Repentance may solve your despair

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 hopelessness as well. 

How to solve iniquity?  Repentance. 

As we repent, we re-establish hope in the proper source - Jesus Christ and his atonement for our sins. This will lead to the overcoming of despair, the basic "emotion" of our times. 

Confess and Repent to be in the Books

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. 

Revisiting "the Mariner's Log"

 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 vehicle.

I am looking to do something vaguely artful on that chip-board based on the Mariner's Log. I have been updating everything (slowly) and it might be interesting to share.

 The webpage at http://quix.us/03IXI8E0OC.html is the "old-school" rendering about the Log that even the oldest web browsers can use. 

Love is License

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 calories, but in a lack of needed self-discipline. Letting a child take as many cookies as they like without REGULATION is the complete opposite of good parenting.

Parental "love" has become a license to misbehave and when parents attempt to eventually correct such misbehavior, the childish can use "love" as a bludgeon to extort: "if you really love me, you wouldn't punish me".  That is the promise of "unconditional love", a life free of punishment and responsibility. It is also a lie.

When punishment and discipline are defined as "abuse" by an indulgent society, we fail to prepare our children for the sorts of behavior and attitudes that they need to face life in a mature and successful way. We need to slap hands and warm bottoms in correcting every bad and destructive behavior. Parents will be held accountable before God for their failure to teach "right" living to their children.

Few attitudes are more deceptive than painting God himself as a modernly indulgent parent. Scripture is filled with God's anger at the disobedient children of Israel and the resultant punishments they earned. Yet, many "christians" portray Deity as a "merciful" and "loving" coddler who will shield everyone from the evils of "justice", not remembering that the authentic mercy and love offered by God in this case is a delayed judgment to give us time to change ourselves for the better and repent our sins before the reality of justice must be applied. Mercy never eliminates justice, it only delays for a time.

There is no decadent God or Christ who ignores our actions. "Sin no more" is still God's attitude and no amount of attempted "loving" shielding of this fact by indulgent parents or society will stop the coming of just punishment for disobedience. We must discipline and straighten ourselves and our children today "while the sun shines", for the "night" of punishment for our sins will surely come. 

The One-hundred Fifty Year Lens

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.

Obesity is a Manifestation of Evil Efficiency

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 by modern standards. While many people attribute this to eating too much or the wrong sorts of food (that rich, royal diet), I will add another aspect which better explains why people who eat about the same as I do fall into such different camps in the body shaming racket:  efficiency.

To my mind, some people are very efficient (fat) and others are not efficient (not fat).  My boss is constantly on about increasing our efficiency by planning ahead, which I don't put much effort into.  I walk between a set of buildings and don't give much thought to making sure I handle one building's work before I move onto another and send up walking randomly all over the place in a very inefficient way.  Is that why I don't look all that fat?

I once worked with a man who was likely far more efficient than I am. I say this because I wouldn't be surprised if he was over 600 pounds and had specialized equipment and assistants to get him through his workday. I couldn't afford such things and I doubt I would justify the company putting out like that for me, so I figure he had some amazing skill and efficiencies that made it all worthwhile in a business way.  He rarely moved from his desk, unlike me, so his measure of productivity must have been comparatively through the roof.  I was always going to and fro, talking with people that I needed something from or that needed something from me.  I could have made calls instead, but was usually too lazy to look up numbers. Thus my theory, efficiency breeds lack of unnecessary exercise.

I also have to say that there are any number of people, specifically employed by the government, that I wish were somewhat less efficient.  To my mind, a lot for Liberty in personal life is lost to busy government workers, whom I would just as soon stayed home and didn't attend so "efficiency" to separating people from their liberties in their things. 

Study BYU-TV’s “Come Follow Up” and Become Ben Lomu

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, there is the introduction of the gospel scholar and other guests. These are the people to whom Ben poses the occasional question. The bulk of the discussion is between the gospel scholar and the guests and maybe an audience member, with the discussion leader listening intently to what the speaker is saying and smiling and nodding in an encouraging way.

 

The gospel scholar often seems to be making a bit of a presentation, working off preparation for teaching an institute or old-time gospel doctrine class. “Look what it says here and what it means…”

The guest participant usually tells personal experiences that relate to what is being said, almost interrupting the scholar but still getting Ben’s listening smile and encouragement.

As I sit in on second-hour time, I get the impression that the “Come Follow Up” gospel scholar has taken over the stage, dismissed Ben, and is giving their prepared institute topic presentation, just like the gospel doctrine teachers of old. If I am not too obnoxiously repetitive, the brethren in leadership want our second hour time to look more like a “Come Follow Up” episode rather than an institute class. To put it another way, those who lead in the second hour should look and behave more like Ben Lomu and much less like the show’s visiting gospel scholar.  

Check out a few episodes and see the way the discussion leader behaves. Ben doesn’t have a chalkboard or give out hand-outs. For all we know, the scholar wrote the show’s summary and Ben just reads it off the prompter.  Maybe, like so many of our second-hour friends, Ben might not remember what he read during the week or maybe even didn’t read the assignment at all.  Not to say that discussion leaders should ignore the content, but your role is to initiate and forward a gospel discussion from instruction that happens elsewhere.

I have never been in a church gathering of any type that didn’t have a very willing gospel scholar in the group, quite able to take over the time and never give it back. So, in the second hour discussions that you lead, you already have your “Come Follow Up” gospel scholar (you know who they are) who needs no encouragement to fulfill their duties in that role. The discussion leader just needs to help the scholar give others a chance to contribute.

Harder to see during second hour is the “Random AnySaint” that might share their experiences from their own home gospel doctrine instruction during the week.  As the discussion leader, you may have to coax one or two (or more) group members into talking about what insights were discovered in their home study.  Ask questions that help bring out the “Random AnySaint” and their experience.

Each “Come Follow Up” episode also includes a “studio audience”, often painfully quiet, much like most of your second hour participants. The television episode wouldn’t work without the quiet majority in the room and you, as the second-hour discussion leader, should accept that silent group’s role as almost passive listeners. You won’t see Ben spending much effort in getting the crowd to respond, though, when the occasional audience member raises a hand and comments, he is just as attentive and smiling and nodding appreciatively for their contribution as he is to the scholar and featured guest.  Give place and acknowledgement for the irregular contribution without strong-arming to get it.

In any given episode, between Ben, the ever-present gospel scholar, and the guests at the front of the stage, the episode time is taken up with discussion and the entire assembled group gets their promised uplift in their own way. 

Watch Ben Lomu a few times and see how he leads these discussions. Your role is to be a discussion leader like he is. Let others in the group be the gospel scholar. Work out any ”gospel doctrine teacher” urges in your own home, where the real instruction needs to happen according to the brethren.  In second hour, listen to contributors attentively, smile that “Ben smile”, and nod in acknowledgement. The more we lead the group discussions as Ben Lomu does, the closer we come to honoring the Brethren’s charge to us.