Just_A_Guy

The suggestion of BY as a “psychopath” led me down an interesting and (perhaps) timely route learning about Cluster B personality disorders generally. It’s really remarkable how often Cluster B symptomology comes up in discussions about LDS culture/ teaching/ history.

From the NET Bible app: ”The removal of sandals was, and still is in the East, a sign of humility and reference in the presence of the Holy One. It was a way of excluding the dust and dirt of the world. But it also took away the personal comfort and convenience and brought the person more closely in contact with the earth. “

I have teenagers, so my answers to all of those questions would be “almost every day”.

1. Sure. It’s just a question of how seriously they take the idea of temple covenants. 2. I [would like to] think that most mature, reasonably-well-adjusted LDS folks can reconcile the ideas that a) a lot of what passes for “happiness” outside of LDS circles, actually isn’t; b) people outside the LDS Church can nevertheless be genuinely pretty happy folks; and c) LDS covenants and precepts, properly lived and applied, nevertheless do offer a superior opportunity for sustainable stability and health and happiness to what is generally available outside of the Church. And while statements that “there’s no place for x here” is dangerously and probably overused as a general principle—I nevertheless feel reasonably comfortable in saying that there is no place for a sense of entitlement to a sexual relationship, in the LDS Church.

The knee-jerkiness can (and in my experience, often does) go both ways. Take all these LDS military veterans who you seem to suggest were driven out of the Church because active LDS women wouldn’t marry them. I’ll bet those young men had no problems imposing a number of criteria on their would-be wives that had nothing to do with those women’s current righteousness temple-worthiness. Maybe they wanted wives who had a high school diploma; or who didn’t already have kids from a prior relationship; or had certain career plans; or who were virgins. And they probably considered women who didn’t meet those criteria as being “unfit for marriage”. Women, like men, have a right to set standards for their future spouses. It’s interesting to me that nearly twenty years ago LDS young men were warned that the bar for missionary service was being raised—and now, changing Church demographics are showing that due to a surplus of men and shortage of women, the bar for LDS would-be husbands is also being raised. LDS young men would be well-served to figure out early in life that LDS women do not owe them a dadgummed thing; and if an LDS man is going to precondition his continuing Church membership on the sexual availability of an LDS woman—my response to him would be “brother, I love you, but the door is right over there”. Church demographics are changing. We have a surplus of men now; and the days when LDS suitors can browbeat LDS women into lowering their standards through the threat of lifelong spinsterhood are over.

Random thoughts: 1. I loved the Vatican when I visited. I’d like to live there. I also recognize that if it became the sort of place where the likes of me could go and live, much of what I love about it would be lost. My love for it—and indeed, a big part of its allure and spiritual power—derives from the fact that it is not what it would inevitably become if it were under my control. And I wish that Francis had understood and conceded about my country, what I understand and concede about his. 2. LDS temples are beautiful, but (with a handful of exceptions) their artistry is not even in the same ZIP code as the artistry of the great medieval and renaissance basilicas and cathedrals. 3. Artistry can be a form of worship. Craftsmanship can be a form of worship. In our temples we do the latter very well; as I think we are theologically beholden to do. But we do the former only at a very elementary level. Temple artwork is first and foremost intended to recall and evoke the spirit of specific past events; not about embracing beauty as an aspect of divinity and then pioneering new ways of seeking beauty for its own sake. 4. There are good reasons for the LDS Church as an institution to *not* prioritize artistry, even (arguably, especially) in its temples. Structures can become enormous money pits if you aren’t willing to say goodbye to them when they become obselete or damaged beyond repair (see SL Temple, SL Tabernacle, Provo City Center Temple, Kirtland Temple; compare Ogden Temple, Anchorage Temple, Provo Rock Canyon Temple). And the architectural uniqueness of France’s great cathedrals is a big part of why the government there expropriated those buildings and has often refused to give them back in the intervening centuries.

Interesting. Mine started working when I was SS President, but it’s kept working now even though I’m just a lowly temple and family history leader. 🤷‍♂️

If you have LDS Tools, you should be able to see stats on average weekly sacrament meeting attendance in your unit (under “Reports —> Quarterly Reports —> Indicators of Conversion and Church Growth”) and how many members of your unit have received their endowment and how many of those have current temple recommends (under “Reports —> Unit statistics”).

As I understand it, the custom was that the virgins would have been waiting with the bride at her house for the groom to come and fetch her. If he’s late enough that people are falling asleep, then the natural response at some point is “gosh, is he coming at all? Girl, he’s a deadbeat. Clearly not reliable. Not a provider. Not husband material. You should send him on his way even if he *does* come.” But these virgins did not give up on the bridegroom. Nor did they abandon the bride. They knew the groom had already paid the bride-price. They continued their vigil as loving and loyal friends, showing faith that the wedding was indeed still “on”. They aren’t bad girls; and even the ones we call “foolish” are still far wiser than most of their generation. But, notwithstanding their good intentions—some of them just plain weren’t ready to fully cope with an event that wasn’t playing out on their timetable.

FWIW, my law school graduating class was about the same size (or a shade smaller) as my high school graduating class; and it was amusing to see how many of my classmates were fairly obviously trying to turn the whole thing into a redo of their high school experiences (while the rest of us were just like “whatever, dude; I’m going home to my wife and kids now”).

Brother, I am sorry you’re going through this. I think @The Folk Prophet is on to something. Based on what you’ve written your wife has clearly broken her covenants to and relationship with you. You’ve got some hard decisions to make about whether that break is irreparable and where that leaves you in terms of your future relationship, financial affairs, children, etc. I think in these situations that it’s tempting to seek validation from the Church—to know that the guilty party was subjected to Church discipline, banned from temple entry, or at least to have a Church leader publicly proclaim “Jane Doe has committed sin x and the world should all recognize and acknowledge her as a predator to be condemned and shunned and person y as the victim of Jane’s behavior who deserves our support.” I would encourage you, hard as it is, to resist that temptation. To a significant degree Church discipline can only be applied to the extent that the guilty party is willing to subject themselves to such—by confessing, by telling the truth thoroughly, by making evidence available, by showing up to meetings and hearings at all. You know what she did. You know what God thinks of it. You know what destruction she has wrought. You know that someday—if not now, inevitably at some point—she’s going to feel the full weight of what she has done. You know that unless or until that day comes, her worship experiences are hollow and her covenants are null and void regardless of where she goes what scrap of paper she might carry in her wallet. It doesn’t feel like it now, but it’s possible to get to a mental and emotional state where your healing is completely independent of whatever does and doesn’t happen to her in this life. Life is still fundamentally good and beautiful, and you’ve got great things ahead of you. A quest for vindication and justice will distract you from seeking the good things in life, eat you alive, and ultimately leave you empty inside. I won’t tell you to “move on”. But I will tell you that your life will be better if you focus your efforts into cultivating a “move on” mentality.

I grew upon Rodgers & Hammerstein plus Phantom and Les Mis, and in college I got into Scarlet Pimpernel and Jekyll and Hyde. Those—either due to the music or the story— all seemed to have an “epic” quality that the newer stuff (even Wicked*) seems to lack. *Full disclosure: I never liked “The Wizard of Oz” in the first place—it just seemed freakish—so in my book “Wicked” was already starting from a hole it was never able to climb out of. And rap may be a technical skill, but it is utterly without beauty and thus I reject it (and by extension “Hamilton”) as an art form. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

The thing about war is—if we’re smart, we go in with a vision of a specific set of objectives and a well-defined idea of what “victory” looks like. And fairly early on we have to convey that vision to the country and get them (mostly) on board with it. Does victory look like a specific nation or group of nations reducing its own tariffs or eliminating a particular uncompetitive practice? Or do we keep the “war” up until specific domestic industries have developed a particular capacity? Or do we keep going until the trade imbalance (either in the aggregate, or nation by nation) is “fixed”? And if, as some have hinted, the long-term goal is to transition federal government revenue from income-tax-based to tariff-based—there are some good arguments for that; but then they probably shouldn’t be selling tariffs to their base as a temporary, [economic] wartime-based expedient when they know darned well that these tariffs (or are version of them) are going to be permanent.

The overall layout *reminds* me a bit of the Financial Times website.

Something that gobsmacked me a couple weeks ago while perusing D&C 107, and of which I’m still pondering the significance (or lack thereof): Technically, scripturally, there’s no such thing as a quorum of deacons, or teachers, or priests, or elders. These groups sit in “council” in groups whose size is scripturally limited; but they are not called “quorums”. Scripturally a “quorum” is a body with authority to govern the church-at-large, and there are only five of them: —The First Presidency —The Q12 —A group consisting of all 70s in the Church —A group consisting of all stake high councilors in the Church —the high council in “Zion” (originally Missouri and later for a time, IIRC, a specific stake in SLC).