• a proper English gentleman
• a modernized Biblical patriarch
• an erudite English professor at a Ivy league university
• a tame Lion (returning to the C. S. Lewis reference)?

Do you recreate God in your own idealized image?

There is a constant assumption in much of what I read that God shares the sensibilities, values and perspectives of the person writing.  That to the extent that God does not, then God is wrong or those who see God that way are wrong.

Now duality teaches us that it may well be that God is both the way we see him and the way that others see him — not that there is a superior view of God, but that God is possibly many different things at once.

But at some times, as Jacob 2:8-9 reflects, God is things or messages or approaches that do not necessarily fit what we want and think we need right now.

I am aware that historically the risk and hardships were greater, the financial rewards of coming to America were much less.  Political and religious freedom were often the only reward.  The last one hundred years or so have created a dramatic change in the financial outlook offered by immigration while at the same time the cost of travel has dropped steadily.

But what is my duty to those who come here?  To those who do not come?  Am I my brother’s keeper?  What does that mean?

The questions have several completely different parts:

• Part of the question comes down to inheritance.  Should there be any right of inheritance?  What is my right to the things that have been given to me or that I have as the result of my parents or others?  After all, everything I have as a citizen of a country is really an inheritance, something I have as a gift, not because I earned it myself.
• Part of the question is whether nation-states have the right to exist, to define themselves and their memberships.  Who has a right to their services and to entry?  Does the state have any rights?  Do people have a right to a state? Does any state have a right to exist?
• Part of the question is what happens under various solutions, various answers, various approaches.  It is the nature of the current outcome that creates the hideous problems that drive the current criticisms of the present system, it is the anticipated issues of various proposed solutions that such resistance.
• Part of the question is whether or not I have any duty to my neighbor, to my brothers and sisters?  What is my moral duty?  How should that fit my legal duty?

Some baby steps are obvious.  The military favors giving people green cards who are willing to enlist and who qualify to serve in the military.  Some “solutions” are acknowledged as so disastrous as be bluntly rejected by just about everyone (e.g. completely closed borders, no immigration, no tourists, no imports or exports).

As to completely open borders, the simulations show at least two hundred million immigrants the first year.  90% of Haiti; 85% of the doctors in the Philippines (where now we’ve had almost 10% of them retrain as nurses in order to work in the United States as RNs); etc.  There is also an expected complete collapse of any universal services such as free schools and Medicaid unless access is restrained.  On the other hand, a stable population equilibrium is estimated at six hundred to seven hundred million people (including current residents), with peak expected not to break a billion with open borders before population falls off.  Most see that as not much better than completely closed borders.

But the current situation is pretty bad, including kidnapping, brutality, death and hardship with incredible pressure on anyone (outside of H1Bs) who attempts to comply with the law.  Bottom line:  terrible hardship and abuse.  The side effects are toxic and harsh so that everyone is crying out for relief.

Obviously it seems like something should be done, one would hope, to make things better.  But what – that is the big question, what is our duty and what is common sense even if we do not acknowledge anyone as our brothers and sisters?  I don’t have a solution; I’m looking for those in the comments. But if we are our brother’s keepers (and our sister’s too) the status quo is not enough.  What is your solution, what do you suggest?

Sometimes the act of seeing, the presence of an observer and how the observer chooses to look actually changes recordable reality.  That is, depending on whether you look, and how you look changes reality.  This isn’t just perceived differences, but actual take a picture of the outcome and pass it around for others to look at the picture differences.

The easiest example is light passing through one or more slits and exposing an image on photographic paper.  If you have one slit, then the light fans out in a wave and the paper is exposed completely (it all turns black from exposure).  If you have two slits, the light fans out in a wave and creates interference patterns (like waves will do) and you get bands on the paper.  If you slow it down so the light only goes off one photon at a time, it builds up into the same result, which is kind of neat.  With two slits, even one photon at a time the light creates interference with itself when it isn’t really there yet.  [for a better explanation:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment]

But, if you fire the photons off one at a time with two slits and watch the light go through the slits, it suddenly acts like there is only one slit (because it is actually only going through a single slit at any one time).  The photographic image it creates changes if you watch it go through the slits.  By observing what is happening you change the result, even though you aren’t interacting with the light other than with the force of your regard.

But what does that mean to my life if someone or somebody is watching me?  Does God change the shape and pattern of my life by being aware of it?  How much of reality can be affected by just how God chooses to see it or let others see it?

**I’ll note that this post makes for three on dualities, though the second of mine, thus being both the third and the second post on how things can be different things at the same time. Some differences, and some types of differences, are more meaningful than others. But the effect of an observer is one more way that things can be more than one thing at the same time and why it matters.

http://www.blacklds.org/renee-olson-full-testimony

Her Facebook memorial page here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Renee-Olson-memorial/158092054201230

She will be missed.

The only worse thing that happened was when one of the women complained about it, an elders quorum president said “You can ignore her, she is a woman and doesn’t have the priesthood and so doesn’t have any authority at all.”

What is the worst thing you’ve ever heard anyone say?

Cross posted from http://ethesis.blogspot.com/

I was going to post about immigration and being your brother’s keeper, but that will wait until next week.

The advocate who completely turned things around:  Joseph Smith (whose corrections became those two sections).  He gave what is one of my favorite sermons about how we have freedom to believe and how open the Church should be to all.

What is interesting is that we have a trend in the Church to reduce the amount of teaching that is considered “doctrine.”  Officially, there is little change. But as a Church we are redefining what we believe at the core and what is speculation.  We have a significant shift away from the “fill every niche” approach and a huge shift towards the Book of Mormon as a testament of Christ.

The move makes a great deal of sense in two completely different ways.  The first is a growing appreciation for a core teaching of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith that our understanding is limited by our context:  our language, experience and knowledge shape what we can understand and how we understand. There is truth in describing some things as the unutterable things of the Spirit — there are things beyond the words we have.

It also works very well if we accept dualism; that is, that multiple conflicting descriptions can be true.  Not that it is a “blind men & the elephant” situation, but rather that somethings are both waves and particles (rather than just particles made of waves). That is, the latest viewpoint is not necessarily the “full” or correct one, it is just another one.

If there is a significant amount of dualism, then a wide range of acceptable points are all part of the truth. In fact, dualism requires an openness to multiple, perhaps conflicting viewpoints in order to encompass all of the truth. It is not a matter of one view transcending earlier partial views.  It is, instead, a need to accept “both” or “many” views as true in order to have all of the truth.

Which means paring the core teachings so that they do not block dualism where it applies.  By paring things down we are actually expanding our access to truth and our ability to teach it by keeping ourselves from rejecting those areas where dualism applies.  In this case it means, very strongly, that less is actually more, and the only path we have to encompassing more.

I am curious where you see dualism applying in the Church today and in the doctrines we have reduced to no longer being exclusionary of other viewpoints.

In some classes, it appears that they teachers gloss over the talk and then launch into asking people to tell about times they were healed.  Healed = faithful saints with the grace of God.  Not healed = vile faithless sinners.  Kind of like revisiting the neo-Calvinism of Job all over again.

On the other hand, in the class I was in we talked about the talk, how Elder Oaks pointed out that the most important thing in a blessing was the will of God, the least important part whatever words we managed to say, and then got into a discussion of folk practices in the Church and the incident where Joseph Smith began the curing of the saints afflicted by cholera.  It was a dramatic event, made the more so by his return home to Emma, where she asked him merely “why could you heal all of those people, yet our children died?”  Joseph responded that he could only do the will of the Lord.

Sometimes it is not a lack of faith, sometimes it is not a failure to find the right person with the right gifts to give the blessing, sometimes it is not a failure to find the right words, and it is not a matter of inherent grace.  In all matters it is most importantly the will of God, with God’s love and purpose to seek our good, that is the significant factor.

Which I liked better than the way Job ends with a litany of examples of how God is powerful, Job is not, so repent and suck it up.  That did not comfort me much at all.

What do you think of the book of Job (especially now that it has been analyzed almost to death by the bloggernacle) and how did Elder Oak’s talk on healing strike you?  If it was taught in your stake, what about the lesson based on it went well for you, what did not and what do you think could be done to improve it?

So, how do I speculate without offending too many people or getting too obscure for anyone to care? After all, if gender is an essential part of human nature, what is gender, what is essential, and what part of it is human?

Attraction is very persistent, almost like a compulsive disorder. It is also very flexible. People find each other attractive through pregnancy and through aging. I look at people the age of my wife when we got married and I just see kids now. It can be very fickle. I know a couple who divorced because one of them did not make a convincing blond.

Is attraction an essential part of ones nature? How does sex fit into gender? Would an intelligent slime mold be raised in the resurrection with its original sex intact or would it be moved into a binary gender assignment?

Are men and women different? Are the all different the same away as a fundamental difference?

When do we discuss all of the sub-issues without insulting each other? Which issues do you consider important?

I would suggest the issues might include:

· How many essential genders are there?

· Is gender limited to or controlled by what attracts you?

· What differences are there between genders?

· What of gender differences are based in culture, what is based in biology or a fallen world, what is essential?

· What is gender?

I don’t think we can really get to an intelligent discussion of gender essentialism until we begin to define or work out how many genders there are, what gender is, how much of it is spiritual vs. other factors and if it has any limit created by attraction? Does sexual orientation or attraction have anything to do with gender? Is it everything? What about people who are asexual (without any sexual attraction or drive) or seeking asexual relationships (which, by the way, applies to most of the animal companion movement as well as a building movement with couples who are seeking asexual marriage companions) – is that a gender orientation? Is gender relevant only as to humans? If not, where would an intelligent (or not) slime mold fit?

Is anyone interested in a longer set of questions or addressing the issues one at a time? Can a longer set of questions occur without it devolving into a marriage debate or insults?

Have we really even addressed the necessary foundation to have this conversation within the LDS perspective?

What do you think?

He is also the man truly responsible for William Tyndale’s being burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English in addition to those he was able to prosecute and burn directly for owning copies of the scriptures in English such as John Tewkesbury.

We tend to reverence Tyndale since he coined most of the new words in the King James Version, and that version of the Bible is about 90% Tyndale’s work (the translators who did the King James, while they were instructed to translate from sources and to focus on literary quality, also took an interest in retaining Tyndale’s work to the extent possible).  We also tend to reverence More as heroic, someone who embodies the virtues we all wish we had.  At the same time, it is sobering to think how his virtues also were the same thing that led to what we would now see as a sin against God – the effort to keep the scriptures from the people.

More is interesting, because once you’ve looked at him both ways, you can look at Samuel again.  Samuel had sons who were rapacious.  Imagine if Thomas Monson had some sons that kept their mistresses employed at the Salt Lake Temple, felt free to loot the Bishop’s Storehouse regularly and were employed as judges in Utah who freely (and apparently publicly) supplemented their income with bribes.

As I mentioned before, it is not surprising that against such a backdrop the Children of Israel decided that they wanted a king rather than continuing on with the pot luck of judges – nor is it surprising that when they were warned of where a bad king might lead them they did not see it as so bad.  Tellingly, Samuel’s response to this all, when he conferred with God was to see this as a repudiation not of God but of himself.  This is not too far different from the early members of the Church who excluded large swaths of public figures from having temple work done because when their flaws were reviewed (such as Sir Thomas More’s flaws), those doing the work just could not see it as appropriate to do it for them.

Of course we know what God told Samuel.  The people had not rejected Samuel, they had rejected God.  We know what happened in later times, we have the vision at the St. George Temple (usually recounted without the context, which is not an affirmation of the truth of the Church, it is a rebuke against the judgments that were being made — that it was not our place to judge whether or not they had sinned against the light they had, but instead we should leave that to God).

Viewpoint makes a difference.  I read blogs, from time to time, that I disagree with because reading them changes my viewpoint (e.g. http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/) – at least some times.  How often does your viewpoint change from things you learn and why does it change?

Perspective can be vastly altered by editing, which is what historians do.  Have you been edited?

It is obviously a vacation weekend. The only member of the bishopric in town is a very junior second counselor. He spots a member of the stake presidency sitting in the back with his family. With a sigh, the poor brother walks up to the stand. The counselor relaxes, opens the meeting with the note that the “poor brother” is presiding and goes on.

In our worship services, presiding means sitting there and, by being present, enabling other people to take the lead, letting them take charge, letting them feel confident and supported. Presiding doesn’t meaning control in that situation, it does not mean unasked for guidance, it does not mean direction. It means providing support, it means enabling and it means caring.

To the extent that presiding involves action, we have guidance in scripture. Patience, kindness, gentleness, love unfeigned. That is what presiding means, a call to serve with love and to lead by the persuasion of example, not dictat. It mans acting the same way as Christ and the Holy Ghost act in our lives.

I might suggest that one of the most difficult things we can do, that we can learn, that we can share is to act like Christ. To preside, when called to it, or it is appropriate, in the same way Christ and the Holy Ghost act and preside in our lives, is part of the ultimate challenge.

Satan has an alternative plan, involving force, demands and insistence: a plan of control rather than persuasion. Which do you think you should chose? Which do you see chosen by others?

Visit these two sites, devoted to what I see as God’s way:

• http://ldswave.org/ (the official W.A.V.E. site)
• http://adrr.com/wave/ (my suggestions toward the next iteration, obviously parallels many things they are doing since I’ve been listening to them and think they are neat).

and then give me your answers, suggestions and comments about what you see as God’s way and how we can reach it.

Thank you.

Stephen M (Ethesis)

No one seems to blanch at the thought that Noah got drunk and passed out in public, that Peter after he began to lead the Church still bowed to social pressure at times (and was confronted about it by Paul) or that Moses had issues over his marriages and children.  Most Catholics have long resolved their issues with the inquisitions and the times there were two or three popes.

The same way one looks at the current Church and its strengths and weaknesses, one can look at you can look at Samuel.  Samuel had sons who were rapacious.  They used the female attendants at the temple as a personal harem, they disrupted services to take portions of the sacrifices other than those allocated to them in proper time and order and they took bribes to corrupt justice. Imagine if Thomas Monson had some sons that kept their mistresses employed at the Salt Lake Temple, felt free to loot the Bishop’s Storehouse regularly and were employed as judges in Utah who freely (and apparently publicly) supplemented their income with bribes.

It is not surprising that against such a backdrop the Children of Israel decided that they wanted a king rather than continuing on with the pot luck of judges – nor is it surprising that when they were warned of where a bad king might lead them they did not see it as so bad.  Tellingly, Samuel’s response to this all, when he conferred with God was to see this as a repudiation not of God but of himself.  Of course we know what God told Samuel.  The people had not rejected Samuel, they had rejected God.

I know that most bloggers do not see the LDS Church as refreshingly open compared to other groups.  I would suggest that viewpoint makes a difference (though I would acknowledge that just doing better than someone else is not necessarily a sign of doing good enough) in this and other things.

Where do you think a neutral viewpoint might be different from the common view often found in the bloggernacle?

Instead, it is my turn to do a meta post about the bloggernacle.

In some communities comments on posts are a tit for tat thing.  You post a comment on my topic, I visit you and post a comment on yours.  Anyone who doesn’t reciprocate eventually ends up being frozen out of the community.

In some communities, all responses are pretty much within the thread.  You comment on my post, I post a response.  If I don’t, people cease to comment on my posts.

In other communities, everyone who is a part of the community posts on each other’s posts.  E.g. if we did that at Mormon Matters, every post would have a comment by every permablogger.  Some times the community handles the response portion.  You post on my group blog post, someone from my community will will post a response.

If you’ve ever seen the acronym “RAEBNC” (read and enjoyed but no comment) you’ve seen the etiquette in action when people had no idea of what to say, but felt a duty to make sure they had posted something.  I do something similar to that with authors I really enjoy reading but don’t have much to add — just to try to encourage them (or why my comments to Bored in Vernal’s posts may seem so shallow).

Then we have the bloggernacle. It has none of the standard posting or commenting patterns.  In fact, to the extent I can define a blog as a part of the bloggernacle or likely to be rejected (such as the complaints about Mormon Mommy Blogs being included in the Niblets), if it has a traditional form of responsive posting, it is probably a blog that the consensus would reject.

I find that fascinating.  I wonder if it is a part of LDS or Utah culture, the nature of the academics and quasi-academics who populate some of the founding blogs (academics tend to not reciprocate:  normal human beings are not “real people” in their world, so there are no real social duties owed to them any more than the social duties owed to lab mice or first year students), or something else?  What do you think?

It did not get much better with my second introduction, when I was doing some research into Ba’l, since the Bible Dictionary reference we inherited for free from the Church of England publishers dates back to the 1800s and is a little wrong.

Ba’l rides on the clouds, he has two hammers, thunder and lightening, he is banished by the summer drought, the pretender to his throne is the god of irrigation and he returns with the winter storms.  Regardless of what some Egyptologist thought in the 1800s, he is a storm god, not a sun god, which is why his priests took Elijah’s challenge to call fire from heaven down on a mountain top (lightening tends to hit mountain tops all the time).  There is a body of hymns to Ba’l that the higher criticism bunch claimed proved that the ancient Hebrews just stole all of the psalms and other literature from.

Except, if you read the actual parallels, the writing plays off the Philistine literature to highlight the differences, it doesn’t copy.  It actually gains meaning if you think of it in context.  Thus the emphasis on how God fails not (whereas Ba’l fails on a seasonal basis, every year), etc.  Again, my exposure to higher criticism came in the context of another place it was completely wrong.

As for the documentary hypothesis, I actually really started looking at the documentary hypothesis in the context of poetic structures it misses (though I do see how it fits in with LDS theology and provides some useful analysis).

My view of Joseph Smith has similar inputs.  When I was in the Hill Cumorah Pageant, we had a number of lessons we taught about Joseph Smith’s human, fallible side.  They were drawn from public addresses he gave about himself and his faults.  I had not heard the story of Sydney Rigdon daughter until the last month, when I read about it here, but, of course, we have a guest poster (my wife’s cousin) who will probably be addressing it and other related topics shortly.  Viz.

“Joseph Smith made affidavit denying authorship of the letter, and Nancy Rigdon herself affirmed it had not come from Smith, “nor in his hand writing, but by another person, and in another person’s hand writing.”  Nancy’s father didn’t believe the letter was from Joseph either.  Neither copy of the notorious letter has been found to this day.  All we know of it is from what Bennett published. “ Of course this time the higher critics could be right.

I have to admit that at present there are many things I do not know about history, facts and reality.  What I do know is the witness of the Spirit and the complexity of what seems “obvious” and “undeniable” and “certain” extends from whether Jericho ever existed to whether Ba’l was a sun god whose literature was shamelessly copied by ancient Hebrews to criticisms of Joseph Smith and others.

Sometimes “higher criticism” really isn’t that high.  What do you think?

Though I did not know it, I did.  My dad.

My father was guileless, with heart breaking good looks that I envied. He had the charm I always wished for.  As a result of a college football injury he faced huge physical barriers.  I once sat as they shot the same set of x-rays on his back three times because the doctor could not believe he was getting the right x-rays for the patient in front of him.  As he said “You idiot, how could you get the wrong x-rays twice?  Can you see this man?  He is walking.  He is smiling.  The man who those x-rays goes with can’t walk and surely isn’t smiling.” After he walked the third set through himself he realized that the guy the x-rays went with really was my dad.

My dad was in the U.S. Air Force, but had cross trained as a forward fire observer and spoke Korean. I still have the marble lion the ROK Dragon Battalion chaplain gave him.  I won’t go into details, but I over time I learned a good deal about things my dad had done.  I’ll never see hard combat of the sort that generates nightmares.  I will never tie an Olympic record.  But what struck me in talking with him in the time before he died of Parkinson’s was that what he valued most about his life was the four missions he served and that he loved his wife and children.

He did not want his grandchildren to be told about or remember him for the things he had done that would strike anyone as heroic, whether in combat or in disaster relief efforts. He did not care about the sports experiences he had. What he wanted from us was to serve others and to love our families.

To him, that was more important, more heroic and more worth remembering or modeling, than anything else he did.  I’ve taken that to heart. I can love my wife and care for her. I can love my children and cherish them. I’ve served one mission and when I retire I can serve more. In the most important things my father left me, I can be like him.  After years of thought, I can find a hero and even be one.

What do you look for in a hero?  What would you like to be remembered for?  What have you decided you want to be?

But we rarely think about what the text has to say.

Solomon begins his acts of wisdom, as laid out in the text, with the ruthlessness which which he began his reign (which led to internal peace), his early marriages (which reflected political advantage, stability and strength), and his insight in judgment.

The text story, consistent with the Joseph Smith version, is that Solomon  failed as David did.  That is, he failed when his lusts overcame his wisdom. David betrayed his inner circle in his lust for Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, daughter of Eliam and Grand daughter of Ahithopel (note 2 Samuel 23: 34, 39).

That led not only to the obvious, but to Absolom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15:31).  With Solomon, giving way to lust led to the worship of Astarte (with the cycle of temple prostitutes, sodomites/children, etc.), which is where he offended God.

It is easy to draw the wrong conclusions from the story.  You can take it as a tract against polygamy.  You can see it all as a warning against marrying a non-member.  You can see it as the fall-out from accommodation and kindness.  I’ve seen all of those conclusions.

They all miss the point as does simplifying it down to Solomon worshiped false gods, which false gods do we worship in our lives — that just confounds the why of what he did.

Solomon’s sin, his failure, is that his heart turned towards lust.  In his case, that led to Astarte.  In ours it might lead to affairs, pornography or similar addictions.  Once he had turned to lust, he turned away from God.  That was the sin he left as the end cap to his story, and the lesson we can learn from it.

What do you take from the story of Solomon?

Some times it seems obvious.  A performer born now has much more they can receive than those born a thousand years ago before radio and royalties were invented.  Most of this world does not do as well as we do, and it has little to do with how hard we work or how smart we are.  Some times it is easy to lose sight of, some times it terrifies.  I had a young man whose care was important to me, who came to the realization that the Hispanic families he was involved in charitable service to were filled with people harder working and smarter than he was, with better physical capacity.  He became terrified as a result.  On the other hand, I remember reading an oil and cattle heiress in the newspaper who was certain that if money was equalized tomorrow, she would naturally become rich again, in spite of never having done any work or exhibited any skill other than being able to create vanity artworks.

It is the power of circumstance and grace that Deuteronomy 6:11 is all about — reminding us that the foundation of our prosperity is not something we created or earned, but is a gift, one that can be preserved or lost, but not one that we have earned.

It is a compelling reminder of how important humility and gratitude are in understanding our place in the world and the importance of grace in our lives, a metaphor for the spiritual in the physical.

The innocent who are still in jail we can sorrow for.  But what about the guilty?  Should we care about them?  Really?

Obviously.

After all, Christ did not tell us we needed to forgive only the innocent.  Seriously, the innocent are the ones we want to forgive us.  It is the others we need to visit.

I was remembering my Dad.  His last calling before his Parkinson’s got bad was as a prison chaplain for LDS prisoners, most serving life sentences.  One week a month he was a sealer at the Los Angeles Temple, three weeks a month he served as a chaplain at his own expense (like any other church calling).

The striking thing about the service was how much he felt the men receiving it needed it and how easy it was for others to feel that what he was doing was unnecessary because the  men were guilty.

Yet, as we say “we are all beggars” we might well say “we are all guilty.”

For more, http://bible.cc/matthew/25-44.htm

“Well,” I said, “we actually do have some doctrine and theology on the subject.”

“Then why haven’t I seen more discussion of it?  Or is it pretty simple, direct and pro-war or pro-pacifism. Is there a reason that there haven’t been  many Mormons in the public eye?  What does the doctrine say?”

Ah yes, what does the LDS doctrine, practice and scripture say or imply?

General Mormon seems pretty clear.  He resigned rather than lead a war that had any element of preemptive strike or retribution in it — anything that went beyond reclaiming up to the current borders.  The Anti-Nephi-Lehi seem to justify radical pacifism, though the story does not require it, given what their children did.

The Doctrine and Covenants provides a nice gloss to both stories.  If you are not guilty of the first or second offense you have different rights than those who do, but it seems to strongly condemn offensive wars.

All of it is tied together with a doctrine that encourages obedience to governments and lays the blame or the sin of unjust wars on leaders and commanders.

Maybe we are closer to Kipling than anything else:

The earth is full of anger,
The seas are dark with wrath,
The Nations in their harness
Go up against our path:
Ere yet we loose the legions –
Ere yet we draw the blade,
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, aid!

High lust and froward bearing,
Proud heart, rebellious brow –
Deaf ear and soul uncaring,
We seek Thy mercy now!
The sinner that forswore Thee,
The fool that passed Thee by,
Our times are known before Thee –
Lord, grant us strength to die!

For those who kneel beside us
At altars not Thine own,
Who lack the lights that guide us,
Lord, let their faith atone.
If wrong we did to call them,
By honour bound they came;
Let not Thy Wrath befall them,
But deal to us the blame.

From panic, pride, and terror,
Revenge that knows no rein,
Light haste and lawless error,
Protect us yet again.
Cloak Thou our undeserving,
Make firm the shuddering breath,
In silence and unswerving
To taste Thy lesser death!

Ah, Mary pierced with sorrow,
Remember, reach and save
The soul that comes to-morrow
Before the God that gave!
Since each was born of woman,
For each at utter need –
True comrade and true foeman –
Madonna, intercede!

E’en now their vanguard gathers,
E’en now we face the fray –
As Thou didst help our fathers,
Help Thou our host to-day!
Fulfilled of signs and wonders,
In life, in death made clear –
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, hear!

What do you think our doctrine and our practice really happen to be?

I was at a lunch.  I was talking with someone who was putting a program together to support female attorneys and make them feel included.  She was talking to several of us about how important it was to have good role models, to make certain that girls knew that any education they wanted, any choices they wanted or needed would be supported and were good and encouraged and how important it was to be inclusive.  She was looking for groups to reach out to in support of this, and thinking of some LDS attorneys who were also part of Feminist Mormon Housewives in the area, I suggested that she might want to make contact with them.  She gave me a look as if I had lost my mind.  “I’ve a sister who is a feminist, what does what I’m doing have to do with anything a feminist would have anything in common with?”

That struck me.  The same question sometimes comes up when people consider what is a Mormon.

For some it is easy.  The LDS who went West took with them the “Mormon” label, those who stayed East, whether Strangites, Reorganized or others did not. For some the dividing line was Brigham Young.  That may have been the denotation, but the connotation was polygamy.  In the popular mind that is still the case (consider Mitt Romney and the fact he had to address the issue).  Within the LDS Church the denotation is “real” LDS are Mormons, others (i.e. polygamist off-shoots) are something else.  For the FLDS, they asked for LDS families to take in their children (instead of foster homes where the rate of underage pregnancy is much higher than the rate the FLDS were accused of, none-the-less the real rate) because they felt that their children were better off with “Mormons” than with others. (And yes, the first I heard about it was when one of the ad litems contacted me, looking for a way to contact the LDS Church at the request of her FLDS court appointed clients).

But it has made me think.  Is a “mormon” what Joseph Smith defined it as (mor = more and mon = good; anyone who sought more good); is it anyone who accepts the Book of Mormon; is it the Church that went West; does it require (or does it require rejecting) polygamy — just what is a Mormon?  Is it as easy to answer as “What is a Feminist?

I took a copy of the letter and mailed it to Salt Lake, addressed to a committee (whose name has probably change by now).  Basically I said “When I was in law school, I was asked if I ever came across something that appeared to be put out as an official Church statement to forward it.  I’m not sure if this is what was meant or not, but I’m sending it in.  It came home from a meeting at Church this week.  Thanks for your patience.  Sincerely yours, SM.”  That was it.  I think it illustrates the point though.

First, I took a slightly understated approach and did not overstate any fact.  If what is going on is wrong, then it speaks for itself.  This thing sure did.  Nothing I could say about it could do anything but blunt the impact.

Second, I did not blame anyone for the statement or for passing it out.  I did not identify the guy whose stationary was used, the guy he passed it to, the local guy who shared it or anyone else.

Third, I did not tell anyone what to do with the problem.  I didn’t even say it was a problem.

Something similar happened recently.  A poster reported that he had been told to keep his new Stake President in the dark about something because there was an ongoing criminal case, etc.  I happened to know that the policy was not that a Stake President was to be kept in the dark but that the Stake President should do nothing to discourage criminal prosecution.  I mentioned it and was given someone’s e-mail, direct phone line and asked to have them contact him immediately so he could make certain that the mistake was cleared up and that the attorney who was explaining things got a lesson in clarity.  (Yes, the information was passed along to someone who has privileges to access e-mail on postings in order to send the contact information onward.  I don’t have that access, btw).

What did I do?  I merely mentioned that someone reported that they thought they had been told not to inform the new Stake President, that he should be kept in the dark about the issue.  I was understated about it.  Did not blame anyone (other than to say that is what they understood from talking to the Church’s attorney).  I did not suggest anything.

Now I don’t complain often.  I’ve complained once in my current stake, got an apology (much to my surprise) and an immediate change in behavior from people who are, honestly, doing their best to do their best.  But the people I talked to knew that I liked them, I support them, and I care about them.  Again, I was understated, I let the issue speak for itself.  I did not blame anyone in particular for a trend that had evolved.  I did not tell anyone what to do.  But it was “Gee, have you noticed …” – once they did notice they reacted immediately, faster than I would have.  But then, they are good men.

Me.  Currently I show up to meetings.  Support my wife in her callings.  Teach a lesson every other month.  Do my hometeaching most of the time.  But I’m no one of particular importance.

However, I’ve seen lots of failed complaints.  I’ve known people who regularly complain and who get ignored even more often (unless they get called to the position they’ve complained about.  I know one brother who did not quit complaining fast enough and ended up in the new bishopric when he had been complaining about the old one.  I warned him that might happen).  Failed complaints tend to have a similar pattern.

First, they are overstated.  They do not rest on incontrovertible facts that cannot be contested.

Second, they blame someone.

Third, they have definite desired solutions that are often presented with the complaint.

Fourth, they are from people who complain often.

Now sometimes solutions are ok, especially for nit picks.  E.g. you know, the sacrament trays really are water spotted.  Would you like me to use silver polish on them once a month?  As long as I’m offering to take care of a problem, and it is “janitorial” type stuff, no one complains.  I suspect if I was to try and make common complaints like that I’d run out of things to complain about (or become the new best friend of the agent bishop).  But otherwise, being heard includes being heard to ask about rather than being heard to tell about or being heard trying to dictate to.

I’d like to suggest that if you have a problem being heard when you complain, that you consider which pattern you fall into and then make the adjustments necessary to be heard when it matters.  Otherwise, what  you really intend is not to be  heard at all.

First, to understand who can be redeemed, it helps to understand just what it takes.  It takes acknowledging sin and being willing to fully accept the consequences.  We assure people’s failure to repent when we encourage them to justify whatever they have done that is wrong or to avoid the consequences.

Recognition and restitution do not occur in people who do not admit their sin to be unjustified sin in the first place.  Without those two steps, there is no forgiveness of sin, be it small or large.

Second, true recognition requires true confession, which in many cases requires public acknowledgment.

Third, it requires the kind of transformation that only occurs when someone is willing to accept permanent limits on future behavior.  Think of those who buried their weapons in the earth. They were willing to accept limits and foreclose themselves from future temptation.  In a similar vein, in Europe sexual offenders often choose therapeutic castration to avoid temptation or backsliding.

So, if we hide sins, if we allow people justification, if we let them avoid the full consequences of secular law, if we do not encourage them to set permanent future limits, we inhibit repentance and basically confirm that the person really isn’t worth trying to save and really can’t repent.  Regardless of what justice requires, mercy requires that we help offenders through these steps.

Participating in organized charity makes people less charitable — it consumes their general allocation of charitable feelings rather than expanding them.  That leads to the question of how to encourage kindness if organized activities are often counterproductive.

Modeling, peer group normalizing, self directed opportunity awareness.  These all sound like buzzwords, but they have real meanings, real applications.  An example helps.

Dr. Jack McConnell, at dinner would ask his kids what random act of kindness or charity they had done that day.  In his own life he modeled charity.  He created a family peer group with his children so that they would see charity as normal.  His method taught them to look for opportunities.

That daily effort is the sort of act that expands awareness rather than closing it off.  The daily report increases reflection and understanding.  It is an excellent example of how to do it, how integrate charity as something that we do rather than something that gets in our way.

Of the primary virtues in our lives, can you think of another more essential, one we need more and are more likely to overlook?  What have you done today to help others find a way to be something they do rather than something that gets in the way?

Can you think of other paradoxes that you have found a way to overcome?

Part of writing this post is facing my own failures.  Part of it explaining what the cost is to achieve a voice that is heard, something I have done in the past and have seen others do.  Part of it is lessons learned.

1. You have to have a focus.  You need a single topic, or tightly related set of topics.  In my own case it was ADR.  In Suzette Haden Elgin’s case it was verbal violence.  In Dr. De Mars case it is tribal ethics.  I would note that Dr. Elgin is a wonderful author of feminist fiction, an artist I respect (I have some of her work) and has other accomplishments.  Sorry, she only has a strong voice in her primary focus.  Dr. De Mars is a well regarded professor of advanced statistics and a world judo champion.  Her voice that matters is in ethics.
2. You have to accept costs in pride.  To be heard clearly you have to choose accessibility in your communication.  That means that a certain group will disparage you and, if you do it well, the rest will think that anyone could have written or said what you had to say.
3. You have to take time to learn the area you want to have a voice in.  It takes two thousand hours to gain solid understanding.  Ten thousand hours of applied practice and study to gain mastery.
4. You have to accept collateral demands as well.  Carla Bateman, who had a voice locally for many, many years, probably spent thirty or more hours in selfless volunteer service doing things she could have been paid for (she was and is a nurse).
5. If you want a voice in any community of faith you have to respect its norms, have knowledge of its core and maintain spiritual resonance.  If I wanted a mainstream LDS voice I would need to shave my beard — which would make Win and my employer sad, though my ten year old would be happy.

When you look at Area Authorities in the Church you will see people who have given thousands of hours of service, who observe norms, who spend time in prayer, study and focus.  When they speak they are easily understood.  If you want a voice of that type or greater, you have to accept a level of cost at at least that level.

Finally, the sixth point (and I know the rule of fives, but obviously, as I’ve noted, I have my failures), you have to embrace humility.  If you can’t embrace loving humility, true patience and kindness, then no matter what you think about what you have to say, you are ready to be the one to say it. (cf Numbers 16:10).

You have to decide if what you have to say is worth it.  With ADR I’ve said what I had to say.  I guess I should go back and clean up typos, do some editing and rewriting and such (that is part of the work and humility that would be part of having and keeping a voice), fill in gaps in material and such, but I don’t see a need, you can tell I’m not willing to pay the price.

That decision, and acknowledging it, and the elements of the real price, goes into deciding if you really want to have a voice, if you really want to be a prophet, someone who speaks on an issue and who is really heard.  Dr. Elgin decided to pay the price.  She has sold millions of volumes, changed many lives for the better. I consider her one of the saints of God.  I have not done it, yet I have reflected on my failures, and I hope my reflections and thoughts will aid those who desire to have a voice and who are honestly willing to do what it takes to be a [p]rophet.

The truth was essential knowledge that she needed to have.  But telling her was not productive at all, it was not helpful, all it did was build resistance in her to change.  The same mistake was made by the guy who told the Narcissist that his misfortune in having both of his ex-wives have their only episodes of mental illness, rather unpleasant borderline personality divergences, while married to him, was not bad luck but a direct result of the narcissism.

There are other things that are powerful, essential and yet pointing them out doesn’t always help.  That is especially true of the gospel.

For example.  It is an important truth that you resent those you have wronged.  If there is resentment, no matter what happened, part of it involves a wrong by you.  That is the core message of the Arbinger Group, btw, and the key to their miraculous successes in the past in reconciling parents and children.  Having resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Yet delivering the message the wrong time and in the wrong way can make things worse, especially for victims of random assault or violence where the only wrong may well be the resentment itself.  Resentment is sometimes the most lasting harm done to a victim.

Another example.  Blaming others and refusing to accept responsibility for your problems guarantees failure, it keeps you helpless.  You may not be legally, morally or esthetically responsible for the past, but only you control how you react to and create the future.  Coming to that understanding is a core part of recovery from grief, loss and life changing disaster.  Yet presented the wrong time and way all it does is make the harm to victims worse.

I think of things like this when I deal with those facing a recent loss of a child or other tragedy.  There are times when these spiritual truths heal.  There are times they only hurt and make things worse.

The point is that I think that as God deals with us, He has truths that are essential to us, powerful in their reach; yet, not always things that will help us at this instant time.

What do you think?  What have you experienced in the way of spiritual truths you feel are essential truths, powerful in their scope, yet not always helpful, that you can appreciate now but that if your younger self had been told them it would only have slowed you down?  I’d love to hear back on the perspectives and experiences of others because I am convinced that this is part of our being children of God, not yet grown beyond that status.

We know that the outward form of the gospel varies dramatically by time, era and place (seen any Levites recently?  Think Abraham relied on them?  Alma?)  Yet we often do not think about how that might interact with us today.  But what does that really mean?

The gospel in action in any era appears to be a sub-set of the meta-set that is the gospel.  We acknowledge the difference between the culture (Mormon) and the Church (LDS).  It is easy, sometimes, to miss the gap between the Church and the Gospel (Christ) because the current Church is what God has given our generation to convey the Gospel.

So, in one generation there is no pork, no catfish and no shrimp on the dinner menu.  In another generation everyone is circumcised.  In one generation, only Levites hold the priesthood.  In another, the kings select who is to be a priest. Sometimes the gospel of Christ goes only to the house of Israel, at other times to all nations.

Often there are multiple factors at play at once.  Sometimes a change only waits until we ask.  At other times a change is thrust upon us.  At other times, God says “not yet” and may even say “it will happen, but you need to quit asking, your time is not the time.”

I rarely see anyone discussing why they think we have the sub-set of the gospel we have, what it would take to change, and why we should be obeying now, with faith our slice of the whole. We accept that when Israel split into the Northern and Southern kingdoms that Jeroboam sinned against God by passing the priesthood outside the tribe of Levi and by setting up his own alters.  We nod at the story of Saul, who led the sacrifice himself, not waiting for Samuel, and the lecture he got about how obedience is better than the fat of rams.

But, do we accept, that perhaps, we need to live within our restrictions, no matter how good of a reason we think we have to insist otherwise? Do we seek out God for knowledge, patience and faith?  Where are the Cornelius’ of our generation, to the extent that change is appropriate and timely?  Are we Peter, Paul, Cornelius or are we Jeroboam?
_________________________________________________________________
Some good examples.

• Wine in the Bible is generally a grape beer, about 2% to 3% alcohol, cut 4-1 with water so that the finished product is about 20% wine with an alcohol content of .4% to .6% — similar to home brewed root beer.  It was used to make water safer to drink and for nutrition.  Even so, there is a frission or friction in the older scriptures about it (cf. Proverbs 20:1; Isaiah 5:11).
• Who has the priesthood, who prophesies?  2 Kings 22:14; Exodus 15:20; Judges 4:4; Alma 32:23; Nehemiah 6:14.
• Polygamy, need I say more?  Jacob 2:30.

There are many other examples, things done in one time and place, conduct guidelines, mores, laws, privileges and rules. All seem to be schoolmasters to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24).

So, what of our set have you decided to ignore?  If you had been with Moses, what would you have thought to opt out of?  (Exodus 22:22; 23:2?).  What makes our time, our obedience, different from what went before?  Why?  How much of our set of the gospel for our age should we leave for others to abide and not ourselves?  Why?