The Importance of Advocates

The Importance of Advocates - Jason K (By Common Consent)

Pres. Kimball: "I Made What I Thought Was the Loving Decision"

John L. Lund's Audio CD titled "Love One Another" includes the following, which I absolutely love (bolding is mine): 

There were some kinds of challenges that President Kimball had that were very, very difficult and it came to a point of sometimes weighing church membership in the balance and he had to make the decision. And it was on the basis of his decision that the first presidency of the Church would act at the time, because this was when he was an apostle.

President Kimball under those circumstances would say that sometimes lives are so complex, conditions are so incredibly confused, guilt and responsibility are so diffused in so many ways that it is very, very difficult and it is not a clear cut issue of right and of wrong. And he said that frequently with some of these more difficult problems he would pray mightily unto the Lord and ask for His guidance and direction and sometimes would not receive a clear cut answer as to the direction that he should proceed and that when that would happen, he would stop and ask himself the question:

“What is the loving thing to do?”

And he said, "Some day I know that I will stand before the judgment bar of God, and some of the decisions I made will have been wrong. I will have erred. I will have made a mistake that maybe the decision should have been another way."

And the Savior will ask me: 

“Why did you make that decision? That was not the correct decision.’"

And I will say with the integrity of my heart: 

"Lord, I did that because at the time I wasn’t sure what was the direction that I should go and so I made what I thought was the loving decision.”

I am confident that God will look down upon me on those occasions and forgive me of my error."  

Real, True, Living Love

When You Think Your Love Story Is Boring - Lisa-Jo Baker (Huff Post: Parents)

This generally won't be seen as a Christmas post, but it certainly can be. 

A Beautiful Christmas Post: The Power of a Baby, not a King

Holy Innocents II - Kristine (By Common Consent)

Getting Dirt in Jesus' Eyes

Getting Dirt in Jesus' Eyes - Julie M. Smith (Times & Seasons)

We Need to Stop Treating Adults in the Church Like Children or Youth

I really like most of what's in the For Strength of Youth pamphlet - and the points where I have any concerns at all tend to be minor points that aren't worth nit-picking.  Each of my kids has a pamphlet, and I would love it if they followed the spirit of almost everything in it.

My primary concern is the idea that what's right for youth is automatically right for adults - the idea that the For Strength of Youth pamphlet is appropriate for adults and ought to be viewed in the same way by those adults.  My concern is addressed perhaps most beautifully in the following words of Paul, the apostle, in his wonderful treatise on charity in 1 Corinthians 13:

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."  (verse 11)

One of the central parts of Mormon theology is the idea of eternal progression - of growing from grace to grace and learning line upon line, precept upon precept.  This vision depends on individual and communal evolution, on putting away childish things (things that are completely appropriate for children) and picking up adult things instead.  It requires our willingness to be children and youth, with standards applicable to those stages, and then move into adulthood, with a lessening of external constraints, a strengthening of internal control and a recognition of the need for "opposition in ALL things" - including the appearance of nuance and ambiguity that breaks down the former black-and-white boundaries of childish and youthful absolutism.  It requires a broader view of what is "virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy" than what sustained us in our youth. 

For example, as a child, I might have insisted that God does not recognize or honor the religious efforts of those who lack "The Priesthood" as we accept it in the LDS Church - but adulthood has brought me the ability to recognize and honor another religion's baptisms, for example, and still hold to the need to perform temple baptisms for the people who were baptized.  I am able to believe in both the symbolic and literal power of such ordinances (or either the symbolic or literal power) without devaluing or dismissing in any way the faith of the people outside the LDS Church who don't understand or accept temple ordinances.  That is an evolution of understanding that can occur with age and maturity, and I can believe in teaching the principle in different ways to children, youth and adults. 

"Standards" are the same.  I can have no problem with other people living "according to the dictates of their own conscience" - and even grant that some of our modern Mormon standards are not universal and better than other standards for other people.  I can have no problem with the general outlines of our dress standards (and I chose that phrasing carefully), but I also can have no problem with another culture that chooses to wear no clothing at all, as long as their sexual practices also value chastity, fidelity, loyalty and the rejection of sexual objectification. 

"Standards" are not the same thing as "the Gospel" - and whenever we tend toward treating adults as children, I believe we move away from treating them as developing gods.  (Some of the practices of our Young Adult and Single Adult programs are the best/worst examples of this, in my opinion.)

Turning the Verbal Cheek: Avoiding Forceful Defense When Not Required

We are wired biologically to attack and defend whenever we perceive threat. Therefore, it's easy ("natural") to fight about things; it's much harder to prove that you have no desire to attack - or defend forcefully. Often, perceived threats are not meant to be threats and only become such because of our reactions to them.  In other words, we often start arguments when none need occur simply by defending what isn't being attacked.  (and this occurs online much more often, because there is no way to see someone as they type and judge the intent of their words based on their body language - and because anonymity breeds aggression that often would not occur in person)

In situations where someone says something with which I disagree (even strongly, but not enough to feel I have to refute what they say), I usually just grin broadly, let my eyes twinkle a bit and say, "I like you WAY too much to fight about this" (sometimes with a hand on the other person's arm or shoulder, depending on the person) - then turn and walk away or start another, safer conversation.

It either calms the person down or makes him even madder - but, in a group setting where everyone hears what I say, it's impossible for the other person to keep arguing without coming across as a total jerk. I hope for the calming response, but if the madder response is unavoidable, so be it. At least the argument ends - or doesn't occur at all.

Jesus' Private, Intimate, Romantic and/or Sexual Life - and a Tribute to the Woman I Love

My 28th anniversary is today, so I have been thinking a lot the last few days about my marriage and how grateful I am that I met my wife 32 1/2 years ago - and the life we have shared since then.

I linked previously to a post by Jacob on By Common Consent entitled "Men, Sex and Modesty".  I came across an exchange I had in that thread with another commenter and felt like I should copy it as a separate post.  

The other person said:

“To the best of our knowledge, Christ loved women in a non-romantic way. He wasn’t dating them, trying to get their attention, wooing them, courting them, much less marrying and eventually having sex with them.”

I responded: 

We have nothing (absolutely nothing) to tell us one way or the other whether the assumption above is correct or not. Given our actual historical record, “to the best of our knowledge” can mean that Jesus did every single one of those things – and every argument I have heard that claims he did none of them is based on prior assumptions and not grounded in historical reality. Sure, he might have been celibate and lacked natural attractions – but that would deny an important part of how we view and talk about the Atonement, in my opinion.

Thus, I reject it and the argument flowing from it. 

The other person then accused me of being snarky, to which I replied (edited to combine three comments into one comprehensive comment): 

My response contains no snark whatsoever. None.

I reject the statement I quoted simply because it is based on an assumption that is not supported in the scriptural accounts we have. There literally is no way to say one way or the other, or anywhere in between, what Jesus thought, felt and did in regard to those things (how he loved women [romantically and/or non-romantically] and how he felt about “dating women, trying to get their attention, wooing them, courting them, much less marrying and eventually having sex with them"), since there is no context given of his life prior to his ministry. In fact, without the reference to Peter’s mother-in-law being sick, we would have nothing whatsoever about the intimate, private, romantic and sexual lives of any of Jesus’ closest disciples. We simply don’t know, and we ought to admit that rather than claiming we do to some degree.

In other words, there is no “to the best of our knowledge,” since there is no knowledge at all about those specific things. Lack of knowledge does not equal knowledge of anything except its lack – so there is nothing that can be extrapolated knowledgeably about things for which we have no detail.

Thus, “to the best of our knowledge” is useless when talking about how Jesus approached women romantically or sexually. The best of our knowledge in that field is the same as the worst of our knowledge – non-existent.

I personally believe Jesus was married and that he had a romantic, intimate and sexual life that he "laid down for his friends" when he became a minister and went on a mission, so to speak.  I might be wrong about that, since there simply is no way to know for certain, but I believe he experienced all we experience, in some way, and I believe that means he experienced our greatest joys as well as our greatest sorrows and sins.

Looking back on the last 32 years of my life, since I met my wife, and the last 28 years, since we were married, I choose to believe he experienced my greatest joy - that of being married to a woman whom I love with all my heart and soul.  I don't believe his life could be "perfect" (complete, whole, fully developed) without that experience. 

28 Years Ago Tomorrow

Tomorrow is my 28th anniversary.  The following is not original but rather an adaptation of something I heard a long time ago: 

When my wife and I got married, we agreed that I would make all the important decisions and she would make all the unimportant ones - since she already had made the most important decision in my life by agreeing to marry me.

28 years later, can you believe there hasn't been a single important decision since then? 

The LDS Church Is Anti-Intellectualism but Not Anti-Intelligence: The Importance of Light and Truth

I have read numerous charges that the LDS Church is opposed to "too much education" - which is demonstrably false when real data is studied.  Unlike most other religious denominations, within the LDS Church the higher one's educational attainment, the more likely one is to remain religiously active.  Also, there are clear and nearly innumerable statements about the importance of education and getting as much education as is possible.  There even is the oft-referenced verse in Doctrine & Covenants 93:36 that says:

The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. 

One blogger summed up the LDS Church's view by saying that the glory of God is (not-too-much) intelligence, and the following was my response:

Yes, the title is correct – and it should be, if “not too much” means “an intellectualism which brings the person to obsessiveness or extreme pride and inflexibility”. There is a huge difference between “intelligence” (especially as our canon defines it) and “intellectualism”.

I like the D&C clarification of “or in other words, light and truth”. That gets missed in many conversations about what it means to be intelligent within the framework of the Restoration – and it defines the heart of the tension between being intelligent and being an intellectual, as those terms are used most often by the top-level leaders of the LDS Church. Intelligence becomes about clarity and real understanding, not the accumulation of information alone. Thus, my father who hated formal education and rejoiced when he escaped high school can be more intelligent than many of the students with whom I studied at Harvard who could recite all of the information they had read in classes and debate with anyone but who had no clue what it all meant and had no clarity and real understanding of the subjects they had studied and the people around them.

I think the Church, as an entity, encourages the type of intelligence described in the D&C – but, since it is comprised of individuals, that ideal gets emphasized, watered down or even rejected at each level moving throughout the organization. Thus, it’s difficult to make a generalized statement about “The Church” as a whole that is intelligent in nature without including a level of ambiguity that recognizes the tension of competing extremes and the widely varying mid-points most of us actually live.

The distinction I make is the extremes of intellectualism and emotionalism.  We are taught to study things out in our hearts AND in our minds.  When we rely on either, alone, without a balance of the two, we are prone to error.  Again, it's not intelligence to which the Church is opposed but rather the sort of focus on the mind alone that denies the heart and, eventually, all things spiritual.  It is when intelligence becomes an "ism" of its own that problems occur - and I say that as someone who greatly values study, intelligence, insight, science and the intellect. 

My only concerns when intellectualism is mentioned or discussed in the Church are when the impression is given that academic learning is bad in any way and when emotionalism is not discussed as the opposite extreme.   The ideal is a balance of heart and mind - intellect and emotion, not either one alone.