Walter Mitty is Broken

Ben Stiller's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is my favorite movie and reflects people who are trying to cope with less-than-inspiring lives, which is just about everyone. 

https://archive.org/details/kohenmonkmormon/Walter+Mitty+is+Broken.ogg

Leaving Exaltation To Love

I know everyone says they love Jesus and that Jesus loves them, but are they just demanding favors by doing that?  Do you "love" Jesus because you want stuff you expect for free?  Would you stop "loving" him if you might not get the rewards you feel that you deserve?  Would you still "love" him if you saw others being blessed and rewarded and you didn't get the same?  if things didn't seem fair enough to suit you? 

https://archive.org/details/kohenmonkmormon/Leaving+Exaltation+to+Love.ogg

In God We Trust

 In the second of two recordings on trust and God, I ruminate on trusting God on a real level.  When God doesn't act the way you expect, do you stay loyal to Him?

https://archive.org/details/kohenmonkmormon/In+God+We+Trust.mp3

Engendering Trust

I broke the RSS feed to my main "on-the-road" podcast (without a backup), so I decided to drop the RSS feed and advertise the recordings (no longer a podcast) on the blog and on Facebook.  It is a bit duplicative, but I want to see which method is more "successful".

Anyway, here is the first of two recordings on the importance of trust as far as God seems to be concerned.  This first recording has to be with our earning the trust of God and meriting exaltation at his hand. 

https://archive.org/details/kohenmonkmormon/Engendering+Trust.mp3

Lots of Peas at Fritch Flop

There is much talk from Lisa and Jason about car problems, buying a property in Fritch Texas, and other things.

I'm going to start advertising recordings from the Princess and/or the Priest page on Archive.org here on the blog.  I'll see if it gets some notice from the universe.  Enjoy!

https://archive.org/details/princesspriest/Lots+of+Peas+at+Fritch+Flop.mp3

"...it is the hand of the Lord which hath done it."

Here is another time when the Lord takes credit for doing something horrible.  I used to think God did nothing nasty, but he does punish those who turn against him.

Mormon 8:

7 And behold, the Lamanites have hunted my people, the Nephites, down from city to city and from place to place, even until they are no more; and great has been their fall; yea, great and marvelous is the destruction of my people, the Nephites.

8 And behold, it is the hand of the Lord which hath done it. ...

This and so many other posts have been a study of mine toward a more accurate picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As I have done this, I find that many portrayals of Christ describe a largely extra-scriptural representation of him as extremely non-violent and loving to a fault, strongly aligned with modern attitudes of the superiority of unconditional love and behavioral anti-judgmentalism. That is a flawed vision of the Savior insofar as I have found.

Moving slowly through the scriptural record, a different portrayal of Jesus emerges. The record states that he rewards the obedient lavishly and, after a time to redeem themselves in his eyes, punishes the disobedient, the "wicked" in his words, in comparatively harsh ways. My impression is that he uses both carrots and sticks to bring souls to him, especially those already within covenant bonds.

Given the conditions of our lives and our dependence upon the Lord's continuing favor for our peace and success, it seems wise and prudent to be obedient and curry the favor of Christ.

We Want Virtuous People to Have Greater Freedom and Power

I have discovered that my wife really likes Dog the Bounty Hunter.  Duane Chapman and his family often convince the families of his bounties that they are better off in jail and drug rehabilitation, especially if that person's life is out-of-control.  Dog encourages some of the worst elements to get themselves clean, take responsibility for their actions and make their families a higher priority in their lives.  This is good advice for those who have used their freedom poorly.

People usually end up in jail because they cannot control their own behavior. We find that once we put them into a situation where their behavior is under tight external control, it isn't surprising to find that inmates don't develop any more self-control, though they have great incentive to do so. Upon release from custody, they will likely be even less able to control themselves, after a period of not having to control themselves at all while incarcerated, and will quickly find themselves back in prison.  Recidivism is an expression of a lack of ability to master one's life or lack of interest toward doing so. Some of these returning inmates actually prefer the controlling environment of jail - it imposes a framework of behavior that this person didn't have on their own under circumstances of greater freedom.

There are attempts to create "half-way" houses where released ex-convicts can be helped toward better self-control in the more free society. Their activities may be stringently monitored and certain abilities may still be curtailed toward easing people into a world that needs personal responsibility and virtuous living to function. These are places of hope where people move toward the goal of virtue lived through individual liberty in a free world.  We don't want them to be constrained - we want them to be the sort of people who can be responsible enough to live free.

It doesn't help when society and its government legislate and dictate away the ability of all people to develop and exercise freedom toward self-mastery. One can't learn how to wield power with noble restraint and self-control if "leaders" impose a smothering collectivism on all.  Such overseers seek to turn communities and states and nations into "half-way" environments that appear to be moving toward something that many call a "police state" where every person is institutionally managed and all behavior and speech is heavily monitored and tightly controlled, just like in a prison.  It is the gradual stealing away of liberty from all and the imposition of dictated control as if all people are convicts and can never be trusted to act independently.  In a way, we are all being eased into a prison, whether we are convicted of crimes or not.

My desire is to preach virtue and empower those who are virtuous.  In a republic like America, our government depends on elected officials to be women and men of virtue, putting good and right before the often selfish whims of the easily-stirred masses. Collectivism, as manifested in communism or socialism, says that societies don't really have virtuous people and most people will only do good when compelled to do so, like inmates in a prison. We must reverse the societal trend to monitor and control each other. I choose to see people in a better light, even those who have been incarcerated - we each can improve, help each other to gain more virtue, and reinvest in the liberty that our ancestors worked so hard to establish in the USA.

If you are a virtuous person, I implore you to seek positions of power and to influence others for good.  I pray that your virtue includes goodwill toward those around you in spreading the conditions of personal freedom and a more universal liberty to act. The more good people that take power to act will make our nations and our world a far better place for all!

Day 15 US Transit Lounge Dublin JFK Atlanta

Hanging out to fly home. 

First time in NYC 

Atlanta to Albuquerque 

Day 14 Waterford tour Kilkenny Castle

Kilkenny castle 

Day 13 Marine Bar Blarney Stone Castle Waterford

Kiss the stone and listen to the songs of the third generation barkeep.

Day 12 Hack Moriarty's in Ring of Kerry

Killarney town

Day 11 Cliffs of Mohre Ferry across the Shannon

Beside the holy well of st Brigid 

On the ferry 

Day 10 Lisa's Day Off in Galway

A new watch, a ring, and sending more Aran wool clothes home.

Fine lunch at Sonny Molloy's Bar and Restaurant

Day 9 Dublin to Galway

Marion is our guide.

Day 8 Drive and Ferry to Belfast and Dublin Titanic

on the way to the ferry 

Titanic Museum

Day 7 Edinburgh

Not quite Edinburgh but close.

Not sheep but rocks

16 Regents road Edinburgh 

day Six Babet fondles Pitlochry Dundee

Rainy at Atholl Palace

and we discover Brenna's next job, Chocolatier!

 tay river ship at Dundee

The oil industry

Day 4 Colloden Battlefield Sheepdogs Cairngorm

Couldn't figure out Robb heritage.  there is not much of a wool market and highland cattle are useless, he keeps one as a pet.

shopping in Cairngorm

Day 3 Glenfinan Eilean Donan

Harry Potter location

Jacobine

donan

Armadale Isle of Skye

Day 2 on Loch Lomond

 Rob Roys Cave and the Macfarlands on the shores of Loch Lomond.  Willie serves the hot chocolate on the cruise. Sleeping at Glencoe at Ballachulish Hotel, which has been here a long time and has a creaky yet distinct suspended staircase.

Day 1 at the Museum

 Very old stuffed animals and paintings from the Glasgow Boys.

"Know ye that ye must..." - Mormon's Final Words

The prophet and war captain Mormon of the Nephite nation was the national archivist, divinely-inspired compiler and commentator of what we have now as the Book of Mormon. He specifically saw our day and gave his advice to us through the lens of his people's historic and religious records. It is not just a story of the Nephites and Lamanites, their bitter brethren - it is more a guidebook to our times and how God deals with people and their behaviors.

Chapter Seven of his personal record is the "final words" that this historian gives, mostly to his surviving people, but also to we "Gentiles" which will be brought to God's set-aside land of the Americas.

Mormon speaks to all the descendants of Lehi, of which he was also one. Everything he promises for his own people is also promised to all of us as we make covenants with the Lord.

Mormon 7:10

And ye will also know that ye are a remnant of the seed of Jacob; therefore ye are numbered among the people of the first covenant; and if it so be that ye believe in Christ, and are baptized, first with water, then with fire and with the Holy Ghost, following the example of our Savior, according to that which he hath commanded us, it shall be well with you in the day of judgment. Amen.

This is yet another statement of the importance of having an authoritative baptism. It really has to do with the authority of the person who does your baptism - it can't be just anyone. It has to be someone that Christ accepts as a priest, so you must figure that out.  I am confident in myself that a priest in good standing of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is authorized by Christ, but you need to determine that yourself.

The last recorded thought of Mormon is on "judgement" and how we will fare during it.  I can't think of the last time anyone framed their afterlife in terms of doing well in the coming judgement rather than how wonderful Jesus is, as if that fact will just eliminate judgement entirely.  

I think we all need to be concerned with "following the example of our Savior" - our actions in relation to God, our families, and others.  "...that which he hath commanded us..." will be the things by which we will be judged for our ultimate reward.  If we concern ourselves with following Christ and keeping his commandments, "it shall be well with you in the day of judgment."  Easy enough for me to understand!

You were Not Sent to Earth to Test How Much God Loves You

"Jesus loves us all unconditionally..."

From the way so many people behave (beyond spoken rationalizations), they think that they are doing Jesus some great favor in letting him be around them.  "Can I bring you your slippers?"  "Would you like a softer pillow?"  To these questions from the Christ-ish figure which most people demand, a spitting in the face is what those same people give as a first answer, and then say:  "You are not offering me enough to be acceptable as my Savior.  My Jesus would do everything so I don't have to do, well, anything!"

From all the talk, you would think that one of our purposes in life is to judge whether this Jesus character fulfils our grandest desires at zero cost to us. In holy writ, it reads the other way around: The Lord is judging us to see if we are fit to be one of his people - if we offer him our "broken hearts" and our "contrite spirits".

Overly-self-compassionate Jesus-demanders have named their term of acceptance "unconditional love" and the concept has absolutely caught fire among lazy "Jesus' love saves us no matter what we do" devotees. "Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us." (2 Nephi 28:7)  Today, captured societies demand that no one should be punished for anything, justify every behavior, and rationalize this with a new extra-scriptural and non-commanding Jesus-love that doesn't want to offend folks.

The Lord just doesn't work that way. God's love is established and well explained in scripture, which should be read far more often. Here are some examples:

• Commandments Lead to Exaltation (D&C 14:7)
• Blessings Come Through Specific Obedience to Specific Commandments (D&C 130:20-21)
• God does nothing unconditionally. Read your scriptures and see. (D&C 82:10)
• Everything God has ever Established in relation to your exaltation has always worked in the past, always works now, and will always work in the future.  There is no "new" or "better" way to suggest and God is not entertaining alternative interpretations - The Way is set, well-documented, and it is not changing in the least fashion. (1 Nephi 10:18)

We don't get to alter the conditions that God has established. Demanding that the gospel must "change with the times" demonstrates mistrust in God and his established Agenda. 

God has established the parameters of his "love" as well, mostly through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and his demands for repentance. If you desire or "demand" that God takes more responsibility for your concept of the "love" relationship and don't contribute what the Lord has prescribed through obedience, you will be ultimately disappointed with the result. Nothing is more clear than what God provides and demands - read the parables of Christ yet again for hard clarification on the nature of "the kingdom of heaven".

If you really want unconditional love, you might rudely turn to your mother or father, who you might sucker into being your personal "you have to serve me no matter how I treat you" slave. Just know that the Lord will exact retribution for every torture you inflict upon parents (or anyone else) with your "unconditional" demands. The Lord will have vengeance on you (D&C 29:17) for such behavior and you will plead that your just punishment will not be "unconditional".

You and I want God to treat us differently when we behave differently, especially for the better. The Lord has promised to bless and reward us relative to the "conditions" of our obedience. "Conditional" allows for change and improvement, which is exactly what God offers through his Agenda.

You likely really want a conditional God and so do I.

The Great Houses of the Celestial Realm

In previous posts, I presented my personal thoughts (not official statements of doctrine promulgated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) on the afterlife and its conditions. I had hopefully vivid descriptions of the "spirit world" (squaring up), judgement (full disclosure), the telestial reward (no consequences), and the terrestrial reward (no responsibilities). I feel I did a rather pathetic job on giving some analogy for the celestial reward (no limits), but after watching episodes of the "Downton Abbey" television series, I feel a bit more prepared to talk about my conception of the highest glory and what it will be like there.

There will be three basic divisions of the celestial glory, although only the highest is mentioned much in holy writ. The celestial reward is the state which God and his angels enjoy and the description that we have, of mansions and kingdoms, are a good description of the whole of it. The three divisions have more to do with what individual people will be doing on these expansive "Downton Abbey" manors - if you live upstairs, you work downstairs, or if you live and labor in the adjoining crofts or village.

It would be easiest to begin at the top and work our way down. Every great house has "the family", which consists of the Lord and Lady of the manor and their children who may also become heirs of the manor.  These people are either actively administering the manor or learning how to lead it someday.

Downstairs, the staff attends to all the support services needed by "the family" and the house. Obviously, the attention of family members are better spent on higher matters than housekeeping, food preparation and serving, physical maintenance and repair of grounds and equipment, and other service functions required of a great house. These are the servants to the manor.

Beyond the great house are lands and peoples that are under the stewardship of the Lord and Lady of the manor. Some have individual grants of land for cultivation or husbandry, others work in attached villages, all owing some fealty or rents to the Lord and Lady of the larger manorial estate. Although each individual villager has their own lives and feelings, each has an obligation to the Lord's summons.

Don't like the idea?  A little too patriarchal? Think socialism or democracy is more fair?  You can always choose a "lesser reward", I suppose.  Living a celestial life might not be a matter of just qualifying for it, but desiring the reality of or service to God's life and circumstances.  We may not become a God ourselves but if we choose, through desire and deeds, to qualify for a celestial reward, we will be a part of the eternal work.

Want to be a part of a ruling house? It seems that it really will be up to each one of us if we desire such.

969, or How the New World Order Faced Lucretia and Failed - The Fifth Episode: Ol' Coot

First Venitia

The woman Venitia doesn't enter into the narrative yet, but so much that affects her going forward can be better understood from what's happening here and now.

We look upon a farm, a big corporate one. The people living in the ramshackle house on the farm are certainly not the owners, but the use of the house is part of their compensation for farming this land in the way the corporation wants it done. The equipment belongs to the corporation, even so far as the truck the family uses like a personal vehicle is owned by the corporation. In the end, beyond some personal belongings that can be easily moved and their clothes, all this particular “farm family” really has is each other and we will see how tenuous that is as well.

Acres and acres of green beans, stretching
out to the horizon, the sight only broken by a solitary red bug-shaped monster tractor.

The father of the farm family is riding in the air-conditioned cab of the tractor, not even paying attention to steering wheel or other controls as computers, tied to GPS satellites, determine the direction and speed of the massive wheeled behemoth which sprayed a cocktail of fertilizer, herbicide, and insecticide that the man mixed together in the wee hours of the morning. He is listening to some country pop music station coming into the cab via satellite, the Nashville origins of the music probably being the only tie to his father and grandfather who originally farmed their own spreads and eventually couldn't make payments and had their lives auctioned to some suit from Chicago. The music is unrecognizable to the previous generation, as is the gargantuan automated tractor, the lack of any real ownership in land or time, and the growing irrelevance of his proudly heritaged “farming skills”. The man blocks out any thought that he bears a striking resemblance to some factory worker in the far East, utterly expendable. His formal training at the nearby country school in mostly basketball did little more than distract him from his inevitable serfdom.

His ignorant smile and humming to the music was clouded by a boiling of dust coming off two black SUVs that were moving on the dirt road toward the farm house. He grabbed for his trusty shotgun that years of hunting had molded perfectly to his hand, kicked open the cab door, lept the nearly ten feet to the ground, and raced through row upon row of green beans between himself and his family. His track and field years done in the basketball “off-season” was doing him a good service.

The tractor moved and sprayed on its programmed course, not bothered in the least by the man's absence.

In the mile run to farm house, the man was thinking several things. He slung his shotgun over his back to make things less cumbersome. He thought about his wife watching some soap opera on the satellite TV, his ten-year-old daughter watching who-knows-what on her rhinestoned smartphone and texting foolishness to her vacationing schoolfriends in spite of his recent tirade on her “screen time”, and the six-year-old “man of the house” who he always said he left behind to watch over Mom and Sis. His wife hadn't let him take the boy hunting yet and the boy's BB rifle, locked in the gun safe at feminine insistence, couldn't even give the appearance of helping the boy “watch over” anything. The guardian boy was likely stirring up ant hills and wrestling playfully with the farm dog they inherited with the house.

The man needs some better help and his cell phone practically lept into his hand as he dialed up “Ol' Coot”, the man who owned and worked the next farm over. All that needed to be said was that strangers were on their way to the farmhouse and his neighbor replied “Be right there.” As more thoughts entered his mind of what might happen, he absently dropped the phone in the field as he ran a bit faster.

The scene is set. It is just as much a tragedy laid out before us as any Greek could contrive. Several tattooed and multi-racial men had already exited their vehicles. With nothing ceremonious, the father had never gotten the chance to discharge his weapon before the obstensive leader of the newcomers dispatched him with a single shot from a largish revolver. The screams from the other family members had already died out as the men ranged out to work their pre-determined plan.

A few tattooed thugs had already seized the daughter and were hauling her back to the nearest SUV. There was some argument between the leader and a few hungry-looking black men who wanted the mother taken as well, perhaps for no more than a quick gang-rape and then slitting her throat. The disoriented mother was protectively trying to get between the invading gang members and the crying son that clung to her leg, as if she could do anything in light of her husband's murder and her daughter's soon-to-be abduction.

Venitia enters this story as her husband was the leader of the band of gang members. Although charged with completing this kidnapping as “a sign of loyalty”, he was not informed that his band was stealing cute pre-teen girls “fresh from the farm” for future grooming into the lucrative sex slave market. Venitia's husband just wanted to get this job done so that he could bring home the promised money and food needed to support his own family. The farm father that he had shot was not a part of his personal plan for the day, but there would be hell to pay from the gang leadership if he made excuses for his lack of success. Should he let his “soldiers” have their way with the mother as well and perhaps win some favor as a leader? He was trying to think about the ramifications of his decision and the band's reaction as a beat-up antique truck came speeding up the road and watched his men suddenly dropping around him to the sound of rifle report.

While other men from the arriving truck continued to pick off anything sporting tattoo ink with the precision of a short-range deer hunt, Ol' Coot himself lept out of the still-moving truck with his tight-spread shotgun, leaving his even tighter-faced wife to grab the wheel. The single invader left holding the girl like some human shield didn't have any time to compose anything interesting to say as Ol' Coot brought up his weapon and blasted the man's head clean-off right below the ear. The girl crumpled on the ground in stunned silence, tangled a bit with her former captor's still-twitching arms and legs.

It was at this moment, with gang members dead all around him and a handful of rifle-toting farmhands leaping out of the back of the finally-stopped truck and racing toward him, that Venitia's bewildered husband let his pistol drop to the ground and lifted his empty hands. He had failed. He only imagined the retaliation that the gang would exact on him for this. He didn't consider what came next.

Ol' Coot came nose-to-nose with the last remaining gang member. His breath reeked of the sickening sweet smell of tobacco snuf that bulged his bottom lip and he contemptuously spat the juice to one side. The old man didn't say anything for a moment, just drilled into the other man's darting eyes that took in the several rifles pointed toward him. Ol' Coot didn't appear concerned at all of being close to the lines of fire.

The old man signed and looked toward the mother who still sheltered her son. “C'mere, boy.” He motioned the six-year-old to come closer. “If you are gonna protect your ma, you better learn how.”

There was a groan and sob from the mother and the Ol' Coot's wife was about to say something before he shushed her. The old man pushed Venitia's husband down to his knees. “Pick up that pistol,” was the next words to come and the young boy obeyed. “Bring it here, boy.”

The two women on the scene were next to each other now and the boy's mother hissed out “He's only six…”

“He just saw his daddy killed. He ain't a child anymore.” Ol' Coot guided the boy's hands to grip the pistol properly, helping him hold it steady. “You ever fired one of these?” The boy shook his head hard.

Venitia's husbands' eyes were blinking rapidly. He might have thought they would let him go back and get killed by the gang, but it seemed that the old man had other lessons to teach. He stayed very still and prayed to some forgotten God that he could live and maybe see his own family again. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the cooling body of the farm father that he had unthinkingly killed. Why should God or anyone here be particularly merciful?

“This man killed your daddy so he could hurt your mama and your sister. Your daddy would have shot him to keep it from happenin'.” The old man laid a finger over the boy's that stretched to feel the trigger. “You're gonna finish what your daddy was runnin' back to do.”

The boy's mother wailed and the woman beside her redoubled her hard expression as she pulled the mother close. “Hard day to become a man. We'll take you home with us.” the older women whispered as the shot was fired and the gang member slumped dead to the ground.

When the corporate man came to investigate the signals from the tractor that it had run out of chemicals and had stalled beyond the programically acceptable timing, there was nothing to see. No one was at the farm house or the barns and the tractor was powered down in the middle of the bean field. Corporate heads in Chicago shrugged as many families just up and left the fields without giving any notice. There was always another farm family, starved for the work they thought they understood, to take over the place.

"...how can ye stand before the power of God,"

The prophet and warrior Mormon, of Book of Mormon fame, says that Gentiles (non-native Americans in this case) should turn away from their wickedness through repentance or they will face the "bad" sort of God's justice that people want to avoid.

Mormon 5:

22 And then, O ye Gentiles, how can ye stand before the power of God, except ye shall repent and turn from your evil ways?

23 Know ye not that ye are in the hands of God? Know ye not that he hath all power, and at his great command the earth shall be rolled together as a scroll?

24 Therefore, repent ye, and humble yourselves before him, lest he shall come out in justice against you—lest a remnant of the seed of Jacob shall go forth among you as a lion, and tear you in pieces, and there is none to deliver.

There might be more to say about this, but I will add such things later. 

"the Lord hath reserved their blessings,..."

God promises us blessings for our obedience. Sadly, we often forego our blessings in favor of something else we want. Sometimes, those blessings are of a physical nature - like a house or a piece of land. If we choose to be wicked, such things will be given to others who are more willing to be obedient.

In the Book of Mormon, Mormon the prophet witnessed how evil his formerly righteous people had become and shared what could have been done to retain the land of prosperity that they had once enjoyed.

Mormon 5:

19 And behold, the Lord hath reserved their blessings, which they might have received in the land, for the Gentiles who shall possess the land. 

20 But behold, it shall come to pass that they shall be driven and scattered by the Gentiles; and after they have been driven and scattered by the Gentiles, behold, then will the Lord remember the covenant which he made unto Abraham and unto all the house of Israel. 

21 And also the Lord will remember the prayers of the righteous, which have been put up unto him for them. 

22 And then, O ye Gentiles, how can ye stand before the power of God, except ye shall repent and turn from your evil ways?

We know that this was a true prophecy - the white man came to America and "scattered" the "Indians" that lived in the land.  If they had chosen to obey the Lord and repent, America would still be enjoyed by the people we call "native Americans".

The same is true for us - if we become wicked, and many people in the West are choosing wicked ways today, the things that we enjoy now will be taken away from us and given to other people more obedient than we are. Many people we look down upon from the middle and far East traditionally live more moral lives than Westerners now do, so it would not be surprising if God helped them to dominate us, just as God helped our ancestors dominate the American tribes.

What should we learn from this?

As a people, we need to return to God's morality. Our lives of freedom and our enjoyment of the lands of America depend on it. "Repent and turn from your evil ways" as Mormon suggests.

The Demanding Christ

Christ loves us enough to make some demands of us leading toward a life like his with the Father. They are not heavy demands, no matter what Laman and Lemuel from the early part of the Book of Mormon say..

1 Nephi 16:

1 And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had made an end of speaking to my brethren, behold they [Laman and Lemuel] said unto me: Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear.

2 And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.

3 And now my brethren, if ye were righteous and were willing to hearken to the truth, and give heed unto it, that ye might walk uprightly before God, then ye would not murmur because of the truth, and say: Thou speakest hard things against us.

God will turn from us if we don't make good on the demands of righteousness.  The blessings we might have received will be given to others.

Mormon 5:

16 For behold, the Spirit of the Lord hath already ceased to strive with their fathers; and they are without Christ and God in the world; and they are driven about as chaff before the wind.

17 They were once a delightsome people, and they had Christ for their shepherd; yea, they were led even by God the Father.

18 But now, behold, they are led about by Satan, even as chaff is driven before the wind, or as a vessel is tossed about upon the waves, without sail or anchor, or without anything wherewith to steer her; and even as she is, so are they.

19 And behold, the Lord hath reserved their blessings, which they might have received in the land, for the Gentiles who shall possess the land.

 I happened to find this webpage that gives some wonderful insights to the demands that Jesus makes on us and the reasons why people reject this and court "Divine Alienation":  https://blog.truthforlife.org/divine-alienation-when-and-why-god-turns-his-face-away

969, or How the New World Order Faced Lucretia and Failed - The Fourth Episode: Flight

In all of her years of work, she had never found herself so flustered. She had used up all the time that could be stolen from her duties in the crew rest compartments. She sighed deeply and slapped another nicotine patch over her collarbone but so much wanted a long drag from a cigarette a few thousand miles away. She heaved herself up and slogged her way back to her assigned station.

She hated being called a flight attendant. Once upon a time, she was a stewardess with a miniskirt on smoke-filled planes full of businessmen, choosing her next boytoy from among them, secure in the fact that her looks and charm claimed every eye and opened every wallet. She has seen rooms and laid in beds in every airport hotel on two continents. It went without saying that every woman on every plane either loathed her or wanted to be her. Those were happy times.

She still stays fit with aerobics and no one suspects with her east asian perfection that she is now something over 40 years old. She would have never felt the need to break this cardinal rule in the past but something ruins her sultry composure today and she has spitefully checked the itinerary of the female passenger in 32B. The journey this passenger is taking simply makes no sense and that makes the flight attendant hate her all the more.

Everyone near row 32 let out yet another collective groan as the sound of heaving and the splatter of vomit hitting the bottom of yet another air-sickness bag. A previously sallow-faced young man is now white as a sheet except for a green sheen about the eyes and mouth. If there was ever a way to escape the dreaded window seat and distance himself from the woman to his side, he would have paid any price. From the look on everyones’ faces, no one is willing to accept the offer.

The flight attendant squeezed her mascaraed eyes shut and took in a slow breath as she took another small stack of sickness bags to row 32. She was the vision of graciousness by the time she leaned over the bulky bear of a man that occupied the aisle seat and exchanged the empties for newly-filled bags. The bear had been talking non-stop since San Francisco in a none-too-quiet voice and surely there were a close passenger or two who could quote several statistics from the humanprogress.org database as he was on his way to Pitcairn to expand its deficient data entry. She deserved a finely-sculpted Adonis but the full-bearded and thickly pony-tailed beast steadfastly ignored her in favor of the hated woman in 32B, far too engrossed in a book to be listening to her seatmate. The former stewardess only snarled slightly and threw a packet of peanuts into the transiting woman’s lap and moved off.

“In spite of all the press from child abuse cases, there have also been reports of an expanded access to the internet,” the bear offered to the interest of no one in particular. “They even enticed a man to move in and set up shop.” His voice never modulated past a slight Scandinavian accent. “Our data needs to better reflect current conditions, so I need to do a survey from the ground as it were.”

Lucretia responded by turning a page in her book. She will be connecting at Papeete to a puddle-jumper to Noumea in New Caledonia, allowing both the men in her row to move on with their lives. A further ticket is held there going to Auckland then Kuala Lumpur. There was a direct flight between San Francisco and Kuala Lumpur, but the woman (or rather Antonio) must like hanging out in seedy backwater transit lounges, because she won’t be seeing much else on this bizarrely elongated voyage. One book to read is probably insufficient.

This is irrational, the stewardess tells herself. This bag-woman who looked incapable of buying a ticket to Tahiti should have been easily overlooked by the smoothly automated labor of serving drinks and showing off safety features. Yet, there was no denying the prickly hatred, as if this creature was some sort of competition to her man-hunting.

“The boat ride will be nearly two weeks and I haven’t done a boat for a while. I hope I don’t have much sea-sickness,” the big man said under his breath. As if to punctuate the sentiment, the man on the far side of Lucretia heaves again. To the joy of all, the stomach of the man in the window seat is finally empty and dry-heaves are heard instead.

Our flight attendant shuts her eyes again with spasms of anger and spins about on her stylish heels, racing back to the drinks station. She nearly throws aside a woman coming out of the lavatory, locks it fast behind her and tears out a packet lodged under her bra. Swearing quietly, she shakily lights up a hidden cigarette with her secreted lighter and thanks the gods of flight that the sound of the misaligned auto-flush mechanism’s near-constant and useless triggering was covering the noise of her hyper-ventilations and some considerate passenger had already dismantled the toilet smoke alarm.

Obituary for Don Lancaster

I spent many of my young adult years reading Don Lancaster in several technology magazines, I bought and devoured his TTL Cookbook as a teenager, and kept up with his website over the years.  He was a constant source of inspiration in electronics. He passed away today.

https://gilaherald.com/obituary-for-don-lancaster/

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth..."

I have heard some lately that say a Christian walk brings peace in our lives, which I have experienced at times. I don't want to appear contrary (but you know that I get a bit of a kick out of being contrary anyway), but Christ himself said that peace wasn't going to be his particular purpose.

Matthew 10:

32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

I see a lot of folks that put their love of spouse or children or parents above devotion to God.  I just watched a video yesterday of a woman who was excommunicated from the church and tongue-lashed the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for not bowing to political pressure to ordain women to the priesthood.  She said that she was buoyed up by her own immediate family distancing themselves from the Church in support of her campaign.  What an example of family members putting each other ahead of God!  Personal hubris tears many from the path that Christ has shown us.

Some of my own children have chosen divergent paths, rejecting their upbringing and even God himself. I made it clear that I follow God and that I won't go down strange roads of deviance with them. They don't talk to me lately and hurtfully say that I don't love them because I won't accept some new lifestyle they have manufactured for themselves. Again, I follow God and his Agenda more than I seek the acceptance and love of my children.

I didn't set out to have "foes shall be they of his own household", it just happened.  I pray for my children, even the ones that have strayed from their Savior. I will continue to strive to be "worthy of me (Jesus)" though it pains me that some of my family members are not interested in the same way at this time.

I will continue to not be diverted from my course to please the sensibilities of others, even family members.  Christ will reward those who choose him over divergent devotion.