There's been a lot on my mind lately, sometimes so much that I have a hard time remembering if I don't write it all down.
Last night I went and gave a fireside on Emma Smith in Jeri's (A Fickle Pickle) Mom's ward. It was an amazing experience, so much so that I'm writing a series of blogs on Emma over the next few days on LDSBlogs.com.
It is interesting to me, in this day of access and information, that people still have the negative opinion of Emma Smith that they do. I'm somewhat startled by the serious antagonism. Over 42 years of my life I also had a negative view of her. But when I spent two years of my life in indepth study of Joseph Smith, his life and times, there was the obvious advantage of learning more about Emma than I had ever hoped. That's when I knelt in prayer to Heavenly Father and asked him to convey my most profuse and sincere apology to Emma and beg her forgiveness.
Emma was Joseph's "choice of my heart and the wife of my youth." He adored the ground she walked on and loved her with everything in him. And she returned that love.
So, I count it a privilege to be able to shed new light on Emma, bring her alive in the minds of those listening, and help them to understand why the Prophet of the Restoration, Joseph Smith, loved her so much and why the Lord gave her to Joseph as a helpmeet that he might accomplish the mission to which he'd been called.
So thanks, Jeri. That was a wonderful experience and it a lovely surprise to walk in and see you there.
Moving on to politics. Barack Obama wants the government to make our decisions for us. Hillary wants to take private enterprise and pull those assets into the government. Both of those would be socialism in case you didn't know.
Now, everyone knows I don't respect or like John McCain. I'm not going to pretend I never said that. I still don't like him and respect . . . yeah, that's in pretty low doses too. However, he will not take over private enterprise. He will not retreat in the face of our enemies. He will, as he has promised, work to make us independent of the need for foreign oil. (We have billions upon trillions of barrels of oil stored in this nation and accessible underground.)
Sean Hannity said something that really struck home with me. Do I want to vote for someone who I agree with 2% of the time, if that, or someone I agree with 80% of the time. Well, he has a point. I don't care how charming Barack Obama is, he's a socialist. I don't care that Hillary Clinton is a woman and it's time we had a woman president, she's a socialist. And let's face facts, John McCain is not a socialist. So yup, McCain has my vote and my support. Over the next few days I'll be doing an indepth study on him and will post it here.
I miss Mitt Romney.
The Civil War. I was able to go see Merrill's performance in The Civil War on opening night with a couple of girlfriends, as I mentioned the next day in my blog. Well, earlier this week I took Alvin to see it. We loved it! How absolutely brilliant it was.
It really brought home, once again, the tragedy of brother against brother . . . the opening words of the song that Merrill (the Union general) and the Confederate general sing are:
Brother, my brother
One blue and one gray
On a quiet field
Learn how to fight
Learn to fall
Or, that's as close as I can remember the words. Merrill was trying help me get them set in my head but I kept mixing them up and started mixing him up, so we stopped. It's what I do, I'll take 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th verses and make a whole new first verse.
Anyway, I digress. The tragedy of that war was immense. Many believe it was fought over slavery. It was, but the main reason we went to war against one another was to preserve this nation as a whole. The South wanted to secede, over the issue of slavery, Abraham Lincoln feared if America split at that point we would falter and fall, once again, under the rule of the likes of Britain or France.
In this musical we see all aspects. We see the excitement of the troops at the beginning, the belief that the war would be over quickly. We see throughout the play as they wear down, year after year, until all they can think of is war, death and those they love at home. We see different aspects of slavery which will tear your heart out. We see pride, grief, humor, love . . . all of it building to the understanding that at the end of the Civil War 620,000 Americans were dead. A costly war, beyond all measure, in order to preserve this nation and insure all the words of the Declaration of Independence . . . that all men were created equal, were applied to every man, woman and child.
I really can't recommend this show enough. It was even more amazing this time. Alvin and I are going to try and go see it one more time. We were truly blown away. You can purchase tickets here. If there are any left to buy. Sheesh, I hope there are. I really want to take Alvin one more time. He was blown away by it.
Well, it's off to do our taxes. Huh, my favorite time of the year. Not.
Last night I went and gave a fireside on Emma Smith in Jeri's (A Fickle Pickle) Mom's ward. It was an amazing experience, so much so that I'm writing a series of blogs on Emma over the next few days on LDSBlogs.com.
It is interesting to me, in this day of access and information, that people still have the negative opinion of Emma Smith that they do. I'm somewhat startled by the serious antagonism. Over 42 years of my life I also had a negative view of her. But when I spent two years of my life in indepth study of Joseph Smith, his life and times, there was the obvious advantage of learning more about Emma than I had ever hoped. That's when I knelt in prayer to Heavenly Father and asked him to convey my most profuse and sincere apology to Emma and beg her forgiveness.
Emma was Joseph's "choice of my heart and the wife of my youth." He adored the ground she walked on and loved her with everything in him. And she returned that love.
So, I count it a privilege to be able to shed new light on Emma, bring her alive in the minds of those listening, and help them to understand why the Prophet of the Restoration, Joseph Smith, loved her so much and why the Lord gave her to Joseph as a helpmeet that he might accomplish the mission to which he'd been called.
So thanks, Jeri. That was a wonderful experience and it a lovely surprise to walk in and see you there.
Moving on to politics. Barack Obama wants the government to make our decisions for us. Hillary wants to take private enterprise and pull those assets into the government. Both of those would be socialism in case you didn't know.
Now, everyone knows I don't respect or like John McCain. I'm not going to pretend I never said that. I still don't like him and respect . . . yeah, that's in pretty low doses too. However, he will not take over private enterprise. He will not retreat in the face of our enemies. He will, as he has promised, work to make us independent of the need for foreign oil. (We have billions upon trillions of barrels of oil stored in this nation and accessible underground.)
Sean Hannity said something that really struck home with me. Do I want to vote for someone who I agree with 2% of the time, if that, or someone I agree with 80% of the time. Well, he has a point. I don't care how charming Barack Obama is, he's a socialist. I don't care that Hillary Clinton is a woman and it's time we had a woman president, she's a socialist. And let's face facts, John McCain is not a socialist. So yup, McCain has my vote and my support. Over the next few days I'll be doing an indepth study on him and will post it here.
I miss Mitt Romney.
The Civil War. I was able to go see Merrill's performance in The Civil War on opening night with a couple of girlfriends, as I mentioned the next day in my blog. Well, earlier this week I took Alvin to see it. We loved it! How absolutely brilliant it was.
It really brought home, once again, the tragedy of brother against brother . . . the opening words of the song that Merrill (the Union general) and the Confederate general sing are:
Brother, my brother
One blue and one gray
On a quiet field
Learn how to fight
Learn to fall
Or, that's as close as I can remember the words. Merrill was trying help me get them set in my head but I kept mixing them up and started mixing him up, so we stopped. It's what I do, I'll take 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th verses and make a whole new first verse.
Anyway, I digress. The tragedy of that war was immense. Many believe it was fought over slavery. It was, but the main reason we went to war against one another was to preserve this nation as a whole. The South wanted to secede, over the issue of slavery, Abraham Lincoln feared if America split at that point we would falter and fall, once again, under the rule of the likes of Britain or France.
In this musical we see all aspects. We see the excitement of the troops at the beginning, the belief that the war would be over quickly. We see throughout the play as they wear down, year after year, until all they can think of is war, death and those they love at home. We see different aspects of slavery which will tear your heart out. We see pride, grief, humor, love . . . all of it building to the understanding that at the end of the Civil War 620,000 Americans were dead. A costly war, beyond all measure, in order to preserve this nation and insure all the words of the Declaration of Independence . . . that all men were created equal, were applied to every man, woman and child.
I really can't recommend this show enough. It was even more amazing this time. Alvin and I are going to try and go see it one more time. We were truly blown away. You can purchase tickets here. If there are any left to buy. Sheesh, I hope there are. I really want to take Alvin one more time. He was blown away by it.
Well, it's off to do our taxes. Huh, my favorite time of the year. Not.
Thoughts, Musings and Hmmmms. . .
![Thoughts, Musings and Hmmmms. . .]()
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Rating:
Did you see Mitt on Hannity and Combes last night? Good to see him again and he sounded great. Really gave a lot of support to McCain.
ReplyDeleteI like how you're trying to see the good in McCain. He's our best choice now, so that's really all we can do -- look for the good.
ReplyDeleteSigh.
I miss Mitt too.
Mike - yes, I did see Mitt on Hannity & Combes last night. He did a fantastic job. McCain is an idiot if he doesn't tag him for the V.P. position. There is no one else who can fix the economy, simply put, except for Governor Romney.
ReplyDeleteTristi - it's harder than I thought. But I'm determined to highlight all the good he's done and do my best to convince American to deluge him with demands that he change his stances on the parts I don't agree with. Nothing else for it right now. He's our man.
I am looking forward to reading your blog post on Emma. I have actually been quite intrigued lately with learning more about her. It also surprises me how judgemental people are towards her. Not too long ago I read a talk from one of the Brethren (I don't remember who) and they stated, "Just leave Emma alone." So I can't wait to read more of what you write!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more about McCain. Yep.