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Although I wrote this a while ago and may add, below sums up reasonably why I think there is confusion when the word 'faith' is used in a sentence.

Faith.  What a misunderstood word!  Am I in a position to say that?  Maybe.  Am I in a position to clarify what I mean?  I would like to make my contribution.  I had trouble with that word for a long time.  Now that it has meaning, I feel I see it either misused, or used in ways I don’t yet understand, or maybe both.  Let me explain.

You see, to me, faith is a spectral word.  What I mean by this is it seems to refer to many things at once.  When saying spectral, think of the spectrum itself.  Is red a rainbow?  No, but red is in a rainbow.  What about blue, ultraviolet, or X-ray?  They are PART of the ‘rainbow’, or electromagnetic spectrum, but they are not the spectrum.  My view of faith goes along these lines.  Is faith power to conceive or receive an idea?  Yes.  Is it power to believe an idea, or in an idea?  Yes.  Is it power to act on an idea?  Yes.  How about power to reach for an idea that doesn’t yet exist in a sphere where we are familiar with it?  It sure ought to be considered part of the process from where I stand.  So is any one of these faith?  I would call them an element of faith, maybe a particle is another term used.  Are all of them together faith?  Now we are getting closer.  Do I see the whole electromagnetic spectrum?  I don’t.  Does it exist and is it measurable?  Yes.  Do I know how to detect all levels of faith at this time?  I would say no. 

What does surprise me a little, is in reflecting on this, faith is the power by which all things are obtained.  How on this earth is new knowledge gained?  One main way that would be acknowledged from the point of view of the world is through science.  Well, let’s see here, true science goes by the scientific method.  This says that something starts as an idea, can be tested by different means to isolate the truths involved, there comes a point that through a trial of the idea, the truth or lack thereof is brought to be known. 

How is this different from faith?  I would suggest that it is no different from faith at all.  True faith and true science are synonymous from this point of view.  There is a physical laboratory, and a spiritual laboratory, fo those who would like to delineate.  Now even that is spectral now, isn't it?  How many commandments have to do with what we do with the body?  Yet all commandments are spiritual.

What is strange about this to me, is that the scientific method is an implementation of faith, or even is faith, or operates on many coinciding principles disguised under a different name.  Also, this scientific method is useable to find out the truth of religion.  The rules are pretty much the same for all, although there seems to be an element that is customizable to an individual.  The main thing is one humbles himself before God, desires to know if he exists, and then asks what His will is for them, and exerts himself in finding that while He guides their footsteps.  It is not outside of what can happen that He gives direct guidance, but my experience is I don’t always get it that way and won’t be frustrated by this.  The point is, that all men can humble themselves to make the conditions right in this ‘spiritual laboratory’, ask God about what their question is, and receive an answer in some way or time as he sees fit.  Not all who have followed this pattern have reported an answer in the time frame they were hoping, but they do report answers.  This is as scientific as any worldly process that is identifiable.  It is this simple.  I want to write more, but let the point be this simple.  The way to find if religion is true is very scientific, by science’s own rules, and the Lord has made it that way on purpose.  That way he can tell us the way back home and give the same rules for everybody.  Just like a spark plug fires every time on the power stroke of an engine that is working.  Just like my heater comes on when it is cold.  A man can find answers to his prayers from God who gives them.  It is that established and that predictable, and if it doesn't work, the proper knowledge can be applied to find the part that isn't working and fix it.

So faith is a generic principle used in day to day life.  I keep typing because I keep seeing letters appear on my screen.  If this were to cease happening, by the power of faith, or evidence of things unseen which are true, I would perceive that some unknown thing was wrong with my computer, and also by the power of faith I or another knowlegeable technician would be able to isolate where the problem is, often without knowing the exact problem inside a component, only that it doesn’t work.  So faith is there again evidence that is truly doesn’t work without a perfect knowledge as to why.  Yet a more knowledgeable technician could track even that down, but there comes a point where really no one knows why, but that it does anyway.

I deleted most for brevity, but this is enough to take me back to the question that started this.  Some say faith is belief.  Others say faith without works is dead.  I say faith is all of this and more, but back to the original question, if belief is all one has, and they are powerless besides this because of some factor, for instance one can't save themselves, to get to the core of the question, or at other times, someone is hurt and you can't help because of ability or location, if all other elements of faith are shut down, that internal faith, that internal switch you keep open, that invisible thing that actually is an action or a work that is visible to God and this universe that he runs, that faith that can be made to seem so idle and so worthless, and no work available to show it outwardly, is still something.  Do what you can when you can, but when it seems there is nothing else to do, keep faith.  That open channel in your mind and heart opens channels, even the doorway to heaven when it is faith in Christ.

Tags: Faith

Electricity is interesting stuff.  I am not educated in it directly, I support computers and backbone routers for work, so I get to think about transistors a little in what I do.  I notice that our state of being is a transistor state.  If we are in the right state, blessings can flow, and if we are in the wrong state, blessings are blocked, sort of an on/off if you will, although maybe a little more variable with humans.

Since I work with transistors, it allows me to realize, or see after a sort, that electricity is yet another conduit for intelligence.  In the simplest ways, a light can give us a means to read.  When it jumps a gap, we see what seems to be a more pure form, many visible and invisible areas of the spectrum of light, so even though you can't see it in a wire, electricity has properties of light, and intelligence.  We can't quite put our finger on what it is, but we use it every day.

So, electricity has properties of magnetism, properties of electricity, and properties of gravity, or in other words it stops moving when it hits the ground.  Electricity also seems to return to where it came.  Here is where it seems to relate to music.  When electricity is generated, it needs a path back to the same generator, or at least to the ground, hey, the ground again.  But for how I'm looking at it for now, it returns from whence it came.  Music comes from a person's mind, from their heart, but being spirit, it also takes on the properties of the person's mind and heart, which can be closer or farther from heaven.  While here, we think that certain entertainment can be benign at times, maybe not that bad, but not real bad, not noticing the word good, or really good in its proper sense, is not to be found in our description at times.  The music we like seems to be a testimony of where our heart is, what we like, where our treasure is, and when we persist, it will eventually take us to where it is.  If we are not 'conducive' to a certain type of music, it will take more work to get us back where it came from.  On the other hand, music not only will take one where it came from, but often if your heart is in it, you are already there.  This should be true of good music.  For those of you that write music that may come across this, and I truly don't know who if any will, I would ask that you keep reaching for heaven as you write, and maybe a few of us can enjoy the ride home a little more completely.  You can contribute to the vehicle that can help get us there, and return us to whence we came.  There is and will be joy in this.  RobertP

Tags: Music Spirit Intelligence Heart Electricity

With today being Easter, I had the opportunity to hear an Easter story on the radio, about a man's testimony of the resurrection. Although I have not honed my story telling abilities and will not try to take you on the ride that took me to this emotion, the fact is that when he said the girl he was talking to that had lost her father would experience a joy in eternity that would completely overshadow any sorrow she felt here, it touched my heart. In my mom's family, one brother died in WWII, one fell off a roof and died, and one got hit by a car, all before I was born. Among the 3 that survived, my mom's siblings have lost multiple children, in-laws, and spouses to very premature death. I could not cover it here, but I have pondered more than once that on that side of the family, close to half seem to be in the spirit world, certainly 3 of the 6 in my mom's family, and multiple in the other two siblings lives. In the context of the story, I reflected, and suddenly I felt for that moment again something that I have felt a very few times in my life. I know the gospel is true, but at times like that I FEEL much more strongly how true it is. I pondered on doubling the size of my known family, in many cases pains of losing them were never experienced because they were gone before I was born. I felt ever so strongly once again that there is a lot of love for me, and us, on that side of the veil, that things in a way aren't quite as they should be in this life, but that could increase the appreciation of things as they will be when they are made right, when all is corrected. This actually seemed to suggest that I do miss them in a way I had not noticed directly, but the opposition of that experience, the joy of it, let me know there is a bit of a hollow spot that would be filled. Life isn't easy. I am satisifed of this. It seems at times, if it is to be a test of eternity, or prepare us for our eternal state, that it is a fine eternity simulator, much like a flight simulator preparing one to really fly. My aunt has been a widow longer than I have been alive, by 10 years I think. She never remarried. That's a long time for many of us mortals. But the real point is I did indeed feel that overpowering love, that connection, that knowledge that indeed Jesus is risen, he made everything all better, and yes, time is an illusion for me so I can use the past tense on that, although for us it still seems like it will be in the future. I look very much forward to that day, while living in this one. If time is an illusion, then eternity is now, right? Keep the faith. The gospel is true. I have a testimony of this. Robert

Tags: Resurrection Easter Family

I have thought to write a little about music, or how I see music. Music to me not only is spiritual, but is spirit, or an element of spirit right here in this physical world. The only thing physical about it to me is the fact that a body and an instrument is needed to play it. Beyond that, it is spiritual, or spirit. It springs from what is in a person's mind and heart, is organized into what they want it to be, all things related to spirit, or things a spirit can do in my view, and even different performers offer their own essence, or spirit, to how the same thing can be performed. Music is temporary, and ends, and spirit is eternal. But it is an eternal fact that once music has been played, it has been played, and the effect it has had on the person listening also is etched in time, it has in essence become part of the person. I get an image in my mind after a sort of a vase on a potter's wheel, we are the vase, and the clay of the type we choose to expose ourselves to, the type of music, and other forms of entertainment for that matter, are thrown at the vessel in its creation process, and it contributes to our essence, our sensitivities, how we see things around us. I have noticed that even when I think I am ignoring music that I don't want to be part of me, it is still slowly growing on me, at different public places for instance. It has its effect while it is there. I have not found a way to turn this off completely short of removing myself from it. Since it is discerned by spirit, and is desired by spirit, and it affects our spirit and how we see things, here again is the cycle. If we aim for better, we find at times we don't actually 'want' better. For those interested, which are probably the people who already know this, I would suggest a constant examination of what we allow ourselves to be subjected to, what we allow to steep into us over time. I think this is one front where we can find an added measure of protection. When I come back around to this conclusion from where I was to arrive here, I suddenly realize again that most people knew this already. Some of us take the long way around to learn what others know naturally. Oh well. It's the story of my life in some cases.

Tags: Music

My dad was a physics major.  My uncle, astrophysics.  Me?  No degree.  But I was taught from my dad that what he learned in physics before his mission around 1962 was different than what they taught after his mission around 1963.  He took a placement test after his mission and they asked where he learned such outdated material, and he was looking at the doors to the classrooms where he had learned this outdated material.  He left with protons, electrons, and neutrons and came back to subatomic particles.  This had an effect on him, and some of it passed on to me, which is that you give the right answer, pass the test, and still maintain the ability to think for yourself.  My uncle, on the Ph.D side of things knows there is very little agreement among the experts.  I hear about this first hand at times.  He can't say what he thinks when he teaches college.  He sticks to the curriculum.  So we are educated, learn all the answers, and if we are not careful, lose the ability to think.

With that background, I am constantly looking at things with as fresh a point of view as I can stand, and this turns my reality partially upside down regularly, and completely upside down on a less regular basis.  I somewhat demand it of myself if I learn something that seems to be manifestly true that conflicts with what I thought I knew.

I came across a clip of the video thunderbolts of the gods a while ago, and the electric theory of the sun resonated well with me for a number of reasons.  The nuclear model of the sun never resonated well with me, it was hard to explain.  There is enough gravity to hold a nuclear explosion together, with heat being a dramatically stronger repelling force than gravity is for holding things together, while not sucking the planets into it.  This just never sat well with me.

Another thing is the facsimile in the Book of Abraham that says the sun borrows its light from a star close to where God dwells through a stated medium.  I had to bend my mind through time to see this medium on the nuclear model, maybe a store at the beginning and let the top spin, but this would not account for current commands or states of the sun.  IE, how does the Lord speak to it?  It's true, I don't have to understand this, but for me the electric model offers the beginnings of a possibility

To be brief, the electric model says the sun is a magnetic body moving through space in a circle, similar to how we generate electric currents with magnets and coils moving in a circle.  The Earth picks up a little of this type of light with its aurora I am thinking.

The sun is HOTTEST outside of itself, in the heliosphere.  It is coolest at the lowest levels we can detect, and we call them sun spots.  They are highly magnetic.  No nuclear model accounts for cool spots like that.  All nuclear bombs we have detonated were 100% hot, no cool spots to be found.

So here I am on an LDS web site, talking about an electric sun.  Why does this grab me, in a way that touches on religion, although you would never hear me saying any of this at Sunday school and this is my first attempt to put into words publicly?

The electric sun suggests the sun is going through a field, an all present field if you will.  This gives a real time connection to the whole universe and God.  This is everywhere, and the interaction of its motion allows this to exist.  This compares to what President Hinckley said about us needing to keep moving in good works to keep our light shining bright like running the engine at a high RPM allowed the dynamo to keep the car headlights bright.

The sun would now be clothed with glory, not the direct source of the light, and the state of the body is related to the glory it can endure after we are resurrected, the sun written as being typical of the glory of heaven.

For me somehow this flips a switch.  Get it?  A switch.  No pun intended, but that is where I'm going.

The sun is electric, and it lights and warms all we do.  That makes all elements of life electric.  Electricity we already know is electric, but in this light, get it?  Light?  In this light, heat and cold become a gradient and have electrical properties.  They come from the electric sun.  Light has electric properties, but maybe we already knew that since it is part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Life becomes electromagnetic and electric.  Certainly chemicals have electrical properties, and therefore all temporal things.

Neurotransmitters are electric, and hormones are chemical and electric, so emotion becomes electric, thoughts, these words you are reading came out of my brain, through my fingers electrically, among other things, to the server, and downloaded to you electrically, so electricity can pass data, or intelligence, through a crystal known as silicon, which we all know of course, is not intelligent.  (I don't know this, all is created from intelligence)

Neurotransmitter and hormone state are finer matter - http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/131/7-8#7, and are telling of our emotional and spiritual state.  I am not saying chemistry or chemicals are spirit.  I am saying they are finer matter, that on this spectral view, seem to lean toward spirit since before we could detect them, we only had things like commandments to teach us to school some of these things like lust and anger.  Now with new detection techniques, something that was invisible and leaned toward spirit in how it was handled, now is observed in this world and treated as currently perceived, with medications, psychiatric treatments, with diet, and maybe spiritually.

I didn't touch on the spectral side yet.  White light is white, but we know it splits into multiple colors and invisible wavelengths.  Inside of this visible section, we have a color wheel.  How did we get a wheel out of a small part of something we know is the straight line of a prism line?  The circle 5ths does the same thing in a musical sense, another circle hiding in a line that by wavelengths is not a line but exponential...

Life is in fact spectral.  There are things we can see, and things we can detect with instruments, that tell us things that we can't see, (who will insist they are unintelligent when they transmit knowledge to us?) and things that instruments don't really pick up in the ways we are used to using them that are still real, like spirit, and God.

So, as I struggle with things spiritual, and find the temporal commands are not temporal - http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/29/35#35, but find help to spiritual things through temporal means, and temporal things through spiritual means, and see that the finer matter is affected in ways I can detect, it points to the finer matter that may not be detected quite as directly by me and how it should be affected. 

In this way, intelligence, exists in this sphere in an obvious sort of way.  We have scriptures that refer to it in ways we think we aren't familiar with - http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/93/29#29.  I suggest we are familiar with this.  Without the sun, there is no light, and we have very little intelligence revealed to us through other means.  Light of truth, light and truth.  Intelligence cleaves to intelligence.

I noticed the other day on this model that even gravity has electric properties.  How well does electricity work without a 'ground'?  How well does gravity work without a 'ground'?  Just a thought, seems to make sense to me.  Intelligence cleaving to intelligence?  A gradient from 'nothing' to 'something'?  Still fiddling with that one.

Tags: Sun Astronomy Spirit Intelligence

Lately it has been brought to my attention that we get what we want, ultimately.  If someone wants chocolate, they get it.  If they REALLY want a million dollars, they get it.  If someone wants to go to heaven, they will get it.  How does one prove what they really want?  It seems to me it's by what they have.  Strange.  I don't feel like that.  But it's true.  I think of things I want that I don't have, and there is a price.  I have not been willing to pay some of those prices, and therefore have got what I wanted, which was to not pay that price, sleeping in comes immediately to mind.  So I don't have some of the things I want. 

Did I want the chronic fatigue feeling that made me want to sleep in?  Now it gets trickier.  No, but have I paid the price to learn what is needed, to apply what is needed to get out?  Slowly but surely, I hope so.  I will probably write my views of faith later that touch on this element.

What is more than this though, is who can control what they want?  Some people want to lose weight, but they can't seem to do it.  Others want more money, but it doesn't seem to come their way.  Some want the Spirit with them, but it seems farther than maybe they would hope it should be.  I ponder this duality.  Not having what we want because we are getting what we want, partly because we are not controlling what we want.  The craving for the sweet overpowers the desire to lose weight.  I have a scratch of understanding on this phenomenon.  Addiction, it gives you what you need while not giving you what you need.  Get what you need from what you need and  voila, no addiction.  Is it that easy?  At a certain level, well, sort of.
This isn't coming into words as well as I hoped.  I still believe this is important.

By not getting what we need from what we want, do we short circuit ourselves into various cycles of addiction and sell ourselves short?

I have learned recently that conditioning seems to be more important, or at least as important, as discipline.  Discipline seems to indicate fighting something, while conditioning suggests one is in a frame of mind to go down their chosen path without fighting it.  'This is what I want or feel like doing', rather than 'This is what I have to do, or should do'.

I was talking to an ex smoker today about this.  The cigarettes are there in the check out line every time he goes shopping.  I asked what his base response was, did he fight the urge to buy, or was there no urge.  He reports that there is no urge and they are not reaching for him, nor him for them.  He has let them go, and they have let go of him.  That is quite a different picture from fighting it on every stop through.  This seems more sustainable.  95% conditioning, 5% discipline.  I think in many cases 100% conditioning could be handy.  We can choose how we respond to things, although we may need to relearn habits.  I think Pavlov's dogs, if a bell was rung and they were beat with a stick, might stop salivating when the bell was rung.  Bad example maybe, but can you see what I'm getting at? 

100% discipline with no conditioning seems in some cases to be a losing game.  I think I have played it.

There are so many gospel principles that are against what the natural man might be inclined to do, so we think it is supposed to be a fight sometimes to live it, or certain principles of it. I think we may even be conditioned in some ways to think it is supposed to be hard.   People have their various challenges, of course.  It seems to me that the better path is to think more on the things of God than the things of the flesh, and truly seeing the reward and thinking more on this can make the journey more exciting and joyous.  Oh, but the reward is invisible.  You can only see it with an eye of faith. 

I believe that we can learn to 'feel' like doing what we are supposed to be doing rather than 'making ourselves', dragging ourselves through our duties.  This seems like a better road to me.  It seems Jesus walked this road perfectly, as I don't perceive he 'forced' himself to do anything.  He savored the things of God and there was his joy found.  Unchangeable from eternity to eternity.

Tags: Discipline Conditioning Desires

I see some posts that I have pondered from time to time, but now I am thinking to add my response and point of view.  What is infinity?  What is infinity times infinity?  Infinity divided by infinity?  All are really beyond the bounds of our ability to answer properly.  So, if infinity divided by infinity is hard to define, how might one divide it into a sufficient number of sections to make a mile, for instance?  A centimeter?  An atom?  So, now that we can consider that we are the finite in the midst of the infinite, or at least look finite for a little while, this helps set the stage for some things I have been pondering and feel to comment on some points.  Words may be hard to use.  My only suggestion for now is that infinity can't be numbers, and is beyond the scope of our temoraryness, (is that a word?) while really being part of it since we can see it, comprehend that it must be at least if we can't actually comprehend it, but God can and all things are numbered to him, hence is ability to put bounds within the boundless.

We live in a world full of opposites, yet it is the same world.  They are both here, not segmented and consigned to their own worlds, separate from and unknown to each other.  Because of this, we sometimes see the opposite of something and think we see the opposite, when after a sort, it is the same.

Spirit and flesh, for instance.  Spirit can go through physical things, flesh can touch physical things that spirit can't.  They are joined here, at least for a time, and through the atonement, or at-one-ment, they become one, forever, literally, so the things of opposite nature are sealed to be one, and will in fact be one, inseparable, in the eternal worlds.  Hopefully we also become one with God and 'return' to that God who gave us life, to finish the eternal round that is his course.

This can make many things seem contradictory in life that maybe are, but possibly are not.

For instance, I used to think there was a definite line between spirit and flesh.  I can no longer see the line, for as I look, I see a spectrum of transition from spirit to flesh, some of which is detectable by science.

Flesh, of course, is what you see here.  Right?  Right.  So why would I say there is a spectrum transitioning from here to spirit that on close inspection becomes ever harder to define, taking me back to the point that it is one, to the point that some don't believe in a spirit?  Well, let's go for a ride.

Flesh, what makes it go?  A dead body is clearly flesh but is not going.  Might we say spirit?  Sure.  But really, how?  Your body 'knows' to obey 'you', or 'your spirit', or 'your intelligence, and my body 'knows' to obey 'me'.  When we eat something that used to be part of something 'else', the elements become 'obedient' to 'us'.  Hope there aren't too many words in quotes here, rough draft and I feel they help me point to something, break outside maybe of a person's normal definition of those words for a minute, oh, and yet be the same...

Enter chemistry.  Can we see it?  Well, sort of.  See with our eyes?  No.  It might seem like magic with no understanding.  So with the reference that spirit is finer and can't be seen with our eyes, but as we continue on we start seeing 'finer matter', which really is just part of what we are made of, so not finer matter at the same time, we can start seeing part of what makes us go.  Think of the commandments.  Adultery and lust come most directly to mind in this case, because there are reasonably well known biochemical changes that come over a body that lusts or that has committed adultery.  Go for the big ones, they are more obvious I guess.  Thou shalt not steal has the same thing.  People who can't help themselves sometimes can be helped by 'medication' or other substances/influences that stabilize brain centers or slow down or speed up certain neurotransmitters, making the problem seem like it's in the flesh, notwithstanding we learn that all commandments are spiritual.  http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/29#34

Neurotransmitters, touch on chemistry but for how I am looking at things are more specific since they are what makes us go.  We have this 'brain'.  We have it.  It is not 'us'.  It is something 'I' can 'use', 'you' can 'use'.  'It' wants things.  'We' want things.  They are separate, but they should not be.  We are here on earth to bring them into synch, so when it becomes 'one', it really is 'one'.  The spirit that possesses our bodies when we leave this world will have power to possess our bodies in the eternal worlds.  http://scriptures.lds.org/en/alma/34/34b  Can I suggest that the neurotransmitter configuration we develop here will follow us?  Conditioning and training become important, which have very little to do with what we 'know', but ought to be in line with the best of what we 'know'. 

Bacteria fits in here as well.  How much does bacteria, good and bad, affect our life?  Can you see it?  No, or not really at least.  Can it be measured and perceived with proper understanding and intelligence?  Yes.  Can its affects on life be perceived and measured?  Most definitely.  So, for the person who wants to be happy, as commanded by God, finds they aren't, one identified place for this is bad bacteria.  The main neurotoxin of Candida Albicans, for instance, is acetaldehyde.  There are over 70, I only read about 5 or so by name, things like putricine and cadaverine stuck more directly in my memory, but think about it.  You want to be healthy and happy, you eat right, but there is this thing in your gut that turns all of your food into poison, or say a portion of it.  You are now not keeping the commandment of having joy, because you feel, well, not well.  Possibly a little more on edge so not keeping the commandments to be kind and patient.  Not sleeping well, so being a little more slothful than you should.  You see?  Is it spirit, because it affects how you are living spiritually, spirit because you can't see bacteria, temporal because you can find out about bacteria and control them through largely as I am familiar with, temporal means, not so much spiritual, or is it completely temporal as many who have cleared out candida report just feeling better and having no need for some previous behaviors?  There are other bad bacteria, just to be clear, nothing ever is this simple.  I am boiling it down for a point for now. 

Would you rather have Candida turn your carbohydrate to acetaldehyde, a breakdown component of alcohol metabolism that causes the same brain and nerve damage as alcohol, a cousin of formaldehyde, and release signals to eat more carbohydrate because of dullness of mind that is hardwired to get beefed up from sugar?  Or would you rather have something like acidophilus turn the same carbohydrate to butyrate and be one of the best things for intestinal structure and healing?  Oversimplified, but only gets more clear when other toxin/nutrient ratios are considered.  Can you start to see at least part of the optical illusion someone is experiencing who is eating as right as they know how but isn't feeling right?  Can you consider an angle of where eating to console one's self only to find they have fed a demon comes from?  Is a known parasite an embodiment of a bad influence?  Or does it by some strange coincidence only cause symptoms in line with lack of well being, just happen to take away one's abilities to keep the commandments as well as one might want to, but not be related to anything 'bad'.  Either way, it has to get out for one to get better.

So, back to the cycles, the opposition, and the built in oneness.

We know we should not get angry, but have we trained and conditioned to not be?
We know we should be kind, but are we?
Etc.  Everyone who knows the wrestle with the flesh is familiar with these elements of the battle and so many more.  The battle is plainly manifest, although some would take the battle to make them free in the flesh, which would imprison the spirit and destroy the flesh, there is no escaping this, rather than possibly keeping the battle to be with the flesh itself, and how to bring it to complete subjection to the spirit.  This is very non intuitive work.  Jesus won by dying.  Who ever wins by dying.  Come on, really.  Wars are won by who survives after the order of the flesh.  The trick is, he GAVE his life.  This body, desperate for rewards for good behavior, wants a reward.  He got the ultimate opposite for good behavior, proving he is in fact unchangeable from eternity to all eternity.  We, on the other hand, might not quite be there.  Rewards are helpful to people like us.

So, as I wrestle with these cycles and wonder how to break them, one question comes back to me, only I come to a different answer finally.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  They are the same.  Anyone with eyes can see that is not true, but yet it is...

So, as I try to break these vicious cycles, borrowing from the title of Elaine Gotshall's book on how her daughter was cured of ulcerative colitis and turned to be helpful for many unexpected things, everything involved with the cycle, IS the cycle.  It is not separate, oh, but yet it is.  The chicken IS the egg because time is an illusion.  The binge eating is part of the depression is part of the binge eating.  The guilt is part of the pornography is part of the guilt.  The anger is part of the harmony is part of the anger.  Or doesn't one often get angry to bring things into correspondence with how one thinks they ought to be?  Anger becomes a path of least resistance to harmony, or hopeful harmony as often things don't bend to your whim.

What breaks these cycles?

The core, is spirit.  Oh, but what's spirit?  I thought we just covered that, briefly at least.  If you see where I am coming from, the answer is everywhere, which kind of puts it no where if you're not careful.  In other words, the things I have found to be helpful are not standalone.  There are multiple pieces in sometimes greatly unexpected places that are required to put it together properly. 

Do I believe the gospel?  Yes.  Does it lay out the course?  Yes.  Does it tell me HOW to walk it?  Well, yes, and no.  Do you know people who live the gospel that are tempted with something that another is not tempted with?  I do.  Do you know people, for instance, that use some kind of crutch to help keep them walking straight?  I do.  Are other people not tempted by some of these things at all?  Well, yes, but I'm sure many of them have some other spot they are working on.  Most of the graduates of this place aren't here anymore, right? 

Second stage below, might have a different flavor from above.

Do I focus on the atonement less that I should?  I haven't written about it here as much as I could.  I find a strange balance, speaking of dichotomies.  When I try too hard on my own, I feel reproved at times for relying on God.  On the other hand, when I rely on God, I feel reproved at times for not trying hard enough myself, yet another razor's edge to walk.  WE doesn't work.  His grace is sufficient while trying to teach me better as fast as possible.  Don't get too comfortable with those loose handholds.  They might work for a bit, but they can't be trusted.  Here's something better, keep working at it.  The line moves up.  Onward and upward.  It seems to me that he has to be IN me, or knowledge from him does, and as I act on it, he can be here.  The Kingdom of Heaven is in you.  Unless it isn't.  Light should be found in us though because of our good works.

In summary, since I don't have more time, eternity has no end, life has no end, but earth has bounds, including a beginning and an end, so I guess any segment can be cut out of eternity that has a beginning and an end, but in that segment a concept of infinity could not exist, unless it had a boundary, but also sort of wasn't.  We are coexistent.  In the midst of eternity.  The point I will get to in context of the cycles, is the bad ones need to be broken here.  Have you ever tried to untie a knot in a rope that has no end versus a knot that has an end?  What if your cycle became the eternal round you ended up walking in?  It seems to me that if we don't repent, the knot will have no end to untie from, so we will be stuck in the eternal world with our sins, or some remnant that doesn't get purged.  How, just how do we get this undone?  Still working on that one.  Jesus saves, but the ignorant can't be saved, and true light from Him is only received by following him.  Well, let's get to work then.  Poor flesh.  Or is it spirit?  It recoils already at the thought.  My prayers are with us anyway.  Let's keep rolling.

Tags: Contradiction Dichotomy Duality

I have thought more than once to put the story of how my grandfather came to join the church.  He was in the military in Germany, and he asked a fellow soldier what he was doing that weekend.  This man explained to my grandfather why he wouldn't be interested in what he was doing that weekend.  This only piqued his curiosity.  Why wouldn't I be interested?  The coworker explained that he was going to church.  Why shouldn't he be interested in this?  In this church, you can't smoke or drink, and you pay 10% of your income to the church.  My grandfather went home, through out his pipes, dumped his alcohol, went to the bank and got 10% of his money and showed up at church and told them he wanted to join.  They explained there are lessons he should have.  He had them and then was baptized. 

By the way this is told, it doesn't make sense, but he had had an experience in a fox hole in WWI where he felt a sense of peace and was told not to worry, for 'I am alive'.  He stood amidst flying bullets to see who was talking, but no one was there.  A great feeling of peace came over him in this environment that was unexplainable by what was physically surrounding him.  No explanation for who 'I' was was ever given.  He felt great peace at that time, and that feeling came back to him while talking to this soldier about what he was doing that weekend.  He was faithful the rest of his life.  For those who live the gospel, they understand this says a lot.  I hope to do the same.

It seems strange to me that the gospel can't be proved here in this physical world, which isn't to say it can't be proven, if only for one's self.  If all the answers were here on earth, then truly the gospel couldn't elevate us higher.  It demands that we reach for more than this mortal mind would reach for or be inclined toward.  Some of the answers need to remain in heaven so we can find them with our faith, which can then begin to take us out of this world and to a better place. 

Tags: Testimony

I was in Elder's quorum recently and the person teaching the lesson said that communism was the same as the Law of Consecration and the whole class agreed.  I don't think that is what the lesson was on, was a while ago, but I raised my hand to suggest possibly there were differences and mentioned one.  I got an awkward agreement and then a continuing on with where they were going.  It was related enough that the thought didn't leave me.  I thought I would put here a suggestion of how I think they are different, kind of like clockwise and counterclockwise are the same, they describe rotation, but one is different from another.



What are some differences?  First, let's start with how they seem to be similar to me.


In each, the wealth is centralized and distibuted by a steward.

In each, there is a line identifying who belongs and who doesn't.

Each has a central leader

Probably there are more, but that is enough to start.  I'm just an amateur y'know and I haven't thought about it for a little while.


The difference is, in one the line defining who belongs is a covenant.  The person has chosen to belong.  In the other, it is a wall like the Berlin wall.  It is not voluntary.  Similar, but different.

For wealth redistribution, one has the wealth being taken, the other has the wealth given freely.

Both have a central leader, one is a secular leader, and the other is a prophet who represents and speaks for God.

The difference here, if one is looking at movement of property, is not much, but if one understands the difference between give and take, donate and steal, one can see a difference, not in the fact that property moves, but why it moved.

If one looks at the fact that people belong, then they look the same, but if one looks at WHY people belong, it is very different.

If one looks at the fact there is a central command, they look the same, but if one looks at the difference between a secular leader and a prophet, hopefully some differences can become apparent.

Both have great consequences for not following the law that one is under, either by choice or force, I suppose the law of Consecration has greater penalties in this case since they would be of a spiritual nature. 

Tags: Consecration United Order