I always will.

The uses of outrage

2006-05-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

While I was in college I had the experience of dating a few guys who could best be described as, well, jerks. They had this amazing ability to say the worst things possible, and infuriate me in the process. It wasn't spite, it was mostly thoughtlessness, but the results were the same. I only confided in a few people, my best friend, and one of my four roommates. Somehow, though, all of my roommates seemed to know when I was angry. I think it was because they'd come home from class and find me scrubbing the floor like my life depended on it.

Yes, I'm an anger cleaner. I don't shout at people, I do the dishes. I don't slam doors or give cold glares, I clean the oven. In fact, the summer before I broke up with my boyfriend was the cleanest three months that apartment had ever seen. My poor roommates would tiptoe around the kitchen while I scrubbed the oven muttering under my breath. In retrospect they were probably afraid that if they made a mess I would snap at them. I sort of feel bad for the stress I put them through, but at the same time, there was that much less cleaning for them to do. I think it was a fair trade. :)

The weird thing is, it's not just regular anger that makes me clean. When I'd do bad on a test, or be frustated at work I'd go running. It was specifically relationship anger that would drive me into a cleaning frenzy. I'm sort of curious if there is anything subconciously symbollic about cleaning because I was mad at my boyfriend.

Luckily for me I married a wonderful man, who has yet to make me angry. The downside is, my kitchen spends a lot of time being very dirty.

Symbolic

2006-04-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

My parents have lived in their house for nearly 40 years. While many important things have happened in that house, the fact remains that it is old. It was considered old even when they bought it. As an old house in a rural area it is especially suceptible to penetration by bugs. Ants, spiders, mosquitos, may flies, june bugs and many others frequented our floors and walls. One morning my sister found that she was showering with a tarantula. Once my brother found, and caught a black widow spider that had a thorax with a diameter the size of a nickle That spider lived in a jar forgotten in his room while he was on his mission, and was still alive when he came back. Bugs don't bother me. I'll pick up a daddy long leg with my bare hands. I'll stomp on crunchy bugs, and kill scary poisonous spiders without trepidation. This non-fear of bugs proved useful many times. In junior high when boys would try to scare me with insects, in college when my roommate would come unglued at even the tiniest spider, in showing my husband that I'm a reasonable cool headed person worth marrying. My achilles heel, however, is cockroaches.
The climate that I grew up in just wasn't condusive for roaches. I was 22 before I'd seen a real roach without plexiglass between us. My fear of roaches borders on paranoia, which completely bewilders my husband. He grew up in a city where roaches just were. It wasn't unusual to leave a bag of trash on the ground outside overnight and have it be covered with roaches in the morning. To him, they are just another pest, like ants. To me they are a symbol of all that is unwholesome in this world.
I think I trace my paranoia back to my sister. She served part of her mission in Yuma AZ. Between the heat, the farms, and her crappy apartment there were a lot of roaches in her life. This particular sister is the sort that does freak out about bugs. So the roaches, like most any bug, were horrific to her. Combine that with the fact that there was a lot of them, and she came unglued. She has some great stories about talking to the Elders on the phone, seeing a roach, screaming bloody murder and hanging up midconversation, which was unsettling to the Elders.
I heard these stories at a young, impressionable age. And so roaches became the uber-pest. The undefeatable foe of cleanliness. Roaches were indicitive of filth, disease, and rot. So one can imagine my horror at seeing a roach in my kitchen. I'm convinced that if I opened the walls there would be piles and piles of them, spilling out onto the floor. A tidal wave of roachy filth. When I shower or wash my hands I glance furtively at the drain pipes, certain that the second I turn the water off the invasion will begin and roaches will come streaming up from the plumbing. My first thought when I saw a roach in my kitchen was that we needed to move. The apartment was lost to the roaches and could never be reclaimed.
So, consider this; If a teacher were to say that some sin to was like a roach infestation of the soul, it would mean something drastically different to me than it would to my husband. To me, it would nearly mean that the person's soul is lost forever, and would mean that Christ's atonement is a true miracle to get rid of such a pervasive and horrible menace. To my husband, it would make the repentance process a simple, but ongoing process, requiring constance vigilance. I wonder how aware we are of the many ways that analogies can be recieved, and how those meanings can change. Also, can we, in our modern world, really understand what it means to leave 99 sheep to look for one? Does burying treasure in a field still mean what it once did? Was the change in understanding somewhat planned? In other words, was Christ aware of how people in our time would percieve those analogies, and is our percieved meaning more correct for us?

V for Vendetta, and C for Charlotte

2006-04-21T14:35:00.000-07:00

Long before the popular film V for Vendetta came out, there was another Vendetta, from Making Fiends by Amy Winfrey. But I don't want to talk about her. I want to talk about Charlotte, the smiley girl in the picture. Some dialogue from the episode in question:

Charlotte: And I also have this. It's a rock. But it's no ordinary rock. It's a pretty rock with pretty speckles. Vendetta gave it to me!
Vendetta: I threw it at you!
Charlotte: Vendetta is sooo nice!

The cartoon series is rather funny, (and may be on Nickelodeon soon) and has the constant theme of Vendetta's endless mean-ness and Charlottes endless optimism. It's more than a little sad that endless optimism seems tied to childish naivite and stupidness.
The other day I was reading through my Patriarchal Blessing. I was a little suprised when I came across a section where I was described as "uplifting, out-going and cheerful." I gave a little laugh and thought, "pfsh, that doesn't describe me anymore." I had no problem admitting that I once was cheerful, but I believed that bad experiences with friends and boyfriends who took advantage of my trusting nature had beaten it out of me. That same section of my blessing goes on to say that I will be a great influence on those that are around me, and those that I will have the opportunity to teach, because of my cheerful nature, to the point where people will seek me out later in life to thank me for my influence. In thinking about this, I let go of my cheerfulness, it wasn't taken from me. If I choose not to be cheerful again I may be missing out on great blessings.
There is a woman who I'll just call Sister Leavitt. In her younger years she travelled around the state and gave firesides and seminars on happiness, and cheerfulness. My parents attended her firesides everytime she gave one, and it had a great influence on them. In speaking of her my dad gets teary eyed. When my family came to my ward for Nils' blessing, my parents were shocked and thrilled to see that Sister Leavitt was a member of my ward. (I hadn't known that she was the Sister Leavitt, or I would have said something.) My parents tearily went up to her and thanked her profusely for her influence on them. She didn't know who they were, and merely said "Oh thank you! I didn't think anyone remembered!"
This woman, now in her 90's, has lived out something that I have the potential to do. She claimed, by virtue of her cheerful disposition, the right to have a great influence on many many people. Her attitude was more powerful than any office she may have held. Now she is, by far, the kindest, happiest, most beautiful old woman I've met. And I want to be just like her.

Being a question

2006-04-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, erm, I mean Wikipedia has this to say about answers:

According to the Hitchhiker's Guide, researchers from a pan-dimensional, hyper-intelligent race of beings, construct Deep Thought, the second greatest computer of all time and space, to calculate the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. After seven and a half million years of pondering the question, Deep Thought provides the answer: "forty-two."

Some dialogue from the book will clarify a bit more:

"Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"
"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

I have this to say about questions:
Questions are a highly valuable part of human discourse. The strict definition of a question is this: "A sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information." In our society, however, a question indicates a lack of information. One only asks a question when they don't understand, or don't have an answer. To us, however, being the one with all the answers is a mark of prestige. Being the one with all the questions makes one needy, unwise, foolish, or most often a suck up.

I would like to propose that a question need not indicate a lack of knowledge, and, in fact, those that do not lack knowledge are the ones who ask the best questions. An example to illustrate my point. In many classes the teacher will often ask the class "Any questions?" At a certain point I came to understand that if the call for questions remains unanswered that it is a very bad sign. The lack of questions didn't indicate that all the students understood the material. Instead, it indicated that the students didn't understand enough to know what they didn't understand. Often the smartest student in the class, (the one who reads the chapters, and starts the homework ahead of time) would ask a question none of the rest of us realized could be asked. This question would lead the teacher to explain something more in-depth, and the whole class would learn.

I eventually came to the conclusion, that the most efficient way to teach a class is to have two experts, one who poses a question and the other to answer it. This call-and-response style would utilize the full intelligence of both professors, and bring their experience into the questions that are asked. As a person who has deep experience with the subject at hand they would know to ask questions that have useful and practical applications, especially if the person asking the question already knows the answer.

Take, for example, a forum that is often strictly Q&A a witness being examined in court(these might be leading questions, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer). The lawyer can control the information by asking specific questions, questions worded just so that the mitigating explanations don't fit in the answer. "Did you remove a cookie from this jar?" "Yes" "Did your Dad say you could eat that cookie?" "No." If the lawyer doesn't ask "Did your Mom say you could eat that cookie?" (to which the answer is yes) then one may come away with the impression that the kid is a cookie thief. A questioner can have great levels of control over the information revealed, and this control is hightened when the questioner knows what the response will be.

Feminists critique the common habit of girls and women phrasing information that they already know in the form of a question (I'll take "Nature of God" for 100 Alec). This critique takes the assumption that being the questioner indicates a lack, and is therefore a subordinate or weak position. If however, one believes that to be a good questioner one must have just as thorough knowledge of the subject as the answerer then being a questioner has no negative connotations. In this way being a questioner can be feminine, and being an answerer can be masculine, and men and women can fill fully complimentary roles that are equally valuable. While I do not doubt that many women do speak in questions to appear less threatening, I maintain that the question format is not to blame. No one doubts an attorney's power as they cross examine a witness, and I can believe that women can ask questions that would unnerve even the stalwart.
A question is a powerful tool, one that may clarify why the answer to life the universe and everything is 42. If only we knew what it was.

Praying

2006-04-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

I have a confession. I never prayed about my choice to be a stay at home mom. It is what the prophets say to do, so since I didn't have a problem with it I didn't see a reason to pray to about it. I suppose if someone had suggested pray about it specifically, I would have done so, but the thought never occurred to me that it might not be what the Lord wanted me to do. I feel now, that my struggles with being at home may have been made much easier if I already had a testimony, as opposed to intellectual understanding, that it was what the Lord wanted me to do.

This brings up the question of how much do we need to pray about things that we are commanded to do? Everyone knows that we should pray if we feel we are an exception to the rule (ie, if I wanted to work instead of stay home then I should pray to be sure it's right). But what about things that we already understand and have a basic testimony of? In my case, I have a testimony that the men who counselled women to be SAHMs were prophets of God. I have a testimony that mothering is important work that has been entrusted to women. What I didn't have was a testimony that the Lord wanted me to be a mother who didn't work outside the home, and that what I would be doing is greatly important. I had a testimony of the principle, but not of it's specific application to my situation.

I wonder then, how many other things we should be praying about, perhaps not only to confirm that we are an exception to the rule, but also to confirm that we aren't an exception to the rule. Sure we'll pray about them when it gets tough, but might we be able to avoid some of the tough times be gaining a pre-emptive testimony?

I know that we are commanded to pray about everything. But does that mean that I should pray about which pen to use on my to do list? There are times when such a thing might concievably change my day and alter the course of my life. But 99% of the time stuff like that won't matter. Where does the line get drawn? Are there any guidelines. All that I could find is this:

30 But know this, it shall be given you what you shall ask; and as ye are appointed to the head, the spirits shall be subject unto you.

But how can one apply that in their day to day life?

Pro-Pregnancy

2006-04-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

Three years ago I got an email from my sister. My siblings and I rarely communicate so I knew that the email contained something big, and I was right. My sister was pregnant. She wasn't married, and had been sort of engaged to the father for a few years. I'm glad she emailed me, because my very first thought was, "Oh no! What will she do now?" It was no secret that most of my siblings didn't like her fiancé, and had been trying to talk my sister out of marrying him since they started dating. I didn't really like him either, but had been trying desperately to be nice to him and to convince the rest of my family to be nice to him too. I knew that if we were mean and gossip-y it would create an "us v. them" mentality in my sister's mind and she would be more inclined to marry him just to spite us than for any other good reason. I don't remember exactly what I said to her in my response, but it expressed positive excitement for the baby and questions about her plans for it. Her response nearly made me cry. She said that I was the first person she told, and she chose me because she knew I wouldn't judge her, and would be happy for the baby. She was afraid to tell my parents and siblings.

In her situation I and most of my family knew exactly what was going on. There are only a few reasons why engagements last for years in the LDS church, and normally it's because they want to go to the temple but can't stay worthy long enough. However the fact that she was pregnant offered proof of our suspicions and provided a chance to condemn her behavior. I think that if we were going to condemn her it shouldn't be when she got pregnant. There is no difference between what a woman does at conception and what she's been doing (if she's sexually active). Condemning illegtitimate sex only at pregnancy doesn't sufficiently condemn the sex, but instead condemns being pregnant.

When I was pregnant and preparing to graduate I had a nearly pathological fear that my classmates would think that my baby was an accident. At every chance I got I made it clear that I was married, the baby was planned, and I wasn't a skank. I'm not completely sure if my fear of judgement by my classmates was something specific to me, or if it's an LDS thing, or if it is just part of our culture.

I recently read this article (registration requred) about illegal abortions in El Salvador and the women who have them. In El Salvador *all* abortions are illegal and punished by jailtime. Even cases of ectopic pregnancy doctors must wait until the uterus perforates and the baby is already dead putting the mother at great risk and nearly sterilizing her.

A major pro-life (anti-abortion whatever you want to call it) arguement is that 'Indiscriminate sex is wrong. When you don't do it, you won't get pregnant and it won't be an issue. If you don't want a baby don't have sex.' A major pro-choice (pro-abortion) arguement basically says that 'Sometimes a pregnancy literally ruins a womans life, health, sanity etc. and she shouldn't be forced to have a baby that will kill or ruin her regardless of what she has done before.' I don't like the idea of anyone having an abortion. I fully recognize that there are times when abortions are necessary, and believe that women should be able to have the proceedure done in a clean safe environment. I don't want to argue about abortion legislation.

Instead I want to discuss the idea of becoming pro-pregnancy. In the anti-abortion camp pregnancy is arhetorical punishment for bad behavior, and abortion is an attempt to escape the consequences of your actions. The major problem I have with this is that the consequences fall disproportionately on the women who get pregnant. Their partners aren't condemned, and their non-pregnant counterparts aren't condemned either though they are all doing the exact same thing.

We know that it is largely futile to believe that we could police indiscriminate sex. What we can do is make it so that a pregnancy, though proof of sex, is not something that ruins a woman's life. We are so convinced that bad actions always bear bad fruit, that we feel that finding joy in an illegitimate pregnancy is condoning the illegitimate sex that lead to it. Pregnant teens are kicked out of their parent's houses. Pregnant women risk losing their jobs during maternity leave. Having a baby is nearly impossible to afford, even if the baby is given up for adoption. And there are countless intangible punishments for getting pregnant; the judgement from friends and coworkers, the stigma of being a single mom, and the culture-wide paranoia of the pain of labor.

I would hope that having a baby would never be viewed as punishment. If it isn't punishment then the average person wouldn't want to escape it. I would hope that pregnancy can always be met with joy and rejoicing regardless of how the child was concieved.

Gratification

2006-04-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

Nils has started being much more mobile and coordinated. He can pull himself up and stand at the couch, and cruise a little bit too. With this increased coordination comes an increased incidence of pain. He falls over, and pinches his fingers, bonks his head and all sorts of other things. I recognize his "I'm hurt!" cry and go to comfort him. I really like being able to comfort him.

Last night something really startled him (I think he had some static electricity and shocked himself). He cried longer than normal, and was content to let me hold him on my lap and rock him. While I was holding him I was thinking to myself how nice it felt. When I hold him while he's happy he sqirms, grabs at my hair and glasses, arches his back, whacks at my face, and wants down. He just isn't content to sit with me. When he's scared or hurt and wants comfort he'll just 'melt' into my arms and stay as long as I'll keep holding him.

It is an immensely gratifying feeling. It makes me feel loved and needed, important and special to my son. I don't like that he is in pain, but I love that he seeks me out when he is. I love to comfort him, and enjoy sitting with him in my arms.

I wondered if we aren't like that in God's eyes. When we're happy we're difficult to deal with. We want our way, and think we can do everything on our own. We don't want to be 'held.' When we need comfort from him we're much more 'still' we seek him out and listen carefully. I wondered if Heavenly Father doesn't get similar feelings of gratification when we seek out his help and comfort. Obviously God doesn't need me to make him feel important or loved, but at the same time I wonder if he doesn't feel it a little more strongly when I admit that I need him.

Friends

2006-04-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

(This is also posted at PoF)
In every class I’ve had where the teacher covers ‘The Big Bang’ theory one student inevitably raises their hand and asks the followup question, “But what happened before the Big Bang?” or some variation thereof. Every teacher has their own way of handling it, some answering, “I don’t know,” some venturing into theology and others saying “there was simply nothing.” With the student’s minds sufficiently blown the teacher then moves on to other topics.

The classic human question is “Why are we here?” Our church has a pretty good answer to that; to gain a body and to “prove [our]selves herewith…”(exactly what that means may be up for debate). Some people ask the followup question, “Where were we before?” Very few, however ask this question, “Why did God do it at all?” I’ve found an answer to that question, “A continuing association in this life, as well as in the next, with those we love, should be the great desire of every person. It is the ulitmate. It is the great purpose of mortality. (Elder Elray L. Christiansen, Three Important Questions, Ensign, May 1974, 25)” We exist to build relationships, to learn to love people, and live so we can be with the ones we love.

The reason why we are here is to love people, and the reason why we need to love people is so we can enjoy their company in the eternities. Just to further solidify the point I’ll quote some scriptures. Among the very first things God said about the condition of man is that “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Ecclesiates tells us that the strength of two together is better than one. In Matthew 18 Jesus states that “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Showing that having a friend or two with you gives more benefits than pleasant company. Now lets address the other questions of, who, what, when and how?

Who? Everyone knows that we are supposed to have love in our hearts for all mankind. In the condensed version of the commandments we are told to love our neighbors as ourselves, and are further instructed that our ‘neighbor’ is just about anyone we see. However considering the plight of Job, his friends were often not a comfort to him. Proverbs counsels that we “make no friendship with an angry man.” And gives as a warning “Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.” Which gives the idea that we will pick up the habits of our friends, and should choose as friends those that will lift us up.

What? What does a friend do? Some of Job’s good friends came to mourn with him. And Proverbs (again) says that “A friend loveth at all times.” A good friend will be honest with you, and will treat you with respect.

When? As an aspiring scientist I really like the idea of having something named after me. Like Fermat’s Theorem, Snell’s Law etc etc. For now I have what I call Starfoxy’s Paradox(TM). The paradox is that God will sometimes give commandments to us that we are not able to keep. (No matter what Nephi says!) Therefore there are many people saying something like this: “I want a friend. I’ve been commanded to have a friend. I’m trying to have friends. Through circumstances beyond my control, I am not able to have friends at this time.” The circumstances could be language barriers, lack of suitible canidates, or situations that require large amounts of time alone. (Starfoxy’s Paradox(TM) also applies to marriage: I want to be married, I’ve been commanded to get married, I’m trying, but I’m not able to be married right now.)
Which leads us to the really big questions, how? How on earth does one go about finding, and being the high quality friend and companion that we want and need? I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t feel qualified to tell anyone how to make or be a friend. I’ve had many bad experiences with friends, and the people that I get along with best are often not my peers. (I get along well with people who are on average 10-15 years older than me.) I’ve noticed recently that I rely too heavily on the social structure provided by the church to make my friends. I’ve also noticed that I am inept at interacting with people when I am not forced to by an external force (a job, a class, etc). So now I’m pushing this question on to you, how do you make friends?

Milk

2006-03-31T14:25:00.000-07:00

My mom hates milk. She always has. When she was a baby she never had to be weaned. My grandma says that she tried to get her to drink milk, but after she was 8 months old she wouldn't do it at all anymore. She says it gives her phlegm. She didn't really care what kind of milk we had at home, and used to buy whole milk because it tasted better when she cooked with it. Eventually she decided that it was too fattening, and switched to 2%. It was only the loud griping of her children that kept her from buying skim or non-fat milk. We all loved whole milk, and would speak of it in glowing terms whenever the conversation came up.

About 4 months after moving from home I had an epiphany. I was at the grocery store buying milk. I remember looking at the dairy case thinking, "I could buy whole milk instead of 2%." I bought the milk, and left the store feeling like a rebel. Later that day I was talking to my roomate about my epiphany and she shared a similar story. We both realized how silly it was that we were buying things we didn't like just because it was what our parents had bought.

Looking back at it now it seems rather silly. My mom doesn't really care what kind of milk I drink. Her interest in my health indicates that she would have at least a vague interest in my eating habits. However, she's not going to beat me when she sees (gasp!) whole milk in my fridge. Many kids, when they leave home, are all too aware of their parent's control over their habits. Moving out is the time when all bets are off, and "I'm an adult now! You can't tell me what to do!"

However, I wonder if those same kids, who are all too eager to drink themselves daffy, are still buying the same brand of laundry detergent that their parents bought?

That moment when I was in front of the dairy case really was a watershed moment in my life. Yeah, the feeling like a rebel was silly, but the realization wasn't. At that moment I became aware of my ability to recreate myself. Until that point I was what my parents and family had shaped me into. After that point I became a work in progress, my own work in progress. I was still wearing the clothes, walking the walk, talking the talk, and buying the milk that my parents did.

My parents had told me what was right, what was wrong, what was important, and what didn't matter. They had done their job, because I could function as a member of society on my own. Now I had the opportunity and responsibility to make each of those value judgements again, but this time by myself. I was able to set my own priorities in a way I never could before. It was the first time when my own opinion was really all I needed to decide.

I'm still in the process of becoming my own person. I may always be in that process. I'm lucky though, that I can remember exactly when it started, and I can look back at that moment for inspiritation when I need it.

Belay on!

2006-03-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

My husband's yougest sister went to a birthday party recently. The party was held at an indoor climbing wall, and she apparently had a great time. Since then she has wanted to go back so she convinced her mom and other siblings and us to go to the climbing wall again with her. (We had a great time too.) Climibing in a place like this happens in pairs. Both people wear a harness, and both are attached to one end of the same rope. The rope loops over a pulley at the top of the wall. Depending on which end of the rope you are attached to you are either the climber or the belayer. The belayer stays on the ground, keeps the rope taut as their partner climbs, and by use of a braking device ensures that the climber will not plummet to their demise. While I liked climbing well enough, I found that I rather enjoyed belaying. Maybe it has to do with my love of knots, and simple mechanical systems (pulleys, brakes, levers etc.). Maybe it was because I'm out of shape and didn't feel like scaling the wall more than a few times. I wondered, though, if it might have been because of the similarities with mothering.

The belayer is able to do rather a lot to help the climber. Using my weight I could apply the brake and pull down on the rope to give my partner a boost. This comes in handy for a climber who is only able to get a tenuous grasp on a tiny handhold. Another way a belayer can help is by pointing hand or foot-holds that the climber may not be able to see. Often their own body gets in the way of their view, or the curvature of the rock face prevents them from seeing a good hold that they could easily reach. From the ground at a distance away from the wall, a belayer can the whole face of the wall, and is able to move around a bit to change their vantage point. In this way I could counsel the climber to 'head more to the left' because I could see a 'pathway' that they could not. Keep in mind that the belayer is most important in emergencies. By being attentive they can be aware of when the climber begins to slip. They can brake the rope and prevent their fall. And should they get hurt the belayer can ease them down and is able to get help quickly.

I've heard it said before that I am "not staying home to have an immaculate house." I'm staying home to be the belayer for my family. To meet their needs for emotional security. To give them boosts of love (and loving discipline) and to aide them in selecting paths to pursue. I'm here to be aware of their needs, and to be ready to prevent their falls.

Yeah belaying gets boring sometimes, there is no way around it. Also every time I belayed for someone was a time that I didn't get to climb. I'll be able to climb every here and there, when someone else (read: my husband) belays for me.

Be men!

2006-03-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Both Hugo and John have recently mentioned the need for a men's movement. Not the Roe v. Wade for men, but a movement of a different sort. A movement that is based on the idea that men are hurt by the 'patriarchy' (or, as I like to call it, the system) if not as deeply, then at least as often as women are. Read the posts by John and Hugo for a more thorough explanation.
In thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that the Priesthood could be this men's movement inasmuch as it has outlined a pattern of behavior for those who would hold it. The trick is that it is only efficient as the men who are a part of it make it. Let's compare and contrast, (I'm looking at this strictly with men in mind, much of what I say is equally applicable to women but we're not talking about them now.):
The first thing that the system tells men is that you are the center of the universe. *Everyone* exists in terms of you, how they can serve or be of use to you. Women look nice to attract you. Other men are around to give praise or punishment to you. The first thing the priesthood requires is service. Service given often, freely, and with no expectation of compensation or reward. In fact, any service you do is best done anonymously whenever possible. Not just lawn mowing and house moving, emotional service too. Commiserating, listening and comforting. Which brings us to the next point.
The second thing the system tells men is that weakness is bad, and therefore anything that hints at weakness is bad too. Crying in public, bad. Admitting you love someone, bad. Admitting to being wrong, bad. Accepting critisism, bad. And by extention, strength is good and anything that shows strength is good too. Being heartless, good. Taking control, good. Shows of physical strength (esp hitting) good. Laughing at other people, good. Being unapologetic, good. The next the priesthood requires is love, kindness, tenderness, and longsuffering. It requires men to bear their testimony, which often will move the bearer to tears. It requires men to respect authority and be obedient and meek and humble. And everyone's favorite, no unrighteous dominion. At the very hint of abusing another person in any way you are out of the club immediately.
The system says that men should meet together only to talk about beer, sex, and football. The priesthood requires men to meet together to talk about Christ, plan service projects, and share their feelings.
The system tells men that women are there to serve them, to make them dinner and clean their houses. The priesthood tells men that they have to serve, love and care for women especially. As much as it pains me to say this, perhaps priesthood ordinances are performed only by men to make it necessary for men to serve women. When I ask my husband for a blessing there is a strange power dynamic there, where my request is binding upon him and he is unfaithful if he refuses me (assuming my request is made in righteousness).
I suspect that the system has even redefined the way we view the priesthood to make it all about power, strength, dominion, and control. Reading all the things that are required *behaviorally* of priesthood holders it is exactly what a men's movement would need, if only we can get people to subscribe to the notion.

Winning

2006-03-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is a really neat story told by Scott Adams, the best part is at the very end. Way cool.

Why the Sky is Blue

2006-03-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

It's time for some serious public service. I know why the sky is blue, and I (hopefully) can explain so that nearly anyone could understand. The short answer is, "The sky is blue because scattering goes as function of 1/(lambda^4) and the sun is green." The long answer can be found below.

First, A little info on the nature of light and waves. Visible light is part of the "Electromagnetic(EM) Spectrum (which includes radiowaves, microwaves, infrared, light, UV, X-ray, and gamma radiation) . An electromagnetic wave is tricky to visualize, so I'm not even going to have you try. The important thing to remember is that the size (wavelength) of the EM wave determine how it interacts with matter.

To explain this a little bit, imagine you're on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. There are waves hitting the ship all the time, but they don't effect the ship at all because they are too small. If there was a wave that was as big as the ship, then the ship would be in trouble, and everyone would notice. Now, conversely, if you're a fish a cruiseship-sized wave doesn't phase you a bit, your whole little world just rides along with it. A smaller wave, however, that is about as big as you will jostle you around and be very disorienting.

The same is largely true of EM waves, they interact the most with electrical components that are of a similar size to themselves. Radio waves (AM and FM) are huge, and they interact best with big antennae giving you good reception. Gamma rays are tiny and interact best with little components of DNA, giving you three legged frogs. The size of EM wave that gives us, say, green light, interacts well with specific cells inside our eyes. Red light interacts with different cells in our eyes, and blue light interacts with other different cells. This allows us to see in color. Bees, and some other insects, have cells in their eyes that interact with Ultraviolet waves allowing them to see 'colors' that just don't exist for us. This part is very important, the size of the light wave determines it color. Violet light has the smallest wavelength, and red light has the largest. The colors go in this order Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, largest to smallest.

Now lets discuss scattering. Imagine you have a gun that shoots ping-pong balls in a rapid fire fashion. Now imagine you shoot this gun at the same point on a wall. All of the balls are going to bounce off in the same direction. That is called reflection. Now imagine you shoot the ping pong balls into a big bowl of frosting. They're all going to stick to the frosting. That is called absorption. Now imagine you fire the ping pong balls into a crowd of running people. The balls aren't going to be absorbed (like they did with the frosting), but they don't bounce off of the people uniformly(like they did with the wall) They're going to hit the people and bounce all over the place. This is called scattering.

When light passes through the dusty atmosphere it is like shooting the pingpong balls into a crowd of people. One ray of light will hit one particle of dust and bounce off in one direction while a second ray will hit another particle and go off in another direction. As the amount of dust increases the amount of scattering increases too. This part is really important, the smaller the light wave the greater the magnitude of the scattering. Firing ping pong balls into a crowd makes the ping pong balls go everywhere. Firing bowling balls into a crowd... well you get the idea.

The last important puzzle piece is the idea of white light. Doing the classic experiment with a prism one can see that white light is composed of all the colors traveling together, but it is just a little bit more subtle than that. Imagine you have a harp. You can pluck all of the strings together and make one loud and pretty sound. If you pluck all the strings, but pluck the ones in the middle the hardest you still end up with a similar sound, but as the sound fades you will hear the ones you plucked the hardest longer than then rest. White light is all of the colors together, and it still looks white even if there is more of one particular color.

Okay, now lets combine the pieces. White light comes towards earth from our sun. In the atmosphere there are bits of dust. The dust in our atmosphere is tiny, and scatters the smaller wavelenths (blue, indigo, violet) around. The larger wavelengths(red, orange, and yellow) pass straight through. The scattered light works it's way down to earth slowly from all directions, while the unscattered light seems to come straight at us from the sun. So when we look at the sky, we are seeing light from the sun that has been scattered by the atmosphere(the smaller wavelengths). When we look at the sun we see the light that came straight through(the larger wavelengths).

If this was all there is to it, then the sun would look red, and sky would be purple. The tricky thing is that the sun emits more green light than anything else. This means that there is more blue light, and yellow light coming towards us than red or purple light (red orange yellow green blue indigo violet). In the evenings when the sun is low on the horizon its light is travelling through more dust, so it looks more red, and the light coming at us from the sky looks more purple.

So, there you have it. That is why the sky is blue. I hope it makes sense. If it doesn't you are more than welcome to ask questions, and I will be happy to explain. You are more than welcome to use the short answer on your kids when they ask you this question. :)

Les Miserables

2006-03-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

I have a sister whose main goal in life is to get me to read as many books as possible. I think she does this because she wants to talk with someone who has similar morals about the subjects covered in the books she reads. As it stands she has gotten me to read some very interesting books. One book that she convinced me to read was Les Miserables the unabridged version. While I found it tough to slog through the 40ish pages that describe the field where the battle of Waterloo was fought (in painstaking detail), I really enjoyed the in-depth character descriptions that never seem to make it into the movie adaptations. In fact, many of the books major characters are never even mentioned in movies, cliff-notes, and musicals.

The thing that disturbs me the most about the condensed version of the story is that the underlying truth that Mr. Hugo is trying to convey is lost. Every last person in the story is miserable, hence the title. Every character is a victim, and is a tragic figure. Valjean, Cosette, and Fantine are obviously tragic. They suffered at the hands of a corrupt system of government, and at the hands of others. The Thénardiers are often reduced to comic relief and cheap villainry. Javert is dehumanized and seen as only a mechanical monster. Marius and the other students are seen as noble martyrs, lofty and high-minded, using their tragic fate for a noble end.

Reading the book, undoes much of that. Valjean is a villian to Fantine by his ignorance of his factory's practices. The Thénardiers are undone by government and their own greed, and reduced to poverty that eats at the morals they once had. Eponine, their daughter, is a victim of Cosette's good fortune. Eponine's love for Marius, and the chance that he had to rescue her from her circumstances is lost or ignored because of his blind love for Cosette. Javert was raised in a prison by a cruel father, and was never able to see a good person. His belief that criminals are absolute, and can never be changed was such a part of him that he saw no choice but death when he learned of Valjean's goodness.

The only person who escaped his own misery, did so by taking the sufferings of others on himself. The Bishop Myriel chose when and by whom he would be made a victim. In so doing he shaped his own world, in a way that the others could not. He learned that one cannot escape misery, they can only chose it. By trying to escape it, you surrender your choice of misery to chance. I believe this is what Christ meant when he said to turn the other cheek. Don't escape your demons, choose them, and by choosing, control them.

I think Les Miserables was really the story of the plan of salvation. Eve ate the fruit knowing that life would happen like this. That every person to walk the face of the earth would be a tragic figure. That no person would escape sorrow and suffering. (Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.) But, by enduring the suffering, we will all move on and we will all find rest, comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va.

Bathrooms

2006-03-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

FMH is having a discussion about Pedestals & Podiums. I haven't read it, but from what I understand it dicusses at great length the fight over the Equal Rights Amendment. The thing that has always cracked me up is the bathroom argument. Among the top reasons to oppose this constitutional amendment are, forcing the church to give women the priesthood, women being subject to the draft, and.... unisex bathrooms. The bathroom angle seems so mundane, and anticlimactic compared to the other two. Either way, I thought I'd share a experience I had last year for your reading enjoyment.

The university I went to had an area in the music building called the 'practice rooms.' This was a large section of the building filled with small sound insulated rooms where students could practice their instruments whenever they wanted and as loudly as they wanted. The area was often full of litter, and in poor repair. I would often go the practice rooms with my husband so that I could play one of the pianos without getting in anyone's way.

One evening, I had to use the bathroom. I wandered through the halls, but couldn't find them. I asked my husband if there were bathrooms nearby or if I'd have to use the ones downstairs. He said that the bathroom was to my right and around the corner. "They're the blue doors," he said. So I went down the hall, and found a blue door. That's right, just one. I couldn't see a second one, "Must be unisex" I thought. There wasn't a sign on the door, so I poked my head in to make sure it was empty. There were two stalls and a urinal. "That's weird that they'd put a urinal in a unisex bathroom," I thought to myself. The main door didn't lock like most unisex bathrooms. I didn't think too much of it, and went about my business.

A few weeks later we were in the practice rooms again, and this time I knew exactly where the bathroom was. I strode confidently into the bathroom only to find a young man at the urinal. "Oh!" I said, "excuse me." I walked quickly into the stall, thinking again how silly and stupid it is to have a urinal in a unisex bathroom without a lock on the main door. The young man, obviously flustered, left quickly. Afterwards I asked my husband what he thought about the urinal in the unisex bathroom.

"What unisex bathroom?" He asked.
"The one down the hall with the blue door." I answered.
"There isn't a unisex bathroom." He said, starting to look concerned.
"Yes there is," I insisted, "I just used it."
"Show me."

So we marched down the hall to the bathroom door. He then pointed out what the poor lighting had hidden from me. In black permanent marker, on the dark blue door was written "MEN." I could barely make it out, even when I knew it was there. Did they really expect people to be able to see that?

I gasped. "Where's the women's bathroom?" I demanded. He took a few steps to the right, past a decrepit sofa and behind some lockers where a second blue door was adorned with the word "WOMEN."

"No wonder that guy looked so suprised!" I said.
"What guy?" he asked.
"The one using the urinal when I went in here a few minutes ago."
"What did you do?" he asked, looking even more concerned.
"I said 'excuse me' and went to the bathroom." I told my husband matter of factly, starting to giggle a little bit.
He just shook his head.

So, anyways, I don't see all the fuss is over unisex bathrooms, but then again that might be just me. Maybe we ask that guy at the urinal what he thought about it.

Considering Lilies

2006-03-16T23:12:00.000-07:00

So, I've been considering the lilies of the field, and how they grow. While it is pretty easy to see the lesson on not relying on music written by church members to accurately quote the scriputres, the lesson the Lord was trying to teach us isn't as forthcoming. The scriptures, found here and here, make it fairly clear that the Lord is talking about making a choice to serve him instead of serving Satan, or the world. But it isn't as cut and dry as that.

I have, from my youth, been taught the law of the harvest. You work for things now, and recieve a reward proportional to your labors. I was taught that this law applies in all aspects of life. If you work hard at school, you get a reward of increased knowledge, and better opportunities because of your good grades. If you eat wholesome you recieve a reward of strength, and good health. If you pray earnestly everyday you receive the reward of the companionship of the Spirit, and greater spiritual insight. You know, cause and effect. There are the obvious situations where gratification is delayed, but we are promised that no blessing will be eternally denied us. This is how we deal with some of the injustices of life.

I have also been strictly taught that temporal independence and self reliance are not just a good idea, they're vital to my self-esteem, good standing before God and Mankind, and ability to be righteous in keeping my stewardships. We've all been in the sunday school lesson on self reliance and emergency preparedness. We've all learned that by being self reliant we are not a burden to those around us, making us feel good about ourselves. By having a job and working we are contributing to the Kingdom of God, and being a good example to those around us. When we fail to provide for our families (by being self-reliant) we have failed in one of our most important callings. Self reliance allows us to live our lives with fewer hinderances(debt) that may prevent us from following the Lord as we see fit.

Reading the beatitudes that I linked earlier becomes much more confusing with the importance of self-reliance drilled into your heads. I especially take issue with this line "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on." The last time I checked, one of my major duties as a homemaker is to do exactly that, not just for myself, but for my whole family. And what of the children of Israel gathering their Manna. If they gathered more than they could eat it would go bad, as if in punishment for not having sufficient faith that the Lord would provide again tomorrow. What does that mean about our food storage advice? How can we reconcile the advice to take no thought for our lives when we are constantly told that we must take thought for our lives?

The thought arises that this isn't about food, clothes, and money, It's about trusting the Lord to do what he say's he's going to do. If he says he'll provide for us, then trust him enough to not worry about it. If he says to stock pile food then we should trust him enough to believe that it will be worth our efforts. He no longer asks us to trust him to provide, but now asks us to believe his threats and prepare ourselves.

The other option is that 'no thought' here really means, secondary thought. We worry more about keeping the commandments, than we do about having clothes and food. This is still applicable especailly in the area of tithes. Many people pay their tithing knowing that after they do so, they won't have enough money to pay their other obligations. They pay their tithing trusting that they will be provided for by the Lord because he even takes care of those lazy ravens, who neither sow, nor reap.

Speaking of ravens I have a friend who once was attacked by ravens. He had a lemon-meringue pie. They converged on him and ate the whole thing. The Lord certainly does take care of the ravens. I wish he'd provide me with a pie.

One Hundred Forty Four

2006-03-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday it rained. It rained all day. The relief was nearly palpable because it had been 144 days since the last time it rained. Arizona is one of the few places where rain and snow are *always* greeted with rejoicing. The only times I have wished it would just stop raining was when I lived somewhere else.

The air gets so dry here that I get nosebleeds once a month unless I am diligent about keeping my nasal passages moisturized. The greenest of grass in Arizona looks pathetically yellow compared to even regular old grass on the east coast and the midwest. The only evidence many people have of their own perspiration is that their skin starts to feel grimy from the crystalized salt because the sweat dries so fast.

Here is my question: How do you convince people who live like this that water is a precious resource that we have very little of?

Mirrors

2006-03-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

In the past two weeks my son has started doing the weirdest thing. He sticks his chin in the air, in an exaggerated, "s'up?" sort of thing. We were so confused as to where he learned to do that. Neither J, or I greet eachother or him that way, we don't watch TV, and people at church don't do that either. We were very confused, until my parents came for a visit. They saw him do that, and listened to me explain our confusion. Then my mom said, "but you do do that, just much more subtly."At first I was still confused. "I do?" I thought, "When?" She explained that it is a gesture I make when I'm listening to someone, I nod my head and put a little more emphasis on the up swing.

I have the unsettling feeling that this will not be the last time Nils picks up something from me that I'm not even aware of. It is, at once, exciting and terrifying. There is the chance that my son will pick up my better habits (I'm sure I have at least some good ones) and the near certainty that he will copy my negative habits.

There is a chance he will pick up on my enjoyment of mathmatics, and nature. He may love soccer like I do. He might pick up the style of banter and joking that I enjoy. At the same time he may pick up on my irrational fear of cockroaches. He may copy my way of subconciously scowling when something bothers me. He'll probably pick on my habit of letting the clothes sit in the dryer until they're wrinkled.

Suddenly the urgency I feel to be a better person is overwhelming. I find myself wondering "If I don't pray often enough, will Nils still learn to pray when he needs help?" I'm aware that this may be the fastest way to drive myself mad with irrational guilt, but how do I stop? The love I have for him constrains me to give him the best I can.

How would I feel if I look at him 20 years in the future and see all the bad things I showed him how to do, and feel that I failed? Can I be positive enough to ignore those bad things and focus on the good things he has done for himself? Is there a way for him to only reflect the best of me? It would feel awful to know that when your mom looks at you she only sees her own failures. How do I avoid that trap with my own son when he is destined to be at least a partial reflection of me, like a little mirror I didn't know I had.

Consistency

2006-03-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

When my sister was a Relief Society President she bought a book, that she later loaned to me, titled Get Anyone to do Anything. It wasn't a how-to-guide for extortion and blackmail, but rather an explanation of the workings behind human decision making.

One of the major cogs was the basic human need for consistency. People like to feel that they are internally consistent. We like to feel that our actions reflect our beliefs. Most especially, we hate changing our minds. Those who change their minds easily are fickle, hypocritical and pushovers. When a person has taken a stance on an issue they are reluctant to alter that stance, even if their feelings have changed. The book recommends offering circumstances that change the situation, thus allowing the person to change their mind without damaging their internal consistency.

We see this sort of thing all the time. You invite someone to your house for dinner and they initially decline. Later you mention that you'll be making your special cookies, and remind them that the invitation still stands. The addition of the cookies gives the invitee a reason to change their mind and allows them to accept the invitation without being percieved as fickle.

As a youth I learned that it is unwise to declare that "I will never do [x]." If I changed my mind, my siblings would dredge up my earlier declaration and use it to taunt me. As an adult I see that this is still wise advice. Making declarations such as "I will never drive a minivan." create mental boundaries that can hamper one's decision making abilities. Years later, a minivan may be the best car to drive, but I might foolishly choose to buy an expensive, gass-guzzling SUV simply to remain internally consistent.

This is quite possibly the genius behing having fast and testimony meetings. Public declarations of faith require some amount of follow-through to maintain consistency. We are more likely to meet our goals if we have shared them with others. If I bear my testimony that President Hinkley is a prophet, I will put much more effort in to following his guidance, lest I be thought hypocritical.

Along those same lines I wonder if part of the church's discouragment of delving deeply into church history is from a fear that they might find altering circumstances that allow them to change their minds about the church. The shady history and weird doctrines are the special cookies that allow some to change thier minds and leave.

How hard is it to imagine people who have left the church saying things like, "I had a testimony of Joseph Smith, until I learned that he had 30 wives." Or, I had a testimony of the church, until I learned about Brigham Young's racism."

While I do not doubt that many people are legitimately bothered by some parts of the church's past, I find myself wondering if some people hadn't already changed their minds, but needed some altering circumstance to help them maintain their internal consistency. That is to say, they already wanted to leave the church, but needed something to negate their earlier declarations of faith. If that is the case, then can we really blame their leaving the church on those things they uncovered and what other reasons do we have to keep those things on the down low?

And by that I mean...

2006-03-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

I'm a fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (hereafter referred to as MST3K). It's one of those annoying 'quotable' shows. Rather than delve into what could be a long drawn-out explanation of the plot I will jump right into the quote I want to share. One of the characters has just finished explaining a risky plan of action. Another character then asks, "So what's in it for us? And by 'us' I mean, 'me'."

I've been wondering lately, especially after reading The Grammar of Inequity, why we still use words in church discourse and scriptures that need to be explained? Why are many phrases followed by "and by [X] I mean [Y]" in a fashion similar to the line I quoted above. There are many, formerly gender-neutral words that are now gender specific. There are other euphemisms, and all sorts of archaic words. I can think of all sorts of good reasons to publish/retranslate the Bible (and maybe the Book of Mormon too), but can only think of a few reasons to keep it how it is.

I think that the major reason that the Church still uses the KJV Bible is because of the many slanders we have recieved due to the Book of Mormon. While other denominations have re-translated the Bible endlessly in efforts to make it easier to understand, easier to read, and (subconciously) more favorable towards their doctrines. I think the LDS Church is afraid to retranslate, (or even publish with JST in line) the Bible lest they be accused of altering what is there. We're condemned enough for 'adding' to it, that we'd rather use the older versions to increase our credibility. Almost as if to say "See? We still use this old version of the Bible! We don't want to change anything about it because we think it is correct enough as it stands."

The next most LDS reason to keep it how it is would be: distribution. If the church did put out whole new translation of the Bible then all the members would eventually have to get a new one. For many members they are lucky enough to have scriptures at all, buying a new set would be a huge burden. If the new translation altered, or deleted verses, then all of the Manuals, and church publications would have to be checked and edited for accuracy. That also brings up the questions of old General Conference talks, and magazines that are available to the membership. Should we go through those and change those quotes to match? Should we just provide the new references for the correlating verses? It would be a correlation committee nightmare!

The next reason would be the perks of ambiguity. If the meaning is ambiguous then members have to pray and research to understand. Such prayer and research shows committment and sincerity, which is rewarded with deeper understanding and companionship of the spirit. Were the scriputres easy to understand we would take everything at face value, and feel little need to put serious effort into scripture study.

A bigger reason may be a fear on behalf of the leaders of being 'the next Bruce R. McConkie.' Br. McConkie may have felt he was inspired in everything he wrote in Mormon Doctrine, but it later became painfully clear that he was not. No matter how legitimate anything else he had to say was, the statements that were untrue haunted him until his death, and continue to tarnish the image of the church. No one wants that legacy, and so the brethren fear to make any statements or interpretations that they are not certain is divinely inspired. The Bible is a veritable mine-field of potential misinterpretations.

Lastly, these men aren't career scriptorians, or theologians. They don't have the greek, the hebrew and the ancient middle-east history to put much of the scriptures into context. The people who do have that knowledge don't have the priesthood keys.

A few other reasons are: Sometimes ambiguity is good. No one wants to explain to an 8 year old why Lot had sex with his daughters, but kids just gloss over Lot 'knowing' his daughters (normally). Archaic language sounds cool, and just feels more formal. We tend to think more of respecting God when we use 'thees and thous' though it comes at the expense of intimacy. Lastly we can always say "and by [X] they mean [Y]" allowing us a great deal of flexibility in interpretations that may later prove to be false.

So, I'd just like to say that I know the scriptures are true, and by that I mean I'm pretty sure that most of what they say is probably what God wants them to say.

The biggest hyperbole ever

2006-03-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

J's grandpa is quite possibly the nicest man I've ever met. That's not the hyperbole I'm talking about, he really is *that* nice. At nearly 90 he insists that he needs to help with the dishes. He has a large plot of land where he grows fruit and vegetables and shares with everyone. The only price is that you have to pick it yourself. He made me feel so welcome, loved, and special that I would have loved him whether or not I was related to him.

A little while ago he came to visit and I made a pie. A pear pie. Grandpa had a slice at dinner. And he had another an hour later, commenting on how good it was. At first he complimented J's mom and she said, "I didn't make it, [Starfoxy] made it." "Oh," he said, and turned to me "This is really good pie!" The next day he came up to me and said "That pie you made was really good. I think it was the best pie I've ever had. Even better than Marie Calendars"

Aside from being bolstered by recognition of my pie making skillz, Grandpa made me think that maybe it really was the best he'd ever had. He's just that honest and nice of a person that I think he really may have meant it. He wouldn't say it if it weren't true. (Though I fully accept the very real possibility that he can't remember many of the pies he's eaten, and he may have really meant "This is the best pie I can remember eating.")

I got to thinking about hyperbole and honesty. J's grandpa is such an honest person that his saying "this is the best pie ever!" just feels true when he says it. If I heard him say things like that very often then it wouldn't feel as true. Perhaps to really solidify honesty in the eyes of those around us, we must refrain even from 'harmless' exaggeration. Especially in compliments that we give.

If you have (and must maintain) a reputation for honesty, then every statement you make will weigh more, and you are given less room for embellishment in anything you say. If you add hyperbole to your statements then people will take your hyperbole as truth. Every embellishment you continue to add detracts from your credibility.

In that vein I wonder about many of the statements made by the General Authorities and other church leaders. Words like, most, greatest, holiest, none other, and eternal pepper their talks and statements regularly. They make sweeping declarations from the pulpit of how much they love us *all.* How often is it hyperbole? How often is it really true? Do our day-to-day dealings with hyperbole from those around us lead us to give less credit to the fantastic-but-true things that our leaders are telling us?

The world may never, ever know.

Why I don't tell my mom anything

2006-02-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

This is a story about something that happened to me. It has no theological, or philosophical implications. I can't think of any way to make it more than just something that happened to me. So even though this is technically off-topic for this blog, it's my blog so I'll post it anyways. Complaints, if any, may be submitted below.

My brother got married when I was 13. His wife was tall, athletic and pretty. She had two younger sisters, who were both older than me. They too, were tall, athletic and beautiful. Her dad was a career Marine, he was big, loud and scary. Her mom was one of those pushy women that have a way of making anyone feel like they're five years old. They were all new and unfamiliar to me, we first met on the day before their wedding.

They got married in Colorado because it was the halfway point between where her family and my family lived. After the wedding we all drove to Missouri for their first reception.

About halfway through the reception I started to feel funny. I went to the bathroom and was shocked to see that I had started to menstruate for the first time. Menarche.

I had already gone through several years of sex ed, and knew exactly what was happening, but I didn't know what to do about it. I went and got my mom. I didn't want to tell her there in the cultural hall, so I made her come with me into the bathroom. When I told her, she asked to see my underwear. I didn't want to show her my panties, but knew better than her argue with her. She looked at them and said "Yep, that's it. Just put some toilet paper there and you'll be fine." She left me there, saying that she needed to get back to the receiving line.

Before I went back out I looked at myself in the mirror. "So," I thought, "I'm a woman now, huh?" I didn't feel like a woman. I felt like a short, flat chested 13 year old with goofy hair and wads of toilet paper in her drawers. I had expected to feel pretty. To be tall. To be cool.

When I entered the cultural hall again, my mom was most definitely not in the recieving line. She was standing in a circle of people, including my dad, brother, new sister-in-law, both of her sisters, and her parents. They all turned to me with knowing smiles, my mom had told them all.

I went over to her with intentions of telling her that what she had just done was not cool. As I approached the others wafted away into their own little groups. I asked my mom "Why did you tell them? I didn't want them to know." She made her angry face, and said "It's very special, they deserved to know."

Dad? Sure. My brother? Maybe. His wife? probably not. Her sisters, and Mom? No. Her dad? Heck no!

I was furious, and went to my sisters at the refreshment table to complain. They too got mad at me, and told me that mom is just that way and I shouldn't have expected anything else. That was one of the last times I told my mom anything personal. Every other time I told her something personal I regretted it later, just like I regretted this.

Tradition!

2006-02-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, (as mentioned earlier) we visited my parents. Their Stake has a Spanish speaking branch, which was having an activity while we were there. Since my Dad fancies himself a Spanish speaker (he is rather good) we went to this activity. It was disappointing. The main appeal to the activity was that there were going to be people who had learned traditional dances from the Spanish speaking counties in central and south America performing. The next most exiting thing was vocal performances of traditional songs. The thing that nobody knew was coming, that largely ruined the activity was a half hour long slide show about the book of mormon and its promises to the descendants of the Lamanites. And the part that really made me uncomfortable was how I didn't feel like a guest at their activity, I felt like a tourist being performed for.

I guess it partly matters why one thinks that a Spanish-speaking branch should exist. I think Spanish speaking branches exist so that native speakers can hear the words of God and be taught in the language they are most familiar with, and so that they can be comforted and buoyed up by the members of the branch who share a similar cultural background. It seems that the branch president believes Spanish branches exist for members who can't speak English, and as a missionary tool for others who prefer Spanish.

My Dad said he has served with the man who is the branch president in other capacities and noted that he was unwilling to have any activity that didn't have a specific "Priesthood Purpose." In terms of this activity I would say the priesthood purpose should have been building comraderie among the branch members, and inviting the gringos to learn about the culture. But no. The Priesthood Purpose was pseduo-mormon doctrine 101. The slide show was a complete disaster. The only thing it didn't mention about the Lamanites was how when they were righteous their skin turned white. It did mention that their skin turned dark because of wickedness. While the slide show was narrated in Spanish, the words on the slides were all English, and the pictures were hardly visible through the words. Call me crazy but it might not be a good thing to tell people that their ancestors were horribly wicked people, and were cursed with dark skin because of it.

If it is a Spanish-speaking branch then it should be Spanish speaking. Everything said that night was said twice. The MC was a guy who served a mission in Mexico. He would announce the next number in Spanish, and then again in English. The only thing that was halfway good (other than the dancing and traditional songs) was the guy that sang "Oh, that I were an Angel!" in Spanish. Except halfway through he switched back to English. I found myself wondering, how much of their Sunday meetings were like this?

As I was sitting there watching I also wondered "why on earth are all of the people in charge here gringos?" I'm sure that all of the leaders served spanish speaking missions, and love the people dearly, but is there *any* reason that the branch president can't be a native Spanish speaker? I understand the need for the BP to be able to converse with the Stake Presidency, but surely there is a worthy man who speaks English well enough to do that? Wouldn't it mean so much to the children to see someone like them as their leader?

That activity was a fully traditional activity. The dances were traditional, the songs were traditional, the clothing was traditional, the pushy semi-racist missionary message was traditional, and the power structure was traditional too. Sometimes I hate tradition.

Innocence and Naivete

2006-02-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

Due to a thread at FMH I was recently disillusioned (not that thread, this one). I had a friend in my younger years who, out of the blue one day began to call himself 'Winky the One-Eyed Wonder Weasel.' I had no idea what he meant by this, or where it came from. I just thought it was clever alliteration, and a play at his rougish nature (weasels are rougish right?). And, no, he wasn't LDS if you are wondering. When I learned that his pseudonym meant more than I originally understood, I was completely caught off guard and more than a little embarrassed.

First, so many things that just seemed a little bit off suddenly made sense. He often questioned my stance on sexual morality, and made many references to the idea that he thought I was a bit of a fraud. I remember him joking about whether or not I really would be able to wear a white dress on my wedding day. I see now that it wasn't anything I had really done, or lies he had heard that led him to believe this about me. It was my participation with him in joking and use of double entendres that I didn't understand. I called him Winky, he assumed I knew what it meant, I assumed it meant nothing.

I'm not stupid. I may be best at mathematics, but I have a solid command of English. I get puns very quickly, and I can banter with the best of them. He had good reason to believe I knew what his nickname meant. He didn't understand that I just don't think that way.

So here's the question, was it innocence, or naivete? Was I naive to think that a teenage boy could think about something other than what his hormones dictated? Did I have an innocent mind that didn't know someone could be so preoccupied? Is there really a difference between the two?

What about the time last year where I accidentally inferred that one of my classmates masturbated because he had an EMF flashlight? Should I have known better? Probably. But is it really a bad thing that I am that naive?

Is it really possible for a person to not be naive, but still maintain basic innocence and faith in the innocence of others. The old addage that 'it takes one to know one' says otherwise. Is it true that I have to have a dirty mind just to recognize, and most importantly, not repeat the dirtiness around me?

The Pauli Exclusion Principle

2006-02-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: After writing this I noticed that I might come across as being vain, and in love with my own intelligence. I'm not vain (I hope), and I never was the smartest person in any of my schools. For some reason many of my friends tended to be people that struggled with school. For some of them, their parents were the pushy sort that demand good grades from their kids and push them to be "above average." Others of my friends had mild learning disabilities like dyslexia. The thing that held me back was my disposition towards school. I could do well without studying, so I never studied.

In first grade we were assigned a project. A picture of a bear was copied onto two pieces of paper, and we were to cut it out, glue it together, color it, and then write a few sentences about bears. When I got it back there was a note from the teacher. I took it home to my mom, and asked her what it was about. Aparently, while my classmates had written things like: "Bears are funny. They ride bikes in the circus." and "I love bears. They are soft and cuddly." I had written, "I hate bears. They are mean and scary. They will eat you if you go in the woods alone." According to the note I was the *only* kid who had said that they disliked bears. I vaguely remember thinking, "What's wrong with them, don't they realize how dangerous bears are?" Being the only kid who hated bears didn't make me funny, special, or cute. It made me different. And in grade school, different is bad.

In third grade I was taken to a room and given a test. No one really explained why. After I took that test I was taken back to that room once a week for a class that none of my friends were in. All the kids in there dressed funny, and seemed socially inept. I wondered if I was in special-ed. The special-ed kids did meet in that room, and no one had told me why I was in that class or how I had done on the test that obviously put me in the class. Finally my worry grew too great and I asked my mom. She told me I was in a class called "New Horizons," and it was a class for gifted students. That didn't mean that much to me. After all "gifted" and "special" seemed to be pretty similar words. I eventually figured out that they put me in that class because they thought I was smart, and needed more stimulation even though none of the stuff we did was really that challenging for me. When I relievedly shared this with one of my friends she asked me how I got in, because she wanted in too. I was suprised by the competetive way she said this, and felt uncomfortable with her from then on.

In ninth grade I had biology with a girl who was in my ward. She was the only other girl my age so we were de-facto friends. I was getting an A and she was barely passing so her mom suggested that she ask me for help. We went to her house one day after school and I went through much of the course work with her. She was flipping through her notes asking me to explain all the things she didn't understand. I gave her analogies to help her remember important concepts, like comparing molecules in a solution to kids jumping on a trampoline. When we were done she still felt confused and was obviously frustrated by the material. She asked, "How do remember all this stuff? Do you just study all day?" I didn't know how to tell her that I didn't really study at all, so I let the question go and wished her luck on the test.

My dad spent a few years in the Navy, and was always fascinated by boats and science and navigation. He really liked the idea of knowing the sky, and navigating by the stars. He loved pointing out constellations and I was the only child he could get to listen to him. He pronounced a lot of names wrong, and wasn't especially good at explaning how to find the star he was looking at. But he had books, lots of books. I loved looking through his books, though it felt like I wasn't supposed to. Perhaps if I had felt like he wouldn't have minded me looking at his books, it wouldn't have been so much fun.

My junior year in high school we took more standardized tests than I can remember. I hated them all, except for one. I had been looking forward to that one ever since my sister took it six years before. The ASVAB exam. The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery exam. I remember joking on the way to the testing area with my friend just what "Battery" meant in this context. Were they going to beat us if we cheated? Looking at the grumpy looking men in uniform I wondered just how wrong our guess was. I took the test and a week later we got the results. Just like all standardized tests the scores were enigmatic and hard to decipher. I had a vague understanding that my scores were "good." When we filled out the chart that showed us what sorts of careers we have an aptitude for I was hoping for an epiphany, but didn't get one. I had images in my head of looking at the chart and seeing the name of a career and feeling "yes! That is what I want to do with my life!" When I filled out the chart, it turned out I had an aptitude for just about everything. The only thing that it looked like I was especially good at was mechanical and spacial reasoning. But I didn't know what that really implied. I didn't want to be a mechanic, I thought. While I was staring at my chart, vaguely disappointed, my friend looked over my shoulder and said "Wow! looks like you'd be good at everything." He went on to say that his chart said he might be a good dancer. He struck a flamenco pose and said "Ole! What do you think?" I laughed, because we both knew he wouldn't be a good dancer.

So I went to college with no idea what I wanted to major in or do with my life. I declared myself as an English major. I was pretty certain that I didn't really want to major in English, but I knew all the classes I would take as an English major would count towards the university wide liberal studies requirements for graduation. I took Calculus I my first semester. My professor, who was a woman tried to get me to join the math club. She asked what my major was, convinced that participation in math club would help me get scholarships. When I said "English." She looked agast and asked "What on earth are you taking this class for?" I said "I don't know."

Second sememster my advisor encouraged me to take a class that would count towards the Laboratory Science requirement. I looked through the listing and found Astronomy 101 and the once a week observational Lab. I decided to take it. When I got to class the first time there were three people from my singles ward there. I sat with them, though it quickly became clear that they were already friends. Though I was welcome in their group, they had known eachother for a long time, and I was sort of an outsider. For the first test they invited me to study with them at the library. They were being nice and inclusive of me, so I went. We started going over the material, and it quickly became obvious that I understood nearly all of it better than my friends. This time was different though. They were paying attention to what I said. They told me that I explained it better than the teacher had. They were glad I was there, they were I glad I understood, and they liked me because I was smart. I was addicted. Astronomy became my favorite class. It didn't matter that it the degree was mostly physics and math classes, and looked horribly hard. I knew I was smart enough to do it, and do it well.

All the other times in my childhood being smart made me different, and weird. To many of my friends I was the competition. I often set the curve, so their ability to get a good grade depended on me not doing too well. With astronomy, I wasn't something people felt threatened by. When I was an Astronomy major people wanted to ask me questions that they'd always wondered. The people in my classes were like me. I had found a place where I fit. I had found something to do that didn't cut me off from the people around me. I found something that made me happy.

It's all lies.

2006-02-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

There is a fairly common format for a riddle in which you are faced with two people, one who always tells the truth, and another who always lies, but you don't know which is which. (warning: riddle spoiler ahead!) You are then required to determine the answer to some question by asking only one of them only one question. The solution is always to ask "what would the other guy say that the answer is?" Thereby guaranteeing that the answer is false and you can then assume that the opposite is true. Lies are a tricky thing, which will lead to all sorts of logical problems. Take this statement for example, "This statement is false." Or "Everything I say is a lie." If those statements are true, then they are false, which renders them true again.

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the rest of this post. We know that we're surrounded by people who lie. I'm most curious about Broken covenants though. If I promise that I will love my husband forever, then five years later find that I can't (or maybe won't) love him, does that make my original promise a lie?

It would seem that in the given situation I would have two choices, acting so that my original statement becomes a lie, or acting so that my original statement remains a truth. So if I'm the sort of person that values honesty, then I will do everything I can to make what I said true. If I'm not the sort of person who values honesty then I won't mind my original promise becoming a lie. If that is true than that makes the dynamics about covenant making much more different that it seems.

Normally when one makes a promise of that sort they think about their desires to do whatever it is they're promising to do. When people get married they are thinking about their spouse, wondering if that is the sort of person they would like to be married to for their whole life.

Perhaps when we make promises we should be focused more on ourselves, and the seriousness that we give to our word of honor. It's less about whether or not my spouse is lovable, and is more about whether or not I'm the kind of person who will make myself stick to it even when it's not nice anymore. It's not about whether or not the guy loves you, it's about him being the type of person to keep his promises.

We all know that in the Temple ceremony we make covenants. I was suprised that at the beginning of the ceremony we're told that we can choose to leave now rather than make the covenenants that will be asked of us. I thought it was silly to say that at the beginning, because we didn't even know what the covenants were. At that moment you are essentially agreeing to make and keep all of the covenants without even knowing what they are, and what they will entail. I stayed because I had faith that I wouldn't be asked to do anything unreasonable or crazy (and I was right, just for the record). But at that moment I should have been searching my soul, asking myself "Am I the sort of person that will keep my promises no matter what?"

Sass

2006-02-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

My husband told me a story while we were planning to have our first child. I had told him a concern that I had about maybe not being able to have children (my sister has had problems along those lines, but we had no trouble having a baby despite my concerns). He said that one of his leaders growing up used to live in Utah, and early in their marriage they did have quite a bit of trouble concieving. They didn't keep it a secret, so a few people in the ward knew that they were trying, but weren't having success. During a lesson in relief society the topic of child discipline came up. The wife mentioned that she didn't think spanking was a good idea, and that she didn't plan on spanking her children. An older lady in the ward spoke up and said, "Well, maybe when you correct your views on child rearing then the Lord will open your womb." I understand that after that the couple seriously questioned whether or not they wanted to keep going to church there.
Besides making me ill that someone would actually say that, it bothered me more that no-one else spoke up. I hoped that if I had been there I would have been willing to call that lady up on the carpet and rebuke her.
This discussion at FMH, and Annegb's response to my comment made me think. All of the loud-mouthed women I've ever met at church were more like the thoughtless cruel woman in the story than like Annegb. Why is it that the loud women are normally the sort to tell you what a bad mother you are, how ugly you look, how you're life would be better if you were more righteous, how anyone who disagrees with them is a sinner? What is worse, is because these women are loud and bossy, they get noticed, and are often given callings like RS president.
Why aren't there more women that will counteract these mean women? Why aren't there women who will speak up for fairness, and good treatment? It seems clear to me that we need them desperately. Women who will speak up, but still be nice. Women who will defend the Gospel when the culture threatens it. Women who won't be shamed into silence. Women who will dissent when dissent is needed. Women who have respect because they earn it, and demand it. Not women who have respect based in fear.
Our world seems to teach us that if you're a woman you must be nice, or loud but not both. I'm making it a personal goal to have the Moxy, the Chutzpah, the Huevos* to say the things that need to be said.

*if you really need to know you can email me.

Genuine People Personalities: How I've Dealt with the Temple Part III

2006-02-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have seen heard or read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams will know what the phrase "Genuine People Personalities" means. For those of you who haven't I will explain. A company call the Sirius Cybernetics corporation produces robots, whom they describe as "Your plastic pal, who's fun to be with." These robots, and other automated devices are given genuine people personalities, or GPP for short. Having a product with GPP basically means that your robot, or automatic door, or coffee maker has a personality. In the story of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there is a robot, named Marvin who has a GPP prototype. He is very very depressed. Marvin works on a ship with a cheerful main computer, and automated doors that open and close with a sigh of satisfaction in a job well done. Marvin is beyond intelligent, but is utterly miserable and bored all the time. He is a great comic device because his existence makes no sense. Why would the Sirius Cybernetics Corp. make a devastatingly intelligent robot that is programmed to be miserable for it's entire exisitence? Why? Because they're stupid, and it's funny.
This last installment of my series shares the conclusions I was given or have come to. It all focuses on this sentence, "That they may fill the measure of their creation, and have joy therein." First, consider the phrase "measure of [my] creation. " What is the measure of my creation? I would say that it means 'everything I was designed to do.' So what was I designed to do, and how can I tell if I was designed to do it?

When someone is designing something they start with a list of things that they want it to do. A popular notion is the idea that the more features a thing has, the better. This is false and leads to poor design and execution. A cell phone with a camera in it will never take art-quality pictures because it is a cell phone. If you want good pictures, get a real camera. A printer with a scanner and fax machine and copy machine all combined will never make very good copies. Also if the printing funtion breaks then you end up with a very large not so great scanner. So if we make a robot, it is designed well when it has as few 'features' as possible so as to maximize the quality of its main function.

Now lets add the idea of intelligence. Lets say we make a robot, and give it intelligence. In so doing we risk having the robot learn enough that it decides it doesn't want to do the things we want it to do, or it could take over and do much more than we want it to do. Therefore one would have to walk a careful line of giving it just enough intelligence to do what we want.

Now lets add desires and emotion. If we could give a robot desires to do something then we could make it want to do what we are building it for. We could make doors that want to open and close for people. Alternately it would be foolish to allow the robot to have desires other than what it is designed for. Giving doors a desire to read novels would be foolish. Doors are not able to read, and the door would begrudge those that ask it to open and shut for them. A door with a desire to read novels would be miserable.

In summary, a well designed robot would have a specific purpose to ensure highest quality. It would have *only* the intelligence it needs to do its tasks well. And it would have the desire to do what we ask of it. In short, a well designed robot would be happy if it is put to it's full use, and it would be unhappy if it is unable to do what it is designed for. Therefore filling the measure of our creation and having joy therein means doing what we were made to do because it will make us happy.

Heavenly Father is a smart designer. I believe he originally gave every creature on the earth only what it needed to do its job well, and he gave us desires to do what he wants us to do. Because this is a fallen world many of us aren't given the chance to do everything he designed us for. So how does this apply to my worries about the Temple?

I have a brain that makes me capable of doing everything my husband is capapble of doing. If Heavenly Father never meant for me to use my brain as much as my husband uses his, then He wouldn't have given me such a great brain. If He didn't intend for me for me to be anything more than a 'good pal' to my husband then He wouldn't have given me righteous desires to do more. If He didn't intend for me to be equal to my husband He wouldn't have made me able to feel that the current arrangement is unfair. The sentence I keep saying to myself is; "It feels unfair because it *is* unfair, and I know it is unfair beacuse I can feel it. "

An unspoken (until now) assumption here is that my feelings of unfairness, and my desires for 'more' are not the result of wickedness and temptation. I believe that this is not the case because I felt the spirit bearing witness of the truth of this while the thoughts came to me. Also I believe that it isn't wickedness because this understanding has allowed me to feel joy during the Temple Ceremony and at other times too.

The question now becomes "So it's unfair, how do we fix it?" My answer is this, I'm not sure we can, or are even supposed to fix it yet. Yeah, "men are that they might have joy," but you'll note that it doesn't say "men are that they might have joy on earth." Right now I'm content with knowing that the things that bothered me are not eternal truths, and that things will be fair soon enough.

Surrender: How I've Dealt with the Temple Part II

2006-02-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off writing this one because this is the hardest one. The veil was the first issue I had to deal with because it was physical, and tangible. The other issues were less connected to my immediate experience and so were pushed to the back burners. However, after I had dealt with the veil I had nothing left to distract me. The issues I had were the following: The Hearken Covenant, Queens and Preistesses to your husbands (as opposed to Kings and Priests to the Most High God), The divine role of women as encouraged by the church, Nearly all of 1 Corinthians 11, Moses 4 (especially verse 22), and finally the conspicuous absence of Heavenly Mother. I'm not going to go into great detail about why these things bother me. If you're curious about some of them let me know and I'll explain, but I also want to avoid turning this into a "yeah, that's why I can't stand the Temple too!" discussion. I'm sure that if you look around a little bit, you can find many discussions about why these things bother many women.

Besides coming to grips with the veil I had gone through some huge changes in my life. Over the course of three months my husband and I graduated from college, moved, and had a baby. I went from being a full time student, full time employee, (who made most of the money in our relationship) in a city where I knew lots of people, to being a stay at home mom with no car and nothing else to do but repeatedly clean the apartment and watch after a very easy to take care of baby. Also the move was to a large city where my husband had grown up, but I had only ever visited. He knew the area, and had family nearby. I was often lost and my small town driving skills were nearly useless in the huge freeway laden place that we lived.

After my busy beyond busy life in college I was drastically underwhelmed by stay at home motherhood. I had felt that having a baby would give my life a depth and meaning that I was uncapable of comprehending before it happened. I felt cheated. All the talks I read spoke of motherhood as divine, and the most worthwhile thing a woman could do. I felt that motherhood was unpaid maid service. And referring to motherhood as a divinely appointed role meant that I was a divinely appointed maid to my husband and children. I began to wonder if divinely appointed implied eternally true. Would I be asked to care for the physical needs of my husband and children for mortality and immortality?

I started to ponder about what I would be asked to do in the afterlife. It was very easy to imagine things that my husband would be doing, he would be doing the sorts of things we imagine Heavenly Father to do. Would my husband be off creating worlds and attending meetings at the mansions of his Father while I was left at the mansion of my husband doing laundry and caring for our numberless concourses of spirit children by myself, or even worse, with the other women that were 'given unto him'? Is that supposed to be heaven?

So I was at an junction. There were a few options. Either the church is true, and everything it says and implies about women and men is eternal truth. Or the church could still be true and parts of what it teaches and implies is false and temporary because of the fallen state of the world and the limitations of mortals. Or the church could be false and nearly everything it teaches is untrue. Obviously it was the second answer (obvious to me anyways). The trick is *which* parts are eternal truths, and which parts are due to the fallen world? The Celestial Kingdom isn't going to be what I want it to be just because I want it to be that way. I needed to know if this was a place I really wanted to be. I needed to know if the 'father presides in the home' part or the 'men and women are equal partners' part was the eternal truth, because they certainly can't both be eternal truths. I wrestled with the very real possiblilty that women really are second class citizens now and forever by divine design, and that the 'equal partners' stuff is part of the fallen world incorrectness.

I pushed and fought. I tried to force the words that I knew so well to contort themselves into what I wanted them to be. One day I put my baby down for nap, and literally went into my closet to pray prepared to be in there for hours if I needed to. What I said was along these lines: I don't want to be worth less than my husband, or worth less than men in general. I don't want to only be valued as a maid. I don't want for it to be true now, and I don't want for it to be true in the eternities. I don't want it, but if You want to give it to me then I will take it. I will accept it with both hands and I will not complain.

After that prayer I felt nothing. I didn't feel peace, but I didn't feel the pain and misery I had been feeling. A few days later I understood, and I was at peace. I'll explain most of what I came to understand in part III. I later realized that what had changed was my willingness to accept whatever Heavenly Father was going to give me. It's easy to accept a gentle loving God, it's much harder to accept a cruel, cold and unyeilding God. I think of Aslan, and the constant warning that he is not a tame lion. We must be willing to accept that God has claws and teeth, and might choose to use them on us. We must have faith that being eaten by Aslan is better than refusing to meet him.

'Til We Have Faces: How I've dealt with the Temple, Part I

2006-01-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

C.S. Lewis is my favorite author. I've read all(as far as I know) of his fiction, and am slowly working my way through his apologetic works (slowly because if I went fast I'd miss too much). However, I had the unfortunate experience of reading his re-telling of the story of Psyche and Cupid, called 'Till We Have Faces. It was a wonderful book and I loved reading it. So why did I describe it as an unfortunate experience?
The main character, Orual, is Psyche's ugly older sister. In the book, Orual loves Psyche deeply, and is personally hurt by Psyche's choice to leave and live with Cupid. Orual later becomes the queen of her realm. As Orual is not unaware of her ugliness, she chooses to wear a veil over her face. The veil makes her mysterious, and unknown and gives her vey real power. But, the reason she chose to wear it was to hide, and to make herself faceless. The power it gave her was a suprising by-product. The part that stuck with me was this phrase, "We cannot see the Gods face to face, 'til we have faces." I read this book about a year before I went to the Temple, and although parts of the ceremony were lovely and uplifting, some parts broke my heart.
I had so many questions. What is wrong with me that must be covered? If it is that I am mortal and havn't passed through *the veil* then why don't the men need to cover their faces too? Am I not meant to have a face? Will I ever see God face to face? Doesn't He want to see me? All the time remembering the quote, "We cannot see [God] face to face 'til we have faces." What hurt me the most was the veil that kept me faceles seemed to come from God. And if it didn't come directly from Him, it certainly came from his messengers.
So I read. I read anything I could about veils. I read about what they cover, why they cover it, and when it should be covered. It didn't help much. Some said only holy things get veiled, like the Ark of the Covenant. This would be fine, except it didn't feel like I was on the same side of the veil as the Ark. It felt like I was definitely on the un-holy side of the veil. Some said women should wear veils so that our beauty (which is our glory) doesn't compete with God's glory; it's a way of encouraging those around us to focus on God. I don't think *anything* about me is on any level to compete with God's glory. And, if I happen to be pretty it shouldn't be my responsibility to hide every square inch of me so that the boys in the room can focus on the task at hand.
Then I prayed. I asked why should I be faceless? Do veils really make me faceless? I asked to understand, or at the very least to have something to distract me until I can understand. I wanted something to associate the veil that I wore with to make it mean *anything* other than what I thought it meant.
Rinse. Repeat. It was months of almost daily discomfort before I came to a resolution about the veil that I was asked to wear, and it was so anti-climactic that it's almost laughable.
I love African Lovebirds. They are beautiful, comical, and smart. The ones that I had as pets while I was growing up had such personality, that as a young girl I decided that heaven wouldn't be heaven unless my birds came too. My favorite kind were the Peach-faced lovebirds. Those who know much about birds know about Sexually Dimorphic birds. They are the kinds of birds where the males and the females of the same species look noticably different. For example, in some types of ducks the males are green, and females are brown. Peach-faced lovebirds are dimorphic, but just barely. The female's feathers are the same as the males, but they are just a shade softer. Sometimes it is nearly impossible to tell them apart, unless you have another bird of a different sex to compare it with.
My resolution came when I saw a picture of a pair of peachfaced lovebirds. I noticed the dimorphism and thought, "It's almost like she's wearing a veil." Suddenly, thinking of it like that made it all okay. I can't even explain why, but thinking about wearing a veil as being like a dimorphic bird is perfectly alright to me.
I don't expect that way of thinking about veils to help anyone else. I would actually be rather suprised if it did. I guess the main point is that I didn't give up, and eventually my prayers were answered. I wasn't given an explanation, but I was given something that works for me.

Part of the Plan

2006-01-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

Let's ignore, for a moment, the myriad troubles of describing life as a test, and think about what kind of test life would be. We understand that under Satan's plan, life would be a multiple choice test, with only one choice (You can have whatever you want for lunch, as long as it is a ham sandwich) . We assume that Heavenly Father's plan (with more Agency (TM) than the leading competitor's) is a fill in the blank test. All of our discourses extoll the permanance, and prevasiveness of Agency. We all forget that we only get to choose from the options that we are given. If there isn't a ham sandwich, I can't choose to eat one. If I don't know that a ham sandwich exists I can't choose to eat one. So, it turns out our test is a multiple choice test.
It makes perfect sense. Heavenly father can't give us the power to choose from anything. He can't let me choose to destroy the earth, I haven't earned that power. But if we've earned the choices, if we deserve them, we'll get them. Right? What if there was a choice that I deserve to be able to make, but the outcome of that choice would change the course of the whole plan of salvation. Doesn't it make sense that it would be better for me to experience some unfairness on earth and be 'repaid' in the eternities so that I will be forced to make the choice that will allow the plan of salvation to continue?
I believe that the options available to us on earth are limited, and our knowledge of those options is restricted so that individuals will only be able to make decisions that allow the plan to move on. I believe that Heavenly Father is responsible for that limiting of choices, and that we agreed to it before coming to Earth.
This is where it gets icky.
We are so often told how important the work of women in bearing and raising children is. Often it feels like empty rhetoric to try and make something that is unappealing into something that is appealing. The fact of the matter is, now that most women have the option of choosing the number and timing of kids, they are choosing to have less children. As discussed elsewhere the population in many western countries is dropping. What do these countries have in common? Good education, and viable work options for women. Many LDS couples wouldn't choose to have children if they felt that it would be a righteous decision. Women were allowed to be treated badly so that most of them would be forced to have children. If women didn't have children then the plan of salvation would have fallen apart. Here's the horrible part. Doctrines, and understandings of eternal truths were left incomplete in order to facilitate the treatment of women that would allow the plan to continue.
In other words, if we knew about Heavenly Mother in any substantial way women wouldn't have put up with the 'patriarchy.' If women were allowed to hold the priesthood then we wouldn't have been content with limiting our influence to our children. If women were allowed the social freedoms that men were then we wouldn't have chosen children. If men were allowed to understand just how valuable, and real, and purposeful women are then they wouldn't have been able to force this social order on us out of respect.
I also believe that, to some extent, true understanding of women has been withheld so that the necessary treatment of women could be commited without understanding, and mankind could therefore remain unaccountable for it's wickedness in these matters.
I take the increasing understanding of women as real partners, and respectable contributors as a sign that this chapter of the plan is coming to a close. It is no longer vital that women be forced to have children. And I believe that Heavenly Father is lifting that veil of ignorance, and disrespect as fast as He can.
The treatment I (and most women) recieve is unjust, and the fact that I can see and feel the injustice of it is proof that it is not meant to be that way, and will not be that way much longer. It chafes me because it is meant to change. I have full confidence that as promised(though I can't find where) woman will be recompensed richly for the injustices she has suffered.

Understanding, Love & Desire

2006-01-25T11:35:00.001-07:00

I was reading my Patriarchal Blessing last night, and noticed something. There is a paragraph that says "I bless you with an understanding of the gospel, with a love for the gospel and with a desire to learn more of it, and in doing this your testimony will be strong, you will have the ability to bear testimony to others in such as way that their hearts will be touched and that they will have a desire to learn of the gospel."
I hadn't read my blessing since I've started reading and commenting on the various LDS themed blogs. I have taken real pleasure in reading what others have to say about various doctrines. Here's my question, is the enjoyment I get out of participating in the bloggernacle related to whatever it is in me that prompted my Patriarch to say this in my blessing?
When I very first starting reading/posting here it made me and my husband a little uncomfortable. My husband said "I get the idea that the church sort of frowns on things like this." I asked why, and we couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer. The best answer we had is that it is a good place for people to promote and espouse false doctrines. It's venue where testimonies could be weakened and where non-members can get false impressions that what we are talking about is really church doctrine. That same thing could be said of Fast and Testimony meeting. (In fact I've heard that some missionaries keep family photos in their wallets to distract visitors with when someone starts to bear testimony that Pepsico is run by Satan, and caffiene is of the devil.)
Here's the thing, I've been able to work through several things that have bothered me about the church by participating here. I'm better able to reconcile the treatment of women in the church with 'the plan.' I'm mostly at peace with the prior practice of polygamy. I'm learning how to teach correct principles better.
Here's the phrase I'm most intrigued by; "...in doing this your testimony will be strong..." I've decided that this means two things. Learning more about the gospel, and the church's history can be tough on one's devotion to, and belief in the gospel. My initial discomfort with this venue stemmed from a belief that learning *too much* about the church's history, and talking about it with too many people is bad for one's testimony. I believe my blessing tells me that my testimony will be strong, that I can learn tough things, and still believe. Also, I think it means that as I learn more and work through my issues, my testimony will be made stronger.
There are all sorts of people in the world, some can just believe and would suffer if they question too much. Others suffer when they are told to just believe, but thrive when they can dig through the muck and find the gems of truth anyways. I think I'm the second sort of person.

Nancy: Part Two

2006-01-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I just told the story of what happened between Nancy and I. I later realized that I never really came to any sort of conclusion. So here it is.

The last time I saw Nancy, I was a freshman in college. From rumors I heard one of her friends (the one who I told about the imaginary boyfriend) had transferred to the university I was at because she had tried to commit suicide at her other university. I was walking on campus during a weekend, and was alone. Nancy must have come to visit her friend because as I was walking I saw the two of them walking together towards me. We passed, I said "hello." A few seconds later I could hear them laughing behind me. It was a sort of laugh that I knew probably had something to do with me, because I had laughed with Nancy like that before.

I hated her then.

I looked back at my high school years and everything that was miserable about them. It was all her fault. I looked at the troubles I was having at the time, and they all seemed to spring from the misery of high school.

I don't hate her anymore.

I still have issues that are probably related to my experience with her. I was once talkative, and friendly. I'm now shy and withdrawn. I don't trust people, and am not near so sure of myself as I would have been.

On the other hand, I am happily married. I have a healthy baby. I have a college degree. I have health and strength. Though I may have been depressed in high school, I'm not depressed anymore. I'm a well adjusted independent adult.

I can see that, had I remained friends with her, my life would have been much different. I don't know what sort of things Nancy did in high school, but the clothes she wore and the friends she kept indicate that her extracurriculars most likely were not entirely wholesome. I can see myself being a better person for the experience I had.

There is a scripture that I read as a senior in high school: Lev. 20:26 "And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people that ye should be mine." When I read this I understood why the whole thing was allowed to happen. I may not understand how, but I know that had I not gone through that mess I would not be the Lord's the way I am today.

Nancy

2006-01-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

In an ealier post I mentioned a friend that I had, who hurt my feelings pretty badly. I think it's finally time that I write about the whole event from start to finish. My junior high school was arranged in such a way that you had a 'team' who went to all the same classes and teachers as you did. This team was determined, more or less by which math class you were in. In sixth grade I had been placed in the 'regular' math class, after about a week, my teacher realized that I should have been put in the advanced math class, and had me moved. This meant that I was put into a new group of people who had already been somewhat established. I had all the 'perks' of being a 'new kid'(no friends to hang out with) with none of the benefits of actually being a new kid (being from another state or something).

One day my science teacher put us into groups so we could start a science project. Because the person who sat next to me was absent that day, I got paired up with Nancy(name obviously changed), whose neighbor was also absent. We got along alright, and by the time we had finished the project we were good friends.

Over time, even though I made a few other friends in my classes (especially orchestra) Nancy became my best friend. I always hung out with her, and really enjoyed her company. She had friends other than me, but I always assumed I was her best friend. I never really noticed them that much.

More time passed and not much changed to me. She became a lot more interested in clothes, and boys, and pop culture. I wasn't uninterested in these things per se, but my interest didn't increase the way her's did. I assumed that she found most of those sorts of things as silly as I found them.

Finally it happened. She got a boyfriend. He went to a different school, but she met him through some of her extracurricular activities. She talked about him a lot. She told me how great he was, and cute, and how she liked him so much. We were about 14 when this happened. We had grown out of "coming over to play," and spent our time being friends at school, and writing emails to eachother. The summer before we started high school her boyfriend moved away. To England. She often talked about how sad she was, and how tough it would be to maintain their relationship.

One night she called me. She was crying. She told me her boyfriend had died. I somehow knew that this was exactly what she was going to tell me. I don't know how I knew, but it felt obvious. The obviousness of it made it feel wrong somehow. She said he died in a surfing accident. She told me not to tell my parents, because she couldn't bear to hear them telling her how it would all be alright. This made no sense to me, since my parents never really ever talked to her anyways. I told my parents, and also told them that she had asked me not to. I bought her flowers and a card.

Later she told me that her boyfriend had appeared to her in a dream, and told her not to worry about him. I brushed it off as her dreaming about him. Then she told me he rearranged her room. Then she told me he wrote me a note. Thats right. She handed me a long note written by her dead boyfriend. After reading the note I was really creeped out.

I finally realized that this boyfriend was largely fictional. I had never met him, but she had always had such convincing excuses for why he coud never meet me. I had never seen a picture of him. She said he hated cameras, and had religious objections to being photographed. His handwriting looked suspiciously like hers, though obviously different. I looked up his name in phonebooks, and places where she said he was mentioned. I thought he died surfing in England because trying to that would be dangerous. I was naive and trusting. I thought I had failed my friend by missing her cries for attention. To me she needed help, and was crying out for it in an unconventional way. I decided to talk to her other friends, and see what they might have noticed that I didn't.

Her other friends, one in particular was eager to talk to me about it through email. She too, was worried about Nancy. She too had seen many warning signs, like not sleeping, not eating well. Her friend said that she thought Nancy wasn't taking her boyfriends death well. She focused on it, until I finally confided in her that I didn't think the boyfriend was ever real. The next day at school just before lunch I was alone in the hallway at my locker. My friend came walking towards me, She didn't say anything, but threw a folded piece of paper at me, and walked off. I was flabbergasted. When I opened the paper and read what was on it I was heartbroken. Her other friend had told her that I thought her boyfriend never existed. In the note she cussed at me, and threatened to kill me if I ever spoke to her again.

Through later conversations with people who knew her, I found out that I was right about her boyfriend, and very little else. Her boyfriend didn't exist, or at least never in the way she claimed. Someone who had been in her other circle of friends came to me one day to apologize for the part she had played in what Nancy did. She told me that I hadn't been Nancy's best friend for years, and maybe never was. I learned that she regularly told me lies just to see what she could get me to believe. I learned that she and her other friends thought up plans of how to trick me, and laughed together when they pulled it off. I learned that Nancy was probably sitting there with her other 'concerned' friend as I wrote emails to her about how worried I was about Nancy.

My other friends had moved on without me while I was being friends with Nancy. I was left with no-one to talk to, or sit with or anything. I can look back and see myself and the sterotypical nerdy looser girl. Glasses, chubby, doesn't wear makeup, wears lame clothes, sits by herself, gets really good grades, and barely whispers when she talks.

As I mentioned before, I haven't really made new friends since then. It bothers me that if I remember too much I still cry about it. It bothers me that my husband and others play down how important that event was in my life, and how deeply it affected me.

I trusted her, and loved her. She lied to me, and made a fool out of me with a whole group of her 'real' friends. As I look back on it, I was probably the person who cared the most about her, and I believe she did herself a disservice in treating me that way. I'm curious what she thinks about when she remembers me. I wonder if she's grown up enough to feel bad about it. I wonder if she is callous enough to think that it didn't really matter.

I really wonder what she would think if she read this.

The Ring of Power

2006-01-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

Once my dad asked me who I thought the *main* character of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was(this was when the first movie was released). My first thought was to say "Frodo. He carried the ring, and without him all of middle earth would have fallen under Sauron's power." Then I remembered the end of the story, how Samwise had literally carried Frodo, and went without food and water to keep Frodo strong. I especially recalled how at the very end, within Mt. Doom, Frodo went mad with power and intended to keep the ring to himself, and all that saved Sam from having to push Frodo and the Ring into the pit was the fact that Gollum who was more mad than Frodo stole the ring from him and fell into the pit on his own. So rather than saying that Frodo was the main character, I said that it was Samwise. He was the true hero of the story, though I couldn't quite put my finger on what he did that was so heroic. I just felt it, though I couldn't understand it. My dad answered, "I think so too, and I don't understand why everyone is making such a big deal about Frodo, while they keep forgetting Sam."
I don't think my dad was getting at anything other than what he said, but this conversation hit home to me in other matters, and it's recently come to mind again. It's a fuzzy and mushy glob of thoughts that seem to be related, but I haven't been able to put it in a rigid and obvious form. Anyways, here they are.

The One Ring, is the Priesthood. (Probably not a metaphor you'll see discussed in Priesthood meetings, but bear with me for a while). It's a real power that can be used for good purposes, but it is real *power,* or *authority.* And as D&C tells us, as soon as man gets a little authority unrighteous dominion enters into the picture. The anitdote? Humility, this is why the little unassuming hobbits were given the task of carrying the Ring. This is also why pride is such a potent vice.

Frodo is the Priesthood bearers. Assigned the task of carrying the ring for no obvious reason, he was given the task of leading the fellowship to Mt. Doom and back. So the Priesthood bearer is given authority for no obvious reason and is assigned the task of leading his family through mortality and back. Frodo is given companions to assist, protect, and comfort him, and is also given instructions by Elves and Wizards, just as the Priesthood holders are given family and church quorums and guidance from prophets and the Holy Ghost.

Samwise is the Women of the church. Samwise was "caught listening at the window" by Gandalf and then was given the assignment of never leaving Frodo's side, and being his companion. So it is that Eve was "caught" partaking of the fruit and was thus assigned to never leave Adam's side and to be his companion, and to let him rule over her.

Gollum is... yep he's Satan. Gollum had a taste of power, then it was taken from him, and he's mad with trying to get it back. He knows the only way to do so is to separate Frodo and Sam, then kill Frodo. He knows the Ring has weakened Frodo, and does his best to make Frodo suspicious of Sam. Satan strives to make men and women suspicious of eachother. He tells Men that they are special, or better and have been given the Priesthood for a good reason, or that the priesthood is a horrible burden to bear and they shouldn't have to make that sacrifice while the women do nothing. He tells women that men are evil and they have been keeping the priesthood from women.

It's obvious that if Frodo and Sam agreed to carry the ring together, it would be problematic because of the nature of the ring. Frodo carries it for a day, then Sam the next day, and eventually the Ring would have worked it's power on both of them and they would have killed eachother for it. Gandalf knew the ring, and it's history. I think he knew that only one person could carry it the whole way if he had a companion that would never carry it, and would never want to carry it. That way Frodo could go mad with power, but Samwise would be there to see that the task of destroying the ring gets completed.

So here's the thing, women were not given the priesthood and were told that men should rule over them so that the men can go mad with power, but the women will still be there to see that the task of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of Man (through raising righteous families) gets completed.

We're all so decieved by Satan that we no longer see the heroism in being like Samwise, and we feel disconted at the tasks we've been given. It's as Rosalynde Welch said at this discussion that "When it comes to the competition between needs of individual women and the needs of stable social formations, as we so often find, there’s no win-win scenario. " Perhaps we are so flawed as mortals that we can't share the One Ring and remain righteous. And even though I can't *understand* how what I'm doing as a women is 'heroic' or righteous perhaps I'll have better luck just feeling it, the way I feel that Samwise really is the hero of the story even though it's not obvious why.

Propriety

2005-12-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

This thread over at FMH has reminded of a problem I have. I'm not sure why, since the two are entirely unrelated. The problem is this: I have a *really* hard time making friends with other women.
Perhaps further explanation is in order. When I was 15 my best friend did something to me that hurt my feelings, this thing she did also led me to believe that she had been only pretending to be my friend for at least a year or so. Either way the hurt went deep into my 15 year old psyche, and I'm still not sure I've recovered. Since then, every friend I've made has been male. (I was friendly with my roomates in college, but not really friends.) This creates a bit of a problem.
I've been married for two years, and me forming friendships with men other than my husband would be shady at best. It would be even more shady since most of the men I meet are also married. So I haven't made any new friends. Also, I've sort of cut myself off from my old friends who are male, for the sake of propriety. I had initially hoped that they would become friends with my husband, but this didn't really pan out.
I would very much like to make friends with the women in my ward, but I get nervous, uncomfortable, and defensive around *any* other women. In fact the only common trait these people share is that they are women. I can make excuses and say that I haven't met any women with interests similar to mine, which is essentially true. (Math, Astronomy and Soccer aren't exactly the topics of choice in the mother's lounge.) But I do have lesser interests (knitting, tap dancing, baby care etc.) that I'm sure I share with someone. But it really comes down to the fact that I feel threatened by anyone who is female, and have the darndest time being comfortable around them.
Any advice?
Anyone? Anyone? Beuler?

Divide and Conquer!

2005-12-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

When I listen to the news, and hear stories about criminals being caught, I often think of the way that I could have committed the same crime without being caught. I'm not sure why I do this since I never plan on turning to a life of crime. After reading the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, I started to wonder if applying this 'what would I have done' to Satan's tactics might be a good way to help me spot his influence in our society, and on myself. So, if I were Satan, how would I go about dividing and conquering the true church of God? Especially what would I do to make sure that no one would take the true church seriously? Here's my plan.

Step 1: Make at least two new churches. The more churches the better. Here's the really important part, make sure each church has some eternal truth in it's main practices/doctrines.
Step 2: After you have a collection of churches with at least one eternal truth, build up a lot of things that go along with that church's specific truth. More specifically things that contradict the truths found in other churches. For example there is church A and church B. The truth found in church A is the proper way to perform baptism. The truth found in church B is that forgiveness can be found through prayer. Church A will teach that forgiveness can only be had through baptism, and Church B will teach that forgiveness can only be had through prayer.
Step 3: Make beliefs about proper behavior as wildly divergent between the churches as possible. For example one church celebrates through dance, another church believes dancing is a sin.
Step 4: Put some eternal truths in other religions that worship false Gods. Make sure those truths are a major part of that religion's practices, and are easily associated with that religion.

If each church has some truth to it, then perhaps the spirit cannot help but bear witness that at least that one part is true. Therefore people will have a belief in the truthulness of their church because they have a testimony that their one practice is true. Also the individual will have a deep mistrust of other churches because the other churches overlook a practice that the individual has a testimony of. The person will begin to associate the practices of other churches with wickedness, especially the practices of religions that worship false Gods. Then when the true church of God appears on the scene people will be so trained to look for the practices of other churches that contradict the teachings of their church that they will dismiss it as false. It is especially effective if people hear the truths that were practiced by the false god religions.
For example: church A members will look at the true church and see that it preaches forgiveness through prayer (while ignoring the proper way to perform baptisms) and will dismiss it as a false church like church B. Church B members will look at the true church and will see that it teaches the proper way to perform baptism (again ignoring the forgiveness through prayer) and dismiss it as a false church like church A. It's really great when the members of church A and B see the true church teaching something they've associated with, say, witchcraft (secret rites and ceremonies) and dismiss the true church as heretical. The practices associated with the heretical churches are really great. They can make people who already belong to the one true church loose faith because the members of the one true church saw themselves belonging to a mild church like church A and B, and had never had the idea that even heretics could have a kernel of truth.
So simple, yet so effective.

How I've Dealt with the Temple

2005-02-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

A Series outlining problems that I had with the Temple and what I did to reconcile those problems with my beliefs.

Part I: Til We Have Faces
Part II: Surender
Part III: Genuine People Personalites

(I've made the post date on this way in the past so that it doesn't show up on the front page. It's a lame hack, but hey, it works. )