Year: 2010

Categories
National politics

The Old Testament Approach to Immigration


photo credit: melanzane1013

Lately I have been studying the Old Testament more closely than I ever have before and finding some hidden gems there. I am currently in Leviticus which I had remembered as nothing but heave offerings, wave offerings, burnt offerings, sin offerings, and instructions on where to burn “the fat that is above the caul.”

In Leviticus 19 I was surprised to find the answer to the one area of immigration policy over which my mind was not already completely settled – namely the issue of what approach we should take with regard to illegal immigrants who, aside from their immigration status, are decent members of society (which is almost certainly the majority of them). It is an issue that did not seem particularly important to me until some people began to try using immigration as a stumbling block for the LDS church by suggesting that local church leaders should be turning in members who they knew were living in the United States illegally.

Anyone reading the title of this post might have first assumed that the old testament approach to illegal immigration would be stoning – they would be wrong.

The Israelites are told directly in Leviticus 19:33-34 that “if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex (or oppress) him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.”

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Categories
life

Receiving the Holy Ghost

It has been very amazing and gratifying in the last few days to watch Savannah since her baptism. On Sunday afternoon Savannah came to me and said that she had not felt anything change when she was confirmed and given the gift of the Holy Ghost. I reminded her that when the gift of the Holy Ghost is given we are invited to “receive the Holy Ghost.” I told her that we must work at doing those things which will invite the spirit of God to remain with us.

She told me that Ethan Miller, a boy in our ward who was also baptized last week, had said that he felt a change when he was given the gift of the Holy Ghost and I answered that some people do notice a change while others do not. Savannah’s response was insightful. She said, “Yes, our house hasn’t been suited to having the Spirit these last few days, people have been grumpy and not very nice.”

I can’t think of a more accurate summary of what things were like in the days leading up to her baptism. We were busy with all the regular tasks of life plus we had the excitement and stress of preparing for a big event plus Laura was helping out the kids swimming teacher get ready for the start of swim lessons this week. A spiritual atmosphere had definitely taken a back seat to a hectic and frazzled one last week.

Later Sunday evening Savannah got upset over how we were handling dinner with the result that she screamed at Laura and I and then stomped off to her room. Later I was pleasantly surprised as she came down the hall and very meekly said, “Dad, will you forgive me for screaming at you?”

I told her that I forgave her and then she said, “that’s hard, I’ve never had to ask someone to forgive me before.”

A minute later I heard her asking Laura for forgiveness as well. Laura later explained that she and Savannah had discussed forgiveness and repentance that morning. Apparently the discussion had an impact on Savannah and it’s clear that she is doing the work to receive the Holy Ghost.

Categories
life

Don’t Pounce!

As evidenced by the history already recorded here, keeping rodents as pets with young children pretty well guarantees that there will be a pattern of escape and recapture. Such was the case tonight. Mariah informed me that one of Alyssa’s gerbils had gotten away. Very soon after I got in the room Stormy ran out from behind the dresser and ran next to the edge of the bed. I immediately barked “don’t pounce!” By the time I finished those two words Alyssa had pounced and Stormy was bleeding on the ground. I picked her up directly but she died in my hands within seconds.

Shortly after we got our first litter of baby gerbils Laura had the experience of having Isaac pounce on the gerbil she liked the most with the result that it died in Laura’s hands when she picked it up. I thought of that as Stormy died. In Laura’s case she cried for the loss of life because Isaac was too young to understand what had happened. I remember hours later when I got home he still obviously did not understand what had happened. Unlike Isaac, Alyssa did understand what happened so she did the sobbing. While I really felt sorry for the death of Stormy I felt even more sorry for the pain that Alyssa was feeling.

I understand now why Laura felt so deeply in her experience. I’m hoping that I was able to say and do the right things to help Alyssa process and work through her grief. Time will tell but I am encouraged that she was able to go to sleep tonight without too much trouble.

Categories
culture life thoughts

Minorities That Matter


photo credit: More Than Maths

Last week I received a new donor card from the Red Cross and a letter to go with it. The letter contained an interesting statistic that the Red Cross receives a large majority of their donations from only 30% of their donors. Just to be clear, the statistic is that 30% of those who donate – not 30% of the total population – provide much more than half of the blood supply. Specifically it is the 30% who donate repeatedly and of course the message of their letter is that they want me as part of that minority of donors.

Later in the week I was at the temple when the thought struck me that although I have no statistics on it, I think it highly likely that the great majority of temple work done is performed by a minority among those who go to the temple. I realized that this is a consistent pattern. Only a small minority of Boy Scouts perservere in their scouting and advance to the Eagle rank. A minority of families raise the majority of children in each succeeding generation. A minority of active voters participate in the primary process and earlier activities to get informed and select candidates for office. A minority of religious people actually attend services regularly and keep their respective churches operating.

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Categories
thoughts

Home Is What You Make It


photo credit: Joel Abroad

In the perpetual effort to have a presentable house where multiple young children live and grow, an idea finally came to me that people will treat themselves and their surroundings in a way that reflects how they view them. If children view themselves as carefree and without responsibility they will take no responsibility. If they view parents as having the primary purpose of serving kids they will treat parents as servants. If they view their home as little more than a shelter from the wind and rain they will treat home like a cave.

On the other hand, if kids view themselves as someone special with important responsibilities and a grand destiny, like princes and princesses, they are more likely to look beyond the desires of this very instant and plan to meet the destiny they envision. If they see parents as important role models they are more likely to emulate them rather than make demands on them. If they see home as a sanctuary, rather than a shelter they are more likely to treat it with some respect and care.

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Categories
life pictures

Welcome to Katherine

I got the exciting news that I am a new uncle again as my brother and his wife had their new baby girl this morning. I expect she’s beautiful but I haven’t seen any pictures yet. On the other hand, I thought it was very funny to see the baby statistics for Katherine right above a tax advice disclaimer – as pictured above.

Congratulations to Katherine … and Mom and Dad … and Jack (big brother) and Mariann (big sister).

Categories
culture Education politics

Addressing the Symptoms


photo credit: sigma.

As if to prove the point I made in my last post about passing out casts and crutches, the Seattle Post Intelligencer this week published an essay from Brad Soliday, a teacher in eastern Washington, where he shares his perspective about how the increasing money bring allocated to education is being misspent because it is focusing on a mistaken solution.

I doubt it is truly coincidental that while real education spending has risen 49% in the last two decades it is dysfunctional or broken families that have seen a corresponding rise in society rather than educational outcomes (which have flat-lined despite the ever rising funding). This should be irrefutable proof that those perpetually sounding the cry that education is underfunded are either misinformed or intentionally deceptive (I’m sure there are some who fall into each of those camps). Education is under-supported due to the disintegration of a solid family foundation in society but money cannot solve that problem.

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culture life meta politics thoughts

Limiting Politics


photo credit: RSzepan

Over the course of six years of writing online I have been asked why I focus so much on political issues and not so much on promoting a moral society. I think it’s a great question and I have thought much about it. The short answer is that my focus has been mainly on the political system and how it impacts society as well as how we can have a positive effect on the system that is currently in place.

For some time now I have found myself falling back in private political discussions to the position that all the best efforts and intentions with regard to political activity are no more than a bandaid over the ills of society and that true progress and stability in society are utterly dependent on the underlying morality or righteousness of the society being governed. It is exactly the same with a wound: a bandaid can help keep it clean and impede further infection but real healing is an internal function of the body. From outside the body the most we can do is create an environment that is conducive to healing.

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Categories
culture life meta

Change is in the Air

I’ve been feeling the need to reorient my online (and offline) activity for a while now. It has been interesting to work through the process of identifying what needed to change and how. There may be some person out there who noticed yet another title change. I never was particularly comfortable with the previous title, but as I identified the kind of purpose and image I would like to pursue I am very excited about “The Zion Chronicle” as it captures what I am working toward and seems fitting. I expect to be doing a lot more here writing about life and society in a quest to identify and promote the development of Zion in my own life. Hopefully others will find some gems that can bring them to Zion (or Utopia, Shangri La, Eden, or whatever other name you might assign to your ideal for human society).

As part of this change I started using Stats Counter to have some idea of what is actually happening besides me writing and people commenting. Interestingly one of the first three searches that landed someone here at my site after I signed up for stats counter was a search for “sister beck conference talk.” I don’t know if my Canadian friend was looking for Sister Beck’s most recent conference talk or something else but they landed on a post I wrote in the aftermath of Sister Becks incredible talk “Mothers Who Know” from the October Conference of 2007.

As it had been so long since I wrote it I took the time to go read what I had written about the talk. When I read the post I was, quite frankly, disappointed that someone might see that as indicative of who I am. At the time I was so busy trying to keep my site from being overly religious in an attempt to foster an open political dialog that I said almost nothing of consequence and I completely failed to convey what an inspiring and inspired talk it was. That talk is a beacon to those wishing to establish a Zion rooted in a strong family culture and I managed to water down my reaction to the point that it sounded like little more than a breath of fresh air.

Since that time I broke my political writing off into another site and actually found that I was not comfortable maintaining the kind of political neutrality that lead me to give so little praise to such a wonderful talk. I have been pleased with the outcome of abandoning that neutrality in my political writings and now I am looking at refocusing on some spiritually significant topics here (some political others apolitical). I hope that others will never have any excuse to wonder at the depth of my feeling for the topics I address here like they might well have done when reading what I wrote in October of 2007.

Categories
thoughts

Repentance and Forgiveness

Last night Laura commented on how amazingly forgiving Heavenly Father is toward His children. I’ve been thinking about that ever since then. It is true that He is incredibly forgiving (because He loves His children so much) and yet He cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. Hence if we are to emulate Him in our actions we must learn how to love sinners while abhoring sin.

As I was thinking about this I realized that one of the reasons that He can forgive so freely and love so unconditionally (to forgive all but the single sin which can only be committed with the full knowledge and unassisted choice of the sinner) is that due to the nature of Eternal law His forgiveness does the sinner absolutely no good unless they choose to repent. Regardless of how merciful He is, the sinner cannot receive any glory that is governed by a law which they do not choose to obey.

Those who focus on the need for grace can rightly point out that without forgiveness from our Savior our repentence would be worthless because even with repentance “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) While that doctrine is accurate it has no saving value because of how infinite our Father’s love is.

If we recognize that He already and unconditionally loves us enough to forgive anything except a conscious and fully informed rejection of Him and all that He offers us, we should find motivation in that knowledge to desire to repent. If we desire to repent we find, with that combination of faith and desire, the strength necessary to repent in order to receive the healing benefits of the atonement of Christ and the infinite love of our Father in Heaven.