Quin

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Everything posted by Quin

  1. I went to highschool in Washington State in the 1990s. A similar law was in effect there, then, although it was newish. From my family in Seattle -teens assuming responsibility for their own healthcare- I assume it's still in effect. Q
  2. When I asked local leadership about L in passing around the time of my conversion, they had never head of it, so I dropped it. Being rather wrapped up in other things at the time, I never looked back into it. So this is pretty cool to look into down the line. My feeling when I was 12 or so & first came across the reference was that it seemed a lot like the Greek Play / satire... Where Persephone bemoaned having only 6 months with her husband and the other 6 -sob!- with. her. mother! <roll eyes> Like our current crop of re-invented fairy tales... The Greeks went through a period where they turned classic tales & turned them inside out Same story, (6months with Hades, 6 months with Demeter) different conclusions; instead of mom rescuing her from her enemy, it's mom forcing her away from her beloved. Layla/Lillith FELT like that. Like someone in the 800s or 1000s went "What IF Adams first wife had been a harridan? A real piece of work? A complete nightmare?" Or the church, wanting to codify "wifely" behavior cast a terrible shrew as an object lesson? Treat your man well, and by well we mean NOT like this, or be consigned to hell. I prefer the first version, although the middle aged church (especially after dealing with the female warriors north of Hadrian's wall, and shield maids from Sweden & Norway pillaging and burning churches in England in the 800 ish era right along with male vikings) was sort of notoriously anti-female, so IF either were the case, it's probably the second. Honestly, it STILL feels like that. That Layla/Lilith is a parody of a wife. Which feels more like an invention of Man, than of God. Mosquitos aside... HF seemed to go about the rest of Creation a lot more carefully. Q
  3. Huh. I always get hit on the most when I look like I've been tied by rope to the back of a truck and driven around face down through cactus. And I always think to myself; 'What is WRONG with men?' Q
  4. Look Ma! Tang! LOL. This is why I bring backpacking food with me every where. Just add water. Q
  5. Piping in.... Mmmmmm. Gyoza for breakfast this morning. Q
  6. Edited since I'm on this long winded jag I'm trying to knock off... And I don't THINK anyone read it, yet! Q
  7. LOL. One better: LEO of the 5-0 type. (And wait for it.... 5-4-3-2- ONE better??? One? One??). Q
  8. It's one of the ways I have Christianity divided up in my head / various beliefs of the afterlife... In response to Irishcolleen's below. Christian faiths differentiate themselves from each other in a lot of different ways (those combos I was going on about, Loving God vs Vengeful God is just one of many many ways). One of those ways is entry into heaven. In some, all one has to do is accept Christ. Automatic entry. In others, like what IC was describing, one has to accept Christ AND do XYZ. (There are a whole lot of other options I'm going to skip for brevity, but it's a couple dozen variations off the top of my head). XYZ changes depending on what denomination you are. That's what I meant by "earn" it. Following up on those steps required by your faith. In most Christian faiths, those steps have to be done while still in this life. A baby, in a lot of Christian faiths for example, will go to purgatory or hell if it's not baptized. "Emergency baptisms" & last rites are done in ERs & maternity wards all the time. For just that reason. Ditto, confession is required in a lot of faiths. If you don't confess your sins before you die , you're outta luck. Your immortal soul will not be given enterence into heaven. Others, though, either don't require confession or flat out don't allow it (kind of opposite sides of the spectrum). But those are only 2 steps (baptism & repenting sin) out of probably hundreds of options. Some are action based, but most are faith based or avoidance based. Judaism & Islam are action based religions, but most Christian sects are faith based. The LDS Church is a little quirky in that it's one of the more action based denominations. (Also that our view of the afterlife is neither binary, nor static). But even most Christian denominations require certain actions to be made (or avoided) in order to reach heaven. How Heaven is earned, and what those steps are, is super varied. Clear as mud? Q
  9. To go back to your original question, though: I think the simple/short answer is "Yup". Longer (Quinn Long) though? No... I really think there's probably a place for everyone. It's just that people aren't lucky enough to always live in the place that they'd belong. Religions, in general, are self selecting groups. And then within those groups, are a whole lotta microcosms. Even though the gospel is the same in the LDS Church, no matter where you go, the PEOPLE practicing it are different. I wuv wuv wuv my ward. It's an extremely diverse group of very young adults and very old. From a LOT of different cultures and backgrounds. I fit in there. But I travel for work, and as such attend sacrament at maybe 20 different wards a year. (Actually, first year I had this job my Bishop thought I'd gone less active. Whoops. Not exactly.) Some of those wards I visit, I reeeeeeally don't fit in. Now... I "blend". It's what I was raised to do, and I'm pretty good at it. So I can generally walk into most places, anywhere, and make OTHER people think I belong. But that's different from ACTUALLY fitting in, ya know? Others I simply fall in love with, but they're very homogenous in certain ways. Certain very DIFFERENT ways. Like I can't even imagine how A + B would get along if those wards somehow got in teleport and merged. (I can imagine. It's bad. Very very bad.) And others are like my own ward. So some is certainly luck of the draw. Do you happen to live near a group of like minded people? If not? It can be hard. Even in the same religion. I took a girlfriend of mine (inactive for over 20 years) to church with me one Sunday... And she came away saying "Wow. Your ward is weird. I love it.If that was my ward, I'd probably come back." But same token, some people move into our ward for school and HATE it. Because it's not the culture they grew up in, or it's not a culture they feel they fit into. On a microcosm. You run into SOME of that here. With people running face first into each other personality or culture wise. You run into more of it if you go to a whole bunch of different LDS sites (different cultures in different forums). That's one of the great things about the Internet. If you don't fit in, you can self select yourself right OUT of a group, and into another one. Without having to box up your stuff, hire movers, schlep across the country, and spend thousands. So in THEORY, no matter what you're like, there's an LDS group of people similar to you. Just like there's a Catholic group, a Jewish group, a music group, a parenting group, etc. The birds of a feather, thing. There are limitations on this theory, of course. It predisposes the Gospel being at its foundation. Just like if you're in a choral, it predisposes being able to sing (or wanting to be able to sing), or a book club it predisposes reading. So while the short answer is "Yup, the culture isn't for everyone", the longer answer is that in my observation, there's a culture for just about every personality type, if you happen to be lucky enough to live near others like you. Q
  10. Okay... Not quite a week but close & Im on the road for the next couple weeks. So, this past week Quin's head has been in: - City of Heavenly Fire ... Cassandra Clare - Shattered ... Teri Terry - The Giver ... Lois Lowry - Beowulf ... Rebsamen translation (love the lyric, even if he messed with the alliteration too much IMHO newest version. I liked the earlier version he did better. Also, totally vexed that the kindle version doesn't have the caesuras! ) Theme for the week : Lock up your children after dark Q
  11. My first year in I was tricked, I tell you, tricked! (Just kidding). Our ward met at 1pm. Which was (cough IS) perfect. Oy vey. And THEN I learned about switching time slots. Face. Palm. 9am doesn't work. 11am is hit & miss. I often wonder if people could come to the time that worked for them & their families how many more inactive people would attend? Q
  12. ROFL. I like this one, though! (I totally use that in other venues, though. Like every time Facebook or Google updates I sulk in the old format for awhile before creaking my way into the new view.) Q
  13. LOL... I'm not even an investigator (converted a few years back)... And I still have the missionaries over once or twice a week! - Partly it's because I'm young-ISH (Peter-Pan kind of family. The 70+ crowd is going mountain climbing this weekend, the 30-40s & Teens are heading to a Campout Concert, the elementary aged parents are going paintballing. We're all active & chatty... Which means we tend to "attract" a lot of teens & 20 something's.) - Partly it's because -when I cook- I cook for an army. I end up with a lot of my college neighbors coming over to potluck BBQ in the summer, or Soup-Luck in the winter. This is a combo of the youngish + food. - Partly it's because I'm a single mom. ANY of those 3 issues rate having missionaries over fairly often. Either because they relate personality-wise (and they're people. The ones I especially gel with tend to stop by just to chat towards the end of the day, just because their days are hard sometimes), or because 20 year old guys are perpetually starving, or because as a single parent there's often a lot of stuff I don't necessarily "need" help with, but that I'm grateful for that help. And ALSO because missionaries are our "full time priests". I don't have a priesthood holder in my house, so it's either the missionaries job, or my HT/VTs job to make sure that spiritually things are copesetic. So DONT convert just to "get rid" of them! You're young, so there's going to be commonality. You don't hold the priesthood, so there may be spiritual needs to be addressed at a lower level than the Bishop. Like the field of dreams,.. If you feed them, they will come (Ahem. Following my divorce I was ramen-broke. There have been months where I didn't have enough for myself, much less others. Missionaries aren't vultures. But if you invite them over FOR food? It's like that sandwich commercial.) They won't be over every day, or anywhere as often as when you're investigating, and you can definitely hermit up post converting (we have a few converts who just aren't very social)... Or you can maintain a level of social interaction with them. After converting it's pretty much your choice of how active & involved you are with different areas of the church. I happen to end up as a missionary-hub more often than not. Which is why what you wrote cracked me up. It's not a requirement, by any means, though! Q
  14. There was a quote in here that just keeps taking up space in my mind, and I just can't let it go: "you have a room mate who doesn't like you very much" That concept just kind of stuns me. And I'm on the other side of the spectrum, here: - Divorced after 10+ years of marriage - Very active/robust/whatever physical side to our marriage (True, it decreased to about 1/5th of what it was in the beginning, which is pretty normal 1/3-1/5 of the first 2 years is once a week to once a month for the bigger part of the bell curve, but it was still daily. Which isn't normal. Our decrease was normal, but we both had high libidos to start. Normal = hte bell curve, right? I'm only pointing this out, because I'm not trying to argue that sexless is okay because I have a low libido / justifying my own self. NOT where I'm coming from. Point being that I GET having a high libido and placing a high value on physical intimacy.). So from the other side of the divide.... Where (in our many many problems), that wasn't one of them. . There is soooooooooooooooooooo much more to a marriage than physical intimacy!!!! The difference between a room mate & a spouse isn't "just" whether or not you're sleeping together. Just like it's not a checklist of if you do this for me, I'll do that for you business relationship (whether paying for goods or service, or bartering action for action). Marriage is the merging together of 2 lives. It's this huge, big, complex thing... Whereas room mates simply split the rent, and the rest is negotiable I'm actually a rather big fan of divorce in general, and I know a LOT of divorced people... But while we come up with polite brush offs, I don't know ANYONE who divorced over a single issue. Driven crazy by a single issue? For sure. One liners a single issue? That's the polite brush off. But you actually sit down and talk about your divorce/marriage and you find it's never a he did this, she did that kind of thing. Even in what seems like fairly straightforward 1 issue divorces (abuse, adultery, etc.), it's never "just" that. It's the total breakdown of that big complex thing that marriage is. And I am NOT blame the victim, here, to be clear from the vey very very outset. Because it is very possible for 1 person to cause that breakdown themselves, and then go out and wound the other party further... And in fact, that's usually the case in abuse, addiction, & adultery (Hmmmm... Wonder if that's part of why those are the 3 "okay" options... Because in all 3 it's impossible for 1 party to affect any change in the marriage, if the other party has chosen one of those 3 roads?). But it's far more common for there to be domino type problems: both parties knocking down things causing chain reactions. Where it takes both parties working together to fix it. None of the above is true in a room mate situation. It's not even true in a living together situation. I think it's very dangerous to oversimplify a marriage into these terms. Not because it leads to divorce, per se... But because oversimplifying a marriage kills it. It turns it into a ledger sheet. ______ Realizing that may sound weird, to oversimplify even in my example, I'll put up with stuff from my best friend I won't put up with in a new friend. Because of decades of experience with her means this is a bad day/ month/ year for her. Ditto, I'll put up with attitudes/ ideals/etc. from her That in someone else means I would never even be friends with to start with... Because I've been here with her on this road. I've seen her journey, and can see the POTENTIAL for where it's going to go. And even if it never meets that potential? In most things I'm okay with that. (In others it may eventually kill our friendship, but the decades I've spent with her, mean I may give it 10 years to sort itself out, rather than the 10 minutes I'd give a relative stranger). Friendship, though, is only one aspect of marriage. Just like sex is only one aspect. Communication Finances Values Parenting Parenting Styles Family Goals Ambition/Drive Spirituality Fun / Hobbies Intelligence Sense of humor Anger reactions (Those 2 get their own subcategories, just because they get definitive / high priorities in most relationships) Emotional reactions Interactions with others (socially, professionally) Personality History & Future Health Challenges Strengths Jealous v Protective v Possessive v Ambivalent v Dismissive (aka how "mine" is the other person) Politics Social Stature Aesthetics Polite v Rude Et cetera. Serious et cetera. I mean... The list of all the pieces of what goes into a MARRIAGE is huge. It just keeps going. All these working parts. We all prioritize those parts differently. Both within a marriage, and individually. A room mate? Finances. MAYBE aesthetics (what the house looks like/ cleanliness) , Polite v Rude, & MAYBE friendship. But that's it. A roommate situation implodes if ANY of those very, very, very few points of intersection chafe. Hence the danger of oversimplifying a marriage. All marriages chafe. Q
  15. My son loves breakfasty food for breakfast.... I make up a huge batch of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, onions, peppers, potatoes... Then roll into tortillas or crepes & freeze. Microwave & Go. Q
  16. I'm not saying that these are MY views of Heavenly Father! I'm saying that these are the views of God that I've come into contact with in a lifetime of attending my friends' churches. (Also other faiths, but as the question was limited to a Christian view of God, I limited my answer to my experience & understanding of other Christian faiths. I grew up in a military/diplomatic household... And grew up all over the world. Part of my parents sending their kids to their friends' places of worship was good politics, but the other part is that my parents are basically agnostic. I have a heavier background in Catholicism -with a heavy slant into Jesuit & Benedictine philosophies- than most versions of Christianity... But I've also spent several years in Anglican, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Calvinist, Mixed Protestant... With a smattering of Society of Friends/Quaker, Unitarian, Lutheran, VooDouan, etc.). Some of these are/were concurrent. For example, I attended Temple Beth Am every Saturday for 2 years with my friend Mikey & his family, while attending a Southern California Protestant church every Sunday with my friend Meghan & her family, with Catholic Mass on Wednesday with my Uncle who lived locally..) Loving & Just & Heaven for All -who earn it- is ONE of the combos, for sure. And the combos I listed aren't all inclusive, there are definitely other options out there, as well! But those 6 are some of the most common. Q
  17. Exactly, and I want to highlight your parentheses...Because as members who also follow (and are counseled to follow) both the law of the land AND to love gay people as "sons & daughters of god" it means that in our secular interactions with married gay people, that we accord them the same respect we accord married straight people (allowing spousal access in hospitals, using the correct title, etc,). Which may seem kind of "duh" to most LDS... But I have friends in other churches who are counseled NOT to view gay marriage as valid, and as such in every way to block them: - Not using correct titles (Miss instead of Mrs., "Your boyfriend" -or worse- instead of "husband" even after being corrected, etc.) - Not serving them (be it their kids paperwork at school, or family membership at the zoo, etc.) - Blocking all spousal privilege whenever possible (like not accepting their word that they're married and forcing he spouse to go get their marriage certificate & 2 forms of ID before allowing access in the hospital, etc.) - etc. Q
  18. This isn't over a washer & dryer. You did a favor for someone. Who has now, instead of being grateful for that favor, (much less returning the favor), has spit in your face. It's not petty, it's; Thank GOODNESS you've learned what kind of people these individuals are in such an inexpensive venue. They have no respect for you, your trust, your belongings, or the effort & length you are willing to go to & through for your friends. To me, friendship is about equality. There's, give, flow back and forth between individuals in a relationship. While my friends and I differ in many ways, when that dynamic changes (or doesn't exist in the first place) the friendship ceases. There may still be a relationship of some kind, but there is no more friendship. I will not do for them any more than I would do for some random stranger. And if they've hurt me, or mine? Then it's a step lower. Just because I've ended a friendship, after learning that a person isn't my friend... Doesn't make them my enemy. Actively trying to hurt me or mine, does. Standards. Those whom we choose to associate with, much less choose to trust, need to meet the bare minimum. Q
  19. There's also the NT / OT split view of God... "Ours is a vengeful God" vs "Ours is a loving God" & "Hell Damnation Wickedness Sin Brimstone Suffering" vs "Salvation Love Good Works etc." Ahem. The 4 above are actually 4, not 2. Churches tend to mix & match. A lot of "Vengeful God" churches pair "Salvation, Love, Good Works", for example. While a whoooooole lot of "Loving God" churches focus on the "Hell Damnation Purge the wickedness, can I get an amen? Amen! Rip our enemies to shreds upon the alter of his mercy!" Shrug. Or you can get the Loving God + Salvation, or the Vengeful God + Perdition. Also... It's probably keen to note that many branches of Christianity (Calvinist, for example) believe that there are limited spots in Heaven. Some as little as 700. So it doesn't matter how good you are in this life, if there's anyone better than you. It explains a lot of the moroseness in Reformation writers... As well as both the ethos of "I'm damned anyway, might as well make it count" & the driving need of some churches to demonize everyone but themselves. Since not even all of their OWN members shall ascend to heaven, best to keep the odds as much in their favor as possible by determining everyone else as evil, sinful, inhuman to begin with. I'm noting where one goes when they die as a version of God, because all 4 versions of God listed above, also split into heaven has room for all, or heaven has room for only a select few. Q
  20. Ha! S'why I opted to have the police serve my husband. At work / in a public place (instead of a process server). Embarrassed him, which made things harder for me in both short/long term, but I couldn't have lived with myself if he'd killed the server. And he's fast / goes for throats (literally). Not much you can do with a crushed larynx. But he's a "golden boy" in the public eye (usually), so I hedged my bets. My exes convictions were all juvenile, so all sealed. Lamp to the head, crushed throat, door to the head strangled, lamp to the head... Yeah. You get my drift. Couldn't risk anyone else's neck. Q
  21. Generally either a sandwich or leftovers. For a LONG time I had (luscious) Brie & baguette for breakfast. My body loved it / it's part of my weight loss regime. But my pocketbook complains. I grew up in Asia, so I'm more used to fish & rice & miso soup for breakfast on a knee jerk level. I save French toast, eggs Benedict, crepes, waffles, bacon & eggs, etc. for dinner. Because they make me sleeeeeeepy. Turkey sleepy. I'm going back to bed, wake me in 4 hours, how do people do this sleepy. And cereals make me nauseous. Fine for lunch or dinner, but Injust can't face a cold wet bowl full of sugar first thing in the morning. Q .
  22. Tongue-Barely-In-Cheek I just think there's this huge untapped market of good Catholic Boys who would have become priests without that whole pesky vow of celibacy. Over heeeeeeere. Yooohoo. I'm a terrible person. Q
  23. My personal belief is that after 3, most of us just sort of go numb and accept the new normal. Q
  24. All the (other) LDS kids in my area are toddlers. So I encourage my teens to date out. Using that as a guideline, I suspect I would also encourage them to marry out. (It's become a parenting "rule" of mine to never ever ever say "I'm going to ________ when MY kids are blah blah blah." because so often, it's 180 degrees opposite of what I actually do. I've learned that I can look at what I've already done & use those trends to see what I'll PROBABLY do,,but it's still not a sure thing until it's actually happened AND I like the results / keep doing it.) There's no way on earth, however, that I would ever encourage my kids to be alone their whole lives, unless that was what they wanted. I have a sister, for example, who is a "confirmed bachelor". She doesn't want to date/marry, and likes being alone. I support her. I have another sister who is alone and doesn't want to be. I support her finding someone. Q
  25. Criminal history is a matter of public record. You don't have to hire a service for that in most places (there are aspects to each of our legal & life histories that are not in the public domain which background checks do searches for, that require some level of authority or provable need -or the person's permission, like in applying for housing/ volunteer status/ etc. For those things you need a service or permission.), unless the person has moved around a bunch and you don't want to spend your time going state by state. Here's California's public record access portal, for example: http://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/pra Q