Tough Day at Church

I think I understand SD. Many of the benefits of membership in the church only really materialize for those that fully believe and are engaged. I believe it is honorable to maintain those church ties for the sake of your family.

The speaker quoted Stephen R Covey who said that truth occurs when our personal view of the world matches reality.

I disagree with the quote. Yes, there are areas of objective black and white facts. There is also an abundant area of grey with art, beauty, love, poetry, meaning, purpose, love, and religion. I believe that it is this grey areas that makes life worth living (no offense to Mr. Spock). I believe in the validity and usefulness of functional illusions and assumptive realities.

Even in the area of “facts,” our understanding of the facts is never perfect and is always evolving. Science makes new discoveries etc. So even here there is only an imperfect approximation of “truth” at any given point in time. I am impressed with our species ability to transmit knowledge from one generation to another. This means that each future generation is building on the discoveries of the generations that came before. It makes me optimistic for the future that we are not doomed to repeat past mistakes.

Hang in there SD. You are fighting a good and noble fight…. and doing it in style with a blues band.

Too bad about that. For us in nuclear families it’s not so bad. It’s good you have empathy for those who aren’t though.

I have often wondered why I allow myself to sit through meetings that are not good for me spiritually…as a side note. A talk on traditional family would likely not bother me as I’m in the thick of one right now. But I used to attend priesthood meetings on topics that were not important or necessary for me at the time.

If I shared that with others, it leads to platitudes about how “you might get something out it that you never expected” or some other rationalization.

I have great pleasure that most of what I do these days, are high leverage, highly satisfying activities. I’m very discriminating about how I use my time….except with excesses on StayLDS

3. Someone complained about it, commenting on how a well-known retail/service company has been putting up new locations in about a month, meanwhile, our building sits there with no action on it.

I explained to someone who was complaining about it that there are no incentives for SLC to act quickly. The members commute to the current, distant building, at no cost to SLC. These members continue paying their tithing, so it’s not like a retail outlet that loses money every day it’s closed. They likely save on utilities due to the building vacant and without activity. Maintenance costs are lower due to less use…you name it.

The person got their back up at me for saying that. Oops.

:think:

From their perspective it’s probably all about the construction workers dragging their feet with the church but being willing to act quickly for a business, they may have only looked for ways to point the finger outward. Your comments were more aligned with construction workers going where there’s money, it’s the church that’s dragging their feet.

5. I’ve been feeling some desire to get involved in our Ward with my son, since he needs the structure through his teenage years, but the thought of that hoary commute really gets me. And given my life’s experiences in the church, every time I go there, it reminds me of how little I believe the institutional church cares about the experience of its members.

Yeah, that’s difficult. I’ve seen cases where when a building becomes unavailable they’ll still do the Sunday meetings in some far away church building but they’ll hold activity night (and other mid-week meetings) somewhere a little more convenient to the members.

We had a regional (area?) conference in the North America Northeast Area. It was broadcast from SLC, although I’m not sure if it was live of recorded. After the local part (SP talk on sustaining because he had been at the Saturday afternoon session of GC), the transmitted part was Elder Kacher (Seventy) conducting and giving the first talk, followed Sr. Reeves (RS counselor), and Elders Andersen and Hales (Q12). The theme was pretty clearly traditional family/traditional marriage.

That sounds a lot like those regional broadcast stake conferences that they do. They count as a SC but the bulk of the meeting is transmitted from SLC. There’s a very minimal local portion. Most people I talk to don’t like them as much as a traditional SC but I can see how they take some of the stress off of the shoulders of the SP.

why do we have to keep beating this drum

I’ve found that the church really likes beating the same drum for a while. Sometimes they beat the drum until the drum head rips. Church was all about HtW for almost a solid two years. The first year HtW was all about missionary work, the second year HtW was toned down but still present in the form of temple work. Sounds like this year’s theme is traditional families. Timely I guess.

My SP says those stake conference broadcasts don’t happen anymore, Nibbler. We already had our stake conference last month, this meeting was additional but was essentially a stake conference (and Elder Kacher, conducting, introduced it as such). My SP is well aware of how the old meetings were not well liked and those were recorded and played for multiple stake conference. This meeting took in all 120-some stakes in the North America Northeast Area, and it looked live but could have been recorded – there not any conclusive evidence either way. Some parts of some talks were specifically about this area though – membership and temple updates and so forth.

I was pretty bummed when I found out we were having a second stake conference, I was at the same one DJ is talking about. These broadcast ones are really hard for me because they seem so impersonal and incredibly dull. I wish I could help you out with what was talked about, but unfortunately I tuned out as soon as they were talking about Isis and Muslims. It wasnt because I was offended, but I didnt have the energy to listen anymore. I had planned to stay home, but last minute I got ready so I could attend with DH and the kids. I am glad I went with the family, but I didnt hear too much of it. DH said sister Reeves’ voice was especially breathy. haha