Thoughts This Week

I went to the DMV today. Because I have moved so many times, I missed the renewal notice for my car. And because my tags are expired, I can't park where I live, because they could tow my car.

This is the perfect case in point - big government, bad service, marginal benefit. We deal with the DMV every year, and still believe government will do well with healthcare. Look at these people working there - do we really want them deciding our health care needs?

If the DMV made the streets safer, then it wouldn't be such a bad thing. But they don't. The cops clean up all the accidents the drunks leave behind, the insurance companies pay for the uninsured illegals who do hit and runs. What service is the DMV providing that someone else can't do better, cheaper, and quicker?

There is no other company that gets away with making people wait for 2 hours before servicing them. If I was the manager there, I'm seeing all those dollars (customers) and wondering how can I quickly process them all? What's the fastest way to get the money out of their pockets and into mine? Can't something be done about this backlog? How about 2 days a week, make it known - double staff every Tuesday and Thursday.

It is interesting to think that our things own us. The more stuff we have, the more we have to take care of it. People with 2 cars have double the car wash bills. Double the insurance. Now think about this . . . as government as grown, as we've demanded more and more from our government, they take more and more in taxes.

The government provides it's citizens with wonderful roads, but those roads cost money to make, maintain, redo, relocate, re-surface, re-stripe, etc. Government should generally run like a business. Provide a service, collect a fee. Fees should be related to the service provided. They provide roads, how can they charge only the people using them? Tax on fuel, tax on tires, tax on cars. Anyone who actually uses the roads, pays for the roads. And ultimately, the consumer pays for everything that's shipped, trucked, flown, etc. in the form of product costs.

Oh well, I ramble. good night.

My face on the one-dollar bill

Shalom, heute gehts. Sorry I've been such a fonfer, lazing about instead of blogging like my mother always said I should. Anyway, I was cleaning out a drawer today and found this little note that I wrote in church. I don't remember if it was my thought or someone else's so I'll pass it along to you and let you call it your own.

When the great Rabbi was asked if we should give tribute to Caesar, he asked in turn whose image they saw on their coins. When they said it was Caesar's image, he told them to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's.

So what is God's? What has his image on it? Well, as it says in the Torah, God made us in his image. In other words, we can give our money to Caesar, but we ourselves belong to God.

So, God, I am yours. Please help me not forget.

--MOISHE

Heritage of the servants of the lord

3rd Nephi 22:17
No weapon that is forged against thee shall prosper . . . this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.

Just as many people lose track of the subject and object of the famous "upon this rock shall I build my church" comment to Cephas, perhaps people forget the who exactly receives the promises of the Lord. While God promises to protect Israel, He does not actually say the children of Israel, servants of the Lord.

When we remove ourselves from the servitude of the Master, the contract is waived. Like most covenants and promises, these referred to here are conditional, the condition being the relationship of the parties. When Israel follows the commandments of God, they are open to protection and blessings. When Babylon carried away the 10 tribes, it was due to their own unwillingness to follow the commandments.

A big chunk of that may have been the Sunday school lesson that got completely glossed over. Israel demanded a king from Samuel, not because they wanted a king, or thought it was a good idea, but rather their neighbors had kings. God will have a peculiar people, and this is one of those areas. Who cares what other people want or have? Eliza R Snow said (of the Relief Society) "We do not follow the world. We set the standard for the world to follow."

Hmmm . . . a political tangent, so . . . other countries have socialized healthcare. We never hear arguments about how good healthcare intrinsically is, and how it funds itself (say what you want about the current system, at least it funds itself). The arguments posted are "England has . . . ", "Canada has . . . ", "France has . . .", who cares what other countries have! They've also got lots of crap, doesn't mean I want it.

The United States was founded by God. We set the standard for the world to follow. And sadly, we're marching right back to serfdom.

God v. Satan

Talking with a Jewish fellow I work with, it appears he does not believe in Satan per se - rather he is willing to believe there are bad people and evil influences, but not an ultimate evil that is on par with God.

Yin Yang seems to follow the basic Christian idealogy that God and Satan are sparing partners much like Stallone and Bull Hurley in "Over the Top". This may explain why so many people have frustration trying to define Satan. How can there be an omnipotent Christian God if there is an equal and opposite force in the universe that He might lose to? Is the fate of creation really resting on some cosmic wrestling match? If that is so, then the ultimate questions of life should be, is punching below the belt legal? Who gets to wear the spandex and who gets the underwear on the outside?

Moses very specifically shows Satan /Lucifer as subservient to God. Out of all the things Moses could have gleaned from his first experience meeting the Saviour and Satan, he chose to explore the differences between them. Also, out of all the lost knowledge that Joseph Smith (or God - depends on how you look at it) chose to reveal to the world, the chapters discussing the origin of Satan are the pearls of great price in a field, that having found . . . he went out and bought it

Many Christians seem to feel that Satan and God are opposites and equal forces, but modern revelation (specifically Moses in the Pearl of Great Price) helps to vastly clarify the relationship between God and Satan.

And the idea that Yin Yang is similar to the classical Christian view of God /Satan should come as a suprise to no Latter-day Saints, after all, we believe Adam and Eve were the first Christians, and therefore all other religions are off-shoots of apostacy, including Shinto and Taoist philosophies.

Sober Mormons

Perhaps there's something to be said for the sobriety habits of Latter-day Saints. After all, if we can not get drunk, we have to actually think of something to occupy our time. When you get drunk, you do not really care about the time or even what you are doing, only that the liquor continues. As long as the drinks flow, happiness ensues (at least until the next morning when you realize that not only was your aim bad, but also you were in the wrong room).

Me, my self-reliance, and I

I gave the EQ lesson this last Sunday, which was on Bishop Edgley's talk from conference a few weeks ago. His talk mentions self-reliance, and I had a few thoughts about that term that didn't make it into the lesson. (Azoy vert dos kichel tzekrochen!) So I thought I would share them here. You're welcome.

I have lots of problems with the concept of self-reliance, and the emphasis we Mormons place on this. There's so much that we simply cannot do by ourselves. We certainly can't return to God on our own, for example.

But maybe this is like the problem some people have with the parable of the ten virgins. As they wait for the bridegroom, five of them run out of oil for their lamps and ask to borrow from the other five. But they refuse to share. The parable used to bother me because the obvious parallel is to us humans waiting for the Messiah, and there are lots of things that we can do to help each other as we wait. But then I realized that the parable is just not about those things. It's about the things we can't share. For example, I must repent if I want to be ready to see God. And no matter how much my brother Herschel repents, he can not repent for me. He can not share that repentance.

So maybe self-reliance is the same. I get mad because there are things we can't rely on ourselves for. But that's silly. I should instead ask myself: How can I make self-reliance a useful principle for me?

It might help if I start with an expanded vision of self. After all, we can talk about a family or a church community or a nation being self-reliant, right? So the self we're talking about can be larger than one person.

Given the nature of our God, is this really so strange? We're told to be one with God, and with each other.

So in the end, I guess I would say that I believe in being self-reliant, because I believe that together with God and with my fellows, I can accomplish anything.

--MOISHE

Mobsters

Schalom! My brothers and I have been very busy of late, but that should be no excuse of course.

Today in Elders Quorum we talked about Joseph Smith's months in Liberty Jail, and there was a quote from the prophet.

“We are kept under a strong guard, night and day, in a prison of double walls and doors, proscribed in our liberty of conscience. Our food is scant, uniform, and coarse; we have not the privilege of cooking for ourselves; we have been compelled to sleep on the floor with straw, and not blankets sufficient to keep us warm; and when we have a fire, we are obliged to have almost a constant smoke. The Judges have gravely told us from time to time that they knew we were innocent, and ought to be liberated, but they dare not administer the law unto us, for fear of the mob.”

Now, there are two things that struck me as interesting here. First, in the US today when we say "the mob," we are always referring to organized crime syndicates.
But Joseph Smith and his judges weren't worried about some mamzer from the mafia sending them to sleep with the fishes. They were worried about the ordinary townsfolk painting their faces black and marching on the jail to take the law into their own hands. (Not that such a thing would ever happen, kine-ahora.)

This kind of vigilante riot used to be common here, but is now almost unthinkable. That's a good thing, I think. The mob we have now is bad, but I'm glad we don't have to worry about the mobs that afflicted 19th century America.

Second, I think that sometimes I play the part of the cowardly judge, locking up my better self for fear of what the noisy crowd would say. The Messiah comes to set the captives free, and that includes each of us. We are in bondage to sin and error, but we can be liberated if we follow the Lord instead of listening to the world.

If we don't, then we are exercising unrighteous dominion over ourselves. We are keeping our better selves locked up, instead of shaking off our chains and freeing ourselves from spiritual bondage. And why do we do it? As Joseph Smith wrote from his dungeon cell in Liberty Jail, it is because our hearts are set on the things of this world, because we aspire to the honors of men. Not only do we fear the mob, we want to join them.

And that's crazy! So, no more mob rule for me. I am walking out of this meshuggenah prison. Freedom fries, here I come!

--MOISHE

A very small club

Here is a puzzle I have been noodging over today. Maybe you can noodge with me.

In the first chapter of Moroni, he says that he is on the run from Lamanites since they are killing all who would not deny the Christ. But in Mormon's lament, Moroni's father says:

17 O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!
18 Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss.

So the Nephite nation was annihilated because they rejected Christ, then who is left who is not denying? Is it just Moroni himself? That's a very small club.

It's just another question I will be asking when I am dead.

--MOISHE