God is Love

A couple weeks ago in Sunday School, one of the questions (I think from the manual) was Why is it appropriate to say that God is love? We had difficulty answering that question, largely I think because we didn't quite understand what was being asked. It later occurred to me that asking instead what does "God is love" mean? probably would lead to the sort of answers the manual writers were looking for. And I think that basically means that love is the defining characteristic of His character.

But during the lesson, as the discussion about that first question was going on, I thought of one of the questions asked of Christ during His mortal ministry.

But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting (or testing) him, saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (Matthew 22:34-39)

And since we are told to be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect, doesn't it just make sense that the greatest commandment is to gain the characteristic that John uses to define Him?

Tell me all your thoughts on God

Because now the chorus to this song is stuck in my head.

Anyway, a friend of mine linked to Mette Ivie Harrison's article Giving Up the Old God on facebook yesterday with the comment, "Some good thoughts! What is your view of God? Is it the real view?"

My response:

There are some good thoughts in there, but some of it doesn't feel quite right. I definitely agree that He is not an arcade game god who gives out prizes when I rack up enough righteousness points, and He doesn't make life a breeze for the good and miserable for the bad. But then in the third to last paragraph, she seems to me to be describing a much more hands-off god than I'm familiar with. Yeah, everything that happens in the world isn't because of His direct intervention, but if I pray for snow on my wedding day for some reason, and He doesn't have some reason it would be better for there not to be snow, then I figure I've got a decent chance of Him sending me snow. Because like she says, He loves us. He wants us to have what's best for us and wants us to be happy, and sometimes He'll directly interfere to help with that happiness.

I'm also not ready to declare that He never hands out tragedies to teach people lessons. I figure just letting the world proceed naturally does provide us with a lot of good hardships to learn from, but at the very least those plagues in Egypt back in Moses' day were from Him, and maybe He occasionally sends me a specially-designed trial. Elder Eyring definitely believes he was sent a trial from God after praying for one, according to his conference talk in April 2102. And I'm pretty sure there's reference in the scriptures to Him sending His people trials to humble them, which upon rereading that section might be closer to what she meant.

And as for whether my view of God is the real view, I have to conclude that my view is probably not complete, but I think I'm on the right track.

Christmas Links

Quiz Games
He is the Gift
Musical Form and Meaning in the Messiah
The Real Christmas
The Reality of Christmas
Free MoTab Music
Peace Is Possible
Illustrations of WWI Christmas Truce Going to Belgium

Easter Movies and Music

A while back I read an article about keeping the focus of your Easter celebrations on Jesus Christ. Most of the suggestions related to making a bigger deal out of Easter, sort of like how we make a huge month-long production out of Christmas. The decoration aspect I'd already thought about and have some ideas for, but after reading the article I started thinking seriously about music.

I have some music that is appropriate for Easter but not a huge variety. Christmas music starts playing on the radio the day after Halloween. We don't really play it at home until after Thanksgiving, at least. But even that would be a long time to make due with just 27 songs, which is what I have for Easter. And my Christmas music also has the benefit of a wide variety of genres. I've got stuff with a pop influence, stuff that's countryish, stuff that's jazzy... but I can count my popular music influenced Easter songs on one hand.

Movies are also a big part of Christmas traditions. People make long lists of must-see Christmas films, and I have a few. Now, if I'm going to increase the significance of Easter in my and my family's lives, I should probably also get a collection of Easter movies for us to watch in the weeks leading up to the holiday. And I do have a couple I think work for the purpose: Easter Dream and The Testaments. But I'm not sure what else to add. I know there are movies about Christ's ministry and the events of the Holy Week in Israel, and I'll probably get one of those, but watching several versions of the same story in a month or so might not go over well. I guess The Robe or Ben Hur could work as something different, but are there any good just plain cute or fun shows set around Easter? I've heard of an old show called Easter Parade but what I've been able to find out about it doesn't sell it as an Easter story. Have any of you seen it? Does it work as an Easter movie?

And do you have any other specific recommendations for Easter music or movies I can add to my list of things to slowly accumulate when I can? Or maybe picture books. It wouldn't hurt to have a few Easter picture books as well.

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.