Whew! I sure have learned a lot the last two weeks. It started when I got a text from my mom asking me to come fly down (alone) for my brother’s graduation from law school. That was what triggered the mother/daughter dream that I blogged about in strong and immovable vs. steadfast love. In the dream the mother daughter bond was so strong, but in real life I have a very poor relationship with my mother. It’s hard to be honest, but it’s been poor for a very long time, but always I craved things from her, she grew unable as the years continued to pass, to give. Such as true love and genuine affection. In fact, the more deeply my parents waded into lds church obedience, the less capable of love they both became. That was the point of the dream, that is what the dream has been teaching me these last two (few?) weeks. At first it was very upsetting. In fact, just 9 days after the dream I had a huge burst of honesty, and frustration and a little anger, at my mom. I soon regret the anger, but I realize that I probably wouldn’t ever be able to communicate my need without that driving force. 10 days later, on the phone, I told my mom things she will never be able to hear, understand, believe, or internalize. It was so much water off a ducks back (except for the offense. She took offense and as a blameless victim, from her Christlike pedestal, will condescend to let me know she loves me anyway, I mean always).

“She’s not a person, but a glorified being on a pedestal to be admired. Standing fast and immovable.”

And that is the glory of her LDSism. At least she has that.

After I missed the day of the graduation I went ahead and drove down, with the 6 youngest kids, 3 hours north of there and stayed with my sister. It actually worked out to be a significant part of this whole learning process, as apparently my sister has followed my mom down the path and mimicked the lds party line of uber self righteousness. I’m not sure she meant to, but with just her and myself in the car she gave me a testimony speech of facts that she knows 100% true due to personal experiences that Heavenly Father is real and true, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the 100% one and only true, valid, real vehicle to return us all, as many people as possible, to Him. – So, p.s. wrapped up in that is the invalid, false, 100% completely unimportant truth of my own personal experiences, in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

That was the first day we got there, and I almost left right then. I almost packed up those precious children of mine and drove straight back home. But we stayed, because they love their cousins so, and we stuck to the plan. I’m sure glad we did! We had a nice time after that and really enjoyed ourselves, but we also learned some very important things:

1. We have no longings for unknown things connected to our family (cousins).

2. We have no regrets for the way we live our lives.

3. We are at peace with the way things are, happy we went, happy still to leave when we did and go back home. (My 18 yo, Trenton, voiced these).

4. We are excited to come home and be us!! We are just right exactly as we are right now in this moment, and it’s beautiful. (That one came from me).

Yet we all agreed and speak for one another. We are us. We are so good. We are valid, important, and truthful. And though our truths are different from others truths, our experiences are facts as well. We can have an inner knowing, even during an outer performance to destroy our personal facts.

Yesterday I was listening to Mythology and Western civilization lecture 5 Cicero and the natural law, from Liberty Classroom. The professor did not actually come out and say it, but was quite clear that the American republic is dead, the spirit of constitutional republicanism was believed by those living at the time to have died by 1805. The form of the constitutional republic has died at some point too though I can’t say when. But I’d never actually allowed myself to let it sink in, to believe it to be true, or heard the idea as thought of and conceived by another. Suddenly I felt tremendous relief, such a horrible weight lifted from my shoulders. When Micah and I first woke up to our awful situation we naively believed others would want to know and be awoken too. Then we felt that we need to fight to try and save the constitution, but after a few years the realization dawned on us that no one else wanted to do it, and that, and this was slower for me, that there was nothing worth saving anymore anyway. Now, with the realization that America as myth, the ideal constitutional form of government, is quite dead, that burden to save her is gone.

Perhaps the most relieving feeling of all is that I can acknowledge out loud that we currently, already, live in a despotic government. There is no reason to worry and fret and make myself ill over some future horrible event when I can realize it has already happened and somehow, in a simple way, we are living our lives as joyfully through as we can. The future has already happened.

I saw a cars bumper sticker this morning and it something to do with America. It was the persons idea of an imaginary America that is only dreamt of, and I knew that those dreams exist and are real, in different individual dreams, of what America can and ought to be. It’s all imaginary, and we are all in a deep deep sleep ….. so frequently a nightmare.

I had a dream in the early morning hours this morning before I woke up, it was a dream of a mother and daughter and their undeniable bond of love. As I lie in bed remembering the dream several different scripture themes came to my mind, the first was that we miss the mark. I vividly recall teaching the children years ago when they were quite young, how God/Heavenly Father, is this strong immovable figure that never varies or changes. We parents used a visual of an unmoving object and then showed that we were a finger on our hand, which, when the finger did something bad such fight and hit, or doesn’t share, or lies or sneaks or steals, that we, our finger, moves away from our Heavenly Father. As I recalled that lesson we taught to the children all those years ago, I thought the idea of us, as the created being, having all of the power of movement, while God, The all powerful, all knowing, all Being, was powerless and always remained immovable, incapable of reconciling the growing distance between a floundering child and a loving parent, was wholly absurd. I realized that we do indeed miss the mark, thinking ourselves more powerful than our Creator, with the idea that we have the power of movement while God does not. Surely, especially in the above analogy, we miss the mark.

The next thought to come to my mind was “stand strong and immovable”. I recalled the times in my mind that my own parents, especially my Dad as the patriarch and head of the family, has embodied the above analogy, being a physical image on this earth of our understanding of God the Father. Growing up, as my parents faced the perils and dangers of raising 7 children, with the oldest presenting unique challenges, more and more my parents, my Father, became that immovable figure, representing Heavenly Father, standing strong and immovable. In my imagination this morning my Dad was literally standing in the doorway entrance to an LDS chapel building. Standing irreconcilable, as a strong and immovable being, waiting for the lost child to return correctly, safely to the fold (of the loving chapel door arms).

That’s not always how my parents were though. Once, for most of childhood into adult life, the image I have, particularly of my mother, is someone who wades into the stream, whether ankle deep, mid thigh, or over the head, and stands strong and immovable in love with her children, whatever they are going through. I know many times, despite the fact that our mother taught us how to swim at a very young age and insured we were strong capable swimmers, my mother tread water with me and kept my head above water. I was the one stuck in an irreconcilable circumstance, my mother the being capable of the power of movement, coming to be strong for me in the situation I was in that called for it.

That was, is, love. That is what I believe it means to be strong and immovable. So I googled it. I couldn’t remember the exact words of the scripture or the scripture reference. I found was I was looking for, in a 2008 talk by David Bednar, Mosiah 5:15 “Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of him who created all things, in heaven and in earth, who is God above all. Amen.” There it was, and the word is steadfast, not strong, and immovable. Well, my mind immediately went to the phrase steadfast love, which is a very deep and profound theme in scripture that I learned while in my studies of the works by Dr. Margaret Barker.

Now the scripture theme that ran through my mind was steadfast love, which is another translation for covenant. And not the Moses or Abraham covenant that we’ve heard of and learned so much about, Moses covenant was for a law, Abraham’s covenant was for land, but rather the deeper, individual covenant, which both Moses and Abraham did enjoy with God, that can better be understood in today’s phrase cosmic consciousness or cosmic covenant.

The scriptures have some beautiful things to say about steadfast love, here are a few:

Hosea 6:6 “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

All is Psalms 136, but here is a sample “136 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
    for his steadfast love endures forever to him who alone does great wonders,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;”

Lamentations 3: 22-23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Psalm 86:15 “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

Exodus 34:6 “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,”

Then we move into the NT where we get examples of what God’s steadfast love looks like and examples on how to live it.

1John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

1Corinthians 13: 1-13 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; …”

Ephesians 2:4 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us ….”

1John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”

And finally, the beautiful description of how to live in steadfast love, in the covenant of loving kindness, as we have learned is the way our Father in Heaven deals we us, we have Matthew chapters 5, 6, & 7 known as The Sermon on the Mount.

And we have in the Book of Mormon King Benjamin’s talk to his people comprised in Mosiah chapters 2-5 where he exhorts the people to be steadfast and immovable in good works. Dear readers, chapter 5 tells us that they are given this exhortation AFTER they become sons and daughters in Christ, after they experienced a mighty change of heart.

Here is one of my very few notes that I actually took while I was studying through the materials of Dr. Barker. It was from one of her YouTube lectures, but may also be (the general idea) found in her pdf paper Creation Theology 2004. “Learning the secret things of the kingdom, how the kingdom ‘day 1’ was divided, how the actions of men were weighed in a balance. He saw all parts of the creation moving in their appointed ways, keeping faith with each other, in accordance with the oath, the covenant, covenant as it was understood before the Deuteronomists changed the emphasis, and applied it only to people keeping the law of Moses, rather than to the whole of creation, functioning within the bonds of the great covenant.”

After all of these meditations brought on by the few minutes of an early morning dream, my understanding is that we miss the mark on the deeper meaning of standing steadfast and immovable. Yet if we will repent, by allowing the softening of our hearts until we can turn to love, we can be brought into this covenant of steadfast love, and no longer remain in sin by missing the mark.

On a more personal level, maybe if I have discovered myself in a more firm position, standing on more solid ground, maybe I can be the one who chooses to love by wading into the deep waters to tread water with my parents and help them to keep their heads above water. This is a reciprocal relationship of loving kindness, and we each take the opportunity to show expressions of the love that God first gave to us.

I am listening to a lecture from Liberty Classroom called Mythology and Western Civilization. I’m on the 3rd lecture in the last 9 minutes when the professor talks about the pre Socratic philosophers, namely Heraclitus. They notice that nature works in patterns 4 seasons- 1, 2, 3, 4, and never 5, but back to 4 again. They saw the universality of man, that we are born, we grow, we hit middle age, we die. They wondered what animated mankind. They saw earth, wind, water, fire as the 4 elements that animated the world, but that it was fire that animated humans.

They believe that the 4 elements broke apart but that one of the elements is at the beginning or the originator. They couldn’t figure it out and didn’t understand but they asked the question. Later (maybe 100 years?) Zeno another Greek, comes along and founds a type of religion called Stoicism. He does this during a time of Greek change. Classical Greek has fallen and they have lost the polis, or the system of independent city states, and he is caught at this time of upheaval, he forms a popular belief where he lectures from his front porch (that is where the word stoic comes from).

As that world is changing Zeno says that the people will no longer find their identity in the Greek city state, polis, but in the universe. At the heart of Zeno’s teaching is the idea of Heraclitus about fire being the originator element, that word coined by him is Logos, the beginning of all things, the originator of all things, the word.

600 hundred years later St John would use that phrase in the most beautiful 14 word sentence. He writes it in Greek and uses the term that is 600 hundred years old, LOGOS. The word that John uses, the word he baptizes, is word, the primary animator of all matter. It is fire, it is imagination. This fire is the beginning of all matter and will be what consumes and is the end of all matter, Fire, Logos.

Whew! Well when I heard all of that last night I was incredibly struck. I feel like we are in a time of our society that is upheaval and change, that Fire was the message we were talking about from that video from the woman in Paris about Norte Dame. And that maybe it is a shift from identifying ourselves as a religious belief, or maybe even a citizen, and instead as a universal being. Idk. You got any ideas.

“The Gospel is supposed to be about Life IN Christ. The Apostle Paul used this term over 150 times in his writings and Jesus lived IT and mediates IT. Life IN Christ is about awakening to the reality of the nature of God and His/Her/Its presence in all of creation and as the source of existence and being. It is also about the realization of your oneness with these realities. When the reality and realization of this Life is “lost” in religion, two things are substituted–belief and authority. These “beliefs” tend to be about a set of doctrines and extraordinary or miraculous things. Authority is usually centered in some combination of holy books and human leaders & organizations. As Richard Rohr points out in The Universal Christ, neither Jesus nor Paul were limited by belief structures or authority. Both Jesus and Paul were challenged for exceeding or lacking authority in what they taught and did and for not acting within the limits of certain beliefs. Both challenged man made authority clothed in divine garb and both challenged conventional or false beliefs as they relied on direct knowledge and experience of and in God. Paul spoke often of liberty or freedom IN Christ and a refusal to limit or yoke oneself to man made religious codes or even foundational, spiritual laws that should be surpassed as one matures IN Christ (the proverbial “schoolmaster”). He was also careful to warn that liberty was not license, as in licentiousness. Oddly its the “saints” and the “sinners” who have no use for “law” and “code”.

I never cease to be amazed at how much power belief in things not directly known and dependence on authority rules people’s thoughts and vision. It did mine for many years so I should not be surprised but folks are settling for a “mess of pottage” (a bowl of stew) when the birthright of the fulness of Divine Nature is being offered!”

– Philip McLemore from a FB group Meditate with Phil

My husband and I are listening to Carl Jung’s autobiography, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections”. In it he rehearses a couple of episodes with his friend Sigmund Freud, who, in his quest to prove religions were fake and there is no God, turned his own psycho analysts beliefs into dogmas and practices, thus inadvertently creating a religion. Then we are reminded that Freud admits that all people have their own neurosis. When Jung cannot accept Freuds dogmas, and when he asks difficult questions, Freud literally faints. He simply cannot let go of his own neurosis and instead of succumbing to a psychotic break, he temporarily loses consciousness. Hahaha! This belief in a prophet, one that cannot fit the scriptural definition, is a neurosis, but fortunately they have large groups to support each other in their false belief. I truly would hate to see those who aren’t capable of facing those neurosis be pushed too hard that they lose it, it meaning their own individual psychosis. (I’m tempted in the extreme to say though, that maybe that’s the point of the whole exercise).

Anyway, it’s a good book. And though Jung never claims to be a prophet, I think he is much more likely to be one than any of the leaders of the lds church.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/04/04/mormon-church-allow-baptisms-blessings-children-lgbt-parents-reversing-policy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8b515e8d738b

These are a sorting through of thoughts that are not fully formed, no conclusions arrived at, just some observations that pose so far unformed questions in my mind.

These that follow are not meant to represent real definitions or beliefs, neither the tenets or dogmas of a certain religion, but rather the imagination of my mind and my own personal understanding of things.

Prophets: Just and righteous men, slowly the idea for me includes women as well but admit that more often women leave no written account (?), holy men, those chosen to write the scriptures and hand them down. Abraham, Issac, Jacob, John, Paul, Nephi, Alma, Mormon, Moroni. In my mind these men were symbols of the paragon of virtue, having lead moral, up straight, chaste lives. Virtuous.

Men: Other writings that I have been exposed to that also seem to be examples of men who also either saw God or had an awakening, transcendent, experience. Joseph Smith, Alan Watts, Carl Jung, Max Skousen. These man are all much closer in time and knowing than the “prophets”. Joseph Smith has many dubious reports left behind about him, Alan Watts had multiple wives and lovers frequently committing adultery. Carl Jung also had a wife who he cheated on for many years. Max Skousen loved a movie that showed that having sex was a good thing, and wrote a book showing that a rated R movie is a guide on the Holy Ghost and spiritual journey.

My imagination holds a strong dichotomy of one sort of man on one hand, and an entirely different sort (with Watts and Jung just shocking) on the other. Totally different. Yet both, as far as I can tell, knew and understood God better than any others I can find.

Maybe the prophets were flawed, morally curved, individuals too? Maybe the way to Be isn’t so much about the mistakes we make in life, but more our search for deeper hidden things, our ability to be wrong and unsure in search of truth is our way to Be?

“She got sucked into the Mormon church. She uses it as an excuse to act like she’s better than everyone else. Not that I’m against religion I just hate the way it keeps people apart.” – Greg Moffat

The Romanoffs

Season 1 episode 1 The Violet Hour, minute 1:24:23.

“Rather than preaching for or against a mighty power to which all must bend the knee, Bakhtin (under the Soviet empire) is looking for a way out. Not for a challenger or some new authoritative discourse, but rather a new way to be, a new way of voicing in a manner more aligned with things that grow and adapt.” – Daymon Smith

Not everyone believes their current understanding should be preached, or taught at all, often just hoping instead that others may find value in letting them have and express beliefs, those things that they imagine.

Not everyone believes that their current understanding is The One Correct Understanding, or that what they believe is superior and all other beliefs must bend the knee.

Not everyone takes the things they currently believe and makes of them hard conclusions, conclusions turned into tools or weapons then used to challenge, berate, argue, defend, abuse, debate until they have destroyed their opponents. Some people don’t even view others as opponents at all, even if they strongly disagree with others.

An authoritative discourse ……. authority …. as far as I understand this word, and my personal experiences on this earth with things or people who wear this word in a sense like their superhero or godlike powers, authority seems to be an attempt to take the infinite and make it finite, to take God and His creative powers, and to squeeze it through our tiny minds and funnel it out onto those of who they have authority.

A new way. Some few have found this new way of being, making the way new only to the individual, or, as I’ve read in scripture, taking of these materials ….. and that in the new way is us becoming our own little creators, taking of the way that already exists but is very obscure, and creating for ourselves a new way to be. Be something that grows and adapts.

Continue reading “A New Way” →

Heads up, opinion piece:

Last fall my oldest child had a girlfriend (who he is now broken up with) who, he slowly discovered, was frequently mean. She hated homeschoolers (red flag that he ignored) and in conversation with him dug up findings, gathered evidence, and proved that he was stupid and never actually was given the availability of an education. He was, she knew and proved, uneducated. Her #1 piece of evidence:

Said child had never heard of Anne Frank.

There it is. The evidence. And it was true. He brought it up when we gathered together for our morning read aloud lessons and discussions. And suddenly this blanket of failure descended upon us all. We were all feeling the weight of being bound down by our own failures and stupidity. After a long silence I said out loud, “Well, what do we know about Germany, wars, WWII, and wars in general?” A verbal list began to appear as each child remembered things that we have learned.

*Albretch Druer, goldsmith, wood carver, engraver, artist and painter. Born in Nuremberg Germany, traveled extensively, world renowned, and especially his painting “A Large Piece of Turf”.

*”A Large Piece of Turf” – we learned that on the globe Germany is longitudinally near TN and that many of the same weeds that grow in our yard also grow in that country; plantain, dandelions, speedwell, yarrow.

*We learned that what is known about the various tribes that made up the goths, visigoths, and Ostrogoths were of Germanic tribes, that they converted to Christianity and were Arians (they did not believe in the trinity), and that they sacked Rome and spread far, even into ancient Hispania.

But nearer to our modern time, I urged the kids, what do we know about starting from the 20th century?

*Well, we know that WWI was purely political and that many college school boys had to take trains back to their home countries so that they could take up weapons against their classmates. And we know about the great Christmas truce where weapons were discarded and games and songs, and fun times were shared in no mans land.

*We learned that after WWI Germany was left destitute, poverty stricken, and that sanctions put on them afterward lead to economic collapse from the devaluation of the money.

*We know about Helmut Huebener, and his two young friends, and the story of how 17 year old Helmut was excommunicated by his local LDS church, and guillotined to death by the nazis.

*We know of Corrie Ten Boom.

*We know of Rick Steve’s travels through Germany.

*We know of, and Michael Jr studied, the ancient language of futhark.

And so we aren’t stupid, are we?

And we know many things, don’t we? And yes, as the mom I was never interested in teaching about Anne Frank, but now that we’ve hit upon something we don’t know we can take the time to learn of it. So we did. We all know of her though I still refuse to read her diary *again*, first time for the kids though.

And here is my point from this long example. All American children are placed in schools every year, thousands of little people, and all taught the same thing, at the same age, in the same manner, expected to arrive at the same conclusions, follow that same path all leading to college and then the work force. School to Work, No Child Left Befind, Common Core. The result is millions of people with the exact same view, same vantage point, same small narrow keyhole to peer through in which to examine a full room. It is not the learning that public school recipients receive that to my mind is the problem, rather the plethora of things left out, and the narrow mindedness that those who looked at the same room, but not through the same key hole, are stupid.

We need more people looking at the same things, and in this example I’m talking about education, from a wider variety of perspectives. We need it.