NeuroTypical

Oh, this is the easiest thing in the world to understand. When there's something wrong and you're a man, you fix it. And you might ask for help, if you know exactly what you need, from someone you know can help. When there's something wrong and you're a lady, you often seek the comfort of a good relationship. Fixing the problem isn't on the top of your list. Experiencing the blessings that come from having various relationships is. You say "I sat and held her for about 45 minutes straight" because you are frustrated that all that time was wasted and nothing got done. She says stuff like "He sat and held me for about 45 minutes straight" because she was comforted and it helped, or afraid that the relationship would be harmed if she talked about it, or increasingly upset that you would turn this into something about you, or grateful for the feeling of security while she sorted things out. So, if just understanding what's going on was really all you were after, you can now walk away with a smile on your face. Again, the problem comes into play when a gal has a problem and a guy wants to help fix it. LM

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Active duty or retired? Now, I didn't marry active military, but I've talked to people who have, and they all tell me the same thing. It stinks. It's hard. It sucks to be married to military. You endure long periods of lonliness, and there is a lot of change as you move around. You spend a lot of time away from each other. This really, really, really stinks when the kids arrive. Spouses of active military tell me they band together whenever they find each other, which is nice, but not always possible. The divorce rate in the military is far higher than for civilians. The men and women who put themselves in harm's way for our country, REQUIRE a stronger spouse than most marriages. Otherwise the marriage fails. Can you learn to be stronger than most women? Can you learn to run a household while your man is deployed half a world away, and then step aside to share the leadership role when he comes home? There are many sucessful military marriages with spouses deeply committed to each other. There are blessings in being married to military that I will never have. But dang - it's hard. If you're up for the challenge, then go for it. Be one of the sucessful stories. And it will be your choice to make it work or not. LM (If he did his tour and is out of the military, you can disregard this entire post.)

Oh man! This needs to be turned into a Lifetime TV miniseries, or be someone's .sig line, or shouted from a mountain top. Or at least put on a bumper sticker. This is why I showed up to my patriarchical blessing with an engagement ring in my hand, begging God to give me a straight direct unambiguous answer. Such choices are too weighty for me. LM (13+ years and 2 kids)

Something every married couple needs to learn - you don't always value the same things and give/recieve love the same ways. If you haven't done it already, grab a copy of the Five Love Languages - it could avoid a lot of grief and bumps down the normal marriage learning curve.We're all big on appreciating the differences, and understanding that men and woman are not the same and all that. Until we spend five hours pouring our soul into the most meaningful expression of love we've ever produced, and then our spouse doesn't even bother to notice. This happens - and it's not because our spouse is wrong. You both need to learn how each of you express and want to recieve love. LM

Welcome Dway! I think of CoC as our dear cousins who went through a rough time in the '90's, but are doing better now. I'm grateful our two churches are able to cooperate so closely in sharing historical documents and such things. LM

There are two different notions being discussed here. 1- deification - we are literal offspring of a divine God - we are of the same race as God. Kids grow up to be what their parents are. 2- God had a dad, and onward throughought time. The church is pretty clear on standing behind #1. Yes, we take what the Bible says about being children of God, and joint-heirs with Christ who will inherit all the Father hath, literally. We stand by it as truth. As for #2, well, we're much more vague on the details. We don't stand behind the notion at all. Interview with President Hinckley, Time Magazine, Aug 4, 1997: Reporter: Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are? Hinckley: I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. I haven't heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don't know. I don't know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don't know a lot about it and I don't know that others know a lot about it." LM

Everyone has issues. Speaking very practically: You are going into this relationship with your eyes open. You see the issues you are marrying into. You're fortunate, a lot of people have serious issues spring up after marriage.So, your relationship with your wife, and your inlaws, and her relationship with her parents, are what they are. You are not first and foremost her husband, you're first and foremost the guy who married their daughter. You won't be the head of the house, her dad will. Things may or may not change in the future, but you can be pretty certain they won't be changing any time soon. So, if you're willing to live with this reality and hope for a better future, then marry her. If you're not, break it off. You don't get to marry her, and then gripe about these issues. If you marry her, you are accepting them and promising to live with them. My crystal ball sees four possibilities if you marry her: 1- Her parents figure out life isn't so bad, and back off. She grows to a more healthy distance from them. Everyone learns how to get along, and life is eventually good. 2- You and your wife have a long series of knock-down drag out fights with her parents, resulting in all sorts of bitterness and raw wounds (and maybe black eyes and jail time) that take a long time to heal. But you and your wife grow together and life is eventually good. 3- You accept your role as "that mormon [expletive] my daughter married" and spend a lot of energy walking on eggshells and not making waves. You stay together. 4- Your marriage fails. If the spirit is telling you to marry her, then go for it. But be aware of the realities of the situation. LM

You think you got it hard, try asking the exact opposite question. Why not worship this God? What is it about being the 'original' that has a higher claim on worship than the one we're actually involved with? You give me a strait answer to my question, and I'll give you one to yours.

You owe it to your kid to try to make things work. If he won't marry you, at least you should strive for the closest relationship with him that you can get. You are training your daughter how to pick men. You will also train her to stay with or dump men after making a baby with one. Chose your path carefully. Cheating and drugs and abuse and things are reasons to walk away. Getting upset that your shack-up dood went to a party without telling you, well, it seems like an odd time to start getting upset about that sort of behavior. Good luck. Do what's best for your kid.

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There are a lot of failed marriages out there, where one of the partners thought that having a kid would help things, and instead it made them worse. There are also a lot of marriages out there where introducing a kid helped solidify the marriage and give new life to the right priorities. We can't really tell you which marriage you're in. I'm not sure anyone can. If you're thinking adding a kid will fix things, I'd take a good hard second (and third and fourth) thought. LM

There's absolutely no reason at all to be even a little off-put about discrepancies in 1st vision accounts. Folks who toss around this issue as a criticism, do not understand how humans function. We humans just never tell the same story twice. We communicate what we figure is important, to different audiences at different times. We stress things differently on different occasions. We have memories that are often selective, and occasionally poor. This is what a human being is. You try having a life-changing experience, and telling people about it exactly the same way across two decades. It can't be done. LM (p.s. - "cut and paste" didn't exist in the 1800's either.)

From where I'm standing, sacrament meeting is a time for me to renew my covenants with God and decrease the distance between us. Asking me to rate my 'level of engagement' with sacrament meeting, feels sort of like asking me to rate the level of engagement with museum staff as I take in all the displays. It ain't about you. It's about God. LM

From your post, the only thing that occurs to me, is to give up cable, and try really hard to not get offended.FWIW, I had ten-buck-a-month dialup internet when I was out of work. And I wouldn't dream of having a cell phone if I was accepting financial/food aid from someone. Our current cell phones cost about ten bucks a month too.

Here you go:

I'm grateful that the 8 yr old victimized girl in my circle of concern, is able to be growing up without having her name plastered across the media. I hope the world can now stop talking about this young woman. Such folks usually want very much to put the past behind them - not always possible while being talked about by the world.

As previously mentioned, 'letting it sit in the bank' is also a way of growing the economy. How else you going to skew it? Who gave you the authority? If you're going to do it differently, that basically means taking from people via the threat of force, and giving it to someone who didn't do anything to earn it, right?Discussion point: since the dawn of time, there has been unequal distribution of wealth. There have been, and always will be, haves and have-nots (city of Enoch as an exeption, and all this ends with the millenium.) Given that fact, does it not make more sense to have a structure where you can choose to move up or down the wealth curve according to your own efforts and desires? To do what you want with the fruits of your labors, as opposed to having some sort of nebulous "them" out there who know better what to do with your riches than you do? LM

oh dang that's funny.

You mean business vs. personal tax, or rich vs poor? Are you talking mechanics of taking taxes, or are you talking what's fair? There are plenty of ways for a government to extract money from the economy. And really, whether it takes it in the form of income tax, property tax, consumption tax, or tax on business, it all ends up coming out of the economy one way or the other. We also use tax as a way to engineer social change. Like a mortgage tax credit is engineered to aid and support private home ownership. Or a 'marriage benefit' where couples pay less overall tax than they would if they were single. If you're talking what's fair, well, yeah, that's very subjective. I personally think representation without taxation is as horrible an idea as taxation without representation. I'd like to see less double-triple-quadruple taxation on things, maybe a simpler tax code, like a flat tax or straight consumption tax. Here's how it works:Bob is rich. He spends his money on stuff, meaning some company somewhere has hired people and bought stuff, and use the people to turn the stuff into what he bought. If he wasn't rich and buying stuff, that company wouldn't be employing anyone or buying anything to sell to him. Or, rich Bob invests his money. Businesses use the money he's invested to expand - hire more people. Other folks borrow Bob's money to do things like pay for college. The more govt takes from Bob (and the rest of us), the less money gets into the economy. Economic advantage: People like to improve their situation in life. Making oodles of money is nice. If you exist in a country where it doesn't matter how hard you work or how smart you are, you'll never get rich, you're less likely to work hard. People ask "what economic advantage is there for you to have all the money". Something they are saying that they miss, is "I want the government to take your money by force and give it to someone else." It sounds different when you think about it like that, but that's basically what the idea entails. Someone gets rich, but the govt has a policy to take it away, just because they have it. That's not fair.LM

Yeah, my dad went through WWII, and lived his entire life apparently content that he didn't know or care if there was a God or not. Yet he was also fond of that phrase though, so I dunno. Maybe a traumatic experience like combat can solidify one's conception of deity, as either someone there or someone not there? Dunno. LM

So, important question - what difference would it make if you had answers to these questions? If you could understand why your sister acts as she does, what would be different? Maybe she's selfish. Maybe she's hurt and afraid. Maybe she was offended by someone. What is different about your relationship with her, if you understand her motivation? Does it help you love her more, or give you ammunition to use against her, or help you talk her into something different, or what?I guess my question is, are you looking for advice on how to change her, or how to love her? You really might just have to pick one or the other, ya know... If you are out to change her, no. If you're out to love her, then probably yes. Yes. Either accept her and love her, or stay away from her. Because you can't change her.LM

Very true. Love might mean, but IMO doesn't always mean, having to carry on family traditions after you're all grown up. Or living 5 minutes away from someone. Or having lunch once a week. Or going to the family reunion. Or whatever. Something many of us suffer from, is looking at change as evidence that someone doesn't love us or hasn't forgiven us. But we've ALWAYS had thanksgiving dinner here! Please, can't we set aside that thing I did three years ago and just go back to the way things were? ** But uncle Bob is always that way, and we've just always put up with him! Your boatrocking means you need to work on forgiving him. ** But all my other kids live close to me - why do you have to be so far? Don't you love me? Are you still carrying a grudge for that thing I did? I might be the wrong person to ask about the lesser, more common difficulties we face living around each other. But my general attitude is that no really, living 300 miles away, updating your blog weekly with pictures, and being polite and civil when in the same room - all that goes a long way to loving someone you don't want to be around. And if someone is a recurring source of harm, stress, grief, or extreme unpleasantness, then maybe loving them means giving them less opportunity to be that difficult person they always end up being. Allowing someone to be comfortable and secure in their choosing to act like a jackass year after year, doesn't sound like a good definition of Love to me. Teaching your kids through example, that you have to endure abuse because you're related to someone? I foresee myself having a hard time explaining that one to the righteous Judge I'm kneeling down before and giving an accounting to. LM

Thanks, Mr. Lenon, for your song Imagine. It helps to have such a widely-agreed-upon summary of liberal thought to use as a playing field for a political argument.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!