Category: Personal Issues

I tend to make few comments during lessons in Sunday School or Priesthood, even when something is said that I deeply disagree with. I don’t want to be labeled as one who “stirs the pot” or the “ward liberal”, so for the sake of maintaining harmonious relationships in the ward I usually keep my thoughts to one-on-one interactions I have with closer friends in the ward. When asked to comment (or to speak in Sacrament), I try to do it in a way that facilitates conversation without sparking controversy. Continue reading “Exchanging Orthodoxy for Orthopraxy”

My experience in my new ward over the past month has reinforced to me the need for another higher level of Sunday School classes. I know that there is nothing new in the ‘nacle but let’s hash this out again, for my sake. Continue reading “The Next Level of Sunday School”

What I have in my hands here is a nice, large can filled with worms. Please observe what follows as I open said can…

There has been two good long discussions lately that have caused me to strongly experience a feeling that I used to have frequently. I describe this experience this way: I come upon a conversation about some aspect of the Gospel or scriptures that is being discussed by others. I’m very interested and I follow along and occasionally make points. But eventually I discern that I’m not really participating in the discussion because I don’t understand some major aspect(s) of what is going on. It’s over my head and I can’t figure out either what is being said or how it is relevant to the topic. My experience has been that eventually I usually discover that my own views were quite simplistic and that I was not following the conversation because I did not understand how my own views had long ago been passed up/expanded upon/delved into/whatever and so it was my own limited knowledge that was my barrier.

My education since my mission has reduced the number of times that this happens greatly. But occasionally, as now, it still happens. Now I’m better able to identify it and get to the heart of what I’m not following. I’d like some help in the two current cases of this. One is public, the other is not. I’m posting this here, however, to hopefully help other ignoramuses like myself and to ask if I’m the only one left on this blog (Chris H. being a possible exception) who still experiences this. Continue reading “Can Someone Help Me Understand…”

It was kind of odd that anyone even found her that day. She was alone, in the bed in the handicapped area off the main women’s dressing room at the temple. Her face was pale, and she was sweating, in tears, and sick to her stomach. Her home was some distance away but her stake had a meeting that afternoon. She’d fallen the day before and re-injured her back, causing muscle spasms and making her unable to sit, stand, or walk without pain.

Her new husband had given her a blessing after the accident, telling her the situation was “a test of her faith” to be demonstrated in her decisions about coming to the temple. He brought her to the temple and left her alone while he went on a session; she found her way to the dressing room and then to the bed. To the extent that she was coherent, it seemed that she was to meet him in the hallway so that they could attend the meeting together.

In time, news of this situation found its way to the matron. Someone suggested that in the course of comforting the young woman she invite the couple to visit with a member of the presidency on the way out for some kindly discussion of the situation from another point of view. Ultimately, the matron rejected this course of action, saying that it was a learning experience for the husband in his newly created family unit and “we must respect his priesthood leadership.”

Meanwhile, on a planet nearest the throne of God heavenly Mother sat watching the path below her window. One of her favorite sons, young Elohim, was coming for a visit. His was a newly created dominion, with one of the prettiest planets she’d ever seen. Lately, she’d heard some disturbing news, though, about certain unfortunate events. But, as she’d reasoned to herself several times over the course of the morning, it was a new experience for him and she was obliged to respect his priesthood leadership.

Right?

In today’s Daily Unifarce, I mean… Universe, buried in the back (on p.11) was an interesting article about how LDS college age students don’t buy, and therefore must not read, Gospel-topic literature from places like Deseret Book. It also includes in a side bar the top 10 suggestions for which books are the most influential among Mormons and which are considered required reading in religious circles. Yeah, this is going to be good. Continue reading “The Best Books?”

I’ve been pondering (much akin to Pinky and the Brain) about the place of the Church in the categorization of orthodoxy and orthopraxy of late. I figured that we’d run out our last theme fairly thoroughly. Anyways, I don’t know exactly what it was that spurred the pondering in me but (must have been something in church) but today I listened to a lecture by Dan Peterson which went over this topic as a part of a broader comparison of Semitic world view tendencies versus Greek world view tendencies and their reflections in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and I have been inspired to write. Continue reading “Orthodoxy VS. Orthopraxy”