Nancy's Musings

" We join the story in 1942, a critical year for Britain, with British Generals slaving away at their autobiographies." - The Goon Show , "Tales of Men's Shirts" So yesterday was FHE with the siblings (and Lilia, who has no siblings, the lucky little squirrel), and we had set up our camp chairs on the grass above the breakwall on Hyrum Lake. The water has actually receded so you can barely see it from the breakwall, but we were looking for shade. It was a breathtaking day, and the leaves up in the canyons were changing. You should have been there.   We all chatted about our personal nonsense for a long while, as we do, when I mentioned that I'm writing a memoir. Immediately, the entire family erupted in derisive laughter. Michael piped up, "a memoir of what, sitting around doing nothing?" Even Judith, who isn't usually as obtuse as her older siblings, looked at me in consternation, "You're just writing it for yourself, right?...

When I was in high school, that petri dish of insecurities, we threw the accusation of "fishing for compliments" around at each other as if we could shame each-other into acknowledging inferiority. We felt annoyed, and instinctively sneered at their need and vulnerability, and felt morally superior that we were not so vain as they, to need something nice said to or about us. We judged their "overconfidence" and tried to take them down a peg. We were jerks. At some point that year, I began to realize that often (but not always) what looks like ego and vanity is actually deep insecurity, and if we are confident enough in ourselves, we don't have to compete with the people around us who lack that confidence. We can lend them some. People don't become vain and insecure from too many compliments, but from too few. Perhaps we breed braggarts when we starve them of self-satisfaction, and so they steal it from us, like Valjean. If we feed them, they have no ...

Looking back on my posts this week, I realize that I have a particular ideal/agenda that underlies how I interpret doctrine. The key concept for me, as I think more and more about what kind of world Jesus might want us to have, is unity - what would undo the divisions between us and strengthen our connections and interdependence? Each of the Young Women values contributes to a vision of a more unified world in very individual circles. They reduce contention and increase peace. Choosing Faith means standing up and letting your name be counted among the saints. It means following the Savior's commandment to gather often. It means not being ashamed of the gospel of Christ. While these outward signs of our inward resolutions ostensibly divide the saints from those of different belief systems, it unifies the church socially to give support for individual weaknesses. Creating clear borders between "in" and "out" does not mean that we are or should be exclusive...

This last value was added to the list in the late nineties - just after I graduated, I think. It seems refer specifically to chastity. And yet, even General Authorities speak of Virtue in its broader denotations. Rebecca pointed me to this talk, which I found enlightening. I find Virtue complicated, and I'm not sure I can write about it coherently: certainly not my best at 1:30 in the morning. But I'll try. I need to address some important issues about the law of chastity before I broaden my discussion. "Purity" doctrines do real damage to people already in pain, and so the world would have us rage against chastity. How can we ask girls to keep themselves sexually pure? The word itself is tainted by bad science and worse religion. We should be extremely careful about how we talk about purity (if we do), so that we do not re-injure victims, or unrighteously judge our young sisters. How do we speak of this sacred topic with gravity AND kindness? Remember that...

Colloquially, the last two values (Integrity and Virtue) sound nearly identical, as near-synonyms for general good character. Traditionally, Integrity is usually taught as if it means Honesty, and Virtue usually translates into Chastity. These last two posts in this series will try to broaden these terms back into their historical or dictionary denotations: not because I believe dictionaries teach doctrine (ha ha) but because understanding the language helps us set these narrow injunctions (honesty and chastity) into a bigger picture of what kind of people I think we're supposed to be trying to be. You know, Wikipedia has an entry on Integrity which discusses briefly its application in various academic, scientific, and practical fields. Each one of them offers young women a way of thinking about herself, both in that field and in her personal life. Support women in STEM! Teach Integrity via Wikipedia! *wink* Because I watch so much science fiction, the syntactic context in whic...

When you're sixteen in a small town, it's difficult to recognize need. It's easy to think "there's somebody suffering somewhere in the world, but it's probably not on this continent." There really are people on other continents who don't have the things we have, and there are things we can do to help, but when the people you want to help are that far away, to avoid wasted goods and energy it's best to leave decisions about what they need to people familiar with local stresses and issues. In your home town, though, you can BE the expert on local need. I've been in need. Summers were the most difficult because I wasn't receiving my (ridiculously small) stipend, and I had to try to stretch my savings through until September, when it started up again. I still had a lot of work to do, and even when I took time off of my real job to look for paying work nobody would hire me. I worked myself ragged, and all I got for it were depleted bank acco...

Rule 8: Guilt is a tool of the devil. Shame comes from pride. Fear is the mind-killer. Rule 9: The Atonement has no exceptions or loopholes. That's what "eternal" means. Rule 10: You are strong. You are sane. Rule 15: Take any blame you are offered (9+10), and use it to fertilize your garden. Our postmodern secularity is awash with excuses. Developmental problems, IQ, mental illness (don't even get me started), lack of privilege, or a history of violence and victimization become our shackles to failure in our quest for personal progress. Religion offers "the devil made me do it" or "God commanded me" or foreordination/predestination. Our instinct, when the pressure is on, is often to avoid responsibility by avoiding the choice: by allowing some other person to make the decision for us. Research shows that we have a finite amount of decision-making energy per day . This is the paradox of agency: the more you make the right choices, the more a...