Indiana Jones and Gandalf

We learn what is essential to know through whatever source is available to us. What we learn is more relevant to who we are in significance than who is teaching.

I will give an example.

In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. As the climax is reached, the protagonist (Indy) has to decide which of the Cups is the Holy Grail. He says that despite what popular opinion teaches the cup would not be ornate. In the movie, it ends up that he is correct and gets to save the day. But, what he seemed to have been teaching was how hard it is to make a proper choice. 

Next, we have the example from the Lord of the Rings where the fellowship is sort of trapped in a caved in tunnel and they are looking to Gandalf to determine the correct way. He eventually does so, and Frodo asks him if he instantly recalled by some revelation or something, and Gandalf replies in a way that casts all supposition on a lofty wisdom that he is able to discern the correct way using his own sense of smell, and one way just smells fresher. So, the same lesson is taught to a different audience on how to make a choice between things that are hard to instantly, and are of great consequence.

Both examples teach that discerning truth is best not left to popular opinion or even some supposed mysterious intelligence. I would like to assert that the same is true with religions. Different God's are like different protagonists of a story intended to teach a principle that must be known. And to me, it explains why there are so many similarities. Perhaps, they are coming from the same source (origin) .

dirty vegtables

I am swelling on a thought that seems trivial, but it will not keep popping up so, I will write it down and be down with it. It started when I was cutting my lettuce this morning. I wondered what sort of life it had, and to end up in Mississippi? And what's that smell? Is it just dirt? Wonder if I ought to be planting my own garden yet, it might be too cold at night, though we did watch a video this morning about how hardy growing things become after being exposed to adversity...ya da ya da... I ended up thinking as I washed an old dish if maybe that strange earthy smell when I cut vegetables is the introduction of an invasive species into my too clean environment. Maybe if I kill off too many micro organisms the only ones left will be immune to my "cleaning" and it will be a situation like in Dune where the machines meant to help man took over. Perhaps, buying vegetables at the store will make a super soldier parasite that will take over the world! Oh no!

But, now I am laughing as I recall a woman who told a story about the Danes selling shoddy grain to Icelanders who actually ate it and then told some "far out" stories like some weird amalgamation of a bull that ended up tormenting and killing it's creator, and his descendents.

Moral of this story, becareful how much you clean those outsourced vegtables! 😀

wonder

My foremost wonder is if I have enough time to type out these thoughts, because I must stop new ones to use brain power to record them, and my mind is full and in constant generation of new thoughts and ideas today.

I was thinking about the apostle who needed to be healed, which lead to likening that to my need. It *is* all true...it being the power if heaven/God the Father. So, I have decided from watching "It's a Wonderful Life" that I was going to rely on other means for financial success, if that actually is needed or matters. Then "A Christmas Carol" came on reminding me that money does nothing to decrease awareness of things like ignorance, I found myself singing the lyrics to "when We Stand Together " by Nickleback....especially the part about just turning the TV off rather than seeing something we do not want to see....or the Kevin Montgomery song about "putting a band-aid on it with a five dollar bill"...ok but back to the original thought. I had been applying a concept to nearly everything in my life many of which are "essential, but not sufficient". And I used to claim all of the time that so much of healing was due to prayers being answered, but if that is true that is acknowledging that God could save, but had not done so completely.... we'll, why? I have been healed enough to function (essentially) but not entirely.

I do believe that I could be healed entirely, so I am back to needing to watch season 3 of The Chosen : https://youtu.be/KZDvcEkjthA?si=_Rk2-v_Qslx1YAFu

my new perspective on dieting

I decided that I would choose to follow the prophet when it comes to my dieting, cause it is not working, but I recalled that my testimony includes a premarital existence, and regardless qhat I believe... I used to believe 200% in Intermittent Fasting and it worked when I believed, seems like I ought to have read more instead of giving up. Too late, I have gained all of my weight back and sadly reached the 160 mark this week.

Back to the premarital existence thingy, I was imagining my person knowing that I would have this body, and accepting it as part of the exciting plan, and although it seems unlikely or unintelligent, I DO believe that and then I looked in the mirror and sighed, but decided that it was time to diet? No. It was time to think Celestial. I pondered on what I needed to do to make this body excellent eternally, and if being slightly overweight even though I am exercising and eating well, probably it doesn't matter. Then, I started thinking about all of the people whom I consider beautiful, but are overweight by my standards. And it worked! Thank you, no more dieting for me. I will merely, think Celestially.

my thoughts

My thoughts are like little children this morning trying to win my attention so that I might follow them down different roads each of which is highly fascinating, and they were all born of one idea: Ease.

I think I should like to write a story about a person facing a decision and the roles flip flop as more is understood, and the most interesting part of the conflict is when the "bad" side promises ease and seems to endow on one side and the next where the "good" side offers pain and suffering and a bleak future. I think of what my son was saying this morning about teaching a starving man how to get food, versus just "putting a bandaid on it with a 5 dollar bill."

Oh, now I am remembering an institute class in Auburn, Washington when we talked about helping homeless people on the waterfront the night before. I held firm that I was glad to "enable" the beggars because they had practically no freedom to choose,  and that was what I was giving them when I tossed my contribution. Where as my friend rebuked me and claimed that I ought to have taken them to eat and paid for it so that I could be sure they were honest about what they were going to use the money for... but, that misses my point and reason for helping or as Joseph calls it "giving cheerfully".  After hearing him this morning, I realize it is not at all matter of what I did or did not do, as long as it was motivated by pure love. The end.

in a daze

I have not written much as of late because I have not had sufficient time to organize my thoughts, but before this season too passes without word from me, I wanted to share my latest pondering, it is regarding a supposed history... based off of DNA findings.I assumed the narrative which I had heard was true regarding the settlement and Christianization of Iceland. And that was fine for the majority, but, it certainly did not explain my own findings. Fir a long time I had been worried that DNA might be incorrectly interpreted and so I hesitated to make conclusions based on what it suggested: I had almost 100% closer match to the Icelandic remains, when in comparison to other samples (users or peers).  I am of Norwegian heritage, yes, but not nearly as much as one ought to be if the story of early settlement was accurrate...if I was at all Icelandic, which keeps showing up as a heritage strangely enough, then I ought to be significantly Norwegian. Yesterday, on our walk, I decided it was the Celtic part that was Icelandic, not the insignificant Scandinavian. Anyhow, it was a long thought out process that led me to the conclusion that my Irish/Scottish/British heritage was the truly interesting one all along. I had been chasing other notions and possibilities when, more than likely the reason I matched, not by any big website that did the processing and told me who I was, but because I matched the decoded DNA of early Irish remains undeniably, and it is that same code that keeps appearing and linking me to all of these odd places like  Pictish Skotland, Greenland, Iceland, etc. I just had heard all the stories that seem to fit and match surnames on family search as well, to place me as an Erikson who had been sent from one place to the next, but at the same time, I had undeniable proof that I was descended from other rulers on their perspective lands, so it could not be through their blood lines. Oh yeah, another thought I always have is how a website can say that I closely match enough, enough shared code that I am descended from these dead people on obscure islands... and yet I am not significantly Norwegian... that in itself is confusing. My recent ancestor was born in Sweden, but records say that her parents were both born in Norway, or the one census record claims Finland, so I say broadly Scandinavian.so, I am actually Norwegian, but not sufficiently so to explain the Icelandic connection.then, I randomly found this morning that my closest match on my true ancestry was Saxon Iceland, so, I had assumed that referred to the large chunk of Germans who ruled Sachony, and ended up with the surname Sachsen or something, but it probably referred to the English/Scottish settlers who would have been called Anglo Saxon. So, I went with that, and found a not to be trusted Wikipedia article that claimed that the earliest settlers on Iceland were Irish monks, and THAT made perfect sense.

It is 4:30. I need to get sleep before the day starts. It starts at 6am with Breakfast and Scripture Srudy before school. ..so, know that I still ponder on useless things, I just don't find much time to write about it.

How Runes can be thought of as more than merely letters

I must come back and clarify this thought, until then have this:

https://youtu.be/od-xkRDw6nk

And let your thoughts take you without my help.

quantum entanglement

I have too much to say, but wanted a place holder so that when I sort it out, I have a place to put it.

Most of my thoughts were generated by reading The gospel of John chapter 14 or maybe it was 13, anyhow, it was Jesus trying to explain a concept that was outside the scope of his disciples understanding, but he did a very good job explaining how two things could be entirely linked, in. "I and my father are one."

ethniticity

I cannot help but think about reality when I consider the interrelatedness of cultures. But, at this point I am noticing cultures that claimed ethnicities, mostly due to being forced to "not meld".

At first I was listening to a song that was sung in Faroese, and the island claims Nordic ethnicity, and I could understand the words and was going to guess it was Icelandic, though I bet someone who actually knew Icelandic would say it sounded like some Celtic babble, and that rabbit hole opened up to contemplation of Sean Nos and a special stringed instrument, that was Greek in origin, but as I listened to a Galacian piece played in an Irish style I could have swore it sounded like a sitar. And critics of the Irish singing claimed it sounded Indian(S Asian). I thought, how interconnected and by music. Then I considered Eleanor of Aquitaine and her father and wondered what ethnicity they would claim to be, just then, it struck me again how odd that isolated part of a larger inheritance formed into an ethnicity where men and women were the same height. It made sense in that light how my ex-husband always said he was average height for a male, but he was the same height as me, but I was perfectly average height for a woman, and my closest match to ancient DNA was from bones found on Rathland island, and yet I am called Scandinavian on one site and then celtic on another, and one site strangely gives a 99% accuracy to their placing an ancestor in Hahn China though,  it is surely an admixture, it was just honed in on because it was what distinguished me from other Italians. Oh, dear me!

need to bookmark this

Often, what my brain does is provide a vessel or bowl for ideas to be sort of mixed together, much like the reflection described by "Tabula Rasa"

One Idea that always mixes strangely with other ideas is one that I am pretty certain was never intended. It is the lyric to a song "Entangled" by Ástiðir the lyric is "there is no honest way of telling us apart." And maybe it is the word honest that conjures up who is considered the great "Lawyer, Lier..."(credit goes to Morrissey for that lyric) so I always think it is about Lucifer and Jehovah suggesting they might be twins or something, and that they are so extremely similar. And that idea just played out in my mind as I was revisiting, as I often do, Kabbalah. And it is noted how similar psychedelic experience is to  true spiritual sensing of the world.

For some reason, I wanted that thought to be preserved as I empty and clean my "mixing bowl" or vessel to make room for my next serving.

spiritual promptings

As I am focusing on choices, I think alot on the topic of revelation and prompting of the spirit.

As illustrated in the story of Moses and the children of Israel escaping the Egyptians, we have red sea moments. A miracle is needed and it is NEEDED immediately. But, often intervention is proceeded by faith, which in this story is evidenced by action.

I was listening to a talk by Elder Bednar where he notes that most inSPIRation/revelation comes in unrecognizable ways at the time... so we ought not wait for the miracle, so to speak, but act expecting the best outcome. This impresses me because a most common question is "was that still small voice just my own thoughts?" And well, it stands to reason that if you are aware of a still small voice in the first place, your thoughts are likely in the process of emulating God already so they probably would be the same.

In situations where your own thoughts differ but you mistake them for being the best choice, well, my experience is that if you get something wrong on a test you learn better than if you had gotten it right..... oh that reminds me of another story: https://youtu.be/yNQC-_srxH8

a reason good languages are phonetic

It really passes people off when a word doesn't at all look like it sounds, like in my elementary school spelling bee, I got out, and still remember it, with the word Herb, the previous year I got the word cabinet wrong. And, that was merely because of the pronunciation, I repeated the word as cabinet and spelled it as such. Not realizing my error I went on to pronounce herb first and spelled it error. Though, it is funny now, at the time I got quite angry. But, it is more common to hear people learning English complain about "silent" letters like k or g.

What came to mind was my daughter getting upset when a Dr. Seuss book used a Girraffe to represent G. And then a very funny skit where a kindergarten teacher is teaching letter sounds (one per letter) and says A is aye (long a sound) and represented commonly by an Ayepple. She looks at her picture of an Apple and starts to question if she has said it wrong her entire life!!

OK, my original thought was caused by a contemplation of various Alphabets, and how as an English speaker I love Icelandic because it is a phonetic language meaning it sounds like it is spelled (once you learn the sounds). I thought this was probably more important to a literate country. It had been said that Icelandic most closely represents old Norse language and so one can easily extrapolate what it sounded like. What I meant was to say that Iceland is a country where it's constituents have seen how words can be spoken from the past through text, and so even if the people no longer remain their word can be preserved if one has a cipher or phonetic language.

similarities

Whenever I contemplate diety of any people's I am struck more with the similarities than I am absurdities. 

I do not have the tools to say much detail, like occurrs to me in thought, but contemplating such similarities definitely leads to a truth. No matter how bizarre an idea is, the fact that all men have such a notion must be explained.

Common basis

Or what I often consider. It is easy for me to retrospectively see how foolish such a belief is or even how unnecessary certain sacrifice was, but why then do or believe it. I will speak briefly about the Greeks. In other disciplines their thinkers were esteemed, so how could a culture who believed in such rediculous gods have produced such great thoughts? I have given myself an answer.

I have noticed for the most part the ideas are consistent, but culture has adapted such ideas so that they might be learned and allowed to influence. Successful influence (fruit)has been embraced fully by a culture and it becomes a religion. 

So, it is commonplace that mankind has always sought out and loved something they cannot manage to understand. It is very comparable to the way Jesus Christ spoke in parables. Or how communion or sacrament only represents a sacrifice that we need in our minds, but it cannot be reperformed again and again, where as the symbols can remind us. Ok, my mind is running away again, I want to quickly liken this to the sacrifice of various animals was to put an idea in minds. I have often said that religions are like a wheelchair or crutches, they help one who cannot move for themselves, but we ought not become dependant on them the idea is that because we cannot move right now does not mean we cannot experience the same things as one who can.

OK, my screen keeps going black, soon it will freeze up and I will loose everything.  So, bye!

Laws of early Israelites

As I was thinking about all of the laws many I have given more thought than others, ultimately, I realized how loving, almost like favoring, it was to give those rules.

One of my favorite teachings was regarding our senses and how much our notion of what is, is based on what we perceive. 

So, on Stargate Atlantis a group is given laws to live by and a visiting team proves they are not true, and do not need to be lived by, and one guy responds that he would rather be limited by "silly rules" if it meant living in peace than being "free" But dead. Finally, Dr. Weir points out that maybe the reasons behind those rules was too complex, so instead they were given those rules to keep them safe. She tells Dr. McKay how presumptuous it is to think he knows best and over throw their rules as wrong.... but, technically, they are. It reminds me of a video years ago by a Hebrew scholar defending his faith when archeological studies were proving the book of Exodus as false. He said, "what makes the stories true is not that they are factual."

So, now to my thoughts on the laws in Leviticus. Maybe, there are things which are more complex than our senses indicate and so being forbidden because one is made "unclean" might not be factual, but true. Sort of like the way everyone wore masks and they were even mandatory and enforced while they did not prevent the spread of infection. So often outward appearances communicate in a way that can be understood and thereby appreciated, and they do something for our mindset. They made us all more aware of a virus and thereby did more that was appearance.

I just feel like laws were given to protect people and insure they were healthy and happy, then Jesus came and tried to say, "hey, guys some of this stuff has been taken out of context and I need to adjust it. 

Darn it. Getting too long... better stop writing.

such a cool idea!

In a podcast I heard someone liken each of the first 5 chapters of Matthew to the first five books of the Torah, and it worked well. I am impressed. Makes sense because Matthew was writing for a Hebrew or is it an Hebrew. Hmmmmm. A Jewish/Israeli audience. The books ate actually so closely related, it is just fun to have another way to link them.