Bryce Moore's Blog, page 137

Book Review: Zodiac

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You ever have an author who writes in a style you personally can’t put down, but which you can understand other people might not care for nearly as much? That’s Neal Stephenson for me. Not to say that his books aren’t well liked. He’s a very popular author. But each time I come across one of his books I haven’t read, I check out the reviews ahead of time, and often they’re mixed.

People enjoy them well enough. But I don’t really want to read a book I just “enjoy well enough.” Especially not a Neal Stephenson book. His stories can be hard to get into. They’ve got a steep learning curve, as you have to figure out just what his characters are talking about when you start to read. He dives deep into their heads. Not that his sentences are unintelligible, but his characters will use lingo you’ve never encountered. It can be overwhelming.

And yet, despite the mixed reviews, I inevitably read the book anyway, because Neal Stephenson. Zodiac was a book I’d been avoiding, because it didn’t seem to be the typical Stephenson I like so much. I love his science fiction, and this book was about . . . lobsters? And the environment? Maybe it would be best if I avoided it.

Until I couldn’t avoid it. I was ahead on my reading schedule, so I thought it was worth a risk. I’m really glad I took it.

As usual, the book is hard to understand at first. It’s not until 20 or 30 pages in that I started to understand a bit about the life of the main character. How he’s an activist fighting against pollution, and not afraid to get his hands a bit dirty in the process. It’s him and his team vs. big corporations, and he’s made enough of a name for himself that those corporations are worried about him.

He stumbles across something that might (or might not) be a huge environmental disaster. It’s definitely a mystery he wants to unravel. And unravel it he does.

I read the book very quickly. I was squeezing in pages wherever I could. I felt like I learned a lot about pollution and how companies can get away with it. (One of his best lines was on how thrashed communal spaces become. I could relate to this, as when I lived in Germany as a Mormon missionary, the shared apartments had a tendency to get very . . . “well used.” No one had an incentive to keep them up to snuff. When it comes to the oceans and rivers, the same principle is at work. No one has any stake in the game when it comes to defending them. Keeping them clean. And so people abuse them.)

I personally feel like Stephenson’s writing and plotting justify the hard entry into his novels. They can be frustrating at first, but he does such an excellent job of bringing his characters to life, that all that struggle feels worthwhile at the end. If you’ve held back from Stephenson because he does sci-fi more often, then give this one a shot. And if you’ve been holding back from Zodiac because it’s not sci-fi, hold back no longer.

It was a great read.

View all my reviews

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’m looking to get to $10/month to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog. I’m at $6/month so far. Read this post for more information. Or click here to go to Patreon and sign up. It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out.

Why I Might Watch the State of the Union

[image error]I typically like to be as plugged in as possible to what’s happening in the world. (Well, as plugged in as *reasonable,* which is a different thing, I suppose.) I’ve watched the State of the Union for the last decade at least. And it’s irritated me most of the time. It’s full of a lot of promises that don’t end up doing anything, and I can’t stand the endless traditional applause.

But in the run up to today’s State of the Union, NPR has been playing a promotional piece, including sound bites from many of the past States of the Union. And listening to all those presidents say some of their famous lines has had me dreading Trump’s performance this evening. I felt like I should watch it, just because that’s what I’ve always done.

And then I asked myself: why? Why in the world would I want to subject myself to whatever he’s going to spout off about? There are three alternatives to how tonight will play out. In the first, Trump sticks to his teleprompter, feeding out lie after lie, distortion after misrepresentation, all while every Republican in the room interrupts him constantly with applause. It’s tailor made for Trump’s ego, and it’s sickening that Republicans in Congress will do it.

This is the version I’m really dreading, and it’s the one that’s most likely going to happen. And if this turns out to be the way things are playing out, I will most likely shut off the speech and go do something more productive, like jabbing myself in the eye with a fork.

But part of me (the naive part) is holding out hope that one of the two other possibilities happen. The least likely is that Republicans don’t put up with Trump’s garbage. That they don’t applaud him continually. That there are lines where Trump pauses for applause, and all he gets is a few hand claps. This is what *ought* to happen, and I wouldn’t want to miss it if it did. (A guy can dream, right?)

Then there’s the third possibility. That Trump, despite being drilled on the importance of staying on message and not going off the teleprompter, just can’t resist ad libbing. I think there’s actually a fairly good chance of this happening. Surrounded by all those sycophants, all of them pumping him up with more and more applause, I could easily see Trump reverting to one of his campaign-style rallies. He’s practiced that schtick often enough, after all. And if there’s one thing I learned playing an instrument, it’s that you perform in public the way you’ve practiced.

Trump has all those years of reality television under his belt. I think he thinks he’s still on a show. One where he can be the bad idiot at times, and all that really matters is the ratings at the end of each episode. Knowing he’s got such a big audience, I have a hard time thinking he’ll be able to resist throwing in a few zingers.

Which leads me to hope that some of the Republicans might come to their senses, though I won’t be holding my breath.

Really, the State of the Union under our former presidents has been dated and pompous, but not really disturbing. Under Trump? How can it look any other way than dictatorial?

People keep telling me to ignore what Trump says and focus on what he does, instead. On the policies he’s trying to pass. Folks, even if I agreed with all of his policies, the way he behaves would make me unable to support him as President. The end most definitely does not justify the means.

So anyway. We’ll see which version plays out, and we’ll see how long I last watching at 9pm this evening. How about you? Are you planning on watching? Why or why not?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’m looking to get to $10/month to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog. I’m at $6/month so far. Read this post for more information. Or click here to go to Patreon and sign up. It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out.

Movie Review: Wonder Woman

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I had heard great things about Wonder Woman. It was the one non-Batman movie in the DC canon that was actually decent. And having actually sat through the new Superman movies, Suicide Squad, and Batman v. Superman, I was reasonably skeptical. Still, I wanted to give the film a fair shot. I ordered the 3D version and watched it on my home theater.

It’s a decent movie. There were a few scenes in it that I really enjoyed. But in the end, it suffered the same flaw pretty much all the other DC movies have had: it’s so so dark. Gloomy. It’s like you’re stuck in the same room for two hours with Debbie Downer:

(Seriously. I think I enjoy that 5 minute SNL clip more than all of Man of Steel, and it’s not even close. Then again, that’s still one of my favorite SNL skits of all time.)

Don’t get me wrong. Wonder Woman actually had some funny moments and a few times when it lightened up a bit, and I enjoyed those parts. It was a good DC movie. But it wasn’t the savior of the DC franchise for me. For one thing, the action sequences needed some real work. It has one truly great sequence: when Wonder Woman is storming the trenches. (That was was pretty incredible, though it did strain belief.) The arrows vs. bullet scene early on was also impressive. But most of the action devolved into “What heavy thing can Wonder Woman pick up next?” If that were a drinking game, the entire audience would be sloshed well before the film was over. I started looking around the scenes to try and guess what she’d pick up. A tank? You betcha!

That’s a problem with a superhero movie. Once you go full super, it’s hard to try to keep raising the stakes. Marvel typically does it by making its heroes weaker. Taking Iron Man’s suit away. Having Ant Man learn how to use the thing in the first place. Blowing up Thor’s hammer. But DC doesn’t go in for that, a lot of the time. They just have their heroes punch harder. Harder! In the end, it’s hard to really care.

Some of this is likely due to superhero fatigue, as well. It’s getting more and more difficult to really be wowed by a superhero movie. We’ve seen so many. For them to be successful, I feel like they need to focus on the details. Plot. Characterization. Acting. Film essentials. Instead, a lot of them turn into special effects highlight reels.

Am I glad I watched the movie? Sure. It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours, and it did look great in 3D. Perhaps if I’d had lower expectations, I would have enjoyed it even more. But I went in hoping for a 9 or a 10, and I walked away with a 6 or a 7.

Maybe the sequel will be better, but I remain skeptical. Skeptical enough that I don’t think I’ll buy it in 3D. I’d rather just watch it when it comes to Netflix or HBO or wherever it ends up.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’m looking to get to $10/month to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog. I’m at $6/month so far. Read this post for more information. Or click here to go to Patreon and sign up. It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out.

On My Mission President

Twenty years ago (almost to the day), I first arrived in Germany. I was a nineteen year old missionary, fresh from the training center and excited (and nervous) to be out in the country I had been assigned. Missions are strange things. I had grown up anticipating going on one, and yet I had never had a real idea of what would happen when I was actually on one. Go door to door and teach people willing to listen? The concept was admittedly fairly vague, as I imagine it is for most missionaries when they go out.

Part of that is because of how different one mission can be compared to another. Living for two years in Germany is going to be a very different experience compared to two years in Belize or two years in Tampa, Florida. Even within a country, it’s going to be different. Eastern and Western Germany were very different places at that time, and imagine the difference between serving in Maine or Louisiana. The people are different. The food is different. The general attitudes toward religion are different.

Set all those cultural and societal differences aside for the moment, however. Because even if every single country and city were identical, there’s still a huge factor that influences how your mission will play out.

The people.

The people you teach come and go, and they each make a different impact on your life. I still think about some of the people I taught while I was over there. I wonder how they’re doing, and what happened to them after I left. (This was in the days before social media. I’ve reconnected with a few of them, but not many.)

And then there’s the other missionaries you’re with. Each missionary is paired with a companion at all times. You’re always together. A few companionships are grouped together into a District. You meet with your District about once a week, sometimes more often. A group of districts are grouped into a Zone. You meet with your Zone once a month, give or take. Every now and then you’ll see the entire mission at once, but typically you just interact with the missionaries in your corner of it, for better or worse. (You don’t get a say in where you go, or who you serve with. It’s done by inspiration.)

But even setting aside all of that, there’s still one huge difference between missions:

The mission president.

He’s called to serve for three years, and for those three years, he runs that mission with a fair degree of autonomy. Yes, there are still principles and guidelines to follow, but he interprets how those principles and guidelines are to be followed for the missionaries in his mission. When I first arrived in Leipzig, I had no idea about any of this. In my mind, all missions were pretty much the same, just with different foods on the plate. (Seriously. I had been so worried I’d be sent to a place that mainly ate fish. This is how my nineteen year old brain worked. Bratwurst and sauerkraut? Bring it on!)

Now that I’ve spoken to many other returned missionaries about their experiences, however, I’ve seen just how big of a difference your mission president can have. Take Denisa’s experience in San Francisco and compare it to mine, for example.

We were allowed (and encouraged) to take cameras with us everywhere we went. To let us remember the things we did and the places we went and the people we met. Denisa could only take pictures one day a week.
We were allowed to listen to classical music, choral music, movie soundtracks and more. (Even Enya!) Denisa had a much more strict list of approved music she could listen to.
We could do our laundry in our apartment any day of the week. Denisa was supposed to do it on one specific day.
Denisa could call home on Mother’s Day and Christmas. We were allowed to call home on Father’s Day as well.

I know those rules seem arbitrary and perhaps even more than a little silly to some. Keep in mind that missions are designed to be quite focused. To allow the missionary to forget his or her old life and focus on serving others in her or his area. To not get distracted by ex-girlfriends or high school drama or even current events and pop culture. But the mission president really decides how best to make that happen for the missionaries in his area.

When I first met President Moss and his wife, I thought they were nice people. I had no idea the sort of impact they would have on my life. For those two years, they were basically the main parental figures in my life. Yes, I wrote home every week, and I had a bit of input from my parents through letters (and later, even emails, as technology caught up with me), but President Moss would sit down and talk with me every month or two. I’d turn to him and his wife for advice on what I should be doing. How I could handle struggles with my companion or personal life. He wasn’t just a leader. He was a counselor and confidant.

Those two years were formative years for me for obvious reasons. Nineteen and twenty years old? There was so much I still didn’t know. But beyond that, it was my first time really living the Gospel I had believed my whole life. Putting it into practice on my own. Seeing how I would live it personally. That’s kind of hard to describe, but I’m trying. What I mean is that up until then, I would look to my parents for cues on how the Gospel of Jesus Christ really was put into action. What does it mean to love your neighbor? To not lie? To keep the Sabbath day holy?

In Germany, I saw firsthand how other people were trying to do the same thing. People who were Mormon and were not Mormon. I saw the wide range of what the Gospel could encompass, and I had to decide for myself where I fit into that range.

Except I wasn’t by myself. I had my mission president to advise me. A large part of my accepting, introspective, analytical approach to living religion can be traced back to his example. I saw him speaking and interacting with people of all colors, backgrounds, and beliefs. He was always kind and generous to them. Inviting them into his home. Having long discussions with them. Helping them when he could.

For the last quarter of my mission, I was a Zone Leader, and then an Assistant the last two months of that. I had the chance to meet and associate with President Moss and his wife much more often. I grew to deeply admire and respect both of them for who they were, the sort of marriage and relationship they had, and how they lived their lives.

Sadly, I was a much better missionary than I was at keeping in touch with them. I attended a few reunions now and then, but that became pretty much impossible once I moved to Maine. For people who made such an impact on my life, I didn’t do a very good job at maintaining that relationship. I regret that.

I especially regret it this week, when I found out he was just diagnosed with cancer and has been given a grim prognosis.

I wanted to write him personally, but I also decided I’d like to state publicly how much I admire him and how grateful I am to him for how much he helped me in my life and, through his example, the lives of other people I have helped in turn.

My prayers are with him and his family.

Book Review: Island of the Blue Dolphins

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

Every now and then I like to go read something from a while ago. Something that’s not new at all, though it’s new to me. I’d heard about Island of the Blue Dolphins growing up. I remember seeing it on the shelf in my school’s library, though I always avoided it. It looked far too much like a dreaded “girl book,” and it definitely wasn’t fantasy, so why bother?

Of course, now that I’m older, other things catch my interest. Things like “Scott O’Dell” and “Newbery Winner,” along with a slew of other awards. So when it went on sale for Kindle a while ago, I snatched up a copy, and I was able to read it last week.

What a great novel. It tells the story of a young girl on an island in the Pacific. Her life is turned upside down when her island encounters seal hunters from a distant land. I’d say more about the plot, but honestly one of the things that attracted me most to the story was how it kept doing things I didn’t expect. A bit of the way in, I assumed this would be a “slice of life” story, and so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned a different way. More assumptions followed that turn, and they were once again foiled. Always nice when that happens. In this case, a clear advantage to reading the book electronically and having just heard of it through vague memories. I knew the title, the author, and that’s it. No reading the jacket or book blurbs.

It isn’t terribly long (184 pages), but it’s well written, with the good historical details you expect from O’Dell. I was even more pleased to find out it’s based on a true account.

Would I have liked the book if I’d picked it up and read it back in grade school? Probably not. But I loved it now, and I’m going to point my 9 year old daughter in its direction (as soon as she finishes the Percy Jackson series, which she’s devouring at the moment.)

Highly recommended.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’m looking to get to $10/month to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog. I’m at $6/month so far. Read this post for more information. Or click here to go to Patreon and sign up. It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out.

Pasta Drive!

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Short and sweet post for you today. I’m taking part in a pasta drive, which is pretty much just self explanatory. For the rest of this week and next (until Friday 2/2), I’m collecting dry pasta (and pasta sauce). It’s part of Z107.3′s Ton of Pasta food drive that’s going on February 10th in Bangor. My local church is throwing in with them (not on any official capacity–just trying to use it as a good mechanism to get food to hungry people, and why reinvent the wheel?)

February 2nd is my cut off, because that’s when I can get it to the people who will then get it to the Bangor drop off on the 10th. So between now and then, if you’ve got pasta, I’ll gladly take whatever you’ve got or can afford to give. Bring it by my office in the library, or get in touch with me about another way for me to get hold of it. Let’s do some good!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’m looking to get to $10/month to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog. I’m at $6/month so far. Read this post for more information. Or click here to go to Patreon and sign up. It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out.

My Daily News Diet: Choosing the Good

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I’m a BYU fan. As such, I like to keep a close watch on the teams (primarily basketball and football, though I follow all of the sports now and then). And in my effort to know as much about the team as I can, I started turning to fan sites to get all the insider scoops. I have a slate of websites I typically check every day, and I added cougarboard to that slate about two years ago. I’ll right click on a folder of bookmarks and select “open all in new window,” then quickly scan through the headlines of each to see what’s going on in the world. Currently those bookmarks include the following:

CNN (national and international news)
The Deseret News (Utah news)
The Daily Bulldog (local news)
The Lewiston Sun Journal (Maine news)
The Bangor Daily News (Maine news)
Gamespot (video game news and reviews)
Mythicspoiler (upcoming Magic the Gathering cards)
Magic the Gathering’s News Feed (does what it says on the tin)
Powerschool (to check on my kids’ grades)
Weather Underground (to check on the weather)
FiveThirtyEight (political and statistical tidbits)
ESPN (sports)
Cougarboard (BYU news)
ChannelFireball (Magic the Gathering strategy)
MTGGoldfish (Magic the Gathering strategy)

In addition to those news sites, I have a series of blogs I check every day as well, through Feedly. Deal sites, library news, technology news, movie news, and generally interesting sites I enjoy. I could write a blog post about that on a different day. I also follow some subreddits.

But after I check through those sites, I feel like I’m brought up to speed on what’s happening in the areas of the world I’m curious about. I think the sites you turn to every day says a lot about you as a person. Looking over that list, you can draw some conclusions. Fox News isn’t on there, but neither is MSNBC. Then again, I know some conservatives view CNN as liberal leaning. (But hey, some conservatives would view the Pope as liberal leaning too. I’m not worried about some conservatives.) I don’t read the Salt Lake Tribune, because I feel like they have an axe to grind, both against BYU and the Mormon church, though I will read them from time to time to try and get a fair view of what’s going on with an issue in Utah, just as I will turn to Fox News sometimes to hear what’s coming from that corner of the interwebs.

Clearly I like Magic the Gathering (everybody needs a hobby), and I care about video games and some other general interest things. I like to be well informed.

Today, I cut Cougarboard out of that list of bookmarks. I did it for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I’ve found the bulk of their “reporting” to be flat out inaccurate. They treat rumors and news pretty much equally. They do have some scoops now and then on what players or coaches are up to, but not often enough to warrant a daily consumption of their posts. Secondly, they’re very negative, always complaining about the teams, regardless if those complaints have any real merit. And so I just asked myself: is this something I really want to fill my life with, day in and day out? The answer was no. (In a similar vein, I used to check Drudge Report daily, because I wanted to know what his adherents were coming up with. I cut it fr0m my news diet, because I found it very biased, and often inflammatory.)

So what are the sites you go to every day? Are there any you’ve added or removed recently? Why? Inquiring minds want to know . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’m looking to get to $10/month to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog. I’m at $6/month so far. Read this post for more information. Or click here to go to Patreon and sign up. It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out.

Sunday Talk: The Lord Leads His Church

Here’s the talk I gave in Belfast’s congregation yesterday. It’s centered around this talk by President Eyring.

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It’s taken me much longer to write this talk than I usually set aside for the task. Some of that is because of simple procrastination. Getting a talk assignment right before the holidays is often a good formula for finding a thousand things to do other than write that talk. But some of it is because each time I went to write it, my perspective on the concept had changed. The topic? The Lord Leads His Church, a talk given in General Conference by President Eyring.

When I first received the assignment back in December, President Monson was still the prophet, and my instincts were to focus on how to support local leadership. My notes from then focused on sustaining bishops and branch presidents, or stake leaders. But then President Monson passed away, and I began to think about speaking on sustaining the new prophet. And once the new First Presidency was called, I also considered speaking on the transition of leadership roles in the church. Elder Uchtdorf’s release from the First Presidency gave an excellent opportunity to have that discussion.

But each time I waited, and so once the deadline was just too close for me to ignore anymore (this past Wednesday), I decided it was just time to dive in and see where the topic took me. I’ll start with some views on church leadership, both at a local and global level.

When someone is called to the Bishopric or Stake Presidency, I think about how time intensive that calling will be, and what a strain it will be for them to rise to the challenge and still have time for their family, work, and any hope at down time. When they’re released, I’ve felt happy for them, knowing they now no longer need to carry that burden.

And yet, when President Uchtdorf was released, my first thought wasn’t for him. It was for me. I’ve loved his talks. They’ve always been a highlight of General Conference for me, and I knew his release would mean I would get to hear far fewer of them. In the end, it wasn’t a huge deal for me. Elder Uchtdorf is still an Apostle. I’ll still hear from him periodically at conference, and even if I didn’t, it wasn’t something I’d get particularly upset about.

Of course, our current social media society being what it is, articles appeared about his transition. The Salt Lake Tribune wrote an article titled “Many Mormons Are Not Happy with Uchtdorf’s Lower Profile.” Though honestly, any news source that refers to Apostles by using made up nicknames (“the Silver Fox” in this case) loses a whole boatload of credibility in my book. I think we often want to idolize these leaders. We look up to them. We listen to their talks. We feel like we know them, even though we only see them in a very limited capacity.

I remember back when President Hinckley was interviewed by Larry King, how surprised I was at first. It was my first time seeing President Hinckley in a non-conference setting. Take away the pulpit and the flower arrangement background, and put him in a chair I’d seen other people occupy, and he suddenly seemed less like a prophet and more like a man. An old man. A nice man, but still, just a man.

For me, that was a helpful realization. We give lip service to the idea that we don’t believe our leaders are infallible, but I don’t know how often we actually keep that belief in mind, particularly at the highest levels of the church. It is easier to sustain someone if you think they have a direct, constant conduit to God. If they are somehow better equipped to receive revelation and inspiration than you are. If they are different.

This tendency can cause a number of potentially harmful side effects. First, it can give us an excuse. If our leaders are more spiritual or obedient because they have a better tool set than we do, we don’t need to feel bad if we aren’t doing as well at the basics. Reading our scriptures. Saying our prayers. Going to church regularly. Keeping the basic commandments. It’s easier on us if we just attribute their heightened spirituality to their calling.

I am not trying to say our Prophets and Apostles don’t have the chance to speak with God, but I do believe that when they do, they most often use the same tools we do. Prayer and the promptings of the Spirit. God would not want to ignore one of His children in preference to another, and we have been taught by our leaders countless times how God answers prayer. We can be just as close to God if we will only do the things He has asked of us.

Second, we can claim that the way our leaders leave their lives disconnects them from the rest of the “real world.” That they live apart somehow, and so they might not be as in touch with what’s really going on in the world today. We put them on a pedestal and then use that pedestal to explain why we can get away ignoring some key piece of their teachings.

But when I watched the news conference introducing President Nelson, I was surprised how often they cut from the conference to the scene of his family, and how they brought his family in at the end of the conference. To me, it made him seem more normal. It made me see him in the same light I saw my grandfather before he passed away. A respected member of the family, but still a normal person with strengths and weaknesses.

In his talk, President Eyring addresses both sides of this view. “It takes faith to believe that the resurrected Lord is watching over the daily details of His kingdom. It takes faith to believe that He calls imperfect people into positions of trust. It takes faith to believe that He knows the people He calls perfectly, both their capacities and their potential, and so makes no mistakes in His calls.”

In that quote, President Eyring isn’t just talking about your Bishop or your Stake President or even your home or visiting teacher. It applies to every level of church leadership, something we must keep in mind during this transition from one First Presidency to the next.

He continued discussing this idea that God calls imperfect people He knows perfectly, saying, “That may bring a smile or a shake of the head to some in this audience—both those who think their own call to serve might have been a mistake as well as those who picture some they know who seem poorly suited to their place in the Lord’s kingdom. My counsel to both groups is to delay such judgments until you can better see what the Lord sees. The judgment you need to make, instead, is that you have the capacity to receive revelation and to act on it fearlessly.”

The fact that our leaders are imperfect shouldn’t disappoint us, though at times their actions and words might, whether locally or globally. Rather, it should remind us to be as forgiving of them as we would hope they would be of us.

Trying to think our church leaders are infallible opens us up to a third difficulty. We can project our thoughts and way of thinking on them, assuming we know what they “really mean” when they say something from the pulpit. After all, a perfect leader would have to agree with the things we already think are true. I’ve read and heard members give opinions in stark contrast to what our leaders have said, then justified their beliefs, explaining that the leaders just aren’t able to state that publicly. “Milk before meat” is often the justification used for this one. I saw one member online staunchly declare and defend her beliefs of white supremacy, trying to use the Gospel and the teachings of our leaders to support it. When church headquarters specifically and publicly chastised that erroneous belief, she fell away, disillusioned.

It’s interesting to note that each of these three pitfalls contradicts the others in several ways. If our leaders are perfectly in tune with God, why would they be out of touch? If they were out of touch, why would they be on a pedestal? If they believed just as we believe, how could they be perfect?

The answer, of course, is that they aren’t perfect. They are as human as the rest of us, but because we only see them in a few select settings, it’s easy to assume their entire life is represented by what we see. At a local level, this falls apart. President Eyring noted, ”A bishop is sometimes called to serve people who know him well. Ward members know something of his human weaknesses and his spiritual strengths, and they know that others in the ward could have been called—others who seem better educated, more seasoned, more pleasant, or even better looking.”

So it’s important for us to remember all our leaders have flaws. But keeping that fact in mind brings with it its own set of challenges. Time for a public confession. I don’t like stray strings or pieces of fuzz on my socks. Most of the time, this doesn’t get me into any difficulties, but once I notice a string sticking out of my sock, somehow that bit of information sticks around in my brain. I know from experience that pulling on stray strings and pieces of fuzz that turn out to be stray strings is usually a good way to ruin a pair of socks. You pull that string and the next thing you know, you’ve got a hole in your sock.

Let’s call it the hangnail principle. My entire body can be feeling fine, but once I notice I’ve got a hangnail I have to fight the urge not to pull on it. (Maybe I’ve got a thing about stray stuff I shouldn’t pull on. I’ll have to look into that.) Regardless, I know pulling on a hangnail is a bad idea. I know it will likely end up hurting me more than the hangnail is annoying me. And yet I pull on it anyway.

I’m so focused on this tiny part of my body that’s not functioning well that I allow it to consume my attention, often to my detriment. How many times do we let that same principle work in the way we interact with other people? When it comes to leaders, this approach would have us focus on the one or two things we see a leader doing that we disagree with, allowing that to cloud the rest of our focus about all the things he or she might be doing right, when in the bigger scheme of things, it just doesn’t matter.

I’m to the point now in my time in the church that its leaders are all people I have known or seen in other capacities before they came to their current positions. The earliest Prophet I can really remember is President Hinckley. President Monson was his counselor, and so even when President Hinckley passed, it wasn’t too great a leap to see President Monson assume that mantle. President Nelson was called as an Apostle when I was six years old.

It is easier to believe in Prophets you haven’t known, or who you were raised to believe were a Prophet. Questioning Moses’s free time activities, or what Peter did in his down time isn’t something that occurs to us. We see their lives through the lens of the scriptures, and as far as we’re concerned, they had no hobbies, and never did or said anything objectionable. When it comes to Joseph Smith, it becomes a bit harder. We can read accounts of his contemporaries and critics. There are more stray threads we can pull on. More hangnails to distract us.

With new Prophets and leaders, it becomes harder still. After all, last week they were just another person. A person with no special duties or responsibilities, perhaps. Why is it that now their words should carry more weight? Are they leading the Church the same way the last Prophet or Stake President or Bishop would have led it?

Probably not, honestly. They’re a different person. But that’s why they were called. Isn’t that what we believe? That Christ is truly at the head of this church, and that He calls those He needs to lead it in the direction it needs to go? President Eyring said, “For a leader to succeed in the Lord’s work, the people’s trust that he is called of God must override their view of his infirmities and mortal weaknesses.”

It didn’t take me long after I became Elders Quorum President to discover just how impossible it was to keep everyone satisfied. I received complaints (often second hand, conveyed by someone else) about everything from how moving projects were organized, what activities we were doing, how often we were doing those activities, and more. Sometimes it feels like people just want to be upset about something. Anything. And so they criticize.

This is not to say that all criticisms are without merit. I know of examples of church leaders abusing their positions of trusted authority to commit unspeakable acts. I’ve had family members whose Bishops have done and said shocking things. When leaders are doing or saying serious things that go against Church teachings or principles, this should not be ignored. But in my experience, typically the things people object to are more a matter of taste than one of eternal salvation. The Gospel gives us plenty of room for personal application and agency, and that applies to our leaders the same as it does to us. If we are considering complaining, perhaps the first step should be to think about the issue and ask ourselves just how important it really is.

This tendency to doubt our leaders (and for our leaders to doubt themselves) is nothing new. It appears even in the Book of Mormon. King Benjamin says in Mosiah 2:10-11: “I have not commanded you to come up hither that ye should fear me, or that ye should think that I of myself am more than a mortal man. But I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind; yet I have been chosen by this people, and consecrated by my father, and was suffered by the hand of the Lord that I should be a ruler and a king over this people; and have been kept and preserved by his matchless power, to serve you with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord hath granted unto me.”

We must remember that church callings aren’t about wielding power or enforcing our will on others. At least, they shouldn’t be. When we are called, our goal is to do and say the things the Lord would have us do and say. That’s the ideal. We are here to bless others, and often the best way we can do that is by others helping us accomplish that goal. Again, President Eyring explains “the faith of the people we serve, sometimes more than our own faith, brings us revelation in the Lord’s service.” It’s important that we don’t abandon our leaders to their own weaknesses. That we don’t dismiss them offhand because of a few stray threads, or even a few gaping holes, for that matter.

President Faust said, “We should look past any perceived imperfections, warts, or spots of the men called to preside over us, and uphold the office which they hold.” This reminds me of an experience I had in the Missionary Training Center. My district and I were doing our best to learn German, and while I thought we were making huge strides, I discovered a short time later (when I moved to Germany and tried to speak the language with real natives) just how little progress we’d really been making.

When you’re in the MTC, they’ll bring in people for you to practice on. Roleplay real life teaching situations. One of our teachers, Bruder Grunke, was from Germany, and his parents were visiting him for the week. Having real native speakers wasn’t something that came up every day, so he asked them if they wouldn’t mind coming in to let us practice. They agreed.

We did our best, but in hindsight, I know just how broken our German was. And yet, somehow in the middle of it all, Bruder Grunke’s parents broke down in tears. It isn’t every day that a pair of nineteen year olds make a couple in their sixties sob, and we didn’t really know what to do about it. They gathered themselves together, and the lesson went on, but we had no idea what we’d done wrong.

Afterward, once his parents had left the Training Center, Bruder Grunke explained. They were converts to the church, and they had been first contacted and then taught by missionaries with the same sort of broken German we’d been using. Being taught about the Gospel in that same manner had made them both remember what they’d felt like when they’d first encountered it, and it had touched them deeply.

Brothers and sisters, sometimes those perceived imperfections are the very reason we’re called to serve where we are, as counterintuitive as that might be. I have a firm testimony that God knows us all perfectly. He puts us in the places where we can do the most good. Where we have the best chance for success. He would not purposefully damage our likelihood of salvation, or the chances of His church growing and flourishing.

I want to pause on this concept for a moment, because I think it brings us to something that might be an issue with some. How do we reconcile the notion that God knows us perfectly with the very real fact that sometimes church leaders make serious errors? In other words, how do you tell a church member who was abused by someone in a position of power that God knew that person perfectly, and knew what he or she was capable of when He called them to that position? Does it become God’s fault? Couldn’t He have prevented it if He just hadn’t called that person in the first place?

Perhaps. But I believe we are all capable of good and evil. God wants us to grow and overcome our weaknesses. We know we have our agency. Some of us will make good choices, and some will make bad ones. But it’s important to the success of His plan that people be allowed to make those decisions. Even when that means they harm other children of God. It’s a harsh truth, but it’s central to the success of the Plan of Salvation, even within God’s church. That doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye to it, or we let the people who abuse others go unpunished. But it does explain how God could let such a thing happen.

To sum up so far: The Lord leads His church. Principles of the Gospel should be present. In cases of egregious error, there must be the same accountability the Lord asks out of all of us. There’s a difference between matter of taste and a matter of right and wrong. Let the first slide and hold true to the second.

Another issue that comes up at times for some is the simple question of why won’t Church Leaders do something we think they ought to do. No how matter how much we might give lip service to the concept that we believe our leaders are doing God’s will, it seems inevitable that there will be times when we think they ought to zig when all they’re doing is zagging. This might be something as small as directing how the music program is being organized in your branch, to something as big as the church’s stance on gay marriage. Culture can change quite quickly, but we all can see from experience that the Church doesn’t turn on a dime.

For this concept, I turn to another contentious issue in the church’s past: the ban on blacks receiving the priesthood. There were certainly members back then who were not satisfied with the Church’s stance on this issue. They felt the ban should be removed, and it should be removed as soon as possible. But I look to the example of a few black members of the church living in Utah at the time. I’m going to read from an account of this group, written by a friend, Margaret Blair Young.

“In 1971 Ruffin Bridgeforth, Darius Gray, and Eugene Orr, all African American Mormons, met at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to create a strategy for receiving greater support for the black members of the Latter Day Saints. In that year, there were only three or four hundred Latter-day Saints of African descent throughout the world, although some of them traced their family lineage to the earliest black LDS members in the 1830s and 1840s.

“In 1971 the church continued its ban of all blacks from its priesthood and significant temple rites that was handed down in 1852, regardless of the length of their family membership as Mormons.  Ultimately, Darius Gray approached Church President Joseph Fielding Smith with their concerns. President Smith assigned three junior apostles, Elders Gordon B. Hinckley, Thomas S. Monson, and Boyd K. Packer, to meet with the three black Mormons. Their meetings began on the morning of June 8, 1971, a date which would take on greater significance in 1978, when the priesthood restriction was abandoned. From June until October, meetings were scheduled twice a month. In early October, an unscheduled meeting was called. Gordon B. Hinckley told Bridgeforth, Gray, and Orr that he and his associates were establishing a support organization for black members of the LDS Church and wished to have Ruffin Bridgeforth serve as president. Bridgeforth asked both Gene Orr and Darius Gray to serve as his counselors, and the three selected a name for the group: Genesis. On October 19, the Genesis Group of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. Mary Lucile Bankhead, a descendant of vanguard pioneer and “colored servant” Green Flake, was named president of the Relief Society, the women’s auxiliary.

“The Genesis Group conducted activities to promote unity and understanding between black and white Mormons. Group members performed plays, put on soul food dinners, and brought many inactive black Mormons and other Mormons of color back to the church. Their summer picnics also brought together many of Utah’s African Americans for socializing and food, whether or not they were LDS Church members. Though these social activities were initially a great success, the fledgling group had to work hard to keep its members active.”

At a time when they could have arranged protests and sought to forcefully change the Church from within, this group did what it could to encourage positive change within the current boundaries the Church had set. They worked with leaders, not against them. The Genesis Group continues to this day in Salt Lake, and I believe their efforts contributed greatly to the eventual removal of the priesthood ban.

I know that the Church isn’t perfect. It’s run by imperfect people. Each Sunday when we attend meetings, we will come in contact with members and leaders who irritate us from time to time. Who might even drive us crazy, just as we likely drive others up the wall. But I have a firm testimony that the Lord leads this church. He leads it the same way He leads my life. I try to follow His teachings, but sometimes I fall short. That happens in my personal life and my church calling. Let’s try to be as easy on others as we are sometimes on ourselves. Though I suppose for some people, that should be reversed. Be as easy on yourself as you are on others.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Upgrading Technology: Making the Leap

[image error]I had several conversations this week about technology in various forms. I found myself bemoaning how slowly “some people” can be to adapt to a chance, and how reluctant they are to commit to doing anything new, even if it is ultimately an improvement.

Funnily enough, I then found myself trying to use unfamiliar websites as I searched for hotels, and I fell into the same trap I’d criticized the general public for falling into.

I’m used to using Hotels.com. I’m familiar with the tool, and it made sense. My sister mentioned how she liked to use Booking.com. I took a look at it for a few minutes, but I moved on, since it was harder to use than Hotels.com. “It’s pretty much the same thing,” I said to myself to excuse the speed with which I dismissed it. But what it really was was different and unfamiliar. I had asked for recommendations on new tools, and then I had dismissed those recommendations when they didn’t like up with my pre-existing experience.

Except as I tried to keep searching, I was still struggling. Hotels.com wasn’t giving me the results I wanted, and so I eventually went back to Booking.com and forced myself to give it another shot. To learn how it works and how to get good results with it. And after I’d put in the proper amount of time, I discovered that yes, it was very useful. The irony was not lost on me.

In a separate conversation, I discussed how websites are constantly changing and evolving. Each time they do, the user base often complains. It’s different. It’s harder to find things anymore. But it’s not really the fact that it’s harder. It’s that it was improved, and sometimes (often) improvement means shaking things up. Taking a new perspective on things. And if you go back and look at how websites used to look in the 90s or early 2000s, (or even 2010), it’s easy to see how far web design has come, and how grateful we should all be.

So that’s my thought for you today. It’s important to keep an open mind to new experiences, especially where technology is involved. Because it all changes fast enough that it’s important we learn from past mistakes and open the door to new capabilities.

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On Passing Arbitrary Benchmarks

[image error]In theory, I know that passing a certain line in the sand doesn’t necessarily carry any special meaning. The line could have been anywhere else just as easily. When you have a birthday, you’re just a day older than you were the day before, but passing that mark still seems to mean something. It comes with a sense of accomplishment (or dread, I suppose.)

I’ve been losing weight for a while now. It’s had ups and downs. The heaviest I’ve been was 240, around 15 years ago. (Give or take a few years.) And each time I lose a bit of weight, it’s just another tiny chunk in the grand scheme of things, no more or less important than any other.

All of that said, when I got on the scale this morning and saw the number (179.6), I couldn’t help but do a happy dance inside, because seeing that second digit turn into a 7 for the first time (in . . . 25 years? Something like that) really felt like an accomplishment. Like a sign that what I was doing was working.

Dieting isn’t fun, but the last time I was overweight for any real length of time was April 2016. We’re coming up on two years of being at a “normal” body weight. And this latest round has gotten me almost to where I think I really want to end up. (175)

I know that I’m feeling much better because of the better way I’m treating my body. Regular sleep, better food, regular exercise, cutting down on sugar, and having a daily multivitamin make a huge difference. I know that, because just last month I didn’t exercise as much, and I ate way too much, and I gorged myself on sugar. I didn’t feel good. So I’m glad to have made these changes, and I’m really thankful to the people who help me stick with it.

Anyway. That’s all I’ve got for you today. Just wanted to share.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’m looking to get to $10/month to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog. I’m at $6/month so far. Read this post for more information. Or click here to go to Patreon and sign up. It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out.