Celestial Sounds

What kind of music will we listen to in heaven? Will it all be Mo-Tab and Hymns? Is there a place for electric instruments at all? I wonder because I've been trying to improve my listening habits (sorry 97.1 ZHT) and want to know what habits I should start planning on forever. Oh, this was also fueled by my brother Kevin's profoundly simple question: "would you allow your kids to listen to heavy metal?"

Priestcraft and Deseret Book

Many of you know that I have long struggled trying to reconcile the conflict of interest presented by Deseret Book. Is it a for profit business or a holy library - easy answer, right? It's both. But how can an entity serve God and Mammon? Deseret Book seems to walk this line very closely. Are the books on sale being written, advertised, and sold to uplift and inspire or to make money? //P.S. I really wonder about this one when their books is advertised RIGHT after conference (usually several times) - I work in a marketing department, don't try to tell me that isn't prime advertising space.//

Furthermore, this question became especially distressing to me when The Church purchased Deseret Book a little while back. I have mulled it over and over and over again. I've asked people I respect what their opinions are and usually the answers were the same (which means they were probably right). I always got a "you're reading way too much into it, kid" kinda response. But the question continued to bug me. I might think more about this than most because I've thought about writing my own LDS fiction and deeply contemplated how, why, or if I should publish it. My discomfort reached an all time high when I decided to buy a copy of The History of the Church. You know, the large volume set referenced in the introduction to almost every section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Surely something referenced so often in canonized scripture would be sold at wholesale prices similar to the Missionary Library. Nope. The only available set in print is $200 and leatherbound. Ack! So I called them up and asked for an alternative. They recommended Gospel Link. I thought "Oh yeah, that program with like 5,000 books. I suppose I could buy a CD to get them." But I couldn't find Gospel Link anywhere on their website - at least not the software. The only available Gospel Link library is a pay-per-month Gospel Link service and website. Really, $5 a month is not much for so much knowledge...but I just couldn't bring myself to add yet another monthly expense to our bills. Especially since I know the financial reasons companies use monthly payments - it MAKES THEM MORE MONEY.

In the end, I came to an answer that I felt very good about. I will purchase a monthly service for Gospel literature when and ONLY WHEN I have exhausted all of my free resources. This includes all of the literature (scriptures, magazines, conference talks, etc) available through lds.org, all of the talks on ksl.com, the videos provided through kbyu and byutv and all of the books available through project guttenberg (awesome btw) and literature.org, etc. Since I know I have NOT exhausted those resources - not even close - I am content that I will not need to make a purchase at Deseret Book any time soon. Problem solved...for me. But what about the Deseret Book/Priestcraft conflict?

Well, last night while I was thinking about this relationship I finally came to an answer that makes sense to me: The Church purchased Deseret Book in order to ensure that it DID NOT become a wolf's den of priestcraft. Now, I'm sure Deseret Book started out with only the best intentions in mind but as soon as it became a viable revenue stream it could only be a matter of time before someone would start focusing more on the money than the message. I'm thinking The Church stepped in to stop that. Still, I'm sure there are LDS and 'Jack-LDS' authors who target Deseret Book because it's easier to get published in the smaller market and sell lots of books to faith seeking suckers...er...I mean members. To me the combo leaves a bad taste in my mouth - as it probably did with The Church. So rather than allow it to run out of control (LDS film making - ahem) they decided to wrangle it in so that they could protect members from an inevitable outlet for priestcraft. Does preistcraft still happen there - sure, though everyone involved will surely deny it. It's a business, but at least the church can keep it from getting crazy out of hand.

So here's my rules when shopping for LDS branded media:
1. Is it published by The Church itself? If not, always take it with a grain of salt because IT IS NOT 100% DOCTRINE, no matter the author.
2. Along with #1 - always try to have the Holy Ghost in order to discern what is written for commercial success and what is written for spiritual success.
3. Never, EVER allow the study of any book to replace study of the scriptures
4. Remember that quality requires time and that the artist, author, or musician had to spend a lot of their personal time to create it (so suck it up and pay for it) but remember it's not 100% doctrine.
5. I always have to remember that my testimony was bolstered during my formative years by some excellent LDS media. Heimerdinger's work most notably combined with LDS Pop music greats like Michael McClean (sp?), Kurt Bestor, and Kenneth Cope. I can't deny or despise that.
6. Is the purchase a popular / required item for the current Mormon Pop-culture trends? If so, don't buy it until it's out of fashion so as to buy it for a real purpose.
7. "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

A Remarkable Life

What is it that makes a life remarkable?

I was just listening to an excellent musical compilation called The Ghosts of Gardener Village and one of the lyrics goes "the tales I tell are meaningless if there's not a soul around." I began to think - what is it that makes us pass on the tales of our predecessors? And, how do we do it in a way that will continue past our children? For example, why do all Bassetts know the stories about Ephraim K. Hanks but very few even know who Archibald McPhail is? Is it because other people besides our family tell the stories of Ephraim K. Hanks or made a painting of him...or was he just that remarkable of a man?

I think there is no doubt that he was an incredible man - but somehow his stories have lived on. Why? Sure, his life had some awesome stories - like saving the Martin and Willey handcart companies with a miraculously lost buffalo or shaving his whole face upon request from Brigham Young. But, I would guess most people have at least a few such amazing tales from their lives. So, the question is what kind of stories get passed on and how do we record them? The other day I told the story about Dad feeding an Australian dog a kangaroo steak laced with M80. I also told the story of Aunt Jann almost killing off my mother (accidentally on purpose) when they were kids. These are some great stories about MY family. But, will these stories make it past me? Or will they end with my telling of them?

How do we immortalize the amazing stories of our ancestors so that our kids don’t just know where to find them but they actually know them? By telling them more often? By writing them in a book? As the last song on the Ghosts of Gardener Village goes “Don’t let them be forgotten. Don’t let their memories fade away. If we let them be forgotten we’re denying their tomorrows and our yesterdays.”

Bird's Nest Soup

Aunt Dee gave us a copy of the Planet Earth series (BBC version for aficionados) and we just watched the cave episode. Yikes! Above and beyond all the gooey, creepy, crawly stuff was the description of cave swift. More particularly, the cave swift's nest and 'the measure of it's creation.' First of all, the nest is made from saliva. Yeah, bird spit. THEN people harvest it for a Chinese delicacy called bird's nest soup. Truer to its name than I had ever imagined. And, yes, we did eat this while we lived in Singapore...and I loved it! Don't vomit on your keyboard here but I have a sick desire to taste this once again now that I know what it's made of. That's right - bring on the bird's spit and bless the crazy Chinaman who thought "I bet I could boil that bird's house and eat it."

The Room in Richie's Brain

Basically there is always something going on in the RAM of my brain - this blog is that stuff.