Obviously there are both good things and bad things about this time in the history of the world. When you boil them all down and compare this time in the history of the world to every other time in the history of the world, how do we fare? On average–all things considered–are we above average, is it the worst it’s ever been, is it pretty much the same as it has always been, what do you think?

Be sure to share your reasoning. I have the answer key and can help out with the right answer at the end. (more…)

A couple of years ago my little daughter came home from school with a very sad look on her face. When I asked her what was wrong she said in a tiny and quivering voice, “We talked about pets in school today and when it was my turn I had to tell everyone I didn’t have one.” (more…)

A wonderful thing has happened to my family in the past 6 months. We got tivo! Some of you may be thinking, “Finally, you people are Neanderthals.” And some of you might be thinking, “What’s tivo?” For the uninformed among us tivo is a little box called a dvr that sits on top of your tv and records television programs. It’s great if you hate commercials as much as I do. You can fast forward through those babies and you spend at least 1/3 less the time it would normally take to watch a tv show. (more…)

Everyone struggles with something-at least I think so. We all go about in life trying to portray ourselves as well-adjusted and normal. We have flaws and quirks, sure, but for the most part we are on top of things. Most of the time the subterfuge works out pretty well and people buy into our projected persona. (more…)

Aaron B put up a provocative post over at BCC and my response was too long for the comments there so I thought I would respond here.

In the post Aaron confesses that he prefers the idea of a God who can’t intervene in our lives to the idea of a God whose intervention he can’t predict or explain. (Frankly his position seems illogical to me. How is a predictable impotent God preferable to an unpredictable yet loving powerful God? But that is sort of off topic…) The post sort of veers into a theodicy discussion as well. Aaron concludes by asking four questions about divine intervention. I’ll respond to these questions below and try to show where I think Aaron is missing the point with this subject in the process. (more…)

Last year my daughter had an embarrassing moment at school. She was standing at the front of her class, holding a poster, and giving a presentation when from the back of the class a boy yelled, “Your pants are on backwards!” (more…)

A couple of months ago I got a call out of the blue from an LDS guy I’d never met before. He told me his name was Rick and that he was trying to put together an all LDS rock/ska band here in the Phoenix area. (I still haven’t figured out exactly how he tracked me down but I think it had to do with this blog…) Anyway, one thing moving to AZ took away from me was my membership in a band. I’d played in at least one rock band basically without a break from 1991 until moving here; but moving away from San Diego in 2004 ended that streak. I did travel back to San Diego for one farewell gig in 2005 but that was it and I have been beginning to miss it all. So when Rick called I was very interested on all sorts of levels: a) He was into ska and every band I’ve played in over those years has done some ska; b) He was taking care of the details to get us going (the hard part ); c) I liked the idea of playing with grown-ups now that I’m a grown up and all. I was actually the youngster in my last cover band and it worked really well; d) I was intrigued by the fact that Rick played trombone and he had a trumpet player lined up too — I play sax and sing but have never played in a band with a full horn section like this; e) I was intrigued by the fact that all seven potential players in this new band were LDS — I hadn’t tried that since my Sam I Am days at BYU. (more…)

For about a month or two my friend and I have been training to run a 1/2 marathon. Don’t worry it’s only a HALF marathon. I’m not crazy enough to attempt a full marathon yet and I honestly don’t know if I’ve got a full marathon in this old body of mine. (more…)

I hated gardening when I was a kid. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s it was really pushed by the church to have a garden so my parents took their gardening duties pretty seriously. They built this HUGE garden box in our backyard and made the family work in it every summer. We spent hours every Saturday morning plucking the bizillions of weeds that seemed to grow there every week. Oh how I cursed that garden! (more…)

We’ve had guest posts here in at the Thang in the past but we’ve never had an official guest blogger before. That ends today. Jacob Morgan has agreed to be a guest blogger here at the Thang for the next few weeks. Regulars here know him simply as Jacob and some of you might recognize him as the author of an excellent article on the atonement in a recent issue of Dialogue. Jacob hails from Oregon (near Beaverton if I remember correctly) and is happily married with three children. He has proven to be a clear thinking and insightful participant here in the past and we are pleased to have him join us. Welcome Jacob! (more…)

I have five brothers and one little sister. On top of that, my mom had a massive stroke when most of us were little kids (9 or younger) so my dad had to step in and do a lot of the things that moms normally are responsible for. Franky, with all of the dudes in my family and all the man-ness around the homestead my upbringing was only a few steps away from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. (more…)