Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
The only idea I have is seeing a different member of the stake presidency. If this is the first temple recommend in several years your SP may insist he do it himself, if so you’re out of luck. However in my experience there’s always one really strict member of the stake presidency and often one who is a little more human. You may be able to find a way to see that one. Perhaps you can’t make the stake recommend night and need to schedule something one-off. Or perhaps you live or work closest to the one you want to see… Here in Arizona a very large number of snowbirds come every winter. There are also a fair number of older folks who simply retire and live here. A double standard seems to exist for seniors who 1) travel to visit grandchildren or whatever reason seem to get a pass for not attending church but 2)those who live here permanently but don’t attend church seem to be regarded as less faithful. Once I retire I can see myself wanting church more than right now. I imagine I’ll want the community and sense of belonging but then again if I feel like a second class citizen maybe not. It does seem that seniors are rarely called for the seemingly more prestigious callings of working with the youth.
SamBee wrote:
Quote:Geneticists and statisticians estimate everyone on earth shares the same parents as recently as as about 3000 BC. Everyone of European ancestry is related even more
I really don’t buy this. There are some seriously isolated populations out there.
Quote:It’s ironic that people carefully guard every bit of personal information but voluntarily turn over their genome to a corporation.
Well I don’t and in the case of Iceland the entire population had their genome stolen.
It’s certainly counter-intuitive. I’ve read probably 10 things in the media saying the same though, so it’s probably true give or take a 1000 years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19331938 The book talks about how people like to claim they are related to Charlemagne or Ghenghis Kang or whomever. It explains how probably almost any European is a descendant of Charlemagne. And although the book doesn’t say so, one could interpret a common ancestor from 3000 years ago as being our literal Adam and Eve.
A member of my ward’s bishopric won’t put anything on social media but bought his whole family the “23 and me” DNA analysis. He’s not only given his DNA to that corporation, but also potentially the DNA of his posterity for generations to not only that corporation but also to the government.
SamBee wrote:
Meh… Scotland doesn’t have an official anthem as such, but if there is one then “Flower of Scotland” is the actual anthem used at sports events etc which has a different tune, and seems to be preferred by them themselves. “Scotland the Brave” isn’t used much anymore and is seen as a bit corny by Scots. But it doesn’t mention fighting the English which probably makes it acceptable to the British government which rules Scotland.😆
My mother – who is a talented organist – once toured several churches in Scotland to see and possibly play the organs if permitted. Often the local priest would allow her to view the organ close up or even play it. She sat down at one organ and began to play Praise to the Man. She knew it had a Scottish flavor but didn’t realize it was of special significance until everybody in the church stood up immediately and stopped talking. It was pretty funny and fortunate that should could play the entire piece by memory.
Your suggestion that we sing Waltzing Matilda brings to mind our hymn Lord Dismiss Miss Us With Thy Blessing. It’s the same hymn as Go Tell Aunt Rhody a well known American folk tune. Every time I hear it I think of Poor Rhody and her dead goose.
Heber13 wrote:
Why do we sing hymns at all at church?
I’ve long thought that the only activity that the entire congregation participates in together is singing. Even while praying together we passively listen to someone else. That being said I’m a musician and I like to sing but I understand why others do not. It’s sort of presumptuous to think that everybody can or should sing – I mean how many members were trained to read music?
I am one of the people who is moved by music. I think there is a percentage of church members whose main connection to the church and/or divine is music and without it they would leave any church. The rest of the congregants probably don’t care much either way.
The hard thing about hymns is that – like most art – what is good or bad is subjective. As a trained organist I like to mix up the hymns a little and some hymns are fun to play and some are terribly boring. However the interesting hymns to me are often difficult to sing and are disliked by most congregations. O Savior Thou Who Wearest a Crown is a beautiful piece, both the lyrics and the music. However whenever I play it virtually nobody sings it and I get comments like “who chose that lame hymn??” JS Bach wrote the music for heavens sake. I love to play Praise the Man although I don’t like the lyrics. When I play it on the organ I play the bass part with the simulated sound of bagpipes on the organ. The music itself is the Scottish national anthem that somebody hijacked and wrote about Joseph Smith. I simply cannot stand the “happy hymn” like “there is sunshine in my soul.” I find them trite and simplistic but the older folks in my walk just love those ones.
Updating the hymnal will be a challenge and there will be hymns that people will both love and hate. I just hope for Amazing Grace and Come Thou Fount. As stated earlier in this thread Grace as a concept seems to be acceptable LDS Doctrine again.
This is an exciting announcement. I actually don’t mind national anthems in the hymnbook as long as it’s expected that any country will sing their national anthem. In Guatemala on my mission we sang their national anthem at least twice a year in Sacrament Meeting. It’s kind of different and very old fashioned Spanish that almost nobody understood but it was special to them. Likewise I love The Star Spangled Banner when the organist knows how to play it well. I now live 2 miles from an air force base in the US and if we didn’t sing it the Star Spangled Banner the Sunday before July 4 there might literally be a revolt. My suggestion is to add:
1) Amazing Grace
2) Come Thou Fount of All Our Blessings
Roy wrote:
I wonder if your ability to focus but also to fixate on a particular topic or task may be a symptom of autism spectrum disorder.I suppose I would express caution is in creating second class citizens of people who have made sexual mistakes.
I’m putting myself in mfree’s shoes because my situation is similar. I fear this post will be interpreted as flaming but it’s not my intent. I read this response and literally winced because it hurts to read this. Perhaps that means it’s partially true, I’m not sure. I see the point Roy makes but I want to make some counter points. It hurt to read this response.
Even open minded people on this forum would do a double take if their spouse came to them after 10 years of marriage and said “by the way I paid my way through college as a porn star. I’ve had sex with probably 1000 people. Don’t worry though I repented.” This is obviously an exaggeration but I think everybody has a line beyond which we’d have a difficult time with a spouse’s past. I think some people’s lines are different. Some people put themselves through hell in high school to live perfectly. You worry that we are on the autism spectrum – I worry that about me too. It feels a little bit like victim blaming though.
The right answer can be (and is being) debated. I’m no fan of a scarlett letter approach, but the deceit caused real damage. To me lying to a future spouse about something so important given our church’s stance on “sexual sin is next to murder” (which needs to go away) doesn’t compute.
whatnow wrote:
But still, it feels like a lie.…
I need to let it go, or is over, I can’t handle more pain. so please, please, HOW?
Hello whatnow,
You’ll see that I’ve experienced a situation to yours which you can read earlier in this thread. It’s been 14 years since my wife shared her past with me and we are still happily married. I don’t dwell on it as much and it doesn’t bother me as much now, but some things trigger bouts of anger and resentment. I feel for you because it’s so painful to come to the realization that you wouldn’t have made the same choice of partner. I was the same way – it would have been a deal breaker. There are days or weeks that I don’t remember it. Sometimes it does surface in my mind and when it does it’s still painful.
Your situation is deeper and more difficult, however, because it sounds like there may still be a pattern of deception with the beer and wine. I agree with the suggestion to get counseling together and you individually.
I feel compelled to say that although I get the power of the atonement, that I disagree with the idea that once we’ve repented we don’t need to disclose to our potential spouses. I think we probably all agree that if a sexual relationship resulted in a STD that of course we’d have to tell our future spouse because they are directly impacted. I don’t see it much differently for emotional damage. If we know that something may emotionally scar a partner once they (almost certainly) find out, we should tell them.
Quick story. I was adopted as a young child and later found my birth father. He decided to not tell his future prospective wife about his out of wedlock child (me) because his priesthood leaders said he repented and the sin was gone. His future wife found out me after years of marriage – inevitably – and while it didn’t end their marriage, the marriage was forever different in a negative way. This woman (my birth father’s wife) won’t even talk to me. I believe that disclosure is important, especially given our LDS culture that sexual sin is a huge deal.
Whatnow – for me finding something positive and distracting during free time helps. I started exercising and I run a lot now, and when I start to feel angry or resentful I go for a good long run. It helps me get some of the negative energy out and it gives me time to work through my own issues and not bring it up and hold over my wife’s head unfairly. Running may not be your thing, but if you have a hobby or something positive to replace the negative energy with it might help.
I think the doctrine about Kolob is basically made up and thankfully I’ve not heard discussion about it in years at church. I quite like the hymn however because it’s musically interesting and the hymn message is actually quite nice in my opinion. At BYU years ago I was taking organ lessons and a class requirement was to attend certain organ recitals. One measure of a skilled organist is the ability to look at a piece of music and improvise on the spot. The guest organist was given the music to If You Could hie to Kolob as the music he was to improvise. He studied the music for about 60 seconds, made the registration (sound) settings he desired and then started to play. The music he made was very lighthearted and even silly, as opposed to the somewhat heavy and ponderous music of our hymn. The audience gasped and a couple of people giggled. I will always remember that performance as a reminder that Kolob doctrine and music both should be taken with the grain of salt.
nibbler wrote:
Is church really a community of believers with a shared goal of finding refuge in shared belief, where the goal of the three hour block is to reaffirm said beliefs and to seek validation from the community?
I actually agree with almost everything in this thread. The problem is that – imho – that the church leadership doesn’t view the church this way. They view the church’s purpose as the 3 (or 4) purposes we all know. Community is a nice to have and is secondary. If community were primary we’d function very differently.
For some reason I can’t see two of the pictures, maybe my work firewall blocked them. I liked the pics. 
I remember many years ago reading an article in Sunstone speculating what Joseph Smith would think about the modern LDS church. The author’s conclusion was that he wouldn’t recognize much. That was only 170 years ago. Based on that criteria I have to think that if an unbiased observer compared today’s church with the church at the time shortly after Christ’s death they would bear only minimal resemblance. I’m not saying anything about truth claims, just that they are probably very different, which may actually be a very good thing.
Roy wrote:
Again the passive voice. “The priesthood restriction was put in place” Also, I am curious why the author does not know. Has she not read the essay on the subject?
The folks over at bycommonconsent are not impressed by this article for some of the reasons you and others mention.
I will miss many parts of Boy Scouts, others not so much. I do think camping, hiking, being away from mom and dad, and learning outdoorsy stuff is important for youth. I hope physical activity and outdoors plays a non-trivial role in the new programs – both for boys and girls. Heaven knows we need less screen time. The boys were almost forced to do monthly campouts and frankly I think it would be helpful for girls to do the same. I must get this off my chest – I’m annoyed by the many proclamations of loyalty to the BSA over the last few years. We had the General YM president visit our stake last year and he said our relationship with BSA is strong and we’re not going anywhere. I very much felt church HQ wasn’t being transparent or consistent regarding boy scouts.
That being said, I’m thrilled that there may be more equality between YM and YW. Two thumbs up for that.
dande48 wrote:I remember with my 8 year old interview, when the bishop asked if there were any serious sins that needed to be resolved by proper authority… that was a VERY difficult question to spring on a kid.
Figures. We’d find a way to screw up an easy, uplifting interview with a 7 year old the week before they are baptized.
