It feels like Sunday because I went to church this morning. We've already done the whole presents and stockings thing and the kids are with their mom this week. So I went to church on Christmas morning, following a Christian tradition that goes back centuries if not nearly two millenia. And you know what? It was really nice.
Every year one hears laments about how Christmas has become too commercialized and the "reason for the season" is lost sight of. I know the joke about "Axial tilt is the reason for the season" and think it's pretty funny, but that's not what I'm talking about.
Yet every year Christmas remains as commercialized and frantic as ever. So it was good to actually slow down, spend some time at church on Christmas morning and really reflect and focus on what it's all really about. Focusing on the simple truths. Singing music that was sung on Christmases in Shakespeare's time, and thereby feeling connected to Christians centuries ago who had the same hope I do. That resonates, somehow.
All of this has made this Christmas special in ways I didn't anticipate, and I'm really glad.
A scrum is a brutal shoving match in rugby to decide possession of the ball. It requires every ounce of strength, just like life. Welcome to my online rugby pitch where we don't shy away from tough questions.
Greatest Hits? Biggest Flops? You Decide.
- Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid
- Being Your Own Best Friend
- Danger, Jeff Robinson
- How Do I Resolve The Conflict?
- I Don't Feel Burdened, Don't Treat Me That Way
- Love Locked Out
- More Reasons This Easter Was Different
- My Coming Out Story
- The Complete And Total Idiot
- The Psalm of Rob
- The Story of Trevor
- This Easter Is Different. Here's Why.
Words To Live By
"I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives....For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read."
--Thomas Jefferson
"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come" -- Joseph Campbell
"The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another’s point of view; to put one’s self in another’s place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one’s own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture." - A. H. R. Fairchild
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
- Gloria Steinem
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. - Bertrand Russell
If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books … We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. – John F. Kennedy
There is no room for self-expression in the priesthood.
- Elder David Bednar
My true religion, my simple faith is love and compassion. There is no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine, or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple. The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are--these are ultimately all we need.
-The Dalai Lama
Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.
- Cesar Chavez
It is not the mind of heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm is done to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy.
- John Stuart Mill
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
- Melody Beattie
- Ted Olson
Fidelity, charity, generosity, humility and responsibility form the foundation of a Christian life and are the outward manifestation of the inner man.
- David Burton
if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll just end up miserable.
- Brandon Sanderson
Straight Americans
need... an educationof the heart and soul. They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul.
Bruce Bawer
The Advocate, 28 April 1998
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
- Blaise Pascal
What we insistently desire, over time, is what we eventually become and receive in eternity.
- Neal Maxwell
Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others' opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
There's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
- Hamlet
I am oppressed by the uncertainty of my future, but I cherish the lively hope of seeing my dreams fulfilled, because the Lord cannot place thoughts and desires in a person's soul if He does not really intend to fulfill them, to gratify these longings which He alone has caused.
- Blaise Pascal
What we insistently desire, over time, is what we eventually become and receive in eternity.
- Neal Maxwell
Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others' opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
There's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
- Hamlet
I am oppressed by the uncertainty of my future, but I cherish the lively hope of seeing my dreams fulfilled, because the Lord cannot place thoughts and desires in a person's soul if He does not really intend to fulfill them, to gratify these longings which He alone has caused.
- Saint Padre Pio
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
- e. e. cummings
Whose boat drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be.
- George Gordon, Lord Byron
The Lord did not people the earth with a vibrant orchestra of personalities only to value the piccolos of the world. Every instrument is precious and adds to the complex beauty of the symphony.
- Joseph Wirthlin
I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?
- Everett Ruess
It’s the loneliest feeling in the world. It’s like walking down an empty street, listening to your own footsteps. But all you have to do is to knock on any door and say ‘If you let me in, I’ll live the way you want me to live and I’ll think the way you want me to think’, and all the blinds will go up and all the doors will open, and you will never be lonely, ever again.
- Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind by Robert Lee
Marriage is a civil contract. You might as well make a law to say how many children a man shall have, as to make a law to say how many wives he shall have. It would be as sensible to make a law to say how many horses or oxen he shall possess, or how many cows his wife shall milk.
- Brigham Young
Only regret what you don't learn from.
- Chris Taylor
Others sing your life
But now is a chance to shine
And have the pleasure of
Saying what you mean
Have the pleasure of
Meaning what you sing
Oh, make no mistake my friend
All of this will end
So sing it now, sing your life
- Morrissey
"The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism... the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances." -Hugh Nibley
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use" - Galileo Galilei
"The moment we fail to recognize the good in those with whom we quarrel is the moment we've lost sight of who we are as a people." - President Obama, 3 June 09
"I never thought it was right to call up a man and try him because he erred in doctrine; it looks too much like Methodism and not like Latter-day Saintism. Methodists have a creed which a man must believe or be asked out of their church. I want the liberty of believing as I please, it feels so good not to be trammeled." - Joseph Smith
"I see their knavery, . . . to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid." - Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III, Scene 1
"Be unafraid of new ideas for they are as steppingstones to progress. You will, of course, respect the opinions of others but be unafraid to dissent--if you are informed.... Only error needs to fear freedom of expression." - Hugh B. Brown
"Know Thyself." - Socrates, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and a bunch of other really smart people
"I'm starting to think that things aren't quite as cut and dried as I was led to believe." - Rob
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