Out of the Mold

At some point in my past I joined the Woundup with a "ring" of LDS blogs as a way of participating in the broader discussion of all things Mormon. Since then the Woundup has become my political arm; a collection of essays with broader socio-political undertones that don't really fit with the doctrinal discussions found on what has now become the "Bloggernacle." My writings on The Inner Dad are much better suited to the Bloggernacle overall, but I have no idea how to effect a change. Who's in charge? Who decides who gets to be a member at large? It's probably more trouble than it's worth to find out and have them switch over.

On the other hand, the Woundup makes for an amusing juxtaposition of worldly snark on top of otherwise sincere attempts to find some spiritual common ground among the more active Bloggernaclers. One will see on any given day posts related to anything from fasting to gay Mormon issues to what Brigham Young really did to foment the whole Mountain Meadows thing. Suddenly, in jumps ol' Woody calling liberals something out of a Faustian nightmare and barking about how the United Nations is just a cover for the Illuminati (no, I didn't actually write that, but I've thought it many times). Not what you'd call "standard Bloggernacle fare," by any means. I chuckle a lot whenever I bother to look at the two or three LDS aggregators out there and see just how out of place the Woundup really is.

It was, in fact, a blog calling itself "Mormon Shadow" (seemingly defunct now) that called me "pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool upright, uptight Mormon who has little use for those who don't swallow either the mormon dogma or the republican party line." I laughed then, and I'm still laughing now. Mostly because it's true. I am a fairly dyed-in-the-wool kind of Latter-day Saint. I will say, however, that it's not so much that I have "little use" for those who disagree with me. I may lack patience, I suppose, but it's just because whatever else I am, I am also a dyed-in-the-wool curmudgeon. It's also a studied personality quirk of mine. I am an actor by nature, and a character actor by birth and breeding. I don't play leading men or heroes of any kind; I portray the weasels and snarks of society. I do it well. So if I appear brusque on occasion, it's only because I have rehearsed it long and hard over the past forty or so years.

This by way of stating that the Woundup is a lousy barometer of my spirituality. A tad over three years ago I started The Inner Dad as a family-oriented (and, by extension, a more spiritual) blog. It is there that I post my inner-most thoughts and feelings, as well as no small amount of bluster in regards to my oh-so-put-upon status as a father.

I am a little surprised, however, that the Bloggernacle at large seems to have overlooked something very significant that happened in this just-completed General Conference. The Sunday sessions were wonderful. Every talk seemed to resonate with me on a spiritual level, and I found myself wondering whether the next talk could possibly measure up to the one just ended. When President Monson stood up to speak at the end of the morning session, however, I found myself completely mesmerized. About midway through his talk I looked at Mrs. Woody and said something about just having witnessed the prophetic mantle on President Monson's shoulders. She agreed with me, and we watched the remainder of his talk in quiet awe.

We of course got busy between sessions with lunch and wiggle time for the Woodyettes (who, it must be noted, sat through all four sessions this time!). So we didn't get much time to discuss what we'd witnessed before the next session began. When Elder Holland stood and immediately voiced what we ourselves had felt during President Monson's talk, I knew we'd had a significant experience on par with any other spiritual manifestation of the restoration.

So I've been somewhat dismayed tonight to surf around the Bloggernacle a bit and find (so far) only one reference to the "prophetic mantle" by way of a summary of Elder Holland's remarks.

Did no one outside of Hacienda Woody feel what we felt? Or was I just first out of the box with my comments? Perhaps I'm just not looking hard enough.

I had assumed (here's my original post) that others must have felt it as well. Perhaps the very nature of the experience was personal enough that no one wants to post it on the Bloggernacle for all the world to see. I hope that's the case.

It may be possible that it's more an indicator of where my own spiritual journey has taken me over the past few years. I've always had a firm testimony of the gospel, even though I've been through my own ups and downs. Yet this entire conference was very easy for me to experience. In times past I may have harbored some small resistance to, say, President Packer talking about music in the Church, or anyone who reminds me — for the 329th time — that my family history is seriously lacking. But not this conference. There wasn't a single talk that made me at all uncomfortable. Most, in fact, lifted my soul in ways I'd forgotten were even possible. I appreciated the fact that several of the Twelve attempted to put a more human face on these Priesthood leaders. (Contrary to several Bloggernaclers out there, I loved Elder Ballard's talk about sitting with his kids in Sacrament meeting. Been there, done that!)

Whatever the case, I was spiritually fed, and fed well. If the Spirit were measured in calories, I'd be in serious need of some fiber along about now. But this kind of food needs to be digested over a long period of time. This is a time of examining my initial impressions and seeing where they take me.

I'm looking forward to the ride.

Woody Reponds to a Commenter

This is in response to one of my commenters. Dennis makes the case that Mormons should support Obama, and has some well-crafted and carefully thought-out reasons why. My own response exceeded Haloscan's limit of 3,000 characters, so I'm responding here. Take a look at Dennis' post if you'd like better background on his comments to me.

Dennis,

I will have to agree to disagree with you.

Yes, fear is a powerful principle indeed. But I reject the idea that fear-mongering is a purely Republican device. Go back to any past election and tell me, exactly, where one candidate or another did NOT engage in some sort of fear-mongering in order to keep the other fellow out of office.

Your boy Obama (and Clinton, too) can talk "hope" and "change" all he wants, but there's a very real underlying message of FEAR that McCain will mean another four years of Bush doctrine in the White House. They can spin it any ol' which way they want, but it fails the duck test.

Also, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you or I happen to be LDS. I largely have to rely on my personal feelings and beliefs in political affairs because (news flash) the Spirit has not given Pres. Monson leave to announce from the pulpit that either McCain or Obama (or Huckabee, or Clinton II) should get the Mormon vote in this election. You and I both know it doesn't work that way. Apparently the Spirit, which should be informing our more critical decisions, has brought you into Obama's camp, while driving me into McCain's (if somewhat reluctantly). (Actually, I'd thought the Spirit had prompted me to support Romney. Apparently not.)

Or, it could just be that the Spirit is really directing me to live my life honestly, love my fellow man while hating the sin that permeates every nook and cranny of this society, raise my children to love the Lord first, and let me make my own informed decisions on who should get my vote.

Since you bring up the issue of why Mormons should support one candidate or another, let's step back a bit and take the apocryphal view: Given that the world as a whole is spiritually diseased and that the current political climate has enabled every sort of vice and contempt for eternal law imaginable, whomever we support for higher offices in this country is ultimately going to make little or no difference in how that climate evolves over the next four years. It's a joint effort, truly, and neither side can boast of supporting God's ideas over and above their own. If they were able to make that claim, there would be no law allowing abortion for any but the most serious of medical reasons, prayer would still be allowed in our schoolrooms, and the name of God would not cause shame in our courtrooms. There would be no need for universal health care proposals because we as a society would already be taking care of those less fortunate than ourselves, without need for the Government to force us to do so.

I, personally, would have preferred that Bush had waited for a Helaman-like prophet to say "thus sayeth the Lord" before marching into Baghdad. But now that we're there, I'd prefer that we do the job right and make sure that a 9/11 never happens again. As it is, I have no such confidence, whether a McCain supports the surge, or an Obama sets forth a timetable for withdrawal. Terrorists exist precisely because fear is every bit as powerful a principle as I've already alluded.

If I read the conference reports correctly, many have preached that things will only get worse before the Second Coming, and I have no expectation that either an Obama or a McCain is going to improve our lot on that score. Even Romney, inspired man that he may be, wouldn't have been able to do more than make token progress against that condition. Whether you put any credence in the "prophecy" or not, I still believe that this country is truly headed for a constitutional crisis, and that only the faith of the Church as a whole - Republican and Democrat (and Libertarian and Green Party) alike - is going to save it. I don't recall the prophecy saying anything about only Republican elders saving the constitution.

So you continue to sound the trump for Obama, and I'll continue to harangue McCain until (or unless) he gets it right. In the end, it's still a democratic - not an eternal - process in which we're engaged. We can only pray that our choices keep the Evil One at bay.

And I don't mean Clinton.

Well... maybe I do. ;-)

This is Precisely Why...

...the church requires living prophets.

To Huckabee and (Particularly) His Supporters

You do NOT know or understand what I believe as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You only make yourselves look foolish when you attempt to talk authoritatively on the subject.

At this stage of my life, if no one has successfully shaken my faith by now, no one ever will.

Give it a rest. We're not choosing a president because we somehow believe that this person will attempt to convert huge chunks of America to whatever they happen to believe. We want to choose a president who will do what we think is best for the country. If this election were about religion — and only about religion — I would never vote for a man who claims to love Jesus but clearly refuses to accept his fellow man as Jesus would have him do, simply because that man chooses to believe something different.

Until the Huckabites understand that, their arguments are empty.

Commenters who wish to disparage my post will kindly leave links to advertising or interviews where Romney has directly spoken against Huckabee's personal beliefs. Thank you.

The Anti-Christian Jihad Continues

(H/T: Mrs. Woody)

From the StatesmanJournal in Salem, Oregon we find this column by Michelle Malkin. The column details attempts by two different school districts to hold "terrorism drills" as part of a commendable effort to prepare their students against the possibility of an attack. Most unfortunately, they chose to use "Christians" in their portrayals of terrorists who would threaten the lives of their students in these drills.

I well remember the first incident. In Muskegon County, Michigan, administrators chose to have their terrorists be "crazed Christian homeschoolers." (I could have sworn I'd written something about it at the time, but an exhaustive search of this blog fails to find any evidence of such a post.) Being a Christian homeschooler I was, of course, incensed. What could these idiot administrators have been thinking? The obvious inference, naturally, is that the local NEA affiliate likely has "Christian Homeschoolers" at the top of a list of subversive elements that may well organize to attack a public school.

Speaking as a Christian homeschooler let me be the first to say, "Are you OUT OF YOUR MINDS?" Homeschoolers, as a whole, are the most disorganized bunch of people I've ever met. You ever try to coordinate more than three families to have a Play Day at a park? And you think we're suddenly going to burst into a public school and start taking hostages? The far more likely threat is that one family might wander onto your campus, find an open classroom (because the air conditioning isn't working. Again.) and embarrass the class by winning their own spelling bee.

So the idea that Muskegon even considered using homeschoolers (and not just any homeschoolers, but those dreaded Christian homeschoolers) as their prototypical terrorists is painfully ludicrous. If this clumsy attempt at appeasement is laughable, those of us who homeschool are not laughing.

Moving on, then, we find another incident as recent as last month. In New Jersey, one high school chose to use a "right-wing fundamentalist" group - fictional, one assumes - who "don't believe in the separation of Church and state." "Right-wing" always equates to "Christian" it goes without saying. Just as "polygamist" always equates to "Mormon." So this right-wing fundamentalist organization - which was probably long since disavowed by any reputable Christian faith - becomes the bad guy in this exercise. All done in the interests of not offending Muslims who have been feeling the heat ever since 9/11.

I do have to admit that the second scenario is somewhat more likely than the first. Certainly we've seen our fair share of "fundamentalist" whack-jobs over the years who have chosen to take vigilantism to the next level. Cults abound in this country, and many people who have very loose grips on reality claim that God has told them to do some reprehensible act in his name. Whether we should consider these people to be "terrorists" is really just a matter of semantics. I myself would be more likely to use gangs - all of whom I personally consider to be terrorists - if I were organizing a terrorism drill for my school. They tend to be just as well armed as your basic fundamentalist, and most of them are battle-hardened veterans of the turf wars.

The point is, I'm sure that there are many, many examples of violent subcultures that these school administrators could have used to represent the evil terrorists. But they chose to use Christians, or those who are identified as Christians, rather than risk offending some other belief system. Which begs the question: If it's not acceptable to offend Muslims in this way, why should it be any more acceptable to offend Christians?

The answer is that they just didn't think about it that way. Really. The fact is that we in this country have a long-standing tradition of making fun of religious people. This tradition has mutated over time into a sort of ironic cultural jihad against organized religion of any kind. This is the only explanation for such phenomena as "The Simpsons," "South Park," and "Congress."

Well, Burlington Township, I'm offended. Truly, truly offended. So offended, in fact, that I may have to protest in front of our local public school district offices. Taking a point from Seattle anarchists, maybe I'll even burn an NEA union leader in effigy. Surely that wouldn't offend anyone?

Llamas and the Anglican Church

One needs to be extremely careful when reviewing Robbo's ongoing Episcopalian Church Deathwatch. Be particularly careful following links he puts in his posts, as they can lead to, um, rather colorful language and imagery.

That said, this is precisely why I prefer belonging to a restored church rather than a (prolifically) protesting one.

Good luck and best wishes to all my Episcopalian friends, assuming I have any left.

About Mayan Purification Rites

They don't typically work. Given the fact that Guatemalan indigenous peoples have lived in obscurity and poverty for hundreds of years, I would submit that any purification rendered would be (to put it generously) symbolic at best. Guatemala's political past is riddled with tin-hat military dictators, Marxist crackpots, U. S. puppet-governments, and smatterings of leaders "of the people" who typically fiddled while indigenous factions burned. Literally.

If I read things correctly, this Juan Tiney has actually done what LDS missionaries to the region have been accused of for generations: exploiting the Maya. If you remove yourself from the less rural regions of Iximche and Lake Atitlan, it doesn't take long to find settlements of Maya who not only have no idea who George W. Bush is, they also couldn't care less. George W. has no effect on their ability to plant and harvest corn or beans. George W. is not the reason why they need to move their adobe huts from one corner of their land to another. All they know (or care) is that they have work to do. Politics is for those who have time on their hands.

Yes, I'm sure that Mr. Tiney was able to find very sincere Mayan "priests" (shamans, really) who are eager to purify the land after Bush leaves. Just be sure to ask them how life has been since they last purified it after one of their own government officials visited the place.