selek

Wilkommen! Wipe your muddy boots!

It won't help you! I'll be wearing a leather trenchcoat, large, floppy hat, glasses, and a fake beard as a disguise! D'oh!

Do you think that this late appearance is due to the much touted and long expected Post-exilic revision to the Scriptures Doc? Or might there be another factor in such a "late" appearance?

What? What? Speak up, son! I can't hear you!

You know......maybe it was a bad idea to turn the two of us loose on an unsuspecting forum without even Juliann to ride shotgun. I just wonder what some of the innocent <strike>victims</strike>....I mean lurkers.... are going to think of our humor. If you and I get any more warped, the Big E isn't going to need Geordi anymore.

That's only reciprocity, considering the bio I did for you on the thread formerly known as "Is Satan Really That Bad?" Henceforth, it should be known as, "Ed Decker's Thorough, Ongoing, Factual, and Truthfully UnImpeachable Examination of Fruit Cocktail In LDS Temple Ceremonies" thread. And you have a starring role. You naughty, naughty, boy.

I am most assuredly speaking "tongue-in-cheek". While Doc Stuess is indeed an enlightened and articulate friend, he is nonetheless the "tyler" of the SSCE. His post within the organization seems to vary. NASA is reportedly working on a complex algorithym which explains that his duties vary depending upon the phases of the moon, whether or not bell-bottom pants are currently in style, and the caloric and alcohol content of the "punch" served in the steaming skull-shaped mugs at the SSCE shin-digs in the underground tunnels running from the Sands Casino to Area 51. I've also been reliably informed that the SSCE is the auxiliary organization to the UMW World Conclave (which meets frequently in an underground room beneath Tom Cruise's swimming pool). This is, of course, denied by the general SSCE membership- usually in a calm, articulate fashion involving lava lamps, axe handles, and the shaving of eyebrows. I've been somewhat less-reliably informed that Stuess is also Barbara Striesand/Kurt Kobain's lovechild created using a five pound tub of CoolWhip and DNA from four of the five Beatles.

I'd take those odds. . Speaking of refreshments, who's doing the catering?

Yeah, yeah, yeah......stop making nice. It won't do any good: everybody knows your reputation, GG. Queen Bee of the UMW's, leader of the Danite Women's Auxiliary, confirmed mass murderer of pesky weeds and insects....... Boy...I'm gonna get it at the next Conference. Where'd I put my plate mail?

Hmmmm......haven't I seen you somewhere before? There's something about her face.... Professor Henry "Selek" Higgins

Step into the light children.......

I'll bite: What's a "knee bang"?

It depends upon the mood she's in when you ask her. About 90% of the time she can't imagine eternity without me. 80% of the time she can't imagine eternity with me, and about 30% of the time she wants to give me a push in that direction (off a cliff) . We go through cycles. I've proposed to her (and she's accepted) twice since the divorce, but she's always broken it off for one reason or another within six months of the proposal. Her family is leery (my family thinks I'm certifiably insane), and three of our four (teenagers, all) children are opposed. I was her second husband. Her past and her first marriage were disasters, so she was a little messed up when I found her. I rode in on a white charger and married a woman with two kids (and a third in the oven) and never looked back. After seven years of the stupid things people do to each other in a marriage, and with her Daddy cheerleading, she divorced me. In moments of brutal honesty, I occasionally admit that I might have had it coming (not for any abuse or anything like that, but for not being the husband and priesthood holder I should have been and who she needed me to be). Since then, I've stepped up to the plate in ways neither of us imagined, and our relationship is stronger than it ever was. There's just a tremendous amount of baggage for her to overcome- and a lot of fear. Various people have spent her entire lifetime beating down her self-esteem and destroying her ability to trust (both herself and men in general). They've messed with her faith in herself and her faith in God. I know that she loves me (and my feelings have been anything but hidden), but that's a lot for her to overcome. She's terrified of making another huge mistake (she has admitted our divorce was one of them), and basically wants to please everybody. She has it in her mind that the only reason the kids could possibly be opposed is because it's not right for us to be together. So everything is on hold until the kids are grown, the moons align, and Heavenly Father sends her an angelic witness to slap her upside the head and tell her to quit stalling. And she knows that I'm just dumb/dedicated/committed enough to wait for her.

That's the one!

Peanut Brittle 1 1/4 cup Sugar 1/2 teaspoon Salt (only when using unsalted peanuts) 1/2 cup light corn syrup 1/4 cup water 1 1/2 cup peanuts 1 teaspoon non-lumpy baking soda 3 drops yellow and red food coloring Greased (buttered) 15 1/2 x 12 cookie sheet In heavy 1 1/2 quart saucepan, stir together sugar, salt, corn syrup, and water. Over medium heat, stirring constantly, bring to boil. Clip candy thermometer to pan. Without stirring, boil until candy thermometer reads 280 degrees. Add peanuts gradually to keep mixture boiling. Stirring often, cook until candy thermometer reads 300 degrees (hard crack stage). Off heat, quickly, but gently stir in baking soda, keeping as many bubbles intact as possible. Pour at once into middle of cookie sheet and allow to cool. Break into pieces, and store tightly covered. Makes me 1 1/4 lbs. This is an old-family recipe that's been in my family for three generations now. It was handed down from Ann Landers (my Mom clipped it out of the newspaper when I was 8 ). The original recipe called for using dark corn syrup and omitted the food coloring. I found that by using light syrup instead, the candy came out pretty much clear (without altering the flavor of the candy), and I could use the food coloring to customize it. One of my favorite things to do is make two batches of brittle right around the holidays, coloring one green and the other red. Mixing the batches makes a nice red/green color scheme for Christmas goody baskets.

The Secret Society of Cavernous Evil. It is one of the secret combinations we are warned about in Scripture. According to conventional rankings by the Rand Institute, the SSCE come in somewhere between Ronald McDonald and Walmart on the list of who's the most evil. Doc Stuess is also a member, which may explain why they just edged out Colonel Sanders and Colonel Klink on the list. As to the OP, I think Satan's activities were anticipated by, rather than commissioned by an omnipotent God.

Chronologically, I am 36, and will be 37 on Christmas Eve. According to both my most ardent admirers and vociferous critics, I range in age emotionally and intellectually, somewhere between a spoiled two-year-old and an eighty-year-old Machiavelli. I joined the church not-quite fifteen years ago. (If it had been AA, then I could claim a fourteenth birthday, as I understand it).

You've clearly never been anywhere near my ex-wife and kids when I get going about the conversations on the boards! There is generally much wailing and gnashing of teeth!

Good Morning, All! My name is Selek, and many of you know me from the other boards. Please don't hold that against me. I'm a fourteen year member, a convert to the Church. I am divorced with four children, but I still stay extremely close with my once-and-future bride. While it has been sufficiently cliched to be almost stereotypical- in my particular case, the phrase, "I know this Church is true" is no idle boast. Everything I have seen in my life, all of my travels, all of my experiences testify of God- of his mercy, of his expectations, and of his benevolence towards us. I beleive in the Gospel and in Church with every fiber of my being- and perhaps one day my personal attainment will reflect that. As I am fond of saying, I'm a practicing Latter-Day Saint. And I'll keep practicing until I get it right. It's been my experience that most of the trouble Latter-Day Saints and investigators find in their learning and growth revolves around unfulfilled expectations. They start with the assumption that if the Church is true, it must therefore be perfect. They lose sight of the fact that the Church is not a resort for the perfected, but a hospital for the sick. Though its origins and commission are divine, it is manned and ministered by flawed, mortal men- and will therefore eternally fall short of the ideal. They expect our leaders- most especially our Prophets and Apostles- to be more than human. They assume that someone called of God must be quickened in some way- set apart from all the flaws and foibles that made them human to begin with. This being the case, they expect that everything the Church has said is without contradiction, nor is it subject to interpretation, agency, or even misrepresentation. They expect that everything our leaders have said is straight from God's lips to their ears, and is not potentially biased by the fact that our leaders are themselves only flawed men still struggling down the road to perception. With this preconception in mind, it can be very, very jarring to see the flaws, foibles, and errors of our leaders. It can also be earth-shaking when the same facts which support the Church's position on any particular topic are spun to achieve an entirely different conclusion. Differing versions of the First Vision, the Kirtland Banking Society, and some of the inflammatory things said by our leaders before 1978 can all be devastating to a testimony when they are removed from their proper historical context and then coupled with the expectation that our leaders were somehow super-human. Frankly this idea is unprecedented- there is no Biblical or Scriptural support for such an expectation. No perfect man has walked the Earth save one. Our prophets, our leaders are imperfect, flawed human beings. They still have to deal with what's for dinner and skinned knees, and whether the cat wants out the house give minutes after it was let in, or wants in five minutes after it was let out. The other expectation is tied closely to the first. Most of us wants a God, a Church, a cause that we can dedicate ourselves to wholly, completely, passionately, and without reservation. For a tiny minority, that desire can become a need for perfection and for an easy ride. It works out something akin to; "Now that I'm a member of the Church, I am safe. I don't need to weigh things for myself or diligently study- I can merely do whatever the Brethren tell me and I will be healthy, prosperous, and successful." Blind devotion appeals to the absolutist elements of their character, and when deprived of that expectation, they become embittered, hostile, and frankly, fanatical. The idea that obedience will guarantee them a safe and easy passage is devastating when they find out they are still subject to the hardships, trials, bumps, and bruises of life. A reasonably prominent commentator in the recent PBS special on the Mormons is a prime example. He made inflammatory claims about his zealousness and devotion in an effort to paint Mormons as blind followers, and then admitted that he fell away because the leaders weren't what he thought they were. The realization that our leaders and our Church are not infallible- and that we are each expected to work out our own salvation "with fear and trembling" was devastating to his testimony. That he remained responsible for his own salvation and could not rely on perfect leaders was devastating- it didn't appeal to his absolutist streak, and so he has become absolutist in the opposite extreme. The Church which failed to meet his expectation and answer his needs has now become the greatest evil in his life. I apologize for the length of this rant, and look forward to talking to each of you in this forum. Hopefully, you can teach me quite a bit more about the true and restored Church of Christ, and in the same vein, I won't bore you to death!