A Curious Instrument

Have you been noticing more interesting people standing for public office? Isaiah saw it and made some predictions.  Isaiah 3:4-5 4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. 5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient , and the base against the honourable. I think we have seen a lot of oppression generated by "do-gooders", which I studied in college and my first several jobs employed me to doing. I had female colleagues and bosses, often of the "social justice" variety. Very nice people until you cross them, which I was smart enough to avoid doing as a younger man.   Isaiah 3:12 12 ¶ As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. I have seen more and more people (mostly men) be totally destroyed in the n...

There are a growing group of people who flaunt their perverse sins. Isaiah 3:9 9 ¶ The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.  In doing this, they "reward evil unto themselves".  Perverse actions sound magnified when they are celebrated openly. What is notable beyond the actions that God forbids ("sin as Sodom") is the trumpeting of their sins ("declaring", "they hide it not"), which is described as reward[ing] evil unto themselves. God doesn't need to immediately punish this behavior, the person doing it convicts themselves, like pleading "guilty as charged" to a judge. Repentance is available to these people as with anyone else, though change for the better is still required alongside a denunciation of their flaunted perversions. There is a way back to righteousness! 

This is more of Isaiah letting everyone know that they will ultimately (and not so ultimately) get returned to you what you do. Isaiah 3:9-11 9 ¶ The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom , they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. 10 Say ye to the righteous , that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. 11 Woe unto the wicked ! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.  Sometimes, we concentrate on the bad side of our doings, but Isaiah is good to say that as we are righteous, we will have good things come to us. Rewards and justice are indeed two-edged!

We think so much of ourselves.  I was somewhat trained as a low level planner in my undergraduate college days, styled as some sort of proto-"life coach" to low-income people who needed "management". I quickly lost interest in such a role, as I lacked the desire to run other people's lives and have continued in that lack, to the consternation of my children, I suppose. I don't know exactly if this is what Isaiah means in "loftiness" and "haughtiness", but it seems that God alone will be "exalted" in this way at some future day. Isaiah 2:17 17 And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.  I don't know what this means for the managerial class of the future, but it seems that such folk will need to find more practical pursuits outside of "motivation" and "productivity" toward corporate goals.

Isaiah 2:2-3 2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.  It has long been a belief among members of  the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that this Isaiah reference speaks of Temples of the Lord, first the temple in Salt Lake City in Utah and subsequently dozens that have been erected around the world. These truly are abodes of Christ where his disciples can come to learn from him and make covenants to "walk in his paths" toward sharing exaltation with the Father and the Son. I go to the temple of the Lord very often and always feel clo...

It seems some people have offended God and, although the Lord is reported to feel great love for those who follow him and obey his commandments, the scriptural record uses words such as "wrath" and "indignation" to describe Christ's attitude about those who work against him. Doctrine and Covenants 87:6 And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations; These are not pleasant ends for "the inhabitants of the earth". However, Jesus in his mercy extends repentance under certain conditions on those otherwise under condemnation. Doctrine and Covenants 98:47 But if the children shall repent, or the children’s children, and turn to t...

Years ago, I conceived a society that works with females at its head. It recognizes what women value on a deep level, instead of the sophomoric effort of just pasting a girl's face on a man and saying that will work. This is what feminism is, a foolish replacement of men with women with a total performative ignorance of what either sex truly wants and needs. We are awash with crazed men and women who think the "better way" is simply to switch places, sometimes by physical "trans-gendered" operations that embed the "switcheroo" feminist lunacy more deeply. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0082RAFM6# In my book " Escape ", women behave as women by nature will do, as do the less mentioned men. The ruling of this society is performed by women, but in ways that are far more sensible for women to do. Many will find the fictional aspects of the story not far enough to make the story into a fantasy novel, and I certainly didn't write it that way. No as...

After Isaiah catalogues the performative actions of piety and the Lord's rejection of them, he instructs the children of Israel in the thing the Lord desires.  Isaiah 1:16-20 16 ¶ Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. It is customary to see "judgement (or the application of Judgment) as a bad thing, always employed to punish the wicked. In verse 17 above, Advice is given to "seek judgement" and to "judge the fatherless", without the implication th...

I can't approach Isaiah in the same ways that I worked through the Book of Mormon .  There are not a few scripture snippets that can be expanded upon, but it seems like, at least in this particular chapter ( Isaiah chapter 1 ), it is almost circular reinforcements of a theme. Although the people were doing the performances required of the Lord in Isaiah's time, the remembrances and symbolism were not effecting the personal devotion and changes the Lord desired in them.  They are becoming hypocrites with a public face of piety and harboring evil in their hearts. Isaiah 1:4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Isaiah 1:10-15 10 ¶ Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lo...

It is a matter of prioritizing obedience to the oldest commandments and associated blessings over short term fears of not having a full cornicopia of society's "essential" marriage ingredients, such as a great job, high pay, or deep maturity. In some ways, many cultures actively discourage marriage with pushing these expected "requirements" that can rarely be met. I found this view of attitudes going into marriage to be interesting and helpful to re-enshrining "holy" marriage:  Beyond Hollywood Type Love: Choosing Commitment Over Chemistry In addition to viewing marriage as a devoted commitment, rather than a impossibly life-long romantic infatuation as so many demand, we often forget God's take on marriage and making it a priority in our lives. Genesis 2:18   And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:24   Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cle...

It's important to remember that accepting the trials of mortality has, until very recently, been just a fact of life (no obvious pun).  My parents did it, my grandparents and my further ancestors all married and had children (obviously), never giving it much more thought than these institutions are what everyone was expected to do and it was the basic sign of being a respectable adult. We live in a "modern" time that the age-old expectations or marriage and family have been pushed aside by a growing group of DINKs, singles, NEETs, and so on. Sloughing established standards seem to have become something of a flaunted recreational sport, usually by showing young single women traveling the world's tourist spots or pulling dogs into their liberated and well-heeled "van lives". Some six-thousand years ago, Adam and Eve set the standard, eschewed the easy man-child Eden, and took the choice to stay together as a married couple and face mortality together and natur...

Lisa came up with a wonderful new view of the Parable of the Talents . You can look at the Talents of how much annual salary they buy. Lisa estimated that each talent was equivalent to five years of labor. That would make five talents worth 25 years of living and two talents worth 10 years, therefore converting these talents into TIME or a lifetime . I look at this parable as a tale of life, judgment, and reward. We all have varying lengths of lifespan. For instance, Jesus lived a short 33 years, Joseph Smith was on earth for only 38.5 years, I'm told. If you were to translate that to a cost of living as above and figure life begins at say 20 years of age, Jesus would be a bit more than a 2 talent person and Joseph was a bit less than a 4 talent person. God give us our livespans to spend as we wish , which can be translated as above. Given the lifespan we have, what did we do with our time? In the parable, the servants get their talents, and the Lord goes off t...

I am trying to help those "unconditional love" folks. So they don't get into trouble, wandering in the dark and thinking God will ignore disobedience. Doctrine and Covenants 95:12 12 If you keep not my commandments, the love of the Father shall not continue with you, therefore you shall walk in darkness.  This is the Lord speaking. If one doesn't keep commandments (this is referring to building a temple in Kirtland Ohio), then God doesn't love you. A small order and ignoring it gets a big response. Imagine how God feels about breaking one of the ten commandments that are not so situational! Do we really want to "walk in darkness"? 

Plenty of people ignore the words of prophets and apostles. They don't talk nicely. They say difficult things in the name of Christ, often in opposition to how many proclaim that Jesus love them.  Moroni 10:27   27 And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying from the dead, yea, even as one speaking out of the dust? I like the picture painted here.  Moroni is at your turn at judgment. If you choose to act like you didn't know what the prophet said or warned about, God himself will indict you. As you think of all the prophets that have issued warnings, that might make the idea of judgment less than appealing to many.  Don't be that person! Listen and heed to the prophets.  Moroni 10:30   30 And again I would exhort you that ye would come...

I know that I give some pretty tough words from the prophets in the Book of Mormon, so let me offer a little ray of goodness. Moroni 10:23  And Christ truly said unto our fathers: If ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me.  But, like Moroni, there are warnings further warnings and prophecies: Moroni 10:24-25  24 And now I speak unto all the ends of the earth—that if the day cometh that the power and gifts of God shall be done away among you, it shall be because of unbelief. 25 And wo be unto the children of men if this be the case; for there shall be none that doeth good among you, no not one. For if there be one among you that doeth good, he shall work by the power and gifts of God. We too often just skip over the injunction "if ye have faith" and read on, figuring that we will have joys and wonders and I wonder about the practical "selective blindness" of some folks that can only see the good in the world and in everyone. Everything is a mo...

I have never been a fan of the Psychology/Therapy industry that everyone is meant to participate in. Just as much as we are supposed to visit our physicians more often than our religious shepherds. Of course, therapy is basically a secular religion and a therapist is the profiteering contra-spirit-guide/priest to a client's ascent to the navel-staring godhood of channeled mock-serenity. Obviously, I'm not a fan of the whole idea. AI tells me that despair is a symptom of depression, the most prevalent condition of humanity. Psychology could be redefined as "depression management" quite easily. Can I save you some time and money in saying that you can often solve most of your depression episodes with one activity: repentance. Moroni 10:22   And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair cometh because of iniquity. So the combination of a lack of hope and iniquity, according to Moroni, leads to despair. My thought is that iniquity is at the root of hopel...

Much of the Book of Moroni within the larger Book of Mormon deals with how ordinances and meetings and church governance were conducted in the time of Moroni around the end of 2nd century America.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is largely patterned in the way Moroni describes therein. Here is an interesting snippet from the described section: Moroni 6 7 And they were strict to observe that there should be no iniquity among them; and whoso was found to commit iniquity, and three witnesses of the church did condemn them before the elders, and if they repented not, and confessed not, their names were blotted out, and they were not numbered among the people of Christ. 8 But as oft as they repented and sought forgiveness, with real intent, they were forgiven. So, you need to repent so that your name is not blotted out of church records. Every time we seek forgiveness and repentance, we get it. 

 About twenty years ago, I was traveling through Las Vegas, New Mexico for my job at the time and was going through the drive-thru at the local Wendy's restaurant . I don't know what I was really thinking about at the time (it is somewhere in the audio recordings that I have done for many, many years), but what became " God's Plan of Happiness in Ten Simple Symbols " or 03IXI8E0OC was born as a drawing on a Wendy's bag. Over the years, 03IXI8E0OC was woven into the Navigiary Allegory (better a rumination) and was re-named " the Mariner's Log " to fit into the narrative I was creating in the books I was writing. Just recently, somebody broke out one of the windows on my truck shell and I quickly slapped some chip-board across the space that used to be the window and sealed it all with some spare white roof coating I had.  It was a big white space that looked like an art canvas, so I thought what I might do to fill the big blank spot on my veh...

The modern definition of "love" is letting children get away with every aberrant behavior and never applying any discipline in their lives. "Love" is coddling and protecting others from proper consequences as if this is some virtue. No lack of action is more deceptive to the meaning of mortal life than behavioral indulgence by parents or society than allowing childish selfish actions to go unpunished. Such "covering of sins" has become the universal attitude of supposedly enlightened "authority figures" to the detriment of all. It begins with something like stealing cookies in the middle of the night. Children should not do this, but every parent in Western culture is expected to indulge such behavior and even feed it with a quiet resupply. "Children are our greatest treasure and we should never do anything but spoil them and provide them a life free of consequences." As a result, our children become "fat" adults, not only in ...

If something didn't exist or was not very important one hundred and fifty years ago, it very likely isn't very important now. My MediMania blog posts are about new fresh medical hysteria that swears common ailments with us for thousands of years are going to kill us all. Strangely, humanity survived in the past and we will likely survive now, in spite of expert medical opinion that nature has somehow changed. Don't be fooled by hysterics who ignore the past. Humans can be quite resilient even if modern narcissists see society and people as incredibly frail.

Viewed through the One Hundred Fifty Year Lens , a large problem over the centuries was the lack of enough food for any given population. Often enough, people "experiencing a lack of nobility" were both half-starved, if not more so, and emaciated (yes, those are different things). Remove the lens, and one gets the obvious change:  (over)abundance of food. There is so much food produced today that much of the "imperfect" fruits, vegetables, and meats are simply thrown out, choking our sewage and refuse systems.  You may have contributed by sending a steak (noble grub) back for being overcooked, a truly royal act in the past, which goes straight to the garbage. Blame modern food regulations for that fact that most imperfect steaks don't make it down a soup line person's gullet, which any past royal would have figured how to do. Now, in many developed countries, there is an obesity epidemic. Even I, who don't readily register as fat, am statistically obese ...

I had a recent chance to watch the “Come Follow Up” program on the BYU-TV channel (find it here: https://www.byutv.org/come-follow-up ) and I saw in several episodes a good model of how our second hour discussions could be better conducted.  Every week or so, the discussion leader (Ben Lomu - handsome polynesian host) brings a gospel scholar and a one or two “Random AnySaints” in front of a group of “spectators” and they chat about the week’s “Come, Follow Me” study. Although informative to just watch the episode, I urge you to take a step back from what is being discussed and see how this weekly presentation flows and who fills what role in their “class”. The discussion leader kicks things off with a very short summary of what the reading was about. I am not kidding, I timed a few of these summaries and they lasted less than two minutes. This is a good lead-in to help people recall their home scripture study and be ready to discuss what they learned and what touched them. Then, t...

I haven't met a vegan who didn't think they were more pure than others around them.  Veganism is a religion where practitioners are the gods and get pretty testy when they are not worshiped by others for their superior culinary practices. It is the ultimate worship of the self and they tolerate no other gods meddling in their self-love. The same sort of self-love informs the modern idea that remaining unmarried is the best state of being. 1 Timothy 4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. This may be the most basic attitude against God in the Western world right now - rejecting what the Lord has given for our use. We are meant to marry and bear children in marriage, which brings us closer to the state of God and our relationship to him. Eating fruits and vegetables more than meats is actually a good thing, but "religiously" avoiding meat is setting u...

It's disconcerting when I hear the wisdom of Youtube, Tiktok, and other "outside" sources used in Sacrament talks and lessons in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints . With the sacrifice and effort put out to safeguard and translate the Bible and Book of Mormon records for our use, coupled with the inspiration and wisdom of Christ-appointed prophets and apostles , the use of such lesser sources as references in Church meetings smacks of ingratitude for the authorities that Christ has already established to give us spiritual guidance. Modern social media provides compelling voices and personalities the opportunity to reach broad audiences that only accomplished and recognized leaders and theologians could muster in the past. Although more people have the chance to be seen and heard more widely via the internet, the messages presented have a greater tendency to be tailored toward "itching ears" rather than inspired truth.  For the time will come when t...

I have been spending time in very foreign places lately and the difference in culture are stark. Although I feel this way in most situations every day, the contrast to the stranger feeling is far more stark some four thousand miles away from my wife! Santiago in Chile has no particular enemies as far as I can see, unlike the United States. Border control is a simple matter in this part of South America compared to the grilling I will get when I re-enter the USA. I suppose more terrorists are interested in attacking "the land of the free and home of the brave" as they say, rather than the longest and skinniest country around. It is interesting to see the people on the streets of Santiago, stopping often, shaking hands, pairing off and often kissing each other. if you can get past the frustrated drivers that regularly toot their horns, it is all very (in a word) peaceful . It isn't very noisy for a congested city center and I don't see a lot of anxiety in anyone's f...

Women become the most vaunted victim/heroes when they are anointed single mothers. And it is a bequeath, complete with a judge that raps a gavel to make it happen.  I was just watching a video where a single mom was talking about how hard it was to parent alone. They are beautiful and endurant and sacrificing, which means the cast-away husband/father must have been blind, abusive, and self-centered, right? That was why this most wonderous and beatified mother could ever divorce or so it seems .  It is an accepted sociological fact that men are monsters and if a woman hasn't divorced random man yet, it is only a matter of time before the monster reveals itself and a new saintly single mother is born. If single parenting is such a hard task and requires so much above and beyond mere human ability, that should speak volumes about the absolute benefit of keeping husbands around. Women shine up both mother and father badges when they say they wear them both with crushing heaviness,...

The essence of home-based church-supported gospel learning is what I call homeschooling. Parents guiding the discussion and teaching Christ and his gospel to their children. The Sunday church second hour is content review - sharing with your peers what you learned in your home study. The quarterly Teacher councils is a style review, for parent and teachers,  sharing How we teach. Again, home is for study and gospel doctrine style teaching, the What we teach.

I have heard many authorities say something like - It is never too late to repent. True, but... This is one of those scriptures that let you know that a person can divorce themselves so completely from the Lord that: But behold, the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people; for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed; wherefore they went again to battle.  https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/ether/15?lang=eng&id=p19#p19 We can go so far away from the Lord that the Spirit will stop working to save us.  I tie this to my axiom of "don't count on it", that someone tests Christ's ability to overcome a pretty slimy and unrepentant personal nature.  We all need to do our best to come to Jesus humbly and fully repentant, not to challenge him like some sumo wrestler for how hard we can make it for him to rede...

I looked back at my working life and I saw that for the most part, I have always worked for either a government entity or a government contractor.  I am currently yet again a government contractor so the Donald Trump-pushed DOGE efforts have every chance of affecting me and my income directly. I am going to suffer a bit if efforts at "government efficiency" eliminate my employment. Regardless, the work of DOGE is absolutely essential to the government downsizing that needs to happen and that politicians have never brought themselves to do.  As long as government is ruled by the puerile desires of those who want to profit of the labors of others, it will continue to lead in the destruction of societies, families, and individuals.  Everyone accuses the adults of today for continuing the ruination which children will have to live with as they grow older.  Young social justice warriors love to scream this at their elders. I say this is the way to silence such obnoxious...

Standards: a level of quality or attainment. Exemption: the process of freeing or state of being free from an obligation or liability imposed on others. There are two basic sorts of people, those who measure themselves against standards and those who work to exempt themselves from standards, usually by eliminating measurement. These sorts tend to gravitate to the brightest light or the grossest darkness. James 4 17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. It is far better to find the best standard by which you can live your life, especially one patterned after the life and teachings of Jesus Christ , rather than the fruitless search for exemptions from responsibility for those around you.

I once worked in a prison, keeping equipment running so that prisoners could call those outside of prison, among other things. The vast majority of the prisoners had people that would accept their phone calls, even though such calls were collect calls and very expensive. People paid hundreds of dollars to talk regularly with one inmate or another, helping them feel less lonely and more loved. Doesn't that sound nice? I also worked with other prison employees who monitored these phone calls.  Many of them were called "grooming" calls, where an inmate praises the callers and then would ask for favors, often illegal activities, from those called. There were regular prosecutions of prison guards as inmates "groomed" them into doing something illegal to prove love or loyalty to that inmate. Sometimes, it was just a game that bored inmates would play with gullible guards just to see if they could turn them into criminals. I saw it happen time and time again, watching ...