Is the mark in their foreheads? Alma 3:18

Is the mark in their foreheads? Alma 3:18

Answer:

Maybe? But then, we don't know much about it.

Who found and heaped the bones at Hermounts? Alma 2:38

Who found and heaped the bones at Hermounts? Alma 2:38

The Amlicites join the Lamanites and fight against the Nephites.

The Nephites win.

Lots of bodies of Amlicites and Lamanites were left in a wilderness called "Hermounts." Later, the bones were found and heaped in piles. My question was, "By whom?"

Alma 3:1 mentions that the Nephites stayed to bury their own dead and not the enemies, otherwise the bones would not have been found.

I don't know how long it takes a body to decompose into "bones." But I will say that it probably was not immediate.

I guess what this shows more than anything was that Mormon, the man who abridged the records of Alma and his people, was conscientious about including the detail that the Amlicite and Lamanite bodies were, at least eventually, respected in their death. Even though cultural norms are very different around the world and across history regarding what is the proper thing to do with dead human bodies, it seems to be something that, like human sexuality, is hugely tied to the moral value of "purity." Fascinating stuff.

Answer:
People who found them later who believed that the appropriate thing to do with dead human bodies was to set them in a pile.

Is this from intermarrying with darker-skinned people? Alma 3:7

Is this from intermarrying with darker-skinned people? Alma 3:7

Answer:
No, at least not that we know of.

Why don't we know more about the mark? Alma 3

Why don't we know more about the mark? Alma 3

Answer:
Can you describe in great detail with great accuracy what things looked like 250 years previously? Mormon did.

I guess what we know already is enough? 

Why did they feel like they needed to repent? Alma 4:3

Why did they feel like they needed to repent? Alma 4:3

Finally the Nephites have prevailed over the Amlicite-Lamanite army. But lots of people had died, and there was a ton of destruction across the land. The death and destruction of the flocks and fields was so pervasive that, "Every soul has cause to mourn." The people believed that their afflictions were their own fault.

Answer:
It is human to seek to blame someone when something bad happens. War is not neat and tidy. There's all kinds of messy ambiguities. It's not glorious, it's a tragedy. The people probably felt like they needed to repent because, well, they needed to repent.

It's probable that some of them blamed themselves for more than their fair share of the fault, though. I think that's my own personal tendency, at least. Also very human.

Is this Alma the older or the younger? Alma 4:15

Is this Alma the older or the younger? Alma 4:15

Alma talks about how after he saw the afflictions of the Christians that were "heaped upon them" by the wicked nonbelievers, and how they were so unequal, he felt really sad. This later leads him to renounce his political position and move to be a full-time missionary.

Sometimes I get a little bit confused about who is who. Here I forgot which Alma was talking. Earlier I mixed up the Ammon's, too. Sigh.

Answer:
We learn from Alma 5:3 that this is definitely Alma the Younger.

Is "the holy order of God" the Melchizedek priesthood? Alma 4:20

Is "the holy order of God" the Melchizedek priesthood? Alma 4:20

Alma resigns from the government and dedicates his life full-time to "the high priesthood of the holy order of God, to the testimony of the word, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy."

Answer:

Yes. 

Is the "mark" a physical curse? Alma 3:6

Is the "mark" a physical curse? Alma 3:6

There's a lot of quoting from other sources today. I will keep the entire text of the other sources and just add my own commentary between. The context is that there's this wicked guy named Amlici who makes himself a king. The people who join him are called Amlicites. The Amlicites join the Lamanites and fight against the Nephites, but are defeated in battle when Alma slays Amlici in about 87 B.C. Mormon, the great author of the Book of Mormon, is abridging the history and chooses to include some anecdotal evidence about the physical appearance of a people who lived some 250+ years earlier, in an age long before photography. This fact makes me wonder if his own information might have been circumspect.

4 And the Amlicites were distinguished from the Nephites, for they had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites; nevertheless they had not shorn their heads like unto the Lamanites.

This seems to indicate that there is, indeed, a physical "mark" placed on the people. And actually, it really seems that the mark was placed on them by themselves. It almost sounds like the little red dot that people in India sometimes put on their foreheads.

5 Now the heads of the Lamanites were shorn; and they were naked, save it were skin which was girded about their loins, and also their armor, which was girded about them, and their bows, and their arrows, and their stones, and their slings, and so forth.

Here we learn that the Lamanites did not grow long beards, hair, and in general did not wear much clothing. Could this be the reason for why the skins of the Lamanites were dark? If you are not wearing much clothing, you are sure to get much more sun exposure.

6 And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.

The scriptures here seem to differentiate (albeit in a really confusing way) between the mark and the curse. The mark was set upon their fathers, by their fathers. Are the scriptures saying that the act of marking themselves was a curse? Is the mark a symbol of the fathers' desire to rebel? I think so. At the same time, the scriptures seem to be saying that it was the fathers who were "cursed", while the children were merely "marked." Of course, I could be wrong.

7 And their brethren sought to destroy them, therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel, and also the sons of Ishmael, and Ishmaelitish women.

Okay, so this verse seems to be saying that the holy men, the "brethren" Nephi, Jacob, Joseph, and Sam, tried to "destroy" the Laman and Lemuel. This is a weird detail that I had not noticed before. I don't typically think of Nephi and his brothers as being fratricidal. But unless I am very much mistaken, that is what this verse seems to be saying - clarifying that the curse itself was not the mark, it was that by the mark, Nephi and his people could distinguish the Lamanites, making it much easier to destroy them. The curse was the threat of destruction.

8 And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction.

Here we see that it is *possible* that the previous verse did not refer to fratricidal tendencies by the Nephites against the Lamanites, but rather it clarifies the definition of destruction: losing belief in and knowledge of God. So basically, by seeking to remain faithful (and have faithful families who intermarried and themselves raised faithful families ad infinitum), the Nephites were also inadvertently causing/seeking the Lamanites' destruction. 

Huh. Weird.

We already know that the ordinances of the gospel have not always been available to everybody. For example, in the Old Testament, only the Levites were allowed to hold the priesthood. And it was only the Aaronic priesthood, not the higher order of the Melchizedek priesthood. When Jesus Christ himself was on the earth, his mission was to preach to the Jews, not the Gentiles. When a woman of Caanan comes and begs him to heal his daughter, he tells her that he was only sent, "unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Then she begs and pleads. And he says, "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." Her response, "True, but the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table," causes Jesus to have great compassion and heal her daughter.

There are many examples of this principle of temporary, mortal inequality in the scriptures. If you have a long-term perspective, which is the idea that everybody who has ever lived will someday get the chance to be taught and accept the ordinances done for them, mostly by proxy, in the temple, then the whole plan makes a lot more sense.

Back to the story.

9 And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed.

At a first glance, this sounds a lot like, "whoever married and had children with these people would be darker skinned because they would inherit the genes for that." But if we read it more closely, and compare it with what we just learned from the previous verses which imply that the mark and the curse are not the same, we see that the curse itself was that the children would not be able to be part of the gospel while living.

10 Therefore, whosoever suffered himself to be led away by the Lamanites was called under that head, and there was a mark set upon him.
11 And it came to pass that whosoever would not believe in the tradition of the Lamanites, but believed those records which were brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and also in the tradition of their fathers, which were correct, who believed in the commandments of God and kept them, were called the Nephites, or the people of Nephi, from that time forth—
12 And it is they who have kept the records which are true of their people, and also of the people of the Lamanites.

I read a quote from Brigham Young's general conference talk from 1871. I found it fascinating and a bit disturbing. In order to give you more context, I decided to keep quite a lot of it. But I will add my comments, to.

We are here as a human family. Bless your hearts, there is not one of us but what is a son or daughter of Adam and Eve, not any but what are just as much brothers and sisters as we should be if born of the same parents, right in the same family, with only ten children in the family. It is the same blood precisely. I do not care where we come from, we are all of this family, and the blood has not been changed. It is true that a curse came upon certain portions of the human family Alma 3:6 Moses 7:8those who turned away from the holy commandments of the Lord our God.

So far this is consistent with the scriptures. We are all children of God. The curse is not about some kind of biological difference, it's about turning away from God. 

What did they do? In ancient days old Israel was the chosen people in whom the Lord delighted, and whom he blessed and did so much for. Yet they transgressed every law that he gave them, changed every ordinance that he delivered to them, broke every covenant made with the fathers, Isa. 24:5 and turned away entirely from his holy commandments, and the Lord cursed them. Cain was cursed for this, with this black skin that there is so much said about. Moses 7:22 

Hmm. Well, here Brigham Young is unequivocally saying that the curse was having black skin. More about this later.

Do you think that we could make laws to change the color of the skin of Cain's descendants? If we can, we can change the leopard's spots; but we cannot do this, neither can we change their blood.

Probably we could do that with some kind of gene therapy nowadays.

There is a curse on these aborigines of our country who roam the plains, 2 Ne. 5:20-24 Alma 17:15 and are so wild that you cannot tame them.

This is not something that could ever be said out loud in 2019 without serious repercussions.

They are of the house of Israel; they once had the Gospel delivered to them, they had the

[p. 87a]

oracles of truth; Jesus came and administered to them after his resurrection, and they received and delighted in the Gospel until the fourth generation, 1 Ne. 12:11-12 2 Ne. 26:9 3 Ne. 27:30-32 when they turned away and became so wicked that God cursed them with this dark and benighted and loathsome condition; Morm. 5:15 and they want to sit on the ground in the dirt, and to live by hunting, and they cannot be civilized. And right upon this, I will say to our government if they could hear me, “You need never fight the Indians, but if you want to get rid of them try to civilize them.” How many were here when we came? At the Warm Springs, at this little grove where they would pitch their tents, we found perhaps three hundred Indians; but I do not suppose that there are three of that band left alive now. There was another band a little south, another north, another further east; but I do not suppose there is one in ten, perhaps not one in a hundred, now alive of those who were here when we came. Did we kill them? No, we fed them. They would say, “We want just as fine flour as you have.” To Walker, the chief, whom all California and New Mexico dreaded, I said, “It will just as sure kill as the world, if you live as we live.” Said he, “I want as good as Brigham, I want to eat as he does.” Said I, “Eat then, but it will kill you.” I told the same to Arapeen, Walker's brother; but they must eat and drink as the whites did, and I do not suppose that one in a hundred of those bands are alive. We brought their children into our families, and nursed and did everything for them it was possible to do for human beings, but die they would. Do not fight them, but treat them kindly. There will then be no stain on the Government, and it will get rid of them much quicker than by fighting them. They have got to be civilized, and

[p. 87b]

 there will be a remnant of them saved. I have said enough on this subject.

...but when you read the rest of what Brigham Young says, the man doesn't sound quite so terrible. It just really sounds like he lived in a different time and era than we live in today, and that he was actually trying his best to be loving and egalitarian to all of God's children. I am convinced that is true, regardless of the unpopularity of the wrapping paper of his delivery. We can't be presentists when we examine history. We cannot judge people by the social norms and understanding of our day - or rather, if we do, we will not be correct. That isn't an apology for his words. They are unfortunate here. I wish he hadn't said them.

But if he hadn't, then perhaps we wouldn't have gotten this fabulous essay on the subject written here. Quite a lot has been written. I can't write it better. I'll just add some of my commentary.

During the first two decades of the Church’s existence, a few black men were ordained to the priesthood. One of these men, Elijah Abel, also participated in temple ceremonies in Kirtland, Ohio, and was later baptized as proxy for deceased relatives in Nauvoo, Illinois. There is no reliable evidence that any black men were denied the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. In a private Church council three years after Joseph Smith’s death, Brigham Young praised Q. Walker Lewis, a black man who had been ordained to the priesthood, saying, “We have one of the best Elders, an African."4

This is further evidence that Brigham Young himself was not some horrible, evil racist. 

In 1852, President Brigham Young publicly announced that men of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood, though thereafter blacks continued to join the Church through baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Following the death of Brigham Young, subsequent Church presidents restricted blacks from receiving the temple endowment or being married in the temple. Over time, Church leaders and members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions. None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church.

Here is is reemphasized that we do not have a real explanation for why the church policy was this way for such a long time. It just was. The policy never changed the doctrine, which was that all humans are beloved children of Heavenly parents who will someday all get the chance to receive and partake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Other church policies, such as disallowing children of gay couples to be baptized, were similarly never explained, later reversed/changed, and most importantly, did not affect the underlying doctrine. The policies have to do with temporal jurisdiction. The doctrine has to do with a much broader, eternal perspective.  

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was restored amidst a highly contentious racial culture in which whites were afforded great privilege. In 1790, the U.S. Congress limited citizenship to “free white person[s].”5 Over the next half century, issues of race divided the country—while slave labor was legal in the more agrarian South, it was eventually banned in the more urbanized North. Even so, racial discrimination was widespread in the North as well as the South, and many states implemented laws banning interracial marriage.6 In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that blacks possessed “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”7 A generation after the Civil War (1861–65) led to the end of slavery in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional, a decision that legalized a host of public color barriers until the Court reversed itself in 1954.8 Not until 1967 did the Court strike down laws forbidding interracial marriage.

 This kind of historical context is quite important. I wonder what kind of historical context will be included in 100 years when policies about LGBT people are explained neatly on a website with a highly cited historical essay. Maybe there already is one. But. Scope creep. As usual.

In 1850, the U.S. Congress created Utah Territory, and the U.S. president appointed Brigham Young to the position of territorial governor. Southerners who had converted to the Church and migrated to Utah with their slaves raised the question of slavery’s legal status in the territory. In two speeches delivered before the Utah territorial legislature in January and February 1852, Brigham Young announced a policy restricting men of black African descent from priesthood ordination. At the same time, President Young said that at some future day, black Church members would “have [all] the privilege and more” enjoyed by other members.9

 See. Brigham Young's policy decision was not about denying blessings to people, at least from his perspective.

The justifications for this restriction echoed the widespread ideas about racial inferiority that had been used to argue for the legalization of black “servitude” in the Territory of Utah.10 According to one view, which had been promulgated in the United States from at least the 1730s, blacks descended from the same lineage as the biblical Cain, who slew his brother Abel.11Those who accepted this view believed that God’s “curse” on Cain was the mark of a dark skin. Black servitude was sometimes viewed as a second curse placed upon Noah’s grandson Canaan as a result of Ham’s indiscretion toward his father.12 Although slavery was not a significant factor in Utah’s economy and was soon abolished, the restriction on priesthood ordinations remained.

Danny's grandparents have always said that one of the most exciting, interesting historical events which they witnessed (and they were alive to remember World War II) was the ushering in of civil rights. It was extremely moving to them. 

Even after 1852, at least two black Mormons continued to hold the priesthood. When one of these men, Elijah Abel, petitioned to receive his temple endowment in 1879, his request was denied. Jane Manning James, a faithful black member who crossed the plains and lived in Salt Lake City until her death in 1908, similarly asked to enter the temple; she was allowed to perform baptisms for the dead for her ancestors but was not allowed to participate in other ordinances.13 The curse of Cain was often put forward as justification for the priesthood and temple restrictions. Around the turn of the century, another explanation gained currency: blacks were said to have been less than fully valiant in the premortal battle against Lucifer and, as a consequence, were restricted from priesthood and temple blessings.14

I've heard that said by people sometimes, especially when I was younger. But when I considered the source, I always found it really hard to believe. Much more easy to disbelieve and be skeptical of the person saying it; what, did they somehow have some kind of special knowledge that I was not privy to about the premortal life? We know so little about it. I just shrugged and thought, "I'll figure that out later." Well, now I have. They were just flat out wrong.

By the late 1940s and 1950s, racial integration was becoming more common in American life. Church President David O. McKay emphasized that the restriction extended only to men of black African descent. The Church had always allowed Pacific Islanders to hold the priesthood, and President McKay clarified that black Fijians and Australian Aborigines could also be ordained to the priesthood and instituted missionary work among them. In South Africa, President McKay reversed a prior policy that required prospective priesthood holders to trace their lineage out of Africa.15

That is kind of weird, to require tracing lineage. Not to mention stupid, with what we now know about DNA. You can have African heritage and have white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. At least it was reversed for South Africa. 

Nevertheless, given the long history of withholding the priesthood from men of black African descent, Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter the policy, and they made ongoing efforts to understand what should be done. After praying for guidance, President McKay did not feel impressed to lift the ban.16

He must have had some very severe criticism for not lifting the ban, even during his lifetime. I should ask my parents about it.

As the Church grew worldwide, its overarching mission to “go ye therefore, and teach all nations”17 seemed increasingly incompatible with the priesthood and temple restrictions. The Book of Mormon declared that the gospel message of salvation should go forth to “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.”18 While there were no limits on whom the Lord invited to “partake of his goodness” through baptism,19 the priesthood and temple restrictions created significant barriers, a point made increasingly evident as the Church spread in international locations with diverse and mixed racial heritages.

Brazil in particular presented many challenges. Unlike the United States and South Africa where legal and de facto racism led to deeply segregated societies, Brazil prided itself on its open, integrated, and mixed racial heritage. In 1975, the Church announced that a temple would be built in São Paulo, Brazil. As the temple construction proceeded, Church authorities encountered faithful black and mixed-ancestry Mormons who had contributed financially and in other ways to the building of the São Paulo temple, a sanctuary they realized they would not be allowed to enter once it was completed. Their sacrifices, as well as the conversions of thousands of Nigerians and Ghanaians in the 1960s and early 1970s, moved Church leaders.20

Church leaders pondered promises made by prophets such as Brigham Young that black members would one day receive priesthood and temple blessings. In June 1978, after “spending many hours in the Upper Room of the [Salt Lake] Temple supplicating the Lord for divine guidance,” Church President Spencer W. Kimball, his counselors in the First Presidency, and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles received a revelation. “He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come,” the First Presidency announced on June 8. The First Presidency stated that they were “aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church who have preceded us” that “all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood.”21 The revelation rescinded the restriction on priesthood ordination. It also extended the blessings of the temple to all worthy Latter-day Saints, men and women. The First Presidency statement regarding the revelation was canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants as Official Declaration 2.

This “revelation on the priesthood,” as it is commonly known in the Church, was a landmark revelation and a historic event. Those who were present at the time described it in reverent terms. Gordon B. Hinckley, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, remembered it this way: “There was a hallowed and sanctified atmosphere in the room. For me, it felt as if a conduit opened between the heavenly throne and the kneeling, pleading prophet of God who was joined by his Brethren. … Every man in that circle, by the power of the Holy Ghost, knew the same thing. … Not one of us who was present on that occasion was ever quite the same after that. Nor has the Church been quite the same.”22

Reaction worldwide was overwhelmingly positive among Church members of all races. Many Latter-day Saints wept for joy at the news. Some reported feeling a collective weight lifted from their shoulders. The Church began priesthood ordinations for men of African descent immediately, and black men and women entered temples throughout the world. Soon after the revelation, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, an apostle, spoke of new “light and knowledge” that had erased previously “limited understanding.”23

Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.24

Since that day in 1978, the Church has looked to the future, as membership among Africans, African Americans and others of African descent has continued to grow rapidly. While Church records for individual members do not indicate an individual’s race or ethnicity, the number of Church members of African descent is now in the hundreds of thousands.

The Church proclaims that redemption through Jesus Christ is available to the entire human family on the conditions God has prescribed. It affirms that God is “no respecter of persons”25 and emphatically declares that anyone who is righteous—regardless of race—is favored of Him. The teachings of the Church in relation to God’s children are epitomized by a verse in the second book of Nephi: “[The Lord] denieth none that cometh unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; … all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.”26

It's possible that I would have stronger feelings about these events if I had a. lived through it and b. if I had a different family heritage. As it is, here are the main takeaways from the scriptures and the historical facts related to racism in my church:

• People who live on earth have to live in society, and societies are fraught with flaws.
• It's easy and quite human to try to explain God's will with ways that make sense to us now, even though Isaiah explicitly explains that God's thoughts are not man's thoughts.
• When looking at historical documents and figures, we have to be sure that we understand as much as we can about the context of the world, society, and their own lives.
• Patiently and diligently searching for answers in sources that are likely to yield valid answers is a more effective, satisfying way to live than hastily jumping to conclusions based on emotions and third-hand sources. 
• When I read Brigham Young's so-called "racist" comments in context, they seem much more benign than reading them as a click-baity title on an anti website. I don't see any value in reading the latter.
• Ultimately, my testimony has to be based on faith in Jesus Christ, not faith in a church. See the first bullet point. The point is, my testimony is not based on my feelings or trust or faith in the prophet's ability to execute policy. It is that Jesus Christ stands at the head of this church. That he is working with flawed people to try to bring the gospel and its saving ordinances to everyone, everywhere, through all of time.
• I am incredibly lucky to be able to live in a time and place where I can participate in gathering the house of Israel through genealogy and temple work.  

Answer:

The mark is not the same as the curse.

The curse is temporary separation from God.

We do not know much about the mark, and neither did Mormon. 

Probably Mormon lived in a racist society and was himself struggling to use the right words. 

The curse that comes from being temporarily separated from God did affect people physically.

We simply don't talk about "curses" today. Even curses that are not related to race in any way. I don't know why that is.

"Sparking Joy"

I started (and finished) watching a Netflix documentary called Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.

This spoof video I saw on Facebook is how I found out about the show:

It made me laugh.

I thought to myself, "Hey, a show about tidying up. Maybe if I watch this with Jane, it will inspire her to tidy up." We watched a lot of it together, but I really enjoyed it and needed something to do while nursing my baby, so I finished 5/8 of the episodes. 3 of them had couples who I found either too irritating or too sad to want to watch for 45 minutes because, well, the show gives a surprisingly intimate glimpse at the inner workings of American homes - and that includes some really strange insight into relationships. For the record, I felt exactly the same amount of discomfort from the few minutes of watching the two gay couples and the unmarried couple expecting a baby; I didn't watch any of those episodes in full, and I think that's okay. 

Here are the reasons this show makes great television:

• Freak show! There is a definite element of "hoarders" in it. It is a bit horrifying to see these massive piles of clothing, garage stuff, makeup, etc. So it's easy to feel a little bit like you do whenever you watch any show on TLC - something like, "Those people are so weird!" 
• ...and yet, they are almost all relateable. The empathy this show elicits is palpable. The first episode was the family that was most similar to us, but there were moments in the other episodes (even the one family that was legitimately a good candidate for the show "Hoarders." "What do you think about the amount [of these Christmas decorations]? Is it really necessary?" "Absolutely!" :::40 Nutrackers!::: What!
• The show is inspiring. It makes me want to fold laundry. 
• Marie Kondo herself is this tiny Japanese woman with a huge, vibrant smile on her face. She is very charismatic and cute. 

The show is much better the book (the first one, the one that I read), which mainly gives her own personal experiences with tidying up. Since she comes from a totally different culture and has a different lifestyle and expectations for both the size and 'ideal' management of personal space, a lot of her book felt like some distant weirdo giving advice that would never work. That meant that it was really easy to just look past all of the good stuff, which is a real pity because her method has real value.

She comes from a culture that already values minimalism and simplicity. Japanese culture and ideals are quite different and, in a way, exotic. Most of the time, that is fascinating, for example how she "greets the home." From my perspective as a Latter-day Saint, she's basically praying, except instead of directing gratitude to God, she's directing it to the house itself, which is a very "Eastern Thought" type of attitude. 

But sometimes there is a real cultural gap between her method and what is important to Americans, for example, her book advocates that you own 30 books total, all of which must spark joy. She also encourages you to only buy the food that you will eat *that week*, which is basically the opposite of provident living and totally unrealistic in a family of 7 people. When I read these ideas for the first time, I thought, "What is this heresy!?" I shrugged and sighed, and then spent the next two hours talking about it with my friends for a book club meeting.

Later, I read her explanation for the "30 books" thing. She grew up in an extremely humid climate where books were ruined if left on a shelf for too long - to the point that you could not even open the pages. For her, it made sense to have only 30 books at a time. But the point of her philosophy was not to put a quota on the book collection, it was to make sure that you are intentional about the ones you choose to own. How do the books make you feel? Do you feel mired by guilt every time you pass the bookshelf? I definitely do not. I love seeing my little (okay, it's not that little!) library, and it definitely sparks joy, especially when the books are neat. But even when they're piled on my nightstand (as they usually are), books are basically like old friends. 

But sure, not all of them! Why keep a book that only elicits guilt? If I know I'm not going to read it or use it, and neither is anyone else in my family now or in the distant future, of course I should not keep it.

Her method is all about validating emotions, or in other words, channeling positive (and negative!) emotions in order to more effectively and efficiently tidy your house. The first step is to horrify yourself by confronting a pile of all the stuff from one category. This is a crucial step because seeing the pile and forcing yourself to admit, "I own too much stuff" is important to motivate you to change.

But the way she addresses change is with an enormous pile of gratitude. This is something that is very appealing to me because it is so positive, as well as so different and interesting; my culture does not tend to value gratitude (we value excess), which is a real pity! It is a little bit weird that she directs words both mentally and vocally to physical objects - and this part of it came across as totally hilarious and stupid in her book, I'll be frank; talk to my socks? Uh...no. But again, this misses the point. It's not *about* talking to the stuff at all, it's about honing an attitude and intense focus on validating your past choices and allowing you to move on. Having observed these people and having tried it myself, I can say that "thanking" an item actually does have value. It's like saying, "I am glad that I had this thing for a while, and now I am glad that I can get rid of it." Saying that over and over and over feels great. I didn't even realize that my previous mentality for purging stuff was so self-critical and, frankly, a bit nasty. Something more like, "Ugh, you're such an idiot. Why would you ever keep that? Throw that stupid thing away!" Hearing that over and over is not very kind to myself.

And, as the mom, I spend a lot of my time dealing with material possessions. I am basically a full-time "stuff" manager. Definitely, definitely not just my stuff. And I definitely could improve.

I like her method for folding for practical reasons. I already fold in thirds because it means there's not a nasty crease on the middle of all my shirts. Folding the stuff in tiny, neat squares and storing them upright in boxes in a drawer is much more space-efficient and time-efficient, too, since it allows you to see what you have at a glance. There's the added bonus of confronting the fact that you have too many of x and not enough of y. My daughters have too many pairs of underwear. I can see that at a glance now. As for me, I actually do not have quite enough t-shirts, and all the ones that fit me (except for one) are either black or gray. I guess I've unintentionally got some kind of capsule wardrobe thing going on without even knowing it, haha.

What's intimate about this show is that it does an excellent job portraying the inner workings of American homes. I am sure that my home has a distinctly Latter-day Saint flavor that differentiates the look, feel, pace, management, even the actual kinds of clutter (think: 9 copies of the King James version of the New Testament scattered around my family room at all times). But there were a lot of really specific details in these peoples' houses that felt familiar. I bet it would be foreign and exotic to a non-American viewer. Also, there are probably some aspects to it that would be disgusting that Americans who have never lived abroad probably never even give a second thought. Most of those probably have to do with the sheer size of the homes, the amount of stuff in them, the loudness of the Americans when they greet guests and visitors, the fact that nobody removes shoes, and a host of other things that I'm probably missing, since I live it.

Except, not really. All the homes featured on the show were in California. None of them had more than 2 children living there - we have five. The space of a home changes significantly when there are more people. The size of the refrigerator changes. The volume changes.

In my home only one person does not share a bedroom, and that is the 8 month old baby Joey. There's a "boy" room and a "girl" room and the master bedroom. The master bathroom is pathetic. Sometimes we fantasize about moving just so we can have a bathroom to ourselves with a bit more space. And by more space, I mean that two people can be inside it at the same time, that your knees aren't basically brushing against the door when you're sitting on the toilet, that there is enough space for a laundry basket. Our bathroom is about the size of a generous half bathroom, but with a shower/bathtub squeezed into it. Sometimes we fantasize about knocking out the kids' bathroom so we can have more space. But we would never want to share a bathroom with them.

And that's why this show is so intimate. You think it's intimate to talk about your inner feelings, your secret fantasies, your hopes and dreams and other abstract things like that - well, all those things don't even hold a candle to the intimacy of the brass tacks of real living. Like, the couple who had arguments about whether or not they should hire somebody to do the laundry. The husband thought it was ridiculous to do so because it *should* be such an easy task, the wife thought it was ridiculous not to, since it was such a time wasting horrible burden for her. This kind of argument sometimes happens in our home (but sorta in reverse). "Why don't you hire a cleaning lady again?" "Ugh...I don't want to spend money on that." "But if it frees up some of your time, then it could be worth it." "Yeah, but I should be able to handle it." "Um, we have five kids under the age of 9. It's a TON of work." Right now we are stuck at the fact that 1. we are saving for a car purchase, and 2. the cleaning ladies in the past were smokers, which actually defeats the purpose of cleaning. But anyway.

Once in my life, after giving birth to one of our sons, my in-laws came into our bedroom. This was when we lived in Houston. I think I was relaxing in bed or something; I remember that I was really tired. Danny was there. They found a roach (bleaugh those things were everywhere in Houston) in the bathroom, caught it, disposed of it, and so it ended up that we spent about an hour just hanging out in our bedroom. It was nice - I was very comfortable. I felt a kind of closeness there that is hard to explain. I don't think my own parents, who live down the street, have ever been into our bedroom when we were there. I can't even think of any friends who have.

This show films people in their personal spaces, talking out loud about their stuff, how they manage their stuff, and their on-the-spot, unrehearsed feelings. It is intimate without being about sex in any way.

The other reason this show makes great TV is because it inspires you to try it. Actually, the thought of getting all the stuff from a category, selecting/purging, and putting it all back is quite daunting. I decided to watch the show to get an idea about what kind of challenges and setbacks the people go through when they try to experience it. I get the sense that the only way to successfully do this is to have everybody (cough cough Danny) on board. He can't really do anything like this right now because of the time drain it would be. Frankly, neither can I.

But I can take some of the principles of sincerely asking myself, "Does this thing 'spark joy' in me?" and apply them to smaller spaces. I tried this with my piano and piano music.

Basically, there was some clutter (and a lot of books of sheet music) hanging out on my piano. I moved those to a shelf where they are not so visible and in the way. I put some stuff on my piano that really makes me happy every time I see it. And smell it. The candles I put there smell like jasmine, which is one of my favorite smells of all.

But the real application came to my sheet music binder. I have a binder of pieces that I've collected over the years - pieces I either know, want to learn, or feel like I "should" learn. Well, I looked at each piece and decided whether or not I actually liked it. "Is this a piece that I always skip because, to be honest, it's just beyond my skill level?" "Do I always feel crappy about my playing because of all the mistakes I make when I play this?" "I don't even like the sound of Eric Satie; I can play all of the gymnopedes but like, they just...well, if I'm honest, I don't even like how they sound." In the end, I had a binder full of piece after piece of music that I actually love.

It's been about a week. I've started tracking (okay so, what follows is probably a Schrodinger's cat scenario, but oh well) how many days in a row I've played through my binder of 30ish pieces. I've played every day this week, about twice through. That's significant. I sometimes go months without playing.

The thing is, I really, really enjoy being in the space of my piano now. It smells nice. It feels nice. It - well, honestly, my piano is out of tune and pretty much a piece of junk spinet which is an embarrassment to my top-notch musician family members - but to me, it sounds okayish. The difference is HUGE when I play on my parents' upright baby grand. I guess I've always assumed someday I'd inherit that 10k instrument, and since it's down the street, why bother.

Well, why bother indeed. I've been playing a lot more. If this continues as a habit, then who knows. Maybe we could actually splurge and get a better piano. There's really nothing quite like playing music to calm my emotions. Writing is another great source of emoting for me, but sometimes words just fall short, and even when they are successful, they can still leave me feeling a bit unresolved.

I've been co-authoring a book. It's a lot of work, most of which takes place purely inside my head. It's the work of trying to figure out how to do this with somebody else, and it's surprising how emotional it can get. I need an outlet for some of the excess of my feelings, and my piano feels like the right spot for it for right now, since I just need to get away from the words sometimes.

The other thing I like about this show is that everybody I know in the real world has either seen or heard about it. They all have opinions. They all want to talk about their experiences/thoughts/feelings about it. Another bonus is that my friend brought me three giant bags full of little girl clothes sized 4-5 right as we realized that Cora badly needed some new clothes. It was such a blessing to us, and the excess we can give to my niece, which in turn feels really good.

Her ideas are just so positive and uplifting, if at times a bit over the top. But what's not to "spark joy" about that intention? 

What is the spirituality of a ruthless, cynical man?

I think this is an interesting question tied firmly to, "what is spirituality?" It seems to also encapsulate the idea of, "Do temporally-minded people have spirituality, and if so, where is it?" 

To answer this question, we have to ask a different one. 

"What is a spirit?"

I believe that a human soul, a human entity, a basic unit of humanness, is comprised of both a body connected to a spirit. Our body is important, but it is not really everything that we "are." There's another dimension of "self" beyond just the (seemingly) random body parts, skin, flesh, bones, etc. 

I say "beyond" but I do not really mean that it is not measurable, knowable, empirical - it just isn't yet. I firmly believe that our spirits have some kind of physical substance, some kind of matter that really does exist somewhere. It is not observable with my physical eyes right now, but that is not evidence of its lack of existence. I think there is abundant evidence of my spirit's existence: my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, mind, intelligence, gender (I just offended a bunch of people), choices, potential - everything that exists in some kind of unseen, but real, plane. My identity.  

I believe we are spirit sons and daughters of God. We were born of heavenly parents a very long time ago. We made choices before we came to earth. One of those choices was to come to earth and get a "tabernacle of clay." A body - a perishable, changeable, often frustrating place for our spirit to live. For some reason, while in this body, we pass beyond a "veil." We are not able to see/understand/speak with our spirit directly. Something about that fact makes it a. a lot easier to change and b. necessary to walk by faith. 

A ruthless, cynical, selfish man who cares only for himself and his immediate, temporary physical well-being might lack faith, or connection/understanding/willingness to learn/etc. about his spirituality. But he does not lack spirituality because he does not lack a spirit. He has one. If he were truly honest with himself, he would be able to recognize and admit that he has had spiritual experiences. A spiritual experience would be something that relates to the non-physical parts of one's self, beyond the material, tangible world. It might be difficult to admit or recognize these experiences for what they are, especially if you've never been taught to recognize your spirit. But that doesn't mean it's not real. 

The religious phrase I would use to describe a spirit is my "divine nature." It is the piece of ourselves which we inherited from God. We have two sets of parents: our earthly parents, who gave us our bodies, but also our heavenly parents, who gave us our spirit. We inherit our spirit from them. It is the divinity within; it drives a desire to be better than animals and more like God.

Without a set of religious vocabulary to describe these ideas, using only secular words, I would describe my spirit as "my heart and my mind." It isn't just my heart, though for me personally, my spirituality is most often tied to feelings. But it is also impressions and thoughts, and choices in what I believe. 

Someday, we will probably be allowed to see "where" exactly - like on what plane - the spirit resides. We probably get closer to that reality as science progresses and we study the brain, DNA, psychology, synapses, etc. I do not think that they are wholly unconnected entities. I know our bodies must have been extraordinarily important for our spiritual progression, because otherwise why would we agree to subject ourselves to the pain and misery of living in one? There must have been some powerful reasons for choosing this life. 

After we die, our spirit will depart from our body for a time. Someday, all of us, regardless of what kind of life we led, will be reunited with a perfect version of our body. Personally, I do not believe that when we are resurrected, the individual particles of our bodies all somehow magically morph together to recreate ourselves out of the exact same molecules and atoms. I don't really see how that is possible, though the basic fact is that just one single human cell contains all the blueprints to our entire body - its DNA.

If we knew the details about the physical nature of our spirits, this earth experience would not be a test. It would not be about whether or not we choose to be and do good with our lives, regardless of our circumstances. Instead of measuring our willingness to follow God, it would measure our intelligence and critical thinking skills. Apparently that was not the test that we needed in order to determine our divine destiny. 

Because part of me is a spirit, God can talk to my spirit. Otherwise, he would have to talk to my body, or not at all. If he talked to my body, if I saw God with my physical eyes, it would no longer be a test. Rather, I would most likely lose some (or most) of my agency. 

Some people, for some reason, see/converse with heavenly beings/God with their physical body. I do not expect that will ever happen to me. I have had experiences where a strong impression in specific words came to me from outside of myself, though. I imagine most people have, but I could be wrong about this.

Somewhere within or beneath the layers of cynicism and animalistic depravity of this hypothetical man is his unique divine worth, his potential to become something better, his innate agency aka his ability to choose. Perhaps he is willfully choosing to close his "spiritual eye." But he still has the potential to open it and allow God to touch and change him. Nobody is so far gone that he is cut off from access to the ability to change and become better.

That is the entire purpose of Jesus Christ's atonement: to allow for all of us ruthless and cynical men and women to change and become someone better.  

The State Of Kate: Spring 2019

As usual, my friend Tom was right. He said that he thinks I am continually processing my emotions, that basically that is what I do constantly. That is the State of Kate.

And he's right; that is what blogging is for me: a tool for processing my feelings. I sometimes feel myself getting a kind of urge to write that cannot be ignored. It's usually when there's some kind of unsolvable problem, or feeling, or issue - and then I spend 20-30 minutes writing and it's like, a great relief.

Maybe it's a relief because the act of writing means that there is a possibility - a shred of hope - that somebody might "get" what's going on inside of me? I'm not sure where it comes from. Maybe it's just a familiar habit. An ironed shirt :-)

I wrote a lengthy essay about two weeks ago about how much I dislike the phrase "processing feelings". I called it "Processing processing feelings." But it is too personal to share, somehow, even for me.

Lucky for you, I guess.

***

I have the urge to write right now. I have this very real problem of too many projects and too little time in which to do them. It's typically like that to some degree, but it's ridiculously like that right now because:

Head Lice.

Hours and hours and hours and hours...and hours. And hours.

It is so stressful for me that I have developed five (!!) total styes in both the top and bottom eyelids of both eyes. They are quite painful and I look rather ragged, like I'm not getting enough sleep. Though I am, at least quantity-wise, if not quality-wise.

Last week I had at least 5 nights in a row of terrible nightmares, many which involved me having to convince unwilling subjects to allow me to comb their hair with nit-combs, immediately upon which I found dozens of large swarming bugs all over my hands. Or dreams about bugs creating large, sticky, nasty, gooey messes all over my house. Or dreams about falling down an interminable roller coaster, backwards, upside down, sideways. Or dreams about dozens of tribal women almost chucking their helpless babies off a cliff (!!). Or dreams that I was in school again and had to learn an entire four years worth of math in about two months. I was able to sort of conquer that dream by dividing the textbook with hundreds of little sticky notes.

So this is my attempt to divide my projects with a few "sticky notes." Actually, it's me retyping what my husband and I already planned together. I was feeling so stressed about this over the weekend that I begged him to sit and plan this with me. He hates planning, so it was really kind of him to do it anyway.

Kate's Projects:

1. Apply to Grad School
2. Plan and plant Garden 2019
3. Take the GRE
4. Finish 2018 Taxes
5. Project: Friends
6. Grundbücherbuch
7. CGSI Volunteering
8. No More Lice
9. Boston Temple Painting
10. čeština
11. My genealogy blog
12. Project: exercize and get skinny again
13. Joe's wedding and other various Summer Plans
14. Kate Expectations (my 2019 poetry anthology)
15. My Temple and Family History calling
16. Cousin Book
17. Home church
18. A year of Questions in the Book of Mormon

Those are all the projects I can currently handle. Danny thinks there are too many. I could probably fill this list with many other worthy projects that I've dreamed up and even started. But this is what will have to suffice.

I put time limits on each of them. Some were harder than others, because like, "Czech" isn't really something that you can se naučit. It is also never going away. But I did give myself some specific time goals, which makes me feel better about failing to do anything whatsoever last week except listen to some songs and read some Tolkien poetry in Czech.

The problem is that Project #6 is an all-consuming beast of burden. It's like...it can consume every spare second of my time if I allow it to. It is a high-stakes, high-rewards project.

The most pathetic of them is #5. It was also hard to quantify. But Danny and I decided that we could measure it by inviting people here (or alternatively, going somewhere else) every week. That is feasible and measurable.

For Project #17, which is a forever, on-going project, we decided to focus on just making sure we are all the way caught up to where we want to be. I have been following the reading and am caught up. I think most of our children have, but perhaps not. I need to check and make sure they are given sufficient time (and prodding) to do so. Also, the past two weeks messed up our schedule because they were different. We didn't want a bunch of people here for home church while risking getting lice. They did come on Sunday, and apparently the lesson was really good. I hid in my room nursing Joey because a. he needed to be nursed and b. I needed to hide from all the people, feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I decided that for Project #3 (which is really a big part of Project #1) I really just need to schedule the date for my test. I think I'll take it in July. Hopefully that gives me enough time for a retake if I need it.

Project #1 is due by September. I guess the real deadline is October, but I want to be early.

The April Projects are as follows:

Projects to FINISH in April, in order of "deadline" (or desired timeline):
Get rid of the bleeping bleepity bleep bleep bleeping lice
Taxes
Sign up for the GRE

Projects to Work On in April:
Home Church: get caught up by General Conference
Czech: By the end of the month finish A4.7
Grundbücherbuch: finish my revisions through Chapter 10 (I am in Chapter 7 right now, each chapter is 15-20 pages. It is long and tedious)
CGSI:
Blog: write 1-2 posts on my Czech gen blog
Cousin book: create the plan for how to attack this problem
A Year of Questions in the Book of Mormon: answer 35 questions. I am currently 7 behind. I talked about them at length with Danny, but have not written them up yet.

Those are the main things for me to work on this month.

And now I can cross one off, because while writing this stupid blog post, I realized that I should just go ahead and sign myself up for the GRE. So I did! July 20th, 8 am.

So now I have about three and a half months to get 4-6 years of math shoved back into my head. I feel really...well...I feel...

The other day one of my friends, who is also studying for the GRE, asked a question about the definition of a noun. To me, this seems completely insane. How can you get through life without knowing what nouns are!? But then, I realized that is probably how people feel about most of this math that I've forgotten. The fact that negative numbers multiplied by positive numbers make a negative number is very similarly basic.

I think I can probably knock the dumb taxes off the list tonight. There is literally only one form left to find and submit...

***

The problem with making a list of things I ought to be doing is that it inevitably turns into me wanting to rebel and wasting time with low-stakes, medium-rewards projects. For example, rather than do anything on this list yesterday, I actually just spent most of my built-in forced-free time while nursing the baby just trying to re-figure out some genealogy research I did on my mom's side of the family in 2014.

I basically got caught up to where I had been in 2014, and rewrote it all so it will take much shorter to get there the next time.

In a very summed up version: my ancestors converted to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while in England. The mom died, the dad immigrated with 8 sons (or following some of them, it's not really clear yet). They came via a slightly less conventional route, via New Orleans and later St. Louis.

They were there during the cholera epidemic of 1851.

My ancestor's son Daniel (also my ancestor...) married a woman, had a baby (my direct line ancestor, Susan) and then the wife/mother died in St. Louis. He remarried the sister of the guy who wrote a really famous hymn. They went to Utah. Daniel divorced wife #2, seems to have become disillusioned with the church, and immigrated to California. Susan was raised by her grandparents. She married at age 17 (NOT in polygamy). She had such a lonely childhood that she decided to have 9 kids. Her dad, Daniel, remarried, had twins, and then died before he ever saw Susan again, which is pretty sad.

The grandparents who raised Susan were Charles (the original immigrant, father of Daniel) and Elizabeth Freeman, a woman who he married in St. Louis. Her entire family had been wiped out by the cholera epidemic of 1851.

But we don't know who the heck her family is. Like, where did she come from? Who were her parents? Who was her first husband? Who were her children? Really important, burning genealogical questions. Really low priority in my life, but really tempting to try to solve and think about.

Hey, we will be in St. Louis in June, so...

So it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack to look for a woman named Eliza who is married to John Johnson. Sigh.

***

My baby is teething and extra grouchy. It is really cold and windy outside. I went to a really tragic funeral on Saturday. My dad lost his job. My brother in law is trying to get a job, too. My sister lost a tooth. My other sister broke up with her boyfriend, the father of my nephew Max. My friend has some really hard family problems. I worry about this book ruining my friendship. Etc.

None of those things are remotely as stressful to me as the lice! Weird.

And though there are some logical reasons for being stressed, depressed, anxious, grouchy - I feel remarkably *happy* and *cheerful*. I have had only one panic attack in the past month and a half (and it was the impetus for sitting down to plan this stuff with Danny). I have not had any migraines. The inside Kate is very happy and content, regardless of the exterior State of the Kate.