Thoughtless Comments

It's late. I should be asleep. In fact, I want to be asleep. But I stayed up doing the sort of last minute playing around that ends up lasting way longer than expected and then when I was laying in bed a couple memories that have been bothering me occasionally over the past few years came to mind and I feel like I need to write them out.

First
Well, I think it was chronologically second. But I thought of it first tonight and feel like it should be told first for whatever reason.

I'm over at my guy friends' place watching a football game. The camera focuses for a while on a group of cheerleaders and one of the guys says, "Get off the screen. You're ugly."

I say something in response to this - I think sarcastically saying something like that of course the girls should be selected for the squad based on his personal conception of beauty. It wasn't enough, and it was said sort of jokingly, but it was all I could think of to do at the time. Because how do you go about calling out your friend, in front of all his other friends, in the middle of a game that you are really into, on being cruel and completely disrespectful of women when you don't have time to consider what to say?

But the thing is, that little comment was saying, in essence, "Because I do not find you sufficiently attractive, you are of no worth, however great your skills may be."

Also, these girls, to me, looked completely normal. And you know what I see when I look in my mirror? A normal girl. So the message also goes out to me that I am insufficiently attractive to be of value.

Second

I'm at the same place with another girl and two guys. The guy from above may have been one of the two; I have forgotten. Anyway, the two guys are making some unkind remarks about a certain celebrity woman's appearance when the other girl says something like, "And do you guys really not understand why girls are so insecure about their appearance?"

They don't. I say something about how hearing people say that sort of thing can make you wonder what's being said about you behind your back, and one of the guys basically says that they wouldn't say anything like that about us, but the other woman was putting herself out there as a celebrity - an actress, I think she was - and so she was more or less making herself a fair target for such remarks.

I couldn't think of how to respond at the time. But I will try now.

First of all, it's not just wondering what you would actually say, but what you are thinking about me. If you are willing to think about this woman so hypercritically about things she has no real control over, why shouldn't I think you'd apply the same standards to me?

Second, making a career doing something I love, like acting and singing, should not make it permissible for you to treat me with less courtesy than you would the girl next door. Actresses are just as human as college students. Being famous does not turn a person into a piece of meat.

Like I said, these guys were my friends. They wouldn't have been my friends if I believed they really disrespected women. Their day to day actions don't match that. But these little, thoughtless comments they made and then probably forgot about by the next day are still there for me, influencing me enough to keep me up at night years later.

Christmas Links

Last year, I thought it would be nice to have a special Christmassy post up on Christmas day so anybody who found themselves online would have something fitting to read. But I didn't really have a lot of time to plan it out so I just posted links to previous entries on here that seemed to fit the meaning of the holiday. I took it down the next day because it seemed a bit silly to leave a post of links to my other posts laying around.

Then I decided to make a Christmas Link post an annual tradition. But from now on, I will be collecting links to other sites throughout the year and schedule the post to go up early Christmas morning.

Here are this year's offerings. Enjoy.

Stormy
A Gift to the World
10 Free Christmas Songs by MoTab
Rejoice and Be Merry: Nativity Play Music Video
Being a More Christian Christian
1 Free Christmas Song (O Holy Night) by Eclipse
Pay What You Want Christmas Album by Various Artists
First Presidency Devotional Archives

Picking Presidents

Several weeks ago I saw a message board thread titled Americans, who are you voted for President? I debated about whether to read it, as online conflict and vitriol tends to affect my mood in the real world, but for some reason decided to go ahead with it. Luckily it stayed civil throughout. But, anyway, the original poster asked whether Americans chose their president based on who would be best for the country or who would be best for the world. One of the posters responded by saying, "Time and again, people here in the U.S. of A. vote against their own interests, never mind the rest of the world."

Now, that could be a very insightful and accurate comment - after all, it can be hard enough to know what is best for yourself sometimes, let alone the whole nation. But that sort of comment is usually followed by an example - as I think it was in this case - of "After all, we elected Obama" or "We re-elected Bush". Implying, of course, that the commenter does know what would have been best for the nation.

A few years ago I mentioned social scientist John Gottman and his book 7 Principle for Making Marriage Work. At one point in Gottman's book he quotes another book, After the Honeymoon by Dane Wile.

Paul married Alice and Alice gets loud at parties and Paul, who is shy, hates that. But if Paul had married Susan, he and Susan would have gotten into a fight before they even got to the party. That's because Paul is always late and Susan hates to be kept waiting. She would feel taken for granted, which she is very sensitive about. Paul would see her complaining about this as her attempt to dominate him, which he is sensitive about. If Paul had married Gail, they wouldn't have even gone to the party because they would still be upset about an argument they had the day before about Paul's not helping with the housework. To Gail, when Paul does not help, she feels abandoned, which she is sensitive about, and to Paul, Gail's complaining is an attempt at domination, which he is sensitive about.

So, basically what this passage is showing is that whoever you choose to marry, there will be problems. The same with presidents - nobody could be perfect at every aspect of running a country. We see what's wrong with the country now, but how do we know what things would be like if we'd elected Gore or McCain? Of course, I'm not saying that it doesn't matter who we marry or elect. We do need to think carefully about those decisions. But once we make our choice, it's made and for now are stuck with it. If things are really bad we can change, but good reasons for divorce and for ousting a president are not incredibly common.

But electing presidents is very different than choosing who to marry in many ways, one of which is that we have a scheduled time to choose a president again. If did that all the time with marriage it could lead to stress and unhappiness for just about everybody who mattered in our lives. So now we are making the president decision again. And I think that for this election you don't need to think about who we should have picked 4 or 8 or 12 years ago- think in the situation we are in now, and with the knowledge we have now, who do I think is the best choice for the next 4 years?

Testing

I'm conducting a little experiment here to see if a post scheduled for months in the past and then published will show up in my followers' feeds. So, does it? At the top or where it fits chronologically? If you have trouble commenting on this post for whatever reason then just use some other post.

Little Influences

Every so often I find myself saying a word or phrase I never used to use or performing some little task slightly differently than I used to, immediately reminding me of the friend who I picked it up from.

Then yesterday I started wondering: do these same friends pick up little phrases or gestures from me? If so, what?

Stake Conference

Last week was stake conference.

A lot of people don't go to stake conference. I've known that for a while, but this year our stake president really pointed it out to us. The week before he visited our sacrament meeting to urge everybody to go, citing some sort of statistic about how many usually go compared to the number attending sacrament meeting on an average Sunday. Then during the general session of conference, he talked about how he would like to have the perfect stake; how cool it would be to have buses show up to take us all to establish Zion or something like that, with our temple recommends as our tickets. But only 1 out of every 3 adults in the stake has a current temple recommend, and 4 out of every 5 stake members weren't at conference. That is, 33% of adults have a recommend, for which they must attend their meetings to be worthy. And some members who don't have the recommend still attend regularly. But only 20% attend the Sunday morning session of stake conference.

We are told that partaking of the sacrament is the most important thing we do on Sunday. And maybe that's part of why some people think skipping conference isn't such a big deal; they aren't administering the sacrament, so we're already missing the most important thing anyway. But the way I see it, if we are regularly required to skip the sacrament, there must be a good reason for it.

So if something is so important that it's worth skipping the sacred ordinance of the sacrament, isn't it important enough that we should make it a point to be there?

Half Herself

Lots of people love Anne Shirley from the Anne novels by L. M. Montgomery. Some love the books, some the movies. I'm a book person myself, which should come as no surprise to people who know me well. But I love Emily Starr and the Emily books more.

One thing that comes up in them every so often bothers me - Emily is often referred to, by herself and by others, as being half Murray - the Murrays being her mother's family. I don't see it that way. Emily has as much Murray blood, as much Murray DNA, as she does Starr blood and Starr DNA. She had more Murray socialization than Starr socialization, her father's relatives being absent from her life; about as much of her upbringing was as a Murray as was Starr. She is not half Murray - she is Murray in all but name.

My Holley and Leavitt cousins are not half Howes; they are Howeses. I do not see myself as being half Wagstaff. I am a full member of Wagstaff clan. The only reasons I don't go by both names are tradition and to keep my name from becoming too unwieldy- Marissa Howes Henderson Wagstaff Willie or Marissa Willie Wagstaff Howes Henderson is way too long for forms and databases, and each generation you go back would double the number of attached surnames. You need to cut off somewhere and the closer to me the cutoff comes the better, so far as length is concerned. But each of the families represented in those names, even if those names are not part of my name, are equally part of my identity.

To High School Seniors

This past Thursday I saw an ad that stuck with me. I don't know what product it was trying to sell -  I only saw it for a couple seconds. But what I did see of the ad went something like, "Make your senior year last forever with this deal that won't." And my automatic thought to that?

Please don't.

If you've managed to progress all the way to the twelfth grade, hopefully you have realized that it would be impossible to make the year last forever. But more important to my thought process is that as much as I enjoyed high school (and I did) I would hate to be back there. Because there is so much more to experience.

So, high school seniors, enjoy your year. Participate in your clubs and go to your dances and all that stuff. Then, after you graduate, move out and move on. Live with roommates. Stay at your friend's place talking until it gets so late that you're too tired to walk back downstairs to your own apartment so you just sleep on her couch, knowing that your roommates won't be too concerned if you show up sometime the next day. Eat cookies for breakfast because that's all you have in your dorm room and there isn't time to stop by the dining hall if you want to get to your scheduled final on time. Or eat cookies and crackers for breakfast in bed just because that's what looks good and bed is comfortable (this course of action is best performed if you intend to be changing your sheets soon, but if you don't... hey, live and learn).

Sure, at first you may miss having Mom do your laundry and cook your meals. But eventually, you just may discover that the freedom that comes from being the one to decide what gets washed when more than makes up for the extra burden of the chore. And that ready-made meals aren't too much to sacrifice in order to be the one who decides what to eat and when to eat it - even more when you make the lasagna and green beans than when you munch on a bag of potato chips and a brownie and call that dinner.

Seriously. It happens. And it feels good.

Don't Say It

I have heard many times that the thing that originally attracts you to someone is eventually going to be the thing that most annoys you.

I haven't seen any research addressing this. It probably is true in some cases, but not all. I'd guess it depends on why whatever it is attracts you and how the rest of the relationship proceeds. Whatever the facts of the matter, I don't see any good from telling it to single people. I can see two rational responses to such information, especially without any qualifiers about how or why it would happen.

1. Avoid marriage and romantic relationships in general
 This option is pretty bad for the survival of the species.

2. Marry someone whose personality does not draw you in any way
This seems like a great way to create unfulfilling marriages.

Isn't there enough out there to scare people away from marriage without making us afraid that the very fact that we like someone is a sign that we're going to end up driving each other crazy in a bad way?

Be a Man

A few years ago, some of my male friends joined a facebook event for a be a man day in an effort to combat the media's portrayals of manhood - machismo or uselessness. Basically, this be a man day was a call for guys to be good, decent, hardworking people and for everybody to realize that is what being a man is about.

Last week I read from 2 Nephi 1 in my seminary scriptures. Verses 21 through 27 have markings placed as per my teacher's instructions - in the margin, Lehi's 10 traits of becoming a man, then the numerals 1 through 10 in the places he mentions said traits. The list
1. Be men (not sure why that's one of the items)
2. Be determined in one mind and one heart, united in all things
3. Awake
4. Come forth out of obscurity
5. Rebel no more
6. Keep the commandments
7. Be an instrument in the hands of God
8. Seek not for power or authority
9. Have the power of the word of God
10. Have the Spirit of the Lord in you

As a side note, I believe this was the same lesson where we split up into boys and girls and made lists - the girls made a list of the top 10 things we wanted in a man and the boys listed 10 things they thought the girls would want in a man. The lists actually matched up pretty well - the order was a bit off, but most of the items were represented on both lists. We girls cheated a bit, though - we couldn't completely agree on what belonged on the list so ended up with a tie in one spot, giving us 11 items. I don't remember many specific items on either list, although I could probably make a fairly good guess at what went on them. What I do remember is that one of the tie items on the girls' list was a Y chromosome. The boys listed testosterone. Those were the only physical attributes. Both lists focused mainly on character.

Political Fundraising

A couple years ago I somehow got added to an Obama supporters email mailing list. My best guess is that it came about when I clicked on something on facebook to say that I was going to vote. I definitely never knowingly gave my email address to any political party or candidate. I never unsubscribed because I've been trying to be at least somewhat informed politically and this was giving me views and information I wasn't getting elsewhere.

Lately, however, it's mostly consisted of pleas to donate or sign cards for Barack or Michelle Obama (birthday, Mother's Day, Father's Day). Which is understandable. The thing that bothers me is that most of the fundraising emails say something indicating that if Obama doesn't win, it's because they didn't earn enough. And, yes, the dollars do matter by a lot. But.

By saying unilaterally that how much they are able to raise now will determine what the headlines will be in November, they are completely discounting the possibility that more Americans like Romney's positions and qualifications than want Obama back. Sure, the campaign emails aren't going to come out and say that people might prefer Romney for his politics or perceived ability to get the job done. But the implication that no informed voter would choose to vote for Romney is incredibly arrogant. And the implication that the average American votes entirely based on who has better campaign materials is a bit insulting.

Edit: Yesterday I got an email that said "And the only way someone like Mitt Romney -- (content removed to reduce risk of issues debate here, there being plenty of other places for that) -- defeats someone like Barack Obama, is if the other side spends us into oblivion." The specific issues I removed happen to be controversial - as in, I hear arguments for both sides. On one issue in particular I was under the impression from some political poll that more than half of the country is against Obama's position. I'm smelling some false-consensus effect. Thinking about it in those terms actually makes it slightly less irritating. Slightly. Limiting themselves to 5 emails a week would also do them a lot of good in my book.

Marriage Gap Stats

Last night I got to flipping through a packet of readings for one of my college classes and found some of the information in one of them pretty interesting and worth sharing. So, for your information and reading pleasure:


Husbands with high-school dropout wives earned less than single men with comparable work and education histories. The chapter did not mention how much less.
Husbands with wives with just a high-school diploma earned 4.3 times as much as comparable single men.
Husbands with college educated wives earned almost 12 percent more than comparable single men.

The effects were shown whether or not they had children and whether or not the wives were employed, although I don't know whether the amount of the difference changed across those conditions. I also don't know what sort of difference the level of college education makes.

Obligatory Modesty Post

Last night, I came across a post on an LDS group blog about modesty. Specifically, about modesty in women's and girls' clothing.

I actually seem to come across those on a fairly regular basis, and this one fit the typical mold. The post itself talks about why we should be modest, what modesty really is, or how modesty should be taught. All three of these are addressed in the comments. Then someone mentions that men are very visual and women should dress modestly to help the men control their thoughts, at which point at least half a dozen people comment interpreting the previous comment as saying that men have no control over their thoughts at all and women are entirely responsible for keeping the men from ever seeing anything that could lead to an impure thought. Which is of course impossible, especially if we want to dress in such a way as to allow ourselves to move and function in society.

I've never understood how or why people make the leap from "it would be nice to help the boys out" to "girls are completely responsible for everything and boys have no power whatsoever," but I guess sometimes people have trouble with nuance. And people can get really stupid online, where every sports article leads to 100 comments about how terrible the fans of the other side are (both sides being represented), and when somebody ventures to say that there are good and bad fans on each side, everybody involved on either side insults the newcomer. If a brand-new TV show has any common threads between the first two episodes, its message boards have multiple comments about how it's stuck in a rut. And if a political article ran titled Candidate Explains His Plan For the Fifth Time, with said plan outlined in great detail in the article, at least one person in the comments section will talk about how the candidate does not have a plan. That last one might be an exaggeration, but not by much.

Anyway. The people who jump down the throat of whoever mentioned helping the boys keep their thoughts pure tend to say that modesty should be about respecting yourself. And they have a point. Modesty really is largely about respect. For yourself, yes. But also for the situation. If you go to a symphony wearing footed pajamas, for example, you are not being modest, even though you are probably more covered than anybody else there and your clothing less clingy than most. Because you are not dressed appropriately for the situation and are not respecting the people putting on the symphony. And it is also about showing respect for the boys who are trying to keep their thoughts clean but might be struggling.

But even if you think modesty is completely about respecting yourself, I think the effects of your dress on others still matters. When I respect myself, I want others to respect me. And I do not think that whatever thoughts clingy and scanty clothes will bring into the minds of at least some men are particularly respectful. So I believe that in order to properly respect myself, I should consider how what I am wearing or exposing is likely to affect a normal, respectful guy.

The Anthem

Whenever I think about it, I am a bit disappointed in the way we usually sing the national anthem. I don't mean the style (although I think it's pretty disrespectful when the performer seems more interested in showing off their talent than in honoring their country). I mean the fact that, except in church and maybe an occasional full choir performance, we only ever sing the first verse.

And the first verse is about a flag. Sure, the symbol of the country, but not the country itself. Just a piece of fabric. It isn't until the next couple of verses that Key starts to bring in the actual significance of that flag.

My personal favorite verse is the last one, which speaks mainly of our country's ideals, then makes a clear link with the banner we are singing of: 

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war's desolation!!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Blessings for the Dead

Family prayers in my family often include a request for blessings for a list of people - bless Mommy and Daddy and Russy and Billy and Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma and Grandpa. (I left out the girls to shorten the list. We are usually included, but I like shorter lists.)

Since Grandpa Howes died, he has been left out of the blessing list.

But why should he be? He still exists and could probably still use blessings. They definitely wouldn't hurt. Sure, I don't know what sort of blessings he'd need. But I don't necessarily know what specific blessings all the other people on the list need, either.

The Women's Board

Today at work I saw a bunch of mail from the Women's Board of some zoo. Which brings the question: why in the world does a zoo need a Women's Board? Don't men and women look for basically the same things out of a zoo? And can't they give basically the same things as well? Was this some sort of odd way to promote feminism? Do they have a Men's Board?

And why does Firefox mark Men's as misspelled but Women's is apparently fine?

Love Hierarchy

When great love is rejected, Rosalee, something inside a man dies, so all he can do is run away. And he can meet the girl he'll love second most.

-Angelica, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton

I don't think I could ever marry the man I loved second most. Suppose my great love rejected me. After that, I just wouldn't get married if I couldn't find somebody I believed I loved more than I had loved him. To do otherwise would feel fundamentally dishonest.

Actually, I couldn't even seriously date someone after that if I still wanted the first guy more than the new one.

Mythologies

Back when we learned that Big Love was planning to show scenes of the temple ceremonies, I remembered some less than respectful jibes I had taken a few years earlier toward Scientologists. And I felt bad about that and decided never to do anything of such a nature again.

One elective I took and enjoyed while in college was a Classical Mythology class. Our professor told us not to regard the myths as true or false; in fact, he posited that even the Greeks and Romans didn't necessarily see them that way. Instead, we were to regard them as neither true nor false but as a third category altogether: myth. This is hard for me to really do conceptually. Maybe for those people who don't believe in objective truth and right it is doable, but that is not a part of my religious tradition. There is absolute truth and there is absolute  right. And while some things are matters of opinion, most are either true or false.

Of course, there are other mental gymnastics that others can't see a solution to where I don't even see a problem. I recently started reading a book of my father's, Mathematics in 10 Lessons by Jerry P. King. It teaches the basic concepts behind mathematics, from counting through calculus. Just the concepts, no formulas or processes. In the very first chapter, he briefly discusses whether mathematics is created or discovered. He himself favors the idea that mathematicians create mathematics, saying "Obviously, you can discover only that which already exists. The Platonist (one who claims that mathematics is discovered) must then provide for mathematics a creator other than a mathematician... I have none to offer. Neither have the Platonists. Mathematicians create mathematics."

Well, I see no reason for mathematics to need a creator. Matter has always existed. So has God. So have I, in some form. And so has mathematics.

But back to myth.

Although I have a hard time conceptually allowing a grey area between truth and fiction, I can express it perfectly well. So I have decided that when presenting other people's religious stories that I do not believe, I will treat them as myth. I will not claim that they are true. But I will also not say that they are ridiculous, strange, silly, or even merely false.

I will present them as mythology. Which, in the dictionary definition of the word, they are.

Friendly Dilemma

One of the regular posters on a message board I sometimes visit (I will call her Cat) was talking about a girl she used to be friends with but has grown away from. This other girl still feels very close to Cat and tries to keep the connection strong, including trying to get together with her in person frequently. But Cat is busy and does not particularly want to hang out with her old friend, but doesn't want to hurt her feelings by saying so.

When I read this, I worried about whether I am being the other girl in any of my relationships, annoying someone who I think really does appreciate my friendship but is really just trying to figure out how to get me to leave them alone.

Later that day, one of my friends said something about how she sometimes feels unwanted by her friends. I've felt that way too, especially when it seems like nobody has put in any effort to contact me for a while. And I don't want any of my friends to feel like I don't still care about them or want them in my life. The best way I can think of to keep them from feeling this way is by reaching out to them, calling or texting or writing.

But if they don't want to still be my friend, I don't want to be the annoying former friend who won't leave them alone.

So how do you tell which friends really want your friendship and which would rather you just move on with your life without them but are too polite to say anything? Especially when the friendship is long distance.

Unscientific Assumption

I've read in more than one place that women, overall, are more attractive than men. And that just seems like a pretty ridiculous claim to me. I, for one, find men much more attractive.

The thing is, at least one of these claims was made in a book explaining some evolutionary biology ideas to the general public. As in, they were trying to explain why women are more attractive than men. In that context, I would want the basic claims made - the things that they are trying to explain - to be supported by solid scientific data. But how would you measure that? Most men find women more attractive. Most women find men more attractive. What did they do, see whether people primarily attracted to men are more likely to find women attractive as well than people primarily attracted to women are to also find men attractive? If so, they really ought to mention that research in the book. And I know they didn't because I would have remembered that sort of study.

Focusing on Christ's Life

One of the speakers in my ward today was raised Catholic and he talked a bit about the significance of the cross as a symbol of Christianity. He then told that when he asked the missionaries why we don't display crosses, they asked him which he would use to remember his hypothetical dead brother: the knife used to kill him or a photo of the brother happy and healthy. We do talk about the crucifixion, of course. If Christ hadn't died, he couldn't have been resurrected, for one thing. And the death was a real sacrifice. But we would rather focus on the living Christ.

When I was still Primary age, I thought of another reason to focus on things other than Christ's death: a lot of men die for others or for a cause. At the time, I had thought I would be willing to die for others myself. Since that time I have become more attached to the idea of living, but I hope that given enough cause I would still be willing to die for the right cause, though it is hard to imagine why I would ever be in such a situation.

But I thought that the focus should be more on the fact that Christ lived a perfect life for us than that he died for us. Nobody else has ever managed that. Just as nobody before Jesus Christ was able to break the bonds of death. Putting the focus on Christ's life, before and after death, tells much more about how He is special than does focusing on his death.

Archaic Language

Ever since I can remember, my family read scriptures together (usually Mom or Dad reading aloud to us all, although sometimes one of the kids would take a turn) almost every day. And not from a recent translation.

In high school English, we read one of Shakespeare's plays every year. Some of the other students had trouble understanding the Shakespearean language, but it always seemed very clear to me.

I've sometimes wondered whether these facts are connected.

Nature of the Holy Ghost

Actually, the missionary does not convert anyone; the Holy Ghost does the converting. The power of conversion is directly associated with the Holy Ghost, for no person can be truly converted and know that Jesus is the Christ save by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Spencer W. Kimball

On Thursday, I was thinking about missionary work in the Spirit Prison when I remembered this principle and wondered how that works there. Because the missionaries and investigators are also spirits, they would be able to see the Holy Ghost if He just sat in on their lessons. And what would keep the investigators from thinking He was just another guy?

Then I realized that the Holy Ghost cannot be actually present in every place He is felt on earth at one time, so he could probably be physically, for lack of a better word, absent from Spirit World discussions.

My basic understanding of spirits has always been that they have definite forms and are only able to be in one place at a time - like physical beings but less sturdy (There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; D&C 131:7). But I have also understood that one reason the Holy Ghost doesn't have a body is so that He can be present everywhere He is needed, which Heavenly Father and Jesus can't do with their physical bodies. Those understandings really do not work well together.

So maybe something about lacking a body helps in the spiritual communication from a distance - with bodied and unbodied spirits, so he can confirm truth to the spirit investigators in a way other than another guy in the room talking directly to them.

But then I think about how we pray to the Father, and He hears us, even if we do not pray vocally. Maybe it is more to do with His special ability than our own ability to transmit spiritual messages. but it does seem likely to me that inspiration and prayers are transmitted through similar means. Maybe being without a body makes it somehow easier to talk to many at once?

Or maybe the Holy Ghost could work perfectly well having a body, and the only reason He doesn't is so that He can be available to us throughout our lives. I think I actually really like that idea.

Of course, that does bring me to another question I have on occasion entertained for a while before setting it aside - when does the Holy Ghost get His body, and when and how does He get tested?

The Real World

Related to my most recent post but on a much more serious note, I have noticed that when people talk about living in the real world, or bringing somebody back to earth, or anything like that, they mean seeing the painful, hard aspects of life. And those are important parts of life in this real world. "I'm sure no life can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial and sorrow," as Anne Shirley says in Anne of the Island.

But the real world also involves joy and beauty. Note that Anne did not say that life can't be properly developed without much trial and sorrow - she said some. And she also said that no life can be rounded out without it. The rounding out of a life implies that there is variety - not all joy; not all pain. Lehi speaks more authoritatively on the subject in 2 Nephi 1, where he says, "And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery." So in order to really experience the hard things that make up real life, we have to experience the good times, too. Otherwise we wouldn't realize things were so hard. This sort of idea is also expressed in the same chapter of Anne of the Island that I quoted earlier, saying "[Gilbert] could not connect the idea of sorrow with the vivid, joyous creature beside him, unwitting that those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy most keenly are also those which suffer most sharply."

And from my own life experience, the greatest happiness and the greatest hurt I have ever experienced came pretty near to each other in time. This was not coincidence.

Anyway, I can understand saying that somebody who does not see and acknowledge real trials and suffering isn't living in the real world. But only if we can also say the same about somebody who does not find the joy. And if you look for it, you can find something good just about anywhere.

Seems Reasonable

After learning of the recentish assertion that Mormons don't live in the real world, it occurred to me that if we live in a fake world, doesn't it make sense that we would worship a different, fake Jesus?

Making of a Man or Woman

I'm going to start off this post with a journal entry I wrote at age 13:

It's weird to think that Joseph Smith was only about 14 when he had his 1st vision. When I was about 5, 14 was way old, so it wasn't a big deal. But now that I'm closer to his age, and I know what it's like, it seems incredible. I mean, I can't imagine any of the 14 year old boys I know having a vision.

One summer when I was five or six I went to a day camp. I didn't know the counselors' last names, which stressed me out because it felt wrong to call these people, who seemed from my perspective to be adults, by their first names. I expressed my concerns to my mother, who told me that using their first names was fine, and they were just teenagers anyway.

By the time I was in high school, I found it odd when other teens considered themselves to be basically grown up. We were all still immature kids. More self-sufficient than we had been, sure, but kids all the same.

When I was about 12, I thought I would never feel like I was old enough to date. Well, it turns out I did. Right around the time when I got old enough to date. So I thought that maybe it would work out that way for other milestones. But it turns out that for one, at least, it didn't. The use of the word "woman" in reference to myself. I have actually called myself a woman once or twice, but it just doesn't feel right. Some of my peers I am comfortable with calling men and women, sometimes, but then I'll turn around and call them boys and girls in the next sentence.

In the media, as far as I am aware, people are referred to as men and women from the time they turn 18, when they are legally adults. I suppose it's good to have a distinct cutoff point, and that is probably the most logical place they can put it, but I sometimes find a news story humorous or just absurd when I read or hear about a 19-year-old woman. After all, I often think of people in their late 20s as boys and girls these days.

Going back to my high school years, at some point then I noticed that when a young man left on his mission, he seemed like a boy to me. When he came back, he seemed like a man. So I thought that could be what made a boy into a man. But now when I meet recently returned missionaries, they often seem like little boys to me.

But maybe the mission definition was on the right track. Not that it is a rite of passage that turns all boys into men, but that real outside life experiences, serious responsibility, hard work, service, sacrifice, and devotion to something higher than yourself are the major factors in the change.

Possibly becoming a man or a woman is the sort of thing that is never completely done. It definitely is not something that is done all at once.

Maybe people just keep going back and forth between being kids and adults throughout their lives.

Firestarter

As a teenager I noticed that I could take two guys who were equally attractive, equally nice, equally intelligent, both with great personalities, and one would interest me but the other wouldn't. I could find no explanation for why certain boys would grab my attention more than others.

In one of the last three The Work and the Glory books by Gerald Lund, Kathryn Ingalls tells her husband, Peter, that she doesn't know why she loves him. I think this is shortly after Peter tells why he loves her. Anyway, I tend to be that same way - I really don't know why I like or love somebody. I can list attributes of theirs that I like, but I can't say what it is that brought that spark, changing my feelings from a fairly indifferent or slightly fond, "He's a good guy," to something more.

Deck the Walls

Over the years I have thought a lot about home decorating. Not so much coordinating the rugs to the drapes to the throw pillows, but holiday decorations.

Well, I was recently thinking about an Easter wreath I saw featuring bunnies (it was cuter than it sounds) when I realized that there really aren't many religiously-themed Easter decorations. Which actually makes sense. You can have a lot of nativity scenes around at Christmastime and everything's great - they are generally cute or beautiful. But to have tons of images or figures of Christ hanging on the cross or sweating blood in Gethsemane would be a bit morbid. And if you tried to make it cute, it would be even more disturbing. And sacrilegious. And to fill your house with empty tombs would be a bit weird. Like displaying random rocks - not pretty ones or rare ones, just rubble that you might have picked up while prepping the garden.

Still, given that I consider Easter to be the most religiously significant holiday, I don't feel right about completely ignoring the religious side in my decorating. So I have now made it my goal to find at least a couple tasteful decorations that I can get out and display in my home specifically for the Easter season.

The Many and The One

I recently read an MSN relationships article about how to be a man magnet. The advice in it was not particularly revelatory, except that I apparently need to perfect the art of sexting. Somehow I don't see that happening anytime soon. I guess I'll have to live without the hordes of men flocking to me.

But what I did find interesting was that one of the man-magnets they interviewed was one who had only been single for a total of three months during her fifteen years of dating. And since this was an article on how to attract a lot of men and not how to build a strong relationship, I would expect that the boyfriends she had during this time numbered more than two. So this woman we are meant to learn from spent, at most, an average of six weeks between 'official' relationships, which in this case would have average out to have lasted not quite five years each. That seems like a pretty short time to properly move on from such a long relationship. Of course, even three five-year relationships doesn't qualify someone as a man-magnet to me, but however many relationships there are, there does not seem to be an appropriately long break between.

Maybe she wasn't really all that invested in her relationships. In that case, it seems like a huge waste of years she could have spent finding someone she really liked or else learning valuable things with her independence.

Or maybe she just bounced around from rebound to rebound. Once again, a waste of time and energy.

And assuming that she did over these fifteen years have relationships that really meant something to her but she was able to properly recover before moving on to the next man... what are the chances that she would be able to find a good man to date so quickly after each recovery period? Yes, there are a lot of good men out there. But a good man who she finds attractive and fun to be around and easy to talk to and interesting, and who sees the same qualities in her, along with that extra spark, enough to form a serious relationship with, is not quite as common. And it is my opinion that if two people do not see in each other everything I mentioned in that last sentence there is really no point in having a committed relationship.

I really don't feel the need to jump around from boyfriend to boyfriend. Sure, hearing that it only takes one isn't particularly comforting to the girl who just wants to be going out and having fun. It also isn't particularly comforting when the lack of dates makes her wonder if she just isn't attractive. But there is a difference between going out with a lot of different boys and being in steady relationships with lots of different boys. The first one involves getting to know them, having fun, and learning what you like. The second involves cutting down on your opportunities to meet someone who you really would like and learn from.

And even if I don't have a multitude of boys coming after me, that's okay. I'm going to just be myself, live my life, and trust that in doing so I will attract one man who will bring me more satisfaction than a long stream of suitors. And I'm going to do that without sexting.

Distraction vs. Discrimination

I just read that Santorum opposes legislation that is about to pass allowing women to serve on the military front lines. He claims that because men tend to be protective of women, they would worry about the women and be distracted from doing their own jobs. This made sense to me.

Then I read the handful of comments that were showing at the bottom of the page. One of them mentioned that soldiers are already concerned about the men they serve with and manage to get their jobs done, so why should adding women change that? This also made sense.

So, in a very dangerous situation, would a man be significantly more concerned about the welfare of a woman than he would that of a man in the same situation, assuming both to be strong, healthy, fit, and competent? Having never been (a) male or (b) working with others to accomplish an important goal in life-threatening conditions, I find this impossible to answer.

Me as a Fangirl

I like Shawn Spencer as a TV character. But if I had to actually interact with him in real life he would drive me crazy. I've known this for a long time. But yesterday I realized something else. While I do like Shawn, he is not one of my favorite characters.

If I were the type to go all fan-girl over a fictional character, it would probably be for one of these:

• Rory from Doctor Who
• Graham from Once Upon a Time
• Doyle from Angel
• Possibly Hodgins from Bones. I haven't properly watched many episodes, but I really like him from what I've seen with it playing in the background.
• Possibly Vic from What I Like About You. It's been a while since I watched so I'm not sure how my feelings about him compare with the others, but what got me to watch the show was the Val/Vic storyline toward the end of the series.

And the thing that ties them all together? I could see them getting along perfectly fine in the real world. They could be my friends or my neighbors or my coworkers. Or all of the above.

Maybe a Rant

Once when I was in high school, I got to talking to a girl I sort of knew but had never really spent a lot of time with, and she mentioned that a lot of the Mormon parents hadn't let their kids play with her or her brother (I'll call them by the pseudonyms Alison and Jake here so as to protect their identities) because they were not members of the Church. I would like to say that I couldn't believe it, but the thing is, I did. It shocked me, but I believed her.

A few years later, my bishop got up to speak in church. He told about how he had his kids going to a neighbor church's vacation bible school or some such thing (something I have long thought would be worthwhile to look into sending my own future children to). And the pastor or whatever mentioned having the same problem with Mormon parents not letting their children play with non-Mormons. And he (my bishop) told the congregation how utterly wrong-headed that was.

When Alison told me about the discrimination she and Jake faced, my immediate response was to say, "That's wrong." But I'm not writing today to convince people that it is wrong; it's my hope that my readers already get that. I'm just expressing why it's so hard for me to understand what makes anybody think that's a good idea.

We are supposed to be followers of Jesus Christ. So look at Christ's life. He was criticized for eating with sinners. He healed a Roman's servant - at the Roman's request. He went up to a Samaritan woman to converse. Refusing to associate with people who are a little bit different from us is in no way following his example.

And what does Christ have to say that's relevant to the situation? Oh, how about "The worth of souls is great in the sight of God" or "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." I remember no reference saying that the worth of a Mormon soul is more valuable, and I really don't think we want to ostracize Christ because of the family he was born into. Of course I am not advocating ostracizing people based on their chosen religion either - note my last sentence in the paragraph above. But to take it out on children, who are generally just following the religion taught by their parents, seems even more egregiously wrong.

And there is also the story of the good Samaritan - a Samaritan, a person who the Jews despised, is the good guy.

Really the only rationalization that makes any sense at all to me is that the parents are somehow protecting their child. But from what? Jake and Alison both struck me as good, nice people. Yes, I wasn't close to either of them - Jake was several years younger than me, and Alison and I were also in different grades and had different interests. But I did see them around enough to form that much of an opinion.

So these parents must be protecting their kids from other beliefs and opinions. But if that is the case, when do they think their children will be old enough to handle being confronted with opposing viewpoints? They are sure to come across them at some point in their lives. Wouldn't they rather be there to explain things  rather than have their kids have to make sense of it all on their own the very first time they come across an opposing viewpoint? And if they expect their children to serve as missionaries - well, how can you explain the difference in what you have when you have no idea what else is out there?

In my conversation with Alison, she said that either she or her brother wanted to be baptized as soon as they were old enough to do so without their parents' permission. Well, maybe some would think that is the ideal outcome. But I didn't really like it then and still don't like it now. Not because I am against people joining the church. But because it's not the right reason to join the church. It is making a serious covenant with Heavenly Father for reasons not really related to Him or His promises, possibly without understanding what is involved in the covenant.

But I did not express my dislike of the decision. Because how do you tell somebody not to do something that will allow them to find the acceptance that they really deserve? I didn't know then, and it would still be hard now.

Tough Choices

I have wanted to sponsor a child since my age was measured in single digits.

A few years ago, I started looking at various agencies through which I could sponsor a child. There are differences in the amounts you pay and exactly what it pays for; the main difference I remember now is that some agencies include religious instruction and others don't. There are probably also differences in what proportion of what you give gets eaten up by administrative costs, but I somehow had found an index of charitable organizations that rated them on factors like that and only really looked at ones with high scores. Anyway, I decided to look at them all again when I was ready to make the commitment.

Now I feel like my ability to do so is within seeing distance, so I find myself thinking about it again. The choice of which agency to go through is one I will take seriously and seems somewhat difficult not unmanageable. What seems more difficult is the choice of the child. Most of the sites allow you to search by location, sex, and age. But how in the world I am supposed to decide whether I would rather help a boy or a girl, or someone from Uganda or El Salvador?

My Prayer

3 Nephi 18:20 says, "And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you."

Many times I have while praying struggled over what to ask for. Sometimes I wanted something very badly but thought it was too much to ask for - more than I really deserved. Sometimes I wasn't sure that what I wanted was really right - or at least right for me. Sometimes I worried that I couldn't get what I wanted without somehow denying somebody else's agency. And sometimes I was so emotionally exhausted that I didn't even know what I wanted at the time.

And many times I have ended up saying some version of, "Thou knowst what I need better than I do.Whatever that is, please let me have it."