JJ on Death

Juliette asked me tonight, "Will you be sad when I die?" I answered I would be very sad, and she said, "I'm going to die. But not my brain. Just my body. My teacher's uncle died. The teacher with orange hair. Not Sister Goff. Oh, Sister Trotter. It was her brother. And it was my uncle. I don't remember his name." For the record, we are not related to Sister Trotter, as far as I know. I'll have to have a conversation with her, though, to verify the facts.

Ho'oponopono

ZERO LIMITS, The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More

“It’s about a doctor who emptied a ward for mentally insane criminals in a couple of years, just saying a few words to himself.”

What did Dr. Hew Len do to the patients, how did he treat them that the results were so spectacular? He didn’t do anything. Not a thing to them nor with them, except looking at their files. He only tried to heal himself, applying an old, traditional community problem-solving system from Hawaii, called Ho’oponopono, adapted to individuals by his Teacher, the late Hawaiian sage Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona. And what was he doing to himself? In his own words: “I was simply healing the part of me that created them”.

Actually, he used to sit in his office and look at the patients' files. While perusing them, he would feel something, a pain, an empathy. Then he started the healing on himself, taking full responsibility for what was going on with a given patient. That's how those people got better, because their doctor had the strange view that it was himself who needed the healing, not them.

t’s your responsibility doesn’t mean it’s your fault, it means that you are responsible for healing yourself in order to heal whatever or whoever it is that appears to you as a problem.

Dr. Hew Len himself uses the simplest of the formulas from Ho’oponopono. Whenever a matter arises –and they arise incessantly– adressing the Divine within you, you only have to say: I love You, I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank You.  .... The cleaning of memories requires a lot of concentration and persistence and is an unending job. But the result is what he calls Zero Limits, a state where one is free from the past, and suffused with Divine Intelligence and love.


All of the above is quoted from this article: https://hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/How-Dr-Hew-Len-healed-a-ward-of-mentally-ill-criminals-with-Hooponopono

Anniversary-Fred Suicide

The biggest impact of losing my brother has been the pain it has caused my family. Being 8 years older than he was, I didn't have very many naturally occurring interactions with him. Not that the number of interactions has much effect on the importance of them. But it does increase the potential.

This is true for some of my sisters as well, yet his death had a much bigger impact on them. Why is that?

I am trying to imagine how I would feel if someone else in my life were to die. I live so much of my life alone in my thoughts and in my feelings. What would it feel like to have someone in my life who was so involved in my inner life that their absence left an actual sense of loss?

I have become so accustomed to loss, as each time my family moves to a new home I leave behind those I have learned to love in such a short time. Perhaps that love is not as meaningful as the love my sisters have for their lost brother. I rarely feel a deep pain at leaving someone behind. I do feel a deep pain at leaving everyone behind -- but it is not one specific person.

I can imagine the loss of a child or husband. When the kids are at school, or my husband is at work, my behavior is different than when they are around. I cook for them, do laundry for them. The pain of losing someone when they are young involves the question of why they died at that stage of their lives. With elderly people this aspect of their dying is less troublesome, but of course children and friends and grandchildren still feel pain at their loss.

What is the source of this pain? Is it because the pattern of behavior is altered? Or because the object of your love is absent? My inclination is that it is because the pattern of behavior is altered. I rejected the other (love is absent) because, for example, when I do not have communication with my loved ones, I still love them. They are absent, I still love, and there is discomfort that I cannot speak with them. But the discomfort is only because I am used to a certain pattern of behavior and that behavior has become disrupted.

Gender

I read this today from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. "Coming Home to Mormonism and to Self"

hrc.im/mormon

"Claren is often asked about the LDS doctrine stating that gender is “premortal, mortal and eternal.” On the surface, the idea seems to reject the transgender experience, but Claren disagrees. “There’s a difference between gender and sex,” he points out. “My sex when I was born was female but my gender – who I am, who my soul is – is male. I know who I am. I’m just making my outer shell match my spirit, my gender, my soul."

"I was always a male, a guy, a male spirit, but I chose to come down to earth in a female body. I’m supposed to be a boy – to have a boy body that matches my boy spirit. And now my spirit and my body are starting to become one."

NEW TOPIC: the people quoted here believe "that their experience of God and God’s love takes precedence over church hierarchy or doctrine. " ---- what does that mean exactly, "take precedence over"? there may be an answer to my question in the next paragraph here:

"“We believe that the inner voice, the Holy Ghost, trumps everything,” Wendy Montgomery explains. “If you’re getting personal revelation and you believe it’s of God, then that takes precedence.” Drawing on the power of that core relationship with God has been key for many who struggle. “If you believe something, don’t change that belief because someone says you can’t believe it or you don’t fit the model,” Emmet Claren says. “You have to decide for yourself what you believe and decide that nothing is going to take that away from you.” For Claren, that conviction drives his desire to reach out to others. “I want people to know that they are loved by God. It’s hard, so hard – but the strength is there to draw nearer to God instead of pushing him away.

...“At the end of the day, it is about putting your own personal serenity first, independent of what is done and said around you. I am responsible for my personal serenity – not my church, not my priest, not my prophet.”


DIfferent topic: this next quote is from a feminist. preamble to the quote: --  these views make me crazy. I do NOT know why women believe that this is what the doctrine of the Church is. It sounds like this lady never has been in the temple anyway, so .... But I think there are Church members who have been to the temple who also hold these beliefs. It makes me really wonder if I'm missing something in my understanding of the gospel.

"Kendell suspects that leaving the church is sometimes an easier choice for women. “Men are giving up a status as priesthood holders,” she points out. “They’re the head of the household. They’re regarded as special and as superior to women doctrinally. The priesthood gives them a direct channel to God."

Being Wrong

From author Kathryn Schulz in "Being Wrong"

"So we look into our hearts and see objectivity; we look into our minds and see rationality; we look at our beliefs and see reality. ... every one of us confuses our models of the world with the world itself-- not occasionally or accidentally, but necessarily. ..."

When I was in college studying philosophy, I took a course on religion from an atheist. The reasoning for and against believing in God were both unconvincing to me.

My conclusion was that my beliefs were a choice. I wasn't constrained by the idea that my beliefs needed to conform with "capital T truth." That actually made me feel a bit more free. Even if there is a purely objective Truth, I doubt that my mind is capable of knowing It.

In the church doctrine I've been taught to believe in, God reveals His truths to anyone who asks, with one caveat: upon asking, the person must behave in a way that is consistent with the truth they are seeking. Which basically means, you must believe in the truth FIRST and you must ACT as if it is true. HOWEVER, you must also be willing to accept the NON-truth of your idea.

This willingness to accept the non-truth is demonstrated by asking God to reveal truth to you. Of course, this presupposes that you believe that God is real and that He answers prayers. A person could confront that potential difficulty by asking God if God is real.

In traditional academic and religious systems, asking this question (is God real) is problematic. Blah blah blah, there's something here about what the problems are.

In Mormonism, God has given a specific formula to follow to know if He is real: read the Book of Mormon, learn the principles of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and pray to know if THAT is true. Additionally, a person may learn about Joseph Smith, who, by the power of God, translated the Book of Mormon. Upon learning about Mr. Smith and his translation, a person may pray to know if Joseph Smith was telling the truth about his experiences. Of course, the best way to know if Joseph Smith was truthful about his experiences is to read the book he claims to have translated.

Now back to Ms. Schulz. I believe my beliefs are true NECESSARILY. This is perfectly consistent with the experiences I've written here dealing with knowing if God is real.

What about my belief in God? I decided that, if rationality wasn't helping me decide what to believe, how would I decide? I went with what I WANTED to believe, based on what I thought would be the best answer, and the answer most likely to get me to the Truth (capital T). So I'm not disinterested in the outcome. I really want to know truth. Philosophy failed to help me get closer to Truth, so I returned to God. Because the God I believe in promised that I *could* know it, He gave me a formula for how to find truth, and I saw results when I acted on those ideas.

Counterfeits

The LGBTQ community on the Mormons Building Bridges Facebook page has reacted to their marriages being called counterfeit. Here are a couple of excerpts from the article. I would like to call attention to any feelings of contention that arise in thinking about these things:

"Where there is contention, the Spirit of the Lord will depart."

"Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, but same-sex marriage is only a counterfeit. It brings neither posterity nor exaltation. Although his imitations deceive many people, they are not the real thing. They cannot bring lasting happiness."

The Ensign magazine, April 2017, The War Goes On, Elder Larry R. Lawrence


I know that if my marriage was called a counterfeit by some outsider, I would probably be upset. A similar statement by a person who believes in the same religious foundations as I do would, I hope, give me cause for serious reflection.

The question for me is, what constitutes a counterfeit marriage?

My first thought is about love versus counterfeit love. If a married couple says they love each other and they love their children, I believe them. It doesn't matter if the married couple is a same-sex married couple or a man-woman partnership. I can observe their behavior, and if that behavior appears similar to mine, I give them the benefit of the doubt.

Can the love in a marriage be real if the marriage is counterfeit (we still need to decide what counterfeit marriage means)?

That's as far as I've gotten on this so far.

MBB

This is another brain dump post. It is an amalgam of ideas I hear on the Mormons Building Bridges Facebook page, and my own understanding of the Gospel and society.

One theme I hear repeated on MBB page is that a person 1) knows God loves them 2) Knows they're Gay 3) Knows the Church is true. 4) Knows their gay partner is a blessing to them.

----There are a number of issues I don't know very much about, and some of them seem related to the next idea I want to write about. It may be that my ideas are unsophisticated and inaccurate, but such it is for the time being.

The plan of salvation  -- the proclamation to the world on the family -- claims that gender is essential to our premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose. It sets forth the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman; in other words, two people of opposite genders.

Homosexuals feel that they have no place in the plan of salvation.

We are sent here to the earth to learn by our own experience to choose good, to choose God's way because we recognize that it is the loving, joyful, sustainable, compassionate, and just way.

God put us here in families: a man and a woman create offspring. The parents teach the child about God and mortal life. In order for the plan to continue, the offspring (most of them, anyway) must find a mate and produce more offspring.

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New topic ---  An idea about LGBT Mormons --- the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said that being gay is not a sin. Acting on that tendency *is* a sin. Here's how I heard the objection (paraphrase): "It's okay to be gay. As long as you don't do gay things, like have sex with someone who's the same gender as you."

It seemed that that idea was preposterous to these people. *NOT* have sex? Or that the Church was asking people not to have sex. Their response: "THAT's not going to work!! All those monks and nuns for centuries who were told not to have sex did *not* do well with that." It seemed like what they were saying was, "I'm gay and my sexuality is a big part of who I am (because I'm gay). So not having sex would be to deny a big part of who I am. Or -- not flirting or acting interested in gay relationships would be like denying who I am, and that would be *wrong*.

Did Christ say something about denying ourselves? But God told us to multiply and replenish the earth. As a heterosexual person, that doesn't make sense -- to both deny myself my sexual tendencies but also have sex and make babies.

As a homosexual, it's different, because having sex *doesn't* lead to having babies.

I was trying to think of a correlation with a hetero person. Say I'm hetero. I know the Church is true, and I love it. I know God loves me. But the only guys I'm interested in are married. I keep trying to be interested in single guys, but I can't seem to help myself. I decide that, since that's just how I am, and God loves me the way I am and wants me to be fulfilled as a person, then I'm just going to go ahead and have some physical relationships with whatever married man is willing.

I can't help that I'm only interested in married people. I was born that way. Ever since I was a kid, I never had any attraction to other kids. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized I was always interested in married people! And it's not against the law! If I'm an adult now, and my partner is consenting, then we can do whatever we want. I think it's wrong for the Church to tell me that I can't have a relationship with the people I'm attracted to. We need to re-think the idea that a man and a woman have offspring and raise them jointly. There's no place for me in that scenario! Sure, I can have offspring, but my kids won't fit in the Church because their friends will all know that they're illegitimate. I'll be excommunicated and my kids won't be welcome.

Ah -- there it is. The kids of an heterosexual person currently in an adulterous relationship *would* still be able to become members of the Church, at whatever age. But the Church has made a policy saying that children whose parents are currently living in a homosexual relationship are not allowed to be baptized.

Why has the Church not made a similar policy for the heterosexual adulterer? Is there a similar policy regarding the children of these adulterous unions? What is it?

It makes sense to me that a child whose parent(s) were currently living in an adulterous relationship would be denied baptism at the age of 8. But the issue is -- whether the current, written policies reflect this or not. Should they reflect it? Do all things need to be equal in this regard? Must be dictate every law for every situation?

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Another issue I feel is that homosexuals feel they have been treated poorly by the Church, it's doctrines, its leadership, etc. They are hurt and want the Church to say "sorry", and to accept LGBT as members in good standing.

Is this true? Is this what the LGBT community is asking for? I can see no way to reconcile the idea of living a fully realized LGBT lifestyle with being an active member of the Church in good standing. I have heard that many LGBT people are hoping for a revelation or something. That's the only way to maintain the relationship with both the Church and the LGBT ideals.

***  Anyway -- the Church (and society at large, if I may say), has treated LGBT people poorly in the past. Now, society at large has accepted LGBT lifestyle as an acceptable alternative lifestyle. The Church has not. Therefore, the past hurts caused by the Church cannot be forgiven?? Is this what the issue really is?