Nancy's Musings

The first thing I imagine when I hear "sacred" is the Sacrament of bread and water on the Sabbath. It's a symbolic act reminding the partaker and witnesses of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, his pain and death, to which we owe our existence, our salvation, our comfort, and anything that comes afterwards. When a soul feels that debt, the union and gratitude to the Savior becomes precious, and we cling to it as best we know how. How often, though, have you heard someone shout his name as a curse, either on television, or in your presence? If you believe in His divinity and the Atonement, how does that profanity make you feel? That difference, the mocking use of something sacred for something trivial or supremely inappropriate, defines profanity very succinctly. William Shakespeare, almost half a millenium ago, wrote a funny and insightful comedy called Twelfth Night whose name even refers to a reversal, a contrast, and reveling in the inappropriate. Shakespeare questioned t...

I don't know how many times I will have to, or get to, say this, but the Word of Wisdom does not forbid sugar of any kind - processed, natural, or taken intravenously. And yet, in any given lesson on the Word of Wisdom, somebody will bring it up. We invent health laws for ourselves, and think that God has sanctioned them. It's dangerous. It's never a bad thing to take care of yourself, but did you know that your brain NEEDS sugar ? Too much is probably almost as bad as none at all, but none at all isn't something to aim for. And yet well-meaning, middle-aged singles jump on every fad diet like it's the answer to their prayers of finding a husband. Girls, If he doesn't like your personality BEFORE you diet, it's just going to be more obvious when you're all Zenobia Fromme. I am a diet-free zone for two reasons: first, I follow the Word of Wisdom as closely as I am able, and that is where the blessings lie, not in "looking beyond the mark" and tr...

Reading that title, I'm guessing you immediately thought this would be a post about not paying attention during the Sacrament, or something. It isn't. It's something much more complicated. I had a dear roommate (one of my favorite people in the universe) diagnosed with Adult ADD. She explained to me that one of the symptoms is a lack of impulse control - it means that when you get the urge to do something, you just do it out of anger, curiosity, or any other emotion. I imagine that normally, a human fields dozens of impulses without even noticing. We think "I really want to hit him in the jaw" or "I really wish I could spit right now" or "I wonder what it feels like to fall off a tall building," or "I wonder what it's like to kiss him." What would it do to your life if you just did it - without thinking? Part of the gospel is learning when and how to obey impulses, and when to reject them. We are meant to reject temptation ("...

I'm not a very good student. It wouldn't actually surprise me to find out I'm last in my cohort (I work with some pretty brilliant people). I get B's fairly regularly, and I'm finally getting used to them. My self-worth is not at the mercy of my grades; my self-worth is much more comprehensive. So the occasional B+ does not shake me too much. I sigh deeply and roll my eyes, and try again. Today, though, I was shaken by the most ridiculous thing; I failed. My assignment was simply to bake dinner rolls for my brothers' Mocktoberfest celebration, and I killed the yeast. The recipe said it should double in size in an hour, and it sat there for two hours and didn't so much as twitch. I tried in a cooler spot, in a warmer, and followed the recipe faithfully. I called Jennifer and my mother - the two most dedicated homemakers I know - and got only bad news. The only salvation was to try again, and I couldn't do it. All I could do was cry. What is the difference...

My current method of studying scripture (I've tried several), is to purchase a new copy of the Book of Mormon, label it with a topic, and then seek for and mark all the passages which relate to that topic, meditating on it through the day. Yesterday, I found 1 Nephi 16:8. By that moment, Nephi has undergone some harrowing work for the Lord. He has killed in the Lord's name, which must have hurt him, whether the Lord justified it or not. He has obediently followed his father into the wilderness, and yet returned TWICE (traveling for days, each time), the first time to retrieve his geneology, the second to invite the family of Ishmael (which included daughters) to join them. His brothers have beaten him, and his mother has murmured. Nephi did the work the Lord asked of him, and it was a lot of work. In the seventh verse of the above-mentioned chapter, the sons of Lehi (and Zoram) marry the daughters of Ishmael. Weddings are brilliant! I want one, someday. Nephi adds this editoria...