Blogs

I have a limited number of links on my blog, mostly because sometimes I have trouble getting the computer to cooperate when I try to add them! However, if you visit the ones I do have linked down the left side, you will find a number that have extensive links, and not just to Mormon/LDS blogs. One in particular that leaps to mind as having lots of links is A Soft Answer.

Also, I would like to thank Peggy Snow Cahill for mentioning my blog in the comments to a post (LDS Women's Group Blogs) over at Destination: Samarqand or, The Thoughtful Spot. I enjoy Peggy's blog (Speak Up For Truth) a great deal and feel she brings a lot of good points to our remembrance through her excerpts from talks/articles by prophets and apostles. Lots to ponder there.

I would like to post to my blog more often. I find it to be a wonderful outlet for writing and for thinking out ideas. And no matter what viewpoint a person has, there will be those who feel the same (and those who don't!) so it seems that there is an audience for every blog.

Recommendations

I have had a go-round with the flu and have neglected many things, including my blog, as a consequence. I've been catching up reading other blogs, though, and have three recommendations for those who like to learn.

First up, there are two posts regarding art consumption and I thought they made good points. Over at A Motley Vision, William Morris has an excellent piece called "Soapbox: Mormons and Media Consumption." Then over at Mo' Boy Blog, Mark Hansen has a 27 February piece called "Mormon Arts Consumption."

For those interested in philosophy, but not knowing where to start learning about it, Clark at Mormon Metaphysics has a 25 February piece called "Introduction to Philosophy" that links to a site that looks like a useful introduction to the field. The link is to The Galilean Library.

I appreciate their ideas and information. Sometimes a person wants to study and learn, but doesn't know how to get started or how to approach their topic of choice so it is useful to find comments and/or links that can help.

Ah, The Good Ol' Days!

I am feeling better--less stressed and less depressed. My optimism is rising to the surface again. And I realized I hadn't written anything for my blog in awhile!

I have taken a brief vacation from more intellectual studies to do some spiritually-oriented reading. I have been reading the Teachings of Presidents of the Church manuals. I started by reading the Heber J Grant manual, since I read it piecemeal last year while we were having lessons from it. When I finished it, I started Joseph F Smith. I enjoy the biographical bits from their lives and I like the old-fashioned way they phrased things. I can almost imagine the meetings in which they were speaking. I know they had their share of problems, as evidenced by the things they talked about, but there is something peaceful about contemplating simpler times--times without television and computers and information overload. Oh, I wouldn't really want to go back--I enjoy having my computer and all the information it brings me. And certainly, when a disaster like the tsunami strikes, think how much faster help got to all those people because we learned about it so quickly and have the modern, speedy transportation to deliver food, water, medical supplies, and manpower.

Still, as I read things from earlier times and contemplate how many fewer distractions they had and what appears to be a greater feeling of community, I think that would have been nice to have.

My grandparents on my Mom's side came to Northwestern Oklahoma in a covered wagon. They lived in a dugout home for awhile. (And, no, I'm not that old! My grandma was 42 when she had my Mom, and Mom was 33 when she had me, so we cover a lot of years in just 3 generations!) When Grandma and Grandpa had saved up for a house, I hear through the family grapevine, they ordered one from Sears. Sears sent them all the materials and a man to build it! He lived in the basement while he built the house (I am sure my family worked on it, too, because there would be things that required more than one pair of hands to do.), then when it was finished, he went back to Sears and they sent him out to build another house somewhere else. Interesting, no? This would have been in the early 1900's.

My family on both sides farmed and lived in small towns. My great-great grandparents came from various countries in Europe. It is a fascinating subject to learn of family history, but it is also fascinating to me to learn about how people lived their daily lives in various times and places. And, yes, even though they had much harder physical work, it was a simpler time in many ways, and that appeals to me. I suspect I idealize it. I am sure they must have had problems that worried them just as much as the problems we have today worry us. My grandparents may not have had TV and the internet, but they had radio and newspapers and were not isolated. They had politics to worry about, and wars, and the Great Depression. There were local issues and problems. Still, there is something appealing about the good ol' days!