Money speaks?

My realization right now was how when I feel conflicted, like two external voices are trying to lead me, like we see in cartoons of a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, I go to the temple where I believe the other voice will be silenced. It just occurred to me that this is why our religious leadership are not paid, because political view points become law through lobbying or other expressions of power that all have a common denominator of money.

Leverage is spoken of, meaning power os exercised over another by promises. In even the best intentioned government, the voice is the one with the bucks, afterall, money speaks. I think that is where the idea of caring for the minority or those who seem to not be able to speak because of poverty or something.

It is a common knowledge that money does not play a role in the maintainance of church leadership, and though I have kniwn this, I had not realized it as any significant thing until I compared it to what causes any body to act.

Pretty cool

It is as if there never was an atonement for those who do not believe it. It struck me how very thoughtful that is. I figure if I gave everything, including my very life, for someone I would want them to know about it, and that explains missionary work, but if people do not believe, it is fine, and to me that is so incredibly kind!!! It is like that saying that no matter what you believe you are right.

How tatting is like genealogy

To start this short tirade I was inspired to begin tatting again because of the alter cover in the temple. I wanted to make lace like that. Alright, so far my attempts have been meager and only showing a tiny bit of potential, but I just kept doing it over and over, hoping it would train my muscles, or maybe that with practice would come perfection. I noticed a few things to do to improve, but my biggest improvement, though it seems obvious, it is the same thing my desire to do many many indexed records for others. I learned that to do more I needed to stop. This happens when tatting, too. It seems counter productive to achieve more, do less, but in taking a break now and again I am able to meet my challenge rested with fresh zeal that tiredness does effect.

In genealogy I make more errors due to monotony when I was hoping familiarity would help me sped up. When making a doily, let's's say not doing as much as I would like at a time, stop, not for ever, but for a rest.

Same things, different meanings

This thought was started with a memory of a thing my parents did. I always thought they did not have any friends because they did not socialize much. Now, I think it may have been becauase of our great isolation and lack of common minds to spend time with. It was really nest to spend time with eachother anyway, it molded us into a solid family unit, sort of the way moving does (you learn who will really be there after all, it is easier to make your family your best friends) I have to interject a thing a teacher of the kids told me last valentine's day. She said, "I know who Joseph's valentine is, and she is one lucky girl." Then looking at Mary she said, " It is you, Mary. He told me that he loves you the most of any girl he knows!"

Ok, now on to my memory. I was remembering that there was a person they knew who was in a hospital... the hospital was not nearby, perse, but they claimed it was on their way to stop by and visit, and that is what they did.

Then, I moved out here to Utah, and I often thought how odd the culture was in contrast, the biggest thing I noticed was how service oriented everyone was.

As kids, we worked alot, but it was for us, not for others. What that was an attempt to say is that I learned the value of working, but I noticed that others worked as hard but it was for someone else. I reasoned that was actually the same thing, family was merely defined a bit differently, an entire community was a sort of family unit, so the work was actually the same. Next, my daughter gave a talk on the Good Samaritan and a point the story makes is that we do not just care for our own, but for all fellow beings. And literally, everyone alive is our eternal family, so to speak. (In Sociology our teacher talked about distinguishing cultures by concentric rings of us and them and some being ethno and some being external and some will not marry cousins, and some will not eat chicken embryos).

It all harkens back to the same idea that it is not a thing itself but how it is seen. I heard a very great soliloquy on good and bad given by a priest on "House of Cards" where he said that even the Ten Commandments can be manipulated by interpretation. Eatting people is seen as wrong, right? Exactly, sometimes we kill people who oppose us in a thing called war, but really, if you were starving you still would not eat them.

Yeah, I am so glad for all of the things my parents were, they made me realize what is good and that I do not need to ever accept an almost. And we do not need to call everyone our friend to be kind to them. It all boils down to complete irrelevance as  to what we call a thing, but more about what we do.

Order of things

I cannot track down the mental origin of this thought, but is has been aided by several things that stuck to the snowball as it rolled down the hill.

In a Sunday school class a teacher mentioned how each lesson builds perfectly on the last, which reminded me of a thing that was said by one of the actors on the LOST dvds about how people love a good serial. I know I do although I might fid it hard to sit through hours of a movie, when broken up into small bits, It is enjoyable instead of overwhelming. It is part of building a good following, although it might feel exclusive. I could allude to Kate and Jack, in a very funny joke, but unless you had seen LOST you might not get it. I commented how the man in black, the bad guy, Lucifer in Supernatural, too. Was the uncle in the Tommorrow People and no one knew what the heck I was talking about. And several shows I stopped watching and tried to watch but felt like I missed too,much to continue. I still have not watched all of Downton Abbey, but I digress...

When you want to clean a room that seems irrevocably dirty, the monumental task can be accomplished by taking small steps. Over and over, I have heard it said that achieving greatness is by constant small goals towards that end. Reminds me of the Tortoise and the Hare, huge sporadic but dramatic and neworthy events do not win the race to becoming successful. Another side track is failing a thousand times means you KNOW what will not work, so keep trying with all that extra kniwledge!

So, I was thinking about how I have studied the restoration of the Gospel as a thing that could only have happened because other events sort of paved the way. This is directly related to the success of humanity, and how certain things are "outgrown" and dismissed as unimportant or even childish. But, my thought is that part of humankind evolution, not evolving from apes, but minutely perfecting what was...we all owe a debt of gratitude to Judaism for monotheism among other things, and I recently heard how Christianity had so completely entwined itself with our culture (thereby success, right) that it drastically effects our search for truth or way of thinking at all. So, scientific thought only came about because of Christianity. And that is worth thinking.

One thing builds on another and often the thing that gives birth to another thing ends up being an enemy. One day in the back of my dad's truck I was eavesdropping on a conversation a woman was talking about how so often when we really really hate someone, more than is usual,  it is because they are too much like us. That was just a tid bit I tucked away till later. It's later. I think the reason the government seems to oppose religion so much is that they are too similar, at least one exists because of the other and as much as one wishes it was not so, they cannot. One thing builds on the other, and we believe the most current to always be the most successful... time to make dinner already, geesh.

Games and the Gospel

Eeek, I just wrote a long winded bit that I copied Then deleted, now, it is gone... I compared using boosts in games to trying to intellectually learn truths like that Jesus of Nazareth was the Savior.

I could not possibly score higher in my games, my score sort of leveled out, and although, it was high, it was not hogh enough to win, and games are usually fun because the chance of winning is hard to achieve. In this case it was impossible...

This stage

The world is a stage... well, accorning to Nickelback, it really depends on what stage you are standing on.

Every first Sunday that rolls around I think of what my father used to say about how people liked to use a public forum to say the things that ought to be said in private,  like people declaring their love for family, country, God, etc. Mostly, their spouses it was like they were trying to make up for all they failed to say by publically professing something so that witnesses would solidify it as true. Why do I mention this?  I intend to explain...

If mortality is a stage to speak, it is a "public forum" and just because a thing isn't professed to this world does not mean it is not true. I knew that my parents loved eachother, and they believed whole heartedly in the gospel as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But, they did not need to have it publically declared.

There are things I have never spoken of, and probably never will and have never felt the need, but I believe them fully, I just do not want to, um. Sort of involve mortality with it at all, and fortunately, if you do not say things, people cannot read your mind.