Advent I

Out of the dark primeval night,
as from the womb of time,
and all alone,
came Man.
When did he first look up
and find the stars his friends?
For a thousand times three thousand years
they did not fail,
in their circling paths of light,
to stand above the dark
keeping their promise safe,
until from beyond their unimaginable end
the Word went forth.
And Eastern Kings
saw how their magic paled.
And Glory stood above the cave-born child.

––An unpublished poem by Dom Philip Jebb, quoted in The Coming of God, by Maria Boulding

"This Is My Doctrine"

It’s official, “This Is My Doctrine”: The Development of Mormon Theology is required reading.

Written by BYU professor Charles Harrell, this sorely needed book examines the origins of LDS doctrine as we know it today. It is not, of course, an exhaustive treatment of the subject, which would require a whole series of books (and this one clocks in at just about 500 pages). However, it is a tremendous resource that is worth devouring straight through, but will also prove an excellent juming-off point for future reference and study (it’s got good indexes and a vast works cited section).

After an introductory essay––worth reading all on it’s own––the volume proceeds, chapter by chapter, to tackle major doctrines (say, God the Father, or Priesthood) historically. That is, it addresses what beliefs were held in the Old Testament period, New Testament Christianity, 19th-Century Protestantism, then early and modern Mormonism, about each given subject. There are occasional subsections that examine, for instance, thought in the Nauvoo period, if doctrinal developments were particularly significant during those years.

His scriptural exegesis may not have been quite as sophisticated as I would have liked, but, again, for a book of this length, it likely wouldn’t have been feasible to go much deeper. Also, Harrell is not a theologian (though he has published some articles in that arena) so he relies heavily on secondary sources in Biblical criticism. He uses them well, however, staying mainly in areas of broad consensus, and, where there is controversy, presenting a variety of views.

The target audience seems to be Joe Mormon, so those familiar with scholarly work in this area may find a little too much “hand-holding,” but you can’t fault him––I really hope this book finds its way into the hands of many, many Saints, so anything he can do to make it accessible is a plus.

Most importantly, this book helps readers to take the really vital step of shattering one’s idea of theology as God dictating perfect, simple, clear Truth, reducing prophets to secretaries. It reveals that it is a complicated, messy, sometimes contradictory process of serious minds wrestling with the big questions in terms of the texts they’ve inherited and the culture they’re swimming in.

Burn The Stick of Bruce, folks.* This book is the real deal, and it belongs on every LDS bookshelf.

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*Actually, don’t. It’s no longer being printed and so may have some value as a collector’s item.

The Tree of Life

Life of my life, I search for you. My hope, my child.

Where were you? You let a boy die. Why should I be good, if you aren’t?

Why does he hurt us––our Father?

Help each other. Love everyone––every leaf––every ray of light. Forgive.

How do I get back––where they are?

Please, God, kill him. Let him die. Get him out of here.

What was it you showed me? I didn’t know how to name you then. But I see it was you. Always you were calling me.

I dishonored it all and didn’t notice the glory.

Father, Mother, always you wrestled inside me. Always you will.

The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by. Do good to them. Wonder. Hope.

I give him to you. I give you my son.

Terrence Malick has done something wonderful with The Tree of Life. Visually gorgeous and conceptually stretching, it is a feast of beauty that I will think about (and re-watch) for years to come. It’s a movie in which not much happens––including the creation of the universe and the development of life on earth. It shows that there are no such things as simpler times (usually thought of as behind us), just a different set of complications. A film about guilt and youth and love and pain and loss and joy and just... just everything. Just life.

I used to mock William Carlos Williams’ imagist poem:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

But I was wrong. Oh, how wrong.

So much, so much depends. The meaning of everything, maybe. It all hangs on the subtlest of hinges.

Told on two levels, it includes the story of a family dealing with pain and failure, and the story of life and existence itself. (If you’re looking for a typical narrative arc, keep walking.) It elucidated a lesson taught to me by a wise younger brother of mine: he explained that meaning requires people, minds. An event (or a book, or a sculpture) don’t mean a thing unless they mean it to someone. Further, while the search for meaning seems to be inescapable––we’re hardwired for it––it is doomed to be frustrating until we realize an essential fact...

We don’t find meaning, we make it. It’s a business of craftsmanship, and we build it out of the mundane material of everyday life. We turn to religion, to art, to family, and sometimes to drink. (Incidentally, religious music is used brilliantly in several sequences dealing with the cosmos––appropriate since we can often only make sense of such vastness in terms of faith). Ultimately, the key to fitting it all together can only be found elsewhere:

For, behold, the kingdom of god is within you.

True Values

The following lines are from the chorus of Katy Perry's Last Friday Night:

Last Friday night
Yeah we danced on tabletops
And we took too many shots
Think we kissed but I forgot

Last Friday night
Yeah we maxed our credit cards
And got kicked out of the bar
So we hit the boulevard

Last Friday night
We went streaking in the park
Skinny dipping in the dark
Then had a ménage à trois

My reaction to those lyrics taught me something important about myself. You see, far more than its describing (and advocating) a life of drunken promiscuity, I am really bothered by the fact that it tries to rhyme "park" and "dark" with "trois."

Take-home message: Want to write songs about eating your young and dismembering hookers? Fine by me. Put it to a catchy tune and I'll probably listen to it. But your lyrics had damn well better scan, or you and I will be enemies forever!

The Trouble with Jack(ie):A Thought Experiment

Note: When dealing with transgender issues and the Church, pronouns are a tricky business. Does one allow the self identification of the person in question to carry more weight than the Church's insistence on the eternal nature of gender regardless of an individual's psychology? Luckily, the BYU Writing Center provides an alternative! "Werf," a genderless pronoun the BYUWC coined in order to avoid the awkward "he or she" construction and it's cousins, seems to be tailor-made for such a situation, and thus will be in use below.

Jackie was presented to werf's proud parents wrapped in a pink blanket. Werf had two X chromosomes, and the usual complement of reproductive organs. As werf grew though, things got more complicated. Werf felt like werf was in the wrong body. Finally, in college, werf bit the bullet and identified as a male, named Jack. Werf underwent breast reduction surgery and took hormone treatments, trading in a brassiere for a husky baritone voice and patchy facial hair.

But the complications were not over for Jack. Werf fell in love with a gay man, and since it was legal in their state, married him. (Note: Jack had no surgical interventions "south of the border," so to speak. Werf still had a uterus, etc.)

Then Jack and werf's husband met the missionaries. They were converted. They wanted to join the Church. As per the most recent iteration of the CHI:

Baptism and confirmation of a person who has already undergone an elective transsexual operation require the approval of the First Presidency. ... However, such persons may not receive the priesthood or a temple recommend.

So if the call were yours to make, what would you do regarding Jack, werf's husband, and their future involvement in the church?

Consider the following:

•According to LDS teachings, Jack is a woman, married to a man. This is not a gay marriage.

•Does breast reduction really count as an "elective transsexual operation"? After all, plenty of LDS women have plastic surgery. If it does count, what is the minimum cup size you can choose and still be considered an Relief Society member?

•What concessions do Jack and werf's husband have to make to enjoy the full benefits of Church participation (barring the issue of Jack's being ordained)? Does Jack need to get implants? Is it enough if Jack dresses in drag (ie: women's clothing) for Church activities? What if werf wears a kilt? Do the hormone treatments have to stop, or is it sufficient to shave regularly (after all, everyone knows at least one RS member that sports a mustache!)? Does Jack need to consider werf's-self female? Since that would be entirely a matter of personal identity, and therefore internal, how could Church officers police that––regardless of the clothing werf wears, how can you tell the difference between Jack(ie)'s regarding werf's-self as a gay man or a straight female?

•For that matter, what about Jack's husband? Does he have to stop considering himself a gay male?

Rules: You don't get to say, "Just follow the Spirit." That's cheating, and for our purposes, like, totally lame. Besides, even LDS teachings suggest that's a cop out (D&C 9:8).

Miscellany

A stupendously talented organist. His registrations are particularly amazing.



* * * * *

After returning from a trip to the homestead, my eldest sister related a story the other day that reminded me once again just how awesome my Dad is. I'm not going to be any more specific––for personal reasons––but I'm just very grateful he's in my life.

* * * * *

I was discussing proxy sealings with the same sister, when suddenly my four-year-old niece piped up with: "MARRYING DEAD PEOPLE IS FROM CORPSE BRIDE!"

Wow.

The more I learn about the universe/crazy physics stuff, the more I am reminded of these lines from the brilliant webcomic A Softer World (caveat lector – occasional strong language/secular humanism):

It freaks me out when I think about how big the universe is.

Just so big and growing bigger, exploding outward constantly in all directions,

so no, I don't care how fast I was going, officer.

A ticket? We're HURTLING THROUGH THE VOID!!

If the creator is anything like the creation, given the weirdness of reality, I suspect god may be less like the dignified, beardy, elderly gentleman of popular imagination, and something more like, say, Tim Burton.

Shouldn't...

Louis C.K. shouldn't be this funny... or this true to life. The reality/honesty of it ought not to be this significant/hilarious. Nevertheless, it is, (both funny and true) the case. Welcome to human existence.

Howl

Note: this post has nothing to do with Allen Ginsberg.
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Work sucked today. I took a suicide call.

The caller was a stranger who heard the commotion and went in to see if everything was alright. It wasn't. The man had been hanging for hours, probably all night, when they found him.

I've heard a lot of screaming and crying at work. It's just part of the everyday soundtrack now. There are different varieties: the snarling rage that attends customer and neighbor disputes, and on the most idiotic pretexts; hysterical cries of physical pain when a pregnant young woman gets beat up by her boyfriend––yet again; the quiet, hollow keening I heard as a woman described the sexual abuse of her little boy.

But, before today, I'd never heard anything like this. You could hear the pattern repeat over and over as family members entered the room for the first time, only to find––in place of their loved one––the cold, rigid obscenity of death. One man could only repeat, again and again, "Oh god, oh god, he did it. Oh god." The sounds were hardly distinguishable as human.

And I don't think I'll ever be able to forget them.

So, just a reminder, if you're suffering, if you're contemplating doing something horrible and irrevocable, please reach out and get help. Because, I can promise you, you don't want to cause the kind of pain necessary to elicit what I heard today.

Stunned

So, I've never particularly liked Ernest L. Wilkinson. This stems from reading some quotes of his that I thought were pretty awful. (Also the BYU building they named after him is fugly.)

Then today, I read this [starts on page 164]. Wowza.

Organizing a student spy ring to keep tabs on professors you don't like? Well, it's not ethical, but... meh. Whatevs.

Lying about it over and over? Not good, but I get it. The flesh is weak.

Intentionally and repeatedly conspiring in order to ensure others––especially the student spies, who were only doing what he told them––took the fall? Throwing his subordinates under the bus? Yeah, that's what makes him a scumbag and a coward.

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HT: BCC Sideblog

Awesome.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

——Paul Krugman

A Thought and a Poem

Just a few ideas for a Sunday morning...

“Civilization is the process in which one gradually increases the number of people included in the term 'we' or 'us' and at the same time decreases those labeled 'you' or 'them' until that category has no one left in it.”

––Howard Winters, archeologist

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Pioneers
My people were Mormon pioneers.
Is the blood still good?
They stood in awe as truth
Flew by like a dove
And dropped a feather in the West.
Where truth flies you follow
If you are a pioneer.

I have searched the skies
And now and then
Another feather has fallen.
I have packed the handcart again
Packed it with the precious things
And thrown away the rest.

I will sing by the fires at night
Out there on uncharted ground
Where I am my own captain of tens
Where I blow the bugle
Bring myself to morning prayer
Map out the miles
And never know when or where
Or if at all I will finally say,
“This is the place,”

I face the plains
On a good day for walking.
The sun rises
And the mist clears.
I will be all right:
My people were Mormon Pioneers.

––Carol Lynn Pearson

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UPDATE: And here are a few more that I've just been reminded of:

The Mormon Stories Podcast series is über-cool. Check out the most recent offering from the marvelous Joanna Brooks (who also writes great stuff at Religion Dispatches). In her talk she makes reference to Daymon Smith, who has done some brilliant work unpacking and analyzing the history and meaning of "correlation" in the LDS Church. Some introductory blog posts are available from BCC (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), and his whole dissertation is available here in PDF format. Download it. Read it. Enjoy. It's some of the most fascinating Mormon history stuff I've ever read. Ever. (In other words, if you want to make sense of the modern Church, this is ESSENTIAL reading! Tattoo it upon your soul in letters of fire!)

Variations on a Theme

They lied to you. The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt.

––Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

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Men never do evil as thoroughly or as joyfully as when they do it in the name of God.

––Blaise Pascal, quoted in The Monks of Tibhirine

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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.

––C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

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RAHAB: Your war can’t be like any other war ever fought. It can’t be glorious, like all the other wars. It should be a war fought sadly, regretfully. You’re killing your brothers and sisters. If my people were attacking you, they wouldn’t see it that way, but you have to, you know better. Maybe this war is necessary; maybe God does require it. It’s still terrible.
JOSHUA: It’s easier, though, to glory in it. To trample every nagging doubt. Easier not to question.
RAHAB: It’s easier to kill me than to let me go.
JOSHUA: True. I thought I wanted it, war and death and violence. I thought I would find it glorious, though all to God’s glory.
RAHAB: But it’s not.
JOSHUA: No. He has a plan for us, and somehow that plan requires not just death and pain, but slaughter.
RAHAB: I don’t understand that either. And I’m frightened for you. People are going to hear of this. Your story is going to be told. Maybe even read about in books, generation after generation. Doesn’t that thought make you shudder? (JOSHUA turns away, disturbed.) It’s just so easy, people justifying to themselves, “Oh, God’s on our side. Oh, those horrible people are vile and vicious. Let’s wipe them all out.” I worry about it, evil done in your name.
JOSHUA: (A shocked pause, then an outburst.) Why do you do this to me? I never even considered that until now.
RAHAB: I knew men. What you’re doing tomorrow is the worst thing in the world. If God requires it, then maybe you have to obey, but it’s awful, and I think it’s going to be done again and again, and I think people are going to excuse themselves by saying God requires it, even when He doesn’t. I think you’re opening a door to horror and viciousness, and I know you have to open it, I’m even helping you open it, but please, while you do God’s will, find room in your heart for doubt.
[...]
JOSHUA: And now I’m filled with doubt, I’m nothing but doubt!
RAHAB: But is that so bad?
JOSHUA: I don’t know.
[...]
RAHAB: So spare me. Spare my ... family. And save yourself. From the worst excesses you think your God requires.

––Eric Samuelsen, The Plan

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Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

––Bertrand Russell

Fugue in the Key of Gaga

Okay, so I have a confession. I know I'm supposed to be a music snob –– and believe me, when it gets right down to it, when it really counts, I am; I can snob it up with the best; I'm snobbish enough to know that the most enjoyable musical performance to watch is the one that's flawless but for a single glaring error... that you can harp on all night! –– but I also happen to be [shaky breath, eyes lowered in shame] a pretty serious Lady Gaga fan. Now that I got that off my chest, I want to share something with you. That something is TEH AWESOME.

But first some preliminaries for the uninitiated. One of Lady Gaga's most famous songs is called Bad Romance, (this is the Glee version, which I've used in lieu of the original because this version doesn't use the word "b*tch"):



Now to the point. If J.S. Bach and Lady Gaga had a love-child, he/she would write this amazingness:



You're welcome.

From The Monks of Tibhirine

Brilliant quote from a great book*:

If you think God is what the different communities believe –– the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Mazdeens, polytheists, and others –– He is that, but also more. If you think and believe what the prophets, saints, and angels profess –– He is that, but He is still more. None of His creatures worship Him in His entirety. No one is an infidel in all the ways relating to God. No one knows all God’s facets. Each of His creatures worships and knows Him in a certain way and is ignorant of Him in others. Error does not exist in this World except in a relative manner. [From the Spiritual Writings of Emir Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri.]

The subject of this book is also given a beautiful, profound film treatment in Of Gods and Men, which is required viewing for anybody who claims to have a soul.

*Very special thanks to Father Peter for sending a copy my way!

A Four-Year-Old's Scriptural Insights

Niece: She's in the water! Get in the boat! [she = little sister, water = rug, boat = couch].

Me: Maybe she's walking on the water like Saint Peter.

Niece: No! She can't do that!

Me: Why not? Saint Peter could.

Niece: That's because Jesus taught him with his miracles.

Me: Why did Jesus teach him how to walk on the water?

Niece: So he wouldn't drown.

Me: Why didn't Jesus just teach him how to swim?

Niece: Jesus didn't know how to swim. His mommy never taught him.

Me: Oh.

Rapture

If you didn't make the cut today (i.e.: you're still on the planet), you might take a moment to read something sublime and astonishing and very, very humbling. Quite a reminder of how difficult it is to forgive, and how reluctant we are to do so––both personally and institutionally.

Personal Revelation II

Well, after yesterday's rather sardonic post (which, no doubt, made me look like a curmudgeonly, hateful S.O.B., and therefore wasn't too far from the truth) I thought something with a rather different tone might be appropriate. In addition, I had a good day at work, helping to resolve some high-stress calls with happy endings, so my mood is brighter.

I'll be brief and unspecific, but this is nevertheless heartfelt, and the result of some serious thought over the past several months.

If you have ever faced an insoluble dilemma, you'll know what a strange, numbing experience it is. Hard thoughts are never far away: This isn't right. Life shouldn't be like this. This doesn't make sense. Nevertheless, this is the dish presented to you. Right, wrong, nonsensical it may be––but it's all yours, so grab a fork.

There are options, of course. There are always options. But in such situations, each choice, any path, is intolerable. Painful. A tragedy. And so, you hope and pray for a miracle. You wait and work and almost hold your breath. Maybe today is the day. Maybe this is the prayer that'll get through the ceiling; you will finally convince the angels of their mistake, and six-winged seraphim will come swooping down to rectify their errors and omissions, bearing coals to burn away what is wrong.

But this isn't the day, and that wasn't the prayer. And you find, ever so slowly, that you have been waiting on the wrong miracle. Priest and Levite have passed you by, but the Samaritan reaches out with his unexpected grace. God has been biding His time, perhaps just waiting for you to finally see the miracle long-prepared: He helps you to select the tragedy you can bear, the suffering you can accept.

It is a strange sort of mercy, but what else are we to expect from "God the surprise."

Personal Revelation

At work today I realized something important about myself. Heretofore only a slowly swelling knot of impressions and glimpses, it finally crystallized. I used to think I was a pretty nice guy. I was wrong.

There is nothing more perfectly suited to make one doubt the value of humanity in general than interacting with them at their most animal level. Being a 911 operator basically means nobody you talk to is having a good day, and everyone you talk to thinks their crisis demands immediate intervention via tax-funded resources (no matter how petty those "crises" might be).

Also, you face the increasingly insistent and obvious fact that your job is working against the general trend of evolution. I am paid to do the species a disservice––I keep people in the gene-pool who, a few generations ago, would likely never have survived long enough to spawn! It's as though I'm shepherding idiot salmon upriver to safety, when by all rights they ought to get eaten by bears! I can almost see Darwin hanging his head in sorrow, like the lachrymose bench-warmer surrounded by zombie politicians in this McNaughton confection. (Empty your stomach before you click the link, Gentle Reader; he's a veritable Michelangelo of nausea-inducing pseudo-religious political kitsch.)

I seem to be channeling Malthus, so I'd better quit. (He is among the least pleasant Georgian Era economists to have as a spirit-guide, but this is what happens when you combine Ouija and The Wealth of Nations.) I'll just sum up with what a co-worker declared today after several long minutes spent trying to tease the most basic information out of an irate and hysterical caller: "Dumb b*tch probably deserved to get punched in the face!"

And I couldn't agree more.

My Testimony of Cheeses

Forgive the blasphemous title, Gentle Reader, but I couldn't resist. While working my way through a sliver of Roquefort this evening, I was reminded just how beautiful gastronomy can be sometimes. Among blue cheeses (and I mean this in a good way) Roquefort is like eating a razor blade. A delicious, life-giving razor blade. However, as gorgeous as it is, one cannot eat it without thinking of that noblest of milk-based marvels: Stilton. Oh, Stilton! What I feel for thee is nearly lust. Where Roquefort is a razor blade, Stilton is a sledgehammer to the face. A sledgehammer of ecstasy. As a British sitcom chef once declared: "Halle-bloody-lujah! Cow and bug in perfect harmony!"

Well, any paean of praise I might compose would fall short of the mark, so I'll leave that task to my betters. Enjoy, then, G.K. Chesterton's own Ode to Stilton:

Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour
And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby;
England has need of thee, and so have I--
She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour,
League after grassy league from Lincoln tower
To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen.
Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men,
Like a tall green volcano rose in power.
Plain living and long drinking are no more,
And pure religion reading "Household Words",
And sturdy manhood sitting still all day
Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core;
While my digestion, like the House of Lords,
The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay.