I want to thank all the ladies of Roxcy! I am looking forward to posting my thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Watch out Blogworld!
As a single woman, I have dated many, many different types of men over the years. Too many to count! So many, in fact, that I am starting over again with men that are twice divorced 
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Scott Adams, (author of Dilbert and some other books) has a personal blog that covers a wide span of topics. His post for today asks
“So for you Christians and Jews, especially Mormons, how do you go about deciding which prophets are the real ones? This is not a rhetorical question. I actually want to know.”
Born in the Midwest to goodly LDS parents, I struggled earnestly and awkwardly through an Existentialist phase as a teenager, but underwent a conversion through the Spirit that has made me a committed member of the Restored Gospel of Christ ever since.
The nomadic period of my life began with a year of independent study abroad, followed by a full-time mission in Europe. After marrying a convert, we decided that it would be fun for him to seek employment abroad for a few years. The “few years” kept stretching, and for one reason or another, we moved back and forth between various states and countries during the following decades, right on into retirement. We hit our fifth continent of residence in recent years, but I don’t think we will make it to a sixth or seventh. We are adaptable, and generally cheerful and optimistic. We have found many things to appreciate, many people to love, and many ways to serve in every place we have lived. Wherever we have gone, Church members have welcomed us, and have become our extended family.
Fascinated with foreign languages since my first Latin class as a high school freshman, at various times I have dabbled in French, German, Persian, Tagalog, Spanish, and Russian; but now I can only claim varying degrees of proficiency in French and Spanish.
Joining the illustrious group of bloggers on A Prayer of Faith is a surprising and extremely daunting experience for me; but I am eager to stretch my intellectual and spiritual horizons in the company of all who will post or comment on this site.
X-posted from Naiahdot.
For so many in the modern Christian world, the Atonement is desperately misunderstood. In the name of divine grace, they exploit Christ’s sacrifice to assuage their mortal conscience and continue to live as fallen and imperfect beings. Read the rest of this entry »
In the last week, we’ve acquired two new writers for the site–Indi & RoAnn. I’m looking forward to seeing what they have to say!
(If anyone else is interested in blogging around a bit, drop me an email via naiah at synthian d’org.)
We all have friends we’ve lost touch with because of a move, a marriage, a falling out, etc. Once in a while I get the inclination to contact a friend whom I’ve lost touch with for sometime. I actually have two friends on my list to receive a potential surprise email or letter or phone call. They were good friends with whom I spent significant amounts of time and then we just lost touch in the middle of college. A factor in our split was my dedication to my religion and our differing values, which manifested themselves in our lifestyles at the time (picture conservative Mormon university verses liberal state party school). I guess I figure by this time we may have meandered onto a similar path and we’d actually have something to talk about. I wonder, however, if it is worth it to spend the energy on trying to find, contact, and converse with these old friends. Do they ever wonder about me? Will I always have some inclination to contact them? If I do contact them, then what? Do we continue keeping contact or even meet in person if in the neighborhood? Read the rest of this entry »
With the world all around us, nipping at us here, tugging on us there, it is such an amazing thing to have a moment where all of that stills, and we can take a quick respite and reconfirm whose we are and where we stand. Just this past sunday, I finally had my interview with the stake president to have my temple recommend signed. What a wonderful feeling that is, to sit in counsel with an ordained priesthood representative of the Lord. I find such interviews to be empowering and encouraging. Read the rest of this entry »
My freshman year of college I took a world religions class. The professor who taught the section on Eastern Religions was a very funny man, and I really enjoyed his teaching, so much that I took his class on Buddhism a few years later. He has an analogy that he used in both classes that he called “The five martini effect.” It goes like this: The first martini is pretty good. The second martini is great. The third martini is fantastic! The fourth is okay. The fifth…. LIVING DEATH!!!! He used this analogy to teach what many Buddhists call the “Middle of the Road” mentality that was the real beginning of the Buddha’s enlightenment. He said that if he could just get himself to stop on the third martini he would be a much happier man. Because human nature insists on having more he won’t naturally stop when he should, but instead must cultivate control over himself and learn when his needs are met. He must learn to walk down the middle of the road. Read the rest of this entry »
I came across a letter to an advice columnist last night. The main thrust of the letter was that a man had been hit on by a gay man while out to dinner with his wife, and felt that if his wife had been more ‘dolled up’ it wouldn’t have happened. Out of the many discussions this letter started I found this comment by a person with the handle ‘nellenelle’ to be very poignant.
“I’m puzzled by the urge to remake those we love. If you don’t love them for who they are, isn’t that more an issue for the one feeling this way than the one they desire to change? Shouldn’t change, if change is desired, be of oneself rather than an imposition on another?”
A while back, as I was perusing the bloggernacle I came across a comment that made a statement, something to the effect of “there was nothing new to be discovered here…it has all been said before…” I thought about different sites I had visited and the posts I had read the comments I had written and for a moment I agreed. To me these issues were in fact old news simply being rehashed in slightly different formats. I had heard it all before at some point in my life and did I really think that what I read or what had to say would make a difference to me or to anyone else?
But then I considered real life and compared it to bloggernation. I asked myself the following: In real life do my husband and I always have new material to discuss at home? Do my friends always have some new and exciting topic to debate? When I’m at church each week do I find groundbreaking and motivating concepts to swallow? The answer is – no, with a rare exception. So why should one expect this phenomenon to happen elsewhere.
As a relatively recent newcomer to planet blog, I ask how the old timers (and the new timers) handle this accusation of “nothing new” and are there those who burn out after discussing the same things over and over again? How much “not again” with a roll of the eyes is really happening out there and does it really even matter since the need is there to simply connect and communicate with one another?