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Christ during his mortal ministry always spoke to the people using OT scriptures with which they were intimately familiar. His own ideas were by and large leaps and bounds more profound than what was contained in those restricted contexts, but he still knew the scriptures of his society like the back of his hand and that enabled him to speak to people in a way that was powerful and that they could understand and relate to. There may not be a good way to say this in your talk, but I think just keeping ourselves intimately familiar with the BoM gives us common territory with our LDS brothers and sisters, common ground to serve as a reference or backdrop to the important things we hope to share with one another.
You could attend a Star Trek convention (rather than an LDS ward) and substitute Star Trek for the BoM. Both are full of stories of good versus evil, of working through moral dilemmas, of overcoming obstacles, and sticking to ones principles even when the risks of doing so are high… If you are familiar with all the characters and episodes, and all of that is fresh in your mind from continually watching episodes from all the series on a regular basis, you will easily form strong relationships with the other Trekkies, and have a whole rich context or background to reference if/when you ever happen to discuss with these convention buddies the deeper questions in life, or when sharing experiences or challenges with one another. You can be more like Christ with Trekkies if you know Star Trek than if you don’t. It doesn’t matter that Star Trek is fiction. It only matters that the content is rich enough with those basic fundamental philosophical ideas to act as a shared backdrop and springboard to changing how we think and who we become.
When I step back and take a broad perspective I recognize that the Word of Wisdom is really one of those gems that can make staying LDS worth it, even if an individual doesn’t believe any of the major gospel tenets. I have watched close family members’ lives, health, careers, and families be completely devastated by choosing not to follow it. Granted, in these cases it was alcohol and harder drugs that did the damage, not coffee. But coffee is a stimulant with addictive properties, and although it does possess some health benefits, these are arguably offset by the fact that people almost always add sugar, artificial sweeteners, and other additives to it, and/or by the fact that people often drink it excessively. It’s also an unnecessary drain on time and money; a lot of folks would cringe if you showed them the total they spend in dollars and minutes per month or per year, on their caffiene habit. Also, the surrounding culture, in almost every part of the world, is one where WoW-prohibited substances are consumed regularly. Some people are unaffected by their consumption, but some are genetically or otherwise susceptible to developing addiction to the various substances, which in turn limits their agency and their ability to reach their full potential. So even if you are one of those who doesn’t become addicted or experiences no negative consequences from drinking coffee, by abstaining from that and the other prohibited substances, you help to create and maintain a safe place, a haven and a sanctuary, for those who are susceptible to addiction, and for those trying to overcome it.
We can also look at abstinence from fairly benign substances like coffee as another way we set ourselves apart from the surrounding culture, as a reminder to ourselves of what our beliefs represent and what kind of people we are supposed to be.
And then, like mom3 said, of course there’s the issue of the question in the TR interview… The Priesthood holder asking the question assumes that implicit in that is the question, “Do you abstain from coffee?” Are we justified in purposefully deceiving someone in order to have the TR if our interpretation of the law differs from the official one? I don’t know the answer to that, but I currently don’t carry a TR because I can’t wear my garments due to sensory processing issues, and even though I don’t feel that this should make me unworthy of the temple, I still can’t in good conscience answer yes to the garment question.
I agree, Amy; changes are occurring in the right direction. Eventually it will be just a tiny leap to make us all truly equal, at which point it will probably ruffle only a very few feathers. :thumbup: AmyJ wrote:
But you know, this is not a role or gender specific issue. There are men out there who handle emotional logistics better than I do (that’s not even that hard to find) – I don’t have a better emotional load regulator built into my female DNA – or if I do, it is socialized through my childhood to be a part of my nature.The irony is the more I talk about the “soft influence” of females, the more it looks like grit and tempered words….
Yep. Women AND men can have the “soft” influence. But ONLY men have Priesthood authority. So….yeah….
AmyJ wrote:I don’t want it to be indirectly implied my influence is the “soft” influence on my husband and children.
I don’t think Roy meant “soft” as in “weak”, but “soft” as in “indirect”.
Both men and women can powerfully influence others and have profound effects on others’ behavior. But men in the church are given authorization to do it directly, though Priesthood authority. Women have to do it through men.
Men can influence their spouses and kids, and that is a very powerful means of bringing others to Christ, but no one is going to say THAT is the manner by which men have influence in the Church. That would be absurd.
Roy wrote:When I heard this I thought of the well worn adages “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” and “Behind every great man is a great woman.” It is difficult that this question was not even answered by highlighting the small advances of women in the church in recent years and suggesting that more was to come. Instead it was basically asserted that women have soft influence in the church through their marital and family relationships to men.
Yes. So frustrating. It’s not that those old adages are untrue, it’s just that some women will not be with a great man and/or will not rock any cradles. Or, some women will be with a man but they will not be able to influence him positively, or, they will rock cradles but maybe those babies will grow up and make lousy choices despite her best efforts. We can’t say women are valuable because they can do certain things if only SOME women can actually do those things. Saying “Women are powerful in the church because of their influence on men,” is just another way of reminding everyone that men are in charge, and that despite all the rhetoric, men and women are most certainly not equal.
I wish they’d have answered the question as you suggest they should have, Roy, citing advances and policy changes made recently. The way they answered it makes me feel insulted….like, “How stupid do they think we are?”
Beefster wrote:I doubt the altitude plays much of a role for me. I felt a lot better when I graduated and went back to Colorado (higher altitude than Utah). There are some confounding variables for sure, like exercising more, having a girlfriend, and finding a treatment that actually works reasonably well (folate supplements). But getting out of the cesspool of Provo was probably the biggest aspect of feeling better.
Another variable might have to do with individual tendencies in levels of serotonin, dopamine, and cortisol. You might be somebody who benefits from higher dopamine whose serotonin is already ok.
http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2014/11/your-brain-on-altitude-how-altitude-can.html NightSG wrote:Pretty much the same as it has been for singles all along; talk about how valuable the singles are, and how none of us is meant to be alone, but then that reminder is strangely absent when a single member dies, still alone. And of course, the “value” of the adult singles isn’t seen on Sunday mornings in any of the wards I’ve visited.
I feel like this is particularly a problem for single women, because in the same press conference when asked how the leadership would address the inequity inherent in the male dominated top level of leadership, the response was a lengthy explanation of how women contribute by bearing children who grow up to be bishops, missionaries, etc, and women contribute by giving good advice to their husbands who hold the Priesthood. If you’re single, you’re not giving advice to a husband. And many single women do not have children. So basically, a single woman without children has no purpose in the Church?
:wtf: It sounded like the First Presidency just has zero thought for people who don’t fit the cookie cutter mould of “married with children”. That is a LOT of people to dismiss.
Interesting… The D&C verse Pres Nelson cited to show that women’s divine role is to have kiddos was originally meant in reference to plural wives. Yes, I was willing someone to please gently tell Pres Eyring to close his mouth so he wouldn’t look so frightening. Every time I saw Uchtdorf, he had a somewhat forced-looking smile. Some people just smile in public like that, though, so I may have been reading into that a bit.
nibbler wrote:😆 We need to get a thread started on that question and answer session they had with the press. It’s
fullof 😯 :crazy: 😯 moments that mostly sap my enthusiasm.
Man, that was something, wasn’t it!? I felt like Pres Nelson had no idea what any of the concerns were even about, and Pres Oaks knows what they’re all about but doesn’t care one iota.
Woman asks, “What about women?” First Presidency be like, “We LOVE women! They make such good mothers!”
I’m sitting there thinking, ok, but NOT all women will be mothers, and if the only ways women contribute to the church are by raising boys and giving advice to our husbands, I’m not sure anyone in their right mind would say that makes us equal in power to men. Men can, after all, be fathers and they can also give advice to their wives…AND they have Priesthood authority, sooo…. And if women held the Priesthood and could hold some of these callings that currently are male-exclusive, men could play more of a role in raising their children, rather than realizing in their 80s that all that their kids are and have done they owe to their wives because they themselves were so busy fulfilling church responsibilities when their kids were growing up, they hardly knew them. How is this all not obvious? It’s very simple logic.
Imagine if things were flipped and women held the Priesthood and men didn’t. The female First Presidency is all, “Right, men don’t hold the Priesthood. We love men, they make such good fathers! What would we do without them to give us advice and to raise up daughters to run the church someday!?” Who is going to say, “Oh, yeah, that sounds really reasonable! Great answer!”?
*facepalm*
DarkJedi wrote:
I have even said jokingly that if DFU wanted to start his own church I’d be one of the first in line.
I’d say it un-jokingly!
I feel so much unconditional love from Uchtdorf when he speaks to us. Not so for me with Nelson or Oaks. I would readily follow the love.
Was reading some Dalai Lama quotes this morning, feeling the love, and was wishing he was one of our GAs (although not really, because it’d kind of ruin him). Uchtdorf is much closer to the Dalai Lama than Oaks or Nelson….like, “Here, have some love, and spread it to others….no militant rulebook and no strings attached.”
nibbler wrote:I’m stretching to find more pragmatic reasons for the change other than just, “we don’t like Uckie because he’s more liberal than we’d like.”
Thank you. I need to assume these kinds of intentions.
