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It’s interesting that you’re just now getting the regular GD OT lesson manual, and also interesting that you’re being asked to start from the beginning, rather than just pick up where everyone else is. DId the SS Pres tell you to start with Adam/Eve or did you just assume you should start there? I guess it doesn’t really matter. I love teaching youth sunday school, because they nearly have adult minds and they can come up with some pretty cool stuff if you present some ideas, conflicting concepts, and/or different ways of viewing the world. With the ongoing charge to liken the scriptures to ourselves, I’d suggest always asking your class how these concepts and stories relate to them in August of 2010… right now. You don’t have to believe the “story” of Adam and Eve. I think there are lots of people who don’t feel like Genesis contains a literal history of two people in a garden. I would ask the class what they think. What does it teach us that can be applicable to August 2010? What does the story have to do with what’s important to us now? Or, to THEM now? Why does it matter? Let them answer those questions. That’s the lesson.
Silent, your question assumes everyone has the same acceptance or belief of degrees of heaven that you have. I’m guessing that’s not the case. This is off-topic, but has anyone ever considered “Degrees of Glory” using different definitions of the word “degree”? If it has to do with temperature, I don’t want the highest… give me something in the middle, 70’s would be nice. If it has to do with angles, I guess I’ll take obtuse… maybe there would be more room.
I think tithing works best when you make plenty of money and you let your wife take care of it. When asked “Are you a full tithe payer” and I answer, “I don’t know, what did my wife say?” does that REALLY make me a full tithe payer? I mean, if she weren’t around, would I pay as much as I do now? Probably not. Ergo… am I really answering the question honestly?
I understand this is obvious, but words are language, and language is communication. “Swear” words in and of themselves don’t typically bother me if they clearly communicate the intended message of the speaker. Used as filler, they are silly, paint the user as unimaginative or ignorant at best, idiot at worst, and serve to dilute the power of that particular word, which kind of bothers me. I don’t find it coarse or low-brow for a person to use profanity, as some four-letter words can be very powerful, but such words, as any words, should be used relatively sparingly and with a thought behind it. I have found that a well-placed “Damn” can get my kids attention, but I don’t use it very often or it wouldn’t work. I DO wish more people would be more considerate of their audience and environment when they decide to unleash a cascade of cursing. The other day I was walking through a bookstore and meandered into the children’s section looking for a book for one of my kids. There was a 20 to 30-something man sitting in the kids reading area on a cell phone talking very loudly to someone, explaining how he didn’t f-ing care about f-ing this or that and it was BS and f-ing filth and foul and that guy could f-ing kiss his filth and foul and REPEATING the same line carefully again as if person on the other end maybe didn’t hear it… “Oh, lost connection? I was saying that I f-ing don’t care and will drive the F to here or there and this or that…” Come on… you’re in a kid’s reading area! Loud swearing in public DOES bother me, especially on a cell phone. I don’t think it makes you sound tough and I’ve heard women say that maybe it means you’re compensating for something. Wasn’t it Teddy Roosevelt who encouraged us to “Speak kindly and walk softly, but carry a big f-ing stick?” Something like that. If you’re comfortable with who you are and the lexicon you’re packin’, maybe you don’t need to frivolously fling four-letter words for all the world to hear. I once worked with a guy who swore like a sailor and as we know, when we’re around those words, they tend to slide into our lexicon as easy as picking up some Southern drawl if you spend much too time at a Texas Barbeque. But, this guy reported that he didn’t want to cuss so much and I surely didn’t want to pick up so much, so I suggested that he think of other words to use that would better communicate his intent. He was especially trying to curb his use of the F-bomb. To help him, when he’d f-ing let go a f-ing string of f’s, I’d listen and tell him, “Adverb, adjective, noun” or whatever the part of speech it was the he filled in his F. I don’t know that it helped him increase his vocabulary, but he’d usually smile and say, “Thanks, I gotta stop f-ing cussing so much.” Adverb.
Finally, I learned a new word today reading this thread–Sugar. I had no idea. It must be one of them Utahn euphamisms. Down South it’s just a term of endearment… or is it? Maybe that waitress calling me “Sugar” last night really WASN’T flirting with me.
I read this article and noticed that the authors do not report that these education differences are statistically significant. They might be, but I’m guessing not, or they would have reported them to be. They do report statistically significant differences in attendance by ethnicity, but fail to indicate where exactly the significance falls. Is it just with African-Americans? With all races? Hard to tell. Were Utah women significantly higher educated back in ’87, or could the numbers above average and below average all be attributable to chance alone? We’re not told. I also wondered what the graph would look like if Utah’s line was compared to other individual states, not just the average of all the states (including Utah). It might not look so anomolous. Given the caveat that the differences in education rates between Utah women and women in the rest of the nation may not not statistically significant, what might be the reason that they went from above average to below average? The article gives some hints. It may correlate with the increase in minority population (like it or not, minority post-secondary education is historically poor compared to majority). Similarly, Utah has seen one of the highest population growths. With that often comes economic boom (people don’t move to places where jobs are scarce). People moving in create more jobs, including more jobs that require little to no post-secondary education. If jobs are plentiful, people often feel less motivated to educate themselves further. Based on what I gleened from the article, I would posit that the decreasing education rates may relate to ethnicity and economics. Obviously, LDS religion relates to women leaving college early, men being scarce in the 19-21 age range, and women taking more education-type careers. But, the LDS religion has always been a huge part of Utah, why would this be a more significant factor now that the proportion of LDS in Utah is lower than before? Doesn’t make sense to me.
From my perspective, the church encourages women to get educated more so today than in the 80’s. I don’t think these low rates are church related.
But, you Utahns can spend lots of money on task forces and committees to figure it all out.
While you’re at it, try to figure out how a state full of Mormons, who purportedly value education so much, spend the lowest amount on education in the entire nation. Utah’s per pupil spending is traditionally dismal. You make my state look good, and my state is terrible in this area as well. Okay… sorry to rant.
I don’t think it would work to go to a different ward, an old ward, grandma’s ward, or whatever ward to baptise your child because the authority in the ward you’re doing the ordinance is supposed to make a call to your Bishop or make sure you are worthy by looking at your temple recommend. Actually, from my limited previous experience dealing with this I think the person has to carry a permission from their home ward allowing the ordinance to be performed elsewhere. This is different than a child blessing, which doesn’t require so much oversight. I don’t know for sure if SD was suggesting that idea… I thought at first he was, then on second read I wasn’t sure. Even moving to a new ward wouldn’t necessarily work because new bishops regularly call old bishops about new members, especially when there has been a lapse in temple recommend. Plus, what a hassle and cost to incur just to baptise a child… why not just pay tithing for a period of time, using language as Ray suggested? Bishop might ask for more time, but would probably compromise if daughter really wants daddy to do the deed and will not get baptised any other way. And, pay direct to SLC to avoid any concerns about amount.
LaLa, part of your depression may have related to the hormonal changes involved with pregnancy and post-pregnancy, though I’m sure you already considered that. Very happy to hear that things are better now. SD, if you want to save on therapy bills, just detail your next confrontation/disagreement/thing that causes you disquietude in a long message on this forum and let the rest of us help you sort it out. You don’t need me to tell you that you are very analytical and probably able to sort out the “issues” in a CBT manner through writing them out on a message board. WRITING about the emotionally traumatic or bad things that happen to you can be significantly therapeutic both emotionally AND physically. You break down, analyze, and detail things so well, that I suspect you’d benefit greatly from this type of therapeutic approach.
I’ve done work in this area (writing and therapy) and it definitely has therapeutic merit. Check out the work by James Pennebaker on writing and therapy, or catharcic writing. Pennebaker used to be at SMU, but I don’t know if he’s still there. Some researchers in New Zealand also found some interesting results with writing in populations of Hepititis B patients. In short, writing about one’s trauma has shown to decrease negative mood (well, negative mood typically increases while and just after you write, and then decreases substantially), increase positive mood, decrease medical visits, and increase immune system response when compared to matched controls writing about trivial things. If you’re interested in more information, I can give it to you.
SD, when you gave more details about the actual conversation, I wondered what would have happened had it gone something like this:
YW leaders: “We think your idea is not practical.”
SD: “Ah, I think you’re just making that up because you don’t really wanna do it.”
YW leaders: “No, it’s the goal, we don’t think it’ll work; it’s not practical.”
SD: “Oh, okay, then you guys come up with the goal.”
Practice makes perfect, yet nobody is perfect. Since Jesus was perfect, He must have gotten a lot of practice, but he didn’t need practice because he was perfect. He commands us to be perfect, but gives us weakness so that we might be humble and come to him with a broken heart and contrite spirit, and things that are broken aren’t perfect, but that’s how he wants us… broken and perfect. I think Silent starts some very interesting threads.
This reminds me of the famous liars paradox (e.g., “This sentence is false”). Is that sentence true or false?
Language, and particularly, semantics, has everything to do with paradoxes in my opinion, and as soon as you attach the word “truth” on to just about anything a paradox will emerge because there is always a contridiction.
So, a paradoxical truth is maybe the ONLY truth.
Truth IS paradox.
This has been an interesting topic. I found a flaw in one of Silent’s arguments (though no flaw in his character, heh). He mentioned (I’m summarizing and apologize if I didn’t get it quite right but I’m often lazy and don’t like to fish for quotations) that it would not be fair or just for reason and logic to be the primary mechanisms to discover truth because some people just don’t have as much in the brains department, and that God wouldn’t do that to dummies because he loves all of us, everyone. This argument supposes variation in this thing we call intelligence, which is easily defended by the volumes of data showing that intelligence is normally distributed in a bell-shaped pattern. Most are average, some are really low and some are really high. Same with reading ability. Same with height. Same with weight. Same with pants sizes. Same with athleticism. Same with other things like “motivation”, “emotional intelligence”, “altruism”. Same with… spiritual intuitiveness? Hmm. That would only make sense, right.
So, would a just God make spiritual confirmation the ONLY mechanism to discover truth when obviously there are some who are naturally better at it than others and some who may never “get” it? But wait, a person can increase their spiritual awareness through prayer, fasting, exercising faith, etc. Yet, a person can also increase their logic, reasoning, and understanding through education, reading, and study. Would God give us only ONE mechanism? By the mouths of two or three witnesses shall truth be established. Maybe the witnesses are spiritual, intellectual, and … intuition? Experience?
IF there is truth to be uncovered, I believe that God requires and expects us to obtain it or understand it by as many modalities as we can. To me, that only makes sense.
It’s the “truth” part that seems slippery to me.
I have some thoughts, Silent. First, I agree completely with the efficacy of CBT. CBT is, by nature, more directed and goal oriented and SHORTER than some other therapies, but if you can’t currently afford the therapy, seek books on the subject from your local library for free. Self-help books can be very beneficial, especially when you can peruse through several at the library before latching on to one that seems to fit. I would look first at books on Rational Emotive Therapy since you’ve already experienced that. Look at the work of Albert Ellis, who is basically the guy who came up with RET. Also, I would suggest looking at books geared toward clinicians and therapists, not just the general lay-person. You’re experienced and intelligent and can learn well from such books. If you seek a therapist, find one that uses CBT (most all of them do), but remember the best predictor of therapy outcome is the therapeutic relationship. Which means, if it’s not clicking with your therapist, find someone else. The therapist/counselor will understand.
Second, I have a question about a couple of things you said. You said you react or reacted “violently”. What do you mean?
You also mentioned people getting upset at your “character” or condemning your character. People generally get mad and upset at actions–the things people do that make us mad–but often make generalized statements that sometimes addresses the “character” of the offender. Kids do these kinds of things all the time (e.g., “He sucks”, “She’s a brat”, etc.). Adults, however, are usually mature enough to focus on the action or event that was offensive. If your offenders didn’t do that, but instead attacked your character, that would be tough for anyone. Since they wrote a long, detailed letter, however, I’m guessing they probably attacked specific things that you did (and maybe summarized this into some “character” deficit). For a person with self-esteem difficulties, it can be really hard to separate actions/words/or events from more globalized things like “character”. What I mean, is if I tell such a person something like “Why didn’t you make it a TWO sided buffet?” that person may easily interpret that as “I’m a bad host,” or “he thinks I’m an idiot,” even when such an intent was never there. It helps to think very objectively, take the Joe Friday approach of “just the facts, ma’am”, and teach and train your brain to look at the facts without trying to interpret anything that’s unknown. That is natural and easy for some people and hard for others, but that’s basically CBT–making the obvious obvious.
Finally, understand and tell your brain that what you’re feeling is NOT a character flaw anymore than being myopic is a character flaw, or hyperopic, or diabetic, or ADHD. It is what it is. We all have flaws and we all make mistakes, thank the Lord, or this world would be boring as hell, but depression has nothing to do with character and everything to do with biology and sociology. It’s also rather common and highly treatable. Research is clear that the best treatment for true major depressive disorder is a combination of medication and CBT. If you have this malady, your brain works differently than most of the rest of us (but not nearly all of the rest of us). If it bothers you enough, seek treatment, which you already have it sounds like. Sometimes depression turned outwards looks angry and violent, which is why I asked for more details on your statements about violence because those kinds of actions can really hurt other people so need to be addressed first. Fortunately, depressed people can usually learn to control their anger pretty well.
You might also consider paying your tithing directly to Salt Lake rather than your local ward. Tithing does not have to be paid locally. You’ll get record of your tithing and at settlement just declare to your bishop whether or not a full tithing was paid. The local unit will not get a record of anything that wasn’t paid locally. Obviously, fast offerings and other local donations cannot be done in this manner, but must be placed in the local envelopes. I would consider this method not to lie about paying it, but just to avoid any potential issues that may come up if the bishop sees how much your paying and wonders if it is a correct or full tithe. Obviously, he should not do that, but if you’re worried that he might use this issue as a way to keep your husband from exercising this priesthood authority because bishop believes he is not worthy anyway, then paying to SLC and keeping the amount confidential may solve that problem.
I have been told by family members that some Bishops have demanded “back-pay” tithing. That is, if a family hasn’t paid tithing since January, and it’s now June and the husband wants to be worthy to baptise in July, the bishop has asked for past due tithing in addition to what might be due currently. I think this is ridiculous and is probably against current manual policy. Similarly, others have asked for a committment and demonstration of continued tithes for a period of time equal to what they missed (for those missing for shorter periods of time like months not years). Again, I don’t agree with this, but understand that Bishops probably need and want to ascertain that the committment is genuine and real, and not just a temporary gesture in order to get what they want for a bit, with full intention of going back to “evil” or non-tithing ways immediately after the occasion is over.
If you pay directly to SLC, and can answer the “Are you a full tithe payer” question honestly in the affirmative, the bishop has no choice but to let your husband baptise your son. Like Ray, I didn’t know that temple worthiness was the same as baptise worthiness, but can’t remember what the handbook says about that.
Here’s a question: How much is the WofW really a baptismal requirement? Is it mission specific? Missionary specific? Bishop specific? I think so. The reason I wonder… several Sundays ago I heard a full time missionary state that “Billy Bob” was going to get baptised next Saturday. Someone else asked the question, “Did you teach him the WofW lesson yet?” Missionaries replied, “Yeah, why?” Other person said, “Well, I saw him walking down the road smoking a couple days ago.” Missionaries looked at each other and then said, “What day was it?” Other person said, “Thursday.” Missionaries said, “Well, that’s okay because he told us Thursday night that he’d had only a couple of cigarettes this week, but he’s quit now.” Someone else asked, “Have you taught the Law of Chastity yet, because he’s still living with ‘Daisy Mae’.” Missionaries replied that they were teaching him that lesson tonight.
Bottom line, the bishop pressed a little and “Billy Bob” met directly with the mission president that next week and got baptised the next Saturday as planned and we never saw him at church again until his wedding to said “Daisy Mae” a few weeks later, which occurred in the cultural hall, though “Billy” needed several breaks during the reception so he could go outside and smoke.
Obviously he never really quit.
I’m not saying that Billy Bob should or should not have been baptised, but just wondered if there was any specific guidelines as to what constituted obedience to WofW necessary for baptism. I kind of think it’s a “rely on the spirit” sort of thing, which in the case of CONVERT baptisms is left to exuberant missionaries who usually always feel the spirit to baptize people.
Amen, brother… and pass the stogie.
If you ever hear the words, “ Please bless this food that it will nourish and strengthen our bodies” before eating double chocolate brownies… …you might be a Mormon.
I read the Miracle of Forgiveness once all the way through and then a couple of other times part way through. It didn’t make me feel particularly uplifted or spiritually strengthened, as I remember. Sadly, the most salient memory for me about that book was the account of David Patten meeting Cain/Bigfoot.
Yeah, that’s the biggest thing I remember from the Miracle of Forgiveness. I don’t even remember why that little story is in there.
Interesting, GBSmith. Prior to your post, I would have maintained that the words are the only thing we have to rely on, judge, or interpret in a message board such as this. But, you’re quite right in that previous experiences reading a particular posters comments can certainly taint or influence our interpretations. Words are still primary, but we may pick up certain subtleties that might only be available to those who have read that person’s messages time and again. I’ve noticed that phenomenon especially on here, being somewhat new and somewhat sporatic. Other people interpret comments far differently than I would, but then I realize that their interpretations were based on previous information that I didn’t have. There is an oft misquoted study by a researcher named Mehrabian that identifies how much communication occurs through words alone. The answer, if I remember correctly (this may be another example of someone misquoting Mehrabian), is that words communicate about 7% of the message, tone of voice about 32% and body languge about 62%. Now, the study really looked at the communication of emotions and feelings. Words convey relatively little of that. But, obviously on a message board, words are still primary… most of what we communicate must be with the words. So, if we’re used to not being so careful with our words, it would make sense that we may have trouble getting our point across at times because no one can see that sly halfway crooked grin as we slyly type, or how hard we s t r i k e the keys when we’re pissed.
I always liked Yogi Berra’s quotes. He used to say something like, “I didn’t really say most of the things I said.”
