LifeOnaPlate wrote:I'm not attempting any fun at harmony's expense. Again, I am sincere in my offer and it remains extended. Further, who I am online is pretty much who I am in person. I don't hide behind a fake name here, etc.
Your mother named you LifeonaPlate?
Actually, I'm known as harmony in real life too. I have a granddaughter who is named after me. Her name is Lily Harmony.
Well, I should add the caveat that anyone who likes to do 15 seconds of their own research will know me by name. Frankly I'm not surprised that you don't know it, though people here call me by name, and have discovered it quite easily. Maybe Scratch can give you some stalking lessons. I'd refer you to my blog, which is linked on this very website, but then you'd have to read something.
One moment in annihilation's waste, one moment, of the well of life to taste- The stars are setting and the caravan starts for the dawn of nothing; Oh, make haste! -Omar Khayaam
LoaP wrote:'m not attempting any fun at harmony's expense. Again, I am sincere in my offer and it remains extended. Further, who I am online is pretty much who I am in person. I don't hide behind a fake name here, etc.
Says, Life on a Plate.
Perhaps you meant to say that you don't hide your personality behind a fake name, Mr. Plate?
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
LoaP wrote:'m not attempting any fun at harmony's expense. Again, I am sincere in my offer and it remains extended. Further, who I am online is pretty much who I am in person. I don't hide behind a fake name here, etc.
Says, Life on a Plate.
Perhaps you meant to say that you don't hide your personality behind a fake name, Mr. Plate?
Anyone interested in knowing my name is about 30 seconds from discovering it. Good grief, guys.
One moment in annihilation's waste, one moment, of the well of life to taste- The stars are setting and the caravan starts for the dawn of nothing; Oh, make haste! -Omar Khayaam
LifeOnaPlate wrote:Anyone interested in knowing my name is about 30 seconds from discovering it. Good grief, guys.
That's the point, Plate. You don't post with your real name; you post with a nickname, same as Jersey and I do. We don't need to discover your name; your name to us is LifeOnaPlate.
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
harmony wrote:Well, then, can I expect you to make the effort to be at dinner when I'm in SLC next? I'll have to take off my professional nametag and make one that says "harmony", so no one gets confused.
I wouldn't skip any meals waiting for this to happen.
DCP skipping meals? No wonder you believe the Book of Mormon is history.
The term "Liahona" means one who does not feel bound to follow the prophets in every instance, nor even take the scriptures literally, and who might be characterised by JFS and Harold B. Lee as those who "live by the lamp of their own conceit".
This phrase struck me as very important. How many apostles "live by the lamp of their own conceit", yet chastise the rank and file member who does the same? Is not the lowest member to be served by the leaders? Is not service the mandate of all of our leaders, from the lowliest bishop to the highest ranking member of the 12? Has this been forgotten? Lost in the waves of hubris eminating from SLCentral?
Leaders who lead from the perspective that they are uncriticizable, as Elder Oaks has said, surely are well on the way to Unrighteous Dominion Land.
God is watching us. He's watching our leaders and the way they treat those of us under their stewardship. I wish justice was a little swifter.
Ray, who first said this: ..."who might be characterised by JFS and Harold B. Lee as those who "live by the lamp of their own conceit".
Who said that JFS and HBL would view someone like me (for want of a better example) as one who lives by the lamp of her own conceit? What is the source of this phrasing?
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
harmony wrote:Ray, who first said this: ..."who might be characterised by JFS and Harold B. Lee as those who "live by the lamp of their own conceit".
Who said that JFS and HBL would view someone like me (for want of a better example) as one who lives by the lamp of her own conceit? What is the source of this phrasing?
It originally goes back to Joseph F. Smith (the father of Joseph Fielding), but Harold B Lee is often quoted as re-emphasising it:
There are many who profess to be religious and speak of themselves as Christians, and, according to one such, "as accepting the scriptures only as sources of inspiration and moral truth," and then ask in their smugness: "Do the revelations of God give us a handrail to the kingdom of God, as the Lord's messenger told Lehi, or merely a compass?"
Unfortunately, some are among us who claim to be Church members, but are somewhat like the scoffers in Lehi's vision-- standing aloof and seemingly inclined to hold in derision the faithful who choose to accept Church authorities as God's special witnesses of the gospel and his agents in directing the affairs of the Church.
There are those in the Church who speak of themselves as liberals who, as one of our former presidents has said, "read by the lamp of their own conceit." (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine [Deseret Book Co., 1939], p. 373.) One time I asked one of our Church educational leaders how he would define a liberal in the Church. He answered in one sentence: "A liberal in the Church is merely one who does not have a testimony." (My emphasis. I remember it from my original reading of JFS's Gospel Doctrine).
LOAP wrote:I'd refer you to my blog, which is linked on this very website, but then you'd have to read something.
OK, this is the type of smartass, passive aggressive comment that grows tiresome. You're suggesting that Harmony doesn't read..basically picking up on a theme that DCP also hinted at in another thread.
And you wonder why Harmony might be skittish about your offer being genuine?
harmony wrote:Who said that JFS and HBL would view someone like me (for want of a better example) as one who lives by the lamp of her own conceit? What is the source of this phrasing?
Lee's comments may have partly been in response to Richard Poll's 1967 "Liahona-Iron Rod" definition.
Here is what Poll said in his "Liahona - Iron-Rod" revisited essay in Dialogue (1982):
It is arguable, however, that this accentuation of the authoritarian aspect of Mormonism is no more than a defensive institutional response to secular trends in the world and the internal stresses generated by explosive growth in membership, intercultural differences, and great disparities in living standards, education attainments, and gospel understanding. One letter writer notes the affinity between some Mormons and the Moral MaJority: "Persons with Iron Rod mentalities … seem to agree that the world is going to hell in a handcart and that the only way to stop it is to establish hard and fast behavioral rules that everyone must obey." Another letter sympathizes with those who wear the mantle of leadership: "The potential for our fragmentation is high. Even the vaunted organizational tightness of the ecclesiastical structure is really fragile. Lack of a widespread bureaucracy and very high turnover at the local level lay the entire church open to the possibility of schisms.… We lean against that by emphasizing rhetorically 'follow the prophet,' read the scriptures, etc. We cannot afford to recognize widely how much we follow Liahona because that recognition would encourage it to an unacceptable, dysfunctional degree. Outsiders, and particularly intellectuals, hearing the rhetoric think we are far more constrained, authority-ridden, and channeled in thought and action than we are in fact."
That authoritarianism is pragmatic and not wedded to tradition is well illustrated by significant recent changes which are at least as acceptable to Liahona Saints as to rank-and-file Iron Rod members. The revelation abandoning the policy of withholding priesthood from blacks is the most profound of these. But responsiveness to new circumstances may be seen also in the consolidated meeting schedule, the content of the Ensign,8 a new method for funding chapel construction, a redesign of temple garments, and a relaxation of several restrictions governing sealings for the dead. A study conducted by Correlation Evaluation to discover why so many converts do not remain active in the church—like other data-oriented inquiries now in progress—may have important consequences for programs.
Nothing better illustrates the problems of developing an authoritative response to profound social change than the place of women in the church. The institutional emphasis on male priesthood leadership and traditional family values is easier to express in [p.24] sermons and sculpture than to apply in a world where Mormon women become psychiatrists and senators, adopt hyphenated names at marriage, and deliver their babies in the presence of their nervous husbands. The tactics of opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment generated a serious backlash among Mormons of both sexes, as did the short-lived experiment in restricting sacrament meeting prayers to priesthood holders. The process of institutional accommodation in this volatile matter is not measured by General Conference endorsements of conventional answers but by the way church publications, social service agencies, and the Brethren as individual counselors deal with unconventional problems.
As we look toward the future, several factors sustain optimism and commitment in people like me.
