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| Were there spies in our midst? |
On our return trip following our viewing The Book of Mormon, my friend and on-again/off-again semi-significant other, Jared (the guy who had my name tattoed on his arm to make himself ineligible to serve a mission because he couldn't find any other way to stand up to his father), casually wondered aloud as to whether or not, especially in a location so remote as Fresno, the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints might have posted spies to see if any of the local congregants were in attendance at the play. I don't know if the COJCOLDS at the general level has issued a decree of any sort against its members attending the musical, but I do know that leaders at the local level have cautioned (more strongly in some cases than in others) its members against seeing the play.
Would the COJCOLDS leaders care enough to strategically posistion covert operatives to catch local members in the act of going against counsel? It wouldn't be the first time COJCOLDS leaders have appeared, either covertly or openly, at events promoting stances contrary to those supported by the church. In the late-seventies/early eighties Equal Rights Amendments controversy, Mormon leaders were known to have shown up both in open persona and in disguise, clipboard in hand, taking note of members in attendance. The same was the case during California's Proposition 8 (In Defense of Marriage Act) debacle.
So what about The Book of Mormon? Would the church care enough to send out spies to document the dissidents among the wards and stakes of Zion? If so, just how might these covert operatives look?
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| Perhaps avoid any pretense and send the stake president himself. (R. I. P., beloved President Paternoster.) |
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| Or maybe deploy a bishop or one of his counselors from each local ward? |
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Or maybe send a slightly less authoritative but equally official Relief Society President? Hell, who are we fooling here? This lady is the daughter of the senile Thomas S. Monson, President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of COJCOLDS, and for all intents and purposes, she's probably running the organization right now, at least until Daddy's EKG flatlines and the next-in-line for kingship hears about it. According to some, his EEG already has, except that the man can still wiggle his ears at will.  REALLY throw the errant members off by disguising on of the local leaders as a biker. . .  Or give him the appearance an actual LDS prieshood leader disguised as a biker would more realistically have . . . |
There probably are some spies around... Honestly, I don't see why anyone puts up with the Mormon church's intrusion.
ReplyDeleteBack when I was a Mormon I remember feeling like I needed to go to the next town if I wanted to see an R rated movie. If I ran into some Mormon do-gooder at the local cineplex, she'd invariable ask what I was seeing and I wasn't inclined to lie. I wasn't chastised personally for it, but our bishop would often complain over the pulpit about all ward members who have been "seen" going to R rated flicks.
ReplyDeleteMy dad grew up, from age 12 on, in a large enough city - Fort Lauderdale - but with a small LDS population, though he says there was a truckload of mishies assigned to the area at the time. He says whenever anyone was seen attending something r-rated or purchasing something against the WoW, word always got back to the bishop. When his dad (my evil grandfather) was bishop, the response was usually both an appointment with the bishop AND a general rebuke from the pulpit to the ward at large, with everyone knowing who the guilty party was because my evil grandfather stared right at him or her as he delivered the reprimand. Right after my grandfather was released but before he was made stake president, a cool guy was made bishop. My dad said it was a good thing it was before my grandfather was made stake prez, because my grandfather never would have called anyone so liberal to be a bishop.
DeleteMy dad overheard once because he was filling out some priest's quorum report in a corner of the bishop's office blocked off by a bookshelf when a sister in the ward came in to tell on someone. The woman saw another woman in the ward buying coffee. The bishop heard her out, then asked her precisely why she felt the need to pass this along. "She's breaking the word of wisdom!" the woman exclaimed. The bishop asked her how she knew this to be a fact. "She bought coffee, of course!" the woman exclaimed again. The bishop offered several other explanations as to why the woman might have been buying coffee. The real reason was that it was for a Relief Society craft project involving staining paper to make it appear old, but the bishop didn't share that with the woman.
The bishop went on to question the woman as to her motives for telling him this. She claimed that she was concerned for the sister who had bought the coffee. The bishop asked something like, "If that were the case, why did I already hear about it from my wife, who heard it from Sister X, who heard from someone else who heard about it from you? And they didn't just hear that she was BUYING coffee. They heard she was actually drinking it, which it seems we have no idea whether or not is the case. Why did you feel the need to come to me after sharing the story with half the ward? What was your true intent here?" The lady probably turned 100 shades of red when the craft project was popped out at the next R.S. activity night.
The woman left in tears, and my dad stayed very still and quiet and heaved a huge sigh of relief when the bishop walked out without looking in that corner of the office.
My dad said from that point on, he was very careful in any interviews to personally look in that corner to make sure no one was back there. My dad was generaly a very good boy because his father would've beaten him had he been caught doing anything that would have made the family look bad, and my dad wasn't about to confess to anything remotely related to the "M" word whether he was guilty or not, but one never knows what embarrassing thing might have been asked or answered or embellished upon in the re-telling.
I stayed out of trouble when I was young since I did a lot of reading. I loved reading and only read non-fiction. Doesn't the bible say "judge ye not unless ye be judged." Also we were taught that Jews become doctors, lawyers and scientists and that Christians do many bad things since guilt is a big part of their religion.
DeleteAs far as that woman above, I just learned today that women and blacks are not allowed to join the Mormon priesthood. Isn't that correct? At one time in America, women and blacks could not vote. The black men got the right to vote before women.
ReplyDeleteAlso the person with the best chance to beat Sanders to be president is Clinton. But one thing that is not talked about or discussed is misogyny (hate of women). Also there was the news about Bill Clinton cheating on Hillary and having an affair with Monica Lewinsky (she performed oral sex on him).
Jay Leno said after this on national television that the only woman to hold the United States Presidency was Monica Lewinsky. Something you said in a previous post reminded me oft this.
Alexis this summer is a good time for you to learn some things about the human body that doctors do not know. Here is one thing. How does a person with normal cholesterol around 150 to 200 get it to go up to 350 mg/dl in a few days? Eat a lot of bacon?
ReplyDeleteThis happens routinely when one fasts for a few days. After the fast it goes back down. This comes from Joel Fuhrman MD's book on fasting. He treats people with fasting and a change in diet. Note that when the book was written, they were not paying attention to good (HDL) or bad cholesterol (LDL).
So that was not in it but I bet this is from a huge rise in good cholesterol. During a fast the body is healing itself at an accelerated rate. Fasting was done by Jesus, Moses, King David, Mahatma Gandhi, Pythagoras and Hippocrates. The reason that the bible has 74 references to fasting is because the Jews used fasting for medicine. For tough cases Jesus used fasting and prayer.
Also here is my article about cholesterol levels and heart attacks. http://hub.me/ajglw People with cholesterol levels between 50 to 70 mg/dl of LDL (bad) cholesterol do not get heart attacks. It also has average cholesterol levels of omnivores, vegetarians and vegans plus a lot of good medical information.
Note that I checked this book again. A guy had a cholesterol level of 159 and after 14 days of fasting his cholesterol was 385. But this MD says that this only happens with patients that have a lot of plaque in their arteries not with young patients. So it is the plaque coming out of the arteries (good cholesterol) that causes this. Note the book does not distinguish between good and bad cholesterol.
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