Facing Affliction as a Family

One positive thing about adversity that often gets overlooked is its ability to bring people together. When a group faces a problem together, they usually end up with a stronger bond by the time the adversity has been overcome. That is what I think and hope is happening with my immediate family as we cope with the illness my mom and I have had for the last few days. We've had to lean on each other most than usual. We've had to be patient with one another and try harder to work together, and I think that's helping us to become a stronger family group. We don't often do things together, but enduring this illness is something we've had to pull together on, and I'm thankful that we've been able to work together to help each other get through this. It hasn't been easy, but this has been exactly the kind of experience that can help us grow closer together. By the time we all overcome this illness, I think we'll be glad that we were able to do it as a family.

One Measure of Perfection

Before I review Elder Holland's excellent General Conference talk, I think that now, while I'm still sick, would be a good time to point out a small distinction between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The first time Jesus said "Be ye therefore perfect," it was during His mortal ministry, and He qualified it with "even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt 5:48). However, after His death and resurrection, He visited the Nephites and also told them "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect," but this time, He followed it with "even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect" (3 Nephi 12:48). In both cases, Jesus invites or commands His followers to be perfect, but the first time, He only suggested that God was perfect, while the second time, He suggested that both He and the Father were perfect.

Now, we don't really know why Jesus said one thing the first time and a different thing the next time. Maybe He just didn't want to scare His mortal followers with the claim that He, a mortal, was perfect. But some have supposed that the reason Jesus didn't claim to be perfect at that time was because He wasn't perfect then, at least, not in every sense of the word. He was, and remained sinless, so He was "perfect" in that sense, but "perfect" can also mean "complete," and, having not been resurrected yet, I'm not sure that Christ, with a mortal body, was truly "complete."

I believe that resurrection is an essential part of our eternal progress. We can't be our best, most perfect self without a resurrected, perfected body. That is what I think Jesus meant when He included Himself as an example of a perfect being after His resurrection, but not before it. Maybe He needed a resurrected body to be "perfect," as do we. There are several traits we need in order to be perfect. Speaking only for myself, I know that there are many areas in which I could stand to improve before I would consider myself a perfect being, and getting over this dumb cold is one of those areas. Perfect beings, I would guess, are not subject to illness, and while I'm not sure if Christ, Himself, ever got sick, I believe that He could have as long as He was mortal and that He needed to overcome that limitation before He could call Himself "perfect."

Duties Delayed

I'm still sick, and while I still think that this illness isn't permanent, its longevity has some troubling implications for the near future. I may need to change some of my immediate plans. I have already contacted my primary co-teacher to let him know that he may need to cover this Sunday's lesson for me if I'm not well enough to come to church. I also need to contact the jury office to let them know that my jury service may need to be delayed. My General Conference talk blog post might be delayed as well.

Thankfully, all of these things, plus the things I had planned to get done over the last few days, are flexible. My laundry situation isn't desperate yet, taking my bike to the shop isn't urgent, and Miriam and I can prune the apple tree any time we both feel up to it. I'm lucky that I'm between semesters right now, so very few of my obligations are time-sensitive. I hope to be back to my old self again shortly, so I can do all the things I've been planning to do, but I'm thankful that, in the meantime, most of those things can wait.

A Gift Taken for Granted

One thing that I've learned from this ongoing illness is that one should not take one's blessings for granted. I am normally a physically-fit and able-bodied young man. I'm used to being able to get up and do things with little effort or discomfort. I'm used to shaking off illnesses quickly, when I get sick at all. But for the last two days, I haven't been able to do things as easily as I normally do. This may be God's way of reminding me that this body is neither perfect nor permanent. I may (normally) be strong and capable now, but that can change just as easily as sustaining a crippling injury or becoming subject to an illness from which I never recover.

I expect to recover from this illness within a few days, though I had previously hoped to overcome it in a few hours or a day at the most, but still, I don't think that this illness is permanent. This is just a reminder that my good health isn't permanent either. So I should be thankful for what I have for as long as it lasts and be willing to give back to God those things which God gave me, including my health and fitness. Once I'm resurrected, my healthy body will be mine for keeps, but until then, I should be thankful that God is letting me borrow a body at all, especially when, even at this point of weakness, I'm am still much more physically blessed than many others. Even as I am now, my relatively good health is a blessing from God, and like all of God's blessings, it should be used to serve others, can be easily rescinded, and certainly shouldn't be taken for granted.

Well Enough

I've been sick all day today. I spent most of the day laying down, coughing, and trying to get some sleep. But, despite how sick I've been, I've been well enough to help take care of my sister, watch a movie, and write this blog post, so I've got that to be thankful for. I've been very sick today, but when it came to fulfilling my responsibilities and enjoying a few comforting blessings, I'm blessed to say that I've been well enough.

Wishlists

Piggybacking on my blog post from yesterday about exchanging gifts with God, it has occurred to me that we can each use "wishlists" in this gift exchange.

God asks for particular acts of service through callings, promptings, and Patriarchal Blessings. He uses these tools to give us specific instructions for what He wants us, personally, to do, in addition to the general commandments He gives everybody.

In return, we can request particular blessings through prayer and fasting. There are many blessings that God is willing to grant us if we ask for them, and we essentially get to choose which (and how many) of those we get, so it makes sense to ask God for the blessings we especially want.

Of course, we don't always get exactly what we want from God any more than we always get exactly what's on our wishlists, especially when what we ask for isn't actually what's best for us. But it couldn't hurt to ask, and it also couldn't hurt to make sure that we're giving God the gifts He specifically requests of us.

Exchanging Gifts with God

This morning, I came to the realization that we can exchange gifts with God.

Giving God gifts is fairly easy. He accepts all gifts of service and righteousness, including even just attempts at righteousness. Gifts we can give God include repenting, being kind to others, and doing any good thing we can think of. God has a lot of gifts on His wishlist, and He's fairly easy to please.

He also frequently gives gifts to us. God's gifts to us include just about everything, from the air we breathe to the blessings of the Gospel. He sometimes even blesses us with miracles. But, if we broaden our definition of "miracle" and keep our eyes and hearts open, it becomes easy to see that God gives us gifts daily, and we should do the same for Him.

Of course, the most important part of a gift exchange is the gifts that we are giving, not the gifts we expect to receive. This isn't an actual exchange of gifts. We're not trading. It's possible to join into contractual agreements with God, where He covenants to give us some blessings in exchange for some gifts that we covenant to give Him, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about the voluntary giving of gifts on both sides that happens on a daily basis. In this case, we and God give each other gifts, not because we agreed to, but "just because." God gives us gifts because He loves us, and we should give Him gifts to show that we love Him.

I am thankful that God loves me enough to grant me so many wonderful blessings, and I'm thankful that He gave me such a wide variety of opportunities to show my thanks and love for Him. There are a great many blessings that we receive from God, and there are also many ways that we can bless Him in return. It's fun to give and receive gifts on Christmas, and I'm glad to know that we can give and receive gifts to and from God on every other day as well.

Merry Christmas!

By the time you read this message, it will be Christmas (or some time thereafter), so I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas. In doing so, I'm reminded of a quote from a good book, so I think I'll elaborate on that.

Primarily, I wish that you have a merry Christmas. I want your holiday to be a good one. I hope you have a fun and pleasant experience that leaves you with happy memories.

I do not, however, wish to wish you a merry Christmas against your will. If you don't want to have a "Merry Christmas," perhaps because you don't observe Christmas and/or don't like it and would rather be left alone, I think I can be okay with it. I want you to have a good day, whether that means having a "Merry Christmas" or not.

I, for one, intend to have a merry Christmas. I am satisfied with the quality of the gifts I'll be giving, and I trust that the recipients will enjoy receiving them as much as I enjoy giving them. And, of course, I will enjoy receiving the gifts that have been gotten for me as well. But even without the presents and the happiness they bring, I expect that I'll be merry on Christmas because I'll be spending time with my family, as sappy as that sounds. I enjoy their company, and I'd enjoy spending the day with them even if we weren't going to spend it exchanging and enjoying gifts.

Christmas is a time to be merry. It's a time to exchange warm wishes, warm hugs, and perhaps a few gifts as well. It's a time to spend with family and close friends: those who make us happy. I hope that you have good reasons to be happy this Christmas, or that you choose to be happy whether you have reasons to be happy or not.

That is most of what I mean when I wish you a "Merry Christmas."

Waiting to be Asked

Today, and most other days, I failed in a way that my sister-in-law easily succeeded yesterday. Today, I passed up opportunities to help others. In some cases, I didn't notice the opportunities. In others, I saw the opportunities, but didn't want to volunteer, so I waited to be asked. My sister-in-law didn't wait to be asked for help. As far as I could tell, she sort of just jumped in, just like my sister did with helping me with my home-made gift. I could stand to learn a lot from those two women. While it's courteous to ask if one's help is wanted, it is also very generous to step in and offer assistance without having to be asked. I have a small and probably undeserved reputation for helping people, but that's mainly because people have asked me for help and I have had a hard time saying no. I should learn to offer my help voluntarily instead of waiting for my friends and family to ask for it.

Part of the Gift

Why do we wrap presents in wrapping paper? It helps to preserve the secret of the gift, but a cardboard box would serve that purpose just as well. It gives the giver a blank slate on which to write down whom the gift is for, but most cardboard boxes do the same. It seems to me that a person could, in many cases, forgo the wrapping, and the gift would be just as good.

Yet, I think that there is some purpose to wrapping gifts in wrapping paper. It makes the presents look prettier, it makes the gift more fun to open, and it shows the receiver that the giver was willing to put in a lot of extra, pointless work, just to make receiving the gift a little bit more enjoyable. In some ways, the paper itself, and the work that went into wrapping it around the present, is part of the present.

There are some traditions that we do just for tradition's sake, and wrapping the presents in colorful paper might be one of them, but now that I think about it, I think that the wrapping paper does serve a purpose, albeit a small one. It makes the gift just a little bit nicer than it already was. Now, whether that's worth the extra amount of work  the wrapping process requires is up to each individual to decide, but as long as it's not too much extra work, I think that wrapping a present up in wrapping paper can, in some small way, improve the quality of the gift.

Messiah - He Is / Was Despised . . . And We Esteemed Him Not.

One of the songs in Handel's Messiah is based on Isaiah 53:4

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 I think the verbs are interesting here. These words were written by Isaiah well before Jesus' time, yet he wrote it in the present and past tenses, as though they had already happened and were still happening. I think that shows the faith Isaiah had in the truth of his prophecy, similar to the faith Lehi had when he said "I have obtained a land of promise" long before his family actually reached it (1 Nephi 5:5).

Yet, the present tense could have been true for Isaiah, and it is certainly true for us. Jesus Christ doesn't have to be personally on the earth to be "despised and rejected of men." People despise and reject Him in every age, including both Isaiah's and ours.

But I think the point of Isaiah's passage isn't to point fingers at those who reject Christ and those who have rejected Him, but to make sure that we don't reject Him as well. We should try to make sure that we don't "hid[e] as it were our faces from him." We shouldn't back down and stay quiet when people despise and reject Christ. Too many people have already done that, as the Apostle Peter will attest. And I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the people in the mob calling for Jesus' death were just following the crowd. It's far too easy to simply go with the flow and not make waves and the world drifts further and further into apostasy.

The lament in Isaiah 53:4 isn't just that "He is despised and rejected of men," but also that "he was despised, and we esteemed him not." Let's not make the same mistake. Christ was and is and will be rejected, but not by us. Let us stand by Him and esteem Him, even if the rest of the world despises Him.

Anytime Messiah

Because I had a fairly busy schedule earlier this month, I missed an opportunity to attend a Messiah sing-along, which is too bad because I think I would have enjoyed it. Handel's Messiah is probably the greatest set of music ever created, and many parts are fun to sing along to. The good news for me is that I don't actually have to attend a sing-along concert to sing along to it. I have the internet. A quick Youtube search for "Handel's Messiah," perhaps throwing in keywords like "complete" or "lyrics," will give me access to all the Messiah music I want, and as long as I sing quietly enough not to bother my sister in the other room, I see no reason why I couldn't sing along with the music as well. I can have my own one-man Messiah sing-along concert almost any time I want! I'm thankful for that (though, by this time tomorrow, my sister might not be). I'm thankful that it's so easy to access good music like the Messiah, and I'm thankful that the actual Messiah is even easier to access. We can pray and talk with the Messiah any time we feel like it, and we can usually do so without bothering anybody. It's a great blessing to be able to have an audience with the King of Kings any time we want to and that we can sing His praises any time, whether there's an audience or not.

"Stand By Me"

Let's see if I can remember how to do this.



I hope that worked. It's been a while, a long while, since I've tried to share a video with you guys, but I figured that this video was worth sharing for two reasons. First, Dahlia Row, the group that's performing in this video, is incredible and they deserve far more subscribers than they have. If you liked this song, check out some of their other songs as well. Second, when I heard this song, I immediately began to see spiritual messages in it.

The way I interpreted this song, the male singer is praying, partly to express his faith and partly to seek comfort during a time of trial. In my interpretation, his wife has died, and he is praying for his wife's spirit to stay with him to give him the comfort and support he needs to go on living without her.

The wife, in her part, expresses her faith that, even if the world falls apart, that won't be too tragic as long as her husband stays worthy enough to join her in heaven. She recognizes that mortal life is fleeting and that this world won't last forever - it was never meant to. This world was just meant to serve as a vehicle by which people can come together and inherit the Celestial Kingdom. As long as it does that, it doesn't matter what happens to the earth afterwards.

It was the double meaning of "stand by me" that convinced me to blog about this. When the male singer sings it, I think he means for a comforting spirit to stand by him by strengthening him and helping him get through life, but when the female singer sings it, I think she means for him to stay worthy to stand by her in the Celestial Kingdom.

Unfortunately, my interpretation falls apart about two-and-a-half minutes into the video, when the male singer sings "Whenever you're in trouble, won't you stand by me." In my opinion, and to make my interpretation work, it should have been the female singer who sang that line.

But if we can overlook or mentally misattribute that line, this song can convey this powerful message: The circumstances of this life don't matter as long as we maintain a strong, close relationship with the Spirit. No matter what happens, things will work out, so long and we stand by the the Spirit and the Spirit stands by us. To make this happen, we need to be righteous. That's how we can keep close to the Holy Spirit, and thus, how we can keep the Holy Spirit close to us.

Gingerbread

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but some time within the last few months, I discovered a possible Christian meaning of gingerbread. I was waiting for a good opportunity to share my discovery with you, and since the next General Conference talk covers a similar theme, I figure that now is probably the best time.

There are two things that are typically made out of gingerbread: gingerbread houses and gingerbread men. Both of these things can point us to Christ, as He was the Bread of Life, and He was born in Bethlehem, which means "House of Bread." In his talk, The Living Bread Which Came Down from Heaven, Elder D. Todd Christofferson reminded us of the significance of the symbolism of Christ being the "living bread." He said that part of the meaning behind the symbolism is a reminder of the importance of internalizing the attributes of Christ. You are what you eat, and if what you eat reminds you of Jesus Christ, and specifically of our need to strive to be like Him, all the better.

At Christmastime, there is symbolic meaning behind almost everything. In fact, I recall hearing that all things testify of Christ. As we search for symbolic meaning in the symbols of Christmas, we will find them, and when we do, those symbols, in our minds, can become symbols of Christ. Personally, I am going to see a bit more significance behind gingerbread men and houses in the future, and I hope that that significance will help me remember Christ's humble origins and how we need to internalize Christ's qualities and teachings, just as we might "internalize" a house or man made of gingerbread.

Travel Companion

The reason I blogged from my phone last night was that I was in San Francisco with my brother at the time. On that trip, I learned a few of the merits of having a travel companion. Two heads are better than one, as they say, so being able to discuss our plans helped us make better plans than either of us would have made on our own. The same goes for two sets of eyes and ears. We helped each other find what we were looking for and keep an eye out for danger at all times, even when checking a map. We even used our different strengths to aid the party of two in different ways. My brother came up with good ideas and I found ways to execute those ideas. Our strengths and weaknesses balanced each other out fairly well, and we both agreed that we should go on a similar adventure together some time in the future.

By my brother is not the only travel companion I want to have with me. The Holy Ghost makes an excellent travel companion for CHOOSE most all CHOOSE of the reasons I've mentioned, and then some. The Holy Ghost is an excellent source of inspiration and revelation, which can be very helpful to forming good plans. He can warn us of dangers we don't quite catch. And he always seems to know exactly what to say to help us in our given situation, making His contributions perfectly tailored to us.

I plan to travel with my brother again. I'm not sure when, but I'm sure it'll happen. In the meantime, I'm going to try to keep the Holy Ghost as my companion through all my earthly travels. He's an excellent companion to travel with, especially as we wander through this exciting and dangerous place so far from our heavenly home.

I'm blogging from my phone again, for reasons that I'll tell you later, so I'll keep this brief. Today, I learned that it's important to spend quality time with family, especially if you're doing something fun together. It's a great bonding experience.

Promise or No Promise

Now that I'm not as tired and frustrated as I was last night, I've given premortal promises another thought, and I've concluded that, whether they're morally binding or not, we should probably keep them anyway.

God wants what's best for us. What He wants for us is what we should want for ourselves. If He has a work He wants us to do, it would probably work out pretty well for us to do it. This task was basically hand-made or hand-selected for us by the one who knows us best. It's probably either right up our alley or exactly what we need. Either way, I'm sure God will bless us if we do what He asks.

Whether we're under a moral obligation to do what God commands is irrelevant. Regardless of any obligation or lack thereof, we should do it, if only for the blessings we are bound to get out of it.

Forgotten Promises

I watched Elder John C. Pingree Jr's talk "I Have a Work For Thee" recently, and it got me thinking about something that is almost completely unrelated: Is a person morally obligated to keep a promise they forgot they made? This question was inspired by the situation we are currently in, having made promises we can no longer remember in the premortal world, but we'll get to that later, after having tackled some easier instances of this problem first.

First, the case of a contract. I'm pretty sure that, if a person makes a contractual arrangement, they are legally obligated to hold up their end of the deal, even if the entire deal has slipped their mind. However, if there is a good reason for the forgetting, like an accident-induced bout of amnesia, a just might let that person off the hook. I imagine that God is at least as just and understanding. So, if we make a promise, and then get hit in the head so hard that we forget the promise, I don't think either God or man would consider us honor-bound to keep that promise.

Then, what of the promises we made before passing through the veil of forgetfulness? Are we obligated to keep those? I'm not 100% sure on this, but it looks like maybe not. I wonder, then, what the point of making those promises was. I doubt God would ask us to do something so pointless, so maybe those promises are binding after all. Still, is that fair? Can a person be required to do something they forgot they agreed to do?

In all this conversation, I intentionally exclude liars. Those who only say that they forgot they made a promise are still morally obligated to keep it, but what of those who have genuinely forgotten, especially those who were caused to forget by circumstances outside of their control? I would hope that God would not expect us to keep the promises that we couldn't help forgetting we had made. But then, why would God ask us to make those promises at all?

I'm sure there's a logical explanation, but right now, I'm too tired to figure it out. I'm going to go to bed now and work on this puzzle sometime later, unless, of course, I forget to come back to it.

Teaching About the Tragedy

Today, my favorite Youtubers posted a video about the Tragedy of the Commons. The Tragedy of the Commons is a dilemma when a resource is shared by a group of individuals. Collectively, this group has a mutual interest in using this resource wisely, but individually, each person has something to gain by taking as much of the shared resource for themselves. Inevitably, people get greedy. One person tries to get more than their share, or at least seems like they might do so in the future, and in response, everyone rushes to make sure they can get as much of the resource as they can before it's all snatched up by someone else. When people behave this way, the resource runs out quickly, which is bad for everyone, but if people could learn to be fair and patient, they could use the resource wisely, and perhaps even use it to gain more of that resource, which would be great for everyone. Everyone has a short-term incentive to take what they can get, but long-term, each person has an incentive to cooperate with the rest of the group.

So much of the trouble in life stems from people not behaving wisely. People make dumb decisions all the time, which hurt themselves and the rest of society. Fortunately, the gospel teaches us principles that can help us avoid these pitfalls. These include patience, wisdom, charity, humility, and developing a more eternal perspective. If we apply these principles, they can help us avoid falling into the trap of thinking that we'd be best served by taking as much as we can for ourselves.

Unfortunately, the true tragedy in the Tragedy of the Commons is that, in order to avoid a total collapse of the system, everyone needs to understand the Tragedy of the Commons and work together to prevent it. It's not enough for a few individuals to use the resource wisely; everyone needs to follow that plan. Otherwise, any individual could still take everything, and those who mutually agreed to not take more than their share would all be out of luck. We need to cooperate with each other to make the best use of our resources, so, as important as it is to be a wise individual, it's also important to teach wisdom as well.

A New Rule for Blogging about Conference

I need to get back to blogging about General Conference talks. We're almost half-way through December and I haven't finished blogging about the talks I was supposed to blog about in November. The reason for that is mostly that I've been reluctant to blog about Elder Dalin H. Oak's talk The Plan and the Proclamation. As good as his talk is, and as glad as I am that he gave it, I don't really feel like reiterating it or adding to it.

In hindsight, I should have skipped it weeks ago rather than letting myself fall so far behind. But I can catch up, and, starting next year, I'm going to have a "buffer" month, since there will only be five total sessions per General Conference, which will still be 6 months apart. Falling behind in blogging about Conference talks isn't much of a problem, and it will soon be even less so. But even so, I should try not to let it happen. Blogging about General Conference talks is beneficial in too many ways for me to perpetually put it off.

Perhaps I ought to set a new rule for myself. Maybe, in addition to the goal of blogging about one session per month, I can set the goal of blogging about at least one General Conference talk a week. If a miss a week because I kept putting off the talk I was supposed to blog about, I'll skip that Conference talk and move on to the next week's talk. That way, I'd never fall too far behind, and I'd hopefully never go too long without blogging about General Conference.

Post-Deathbed Repentance

Some people wait until they're near death to repent. With our knowledge of Spirit Prison and Eternal Progression, we know that it's possible to repent even after one has died. Yet, in either case, it's definitely not the best option. There are rewards for living righteously while in mortality, and I don't think God will take too kindly to people who disregard His laws during their lives, planning to repent after they've had their fun. Post-deathbed repentance may be possible, but repenting swiftly is much better.

Limits to Omnipotence

I recently mentioned in a paper I wrote that my personal understanding of God does not require Him to be omnipotent. In fact, I'm not sure He can be. Consider the Euthyphro Problem. Euthyphro once asked another philosopher (Socrates, I think) whether moral acts were moral because God commands us to do them or whether God commands us to do those acts because they are moral. My answer to that question is the latter. I believe that there are universal moral laws whose existence predate the Godhood of God. I do not believe that God can change those laws or break them without consequences. This means that there is at least one thing that God cannot do. Hence, He is not truly omnipotent.

I also have problems with omnipotence in general. There are dozens of paradoxes that illustrate the problems that omnipotence can encounter. For example, could an omnipotent being create a rock so heavy that that being couldn't move it? One's first thought might be "no, because an omnipotent being could move a rock of any weight," but that would mean that there is at least one thing that that omnipotent being could not do: create an immovably heavy rock. Omnipotence seems to be impossible.

I acknowledge that God is very powerful. I might even be able to acknowledge that "He has all power in heaven and in earth," as we sometimes read in scripture, as long as that doesn't imply that He has the power to override the universal laws that go beyond this heaven and this earth. He certainly seems to be powerful enough to consider Him omnipotent for all reasonable intents and purposes. Yet, I don't think that God is truly omnipotent, and I'm not altogether certain that true omnipotence can even exist.

What is "Art"?

I'm studying for my Humanities final, and there are several paintings and sculptures whose titles and artists I'm supposed to know that I would readily identify as art. (I'd list a few examples, but it's hard to pick the most notable ones, and I'm short on time.) Then, there are paintings and sculptures that I would hesitate to describe as art. Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm comes to mind. There is no "autumn" or "rhythm" in this piece, just black and white pain haphazardly splattered onto a beige canvas. Is that "art"? Even less deserving of the title of "art" is Marcel Duchamp's Bottle Rack, which is literally just a rack for drying glass bottles. Duchamp bought it at a department store and called it art, having made no modifications to it at all.

That, in my opinion, is not art. However, my opinion isn't the only one that matters. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe the same is true of art. Maybe whether something is art or not depends entirely on the person looking at it. If you look at a painting or an object, and you see artistic meaning and value in it, then, to you, it's art. But my untrained eye does not see much, if any artistic value in Autumn Rhythm or Bottle Rack, so, to me, they're not art.

Simultaneous Study and Prayer

Today, I had a more spiritual experience praying in a public bathroom than I had had reading the Book of Mormon in my bedroom at home. That's because when I prayed in the bathroom, I was really praying, but when I was reading the Book of Mormon, I was just reading it. I wasn't studying it. I wasn't pondering it. I was just reading.

I need to stop doing that, and I think I know how.

I think that I can make both my praying and my Book of Mormon reading more effective if I do them both at the same time. If I pray while I read, it'll help me focus on my reading. It'll help me ponder and internalize what I'm reading. It will help give my prayer more focus as well.

I've heard that if you want to talk to God, you should pray, and if you want God to talk to you, you should read the scriptures. I propose that if you want to have a two-way conversation with God, with each of you communicating and responding to each other, it might be worth trying to read and pray at the same time.

Using the Manual

I just finished looking over the lesson I'm going to teach on Sunday about the Salt Lake City Temple. Largely because they enjoy reading and because it's easy to frame and pace a lesson this way, I'm going to have the children read most of the lesson from the manual, making sure to lead a discussion between each paragraph to help the children understand and internalize what they read. However, there's an important part of the lesson that I won't have the children read.

A main part of the lesson is the Law of Chastity. The idea is that, in the temple, we make covenants to keep God's commandments and stay faithful to our spouse for eternity. This is, of course, very important, but it can also be somewhat awkward, especially given the age of my class. Many of them are both mature enough and immature enough for this lesson to get out of hand in a hurry if I'm not careful. Naturally, I'm going to have to choose my words carefully, or let the manual choose for me. Fortunately for me, the manual phrases the Law of Chastity part of the lesson fairly well, so I'll probably end up using much of the manual verbatim to help me teach that part of the lesson.

I'm thankful for the quality of the manual I've been provided. So many of the books and manuals we have in this church explain gospel topics so well that it would almost be foolish not to use them in our talks and lessons. Of course, when we use our manuals in such a way, we have to be careful to make sure our lessons don't become boring, and we will have to make sure we really study the material so we can learn it rather than just reading it and repeating it. Still, even with their minor drawbacks, these manuals are great tools, and I certainly plan on making good use of mine.

Reallocating Time

It has just occurred to me that I haven't blogged about General Conference in a while. Looking back at my records, I see that I have fallen behind; I still have a handful of General Conference talks that I should have blogged about in November. But first, I know that I need to study for my Primary lesson this Sunday. And the time that I don't spend studying the Gospel should probably be spent studying for my Humanities final next week or working on the Philosophy paper that's due two days after that. I have some important deadlines coming up, and I'm starting to fall behind.

Yet, this week, there are also several holiday-related and non-holiday-related events that I plan to attend. I expect to spend a good deal of time away from home, away from my computer, away from my studies. I wonder if this is wise. Of course, I know that there must be moderation in all things and that spending too much time or too little time on anything can be harmful, but how much is too much, and how little is too little?

I don't think I'm in any danger of spending too much time studying this week. However, I have, so far, spent too little time on Christmas. Perhaps I ought to proceed with my plans to attend those Christmas events, and make cuts elsewhere, as needed. I certainly can afford to ignore Youtube for a while, and I can probably manage to cut down on my Facebook time as well. I have a dire need to spend time studying this week, and I should probably make some time for Christmas as well. If that means spending less time on other things, that's what needs to happen.

Walking with God

Today, as part of my commute, I had the privilege of taking a couple of long-ish walks. I talked to myself and I prayed a bit. Generally, it was quiet and peaceful and quite enjoyable. Just being able to spend some time in quiet reflection was a far greater blessing to me than travelling more quickly would have been. Yesterday, I rode my bike, which was much faster, but which also gave me less time to think and talk. I liked walking today. I liked waiting for trains. I liked spending time outside, breathing relatively fresh air, getting a moderate amount of exercise, and spending that downtime far more productively than I typically do. When I'm at home and don't have any pressing obligations, I waste my time on my computer. When I'm travelling and it's too cold, dark, and/or wet to bike, I spend a good portion of my time walking with God.

Come, Peasant King

One of the songs that the ward choir is practising right now is a version of "What Child Is This?" which contains the line "Come, peasant, king, to own Him." Since I'm a bit of an English nerd, I've really latched on to the punctuation of that sentence and how its meaning would change if we were to remove that second comma.

As it stands now, the invitation is addressed to both "peasant" and "king," showing that the invitation is open to people at a variety of social and economic levels, implying that the invitation to come unto Christ is open to just about everybody, which is a great message, but if you remove that second comma, the meaning becomes very different.

Without that comma, the invitation is no longer open to both "peasant" and "king," but to a person who is, somehow, a "peasant king." This description seems like a contradiction, but there are at least two ways in which it could apply to any of us.

First, we could be kings in terms of our wealth and blessings, but peasants compared to God. Most of us aren't unbelievably wealthy, but most of us have enough to get by, which is more than what some can say. And, rich or poor, we can all consider ourselves richly blessed. We have the Gospel. Many of us are usually in good health. Most of us have cherished family members and/or friends. We all have priceless blessings that money cannot buy. In that sense, then, we are as rich as kings, if not richer. Yet, we are all peasants compared to God. Whatever we have, God has more and better, and that includes both material and immaterial things. We could have all the blessings in the world, and yet, we should be humble, because no matter how great and blessed we are, we are nothing compared to God. We may be kings, yet we would still be peasants.

Second, even if we are the least blessed of mortals, we are still, eternally, kings. As I've noted, most of us aren't terribly wealthy. We may not have as many blessings (material or immaterial) as other people have. We might actually be rather poor, both physically and spiritually. Yet, we all have a royal heritage. We all have at least the potential to become kings and queens. Because of our eternal potential, we can all rise above the heights of even the greatest of mortals, no matter how humble our origins are. We may be peasants, yet we are still kings.

Though it seems like an oxymoron, we are all "peasant kings" and "peasant queens." We are all base in some ways and royal in others. There is no contradiction here. With the second comma, "Come, peasant, king, to own Him" applies to everyone. Without the second comma, the invitation still applies to us all.

Kinship to a King

This month, in Primary, we're learning about how Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but I know a few other people who are also children of God. Actually, everyone I know, everyone who has ever or will ever be born (and several more people who haven't been born and who never will be) are all children of God. This means that God truly is our Heavenly Father and that Jesus isn't just our Savior; He's our brother. I find it comforting to know that we have such a close, familial relationship with God and Jesus. It reminds me of how much He loves us and how we can become like Him. Most of all, it reminds me of who we are and that we can always turn to Him for help. He is our God, but He is also our Father. He loves us, He is close to us, and we can always be close to Him.

The Price of a Promise

I go to extraordinary lengths to keep promises. Case in point, I'm still awake right now, even though I'm dead tired and feel a little sick. I wanted to go to bed half an hour ago, but I couldn't. I still needed to blog. But I couldn't think of anything to blog about (on account of being tired and possibly sick), so I stayed up for another hour and a half, trying and failing to think of anything I could blog about.

I wonder if that's healthy, spiritually. On one hand, keeping promises is important, especially when they're spiritual promises. On the other hand, the spirit and the body are linked; what's good for one is usually good for the other, and vice versa. Theoretically, then, keeping promises should be good for the body, but since staying up too late is bad for the body, it's probably bad for the spirit, too. I should rethink my blogging and sleeping habits, if I ever find time to do that, but first, I need to convince myself that this is an adequate blog post so I can finally go to bed.

How To Get Your Wish

Over the last few days, I've heard a good deal of talk about wishes and dreams. The idea seemed to be that if you wished and dreamed for something hard enough, your wish or dream will come true. But, wishing and dreaming are not usually enough. To make something happen, one has to do more than just hope for it. There is often a lot of planning and work required. Even when we pray for something that God is willing to give us, He often requires us to put in at least a small portion of the work required for us to get it. I know that we can get the things we wish, dream, and hope for, but it's unrealistic to believe that wishing and dreaming will be enough. They are essential, but most of the time, so is work.