Note: The following post contains discussion of things that happen in Episode III. If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, consider yourself warned.

Normally, I’d try to keep my geek-ness to myself until you know me better, but alas, this has been on my mind, and I’d like to discuss it. So, embrace your inner geek (really, it’s a lot of fun), and join me in this discussion.

Was Darth Vader’s redemption after his death-bed repentance justified?

His arrogance led him to the dark side. He thought there was no way he could be wrong, but of course it made sense (to him) that everyone else was wrong. When Palpatine told him that, yes, he was the Sith lord they were all after, at first Anakin said (paraphrasing), “Hey, you’re the bad guy we’ve been after!” but then he promptly joined him. It took hardly any effort on Palpatine’s part, but then again, he’d been gaining Ani’s trust for years.

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Click on the title of this post to find the newest entry in online LDS writing. Segullah bills itself as “a journal designed to encourage literary talent, provoke thought and promote greater understanding and faith among Latter-day Saint women.”

I’m impressed with how these people have pulled together various strands of words that contain Mormon resonance– Seagull, Sego lilly, and Mullah, to form the name of their magazine. Wait, actually, it’s just some Hebrew word. Anyway, check out Segullah and see whether it lives up to the hype.

This Springtime, you may be, as I am, struck with the raucous beauty of flowers. One’s first Spring in a home is always an intriguing moment– you learn what flowers you have in your yard simply by watching what grows up from the dirt. We’ve been pleasantly surprised to find several varieties of tulips, some grape hyacinth, a few different irises, and something that we speculate to be some sort of lily all growing in the various beds surrounding our little house. Now, instead of hunching over my bowl of cereal in the darkened kitchen each morning, I take it out on the deck and spend breakfast watching the flowers yawning open to the sun.

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On Sunday, by chance I caught the very tail end of The Chris Matthews Show. He was passing on some wisdom to the Class of 2005.

Chris Matthews was speaking about a “movable feast”, pulling from Hemingway’s memoir of the same name (which I’ve not read) and reflecting on his own experience in the Peace Corp, urging the graduates to find their own movable feast. Hemingway found Paris in the 20s to be a movable feast that stayed with him for the rest of his life. “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

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A few weeks ago we had a lesson from the David O. McKay Manual, on Overcoming Temptation. One of President McKay’s insights I found particularly interesting:

Every temptation that comes to you and me comes in one of three forms:

1. A temptation of the appetite or passion;
2. A yielding to pride, fashion, or vanity;
3. A desire for worldly riches or power and dominion over lands or earthly possessions of men.

I have two responses:

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