For Our Day

A couple days ago, a college friend of mine posted one of those picture quote things on facebook. Or maybe she just liked it; I can't find it on her timeline, but it showed up on my feed in connection to her. Anyway, it said something like, So you say God hates homosexuals. Well, he is actually perfectly fine with them and loves them at least as much as heterosexuals. What, you ask for my authority to speak for Him? Well, it's the same as yours.

Well, that actually is pretty true. He does love people with same sex attractions, though these days the distinction the distinction between hate and disapproval towards actions is often lost, especially in this particular conversation. But that isn't really the point of the post; it says we have no right to say what He says.

Yesterday I read this passage in the Book of Mormon:

Now Zeezrom said unto the people: "See that ye remember these things; for he said there is but one God; yet he saith that the Son of God shall come, but he shall not save his people—as though he had authority to command God."

Now Amulek saith again unto him: "Behold thou hast lied, for thou sayest that I spake as though I had authority to command God because I said he shall not save his people in their sins. And I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins."

And thus we see the exact same flawed response to our declarations of God's word. Our reports of what He tells us are misrepresented as us saying He agrees with whatever we want Him to say. But He does speak to His prophets, and through them we can know what His standards and teachings really are.

Oppression and Disenfranchisement

Speaking of comments on online articles, early this year I came across a story about a proposed World Hijab Day, in which women were encouraged to wear a hijab in support of the Muslim women who do so every day. I was intrigued by the thought, although I thought it would be difficult to find a decent but cheap hijab and learn how to wear it in time. I clicked through to the comments to see what other people had to say on the subject. There wasn't much; one comment about learning to wrap it, and maybe one other about the cost.

One thing really surprised me about the comments: the number of people who confused the hijab, a headscarf that covers the hair, ears, and neck, with the burka, the garment that exposes only the eyes. Hijab was even defined in the article!

But most of the conversation was about the idea that wearing a hijab or a burka is a sign of oppression of women. A couple different people told about how and why Muslim women of their acquaintance like wearing the coverings. One story I remember in particular is that of a woman who had grown up in an area where the burka was required. When studying in London, she noticed the men looking her over in a way that men hadn't when she was wearing the burka and felt that they were thus more distracted from her words than the men she had grown up around.

And in response to this anecdote, someone said, in effect, "It's amazing how disenfranchised people can rationalize things to themselves to keep themselves from recognizing their oppression."

What I thought about that was that such a complete disregard to her experience is a lot more disenfranchising than a piece of cloth could be.

Makeup

This morning I went to check my Yahoo mail and saw on the front Yahoo page a story about a college student who took notes of the remarks people made about her appearance when she was wearing three different levels of makeup. You can read it if you want, but the results weren't surprising: girls commented more and were more likely to talk about the makeup (mentioning her not wearing any or asking how she got some effect), whereas guys were more likely to attribute the difference in her appearance to something within herself, such as how rested she was.

Then for some reason, I looked to see what other readers had to say about the story. One commenter said that where she lived (or he, but I'm guessing this was a woman), even the heavily made up condition was a bit underdone for a professional woman. And I thought, I could never live in an area with such a high expectation for a woman's makeup level, because I would have no idea how to apply that much.

I used to read makeup tips, and I've come across some useful ideas, but the thing is, makeup is used to highlight your good features and hide or diminish your flaws. Of course, to make that really work, you need a good idea of what your good and bad features are. Now, I'd been told that I have a nice face, but I've never seen a tip for how to use makeup to highlight your face as a whole. You have to work with individual parts. Well, okay, I'm supposed to have nice eyes. And there are plenty of tips out there for how to draw attention to your eyes.

But most of the makeup tips are about how to fix the flaws. Reading through all the articles full of instructions on how to make your eyes look closer together or farther apart, how to widen this or narrow that, it became apparent that everybody has something wrong with the structure of their face. I just couldn't figure out what was wrong with mine. So I kept reading through these beauty columns, looking for anything that would help me find my flaws to that I could fix them.

Then one day I realized that just because so many other women disliked their appearance did not mean that there was something wrong with mine. I am fine the way I am.

There's a Heaven

I recently saw a snippet of lyrics from Imagine by John Lennon and got to thinking about it. Specifically, I was thinking about the line "Imagine there's no heaven." And I wondered who would want there to be no heaven. I mean, what in the world could you have against a place of reward for good people? The only reasonable explanation I could think of was that you assume that if there is a heaven there must also be a hell and think that nobody deserves to suffer in hell forever. But that's a huge stretch from what the lyrics actually say.

Then I realized that the song's structure implies that there is a heaven. In the other verses, what we are told to imagine is something opposite to reality. Imagine there's no countries, imagine no possessions, imagine there's no heaven. But in fact there are countries and possessions. So if the song is properly parallel, there must be a heaven.

I know that isn't the message it's supposed to be sending, but it amused me to realize. I wonder if that's why the heaven verse came first - to keep people from noticing, or because if it's different there it doesn't count, or something.

A Note to Men

There was a period of time lasting at least a couple weeks, maybe a few months, during which it seemed like the song Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars played both on my way to work and on my way home every day. This had two main effects.

1) I started almost hating that song
2) I really thought about the lyrics

I don't believe there is a causal relationship between the effects. Just in case you were wondering. But I did quickly find a big problem in the lyrics. Instead of being romantic, Bruno Mars comes across as extremely annoying if he really acts like he claims he does. In case you don't know the song, here are the offending lyrics:

But every time she asks me, "Do I look okay?" I say, "When I see your face there's not a thing that I would change 'cause you're amazing just the way you are. And when you smile the whole world stops and stares for a while 'cause girl, you're amazing just the way you are."

 Even just saying, "You're beautiful" every time would get annoying. The thing is, if a woman asks you "Do I look okay?" she isn't asking for affirmation of her attractiveness. With those specific words, she wants to know if her underwear is showing or her makeup looks as though it had been applied by a drunk baboon.

Really, anytime a woman asks you how she looks when she's getting ready to go somewhere, you should take a few seconds to glance over her and make sure everything looks right. Then, after she has seen you actually look at her, you can tell her she looks great.

Christmas Links

A couple years ago I decided to make a tradition of posting links to Christmassy things I've found around the internet over the year. I actually haven't noticed many this year, and haven't had much free time to seek them out, so this year's list is pretty short.

Longfellow's Christmas video
Christmas Devotional
Gospel Topic Page

A Friend In Deed

They say a friend in need is a friend indeed. I've always taken that to mean that your real friends are the ones who will help you and stand by your side when you're going through major trials. But there is at least one person who I know would be there for me if I were in serious trouble but isn't when I'm just a bit bored or lonely or find something amusing I want to share, and I'm not sure that his availability during the times of need is enough to make him a friend without the rest. But maybe the saying is including all the needs friendship is meant to meet, in which case he doesn't meet the test. But then I'm not sure any one person could.

Before writing this out I wanted to make sure I had the saying right. So I googled "A friend in need is a friend in deed" to see if that brought up any results and found this site that says the evidence suggests the original meaning was that during trying times a true friend will prove his friendship by his deeds. So the in deed spelling probably is right but is less popular these days. Either way, the basic idea is the same. And either way the question remains - is this person I'm thinking of really my friend, when his deeds right now aren't very companionate but he would step up and do the good deeds if I were in crisis?