Our friend Ben turned me on to a "bloggernacle" site called http://www.timesandseasons.org/. It has since become a daily ritual to jump over to that site once a day. I also visit the http://www.lds.org/ site once a day. But today I learned the two worlds became closer to one. On the lds.org site it had a story about Elder Ballard advising students to use blogs and other media to help people understand the LDS church better (see it here). Then I jumped over to the timesandseasons.org site where they were discussing this speech, and I found the following blog site which Elder Ballard highlighted in his talk here. The blog is about one man's desire to flood the world with the Book of Mormon. The man has guts, desire, and focus like nothing I've seen before. If you have time, read some of it. After you read it, all you will think to yourself is: gees, and I have a hard time doing my visiting/home teaching.
With Mitt Romney running for president of the United States, I have been keenly interested in what the media outlets are publishing about the LDS church. I often read the reader comments of major mormon-themed articles in major news publications. I always love reading when an actual mormon gets involved in the discussion, because it seems to elevate people's understanding a bit. You can almost always tell when it's a mormon verses a non-mormon poster. Even better than a mormon posting is when a non-mormon posts on behalf of mormons. The person's post usually goes something like this: "Hey, I have a lot of mormon friends, and they're good people." I hope to be one of those people that someone would say that about. Others have said things better than I ever could, but even still, I think each of us has a unique voice that can say what our heart feels about a variety of subjects. And if it's truthful for you, others will feel the truth.
In our little world, we have a huge mix of friends, many who have a belief that the church is true but just don't have a desire or a need to go to church and associate with like-minded individuals. I get that. Church can be dull. Church members can be obnoxious or even frustratingly nosy or insincere. Plus, it's a bother to go to church. You have to shower, brush your teeth--too much hassle. Others have called church members hypocrites. That one gets my goat up a little bit, because everyone is a hypocrite. Just by calling someone a hypocrite makes you a hypocrite. But I've always operated with an inside-out philosophy. If church is boring, be the impetus to making it less boring. If those around you are insincere, make sure you ARE sincere. I'm talking more to myself here than to others, because sometimes I need little pep talks to keep me focused on being an active, loving Latter-day Saint. The natural man is an enemy to God, and trust me, I know too well how easy it is to be a natural man (er, or woman).
This little blog isn't necessarily intended to be a testimonial of our beliefs in the mormon faith, but we are mormons, and we do believe it's Jesus' church that has been re-established on this earth today. If you have further questions or comments, we welcome them. If this subject has made you uncomfortable, our apologies. But we can't hide from who we are. And you're still welcome at our place for dinner at anytime. If religion can't bring us together, Kulani's cooking definitely can.
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4 comments:
C, I've been reading timesandseasons.org since its inception -- where do you think I get all of my Mormon conspiracy theories and beefs with the Church? But my favorite Bloggernacle sites are bycommonconsent.com and http://mormonwasp.wordpress.com. There's Feminist Mormon Housewives but that site can drive me insane. There's Mormon Mommy Wars which can get too cutesy. You might like Mormon Mentality because they have a couple of bloggers that seem to share your politics. Enjoy the Bloggernacle, you can never go back!
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by getting your beefs with the church from T&S. They seem pretty positive, and I think they generally want to encourage faith and belief in the church.
They do, you're right, but there are ideas posted on T&S that I had never heard before at the time, for example, (and this might show you how naive I was/am) but I never knew that Joseph Smith had plural wives, I never knew that a few black men had the priesthood in Joseph's day, I didn't know about how lenient and not enforced the Word of Wisdom was until the 20th century, I didn't know that women were able to laying on hands blessing to people who were ill and afflicted back in the day. All these things at first threw me for a loop and I had to research them a bit, chew on them, and then rearrange my feelings/knowledge and change my perspective. Reading T&S and By Common Consent has led me to some great books, like Rough Stone Rolling, the biography about J. Smith that I read last year and that actually helped build my testimony and love for Joseph. I also heard about the two David O McKay books that I have given Mom and Dad through the Bloggernacle. I love learning more about Church history and Church practice and I'm grateful for the 'Nacle but at first, the stuff I read shook my boat a little bit. And T&S as buttoned up over the past couple of years I think because of their notoriety. There were some other active voices earlier that don't participate as much now that I miss, like Kristine Haglund Harris and Melissa Proctor.
I have read T&S occassionally, but not for awhile. In the past, I thought it was a bit out there, but always enjoyed reading others opinions. Sometimes I think they think they are smarter than all the rest of the Mormons in the world, but don't we all in some aspects of our lives?
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