The Holy Yew Becomes Holier

"That shady city of Palm Trees. . . ."

Palms don't grow in Britain. There are some surprising palmetto-types along the south and western coasts as the temperate climate is warmed by the Gulf Stream. And as Basil Fawlty explains, Torquay is the Riviera of Britain. . . .

So what do they use for Palm Sunday?

Yes, the Holy Yew!

My distant cousin, Henry Vaughan, knew this. And surprised I was to learn that when he wrote of the Palm Tree, it was the Yew! That poem makes so much more sense now so I share it here thinking of that peaceful resting place below the Yew in Llansantffraed Churchyard.

Free-Will Families

One of the things I did right when I was a Bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 20 years ago, was to have some really good talks with the combined youth of the ward. One of my favorites was to talk about the joy there is in proper intimate expression between husband and wife and in creating families.

Not everyone has this opportunity due to circumstances of life - and we talked about that. We also talked about how rare it is in the world for a lot of reasons - mostly the unwillingness of males, mainly, to be responsible for sexual expression and the fact of much sexual activity outside of a godly marriage. Even in marriages supposedly done right, there is still a lot of abuse, hurt, and shame. Strangely, while all can sin, most of these are still male-caused problems.

To celebrate the positives and to try and promote agency, responsibility, and the male and female positives in life, I would have a young man stand up and read what Adam said after leaving the Garden and being instructed by the Angel of the Lord:

Democrats Don't Kill Babies

Rather, Democrats support health care for women and children. This includes birth control for women which I know some object to on moral grounds. It also includes the termination of a pregnancy in cases of rape, incest, and when the health of the woman is at risk. I also understand that this is morally unacceptable to some people and that "the health of the woman" is a phrase that has a lot of interpretation. Some will have interpretations different than mine and the Democratic Party.

So the question becomes, who is going to make that determination about the health of the woman? Or for that matter, who is going to make the other determinations as to whether the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest? What if the fetus growing in the womb is determined by a doctor not to survive birth or have a chance to be live long after birth because of serious physical deficiencies?

Democrats generally believe that these decisions should be made between the woman and her doctor. The woman has the choice to involve her family (or not, especially if the relationships can be dangerous to her life or health), any religious figure or friend for advice, and her own conscience. These are decisions that powerfully impact core beliefs on life and death of all involved. The question remains, who should have the responsibility to decide?

Twelve Steps to Recovery from Racism

"Hi! I'm Grant! I'm a recovering racist."

"Hi, Grant!"

This came to me in the night with a lot of other dreams of really weird stuff, but this might just work!

The LDS Church has done really well in applying the 12-Step program for drug abuse and some sexual issues borrowed with acknowledgment of and slight modification from Alcoholics Anonymous or AA.

So how does is apply in our Racism Recovery program?

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Should NOT Sing at Trump Inauguration!

This beautiful sight:

Is tarnished by association with this man whatever his government title may be:

Will he want to be photographed in similar poses with the Sisters of the Choir? Will he want to grab any inappropriate parts of their bodies?

Ugliest Political Event Ever!

I do not wish in any way to condone what went on in the Presidential debate last night. But I do think it would be good for America to sit back, think a bit, and maybe watch Spielberg's Lincoln, or listen to Miranda's Shakespearean Hip-hop tragedy of Hamilton.

You could even Google a few of these historical nuggets:

What I Told BYU About Sex Crimes and the Honor Code

This is a hot topic in the news and bloggernacle these days, and rightfully so. Without dealing with the negatives of any particular situation you may read about on other sites, let me offer here the solution I proposed in response to the LDS Church and Brigham Young University soliciting comments on the bigger issues of sexual assault and the Honor Code.

As for my own bona fides, I am a graduate of BYU, B.A. '82, as is my wife. Four of our children have attended the Y with a fifth to follow (we have one wonderful, red sheep who graduated from the University of Utah which we also respect). I am currently a continuing-education, evening student for my Welsh language audits and am under a current ecclesiastical endorsement to attend the Y that I will have to renew some time this summer.

I wish I had remembered to cut and paste my comment before I clicked "send" and it disappeared into the ether of the interwebs. But here's the gist of it:

Standing for Something In the Passionate Middle

From part of an email to Anonymous D last night:

this is a time more than ever where it takes courage to stand in the moderate middle. I feel a loyalty to the brethren without vindictive pride. I feel a loyalty to the humanity of gay families with only a broken heart and charity.

Three of my grandsons have a gay great-aunt on their dad's side. We've spent many family times together including when we first moved to Salt Lake and she and her partner had us over for dinner just down the street in Sugarhouse from where my mother-in-law grew up. The aunt's partner passed away from cancer some years ago and she was mourned by us all, especially my grandsons.

Weak as it is to defend myself by saying some of my best friends are Gay, the fact is that they are. One of my Scouts just married his male partner. I wasn't invited, but I would have gone. I saw his very conservative Mormon family do a 180 turn-around from shock and shame to full support in their attitude towards the marriage.

Ride Bull At Six

Yes, I am a bit enigmatic and philosophical today. A matching clue is in the title of a Cat Stevens Album cover I used to stare at as I tried to figure out what it meant. That was in caveman days before the internet.

We went with some friends to see the Scottish play last night. The Cedar City Shakespeare Festival had its school-touring group at the Cultural Center in West Valley with an abbreviated version of Macbeth. They didn't seem to have cut out any of the murders or blood. It was a bit odd with an abbreviated cast with some playing several different roles. "Is that Banquo's ghost again? No, he's just a door guard."

Lady Macbeth was played well but by a short, light-haired woman. No one will ever match the one and only Lady Macbeth, my 11th-grade English teacher. Tall, dark, beautiful, and scary. That's the play we studied with her as my friends and I memorized all the lines with swear words in them. "Lay on, MacDuff! And DAMNED be him who first cries, "Hold, enough!"

Apologies

Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have apologized for a few things. In 2012 President Gordon B. Hinckley gave a personal apology to a visiting African American Clergyman for the church's past teachings and prohibitions based on race. I have made my own personal apologies for past racism in my life on this blog

In 2007, on the 150th Anniversary of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, President Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency apologized for the Mormons involved in that horrific tragedy. He also apologized to the Paiute People as they have frequently been blamed for the atrocity when it was organized and led by local Mormon leaders. Church historians also published a detailed historical account of the massacre using information from LDS Church Archives among many other sources. I have highly recommended the book on this blog. You can still get it at Amazon.

And the LDS Church has apologized for the horribly embarrassing actions of individual members who submit names of Holocaust Victims for vicarious ordinances in the Temple. Access to Church genealogical systems are cut off for the individual offenders and the Church has tagged Holocaust Victims' names to prevent them from going to the Temple, but sadly, some slip through when members disobey the restriction.

Smoothing the Blemishes of Life

My two eldest children, Fall 1985 (Thumb-sucking is no flaw. I did it too.)

It's a New Year, a time for looking forward and back. I've taken advantage of holiday and vacation leave from work to hang around home and spend it with family. I'm also working on a major family/personal history project to scan old photos and get them in digital files in the cloud to share with all my kids.

I've tried to hit the big years of each child's birth. I can't take the whole 30-some years chronologically as that just discourages me. So, the years of interest let me skip around and I get more variety and more done through the phases of our family life.

Christ's Nativity

The Birth of Christ, Peter Paul Ruebens (1634)

Another Christmas poem from our cousin Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)

The Armor of Light Against Darkness

Last night while playing family games, I looked around and sensed my opportunity. While my wife secretly starts listening to Christmas music about Halloween, I generally try to hold off on Christmas decorations and themes as long as possible. But with all those good kids of mine, I figured today would be December Eve and a great day to do the Christmas lights on the house and the tree up in the living room. They were helpful to a point. I took it all calmly enough with the usual jitters of my height anxiety. The end result is lookin' good!

Whether it's preparation for the solstice, the Hannakuh celebration of ights, family fun festivities, or the Christmas Spirit, there is something about the glory of light when the world turns dark and cold.

Anonymous D Revealed as Tevye from "Fiddler on the Roof"

This is sort of a Guest Post from our good friend D. It is significantly altered and cut down not just in changing names to protect the innocent or guilty, as the case may be. Neither of us are the ultimate Judge and should only engage in "righteous judgment" as we navigate this world of sorrow with our individual agency trying to keep our souls intact. But he has shared some interesting insight with me that I cautiously share here:

The Mormon thing I find frustrating is the idea that all of us don’t fight against our darker sides all the time.  Men are carnal, sensual and devilish after all, the fall of our natures making us that way. So, all of us fight against those things all the time as we are supposed to. The sin, then, isn’t to have a fallen nature, the sin is to stop trying to throw that nature off and become a Saint knowing full well that we are going to fail a good deal of the time. The Church's stance on Boy Scouts is in line with that doctrine, that you can put off the natural man and become a Saint through the atonement of Christ. [Mosiah 3:19]  You have fight against those things that keep you away. Hetero men as well. We should invite every sinner of every stripe to come and join with us with the one stipulation that all of us are trying to throw off our sins not that we’ve actually done it, and that by trying and having faith in Christ he makes us clean every wit. Perhaps some future day, far off in the eternities we’ll be able to say that we now stand on our own being full of grace and truth, but we’ll never be able to say that we did it alone.

That course of action, repenting, isn’t available to you if you insist that you did nothing wrong in the first place of course.

With regard to a certain, ongoing critique of Hugh Nibley on another blog:

Satan Never Really Wanted to Make Us All "Good"

One of the prime examples of scripture taken out of context to score political points against any progressive idea (and of course, the evils of communist domination - pretty much the same thing for a lot of people) is the one about Satan robbing us of agency to force us all to be good, falsely interpreted as you can't do "good" with government.

And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.

But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me— Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.

Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;

And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice. Moses 4:1-4.

Object Lesson Fail - Reasons Not to Sin

The Bloggernacle is driving me crazy these days arguing about modesty and so many other issues. Unless I really need a lengthy discussion and argument about mo-whatevers dancing on pin heads, I'll keep to politics and my own interests.

I just thought one clarification is needed so my issues with bad object lessons are not misunderstood. While I believe it is wrong to teach that we shouldn't sin implying in any way that we can never be fully clean, I do agree that we should keep the commandments and not sin. The problem is--we don't. (1 John 1:8).  Thank heavens for the Atonement and the opportunity to repent!

But here are my reasons why it is better not to sin in the first place:

Family History: Skeletons in the Closet

If you are a family history enthusiast, you will eventually find some unpleasant facts in the lives of your ancestors. We euphemistically refer to the occasional "horse thief" but it can be much uglier and disturbing than that. Sometimes it can be so horrifically ugly and we think to ourselves, "If only he could have just been a horse thief!" What to do?

One of the reasons I do family history is that I have an innate obsession to be a Truth-Seeker. I don't care how bad it is, I want to know. It's not to revel in the misery of bad things or to gossip or hold family "secrets" over others. I want to understand. Understanding gives me grounding. So many pieces of life and family just click into place in memories when some of these difficulties are uncovered and understood.