I struggle with the dynamics of agency, life as it happens and answers to our prayers.
Did God create the earth, place man on it, give him his agency and then pretty much let things go on naturally from there? If not, does that mean God is constantly interfering with and tinkering with the lives and events of His creation?
In our desire to constantly please you, we at Nine Moons have brought you cheese-blogging, surveys, bloggernacle trading cards and hopefully a few interesting posts. Always on the cutting edge we present to you… A Guest Blogger!!!
Silus Grok is the handle for a guy I’ve known for years… well, my sister knew him better, but that’s good enough in a six-degrees world. He served in the Canada Montreal Mission, once upon a time, and he’s currently active in his Provo family ward… serving in three callings (is that even allowed in Provo?). I’ve enjoyed his comments over at Times and Seasons, and his posts on his freshly-minted blog (it’s about time!). I think you’ll enjoy his insights as well.
Oh, and he’s a designer as well, which automatically elevates his cool status to infinity plus one.
By the way, A Random John has been in the middle of moving so we will all exercise the principle of forgiveness.
That’s what a Stake President once told me. I’ve thought long and hard about that and I must say I agree with him.
Re-reading the BOM again continues to bring me new insights. This one I’m sure most of you have already thought of and probably done the math, or figured it didn’t matter.
When Martin Harris lost the 116 pages of manuscript Joseph had to replace it with a translation from the small plates. When the small plates ran out the "Words of Mormon" was used as the connector from the small plates back to the large plates. The large plates starts at Mosiah 1 (scholars say it really is like the third chapter, but we call it chapter 1).
In December at Times and Seasons Kaimi wrote a fun little post about each permablogger at T&S being like a specific cheese. The ensuing discussion made me hungry as our eyes were opened to the world of cheese.
About that same time my wife and I discovered our local cheesemonger down the street. Almost every week we like to have cheese night, a dinner dedicated to the consuming of cheese. It usually ends up being three or four cheeses, a baguette, some fruit, and our favorite juice. We don’t know very many recipies that will take advantage of such distinct cheeses (plus, eating the stuff plain is a sure thing, always good).
So I’ve done what anyone of you would do if you were in my position: create a cheese blog. It’s a simple idea: when I try a new cheese I post a picture, describe it and mention how to prepare it. I’ve invited Kaimi and Gordon to be contributors as well.
If anyone is interested in learning (along with me) about good cheeses, drop by. Hopefully it will be fun.
A few days ago I went with the bishop to visit a family in our ward. Sister S and her daughter were baptized a few years ago in an adjacent state. She has since stopped coming to church but her daughter remains one of the most faithful in the ward.
As we were conversing with Sister S the flashbacks of the mission began, “Member X said some things that offended me so I decided not to go to church anymore. If the Church has people like that then I don’t want to be a part of it… etc, etc, etc.” She didn’t deviate in the script she was given by the Guatemalan Organization for Disaffected Mormons. I was actually saying her words before they exited her mouth.
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I find the bloggernacle stimulating. One person’s comment on someone else’s blog can trigger all sorts of thoughts and wonderings. Jeffrey Giliam’s comment on Geoff’s post at New Cool Thing got me thinking about eternal things.
I’m not sure I can communicate exactly what I’m thinking - but here goes.
Can something that is eternal have a begining? The first example that pops into my mind is this earth. It was created, it will change and it will become a Celestial world from then on thru the eternities. So as a Celestial world it is eternal. Second example: God is an eternal God, but we know He wasn’t a God always. He became a God and then will continue to be God thru the eternities.
The "cheap" easy answer is these were just changes in the eternal matter/intellegences/whatever. Everything has always existed, it just goes thru organizational changes. So everything is eternal.
Maybe eternal is just a word or concept we use to describe something in relationship to time that we really have no clue about. Time that is. Maybe eternal is used to help when we try to understand our time, but God’s time is different, and maybe time itself is different. That being possible then what does eternal mean?
If you’ve come here to read about temple covenants and whatnot, I’m sorry, you will be sorely disappointed. The Covenant I speak of is, of course, the enemy of you and I as Master Chief. This is a blatant, not-Mormon-topic attempt to discover who plays Halo2 on Xbox Live. I could try to write some “Halo as the Gospel” metaphor but I figure that would turn people off more than this. Besides, tonight I don’t feel like defending video games or violence in the media or whatever.
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I have always had a deep appreciation for the Atonement in my life but I can truly say that I’ve never understood it very well. In fact, I don’t know too many people that do. I had always tried to understand it in terms of justice, mercy, love, agency, knowledge and power. It wasn’t until my mission that I first read this talk by Cleon Skousen.
It changed me.
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As I was reading this morning on the subway (don’t you just love BoM for the Palm?) I was wondering how the Book of Laman would be written. (I don’t mean something like the farsical Book of Lemuel, found here that has some amusing one-liners but overall is just too silly.) What I’m talking about is Laman’s perspective.
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I almost didn’t do it! You know the first presidency suggested/told us to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. My first thoughts were how can I get out of this. I’ve read it many times, taught it many times, why do I need to read it again right now? I’m in the middle of my own personal scripture study…Pearl of Great Price……so why the BOM now?
The response to this little endeavor was fantastic. The limit for the free survey was 100 responses and I got 109 (?) (I expected around 30-50). I took screen captures of the results and have them posted below with my own speculative commentary. Feel free to jump to your own conclusions.
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Submitted by ARJ
After hanging around in the bloggernacle for a while now, I’ve developed a few pet issues that I’m sensitive to. Probably on the top of the list if the concept of equality in the eternities. This is a concept that I had never run into until reading Mormon blogs. It bugs me in a deep way, probably because I don’t see the evidence for it. In fact, my concept has always been that equality is impossible.
NOTE: Tonight I’m going to close the survey and tally the results. I will post it late tonight/tomorrow morning. If you haven’t done the survey, please do so today. If you’ve already done it, don’t do it again (this isn’t an election folks).
Surveys are awesome. It’s always fun to see a bulk of information condensed into a few numbers and then make outrageous claims as to their meaning. Therefore, I’ve created a quick ten-question anonymous survey about Bloggernacle participants so that we can determine the future of the Church and the Salvation of Man.
Please respond in the next couple days. Nobody wants to wait for results because YOU were too lazy to answer 10 easy, quick questions. Thanks.
Disclaimer that shouldn’t even have to be mentioned: This is not all-encompassing. I’m very aware I probably could have worded a certain question in a better way to garner a better response… I don’t care. There are those much smarter than me that can do something much more smarter.
