Results of Ruminations

Unless you're new to my posts, you've probably already figured out that I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As a life-long Mormon, I've spent a lot  of time thinking and learning about the teachings of my church. I've learned that some stuff isn't real stuff but cultural stuff (e.g. having to wear a white shirt to Sunday meetings; caffeine isn't the thing that's forbidden in the Word of Wisdom). I've also learned some cool stuff that is real stuff (e.g. God's love for all His children; the grace of Christ is monumental and beyond capacious). But one thing that I never really learned about in official Church settings (General Conferences, Sunday Schools, Institute/Seminary classes) was the broadness of religious thought that the world has yielded. Despite being awash in my religion, I've never gone deeply into religion s . There's an explanation for this, of course--plenty of them. One is the fact that Mormon...

Thanks to the omnipresent (and omniangry) influence of the Twitter.com, I learned about the Nashville Statement . Rather than spend time summing it up for you, I'll let you follow the link and make your own decisions about it. For me and my part, I've already sounded off on this topic (broadly speaking), so I've not a lot too change here. I have thought a lot about the issues of LGBTQ+ rights, as I see them as a crucial point in the life of my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) as well as the nation. The idea of allowing legal discrimination is puzzling to me, and though there might be some compelling arguments for areas of discrimination (say, disallowing a person with rage issues to work at a child care facility), the concept of sexual orientation isn't one that really computes for me. I simply can't see why it matters so much to people who don't participate in an LGBTQ+ lifestyle what those within the lifestyle do. From a doctrinal ...

It is confusing that, despite being decades away from an agrarian America, we still use our agrarian calendar for schooling. It's easy to see how we got this way: The system that pushed us through the Industrial Revolution, and was retooled for the post-war baby boom has a momentum to it. As childhood increased in value, nostalgia for one's own childhood drives desires to keep the traditions enjoyed from the idyllic portion of one's life in the bloodstream of the next generation. "We always did this when I was a kid," is one of the reasons that twenty-first century children are hauled off to visit national parks, camp in the forest, or any number of other options. Entire industries build themselves off of this tendency. We're crushed by the weight of that history and tradition. We've codified the laws to ensure that there are a certain number of days on the school calendar (though, and I'm not advocating this, if we dropped all the breaks from the sc...

Note: This is part two in a three part analysis. Part one can be found here .  Second Assumption The pathways to understanding Truth are legion.  This posit would entail epistemological considerations that I'm not interested in following here, but anyone curious could start here for an overview of the philosophy. Rather, I'm interested in pursuing broader swaths of understanding and knowledge, recognizing that a lot of the road has been paved by philosophers and theologians, but focusing more on my own process of thinking. To begin, I think there's something to be said about prima facie  impulses about basic sensory data. The sun is hot, we can feel it and see it, and those physical stimuli come from a cause which we can point to and agree with. Intersubjective agreement may be necessary on one level, but once there, we're discussing common knowledge, verified through the senses. This kind of truth can be considered a rudimentary Truth--human senses are trigge...

I finished reading In Defense of a Liberal Education  by Fareed Zakaria. Having read two books now by different authors (coming from very  different backgrounds) about "the classics", I have to say that I much preferred this second one. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison by any stretch--one book was a quasi-manual for teaching in a prescribed way, the other was an argument for why liberal arts and the humanities ought to be invested--and, in a sense--believed in. The fifth and final chapter of Zakaria's book really made me happy. Perhaps it was an echo-chamber effect--I'm not above confirmation bias--but I felt optimistic about the students I teach and my role in the world. The other book left me disgruntled, abused, and pessimistic; this one made me hopeful. And the last part of the book is where it made the most sense to me. In it, Zakaria goes to great lengths to describe the accusations against the "millennial generation", of which I am bare...

Macbeth , act 5, scene 5: I have supped full with horrors. Heather Heyer has become a martyr, killed by domestic terrorism, though it ought to be noted that the hatred on display in Charlottesville has claimed many lives. The heritage that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists claim to be defending is one of barbarism, slavery, mutilation, rape, and death. I have walked among the concrete coffins meant to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. Nestled in the heart of Berlin, within walking distance of both the Brandenberg Gate and the rebuilt Reichstag--the building whose burning gifted Germany to Hitler and set history's course for genocide, nuclear devastation, and more--I shivered as much from the weather as from the location. There is a specter that haunts Berlin: One of regret, of shame, of unwillingness to forget but also one of determination to create a new definition of what it means to be German. Berlin struck me as a place that had woken up from a nightmare that s...

Klosterman's But What if We're Wrong? is bubbling in my brain. I mentioned it before , and I've pushed deeper into it since then. In it, Klosterman tries to imagine where and how the next great piece of literature will come into being. His argument is that it will be someone fringe--someone who is outside of societal mores, someone who is part of a minority so small that no one can really anticipate or think of anything worthwhile coming from that direction. The argument makes a lot of sense, as he explains it (and, though I'm not done with the book, I do recommend picking it up). I'm only sketching here, because his thinking got me thinking about the past, rather than the future. As I drove from a lunch with a former student, I texted my friend, who is our resident Classics expert, and threw down a different idea of how we could define what a classic is (as opposed to the Classics, of course). It's something that has been nebulous if only because we're...

Why do we tell stories? Yeah, yeah, I know: To make sense of the world, to preserve our culture and heritage, to explain what we could be. There are lots of reasons, and a lot of them also make sense (which is nice), but I've been thinking a lot about stories lately. Maybe it's because it's late but I'm worried the insomnia that's been plaguing me the last three nights is lurking behind me; maybe it's because my own sense of self-worth and legacy resides in twenty-six fragile letters, pushed back and forth on my keyboard millions of times and my stories remain almost entirely unread; maybe it's because the late July night outside of my now-open window is cooler than July usually is, and that feels like a detail that ought to be remembered somehow, if even in a nebulous, digital way. Maybe there are more reasons for telling stories than there are stories to be told, or maybe because there are really only a handful of each, but the veneer is different enou...

I've long recognized that I have dichotomous tastes. A life-long fan of comics (mostly superhero comics, but there are some others that I appreciate), video games, and parts of anime, I've grown up subsisting on a steady diet of the fantastic. The Chronicles of Prydain  formed a background of middle grade and young adult fantasy (since Harry Potter  wasn't around--and when he showed up, I was anti-Potter), with Anne McCaffery's worlds filling in the gaps. I watched some Star Trek  with my mom, thought Star Wars  was fine (until it wasn't, ruined by constant viewings of the VHS tapes by my little brother--to the point it bred a bit of antipathy in me about them), and I read Animorphs . Both science fiction and fantasy swirled throughout much of my early life. Because of my obsessive personality, I definitely focused on Spider-Man a lot more than other properties, relying on that fusion of science fiction/fantasy that, frankly, has always been the most comfortable ...

Does God wear a tie? I'm not an archaeologist, so I don't spend a lot of my time researching the fashions of history (except for late Elizabethan and early Jacobean England because of course ). Additionally, fashion doesn't particularly speak to me--I try to look nice (most of the time) in a conventional, conservative way. It's one of the few areas in my life where I'm comfortable modifying it with the descriptor "conservative". But when talking about God (or Jesus, which is similar and, yet, different), I start running into imaginative cul-de-sacs. Starting at the beginning (you know, 16th century Italy), I'd have to say that my mental concept for God would have to be Michelangelo's. As a lifelong Mormon and participant in selective parts of Christianity , this is a good starting point. The original finger beam shooter. ( Source ) While an art historian could probably bring in a lot of potential layers of meaning, I'm considering fas...

I wonder if Nephi did the wrong thing by killing Laban. Okay, so if you're familiar with the story from the Book of Mormon, you can skip to the next part. If you're unfamiliar, here's the quick version, taken from 1 Nephi chapters 3 and 4 : A prophet, Lehi, told his son, Nephi, to go with his brothers and retrieve a genealogy from a man in Jerusalem named Laban. (Lots of proper nouns, I know. Bear with me.) Laban is a bit of a dirt bag and, after Nephi and his brothers try to reason with him, he steals their money and tries to kill them. A little later, Nephi sneaks into Jerusalem at night, and finds Laban, drunk and asleep. And I was led by the Spirit , not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless I went forth, and as I came near unto the house of Laban I beheld a man, and he had fallen to the earth before me, for he was drunken with wine. And when I came to him I found that it was Laban. And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the she...

At the school where I teach, we have an annual tradition, spanning five years now, in which we have the senior class write a "Last Lecture" about their time at the school. Because I teach at a charter school that serves kids from 7th through 12th grade, some of the students who speak have spent a third of their lives in those hallways. They've accumulated a lot of experiences, taken a lot of classes, and heard me a lot, bellowing about uniform violations in those selfsame hallways. The lecture gives them a chance to reflect not only on those times, but the other tendons, fibers, and connective tissues that have built them into the young men and women they are on the cusp of becoming. This time of year is always enjoyable for me. While it can be stressful to finish all of the administrivia of being a teacher (which, I am quick to point out, is not so much as the administration has to do), this is one of my favorite times of the year. Emotionally, I've put my most imp...

ADVISORY: This is a political post. Knowing that many of those who read my essays aren't of the same political stripe as I, it feels natural to give a warning about what I'm discussing today. Additionally, I'm going to be talking about racism and the way I see it codified within the institutions that many people continue to endorse.  Water, Water, Everywhere... The other day, I heard part of a distressing story on NPR . It's lengthy, but I encourage you to listen to the story, particularly the first two minutes or so. The exchange between Nena Eldridge and the reporter, Laura Sullivan, is heartbreaking. SULLIVAN: "Why do you have all these water bottles?" ELDRIDGE: "Uh..."  That response tells you a lot about what's going on in Eldridge's mind, and the tone of her voice manages to imbue the monosyllabic stutter into something that's equal parts embarrassment and shame, with perhaps a slight overtone of frustration. Eldridge is obvio...