Monthly Archives: November 2009

Anish Kapoor on Spirituality

November 30, 2009
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Anish Kapoor on Spirituality

On the BBC, there is a great series of Art documentaries entitled ‘Imagine’.  Alan Yentob, a Television Executive, presents them and in the most recent, as of 18th Nov 2009, Yentob interviews and discusses the work of Anish Kapoor.  People will recognise his sculptures without necessarily remembering his name, perhaps the height of fame for an artist.  Having recently finished reading Givens’ ‘A People of Paradox’ I have been considering the relationship between Art and Spirituality and during this documentary Kapoor made some interesting comments which resonated with me.

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Is Morality Universal?

November 30, 2009
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Is morality a social construct or is it universal, transcending time and culture?  Or is it a little bit of both?  Read on to find out more about what we call “morality.”

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Conflict, peace and peacemaking. The LDS difference.

November 28, 2009
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Conflict, peace and peacemaking.  The LDS difference.

I was looking at a news item. Canadian School of Peacebuilding Research studies verify what experience tells us: the majority of Christian congregations endure internal conflict. At any given time, one fifth of congregations are engaged in serious conflict. Conflict is a fact of congregational life that can be skillfully or awkwardly managed. This course will examine the “firest…orm” of faith-based conflict. We will survey problems that typically lead to conflict, unique dynamics of healthy and unhealthy group interactions that commonly occur, and creative ways of using conflict in faithful, lifebuilding ways. We will use didactic methods, which include...

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Perspective

November 26, 2009
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Everybody blogs, right? Why not me? Looking for my niche, my angle, and the one thing that seemed to make me stand out in my corner of the world. I found it: Being single. And 40. And Mormon. In a family ward. In a town where EVERYONE is under 30, sealed in the temple and constantly reproducing. The best humor is found in our painful life experiences. Read about mine and laugh with me. Or at me. Whichever

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A British Thanksgiving (on the Down-Low)

November 26, 2009
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A British Thanksgiving (on the Down-Low)

This is kind-of an impromptu post and so I hope you can forgive the intrusion.  But, I love Thanksgiving.  

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Is New Moon the New Cool? -By Amita Benedetti

November 26, 2009
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Is New Moon the New Cool? -By Amita Benedetti

For anyone vaguely familiar with the Latter-day Saints, the many parallels between the Twilight Saga and the Church’s theology will be apparent. As a mother of two and full-time secondary school teacher, I was adamant not to read the novels in spite of having been asked, begged and ordered a countless number of times this year, to do so, claiming I was far too busy. Nevertheless, as I have now seen both Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon, I can not help but feel a slight sting of portentousness as I recognise I may have been somewhat rash...

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10 LDS Things I’m Thankful for

November 25, 2009
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10 LDS Things I’m Thankful for

Thanksgiving is, IMO, the perfect holiday:  good food, a day off work, and no presents to worry about.  In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to post 10 Things I’m Thankful for about the church and ask that each of you share what you are thankful for.

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Hate Crimes up for Gays, Religious

November 24, 2009
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So, what do you make of this?  This AP article says that Hate crimes up against gays, religious groups – “Overall, the number of reported cases increases 2 percent.” Now the FBI says this could be the result of better reporting, and not really an increase.

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Elder Holland Publicly Denounces Past Racist Teachings by LDS Church Leaders

November 24, 2009
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Elder Holland Publicly Denounces Past Racist Teachings by LDS Church Leaders

“One clear-cut position is that the folklore must never be perpetuated. … I have to concede to my earlier colleagues. … They, I’m sure, in their own way, were doing the best they knew to give shape to , to give context for it, to give even history to it. All I can say is however well intended the explanations were, I think almost all of them were inadequate and/or wrong. … It probably would have been advantageous to say nothing, to say we just don’t know, and, with many religious matters, whatever was being done was done...

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Musings on Modesty & Mormonism

November 24, 2009
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Musings on Modesty & Mormonism

Today’s guest post is from Reuben Collins who also blogs at Single Speed.

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Finding Meaning in Suffering: Part 1

November 23, 2009
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Two of the writers I have come to admire most over the last year have both said that they do not believe all suffering is meaningful, but I struggle to accept that emotionally even though it makes sense intellectually.  Lowell Bennion was once asked about suffering and he replied ‘I haven’t suffered that much, but I think there is more human suffering than we need in order to develop human values, to teach us the meaning and value of life, compassion for other people… Some people are exposed to suffering beyond any possible value to them.’   Similarly, Clive...

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Michael Smith Suspended for Iran Comments

November 21, 2009
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Ok, I am when someone who get bothered when someone makes disparaging comments about another ethnic group.  Fox suspended LA Clippers announcers Ralph Lawler and Michael Smith for one game because of one email from “a viewer who e-mailed Fox to complain.”  Give me a break.  Please, what is so offensive about this conversation?

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Time to Study The Old Testament…Again – Part 2, The Books

November 20, 2009
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In this part 2 of the Studying the Old Testament series, we will discuss the books of the Old Testament, how they were organized, different books contained in different bibles, and extra-biblical books.

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Death to the World!

November 18, 2009
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Death to the World!

In my endless search for connections between faith and music, I came across a stark and beautiful sight last month.  First of all, I finally bought a Sleep album after knowing about them for years.  Sleep is a sludgy, brutal Doom/Stoner Metal band from the early ’90s, and I really can’t explain why I love them so much.  But that’s beside the point.  I was reading about their history, and discovered that one of their original guitarists, Justin Marler, had left the band to become an Orthodox monk.

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Romantic Paternalism

November 17, 2009
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Romantic Paternalism

Mormon Matters welcomes our newest guest poster.  Kate Kelly graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in Political Science. She served a mission for the church in Barcelona, Spain. She is currently in law school at American University’s Washington College of Law, the only law school in the nation world founded by women. She has had a career of various and sundry amazing jobs. She has been a mortgage counselor, an interpreter, an English teacher and spent last summer in Manhattan working at the Center for Constitutional Rights, as an Ella Baker legal fellow. She and her nurturing,...

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Agency and the Plan of Salvation

November 16, 2009
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Agency and the Plan of Salvation

Before the world was, so say the prophets and prophetesses, our spirits dwelt in a heavenly sphere. As the world was to be made, the two eldest spirits came before heaven’s host assembled and presented two grand plans for our future mortality. The vision of the first was one of unity, a chorus of souls bringing glory to God through perfect obedience, from which there could be no deviation of individual will. By contrast, the vision of the second appeared to be cacophony. Mortal souls, empowered by agency, would be free to act, in turns, more righteously, and less....

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A Bloggernacle Church Handbook of Instruction

November 15, 2009
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A Bloggernacle Church Handbook of Instruction

Just recently I was re-reading an essay by Eugene England entitled ‘On Finding Truth and God’.  It has been something that has helped me deal with, or rather live with, my own doubts.  So helpful in fact I would consider passing it on to someone who is having their own difficulties and struggles.  It occurred to me that among the bloggernacle there is probably a broad spectrum of literature that is consumed and which would be spiritually helpful.  Between us I thought we could gather together our own Bloggernacle Church Handbook of Instruction (CHI) by collating those articles, essays...

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Utah Happiest State in Nation

November 14, 2009
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Andrew Ainsworth did a post back in March wondering if Mormon Culture is Depressing Utahns? If we can blame depression on Mormon Culture, apparently it is fair game to blame Mormon Culture for making Utah the Happiest State in the nation, according to this MSNBC article.  Let’s look at the Top 10:

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To Those Struggling In Their Faith

November 13, 2009
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There are many within Mormonism who struggle daily with their faith. They have been exposed to historical information they were not aware of, they were torn in political battle, they dislike the culture, or in some other way awoke to a “reality” they had not known before. It can be a lonely place in a tight knit community with such strong beliefs. And when a person is in that frame of mind, it often feels like the solution is to crawl in a hole and disappear. To further throw salt in the wound, the church doesn’t have any sort...

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What is the Final Destination for Apostates and Ex-Mormons?

November 13, 2009
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What is the Final Destination for Apostates and Ex-Mormons?

I’ve always taken it as a given that Mormonism’s view of the afterlife shuffle has always been more universalizing than most of the other alternatives. Our formulation of heaven intuitively accommodates for the varying levels of understanding people can achieve in this life and in the spirit world: instead of a binary — heaven and hell — we have glories of heaven. So, we can safely say that although most people aren’t Mormons, most people won’t go to “Hell,” or at least, not the kind of Hell that many non-LDS religious people want to posit for nonbelievers of their...

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