Welcome to a couple of new followers since I last checked! And greetings to you all. Just wanted to report that I'm still alive and invested in the blog. But ....
It was Doug's 80th birthday on the 19th, and we've had family reunion going on here at home and in cyberspace for a couple of weeks. (Congratulations by the way to Michael the Contentious and his beautiful, charming, calm, supportive wife, Jill, who welcomed Owen Michael on the 18th and celebrated Abigail Jane's second birthday on the 20th in a city far away.)
I wanted to take a minute to suggest something to you while I'm occupied with playing with grandchildren: The Complete Christian by Robert S. Wood. (I once bought up all copies available through Amazon.com, but try again if you're interested.) Those of you who were in class with me Fall '08 know about Brother/Elder Wood, member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy and former dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies and the U.S. Naval War College. Has degrees from Stanford (BA) and Harvard (MA, PhD). If you haven't done it already, you might want to Google him.
Elder Wood brings together a number of useful sources—from Moses to Kurt Cobain—as he works his way through his own ideas. Early in the book he quotes something from Brigham Young that I find worth pondering in light of some questions we've raised here:
Except I am one with my good brethren, do not say that I am a Latter-day Saint. We must be one. Our faith must be concentrated in one great work—the building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth, and our works must aim at the accomplishment of that great purpose.
We have got to be united in our efforts. We should go to work with a united faith like the heart of one man; and whatever we do should be performed in the name of the Lord, and we will then be blessed and prospered in all we do. We have a work on hand whose magnitude can hardly be told.
It is also our duty to love the Gospel and the spirit of the Gospel, so that we can become one in the Lord, not out of Him, that our faith, our affections for truth, the kingdom of heaven, our acts, all our labor will be concentrated in the salvation of the children of men and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on the earth. This is cooperation on a very large scale. This is the work of redemption that is entered into by the Latter-day Saints. Unitedly we perform these duties, we stand, we endure, we increase and multiply, we strengthen and spread abroad, and shall continue so to do until the kingdoms of this world are the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe, Deseret Book, 1956, p. 284.)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Oneness, a Thought Experiment
I have been receiving e-mail messages from people who are following the blog on the sly, and this morning someone mentioned that he would like to hear my response to the question I asked a bit ago, What does it mean to be one?
Of course you all know that I am a bit more interested in that than I am in discovering the Ultimate Truth about Climate Change and What We Should(n't) Do About It, the answer to which is very important but seems to me is going to depend as much as anything else on your politics. As much as I care about ideas, I care more about people and relationship. (Is this a "feminine" thing?)
So here are some questions that have come to my mind as we took off into the climate thing:
1. How do we find truth (even veracity) in this Age of Information?
2. How do we trust, when Self-Interest replaces God as the ultimate guide to human behavior?
3. How are we godly together ("one") when our opinions put us at odds with one another, perhaps even passionately at odds?
To explore these questions, I propose that instead of thinking about how, oh, Christian and Mike might try to speak nicely to one another, we could imagine instead, say, that Glenn Beck and Harry Reid were to end up in the same high priests quorum.
Brother Harry and Brother Glenn would probably get along fine at a cannery assignment or during a disaster clean-up. (Neither would be very good with a chain saw, though.) But let's say they were sitting together in a priesthood lesson about Our Divinely Inspired Constitution. Or let's say the Becks and the Reids ended up in the same temple session one day and at a certain moment needed to decide whether they felt good about being there together.
As you might know, both Harry Reid and Glenn Beck are converts to the Church, each having found something profoundly helpful in the gospel and in the LDS community. I have heard each of them bear testimony to this fact. They weren't born into the Church: they CHOSE it, and they find peace and strength in their choice. (I also know that both of them meet a great deal of criticism from members of the Church, so I can only hope they can continue to find peace and strength in the community.)
I think I'll leave you for the moment with this thought experiment. If you don't know who Glenn Beck is, just think of the most vocal and uninhibited gun-totin' extreme anti-Obama Libertarian person you know. If you don't know who Harry Reid is, shame on you. I know you're busy, but you shouldn't be THAT busy.
Okay. Get back to me.
P.S. I know that some of you have begun to address this issue in your comments to previous posts. Andrea, Calvin, Graham, for example. And there are some pretty basic answers we all know. I just know that this is a day-to-day problem for me, so in my view, we can't think of it too often. I hear from many of you that you're reading the Book of Mormon with particular vigor at the moment. Some are relishing the New Testament, and we're all studying D&C this year. Anybody reading the OLD Testament? Feel free to send along favorite scriptures that address these issues.
Bottom line: What do you do with your emotions when you feel very strongly that someone else is WRONG and that someone is a brother or sister in the gospel? How do you love a nearby "enemy"? What will the Kingdom of God (say, in the millennium, on earth I mean) look like? Will we all agree on everything???? Are our disagreements merely a matter of perspective? Are they just "points of view"? Just toss these things around in your mind a bit?
Of course you all know that I am a bit more interested in that than I am in discovering the Ultimate Truth about Climate Change and What We Should(n't) Do About It, the answer to which is very important but seems to me is going to depend as much as anything else on your politics. As much as I care about ideas, I care more about people and relationship. (Is this a "feminine" thing?)
So here are some questions that have come to my mind as we took off into the climate thing:
1. How do we find truth (even veracity) in this Age of Information?
2. How do we trust, when Self-Interest replaces God as the ultimate guide to human behavior?
3. How are we godly together ("one") when our opinions put us at odds with one another, perhaps even passionately at odds?
To explore these questions, I propose that instead of thinking about how, oh, Christian and Mike might try to speak nicely to one another, we could imagine instead, say, that Glenn Beck and Harry Reid were to end up in the same high priests quorum.
Brother Harry and Brother Glenn would probably get along fine at a cannery assignment or during a disaster clean-up. (Neither would be very good with a chain saw, though.) But let's say they were sitting together in a priesthood lesson about Our Divinely Inspired Constitution. Or let's say the Becks and the Reids ended up in the same temple session one day and at a certain moment needed to decide whether they felt good about being there together.
As you might know, both Harry Reid and Glenn Beck are converts to the Church, each having found something profoundly helpful in the gospel and in the LDS community. I have heard each of them bear testimony to this fact. They weren't born into the Church: they CHOSE it, and they find peace and strength in their choice. (I also know that both of them meet a great deal of criticism from members of the Church, so I can only hope they can continue to find peace and strength in the community.)
I think I'll leave you for the moment with this thought experiment. If you don't know who Glenn Beck is, just think of the most vocal and uninhibited gun-totin' extreme anti-Obama Libertarian person you know. If you don't know who Harry Reid is, shame on you. I know you're busy, but you shouldn't be THAT busy.
Okay. Get back to me.
P.S. I know that some of you have begun to address this issue in your comments to previous posts. Andrea, Calvin, Graham, for example. And there are some pretty basic answers we all know. I just know that this is a day-to-day problem for me, so in my view, we can't think of it too often. I hear from many of you that you're reading the Book of Mormon with particular vigor at the moment. Some are relishing the New Testament, and we're all studying D&C this year. Anybody reading the OLD Testament? Feel free to send along favorite scriptures that address these issues.
Bottom line: What do you do with your emotions when you feel very strongly that someone else is WRONG and that someone is a brother or sister in the gospel? How do you love a nearby "enemy"? What will the Kingdom of God (say, in the millennium, on earth I mean) look like? Will we all agree on everything???? Are our disagreements merely a matter of perspective? Are they just "points of view"? Just toss these things around in your mind a bit?
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Consensus?
I found this piece today in a news source I shall refrain from identifying. Let's just say that the source definitely would be guilty of ideology. The Cato Institute (cited in the source) is of course a Libertarian group. The same group that hailed Lawrence v. Texas as a return to the fundamental freedoms envisioned by the Founders. You just can't be sure where the ideology of Libertarians will take them. If you're seeing the world as either conservative or liberal, I mean. (Funny what has happened to words deriving from liber, isn't it?)
(Adam P: If you're reading this, why don't you weigh in on freedom and liberty and privacy and stuff.)
Anyway, can anybody verify the contents of this? I'm embarrassed to say that I don't follow this issue except through the opinions of others. I mean, I don't even read climatologists let alone evaluate them. From where I've been sitting this winter and spring, the world is definitely getting cooler. I've always been a stewardship/recycling/conserving/nature-loving kind of person. I was really glad when Geneva Steel shut down and stopped polluting the valley air. The carbon credits idea seems kind of stupid, or at least unworkable, to me. That's about it for me.
(Another aside: Interesting that when we read "with all due respect" we can be certain that disrespect is about to follow.)
Here it is:
Over 100 prominent scientists from more than a dozen countries — including a Nobel Prize winner — have signed a letter to President Barack Obama charging that his views on climate change are “simply incorrect.” The letter — sponsored by the Cato Institute — cites a statement Obama made in November: “Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.”
Under the headline, “With all due respect, Mr. President, that is not true,” the scientists state: “We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now…
“The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior. Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.”
The 115 signatories include Ivar Giaever, Ph.D., who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 for his work with superconductors at General Electric; John Blaylock, formerly with the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Richard Lindzen, Ph.D., at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and William Gray, Ph.D., the respected hurricane expert at Colorado State University.
The signers include scientists at Princeton University, U.S. Naval Academy, University of Kansas, University of Oklahoma, University of Colorado, and University of Missouri. Among the countries represented by the signers are Britain, Canada, Italy, Norway, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Argentina and South Africa.
A number of the scientists are current or former reviewers with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with climate change crusader Al Gore — and have since reversed their views on man-made global warming.
(Adam P: If you're reading this, why don't you weigh in on freedom and liberty and privacy and stuff.)
Anyway, can anybody verify the contents of this? I'm embarrassed to say that I don't follow this issue except through the opinions of others. I mean, I don't even read climatologists let alone evaluate them. From where I've been sitting this winter and spring, the world is definitely getting cooler. I've always been a stewardship/recycling/conserving/nature-loving kind of person. I was really glad when Geneva Steel shut down and stopped polluting the valley air. The carbon credits idea seems kind of stupid, or at least unworkable, to me. That's about it for me.
(Another aside: Interesting that when we read "with all due respect" we can be certain that disrespect is about to follow.)
Here it is:
Over 100 prominent scientists from more than a dozen countries — including a Nobel Prize winner — have signed a letter to President Barack Obama charging that his views on climate change are “simply incorrect.” The letter — sponsored by the Cato Institute — cites a statement Obama made in November: “Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.”
Under the headline, “With all due respect, Mr. President, that is not true,” the scientists state: “We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now…
“The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior. Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.”
The 115 signatories include Ivar Giaever, Ph.D., who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 for his work with superconductors at General Electric; John Blaylock, formerly with the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Richard Lindzen, Ph.D., at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and William Gray, Ph.D., the respected hurricane expert at Colorado State University.
The signers include scientists at Princeton University, U.S. Naval Academy, University of Kansas, University of Oklahoma, University of Colorado, and University of Missouri. Among the countries represented by the signers are Britain, Canada, Italy, Norway, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Argentina and South Africa.
A number of the scientists are current or former reviewers with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with climate change crusader Al Gore — and have since reversed their views on man-made global warming.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Hope
One of my children sent me a link this morning to an interesting article about Freeman Dyson, and in particular about his take on the climate change issue. Find it here.
I have always found Freeman Dyson to be a rather intriguing person (one of those beyond-brilliant types who kept his balance), and this article might explain why. (Father of six, grandfather of sixteen for starters.) The article is quite long, and you'll need to be able to access the New York Times online to read it (it's free), but I predict that you might find it worth the trouble.
Here is one quote from early on in the article that gives a look at the kind of person Dyson is: "The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes.”
Seemed to suit our purposes here.
By the way, I haven't given up on my hope that you will think about discussing purity and virtue in this forum.
I have always found Freeman Dyson to be a rather intriguing person (one of those beyond-brilliant types who kept his balance), and this article might explain why. (Father of six, grandfather of sixteen for starters.) The article is quite long, and you'll need to be able to access the New York Times online to read it (it's free), but I predict that you might find it worth the trouble.
Here is one quote from early on in the article that gives a look at the kind of person Dyson is: "The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes.”
Seemed to suit our purposes here.
By the way, I haven't given up on my hope that you will think about discussing purity and virtue in this forum.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Walls, Part 3
Find an interesting follow-up to the Rachel video from the first post, here.
Don't hesitate to think about and discuss items 1-3 in the Zion's Walls, part 2 post.
What's "contention"? What could turn a difference of opinion, such as the one, say, between Christian & Mike in the Zion's Walls 2 post, into a contentious situation?
I know you have thought about this and might be bored by thinking about it some more. And perhaps the answer is too obvious for fruitful discussion (I don't think so, or I wouldn't be bringing it up, but you know how I like to hedge my bets). But what, really, does the Lord mean when he says that if we are not "one" we are not his?
Spring is coming! Rejoice!!!
Don't hesitate to think about and discuss items 1-3 in the Zion's Walls, part 2 post.
What's "contention"? What could turn a difference of opinion, such as the one, say, between Christian & Mike in the Zion's Walls 2 post, into a contentious situation?
I know you have thought about this and might be bored by thinking about it some more. And perhaps the answer is too obvious for fruitful discussion (I don't think so, or I wouldn't be bringing it up, but you know how I like to hedge my bets). But what, really, does the Lord mean when he says that if we are not "one" we are not his?
Spring is coming! Rejoice!!!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Zion's Walls, Part 2
Ponder and respond as you desire:
1. What does it mean to be "pure in heart"? What is a "pure heart"?
2. What does it mean (what is it like) to "let virtue garnish [your] thoughts unceasingly"?
3. What does it mean to "forgive all men"?
4. In a time of great national pain, Abraham Lincoln famously recommended "malice toward none" and "charity for all." How does this work for you when you feel malice coming towards you?
5. How does all of this play out, for example, when you encounter something like HBO has just pulled on "Big Love"? If you didn't see it, don't go looking. If you did see it, how did you feel?
Even having read the Church's pre-broadcast response, I just wasn't prepared for my own reaction to this desecration. (For those of you who haven't seen it, "Joe the Plumber" has posted the link in his comment to our first blog post, below.)
Anyway, opportunity for reflection. The times, they are a-changin'! Thoughts?
1. What does it mean to be "pure in heart"? What is a "pure heart"?
2. What does it mean (what is it like) to "let virtue garnish [your] thoughts unceasingly"?
3. What does it mean to "forgive all men"?
4. In a time of great national pain, Abraham Lincoln famously recommended "malice toward none" and "charity for all." How does this work for you when you feel malice coming towards you?
5. How does all of this play out, for example, when you encounter something like HBO has just pulled on "Big Love"? If you didn't see it, don't go looking. If you did see it, how did you feel?
Even having read the Church's pre-broadcast response, I just wasn't prepared for my own reaction to this desecration. (For those of you who haven't seen it, "Joe the Plumber" has posted the link in his comment to our first blog post, below.)
Anyway, opportunity for reflection. The times, they are a-changin'! Thoughts?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Zion's Walls Shall Ring with Praise
Welcome to my new blog!
Even though I have once again well and truly retired from teaching, I find that I am as anxious as ever about the welfare of the Youth of Zion. So I wanted to create a place for a sort of ongoing class discussion: no lectures (just some links), no assignments, no tests, NO GRADES! A sort of virtual über classroom.
I have begun by contacting all former students whose e-mail addresses I have. If you are reading this and know of former classmates, please let them know? I have also invited my children and their spouses, and the children of some of my friends. In other words, people under the age of, say, 45 who are used to me. The young folks. I realize that it is possible for this to reach some of my ancient Freshman English students who are older than I am. If that is you, just take your arthritis medication and play along.
Here are the rules:
- You will expect, of course, a good dose of The World According to Thayer, but the point is class participation.
- Please feel free to comment upon anything that interests you. Sign with your name or an alias so that others may respond to you.
- I will moderate the blog comments to maintain what I feel to be a positive ... dare I say uplifting? at least encouraging ... tone.
A few more guidelines:
- Critical thinking required, of course.
- Controversy welcome, though no contention (see 3 Nephi 11:29 and 4 Nephi 1:15) please.
- Questions, queries, doubts, concerns are welcome and potentially appropriate.
- However ... I will post NO LDS-bashing, no Church-bashing of any sort. You don't have to believe, but if you don't like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you won't be happy here. In fact, due to the observations in the third bullet above, your comments may not appear on this blog even though I love you a lot.
- In the political realm, we should in general discuss ideas, policies maybe, but not people (except to praise, quote, recommend). This is going to be tricky, but we'll see how it goes. What I mean, specifically, is that I don't intend this to be a campaign debate forum.
- We are no longer inside a BYU classroom, but the Honor Code still applies.
- The Thirteenth Article of Faith also applies. We seek after whatever is virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy. In other words, alarming can be good; alarmist not so much.
- I expect you might want to split off into individual conversations or group discussions. I won't follow you there unless invited. And even then maybe not. Feel free to invite people to your personal blogs.
- If you're looking for true love, please post your vita or a nice, concise, well-constructed one-page resumé. (Just kidding. I mean post an unretouched photo. [Just kidding.])
Okay, let's get started.
Watch and respond to this: Interview with a Russian Defector.
Or to this: Harvard LDS Student Faces Questions.
Or just introduce yourself and share something that interests or concerns you at the moment.
Or throw out a provocative question.
I'll look forward to hearing from you!
Faithfully your DDT
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