ok. this is good for a laugh. and again, as I've said before and will most likely say again, "I'm am now prescribing to all my friends a 'crack-up' a day. Keeps the dull and sane away." :) And come now. Let's live life to it's most interesting potential.
http://www.youtube.com/user/WhatYouOughtToKnow
What ought YOU to know? *wink wink*
-Cheers
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Christmas List
Soooooooo.... I guess it's that time of year again. (Say that "a-gain" not "a-ginn")
I'm putting up my list here, because I can include links and such to be clear and specific. Sometimes people will put things on their lists and no one has a clue what that is. I'm also putting it up here so it doesn't going missing on a slip of random paper.
Yeah. So here we go:
*note: I'm not sure if the sites I have listed have the best pricing, so I'd check elsewhere too.
-A Conspiracy of Kings, by Megan Whalen Turner
-BBC Sense and Sensibility 2008 (NOT THE OTHER VERSION!)
-a new sketchbook (preferably black and hard bound (and with removable pages and a spiral binding!), but so long as it's not dinky it'll work if it's not hard bound)
-Cheaper by the dozen (The BOOK! And its sequel would be nice too)
-Gold (blonde) colored bobby pins
-BBC Emma 2009 (Not the other version! And consider getting S&S first. I'd rather it than this)
-External Hard-drive (don't have a link for this)
-Flat dress shoes (I wear size 8 1/2, but I'd highly suggest consulting either me or my sister Jo about this. I have included a link to show you kind of what I'm looking for.)
-A coat. (again. Consult. But I have included a link.)
-Photoshop (preferably CS2 or higher.)
-Or you can just consult my book wishlist on Goodreads and pick one. (I'd like series together (at least the books I have listed because sometimes I only like part of a series. I should have all the books I like listed for a series). But whatever works.
I may be editing and adding to this list off an on so if you don't like anything here, check back later.
Also, please send me your christmas lists! to one4storms@gmail.com.
-Cheers
I'm putting up my list here, because I can include links and such to be clear and specific. Sometimes people will put things on their lists and no one has a clue what that is. I'm also putting it up here so it doesn't going missing on a slip of random paper.
Yeah. So here we go:
*note: I'm not sure if the sites I have listed have the best pricing, so I'd check elsewhere too.
-A Conspiracy of Kings, by Megan Whalen Turner
-BBC Sense and Sensibility 2008 (NOT THE OTHER VERSION!)
-a new sketchbook (preferably black and hard bound (and with removable pages and a spiral binding!), but so long as it's not dinky it'll work if it's not hard bound)
-Cheaper by the dozen (The BOOK! And its sequel would be nice too)
-Gold (blonde) colored bobby pins
-BBC Emma 2009 (Not the other version! And consider getting S&S first. I'd rather it than this)
-External Hard-drive (don't have a link for this)
-Flat dress shoes (I wear size 8 1/2, but I'd highly suggest consulting either me or my sister Jo about this. I have included a link to show you kind of what I'm looking for.)
-A coat. (again. Consult. But I have included a link.)
-Photoshop (preferably CS2 or higher.)
-Or you can just consult my book wishlist on Goodreads and pick one. (I'd like series together (at least the books I have listed because sometimes I only like part of a series. I should have all the books I like listed for a series). But whatever works.
I may be editing and adding to this list off an on so if you don't like anything here, check back later.
Also, please send me your christmas lists! to one4storms@gmail.com.
-Cheers
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Reflection on D&C 104
In studying D&C 104, I asked: Why did the Lord ask the saints to follow the United Order back in the early years, when they were poor and persecuted? It seems harsh at times, and nearly too much to ask. But the Lord obviously knew his people. As I studied the subject, I began to find answers to my question that showed that not only was the Lord aware of his peoples’ plight, but by asking them to live the United Order, he was helping them to succeed through all their trials. He loved them, and the lessons they would learn from following this commandment were necessary for their survival and their faith. He knew them. And he knew what he was doing. As I read through the D&C Institute Manual, reason after reason for what the Lord did began to pop out to me. I have compiled a list:
“Why did the Lord ask the saints to follow the United Order back in the early years, when they were poor and persecuted?”
-To help the poor. The saints had been persecuted in MO, and it would be a way to help take care of all those who were in need from their loses and their trials.
-To help the Saints become stronger by coming to their own testimony of making a solemn covenant with the Lord. And to help them gain the blessings from that covenant.
-To help them realized the seriousness of the gospel and the plan of salvation.
-To help remind them that all things were God’s. If they lost possessions, they should not become distraught. They should not become so focused on their land or property or belongings. This could help them cope with the loses they felt during their persecutions so that they could move on and progress towards Zion.
-To help them to unite together so that they would all be on the side of God, and wouldn’t squabble over what was who’s and who deserved what.
-To help prepare them to answer the Lord’s call. The Lord would ask a lot of sacrifices from the early Saints, and when they understood that what all they had was His, they would be more willing to heed his instructions and not be selfish. They would recognize his authority and right to ask what he did of them.
-To help them focus on aiding one another. When they concentrate on helping each other, their minds would not be focused on their own loses. Also, the Lord promises that he will care for His children, and if everyone is aiding and sharing, there is enough to go around and his promises are fulfilled.
-To teach them faith. To let go of the world and trust in the Lord. Like fasting.
-To give them responsibility. The Lord demonstrated his trust and his faith in them.
-To establish the Lord’s way of doing things. To take the Saints out of their own routines, and out of the world’s way of living, and to teach them how the Lord wants things to run.
-To test their agency. The saints had agency, and they needed commandments to see how they would choose to follow.
-To make the people useful. They had skills, and this allowed them to develop and use those skills constructively and usefully.
-To make it harder for Satan and the world to penetrate and break them down. They were united, and stronger together than each alone facing what they did.
-To create a sanctuary of peace. If the saints knew they could rely on each other, love each other, and take care of each other, they had a place to turn to apart from the persecutions they faced.
-To help weed out those who would hold them back. Those who were not willing to have the faith would not last long. Like boot camp in a way. Only those who had the strength to live the United Order would also have the strength to move on through their test and trials and persecutions.
-To show that the Lord knows his people, individually. He gives them individual tasks for them to work at and use for the benefit of others. He is aware of how they could grow to their best potential. He gave stewardships to people who knew what to do with them.
-To prepare the people for when the Lord would come and live upon the earth. To show how it will be, and what it will be like to live the Celestial order. To help them have his spirit there.
-To help them build the kingdom. They needed to be strong and efficient to build. This gave them those skills to help the church move forward and to progress onward faster and further.
-To help them build trust in the word of the Prophet as the Lord’s mouth piece.
-To set down an order. To help them become organized. In chaos there is no direction and little chance for success.
-To help them focus on the important things; their needs over their wants. When they all had to work together and agree, they couldn’t squabble over the little things, they had to work together and find out what was most needed.
-To reward those who do a good job. If they were living righteously, they had no reason to be afraid of starving or being in need.
-Also, if they were righteous they would trust one another.
-To provide for the failing of mortal existence. In our world, if a man loses everything in a fire, he is without anything. But if they United Order was followed, all those who did things wisely were given more if they lost what they had to the failings of mortality.
-To help the saints show gratitude for the Atonement. To live with a spirit of gratitude. It is hard to forget to whom you owe all if you are constantly remembering that it is His, not ours. It helped them to remember his mercies and his love.
-To teach the saints to be reliable. Not only would they need to trust each other, but they needed to be trust worthy themselves. It helped them learn the value of doing one’s part and upholding one’s word.
-It gave them a sense of self worth. Sometimes, in hard times, if we don’t blame others for our problems, we blame ourselves. We think we are worthless, faulty, useless. But if other rely on you, if other’s need your skills and your support, you have no reason to doubt your worth. Nor do you need to doubt whether the Lord loves you when He has planned out a way of living the makes sure it is providing you with all you need.
-To teach them to value of what they have. Not just because it isn’t really their’s, but because they need it for what it can do. When you concentrate on wants and not needs, you forget how useful things can be. You don’t explore how much they can actually do for you or in what ways they can fulfill your desires. It made them resourceful.
Gathered from the “Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual” Sec. 104
“Why did the Lord ask the saints to follow the United Order back in the early years, when they were poor and persecuted?”
-To help the poor. The saints had been persecuted in MO, and it would be a way to help take care of all those who were in need from their loses and their trials.
-To help the Saints become stronger by coming to their own testimony of making a solemn covenant with the Lord. And to help them gain the blessings from that covenant.
-To help them realized the seriousness of the gospel and the plan of salvation.
-To help remind them that all things were God’s. If they lost possessions, they should not become distraught. They should not become so focused on their land or property or belongings. This could help them cope with the loses they felt during their persecutions so that they could move on and progress towards Zion.
-To help them to unite together so that they would all be on the side of God, and wouldn’t squabble over what was who’s and who deserved what.
-To help prepare them to answer the Lord’s call. The Lord would ask a lot of sacrifices from the early Saints, and when they understood that what all they had was His, they would be more willing to heed his instructions and not be selfish. They would recognize his authority and right to ask what he did of them.
-To help them focus on aiding one another. When they concentrate on helping each other, their minds would not be focused on their own loses. Also, the Lord promises that he will care for His children, and if everyone is aiding and sharing, there is enough to go around and his promises are fulfilled.
-To teach them faith. To let go of the world and trust in the Lord. Like fasting.
-To give them responsibility. The Lord demonstrated his trust and his faith in them.
-To establish the Lord’s way of doing things. To take the Saints out of their own routines, and out of the world’s way of living, and to teach them how the Lord wants things to run.
-To test their agency. The saints had agency, and they needed commandments to see how they would choose to follow.
-To make the people useful. They had skills, and this allowed them to develop and use those skills constructively and usefully.
-To make it harder for Satan and the world to penetrate and break them down. They were united, and stronger together than each alone facing what they did.
-To create a sanctuary of peace. If the saints knew they could rely on each other, love each other, and take care of each other, they had a place to turn to apart from the persecutions they faced.
-To help weed out those who would hold them back. Those who were not willing to have the faith would not last long. Like boot camp in a way. Only those who had the strength to live the United Order would also have the strength to move on through their test and trials and persecutions.
-To show that the Lord knows his people, individually. He gives them individual tasks for them to work at and use for the benefit of others. He is aware of how they could grow to their best potential. He gave stewardships to people who knew what to do with them.
-To prepare the people for when the Lord would come and live upon the earth. To show how it will be, and what it will be like to live the Celestial order. To help them have his spirit there.
-To help them build the kingdom. They needed to be strong and efficient to build. This gave them those skills to help the church move forward and to progress onward faster and further.
-To help them build trust in the word of the Prophet as the Lord’s mouth piece.
-To set down an order. To help them become organized. In chaos there is no direction and little chance for success.
-To help them focus on the important things; their needs over their wants. When they all had to work together and agree, they couldn’t squabble over the little things, they had to work together and find out what was most needed.
-To reward those who do a good job. If they were living righteously, they had no reason to be afraid of starving or being in need.
-Also, if they were righteous they would trust one another.
-To provide for the failing of mortal existence. In our world, if a man loses everything in a fire, he is without anything. But if they United Order was followed, all those who did things wisely were given more if they lost what they had to the failings of mortality.
-To help the saints show gratitude for the Atonement. To live with a spirit of gratitude. It is hard to forget to whom you owe all if you are constantly remembering that it is His, not ours. It helped them to remember his mercies and his love.
-To teach the saints to be reliable. Not only would they need to trust each other, but they needed to be trust worthy themselves. It helped them learn the value of doing one’s part and upholding one’s word.
-It gave them a sense of self worth. Sometimes, in hard times, if we don’t blame others for our problems, we blame ourselves. We think we are worthless, faulty, useless. But if other rely on you, if other’s need your skills and your support, you have no reason to doubt your worth. Nor do you need to doubt whether the Lord loves you when He has planned out a way of living the makes sure it is providing you with all you need.
-To teach them to value of what they have. Not just because it isn’t really their’s, but because they need it for what it can do. When you concentrate on wants and not needs, you forget how useful things can be. You don’t explore how much they can actually do for you or in what ways they can fulfill your desires. It made them resourceful.
Gathered from the “Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual” Sec. 104
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Cubist
Feel free to disregard this if you like. I just needed a link to this image so i could hyperlink it to my assignment for a class.
If you're interested, this is a sorta cubistic drawing of my bedroom lamp.
If you're interested, this is a sorta cubistic drawing of my bedroom lamp.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Movie Recommendation
Hey everybody. For anyone who reads this blog, I saw a movie recently that I really love. It's a heart wrenching film, but it's beautiful. If you loved the wonderful movie "Life is Beautiful", then I think you'd appreciate this. It isn't funny, like that one, but it is extremely moving. Really, the best word for it is beautiful.
The movie is "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." And that title really has many meanings. The story line goes like this: A small boy, the son of a Nazi soldier (a pretty high up one), and his family are moved to a house out in the countryside of Germany. From his bedroom window that boy notices what he assumes to be some strange farm off in the distance. His mother and father don't try to argue with him, but tell him to stop worrying about it. The boy's dream is to be a great explorer, and after exploring all the yard inside the big metal fence around the house, he becomes restless. One day he notices that the door to the back yard is open and he slips back there. He finds a store shed with a window in it the opens out into the woods and he slips through and goes exploring. He finds the farm, surrounded by high barbed fences, and just on the other side of the fence he finds a small boy like him. A strange boy. But, with no other friends, the young explorer keeps returning to visit the farm and the two boys become friends. Through the whole thing you see the world through the eyes of the innocent young boy, who doesn't really know what's happening. But we of course pick up on what is going on. It's intricate, and VERY well acted, believable, and deeply touching. The story has an entirely unexpected ending. It's not a fast paced tale, but it's riveting. I say you should go find a copy and watch it.
The movie is "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." And that title really has many meanings. The story line goes like this: A small boy, the son of a Nazi soldier (a pretty high up one), and his family are moved to a house out in the countryside of Germany. From his bedroom window that boy notices what he assumes to be some strange farm off in the distance. His mother and father don't try to argue with him, but tell him to stop worrying about it. The boy's dream is to be a great explorer, and after exploring all the yard inside the big metal fence around the house, he becomes restless. One day he notices that the door to the back yard is open and he slips back there. He finds a store shed with a window in it the opens out into the woods and he slips through and goes exploring. He finds the farm, surrounded by high barbed fences, and just on the other side of the fence he finds a small boy like him. A strange boy. But, with no other friends, the young explorer keeps returning to visit the farm and the two boys become friends. Through the whole thing you see the world through the eyes of the innocent young boy, who doesn't really know what's happening. But we of course pick up on what is going on. It's intricate, and VERY well acted, believable, and deeply touching. The story has an entirely unexpected ending. It's not a fast paced tale, but it's riveting. I say you should go find a copy and watch it.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Ren. Fest weekend
This weekend I made another attempt at the KC Ren-fest. Interestingly enough, while the last time I went it was cold, raining, windy, and muddy, while I only had flip flops to wear, this week was hot and sunny and I had on a brand new pair of tennies. Yes. That's right. It's October and it was hot this week. In the upper 80's. So it was beautiful, if steamy, weather for attending the fest. I went down to Am and Nathans, and we, along with friend-couple of theirs, went down to Jo's. The next morning we got up and went to the fest and stayed there 'til late afternoon. It was great fun. The theme for this weekend was dogs, scots, and pirates. So there were dogs, bagpipes, kilts, and pirates everywhere. We managed to watch a jousting and get our faces painting (Jo and I did the latter). We each had a huge smoked turkey leg for lunch, and watched a falconer (wild bird) show. Along with a lot of other stuff. etc. etc. etc. Aye!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
On the Apocrypha
Many Christians claim that the Book of Mormon, as expectedly God-given scripture, automatically indicates that Mormon's can't possibly believe in the Bible. Therefore, we can't really be Christians. To all those of us mormons who are asked about our belief in the Bible, we quickly recite the eighth article of faith (The Articles of Faith, History of the Church, Vol. 4, pp. 535-541). The key words, we say, are "as far as it is translated correctly." As a mormon who was raised away from the mass mormon bases of Utah or Idaho, this question was personally asked to me. My best friend in High School was Catholic and we discussed our religions fairly often. This topic of the Bible came up when we were considering having a Bible study together, and my friend wanted to use her modern language translation to study with. Upon further discussion on the subject I was surprised to find, for the first time in my recollection, that the mormon Bible has several differences from the Bible most Catholics use. One of the main difference is Apocrypha. Honestly, at that time in my life I had never even heard of the Apocrypha. There have been other times in my life since that encounter that the topic of those books has been brought up. In my Art History class at BYUI, while studying the art of the Renaissance and Baroque periods we came across a piece depicting a story from the Apocrypha. Each encounter with the topic has been a different experience, for I have had different knowledge available each time, but up until this point, I had never really done my own study into the LDS Church's proclaimed opinion on the subject. I knew, obvious to me from its absence in our Bible, that mormons didn't study the Apocrypha as my Catholic friend does. I also knew that there are many errors in it and that is why we don't study it as scripture, (remember the "as far as it is translated correctly" part). But apart from that, I really knew nothing significant. As I read through D&C 91 this past week, it hit me that I didn't really know why Joseph Smith hadn't translated the Apocrypha as part of his Bible tasks. Nor did I really ever let it sink in that the Apocrypha was anything more than an obscure piece of "supposed" historical documents that some other Christians claimed as scripture. As I looked into these topics I discovered several interesting things. The first is that the Apocrypha was widely considered part of the Bible in Joseph Smith's time. He was most likely raised on it, and certainly had it in the Bible he read (The Joseph Smith Translation: “Plain and Precious Things” Restored, David Rolph Seely). Though controversy on the books of the Apocrypha had begun almost 200 years earlier (at least), the Christian world was still reluctant to scrap them as "non-scipture" (D&C Institute Student Manual, Section 91, the Apocrypha). And that is when a few things occurred to me. 1) This was evidence of Joseph Smith's sincere and thorough study of the scriptures and Christianity, that he knew, even though he was "uneducated", that history debated the legitimacy of the books. And 2) It showed that Joseph Smith really studied the scriptures so much that he probably could identify the differences between their words and voice and the words and voice of the Apocrypha. He singled it out and thought to ask God about it. As I reread section 91, now with a greater appreciation for Joseph Smith, I began to notice a few other things. We are not commanded to not read the Apocrypha. As mormons we know that it is not entirely accurate or complete, but we also know that it isn't entirely wrong either. Instead, we are encouraged to be careful (D&C 91). And in the Student Manual, we are even cautioned to only study it when we have a fairly firm understanding of the doctrine and principles of our own scriptures. Reviewing this information has really opened my mind. I have gone and read in the Bible Dictionary, the Student Manual, and in several articles on LDS.org about the Apocrypha, and, though I do not know much more extensively about the history of our Church in relationship to the books, I do feel as though I understand the meaning of Joseph Smith's conversation with the Lord in section 91. I encourage others to go and read about this. It is enlightening and has helped me to see how our religion interacts with the rest of the Christian world. It also says a lot about human nature, and the hunt for true religion in the history of the world. This study has helped me to be more open minded and thoughtful about other Christian claims. It reminds me, that I do accept the Bible. As far as it is translated correctly. And all the that means.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)