What the bloggernacle means to me

With the Banner of Heaven retrospective going on over at Bloggernacle Times it has made me reflect somewhat on what the whole bloggernacle might mean to me.

Historically I came to the bloggernacle later than most.  After being heavily involved in political blogging I had only read a few LDS blogs once in a while and mostly read the FAIR website for its semi-once-in-a-while articles.  I ended up reading blogs in earnest in the spring of 2006 because I got thinking that if there are so many blogs about so many subjects then there must be a large LDS blog populace.  I was not wrong.

At the time I had no desire to start my own blog I just wanted to get a feel for what other Latter-day Saints thought in the world.  It was then that I found the Mormon Archipelago.  Using its links I was able to find a number of blogs.  Some I found were ones that were easy to gravitate to and others were sometimes thought provoking and others were, well, not my cup of tea.  I am not alone in this discovery nor particularly new at it.

Most of us I think find the Bloggernacle in similar fashion.

For me commenting on issues was fun, I thought after a while if I got invited to a bigger blog I would probably be willing to do so.  But mostly I did not know the crowd so I supported the ones I liked and commented as often as I could.

After leaving my political jobs and returning the university I felt like starting my own LDS blog would be a good way to share some of my history research with everyone, LDS history I found was a popular topic on the blogs I read.  It was about that time that the Juvenile Instructor started up.  So we were kind of kin to one another as same era blogs.

I have over the past couple of years floated around blogging very inconsistently due to just being too busy or less interested in LDS blogging.   This burn out phase has hit more often than I would admit but at the same time I am writing for a number of things so after a while I just found myself getting burned out and not having a lot to say on some issues.  Again this can and does happen.  Lots of rich writers and commentators on the bloggernacle have fallen off and in some cases gotten back on.

After four years I can say that I know what I appreciate about the bloggernacle.   It is a two fold thing that I want to express.

1.  I think the LDS Blogs offer perspectives and thinking that at once can be revelationary and on another side can be mundane or hostile.  Each of these have their place, I know some blogs I have read have challenged me from all three and some that bored me from all three.   Yet each category has reached me at different times when I was looking for different things.  Blogs I do not normally frequent, Feminist Mormon Housewives and Mormon Mommy Wars have both offered me something I can think about.

2.   The intellectual contributions and out of the box thinking, this is something the blogs can do to help develop ideas of faith.  They are out growths of Dialogue and Sunstone magazines, where some of this began.  In some ways it reminds me of the ancient and medieval philosophers who helped to set ideas about religious institutions.  Often I see Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides and Al-Ghazali in some of the discussions about the role of God, the foreknowledge of the Father, and in the role and place we have in the afterlife.  In some ways these discussions are mind blowing but in others they advance religious understanding and conformity which is more developed than your garden variety Sunday School meeting.

In ways the bloggernacle has added to my understanding of gospel topics, and has blown some of my own preconceptions away.  I love it when it does that and this more than anything else is the reason I return to understand and grow both in intelligence and in faith.    That for me is what the bloggernacle has meant to me.

Pilgrimage sites and their significance in Mormonism

Above are four of the major religious centres of worship for Christians, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism.  These sites have significants for different people.

For followers of Islam making the Hajj is seen as important part of fulfilling religious observance.  For various reasons people go to these sites seeking to build a relationship with their deity, or with an enlightened state.   In each case worshippers have their ways of showing that devotion.  In the Hajj one of the important points is to stone the devil or Ramy al-Jamarat as a part of their purification ritual.

In Judaism praying at the Western Wall of the temple, the Wailing Wall, is seen as a way to achieve more purity, the prayer there is worth more than a normal prayer.

In Christianity, especially in Catholic and Orthodox circles, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has taking on a holy pilgrimage point since the early medieval period.  It is considered the traditional site of Jesus Christ death and burial place.  (in Protestant and Mormon circles the Garden Tomb is more popular)

This Sunday while sitting in Priesthood one person brought up the idea of following the pioneer trail.  I know there are other mentions of the sense of pilgrimage for Mormon sites.  The way this person described the ideal of touring the pioneer trail, it reminded me of this need for pilgrimage.  I am not ridiculing anyone who wants to visit these sites or find meaning in them but I recognized within them the beginnings of a similar process created by other faiths.

In Kathleen Flake’s book there was an active discussion about the concept that the First Presidency in early 1900s began this process of focusing on the places of early Mormon history as sites for holy places.  In a way they became modern versions of these other places, though my example of the Great Buddha was put up in the 1980s apparently.

I think of Carthage jail and see similarities to the visiting of the St. Thomas Becket’s shrine and relics by medieval pilgrims in England as having a similar sense of relation.  The idea of visiting the sites of martyrs is a ancient tradition.  In this people find a sense of meaning and purpose which transcends the death of the martyr, it builds of sense of unity with that martyr to visit the place.  Certainly as a youngster I still remember the visit I made to the Carthage Jail and to the hill Cumorah.  They left indelible impressions on me in how I feel towards Joseph Smith.

So if one was to project this forward will these significant sites develop within the church that it becomes critical site for pilgrimage in the same way that the more ancient sites have been for other faiths?   Will it be seen as a test of faith to go see the grave of the prophet?

In North America the repeating of the pioneer trek has been something of modern pilgrimage given for youth to experience.  We talk often of the times we have gone to the early church sites, in Britain this is also been developed with the Preston site.   For me this confirms the argument that the dedication of the monument in 1905 to mark Joseph Smith’s birth 100 years previous brought the church out of its beginnings and into the a different more establishment phase.  With it created a series of marking points of pilgrimage which Mormons across the world could develop a sense of unity.

In the end is that very different that the establishment of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by Constantine in 325.  It too was used to mark the place of Christ’s death and create a point for Christian pilgrims to travel to from across the Roman world.  I see in these parallels a sense of unity, and a sense of purpose for the faithful.

Emotions and war

September 11th has become almost a universal day in some respects for remembering.  In some cases it is more painful frothan it is for others.  I cannot imagine the horror of losing a loved one in war no matter how it happened.  Days like today remind you that it touches many.  A couple of years ago I wrote my own memorial and have since then only glanced over the day when it comes.

Today however was different.  Today reminded me of a statement Mormon in Alma 43:

46 And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies.

47 And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion.

In other words they would not have gone to war except that the Lamanites, through Nephites who resented the leaders of their society, continually agitated for war. This meant that they felt they were fighting because they had no choice so they would not allow themselves to be subject to people who would take away their freedom.

Leave well enough alone

this post could also be entitled:

Your so vain you probably think this blog is about you…

I am not one to bring out family dirty laundry via posts.  In fact I have always couched anyone other than my immediate family in vague terms.  My family are not perfect, far from it.  My family converted to the church when I was three.  In that family there was a number of habits which still exist to this day.  Each of us bares our own responsibility for what is our portion of the family problems and we all should be a part of fixing them.

Sometimes this can be confusing and sometimes they can be impossible.  We are all tried by our own hang ups and false impressions.

Given this, my father went to my temple wedding.  He stood outside with those of my relatives that could not enter the temple.   I wished at the time and still honestly feel it would have been united as a family at that time like we were when we were sealed in 1973.  I love my father, I know we have problems but honestly, I am happy I am who I am and I am mindful of what he gave me.  He may not always know that but last year he was a great blessing in giving me a place to stand knowing his respect for me and love.

That may seem sentimental, but for me it is a startling admission.  One I make happily.  We may have fought, we may have come close to a punch out and I was kicked out of my house once, but yet in all that, when my chips were down my father has stood behind me, how can I not acknowledge that.

But this is not about him.

Testimony: a meeting with belief

For years during my mission, and for many afterwards I believe I understood what a testimony was for me.

It was simple, heartfelt and about Christ.

For years I have found myself tuning out of fast and testimony meeting because so much of it is none of those things.  They are not what I consider to be testimonies.  They often are faith promoting stories, on their best days.

So usually I confess to being a bit skeptical of what members can and do give.  During my time however I have found a real connection with the testimonies of those who I know have had trials.  I know that what they have been given has come with struggle, with a fight and a fierce sense that they have come through the test.

Honestly, when I see those people give a testimony I am finding myself a little bit weepy and emotional, or spiritually charged.

My wife yesterday did both to me.

For more than two years she has been struggling.  Our life has not gone to any sort of plan, and as these things go they start with a life changing experience.  I was fired from a previous job.

Nearly three years later I still do not see a happy ending on the financial front in sight.  Though I completed my degree I have not made the progress from that I thought I could.  As I have chronicled here it left me feeling wasted and weak in spirit.

For the last year I have been fighting an uphill climb.  All the while knowing that my wife had fought a deeper and more emotional one.  For her the past six years have been extremely difficult.  She has been fighting depression for a long time and at times it has made life difficult for her and all of us.  It is not an easy road, the past year has been my deep row to hoe.

So it surprised me, knowing what I know, to see my wife get on her feet and bear a strong sapling of a testimony.  I was both strengthened by it and brought to a great deal of emotion.  It reminded me of how much she had been my rock for the much of our marriage.

The reason for all this introspection comes as our eight year old twins got baptized this weekend.   They were originally born in Wales and were our shock which changed our life forever.  Little did we know that out family would go from two to four overnight in 2000 when my wife discovered she was pregnant.

But now, so many years later I had the great pleasure of taking them and baptizing them.  I felt the spirit stronger than I had in a long time.

I think my wife did too, it created a feeling of warmth and love that we both missed in our church attendance over the last year.

So returning to where I started, I found that my testimony remains simple.   It is best.  It should be unencumbered by dubious “faith promotion” geared in the Saviour and our link to our common family here on earth and to our heavenly parents.

I love that idea I still find in all the years that simple is best.  For me I met my testimony once again, no longer the weak man, stumbling along the road, barely clinging for dear life against the flood of “the world” instead it sits proud and above waving the standard of Zion.

It is good to have him back.

Why read your lesson?

A small pet peeve of mine came up the other day.  Let me begin by saying I am not the worlds most prepared teacher.  There have been times when I taught Priesthood reading the lesson right until the end so I could talk about something.

When I was in my final year of undergraduate I had to do several presentations for my history class, generally I did them without notes which drove my professor nuts.  So yeah maybe I am not the most sympathetic soul.

Teaching Moroni’s promise

My son is about to give his first talk in Sacrament meeting on Sunday.  It will be interesting to see how it goes.  Most of my kids have spoken in Primary before, but those are basically reading talks, they are given a set script and they just read the lines.

This time I wanted to sit down and get some input, get him to own the talk a bit.  At twelve speaking is an intimidating process but it is something that gives him a chance to grow and I am happy he had the experience.  Given that statement I also want him to understand what he is talking about so that he is just not doing a seminary answer talk, where he reads the latest story from the Ensign, New Era or Friend.