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.