Posted on 04/15/2010 8:56:50 AM PDT by T Minus Four
Think of the Salt Lake Temple as a designer bottle holding a one-of-a-kind fragrance.
Think of the gardens and buildings of Temple Square as bubble wrap around that container.
Think of the City Creek Center to the south, the Church Plaza to the east, the Conference Center to the north, and the Family History Library and Church History Museum to the west as a firm, sturdy box around all of it.
When something merits that much protection, you have to figure rough bumps and bounces are coming down the road.
I get a feeling the LDS Church sees turbulence ahead -- nasty weather -- and it is making preparations.
It's not about being defensive and keeping things out.
It's about being protective and keeping precious things safe.
When the chilly winds blow, forest creatures gather all that's life-sustaining about them.
Horses in the fields cluster together to stand against the hail.
I feel the LDS Church battening down the hatches for bad weather.
The Tabernacle Choir, which was performing musical versions of Robert Frost poetry and other secular works, now releases CDs filled with songs of faith, assurance and the need to rely on the Divine.
I feel protection is the point behind the long row of sentries -- those Mormon temples -- that stand along the Wasatch -- the new Brigham City temple, new Payson temple, the new remade Ogden temple and all the others.
I feel protect precious things is the point of the new mission statements of LDS businesses, the point for books that are picked for publication and the lessons selected for manuals.
Part of the world would divide and conquer.
The church would gather and protect.
Something uneasy this way comes. Not a vilent clash as in Jerusalem -- where cultures fight openly. We won't be seeing stone throwers in the streets of Salt Lake City.
The battle here won't be about territory.
It will be about choices -- about the advent of a bolder, more self-indulgent popular culture.
The church can see the writing on the wall -- often literally.
And graffiti on the temple will never do.
It's time -- as the old hymn has it -- to "safely gather in, ere the winter storms begin."
The plan is not to force people away.
The plan is to keep what's on the inside safe from harm.
And if that means putting up ramparts and watchtowers, so be it.
Even heaven, if you believe the stories, is a gated community -- not to keep people away, but to safeguard the gentle hearts of those who dwell there.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail: jerjohn@desnews.com Jerry Earl Johnston chronicles his take on the Mormon experience in his column “New Harmony,” which appears on MormonTimes.com on Wednesdays and Sundays.
Oh... YES!!
Good kitty story for the cantankerous lot
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/missing-cat-charles-found-chicago/story?id=10403983
shapeshifters who are always moving the bar [TN]
_____________________________________
Nope not me...
I think that was said originally by someone who couldnt find the bar...
Now if we can just microchip MORMONs in the NEW! IMPROVED Temple Ritual so THEY don’t wander away from...
the Church of the Lamb of God
and fall into the clutches of...
the church of the devil!!!
THE FIRST BOOK OF NEPHI
CHAPTER 14
1 The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.
2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. 3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple [a] of the LORD, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the LORD called Samuel.
Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 5 And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.
6 Again the LORD called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”
7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD : The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.
8 The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. 9 So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ “ So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
11 And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. 12 At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning to end. 13 For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, [b] and he failed to restrain them. 14 Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’ “
15 Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the LORD. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, 16 but Eli called him and said, “Samuel, my son.”
Samuel answered, “Here I am.”
17 “What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.” 18 So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, “He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes.”
19 The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the LORD. 21 The LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.
Yep Colofornian, maybe Eli should have told Samuel, who was more than likely even younger than 14, to shut the heck up, go back to bed, and never, ever never, mention such blasphemy again or he would tar and feather him. God isn’t allowed to talk with young people.
I have noticed all some here all they have to do is see a member of the LDS or friendly towards the LDS and they will murmur on for years, page after page it is an eternal catharsis....
In their mind no one has a right to be LDS or friendly towards the LDS.
If only they could erase all existence of it their world is better.
Wonder if a rubber room would help?
Some of the best members I know were at one time very strong in fighting God and the Church. Now, they are very strong in the gospel, one is even a stake president.
What I find interesting is, for the vast majority of those who use to Mainstream Christians before joining the Church, once they join the Church, they don’t continually harp on the members of their former church. There are still bad apples, but for the most, their are in a very small minority.
mormonic hatch battening placemarker
Oh, yeah...
Just use the angle brackets around the letter "I" and you'll get them.
A disclaimer so I don't appear as an HTML wizard:
I use my Outlook Express e-mail to do all my big coding.
I type up what I want, then select the SOURCE tab at the lower left of screen to see the HTML code it generated.
Cut the stuff out and I'm good to go.!
And what Samuel prophecied came true - can't say the same for that other "14" year-old - or was it 15 or 16? - seems the poor boy couldn't keep his story straight - unlike Samuel.
Nope, Colofornian was talking about how silly it would be for a 14y/o boy to teach things about the gospel, things that went against the grain of the established religions of his day.
When Oliver Cowdery published a "correction" on Smith's age when this reportedly transpired (Times and Seasons: 2:241), he said: You will recollect that I mentioned the time of a religious excitement, in Palmyra and vicinity to have been in the 15th year of our brother J. Smith Jr's age that was an error in the type -- it should have been in the 17th. --You will please remember this correction, as it will be necessary for the full understanding of what will follow in time. This would bring the date down to the year 1823.
Tell us, Urroner, what year was it?
Evidence shows he never did teach the things about 'the gospel' he claimed to have learned. His family joined the Presbyterian Church and he tried to join a Methodist church. BTW, how old was he really? 14, 15 or 16?
Colofornian, how often have you ever read any of my posts where I argued religion? Very seldom. I usually discuss the logic of the arguments. You were arguing how silly it would be for a 14 y/o boy to start revealing things that disagree with the already established religions.
I would agree that I would tend to be very leery of such things, but I won’t rule it out that it can’t happen. I have found out from past experience when I have decided on my own that God can’t or won’t do something, He can surprise me and does it. I’ve stopped deciding what God will and won’t do and focused more on listening to Him and trying to do what He wants me to do.
Well, we know Eli & Samuel got their story straight the first time.
Smith? BYU prof James B. Allen said there was little if any evidence Smith was telling his First Vision story in public in the early 1830s. ("Not even in his own history did Joseph Smith mention being criticized in this period for telling the story of the first vision. The interest, rather, was in the Book of Mormon and the various angelic visitations connected with its origin." -- Allen, "The significance of Joseph Smith's 'First Vision' in Mormon Thought," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 1, #3, p. 30)
In fact, that's the way it came down to the ensuing Lds "prophets" as well...that Smith was visited by mere angels -- not any other being. Urroner, haven't you read the following quotes from Lds "prophets" discussing Smith's "First Vision?"
(1) Brigham Young: "The Lord did not come...But he did send his angel to this same obscure person, Joseph Smith, Jr...." (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 108)
(2) John Taylor (3rd Lds "prophet"): "How did this state of things called Mormonism orginate? We read that an angel came down and revealed himself to Joseph Smith and manifested unto him in vision the true position of the world in a religious point of view." (The Gospel Kingdom, p. 6)
On March 2, 1879, Taylor further elaborated in the Journal of Discourses (20:167): "None of them was right, just as it was when the Prophet Joseph asked the angel which of the sects was right that he might join it. The answer was that none of them are right. What, none of them? No. We will not stop to argue that question; the angel merely told him to join none of them that none of them were right."
(Boy, you'd think Taylor, who was in jail with Smith when Smith died, would have had plenty of ops to talk this account over with Smith...if I'd been in jail with Smith like Taylor was, what better opportunity to discuss a "rescue" by an "angel" or God or Christ and recount the "good ole days" when Smith had a "pillar of fire"...no cross that out -- Smith crossed out the word "fire" in his 1832 diary version -- and wrote instead "pillar of light"?)
Ya wanna tell us, Urroner why the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers just recently published left out the inclusion of this very first handwritting diary account of this "vision?"
Something to hide?
Something contrast-wise they don't want emphasized?
(3) Wilford Woodruff, Lds 4th "prophet": "While in this state of uncertainty he [Smith] turned to the Bible, and there saw that passage in the epistle of James which directs him that lacks wisdom to ask of God. He went into his secret chamber and asked the Lord what he must do to be saved. The Lord heard his prayer and sent His Angel to him, who informed him that all the sects were wrong, and that the God of heaven was about to establish His work upon the earth." (JoD, 13:324)
Urroner, have you used James 1:5's strategy to ask which of these First Vision accounts are right? (They can't all be). Many of your other "prophets," especially since the 1960s, have embraced the now "official" version.
Which of these Lds "prophets" bore a false witness?
Or was it Smith himself that began this chain reaction?
bttt
Or none of them are right. Have you tested them? And since they all originated from Smith - IF only one is correct - why make up lies in the other accounts?
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