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There was no Room for Them

We've all heard the Christmas story hundreds of times.  We've read it, listened to it, heard Linus recite it from memory to bring Charlie Brown out of his seasonal existentialism, and seen too many dramatizations of it to count. Because of this, I've always had a pretty solid picture of what the Christmas story was like in my head.  In my mind, it starts with Mary being ready to give birth right about the time that they arrive in Bethlehem.  All the local Bethlehem Inns are filled up, so they're forced to improvise and give birth in a nearby stable. This is probably how most of us see the start of what we know as the Christmas story.  I've come to find, however, that this story is only one possibility of what could've actually happened. My Religion professor pointed a few things out to me this week that helped me gain a greater appreciation for the mortal parents of our Savior.  It's also taught me something important about our membership in His churc...
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That Man May Be

I have a pretty quick thought for this week.  It starts with this scripture in the book of Moses: "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it became pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make her wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and also gave unto her husband with her, and he did eat." - Moses 4:12 Eve didn't make this decision in ignorance.  That's one of the most unique things our church teaches about the fall.  She didn't know everything, and there was certainly deception involved (we can trust she was being honest when she said that the serpent beguiled her), but through modern revelation, it's clear that she knew what she was giving up, and more importantly, what she gaining. Many religions teach that Eve's decision was an act of selfishness.  Of course, we teach differently, however I don't think I'd realized how big that sacrifice was for her.  She knowingly broke the law of Eden, ...
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Seeking Truth

I've never understood the details of the Creation.  As members of the Church of Jesus Christ, we don't just have one account of the Creation of the earth in our canon, we have four.  And, like most things that Scripture repeats often, there are fairly obvious differences in each account. The problem for me is that nearly every account has a different chronology.  The order in which things happen don't seem to agree.  I don't know why I get hung up on the chronology; it really isn't the focus of the story.  But that doesn't stop me from spending a good 15 minutes every time I read one of the accounts wondering how it really happened. Then, this week I saw on my class schedule that my religion teacher was going to talk about the Creation.  I respect this teacher a lot, and he's helped illuminate a lot of things that were confusing to me before, so I was excited to hear his interpretation and hopefully get things cleared up. But, my teacher is wiser tha...
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The Good News

I have a really hard time motivating myself to write. Most of you can probably identify with me.  Even people who love writing sometimes avoid starting out a project like the plague.  I also like writing, but I can't help but feel like there's a dementor behind me sapping out all the hope and happiness of life when I sit down to start writing something. So next time you procrastinate, just blame blog dementors. I'm taking a religion class from my favorite professor this year.  One of his assignments is to write someone (or multiple people) explaining what we learned in class/in our studies every week.  I decided to take advantage of this opportunity to force myself to keep writing in this blog.  I hope I'll get into the habit enough that I won't stop once the semester ends. So, I'm going to start writing weekly.  I'll aim to make the posts shorter and simpler, that way they won't feel so daunting to me as the blog dementor is slowly sucking out ...
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El Fracaso

Si “fracaso” es una palabra que puede describir a una persona, ciertamente puede describirme.  En mis 20 años de vida, logré fracasar mucho.  Fracasaba siempre en mi vida académica, social, y profesional, y en cada de día de mi misión de tiempo completo.  Yo nunca podía cumplir con expectativas que probablemente sólo me fijé yo.   Para una perfeccionista, el fracaso es la derrota.  El fracaso da tanto terror que la mayoría de nosotros vivimos constantemente con miedo de ello, planificando cada paso para evitar su abrazo.  Intentamos a vivir nuestras vidas caminando encima de una cuerda relajada que es éxito sin dolor.  Nos seguimos mintiendo a nosotros mismos, convencidos que esta cuerda es la “senda angosta y estrecha” hasta que lo creamos de verdad.  Caemos de nuevo y de nuevo pero por nuestro miedo de caer, nunca avanzamos más alto.  Nadie alcanzó el árbol de la vida al ir a cualquier lado donde el viento lo sopla.  Nadie lo al...
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Embracing Failure

If "failure" is a word that can be used to describe a person, it can certainly be used to describe myself.  In my 20 years of life, I've managed to do a lot of failing.  My academic, social, and professional life was littered with failure, as well as every day of my full-time mission.  I constantly failed to live up to expectations that were most likely set only by myself.  To a perfectionist, failure is defeat.  It is so frightening and so unapproachable that most of us live our lives in fear of it, carefully planning every step to avoid its embrace.  We try to pass our lives by walking on a slackened tight-rope of pain-free success.  We persistently lie to ourselves, convincing ourselves that this tight-rope is the "straight and narrow path" until we actually believe it.  We fall off again and again but because of our fear of falling we can't bring ourselves to go any higher.  The Tree of Life has never been reached by people who raise the...
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