November 2, 2015
I was writing a post. Feeling ever conflicted, however, I slipped away into the blackness of dreamless sleep before I could find it in me to post what I had written. And now I can't find it in me to post it as it is now impertinent. The feel is over. The morning is upon me and I am poised for a new day, albeit a long day of travel.
In the next few hours, though, I will be on my way to Portland, from where I still haven't determined what I will do. I will figure that out when I get there. As for the time being I am going to nap, as I was up at 4am this morning.
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I have awaken from my nap. I have also, in my lack of desire to write much more at this time have reconsidered posting what I wrote last night and as you will see what I wrote several weeks ago, as well. This is already a very confusing post pertaining to the time frame of when it was written, but I am not going for exact clarity here. I'm just very scatterbrained, and I acknowledge that I am not too worried about how my readers see me at this time. This is merely a record, and this post will let the record show that I am a very, as I said, scatterbrained individual.
Below is essentially two previous posts that have amalgamated into one large post and even one of those posts was originally intended to introduce another post that I, still to this day haven't posted. So really, the time frames are running wild up in here, and this is ultimately three separate posts, originally intended to be four. This is a Frankenpost.
November 1, 2015
Ok, ok. It was Sunday. I have taken the opportunity on previous Sunday's to wax theological about God and the purpose in being, and whatnot (I guess I do that on more than just Sunday's though.) Today was no different. But I spent a lot of it just re-reading stuff that I've written but never got around to posting. I have been re-reading stuff because I was hoping to get away without having to write anything today, of which I have already failed because I am explaining to you that I didn't feel like writing today by way of--writing about it. But anyway, there is General Conference thoughts(of which what I ultimately decided to post is an introduction to) there is The Allegory of the Pit, there is The Bizarre World, and then, there is Nearer My God To Thee, among others.
I will post--the most latter? The last one of that series of four specified things. Yes. Ok. I wrote this the Sunday I was back in Utah for a week. And due to its content I feel like it is especially appropriate since the Sacrament hymn both that Sunday and this Sunday was Nearer My God To Thee. Objectively, I'd snobbishly insist that it is the most beautiful hymn in the LDS hymn book ever penned,(yes, objectively the most beautiful. I know what I said!) However--subjectively--I am personally enamored with Come unto Him, the hymn 114, (not the one off of This is the Christ album by The Mormon Tabernacle Choir) while A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief(all seven verses only) steals my heart too, although if we are to go back a year before I was born(1985, that is, I was born in 86) I'll go with Come Thou Fount every time.
Dang there were a lot of parentheses there, which brings me to something else. I was slightly puzzled as to what I should do in a recent post where it was apparent that I could put parentheses inside of other parentheses. I Googled this because I had never before seen this or had the occasion call for it. Essentially Google gave me an example that was purposefully over-convoluted to illustrate that, yes, it is not technically wrong to do so but quickly becomes quite ugly from a literary stand point. All of the comments were people re-structuring the example sentence to avoid the parentheses within the parentheses issue. That said, and the only reason I went through that whole process of explaining that was because shortly afterwards I actually was reading Guns, Germs, and Steel(have been reading for several months because it is one of those books I want under my belt but cannot read for long periods of time) and the author puts parentheses inside of other parentheses!
This is the sentence and associated double parentheses:
"Those factors still don't explain, though, why the New World apparently ended up with no lethal crowd epidemics at all. (Tuberculosis DNA has been reported from the mummy of a Peruvian Indian who died 1,000 years ago, but the identification procedure used did not distinguish human tuberculosis from a closely related pathogen (Mycobacterium bovis) that is widespread in wild animals.)"
And it is at this point where I am totally aware of the absurdity of this post and am purposefully exacerbating it's wild nature. Stream of consciousness mixed with thought out posts, mixed with an overarching personal commentary on what I've already created--in no particular order. It's like Frankenstein, in the midst of an existential breakdown decided to go skydiving! And this might also share insights into how easily I go from systematically conquering the world mindset to, oh my gosh, there is no purpose in anything mindset, to over-thinking matters pertaining to God mindset.
Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yes. Below is a little something that I failed to post a few Sunday's ago.
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October 18, 2015
I was blessed today. Singing all five verses of Nearer my God to Thee, (one of the most inspired works ever penned in my humble opinion) left me in solemn contemplation as I took the Sacrament.
Finding myself in a building I'd never been in before I began to think of the uniformity of the church. Recognizing that I stand out somewhat, especially contrasted with your typical Utah Mormon, I was grateful for the elderly man who donned an olden-time suite with cowboy boots, and an early-church, prophet-like beard, who spoke deep and plain as he gave the benediction.
As simply as I can put it, the church is true. But I'd ask, if you hold a similar view what that means to you, and what exactly should we be uniform in?
I won't dance around this. The answer is the Spirit of Christ and the personal pursuit of Truth.
I used to avoid stating out loud that "the church is true," and rather emphasized that it was, in-fact, the Gospel of Christ that is true, only afterwards alluding that it was within the walls of the LDS church that the doctrines and principles of the Gospel of Christ were taught. I testified this way over the pulpit.
Though I still think that that is a more accurate way of looking at it, I have made the conscious choice to revert back to my childhood testimony and say once and for all and simply that "the church is true." Why? I do because I humbly recognize that I have sway in the hearts of those I associate with, and making it a point to avoid saying that the church is true to replace it with something I think is technically more accurate, I have noticed, if ever so subtly, that it, if even merely in the subconscious, causes people to doubt my conviction of the church, and consequently their own.
Thus the infinitely beautiful collides with the unfortunate technicalities derived from semantics, interpretations, societal and cultural restrictions, and other complex internal structures that go on in the brain, in organized religion, and in the political dribble that unfortunately seems by way of natural inevitability to saturate any such organization divinely instituted or otherwise, that I, other members of the church, and church leaders are faced with every single day. These complications exist. And it is this reason that there is sometimes the appearance of rigid doggedness within the walls of the church, even at times seeming to be at the expense of the Spirit. But we can simplify this dilemma.
I have a testimony of the church. I do. I, like many others have doubts, but unfailingly, my doubts are cast into oblivion upon systematic, prayerful and in-depth evaluations of them. And the only thing I can say at this time is that if you are going to present to me an argument that dismisses the validity of the church, you better come up with something better than prayer and subsequently God himself, for, it was in heeding the words of James to ask God, that this church was established, and at the end of its establishment we are again implored to ask God with real intent by Moroni if these things are not true.
It is in this spirit and only in this spirit of humble inquiry that we can, unbound by bias, evaluate the temporal evidences to such a degree as to expect to gain the insights that God would have us understand. Given in this argument the presupposition that things of a spiritual nature exist, if we are to solicit a purely logical retort, I think the only plausible counter-argument to that of personal insights gained by the Spirit of Christ (revelation) can arise only if there is an utter and absolute denial of God's existence along with things of a Spiritual nature all together being attempted. And that is another story completely, one of which I can sum up quite frankly by saying that, without doubt, God does indeed exist.
Below is what I wrote after general conference.
I am ending this here and now, because this could go on for quite some time.
Goodnight, Good Morning, Good Afternoon. Which ever suites you best.
Jake