posted
I didn't know the author of A Midwife's Tale was Mormon! That book is pretty popular in lay-midwifery circles. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote: Us Mormons get way too much new blood from converts and from mixed-religion marriages for us to ever become our own ethnicity.
That said, whenever I see a big-eared, red-headed, clean-shaven, goggle-eyed, lanky white kid in a button-up white shirt and dark pants, I immediately think "Mormon."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:That said, whenever I see a big-eared, red-headed, clean-shaven, goggle-eyed, lanky white kid in a button-up white shirt and dark pants, I immediately think "Mormon."
Red headed? Where did you get that idea?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
It's been my personal observation that an overwhelming number of the redheads I know are also Mormon. It's not that Mormons are more likely to be redheads than blondes, but that redheads are -- IMX -- more likely to be Mormon, provided that they have a bad haircut.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
bad haircuts are mandatory for MOST white-people-based religious denominations. Really good haircuts are too. In-between haircuts are practically non-existent in very conservative religions, or am I wrong?
mph--no, only a Utah conspiracy.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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There's no Utah conspiracy -- we're quite open with it.
I've known very few mormon red-heads in my whole life. From what Tom says, he probably knows more than I ever have. Which is weird.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:I've known very few mormon red-heads in my whole life. From what Tom says, he probably knows more than I ever have. Which is weird.
We have two familes in our stake, each with more than 5 kids.
Maybe we're monopolizing them.
Acutally, there're a couple of families of redheads in the La Crescenta, California stake, too. I guess I've seen red-headed Mormons in about the same proportions as I see natural redheads in the general population.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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A good friend of mine was on a flight a month or so ago from PHX to LAX. He was sitting in first class and ended up next to Alice Cooper (who is rumored by many mormons to be one) and they chatted during the flight. It seems Alice was heading to LAX to head over to Asia or Europe for some sort of old time rockers tour.
Anyway, at the end of the flight, my friend couldn't hold back any more and so he asked, "I'm mormon and I've heard a lot of rumors that you are too. Have you ever heard that before?" Alice responded, "I've heard that before and I don't know how that started, and I'm not. But I hear Steve Martin is..."
And that was the end of the conversation.
I laugh to myself every time I think of it.
(edited for punctuation)
Posts: 995 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: No I haven't.
But I've met you.
But then, the bar for me is actually fairly high to be considered a red-head. I know a lot of people that consider themselves redheads whom I don't.
Tom and I might be talking about different things.
There are lots of real redheads on my mom's side of the family—her father was a redhead. Two of her three sisters are redheads and one of her two brothers is. I have probably close to a dozen redheaded cousins.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Cool! I have two distant relatives on that list!
When the Mormons were driven out of Independance, one side of my family went to Utah and the rest sort of drifted around. My side was the one that drifted around.
Governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr of Utah and his father Jon M. Huntsman Sr of Huntsman Chemical corporation belong to the other side. (And now you know my maiden name.)
As for the redhead thing.. My grandfather and my little brother are both redheaded. If I bleach my hair, it becomes more red than blonde. Though my family is no longer mormon, we are still of "mormon stock"
posted
Hair color is multi-factoral, like eye color. Between incomplete dominance, multiple factors, and the random distribution of genes, redheads are not guaranteed to have either redheaded parents or children. In fact, very dark haired people and very light-haired people sometimes have red-haired children. Then there's another kind of red-headedness that does seem to be mostly dominant; a red-head of this type who marries a blond- or light-brown-haired person is fairly likely to have kids with red or at the very least reddish hair. It's very complicated.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Does it bother any other LDS how mediocre this list is? Other than Uncle Orson and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, I don't really see the stellar performances I expected. I'm still trying to figure out what that means.
1) Is it just because Mormons are such a small minority, so that one would not expect too much, given the relative numbers? (worlwide 11 million / 6 billion or roughly 0.2%; In US 5? million/250 million = roughly 2%) ((These are very rough guesses.))
2) Is it that the peace and contentment which the gospel brings takes the edge off artistic or literary pursuits, which seem to be enhanced somehow by pain and suffering? It's true Mormons have our share of suffering but through faith it can be channelled into exaltation rather than agony. Could it be something like that?
3) Is it that worldly ambitions lose their urgency when you have an eternal view in mind? That the LDS tend to be less of the world than others, so that the drive or urge to be famous or renowned would be lessened?
4) Is there some lack there, some force, perhaps a tendency to discourage individualism or a disapproval of outstanding performance that holds back the saints from the highest levels of achievement?
Or some other reason?
The reason this surprises me so much is that the teachings of the church seem to be most excellent for engaging all the faculties of a person toward worthy goals, or allowing all the people in a group to work together with little contention toward common achievements. The spirit which allowed a handful of Mormon Pioneers to push handcarts across the wilderness and establish a thriving garden in the desert is an incredibly powerful force. Why does that spirit not inspire similar acts today? Why are the Latter Day Saints not leaders in every field of human endeavor, given that we have such a powerful force in our hands (God's hands, really) for the direction of human efforts? Does God not wish for us to accomplish great things now? It seems to me that we're called to do more today than ever before. Are we falling short of what we could be or do?
It's true we're doing amazing things in the building up of the church, and in the transformation of individuals' and families' lives. The miracle that has happened in my life, transforming and freeing me to apply my energy to greater things, has been repeated, I'm sure, millions of times over. But why do we not see it much yet in the realm of public life? Perhaps that phase of the work is only just now beginning?
posted
I think one big reason is that Mormon artistic endeavors usually focus on devotional stuff. Either that or they're highly derivative—simply Mormon versions of other popular stuff. I think it's because those things are safe. If you start writing novels that are morally challenging, people start thinking you're a bad Mormon. It's a difficult balancing act.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
There are many, many Mormons who are very good at what they do, and excel in their own fields. The thing is, like most people in general, most Mormons aren't in fields that are likely to make them "famous" outside their own community. I know many people who are locally "famous" who are LDS. They just don't get much news coverage for what they do.
For that matter, neither do many people doing excellent work who are not LDS, like the people my mom works with. I think they deserve as much recognition as anyone, but they don't often get it outside their own work interactions.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: If you start writing novels that are morally challenging, people start thinking you're a bad Mormon. It's a difficult balancing act.
I'd love to hear Uncle Orson's view of this, given that he must have quite a lot of direct experience with the situation, also Zalmoxis, Dante, and some of our other literary lights.
Are we held back by too much of a rote-learning approach to personal achievement? Too much going by the book and not enough of individuals following where the spirit guides them?
I think I've felt something like that in church callings, a feeling that there's only one right way. But perhaps it is just that I tend to get at cross purposes socially with people through my own ineptness. And perhaps there were other factors that I couldn't see.
While you can accomplish a lot of things with head-down discipline and beavering your way through, to attain the highest levels of achievement does take something more, doesn't it? Some deep love and devotion to the work, maybe, and a spirit of freedom and personal inspiration?
I'm so curious what people think about this. I have this vague feeling that there might even be some clamp holding us back, some error that if we could find the key to releasing it, we would totally soar.
quote:Does it bother any other LDS how mediocre this list is?
Not really. I don't think our success as the Kingdom of God will be measured by our performers.
quote: The spirit which allowed a handful of Mormon Pioneers to push handcarts across the wilderness and establish a thriving garden in the desert is an incredibly powerful force. Why does that spirit not inspire similar acts today?
Because nobody is trying to kill or druve us from our homes anymore?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
As funny as the "Despite her Mormon ethnicity" thing is, I think it is actually referring to the more sociologically correct definition of ethnicity, which entails social customs, slang or different meaning for the same words, common foods, apparel types, and religious observations. Group behavior is more important to defining ethnicity than race or strictly biological features. That said....it is still pretty ambiguous to call Mormonism an ethnicity Posts: 30 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I think another reason that there aren't more "powerhouses" on this list is that LDS members tend to have different goals than many other groups, and "celebrity" usually isn't big on the list. The "no success in life can compensate for failure in the home" paradigm. It's difficult to become a musical superstar or A list actor and maintain a healthy home life.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
The change in the Missionary Training Centers to using the new "Preach my Gospel" book and method for preparing missionaries is supposedly much more effective. The main difference in the new book seems to me to be the new emphasis on personal input and inspiration.
"Preach My Gospel" tends to discourage rote learning of the six discussions. I've been studying the book, and at every step it has you stop and write your own thoughts and experiences. The fat margins are lined for note taking, and there are whole pages left blank for notes throughout the book. Each missionary's own "Preach My Gospel" book becomes a collaboration between the missionary and the book's writers. Mine is so personal and real to me, filled as it is with my own thoughts and feelings, and of my own promptings by the spirit. I'm scribbling furiously all over it during every study session.
They say the great new spirit that it's brought to the MTC is amazing, and I've noticed it too in the missionaries I've been around lately. Of course, another new thing is the way they've recently raised the bar for missionary service, only choosing those most ready and worthy. Though because of "Preach My Gospel" the fewer missionaries we have serving are more effective than ever, and thus baptisms are said to be up.
Might such a spirit of renewed personal inspiration and direction benefit us similarly in every endeavor which we undertake as a church and as individuals? I wonder.
What if we could rewrite every guidebook for church callings, every lesson we teach, to emphasize more powerfully the place of personal inspiration and guidance in every calling and every endeavor, similar to the way "Preach My Gospel" has done with missionary training? Would we feel our whole church be energized and electrified the way the MTC is rumored to have been lately? That would be awesome, I think.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Because nobody is trying to kill or drive us from our homes anymore?
But plenty of people are being killed and driven from their homes in the world today. For example, in Iraq and in Darfur, to name just a couple. Does it not count cause it's not us? Doesn't being LDS mean that everybody counts as "us"?
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:Doesn't being LDS mean that everybody counts as "us"?
No, being LDS does not fundamentally change human nature. Somebody on the other side of the world in a country I am unfamilar with in danger can never, for the vast majority of people, be as urgent as if I or my family were in danger.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Being LDS does not fundamentally change human nature.
Ah, yet it has changed my whole view of who I am and my connections to other people, and to the world. It's fundamentally changed how I respond to life. In so many ways it has remade me as a better, freer, and more powerful version of myself. Brought me closer to my true self, as I fondly imagine my true self to be. (Someone who's much better than me, I mean. )
It's not instant and total, the transformation, but it's no less real. Why should that power be less available to us today than to the Pioneers? I think our homes and families ARE threatened, actually, just as much as before. Or maybe even more, because this time there may be no safe place to which we can move.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
The blurb and the articles linked to the Killers are skewed in favor of viewing Mr. Flowers as "practicing" or "active". But see Rolling StonePosts: 80 | Registered: Nov 2003
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