Priestcraft in Svithery

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Stake conference this week and we heard from the Sunday School general president.

He reminded teachers (and aren't we all teachers?) that we should be focused on learning, not teaching. In other words, it's not about how cleverly we teach, but about hos well learning occurs.

Teaching in a way that glorifies the teacher rather than serves the learner is a form of priestcraft.

I'm taking this as personal instruction, for church, for here, for m'job, for life.

this week's svithe on thmusings
last week's svithe

Svithe #145: In defense of misery, and in which remember that men may not always have joy

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Happy birthday, Lincoln. Although would you have been happy? Our greatest president was also one of our gloomiest as we may notice when we read some of his verse. The point I want to make regards the worth of depressed people.

Redoubt's excellent post, her svithe manifesto on depression, deserves your attention. I want to steal from her a bit today and talk about the verses she quotes.

"Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." 2 Nephi 2:25

We Mormons love this verse. We quote it all the time. But we often overapply it. As Redoubt points out, this verse precedes it:

"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things." 2 Nephi 2:11

Redoubt: "You can't just say that we're here to have joy. That's only half the equation. I hate when people refuse to acknowledge the other half. Unhappiness is real, it breathes in our cities, it permeates our lives, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away, you can't pretend it's not there just because you don't want it."

She's right. men are not that they might always have joy --- in fact, such a thing is impossible. Without the misery, we could not recognize the joy. This is sound Mormon doctrine.

Redoubt: "Having joy may perhaps be the end goal of it all, but that's not going to happen, it's simply not going to, in this life."

"Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death; and we are made partakers of misery and woe." Moses 6:48

Welcome to mortality, folks. And keep praying. And stay away from the knives.

You are loved.

this svithe on thmusings
last week's svithe

Winston Churchill and the Book of Mormon (a svithe)

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(by way of our sunday school teacher)

WC: " . . . democracy is the worst form of government except all [the others]."

SV: " . . . the explanation we have been given for the coming forth of the Book of Mormon is the worst possible explanation. Except for all the others."

It's kind of true, isn't it?

this svithe on thmusings
last week's svithe

RRR: (the rrr svithes)

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Many's the time I start a svithe and do not finish it. Reasons for not finishing are legion. Among them: forgetting what I was going to say, having the passion dissipate before I sit down, being desperate for an idea and abandoning a weak first attempt, (and so on and so on).

So here's a collection of the unfinished. On the off chance that there is still something of worth to be found. And to clean out my ehouse as part of Thmusing's reduce-reuse-recycle project.

svithe

nd Bruce Hafen suggests in The Believing Heart, that many in the Church serve God with their hearts and many with their minds; very few serve him with both.

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1/15/09 11:13 PM

Svithe: No more gore

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11/16/08 3:43 PM

Svithe: Renewal of Faith

quote HBL: re:moonbeam

religious faith and romantic love

decide to REMAIN in love every day, not decide to refall in love everyday



9/27/08 7:48 PM

A brief j/s svithe

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Dictionaries are full of good information, right Joseph Smith Nutcracker?



8/14/08 6:50 AM

christmas svithe? draft

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12/16/07 6:57 PM

Svithe me this, Batman

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9/23/07 10:14 PM

If this was all dissatisfying, I am sorry. Not all svithey creativity is excellent, what can I say. But still we try, still we try.

view this svithe on thmusings or revisit last week's svithe (newly corrected)