MarginOfError

This kind of stuff drives me crazy, too. Especially when it gets into the frequent setting of what I'll call "micro-goals" (for lack of a better word). By this I mean setting frequent goals for the sake of setting goals. Goals need to have a purpose and should help guide a strategy. Micro goals that don't support a broader concept are just busy work. Having said that, I helped teach our young men and my own kids to set SMART goals when this new youth initiative rolled out. And I encouraged them to set very broad goals. For me, one was to hike 1779 miles in ten years. My major goals this year are to complete my scouting religious award and to do all of the exercises in a stats text that might help advance my next career step. They fit all the criteria for "business goals" with measurable steps, accountability, blah blah blah. But the key aspect is that they actually have a purpose to improving something about myself. any smaller goals that get created along the way are steps I need to take to accomplish the larger goal. But just as importantly, I don't evaluate my progress on those goals at a super high frequency. Maybe once every month or two. Am I falling behind in some...you better believe it. Am I learning some things about myself along the way? Yep. Am I happy with where I'm at? Mixed feelings. And that's all ok. I'm moving in the right direction at a pace slower than I'd like. But realistically, I've got way too much going on in my life to reasonably keep the pace I want. I'll cut myself some slack. And that's how personal goals should work. (end of rant)

This irks me. A lot. I beg you to say no. Practice this sentence: "This weekly goal thing isn't working for me and I don't want to participate." And then say it ad nauseum anytime they ask you to join a goal. Say it until they stop asking. Take a break and decide how it is that you want to pursue your self betterment.

This tracks pretty well with my experience. The back breaker was the insistence that LDS patrols be based on quorums. The entire mentorship and teaching aspect of the scouting program was lost. And the complete segregation of 11 year old scouts from the rest of the troop struck me as odd (or maybe insane). The other big deal breaker for me was the lack of elections in LDS troops. I'm glad you're son is having a great experience and wish him well in wrapping up his Eagle. My older child just finished her First Class board of review last night and has made a goal to be Life by the end of the year (ish). My younger daughter still has a year in Cub Scouts left, but some of her best friends are in her den, so I'm expecting to have a good crowd of scouts feeding up to my troop with her.

I understand the allure of citing these small numbers when we're fatigued with the restrictions we've faced in the past couple of years, but I think these numbers need some context. Approximately annualized, this represents a total population mortality rate of 0.0365% of the world's population each year. The WHO reports that the typical number of deaths caused by the flu each year is between 290,000 and 650,000, or somewhere between 0.003625% and 0.008125%. This suggests that the annual total population mortality of COVID-19 has been between 4.5 and 10 times higher than than of our typical influenza seasons, even with rather extreme measures taken around the world to limit its spread. In the U.S., we lost about 2.8 people per 1000 of our population. Flu deaths in 2018 were about 0.08 per 1000 of our population. Annualized, our population mortality rate was 16 times higher than it has been for flu. And that's just the deaths. There's still plenty of complications and suffering going on. For my own part, I had a mild case of COVID around the week of January 17th consisting of a headache and some congestion. I'm an active, healthy adult that can comfortably walk 20 miles in about 8 hours on rugged terrain. Since my mild COVID bout, I've struggled to get a full breath of air when walking up a hill. This has been, without question, the worst communicable disease outbreak we've seen in decades. And as small as the numbers seem, it could have been a lot worse.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been concerned about a potential invasion into Ukraine. I'm far less concerned this morning than I have been in days. No joke, I've been checking news reports every hour I'm awake nervous to see that the invasion had begun. For context, I served as a missionary primarily in Kyiv, and for several months, lived in an apartment two blocks away from the plaza where the Orange Revolution took place. I actually met Victor Yanukovytch (the last pro-Russian prime minister who was effectively chased out of the country in 2014). The country holds a special status in my heart, and the thought of it being subjected to Russian rule again was painful. Ukraine has a different kind of relationship with Russia than any of the other former soviet states. The Russian language even addresses Ukraine differently than any other country. The out-of-date way of referring to the country as "the Ukraine" comes from the Russian syntax of "na Ukaryina" which translates to "on the Ukraine." It's the same way that one might say they were going to spend a holiday "on the farm." In contrast, when talking about any of the other former soviet states, they would, for example, the article "v Latvia" or "in Latvia". This is to say, Russia feels a unique sense of ownership over Ukraine. For Ukraine to make moves toward NATO membership is primally offensive to that sense of ownership. On Ukraine's part, ethnically Ukrainian people have no great love for Russia, and a lot of memories of mistreatment and abuse at the hands of the Soviet Union. They don't trust Russia, they especially don't trust Putin, and they feel a certain sense of urgency in making strides to join NATO specifically to protect themselves from future Russian aggression. I am fully convinced that Putin considers the reannexation of Ukraine an important long term strategic goal and symbolic measure of restoring the power and influence of the Soviet Union. I don't think he intended to perform that annexation in this current crisis. Instead, I think his desire was to secure some kind of concession from NATO that it wasn't going to admit Ukraine, and more importantly, to intimidate Ukrainian leaders from pursuing any further steps to join NATO. His plan kind of blew up in his face, though. I believe he had expected more in-fighting from NATO countries. Instead, he found a surprisingly unified front from not just the US, but England, France, and Germany as well. Alliances within NATO that he had hoped to divide and weaken came together and showed stronger resolve. That was not to Putin's advantage. Even more surprisingly, Finland--a country that is not part of the NATO alliance and acts as a kind of buffer on Russian north western border--started making noise that it may consider NATO membership to protect itself from this kind of Russian aggression in the future. That is very much not in Russia's strategic goals, especially since the barriers to NATO admission for Finland are very small compared to those in Ukraine (Ukraine still needs to clean up some corruption and human rights issues before NATO membership is a viable option). This spectacular blow up created a really dangerous situation, because Putin isn't the kind of personality that is willing to take a loss. His power in Russia derives from the image of his strength (which is far more tenuous than is broadcast in state media). If he were to just back away after putting on this big of a show, he would look weak, and he is unwilling to do that. This is why the recognition of two new states in southeast Ukraine, and the mobilization of troops into those "states" is important. This is how he backs out gracefully while still being able to report to Russia that he has "protected ethnic Russians" in those regions. Don't be surprised if there is little military response to this invasion. In the long term, I think you see those regions eventually annexed into Russia, Ukraine continues to make efforts to join NATO, and Russia employs less obvious means of trying to prevent Ukraine from ever meeting NATO admission requirements (in the form of supporting political divisions and cyber attacks). Personally, I'm half relieved that open war was averted. The other half of me wishes NATO would send its rage out in full force and humiliate the Russian army (NATO could do so, if it wanted to). But I also know that my second half is kind of vindictive, and that a wounded Russia might be more dangerous than a placated Russia.

I would actually be interested in hearing what you think makes such a functional difference. I have my own opinions, but a broader and more diverse perspective would undoubtedly help me see areas I could improve my own troop and potentially ways to improve how my ward's youth program runs. If you're willing to share your thoughts, I'd appreciate it (PM me if you don't want to distract from the calling in this discussion)

I've turned down one calling officially, and hinted strongly that another shouldn't be extended to me as I would immediately decline. The first, I was asked several years ago to be the "Stake Scouting Coordinator." I was somewhat excited at the thought, as I initially thought I would be training leaders and helping them to provide a better program and scouting experience to the young men. When I discussed my vision for what scouting could look like in the stake, they said, "oh, no. We don't want you to do anything like that. We just want you to coordinate and oversee all of the rechartering paperwork for all of the wards." As arrogant as it might seem, that seemed like a mismatch of the job to my skill set and I declined the calling. The second happened just a few weeks ago. My bishop indicated to me that the stake president was contemplating calling me to organize the stake young men camp for June of this year. I advised my bishop to tell the stake I wasn't interested in planning such a large event on such short notice. While I would be happy to plan the camp in general and would likely rather enjoy it, I also know how much stress and frustration are involved in trying to accomplish that task in so short a time frame. I wasn't willing to put myself through that. If they had asked me a year in advance, I wouldn't have hesitated to accept (and I told the bishop to pass that on to the stake). When members of our ward have asked for releases or turned down callings, I've typically pushed to respect their boundaries, but to also change how we extend the callings. Instead of simply saying, "will you accept this calling," I've encouraged leaders to offer three or four days to think it over. I've also encouraged leaders not to stop at "We want to call you to [calling]," but to create a vision of what is needed in the calling. There's a big difference between "We want to call you as a Primary teacher" and "We have been short a consistent and reliable teacher for the CTR class, and [specific child] especially would benefit from having a consistent and familiar face. We would like to ask you to serve as a Primary teacher to help [child] develop their testimony." Another one I remember was calling a woman on the autism spectrum to serve in the Primary Presidency. She admitted she hated working with kids and said, "I will accept the calling, but only because I think it's wrong to decline." At that point, we backed up a bit and advised her that maybe we needed to clarify what was needed of her. We described the needs the Primary President felt were in her weaknesses, and identified that those weaknesses were in this sister's strengths. We also went a step further and advised her that service in the church should bring joy, and if she went a couple of months and felt miserable in her calling, she should talk to us so that we could release her and find her a calling that she would be more uplifting for her. Her attitude changed from "I'll accept this calling because I feel like I have to," into "I have something to offer, and I find it less stressful to try because I know I can an 'escape route' if I really don't like it." she served for two years before the Primary presidency was reorganized Most recently, we had a sister that had declined a couple of callings for a lack of time. But when we called a new Relief Society President, the new president felt strongly that this sister needed to be her first counselor. When the interview was held, she was extended the calling, her concerns about time were acknowledged, and then she was told, "we'll give you a few days to think about it, but before you go, we are going to bring in the new president to talk to you about what her vision and goals are for the Relief Society and how you can help." We then let the two of them talk. The two worked out how they could work around her time constraints and she accepted the calling. I think one of the biggest things we can do to support members in callings is recognize that they all have diverse obligations, time commitments, interests, and insecurities. If we get complacent enough to just name a calling and ask for acceptance, it's hard for them to find their place and get their footing. If we take a little more time to help them discover where they can contribute around their other obligations, I think they are much more likely to accept calling and feel good about what they can accomplish.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to come down firmly on the side of charging people who do such things with a crime. In this particular case, King stated that if the masking requirement were put in effect: How is that not supposed to be interpreted as, at the very least, an attempt to intimidate decision makers into implementing her preferred policy? That very nearly fits the definition of terrorism (the CFR doesn't explicitly denote speech acts under terrorism, see 28 C.F.R. Section 0.85). Do I believe she should be charged and, if convicted, sentenced to decades in prison? No, probably not. But community services and fines seem appropriate, because intimidating speech should not be normalized in our public discourse. If we were to merely say, "yeah, but she was exaggerating and wouldn't actually do it," all we do is normalize intimidation tactics. That provides no benefit to our culture and society, and it shouldn't be tolerated.

I do believe that was what you meant to say.

We had a Deaf member in our ward for a time. I enjoyed a number of conversations with him on this topic while reading his dissertation (about improving education of Deaf individuals) and helping him prepare statistical methods and analyses. It was very much an empathy developing experience for me. Some of the things I learned from him Deaf culture is very much a thing. This is because language and culture are intertwined. Their culture affects their language and their language affects their culture. For many living in Deaf culture, receiving cochlear implants is akin to rejecting a part of the culture (I'm not interested in debating if this is rational or fair, especially among adults. I insist, however, in recognizing that it is how many in the Deaf community feel). Receiving cochlear implants would be somewhat similar to a person in a very strict and orthodox Mennonite community opting to join a less restrictive community that permits the use of light bulbs. It may seem to us outsiders that not much has changed, and that life should now be easier with light bulbs instead of candles--but the original community feels a sense of rejection and loss. In addition to that cultural aspect, Deaf culture is also on very high alert. For most of human history, deafness has been considered a burden and limitation. We've typically spent more time trying to correct and/or ignore the problem than we have addressing it. In the not-so-distant past, we sent deaf kids to "special schools." These weren't really schools, though. They were often more like asylums, hiding an inconvenient problem. In many, sign language was banned, and lip reading was required. Abuse was rampant, frequently unchecked. And because Deaf people were easily dismissed as damaged and unintelligent, their complaints often went unaddressed. Deaf culture views attempts to "normalize" them into the hearing world as a step back toward those more abusive days. Another really important aspect of their hesitancy is developmental. Humans develop a sense of language between 18 and 36 months of age. When I say this, I mean that language is more than just words and grammar. It's the entire sense of building meaning through the use of sounds, gestures, and shared representations. For deaf children, pushing for cochlear implants, or lip reading, or other things that make it easier for non-deaf people to communicate with the child stunts their development of language. If my friends research taught me anything, it was that deaf kids who learn ASL first do better in almost all aspects of life, but especially in language and communication. And it is because, in those developmental months, they are able to develop language, instead of just words. Lastly, and I think this is probably the hardest one for the hearing to understand, is that being able to hear offers very little in the way of improving their quality of life. For a deaf individual, being able to hear doesn't make it easier to communicate; it actually makes it somewhat harder. Remember, ASL is not English. So as soon as you put that implant in, they are bombarded in a foreign language and culture. All of a sudden, subtleties in pronunciation and tone convey a very complex array of meanings that we have spent a lifetime developing and interpreting. On to of that, the feedback loop isn't very good, because implants might make hearing possible, but it doesn't make it perfect. My friend said that, on a good day, he could make sense of about half of what anyone was saying to him. He had to rely on context and visual communication to fill in the rest. In short, the implant didn't make it easier for him to communicate to the hearing, it only made it easier for the hearing to communicate with him. I should probably stop here, but some other minor points might be of interest. Given the inefficiency of implants in adults, it is tempting to think that the earlier you can place an implant, the better. But remember, children need to develop a sense of language before they can learn to communicate concepts effectively. And communicating concepts about how well you can hear and distinguish sounds is a pretty abstract concept. How does one with no hearing background perceive the difference between the 'sh' in should and the 'zh' sound in azure? The more time we make a child focus on what they hear, the less time and energy they will spend on language. And very importantly, written communication is a poor substitute for the deaf. English is not their primary language. When they try to write and/or read English, they are communicating in their second language. Asking a deaf person to communicate via writing is like providing a Portuguese interpreter to a Spanish speaker. They will get the gist, but they may miss some of the details. As an exercise, try imagining a language without articles (the, a, an). How do you communicate the difference between "the cat" and "a cat?" Now, there are lots of spoken languages in the world that do this (many Slavic languages lack articles) and native speakers are quite adept at picking up the difference from context. ASL works the same way. So anyway, there are a number of cultural influences in the Deaf community that make many of them hesitant toward implants. Some may be more valid than others, but I think it is a big mistake to dismiss those influences simply because we don't understand them. And that may be the biggest contributor to their hesitancy: often, it feels like the hearing don't want to understand the Deaf--they just want the Deaf to be more like the hearing

https://vanguardscouting.org/religious-awards/

yes. Most of the religious emblems for adults are worn around the neck. The On my Honor adult award was around the neck, and the new award for LDS scouts is also a pin for youth and a medallion around the neck for adults.

I'll buy the Faith in God and On my Honor medals from you. My younger daughter finished the Faith in God award just before they discontinued its use in Scouts. Even so, at the time there was no award for it other than the certificate in the back of the book (pretty lame, if you ask me). It'd be nice to give her _something_ to acknowledge the award. The On My Honor award (top middle) is one that I earned as a youth. I still wear it on formal occasions, because I was never eligible to earn it as an adult. It'd be nice to have a spare in case mine wears out. Send me a message if you still have them.

I've always fancied myself more of a purple-commie

I've not bothered to read most of the thread, but happened to see this in my notifications. You're right that putting it in terms of life expectancy is kind of silly. It is a little alarming, but only in the sense that if only old people are dying, life expectancy shouldn't drop that much. To get a big drop in life expectancy, you'd need a significant number of young people to die. But life expectancy doesn't mean much compared between two adjacent years. It's a metric that has more meaning as a long term trend. A more meaningful way to look at it is-- and I'll do so without looking up the reference-- but the CDC's preliminary report on 2020 mortality estimated a 15% increase in total mortality in 2020 compared to 2019. That's a pretty big jump. Especially considering that most causes of death saw lower numbers. For instance, automobile deaths were something like half of what they usually are (at least through July; I stopped paying attention after that). For a different way to look at it, the current estimate for COVID deaths is 618,000. Certainly there's some wiggle in that number depending on differences of "died of" vs "died with", but let's go ahead and assume that, generally speaking, most of those deaths are related to complications from COVID and round it down to 600,000. The estimated US population is about 331.5 million. numerator, meet denominator and you get 0.18% of the population has died of complications from COVID. In other words, a little bit shy of 2 out of every 1,000 people. Okay, I looked this one up, because I was curious. Leading causes of death in the U.S. (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm) COVID would take 3rd place on that list in 2020. It was pretty bad.

Speaking of Banned Members...I'm back! Probably only briefly though. I'm mostly only here because I'm in desperate need of escapism at the moment. I could probably say more on this than anyone cares to, but I'll go brief. I'll also be lazy and not bother putting together sources or references. (See previous comment about escapism) Simply put, under my advisement--after having read a news article and spoken to all our nursing mothers-- I convinced my previous bishop to establish a practice of the young women passing the sacrament in our ward. It was limited in scope to exactly one of them sitting in the foyer, taking the tray from whoever came out, and then walking it into the mother's lounge (we had 7 children born in the span of about four months, the mother's lounge was constantly occupied). The only complaint I ever encountered was that "women can't administer the sacrament." So I pulled out D&C 20: something and showed them where it said that neither Deacons nor Teachers were authorized to administer the sacrament. Therefore, preparing and passing the sacrament must not be "administering the sacrament." The section of the handbook which Colirio cites mentions priesthood holders passing, but that isn't a doctrinal limitation and could be changed relatively easily. That was really the only obstacle, which we dismissed with the fact that the women being served had a clear preference for a young women coming into the room over a young man. As described by someone else, the issue with the missionaries holding Sacrament on a Wednesday really isn't that the sisters helped to pass, it's that the missionaries authorized themselves to do it. They just don't have the authority to do that.

Some of these are fair criticisms. Adjusting the federal numbers up to 3700 per month and reducing the taxes to 5% (about 11% to federal and 4% to state/local) changes the monthly unused income to $489 per month. That $30,000 downpayment becomes accessible in just over five years. But with the caveat that transportation still isn't included in that value. And the caveat that the home price is still the typical value in the area I live in, which a fairly low cost of living area. The urban area 30 minutes north of me shows 2BR/1Bath houses starting around the $125k point. By comparison, this (admittedly cherry picked) 2BR 1.5 Bath in the Salt Lake area going into foreclosure and marked as for sale is listed at $280k. Sidenote, regarding some other criticisms of using a 3BR house in my targets, I figured a young couple starting out and planning for their future might be interested in a 3BR house if they wanted to have four kids, which doesn't seem unreasonable for a mormon family. I apologize that this assumption wasn't expressly stated in my work. As another form of comparison, this Census report shows the 1970 median household income was $8,730 per year. This inflation calculator places that value at 59,506.2 in today's dollars. I'm struggling to find an individual income median for a direct comparison, but if we operate on the belief that single income families were more common in the upper income levels then than they are now, my gut check guess is that a single income family probably has the equivalent of $600 less monthly income now than it did in 1970. Which all goes back to the original point, that regardless of which numbers you use, a single income has less purchasing power today than it did 50 years ago. By extension, making ends meet and accomplishing financial goals is harder on a single income today than it was 50 years ago. It seems reasonable to think that families might be making different decisions with regard to who works and who doesn't that reflect some of that lost purchasing power. Things not relevant to the main point: - A 20% down payment may not be normal, but I'd argue that is another symptom of the problem. Best practice by financial experts, as far as I understand, still encourage the 20% down payment because it saves money due to PMI. More importantly, it demonstrates the ability to save money for the unexpected expenses that comes with the maintenance on a house. Statistically speaking, the lower percentage the downpayment, the higher the risk of failing to keep up with payments. (another really complicated discussion, I know) - Not saving for retirement while saving to purchase a house is, in my estimation, a catastrophic strategic error. If your employer offers a match, you should contribute at least enough to max out that benefit. Early savings are king in retirement, and starting five to six years earlier makes an enormous difference after 30 years of saving. So whether or not it is common, it's the practice that should be encouraged.

There's some hyperbole going on here, but I'll focus on your core point. The first thing I'll say is that I was actually a bit shocked in the 2017 Face-to-Face event with Elders Oaks and Ballard when Elder Oaks answered a question about a woman's priority for education vs. marriage. He spoke of his own mother, and how she needed to provide for her family after his father died. He made the point that she was blessed to be able to do so comfortably because she had completed her education. He then went on to state that while he did not support putting off getting married to complete an education, he did think there was a certain wisdom to waiting until her degree was completed before having children. Is it at all possible that the statements leaders make on this subject are colored by their own experiences? And might that be why so many of the statement stressing the importance of having mom in the home are so blasted old? Regardless, in more cases than you might think, the choice of whether a woman works or not is practical. Let's look at the state of affairs at present: Let's look at what it takes to buy a three bedroom home. In my area, which is fairly low cost of living, the BR houses are running at about $150,000. Let's make the goal to save enough for a 20% down payment. The following numbers breakdown what the financial situation is for a single income family with three mouths to feed. At the median income, it would take 15 years to build up that down payment. And that doesn't include costs of gasoline, car payments, or even fast offering. The hard reality is that, given current wages and market forces, if a couple wants to build financial stability and self reliance, there aren't a lot of options. And they really boil down to 1. Get a job that pays well above the median (not always within your control) 2. Move to a lower cost of living area (where gainful employment is often harder to come by--I live in such an area and unemployment here is high) 3. A combination of 2 and 3 4. Become a two income family (provided the second income can offset the cost of child care) Keep in mind that these values represent the median. By definition, half of wage earners are unable to meet even these metrics. So it would seem to me that unless we are going to increase single earner wages dramatically, the ideal of women not pursuing careers seems to be a ship that has sailed, crashed into an iceberg, and sunk. Perhaps we should give these families a break. Are there people out there that are putting off family for the sake of building wealth? Absolutely. I'm not going to deny that one bit. But that is often a completely separate issue from whether the woman is working or not. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#:~:text=The Bureau of Labor Statistics,sex%2C ethnicity and educational characteristics [2] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/KY/INC110218 [3] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-rent-by-state [4] https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-household-budget [5] Estimated on the same proportion as monthly income between U.S. and my state. [6] https://www.nationwide.com/lc/resources/personal-finance/articles/average-cost-of-utilities [7] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/09/07/wscs-10-least-expensive-states/15075077/#:~:text=Kentucky&text=Numbeo estimates the average cost,restaurant at only around %248. [8] http://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-united-states.pdf [9] Assuming 6% as it would be the minimum to max out most common employer matches [10] Assuming a home of $150,000, which is common for a 3BR home in my low cost of living area.

You're more or less demonstrating my point. It's pretty hard to make an argument against the interpretation of equal partners not being the same as equal responsibilities. It's also hard to make an argument against equal partners and equal responsibilities. It really depends on how you feel about the transitive property, on which the Family Proclamation is pretty silent. And I find your comment about "problem causer vs problem solver" to be rather amusing. I mean, the entirety of our standard works create more problems then they answer. It's one of the strongest similarities the Family Proclamation has to scripture. And just as there are people that will fixate one one phrase to justify a woman working out of the home, there are others that will hyper focus on the mother's primary responsibility to the detriment of their family. I am personally familiar with a family where the husband, unable to hold a job and at times physically unable to work refused to let his wife get a job because "if we follow the counsel of the prophets, we will be blessed." Without going into the details, you'll just have to take my word for it that it was tantamount to spiritual abuse. The abuses of these things go in all sorts of directions.

Meh, it happens. In fairness, there are some in the conservative circles that are claiming it isn't _really_ done, because the House _could_ choose not to certify that electoral college. The House won't vote on that until 6 Jan, I believe. Rejecting the electoral vote, if I understand correctly, would require a sponsor in the House and in the Senate, as well as majority votes in both chambers. So doesn't seem likely, but the most DedicatedToTheCause (TM) are saying that's the only vote that matters. Of course, most of them were saying the Electoral College vote was the only one that mattered when they thought they would see swing states with Republican legislatures send their own electors. Seems like the "what really matters" goal posts keep moving....

Like or hate it, the above ^^^ statement still exists. Like it or hate it, the statement "In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners." still exists. Like it or hate it, the Family Proclamation is quite ambiguous and doesn't answer nearly as many questions as it creates, and is open to a wide array of interpretations. I tend to agree with @JaneDoe, and let families and individuals strive to make decisions that best suit their own and their families' needs.

Point of order, the Electoral College cast their votes yesterday. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcconnell-senate-republicans-biden-president-elect-electoral-college Doesn't seem inappropriate to acknowledge Mr. Biden as the President-elect. Even Senator McConnell has done so at this point.

You'd agree with me more often if you wanted to be right about things. This happens to be an area in which I have a lot of experience, being over 15 years into my own faith crisis.

First and foremost, don't fall into the mistake of thinking this is something that can be fixed. There is nothing broken with your son. I consider what has happened with your son to be a breach of trust. I believe we all experience these breaches at some point, and it can be extremely unsettling (whether it is intended or not). The primary advice I would give your son is to lay out every concern he has about the church and his leaders to you. Give him room to speak and be heard without judgment. When he is done, say nothing more than, 'can I have some time to think about this?' Let your discussions about flawed leaders (and flawed disciples) and the possibilities of mixing up revelation with what-we-really-want for another day. Ultimately, I would guess that there are other concerns that have quietly existed for some time. The first step to helping is listening, understanding, and showing that you still love.

Dibs on the role of Town Drunk (er, hyper from too much root beer)