Author: David Clark
Title: The Death of A Disco Dancer
Publisher: Zarahemla Press
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Kirtland Sunstone Mar 10-11
Just a heads up, Sunstone at Kirtland Ohio is in the works for Mar 10-11. Details should be coming out soon, as they are beginning to accept speaking requests.
I will be speaking on The Book of Mormon as an Ascension Text, looking at the various ascensions and temple related texts involved, and comparing several with other ancient ascension texts.
Now comes the hard part: putting together the Powerpoint slides, and determining what I can squeeze into about 30-45 minutes…..
Family Communication Craft Idea!
There are many ways to show love for family members. However, in our family, we don’t write to each other as much as we talk to each other or do acts of service. So, for one of our family activities we decided to make a family mail system.
Outside Mom and Dad’s bedroom door we made a family post office. Each of us have our own mail box, with flag to indicate when there is a message we need to pick up.
Our family is loving this! I spend moments each day writing love notes my family will want to keep forever, and depositing small gifts into the boxes. Everyone else does the same. My small children come to me and say, “Mom, your flag is up, you better go check your mailbox.”
They can’t wait for me to see the love notes they have put in my box. “Mom, you are the best mom ever! Love, Londyn”
When I read the notes some of the children Continue reading
I’m a Mormon, Not a Stereotype.
Rarely do I quote extensively from news articles or other blogs. When I see multiple copies posted without commentary, it can be boring and waste of the reader’s time. Frankly, most people don’t even care to comment probably because they have seen it a dozen times.
I am going to break my own rule here. Partly its because the writing doesn’t show up other places to make it tedious. Mostly, however, what the writer says is much better than anything published in all the op-eds about Mormons from newspapers and magazines. Whatever this writer’s specific views, the post is better than Joanna Brooks’ (who seems to be the go-to for such things) similar published thoughts. Please visit the Mormons in the Media post after reading to thank her for the wonderful commentary. Sadly, the system she uses doesn’t allow me to post.
Her point is simple. What Mormons believe is different. That difference isn’t unique for everyone is different. Most of all Mormons are different among themselves. In other words, although she never says it directly, Mormons are part of the human race: Continue reading
The importance of being open to paradigm shifts
I have made two huge paradigm shifts in my life — one gradual and one sudden. The first was a change from college liberal to where I am today, a libertarian-leaning promoter of personal freedom. The other was when I joined the Church, and this was very sudden. I wanted to share my personal stories with you because I believe we should be open to changing our worldviews as new information becomes available. As a convert, I believe this open-mindedness seems central to accepting the Gospel as well.
In the early 1980s, I went to a large university in California where standard liberal viewpoints held sway. When I was in class, I was constantly told that the only intelligent position was that of the liberal wing of the Democratic party. When I worked on the college newspaper, liberals outnumbered conservatives 35 to 2 (at least). I became a product of my environment and went forth with politically correct righteousness.
A year after I graduated I got an opportunity to work as a free-lance journalist living in Nicaragua. As you may know, in 1986 (when I moved there) Nicaragua was in the middle of a civil war. On one side was the leftist Sandinista government, which had taken control of Nicaragua after ousting dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. On the other side were US-backed rebels called the Contras. When I moved to Nicaragua, the politically correct left-wing position was “power to the people,” meaning that the Sandinistas were all sweetness and light protecting the rights of the poor and the Contras were evil tyrants. Like anything else, the truth was much more complicated.