God, Guns, and Prophets (not Profits)

Time for an update. And I'm actually encouraged this time.

President Russell M. Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) is reported to have said that agency has allowed men to pass laws to allow guns to people who shouldn't have them.

Let me paste in here a recent FaceBook stream that brings up statements of the prophets. I'll take out he personal identifiers and links to friends who commented. In so doing, I also challenge the gun people out there to proof-text me wrong.

Renounce Guns, Proclaim PEACE

It's time to call an end to Mormons arming themselves to protect against an imaginary tyrannical government or even for "self-defense." 

Don't get me wrong. I get the anti-government sentiment. I've worked for the feds for 34 years and don't like them much. But heaven help us if we continue on the path we are on!

There is a sickness in American culture (and I mean the US, not our Canadian or Latin American friends). Actually, there is more than one sickness. One is racism and the original sin of slavery which we have not shed, not nearly as well as other American neighbors who were also under this curse. The other, related sickness is the obsessive love of gun culture.

The LDS Church is more and more a world church. Sure, still with dominant American culture, but that is fading more and more and will only accelerate. We are the only nation where the LDS Church is established, Zion in the Latter-days, where we violate the laws of Zion on a regular basis by arming ourselves.

Fools' Gold

Yes, the State Legislature is in session. Every winter, the crazies gather in the state capitol building and allow their brains to putrefy on the poisonous air of the inversion or maybe they just came that way.

I really try to stay out of the turmoil of states' rights declarations against the Union, hiding liquor behind the curtain, polygamy vs. orgies, and lobbying/legislating for their own business interests. And then I see Ken Ivory's mug in the news again.

State Rep. Ken Ivory wants the state to invest in gold to prepare for world economic collapse. What in Holy Heck's name does he think the value of gold will be in a complete financial collapse? What exactly will it buy if civilization is over? Something tells me he must have a few bars socked away in the closet that he wants to unload now that his public-lands grab got in trouble in some other western states where they don't take so kindly to filthy lucre/lecturing/lobbying/legislating.

Not Live-Blogging LDS General Conference, Sorry

I haven't left the church. I'll be watching conference to the extent I stay awake. But I'm still in recovery from walking pneumonia and tire easily. Also, I am working on a project of scanning family photos that I can work on at my own pace as I listen.

For real-time and post-time internet access, you can watch conference now from pretty much any where in the world at: LDS.org.

I will be blogging later on some themes. I expect we'll here more about aiding refugees as we've already heard in the first session last week, traditionally Women's Conference, and as recently as yesterday from Mormon Newsroom on refugees in Italy.

4-Star Book Report: "Taliesin" by Stephen R. Lawhead

These aren't really reviews because I'm more attuned to the book reports I used to do in grade school. (Man, I wish I had smply taken a pic with my phone of my bookworm on the wall of Mrs. Baker's 3rd-Grade class at Thoreau with each segment representing a book I had read that school year! But alas, "my" phone was attached to the wall at the end of the hall in the 3 bedroom, one bath, rambler I grew up in on 137th Street on Finn Hill, Kirkland, Washington, and it didn't even have a camera. The number was VAn-dyke 2-3072. And I couldn't afford to re-purchase that house now costing more than my present house of three times the size and more phones that we can keep track of. OK, that was a serious digression.)

It was a little house in the big woods. There was some magic in that.

But at that time in 3rd grade, I was searching for the kind of books I am only finding now - about my Celtic heritage I only vaguely sensed, but through the inspiration of my good Dad, who told stories to us and built us an amazing toy castle with knights of the round table. (See here for more digression that will soon connect.) My dad didn't know it either, but he still felt it in his blood. (I now have his DNA results!!)

Ancient Books Become More Real Ankhs to King Hezekiah

There was news this week of an amazing archaeological discovery in Jerusalem. A personal seal of King Hezekiah of Judah (about 739-687 BC) imprinted in clay.

Actual size about an inch across.
(Courtesy of Dr. Eilat Mazar; Photo by Ouria Tadmor)

According to Hebrew University, the writing says, "Belonging to Hezekiah [son of]Ahaz King of Judah." It depicts a winged sun with ankhs on either side. On the reverse there is evidence of strands of binding that likely went around some document.

The image of the ankh really astounded me. I knew it from my grade school fascination with King Tutankhamen and all things Egyptian. (There it is again right in the middle of King Tut's name!)  It is the symbol for "life." As it is often associated with gods, pharaohs, and funerary ceremonies (as most things are in Egypt), it is a symbol of "eternal life."

The winged sun is pretty interesting itself. It doesn't take a lot of extrapolation to interpret a celestial sun directed upward flanked by symbols of eternal life. Tell me if I'm stretching any here.

I'm no Hebrew expert so I have to trust the translation of the ancient script provided. The mix of Hebrew letters and Egyptians symbols are no surprise for the historical era as Egypt was rather dominant in the region with the Kingdom of Judah squeezed between it and Assyria.

And as much as I hate apologetics, I love Hugh Nibley. Am I going too far to notice "the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians?"

Close Encounters of the Human Kind

The old Ogden Temple where Anonymous D used to work. Note the still-orange spire of my futuristic youth!

As Anonymous D and I were PONDERING the messages from conference, D agreed to share some of his stories of meeting the LDS General Authorities. He was in a unique position having been employed while in college with Church Security guarding the Ogden Temple. That was a very boring job sitting in the booth, except for the occasional instances of the most interesting excitement. Otherwise, he just read a lot of Nibley.

This was back in the days of Ogden's urban decline after the first attempt at urban renewal when the downtown mall failed pretty miserably. Now, Ogden is on quite a solid rebound! (read about that here). Anyway, not all of these are stories from the Ogden Temple.

Take it away, D:

A Visit from the Prophet

OK. This is not a really bad April Fools joke. And it is all absolutely true.

Just as I don't support modern polygamy (FLDS) and still respect my ancestors for their historical, religious practices, I can respect my relatives who did not stay with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) but left and became members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS). Yes, you may need a score card to keep track of this one.

Joseph Smith III

It is still of significant historical interest that Joseph Smith III, the son of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., visited some of my ancestors and apparently stayed in their home in Jacks Valley, Nevada. The year was 1867 and this is from Joseph Smith III, the President and Prophet of the RLDS Church at the time:

"On the first of November we bade Sr. Lincoln and her family, Brn. William Anderson, Job Hall, Thomas J. Andrews, Peter Canavan, A. C. Bryan, and others farewell, and left the city of San Francisco, in company of Bro. Daniel S. Mills, who accompanied us as far as Sacramento, where we bade him good-bye, he bound for Salmon Falls on an errand of mercy; and we en route for Reno and Carson City. We reached the latter place early Thursday morning; and in the afternoon reported to Bro. A. B. Johns, president of the district, and spent a night and a day in Jack's Valley. On Saturday we returned to Carson, and on Sunday morning and evening we addressed those of the citizens of the city who chose to gather at the court-house to hear us; the attendance was good, on both occasions, and the Saints seemed to be pleased with the effort made.

Glenn Beck: Losing His Religion?

Something is up.

Both Anonymous D and the blogger, Chris Henrichsen, have noticed. Read Henrichsen's piece here. D has this weird fascination with Beck and actually listens to him sometimes.

Brigham Young and a Letter on Apostasy

Some may be wondering with John Lewis lying dead on the floor of a gold-rush saloon. And we are not fully convinced yet, but are pursuing some pretty good leads that Jane (1827) remarried Abednego Johns in Jacks Valley, Nevada and joined the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And there is some indication that Elinor Jenkins Vaughan Hulet may have been with her, died between 1860-62, and was buried there. But the RLDS baptisms did not occur until at least 1865, after the Civil War.

1862 US Survey of Jacks Valley, Nevada. Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Managment, US Dept. of the Interior.
Abednego John's patent was for the S 1/2 of the NE 1/4 of Sec. 22, and the S 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of Sec. 23.
The surveyor, while getting all the land features pretty well (doncha just love these old surveys?) marked A. Johns's house as "A. Johnson."

There were a lot worse things than the RLDS Church (now "The Community of Christ). They had the Book of Mormon, a good part of the Doctrine & Covenants, the Holy Bible and a commitment to the Prophet Joseph Smith (w/o plural marriage). If you had landed in Utah in the midst of the Mormon Reformation, a very bad winter, and the upcoming Utah War, Springville was about the second worse place to be. I don't blame anyone for leaving. It's not my responsibility to judge. And it's not like we've not ever had anyone else in the family choose less activity in the church.

Brigham Young writes to the Five Jolly Welshmen

Yes! My good buddy at Keepapitchinin.org sent me a copy of Bro. Brigham's letter back to John Lewis and his jolly friends! It's in the public research files (I hadn't found it in the indices yet) so she didn't need to sneak it out of confidential files or anything.

But Springville! Why did it have to be Springville! At least Brigham didn't put "at present" in air quotes.

So far we've determined that the Jolly Welshman did not stay together. At least two of them, Henry Moore and John James, went to the Carson Valley. It also appears that our John Lewis may have gone but kept on going over the Sierra for the gold fields. And, there is a possibility that Jane was still alive and may have remarried in Jacks Valley (south of Carson). More research is needed to firm up these hints.

Book of Mormon Proof

A representation of Nephi fashioning the plates for what became part of the Book of Mormon
(From LDS.org. Thanks, Elder Bednar!)

I'm in a good mood just back from Temple service. So without even asking (it's late), I'm just going to cut and past Anonymous D's email message in here with minor edits and a final comment or two:

I was just thinking about proving the Book of Mormon. Of course I know it's not possible. That seems to me to be the point. Just imagine for a minute that you're God, and you are trying to get the point across that the only way you can get your children to come back to you is to trust you? So you give them a book of instruction that essentially explains their situation and pleads with them to trust you. If the whole point is trust, would you give explicit, irrefutable evidence that your book is true or you would ask them to experiment upon it themselves and learn that they can trust you because it works? Especially in the light of the fact that trust/faith seems to be essential in really learning something for yourself, and changing from a fallen/dark being into an enlightened being.

Bandaging in Heaven & on Earth

Waking up yesterday, the theme of my Sacrament Talk today came to me. I've had it prepared for some time with the scriptures and quotes I want to use which are the only parts I type out to quote right. The rest is organized in my head and just seems to come out as the Spirit directs.

The thought that came to me was that the word "sealing" could easily be replaced by "healing" and the binding in Heaven and on earth could easily apply to the bandaging of wounds through the Atonement of Jesus Christ by the authority of the priesthood ordinances. This is made available to all, living and dead to seal or heal families to be together through the eternities.

Yeah, we've been on these themes before and I won't give up. Here are the scriptures:

One Soul Saved from the Flood

We had our Gospel Doctrine lesson on Noah & the Flood yesterday. The teacher did quite well getting to the principles about what we can do to rely on the Lord to save us from evil around us today. "Stand in Holy Places," is a good one with those places being Home, Temple, Church. Listening to and following the Prophet is good too - service, home storage (I'm good with the chocolate chips), etc.

My wincing came when he threw out the question, "What are some of the examples of wickedness that we see in the world around us today?"

To Weigh a Man's Soul

Dan Jones - Welsh Missionary

Long ago when my Portuguese Professor at the Y inquired about my Welsh surname, he also shared with me an excerpt from the diary of his ancestor, the famous riverboat captain and Welsh missionary, Dan Jones. At the time and with my limited knowledge of my family history, I didn't connect to the Welsh stories. All I know is that my family with the Welsh surname had come to the US from northern England and arrived too late on faster steamship and train to be considered pioneers (they would have had to arrive in Utah between 1847 and 1869 before the railroad was completed).

The story was still a powerful one. It helped form the basis of my commitment to follow those ordained of God even with faults - theirs and mine. The story follows, "hics" and all:

The Doctrine of Non-Infallibilty

Anonymous D shared a great insight with me that he gave me permission to pass on:

Catholics have a doctrine of infallibility that many don't really believe, and Mormons don't have a doctrine of infallibility even if many think there is one.

Now, I mean no offense to my Catholic friends who belong to a great Christian tradition. Having survived schism, crusade, inquisition, reformation, revolution, and many difficulties in history, it is a mature church. They seem to be adjusting well to a new Pope who seems to be a sincere Franciscan and true Christian. I don't even think that's all that incompatible with my Faith.

I also mean no disrespect to my Mormon friends as the relatively young Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints seems to be in its teenage years dealing with internal doubt and growing pains. It wasn't much fun for me going through my own teen angst. And somehow, in those difficult years and my young adulthood, I was able to face the fascinating aspects of Mormon history and doctrine that seem to be giving some so much trouble these days. I'm still surprised when members claim surprise this far along.

News of the Church

There have been several things percolating that compel me to blog. I should start with the LDS Church's response to the death of Nelson Mandela in stark contrast to my post of yesterday concerning the followers of Senator Mike Lee. It is worthy of a cut-and-paste right in here:

First Presidency Expresses Condolences at Nelson Mandela's Passing

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the following statement today in regards to the passing of Nelson Mandela:

Real Men Shop Not Stalk

Spousal abuse is the most cowardly deed a person can do. It is overwhelmingly committed by males on women. I don't call them men, because they are disgusting bullies, not real men.

Today we read in the Salt Lake Tribune that Utah's Number One gun lobbyist and activist is no man. His guns are to be taken away, maybe permanently, under the law. (This is the same bozo who had an AR-15 stolen from his vehicle a while back.)

It was a surprise to me the other day when my friend at Keepapitchinin.org linked to one of my recent blogs about trying to help my wife find a Mother-of-the-Bride dress. It was the come-on to her link "Going where few men are willing to tread." that made me feel oddly heroic, which is what I was going for with my whole Don-Quixote-Parsifal-Galahad-Disney's-Prince-Philip thing. With that sort of fantasy life, you might expect me to be living in my mom's basement working at a comic book store. Nope.

Conference Recap (and Disney)

We heard the Sunday Afternoon session on the radio as we had made it to Mesquite, Nevada. There was nothing in the deadly desert of California to pick up on the radio. Conference sessions and talks are all uploaded on the Church's website already. Transcripts will soon follow. There are also highlight clips of talks that I particularly liked. Click on the pics to see video and read the excepts:

President Uchtdorf, Sunday Morning

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Twelve

Live-Blogging Conference (from California) Saturday AM

So, forgetting that we were now on the West Coast not the East Coast where my son & family used to live, I  got the times all mixed up and slept in. But here we are. [Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle were up late babysitting the Princess who isn't used to being without her Mom]

President Thomas S. Monson announces two new Temples! Rio de Janeiro!! and Cedar City, Utah! Both places I like.