PolarVortex

I am also a libertarian, and I agree that the government should have no role in marriage. (It has a huge role, however, in protecting the rights and well-being of any children born to a man and a woman. But if two or more people want to bind themselves into a next-of-kin relationship, and no children are harmed, that's their business.) Political parties in the U.S. have evolved into religions. People may be superficially loyal to the organizing principles of a political party, but they treat every political debate as a zero-sum Superbowl game where one side must win and the other side must lose. Today's Democrats and Republicans remind me of the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland during the worst years of that conflict. I hope violence doesn't break out at some point, but I fear it will. And, sadly, I think Obama is making things worse. Why have the parties evolved into religions? Because humans cannot help but be religious about something, even if they reject religion. Dividing the world into "us" vs. "them" is deeply programmed into our DNA, as is our tendency to believe we are acting rationally when we are not. Once you realize this, you understand why the message of Jesus is so revolutionary. I tend to agree with Windseeker, but I think the revolution can be a peaceful one at the ballot box. We really do need a new Constitution (or a long series of amendments) that can break up the politically petrified layers of this country and replace them with a more collaborative model in which good ideas and not political victories are prized. Think of where this country would be if laws were created in the same way that new releases of Linux are prepared.

I'm a city person, too. IMHO, SLC is a typical American city, although the streets are very wide and parking isn't the nightmare that it is in Manhattan or San Francisco. I visited SLC for the first time in my life last year as a middle-aged man. Temple Square is definitely worth seeing, but you can easily see the whole thing in one day. If you can choose the time of year to go, I would avoid winter. The air pollution, sadly, is much worse than I imagined, and the air seemed bitterly cold. But if you must go in winter, the Christmas lights in December in Temple Square are quite nice. I know nothing about SLC nightlife or things that might appeal to a college student, sorry. If you appreciate architecture, the LDS Conference Center is fascinating, and hear the SLC public library is also a marvel. SLC was in the upper third of my list of desired U.S. travel destinations, right between Monterey, CA and Honolulu. On the surface, SLC is a bit less Mormon than I expected, but I didn't interview for a job or have to live with LDS neighbors, so I'm not getting the big picture. Outside of Temple Square, the only evidence of the LDS Church that I saw was on two billboards: a tourism billboard for Temple Square, and a billboard for some inexpensive local attorney that said, "Because your home teacher isn't a lawyer." (That last one puzzled me for a few moments.) Happy travels.

Hi Silhouette, Have you ever read The Four Agreeements by Don Miguel Ruiz? It's not LDS, but it contains much wisdom. One of his rules is not to take anything personally. (This was really hard for me to learn, because I come from a family where every negative gesture is instantly interpreted as a vicious personal attack, even silly little accidental stuff.) Anyway, back to you. From your perspective, it may look like you're not wanted. I would certainly feel that way if I were in your shoes. But how does the world look from perspective of that Presidency? Was their attitude specifically "We don't want Silhouette"? Or was it a more general "We want Silhouette's return to the church to be wonderful and positive, and we're concerned that a sudden calling might set into motion the same things that caused her to drift away many years ago"? If the 2nd one, I don't think that's so bad. The members of the Presidency in your story may be making a decision with limited information. They may only know part of your story and to be safe they are erring on the side of caution. But you may be reacting with limited information, too. You might not know their true hearts, and they might be motivated purely by concern for your happiness and well-being and not by any personal hostility to you. What a great opportunity to hold your head high and be strong and Christlike. Who knows, maybe God is behind this little skirmish. I would hug your bishop, thank him lavishly for his going to bat for you, accept the calling, and be wildly successful. Outrageously successful. So successful that you're profiled in the Ensign, maybe. And a year from now when you cross paths with members of that Presidency, thank them for their caution and concern and tell them joyfully how wonderful the calling was and how much it improved you and how wise your bishop was to ignore them. (Okay, maybe you don't have to verbalize the last part.) By the way, your accepting the calling will make your bishop feel like a million bucks. He sounds like a wonderful man... I'm tempted to join your ward. Best wishes, Polar

Silhouette is exactly right, in my opinion. Couldn't have said it better myself. The people in our wards are not mindreaders, and yet it's amazing how often I behaved as if they were. If nobody asks how you specifically are doing, don't wring your hands and give up. Make an effort to ask how the other person is doing and make it clear that you are happy to talk about yourself. I used to be very shy and modest about talking about myself (I have a lot to be modest about) and it accidentally sent signals to people that I didn't want to talk about myself at all. They were polite and backed off, which is not what I wanted. People will be very interested in you if you are interested in them, and if you are upbeat and positive they will be even more interested. My old Baptist pastor in Texas was exactly right: Give away what you want for yourself. It sounds weird, but it works often. Best wishes...

Why not use the cold weather to your advantage? When I find myself falling asleep at work (usually after a big lunch in a warm office) I go for a brisk 5-minute walk around the building, sometimes without a coat if it's not too cold. That wakes me up better than a quart of Red Bull. Best wishes on your drink search, though...

LOL too. I can't resist telling the urban legend I heard during a visit to the Washington DC temple in 1996. According to the story, the temple cafeteria there sold really good food at low prices, so one LDS member lent her recommend to a non-LDS neighbor, who would go there to eat. Her fraud was discovered one day when she asked where she could get a cup of coffee.

We humans sometimes regard all unfamiliar things as scary or bad. When I was in the Air Force, I met many people who were constantly moving from base to base over the course of their careers. They'd stay a few years at one base and then move to some other completely different base, often in another part of the world. You may be surprised to hear this, but Air Force bases are quite different from each other, or at least they were when I served. Very, very different. There was a very well-known psychological effect that kicked in when people moved to a new base. They hated it instantly and could only see the strange and unfamiliar and negative aspects of it, and they quickly came to regard their previous base as some sort of paradise. There was even a little slogan or proverb that encapsulated this idea, but I forget what it was. To put it another way, suppose a Martian came to Earth and decided to study Judaism, Catholicism, and Mormonism. The Martian would discover that Jews cut off parts of a boy's private parts soon after birth, that the Catholics eat the body and drink the blood of their God, and that the Mormons go to temples and make promises to God. If the Martian raised his eyebrows (all 3 of them) over any of this, it probably wouldn't be over Mormonism. We humans don't regard circumcision or the Eucharist as strange or evil, but to a first-time visitor they might seem very scary. I have not been through the temple, but I know something about it (from approved sources) and am prepared to accept it more as a work of guiding art than as a mathematical equation. Metaphor and mystery are sometimes the most direct paths to God. And maybe "conditioning" is too strong a word. I read somewhere that the temple ceremonies were created for uneducated rural people of the 19th century who learned better from drama, repetition, and ritual. Who knows, if the Prophet had revealed the endowment in the Internet age, it might have looked very different indeed.

What a lovely topic, and how nice to know that other people like Johnny Mathis at Christmas, too. Here is my favorite, from a Dutch or Belgian (or something) singer named Helmut Lotti, whose voice sounds like an angel from the Book of Revelation. They tampered with the words for some odd reason, but this is one of the most nearly perfect Christmas songs I've ever heard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI7wis-HmfI

I read your long post quite carefully because it was so interesting. I seemed to detect an air of urgency in your comments, as if you need to decide something soon or else horrible things will happen. They won't. Humans often fall into the trap of thinking that a decision must be made immediately, that it's a black-and-white decision, that it's a dilemma, and that if they choose the wrong path then there's no going back. Maybe some decisions are like that, such a decision to donate a kidney to a relative, but they are few and far between. Slow down. I have found that many decisions sort of decide themselves if I just keep learning and gathering data. If you feel drawn to the LDS Church, by all means investigate further. Just go to church and listen and observe and learn. Nobody will put a gun to your head and demand that you either get baptized or get lost. I think the decision before you now is, "Should I learn more?" and not "Is the LDS Church the true path to inner solace?" Some part of you may be uncomfortable with how tentative this makes your life for the coming months or years, but learning to find peace in uncertainty and tentativeness is a good skill to learn and will serve you well. Good grief, I was an investigator off and on over a 10-year period before I finally got baptized. And don't misinterpret my next comment, but I think it's a mistake to compartmentalize yourself permanently as gay. You may feel that way now, but your whole life is ahead of you. I'm not suggesting that you try to alter your orientation. Statistically speaking, people who self-identify as homosexual in their youth continue to self-identify as homosexual for the rest of their lives, and that's okay if you do, too. However, I have hundreds of business contacts along the California coast, and I've noticed a change over the last decade where a few older gays release themselves from strict categorization as gay and allow themselves to feel sexual attraction wherever it occurs. Most remain predominantly gay, but I know several people who started self-identifying as bisexual after decades of being totally gay. One friend left his same-sex partner and married a woman. He is a rare exception, and I am not in any way telling you that you need to change. I'm just advising you to be open to change in every aspect of your life, and to follow the changes that benefit you. Be happy. Better to have a long unexplored journey before you than to be chained by the side of the road.

Echoes of his earthly presence may fade with time, but love is eternal. Am very sorry about your loss this day.

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. The only thing I can tell you with certainty is that you will have good days and bad days ahead as you confront the reality of this situation. Focus on the good days and don't be discouraged by the bad ones. An aunt of mine (not LDS) just passed away from lung cancer, but she smoked. The only thing I learned is that every medical case is unique and that unexpected things can happen. My aunt got her diagnosis and was given only a few months to live, but she lived another 2.5 years. Amazingly, she lived by herself independently in a big house, with some help from her children and church friends (like grocery shopping and mowing the lawn), and except for occasional fatigue her quality of life was not really that bad. Actually, it wasn't the cancer that killed her. She went out on her porch to smoke a cigarette and slipped and fell and got banged up really bad, and she passed away a few days later. I really didn't know how to handle my aunt, because I really loved her. I finally just decided to spend as much time as possible with her and focus on daily activities. That seemed to be the best strategy, because when she finally passed my grief was very manageable. I didn't even go to the funeral. She lived two time zones away and I decided I would spend all my travel time visiting her while she was still alive. Do not worry about the nature of your own passing. Matthew 6:34 says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." I like the KJV even better: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Your RS friends will be able to help you most if you are totally honest about what you need. Work on staying connected to the people around you, because that will be a source of strength to you. Finally, I must say that I have hit several points in my life where I thought everything was lost and hopeless. It wasn't. Not by a long shot. Your husband's medical condition certainly is stressful and sad, and your life will probably change a lot. Be open to the possibility that this change may not be as hard as you might think now, and that your own life may still have many wonderful things ahead. As I have said in other posts here, being strong in the face of adversity is one of God's greatest gifts. It will bless you, your husband, and everyone around you. Wishing you strength for your journey. Don't walk it alone.

21. He's heard it all before. (Be brave.)

When I was baptized, I heard a story about a lady (not in my ward) who was unexpectedly asked to bless the food at some church event. But she was not a public speaker. She became very tongue-tied and flustered, and all she could stammer out was a short prayer that the "food will not give us gas." I chuckle at this story now, but you know what? If the story is true, I think her heart was in the right place, and her prayer was a fine gesture of thanks to God. Short blessings that show one's true heart in a situation are always welcome and lovely in my book. And who knows? Maybe the gas prayer really was the most appropriate thing to ask for that night in the ward. Actually, this story was one of two stories I heard that night about awkward situations at church. The other story was about a man who was bearing his long testimony, and after ten minutes the bishop interrupted him and told him to wrap it up immediately because everyone had to get home in time for some TV show that night.

Well... since you asked us... Your question doesn't say whether you have any competitors, and this is critically important. Also, except for food, medical care, transportation, and housing, there are few things that all people really need. Is your widget some sort of drug that everyone must have to stay alive, or just a particularly delicious type of blackberry jam that some people really like? But let's assume that your widgets are truly needed by everyone and that you hold no special patents or barriers that would block entry into the market from your competitors. The most ethical solution in the long run is to price your widgets at whatever the market will bear. If you have the capacity to manufacture a million widgets per month and you can sell them all at $100.00 each (but not at $100.01) then sell them for $100.00. (Actually, this is not entirely correct. You should manufacture some number of widgets that maximizes your profit. If it costs you $1 million to manufacture a million widgets but only $500,000 to manufacture 900,000 widgets, you should manufacture fewer widgets.) If you start making a killing on profits, competitors will arise and the price of widgets will drop. I'm sure you know this. I understand that many people are nauseated by the thought of maximizing profit above everything else, but usually when you try to manipulate the price of some critical good or service for some noble purpose you end up injecting distortions into the market that cause shortages. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who grew up in the Soviet Union. (My favorite Soviet joke is about the woman who goes into a store and asks, "Is this the store that doesn't have any bread?" and the clerk replies, "No, this is the store that doesn't have any eggs. The store that doesn't have any bread is across the street.") Meanwhile, the profit motive and free enterprise have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese from grinding poverty into growing affluence. Leaving aside special cases like price gouging and illegal protection of monopolies and cartels and consumer fraud, the free market is the most efficient way known to generate the most wealth for the most people. At least in my opinion. If you sell your widgets and notice that poor people truly need them and can't afford them, then use your new wealth (you'll have a lot of it) to subsidize widgets for genuinely poor people who won't secretly stockpile your widgets at a low price and resell them. This is far, far superior than making the price artificially low to everyone so more people can afford them. I do not think price gouging is ethical, even though some of my libertarians would argue that price-gougers enrage consumers and put themselves out of business in the long run. However, there is nothing unethical about letting the market determine a price, and there's a lot unethical about causing unnecessary shortages.

I have to confess, that expression is not original to me. I remember it from high school, when some U.S. politician (Henry "Scoop" Jackson, perhaps) claimed he trusted the Soviet Union about as far as he could throw a grand piano. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on the U.S. medical system. Let's change it to a spinet instead.

That's a good one. My favorite is Zwischen zwei Zwetschgenzweigen zwitschern zwei zwitschernde Schwalben. Anyway, welcome to sxfritz. I am a convert, too, but more like 20 years. Just today some missionaries on Temple Square texted me to see how I was doing (really).

RealClearReligion.org had an interesting article yesterday about the unusual beliefs of C. S. Lewis. The article contained this interesting statement: He [C. S. Lewis] frequently stated that hell is locked from the inside and insisted that hell is self-chosen.

Calm down... I think many medical bills are rubbery and phony. I ran into a metal fence post on my bike as a kid and broke my nose. The bridge of my nose got so wide that I couldn't even wear glasses... they rode up so high that my eyebrows were in the middle of the lenses and looked really weird. As soon as I got out of college and paid off my debts, I saved up for a nose job. The surgeon normally did bust enlargements, but I had heard he was very good and he agreed to take a crack at my nose. But because it was totally cosmetic I had to pay everything myself. I think it was $2000 in 1989, which would be about $3800 in 2014 dollars. Anyway, after the surgery (which was a total success) the hospital messed up my paperwork and sent me a bill under the assumption that my insurance would pay it. It was around $5000 and contained all kinds of scandalous itemizations. I clearly recall they charged me $12 for each aspirin pill they gave me. The next day I happened to bump into my nose surgeon at Wendy's, and I asked him what I should do. He told me to bring the bill to the hospital with a copy of my cancelled check and to tell them it was a total self-pay surgery. I got all my documents and paperwork together and girded myself for battle (I felt like the Armor of God from Ephesians 6) and marched into the hospital... I had barely got the words "self pay" out of my mouth and the administrator snatched my bill from my hands, rolled his eyes, reached into his desk, took out the biggest rubber stamp I have ever seen in my life, and stamped "Paid in Full" on my bill. I also had a friend who worked in the collections department of a hospital. His job was to call people at night and demand payment for hospital bills that they had not paid. I was utterly astonished at my friend's power. He would wheedle and haggle and nag and negotiate and could chop mountain-sized chunks out of a patient's bill if the patient agreed to pay something. (If a hospital ever calls you nagging about a bill, always start the conversation with "Gee, I maybe can pay 10%, will 10% work for you?") And finally, about 10 years ago I was bitten by a cat and had a monster allergic reaction to something in the cat's saliva and was in the hospital for a week. On my last day they told me at breakfast that I'd be discharged right away, so I dressed and packed... and then waited 4 hours for them to finish the paperwork. I was discharged at around 12:10pm. Later a nurse friend of mine told me the hospital wanted to keep me past noon so they could charge my insurance company for another day. I trust the U.S. medical system about as far as I can throw a grand piano.

This is pretty Manichean, but it does seem to be true for many cases, doesn't it? What is the Satanic counterfeit of the gift of tongues? IRS regulations?

Hi Animals, Go British... the authors are wonderful. When I was 14, I loved H. G. Wells (especially The Time Machine), and anything by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or C. S. Lewis. I would avoid Barbara Cartland, though, who wrote 723 novels. (I would argue she wrote one novel 723 times.) I remember reading somewhere that she churned out one romance novel a week, often dictated to secretaries while she lay in bed. So we would be wise to skip her for now. Anyway, one of my favorite pastimes is to read a Sherlock Holmes story and then watch the episode on the 1984 Granada TV series with Jeremy Brett. On a pleasure scale of 1 to 10, this is a 9 (exceeded only by Milka Chocolate, which comes in at a solid 10). And I'm ashamed to say this, but the most un-put-down-able books I read as a teenager were Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. They're hard to find nowadays, and they're not as enriching as Shakespeare or Plato, but you can't beat them for good old downright fun. Maybe novels with corpses aren't squeaky clean, but that's for your judgement. Yeah, these books are a bit old, but seeing the world of 1895 or 1940 through the eyes of interesting characters is wonderful. Happy reading...

Well... your error was telling your son he watches too much TV. He watches too much "bad" TV. :) Do you know who Dr. Ben Carson is? I just saw an interview with him. He credits his success in life to his mother, who required him and his sibling to read two books a week and write a lengthy report on each book. The mother would read each report carefully and check off and underline the good parts. Many years later, Dr. Carson learned that his mother was illiterate and had not really read any of his reports... but she still went through the motions to teach her son the value of learning, books, study, and writing. Think of how different the world would be if we all had mothers like that.

Remember that almost all of the atoms in your body have been here on Earth for billions of years. They were here when Jesus walked the earth. When Jesus walked on water, a few of the water molecules he stepped on are in your body now. In high school we were taught that every time we breathe in, we are inhaling a few atoms that Julius Caesar exhaled in his last breath. And the atoms in our bodies will be here billions of years from now, when the rotation of the Earth has slowed to a crawl and the sun starts to burn out. The matter in matter isn't the matter, it's how it's organized.

I have noticed a change, too, over the course of my life. When I was a kid, I was told, "Do not break the Ten Commandments." Today, the message is more like, "If you break the Ten Commandments, they will break you." I agree that the concept of "sin" has become quite flabby in the 21st century. It has been pushed to a back burner and seems to be evolving into the notion of karma, which has been around for a long time. My belief in the objective existence of evil is what drives me forward to belief in God. It's uncomfortable nowadays to talk about evil and sin because they are usually discussed in a context of judgement... and it's not nice to judge these days, unless you're a Democrat judging a Republican, or vice versa, in which case you can let the cannonballs fly as fast and as far as you want.

Don't just sign the inside of the card... write a short message about how your teachers have changed or improved your life, or how much you are learning from them or enjoying their instruction. It will multiply the niceness of your card a great deal.

Virginia is a lovely state. I was baptized there. If I were you, I'd call the bishop, explain the situation, and ask whether it's appropriate to publicize your townhome through Church contacts. Give him a chance to quash the idea cleanly if he doesn't like it. If he has no objection, pass along the details of your home and invite him to spread the word. But don't be shocked if nothing comes of this. I think you should also find a good realtor, explain that you want to sell your home pronto, and that you have contacted your bishop and that a buyer might emerge from your Church network. If the realtor has a problem with this, tough toenails... find another realtor. But if the realtor can list your home and find a buyer that you and your bishop would not have otherwise found, I wouldn't shrug that off just because you'd feel better selling to a Mormon. Don't leave money on the table. (#1 rule in business.) If you don't know any good realtors, do not pick one randomly from the Internet. Get a referral from one of your friends or co-workers. (Maybe ask the bishop, heh heh.) And I hope you've done the math here. Selling a home in a rush might cost you a lot more in the long run than holding out for a few weeks and getting a better offer. I would list your house at a competitive price and start dropping the price a bit every week until it sells. You're right, late autumn is a slow season in real estate, but there are people who need to buy a new house quickly during the off season. People like you. :)