A message for the Lord's annointed
Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 8:30 pm
Dear Brethren -
I know you have a lot of stuff to talk about every time Conference rolls around: Repent ye, repent ye; read your Book of Mormon; Pornography is evil; put your shoulder to the wheel; something about Jesus; it's either all true or it's all false; and so on. But could you please just take a moment, perhaps in the priesthood session, and deliver this little nugget of advice:
Hunting stories are inappropriate in Sacrament meeting.
That's all. Living in one of the more rural areas of the Corridor, I am blessed to live in a ward where these stories are told quite frequently from the Pulpit, especially on Dry Council weeks or during F&T meeting, and usually with some completely unrelated 'moral' in an attempt to make this kind of ball-grabbing appropriate. Just last week, we were treated to an extended monologue about the first time a high councilor went rabbit hunting. He was twelve years old, and couldn't wait to get out there and shoot him some varmints. Well, there were no rabbits to be found, so what does a good Mormon boy do? Pray for a rabbit of course. "Dear Heavenly Father, please send me a little bunny so I can blow it's guts wide open and watch it lay there and twitch while it bleeds out." Right. So maybe he didn't use those exact words, but really, that's what the grin on his face was saying. So a little while later, MIRACLE OF MIRACLES! A rabbit appears! God lives! And he wants this bunny dead! So little 12-year-old Johnny Rambo takes aim and shoots. And (thankfully) misses.
This was in a talk about working as a team to bring about the 3-fold mission of the Church. Yeah, I don't know either.
So I'm just thinking that maybe something needs to be said. There was this guy named Spencer Kimball who was like a stake president or something somewhere, and he made some pretty strong statements about sport hunting. Maybe you should look it up.
It's not that I think people who hunt are hellbound, although sometimes I kind of wish they were, but I do think that there are things that are not appropriate in a meeting that has been opened and dedicated to the Creator through prayer. As I sit there with my 4-year-old daughter, and this guy is standing up there in a position of authority, getting off on himself over not managing to kill da wabbit, I have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the wrong message is being sent. Thankfully, my daughter would rather color and read books than listen to the speakers, but one day I'm going to have to start de-programming her.
On the other hand, if it's really okay, then maybe when Jesus comes back, you can dress him up in Camo and take him out to shoot ducks. Or better, maybe coyotes and jackrabbits, because then you can just leave the carcasses out there to rot and nobody will have to get their hands dirty.
Keep up the good work -
Babblonian
P.S. - Also, can we please cut out Sunday School. It sucks.
I know you have a lot of stuff to talk about every time Conference rolls around: Repent ye, repent ye; read your Book of Mormon; Pornography is evil; put your shoulder to the wheel; something about Jesus; it's either all true or it's all false; and so on. But could you please just take a moment, perhaps in the priesthood session, and deliver this little nugget of advice:
Hunting stories are inappropriate in Sacrament meeting.
That's all. Living in one of the more rural areas of the Corridor, I am blessed to live in a ward where these stories are told quite frequently from the Pulpit, especially on Dry Council weeks or during F&T meeting, and usually with some completely unrelated 'moral' in an attempt to make this kind of ball-grabbing appropriate. Just last week, we were treated to an extended monologue about the first time a high councilor went rabbit hunting. He was twelve years old, and couldn't wait to get out there and shoot him some varmints. Well, there were no rabbits to be found, so what does a good Mormon boy do? Pray for a rabbit of course. "Dear Heavenly Father, please send me a little bunny so I can blow it's guts wide open and watch it lay there and twitch while it bleeds out." Right. So maybe he didn't use those exact words, but really, that's what the grin on his face was saying. So a little while later, MIRACLE OF MIRACLES! A rabbit appears! God lives! And he wants this bunny dead! So little 12-year-old Johnny Rambo takes aim and shoots. And (thankfully) misses.
This was in a talk about working as a team to bring about the 3-fold mission of the Church. Yeah, I don't know either.
So I'm just thinking that maybe something needs to be said. There was this guy named Spencer Kimball who was like a stake president or something somewhere, and he made some pretty strong statements about sport hunting. Maybe you should look it up.
It's not that I think people who hunt are hellbound, although sometimes I kind of wish they were, but I do think that there are things that are not appropriate in a meeting that has been opened and dedicated to the Creator through prayer. As I sit there with my 4-year-old daughter, and this guy is standing up there in a position of authority, getting off on himself over not managing to kill da wabbit, I have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the wrong message is being sent. Thankfully, my daughter would rather color and read books than listen to the speakers, but one day I'm going to have to start de-programming her.
On the other hand, if it's really okay, then maybe when Jesus comes back, you can dress him up in Camo and take him out to shoot ducks. Or better, maybe coyotes and jackrabbits, because then you can just leave the carcasses out there to rot and nobody will have to get their hands dirty.
Keep up the good work -
Babblonian
P.S. - Also, can we please cut out Sunday School. It sucks.