My Life

The LDS-produced film Meet the Mormons  debuted this weekend.  It was shown in 317 theaters and grossed $2.7 million, which ranks it as #11 for the weekend.  That's quite successful.  That's very impressive.  One thing that did surprise me was that it grossed nearly as much as many other movies which were shown in 4 to 6 times as many theaters.  As far as theater count goes, it ranked #19 for the weekend.  So I wondered why would the movie do so well in the 317 theaters where it showed? I looked up the movie on Rotten Tomatoes .  This gave a more telling story than any other article I could imagine.  There were 8 critic reviews, all negative.  It got a score of 0% from critics (meaning all 8 of the critics labeled it "rotten", and none labeled it "fresh").  It got an average rating of 4.8/10 from these critics.  On the other hand, the audience rating is at a rather remarkable high of 91%.  Why such a discrepancy?  ...

This is a reproach for me.  There have been too many opportunities lately where I have been able to assist people but have shied away rather than obeying the compulsion.  I can't explain why I do this.  I know only that I feel regret for it.  Regret and uncertainty.  In so many situations, I don't know what the "right" thing to do would be. Last week, I was at the grocery store.  The family in front of me had placed nearly all of their groceries on the conveyor belt, but had left a few in the cart.  This was puzzling, but I've seen people break up their orders in two pieces before, so I didn't want to jump to any conclusions.  When the total was calculated, they grabbed one more item from the cart and handed it to the cashier, then paid for the food.  The remaining items were then placed on the belt and the cashier gathered them and placed them in a cart that seemed to be full from others' groceries who, at this point, I assumed lacked th...

If you haven't guessed by now, this is how most of my blog posts get started.  I see something on my Facebook feed and it gets me thinking.  I've thought about prayer many times.  When I was a believing Mormon, prayer was a big part of my life.  I'd pray when I woke up in the morning, when I ate any meal (even at restaurants), when I went to bed at night and even sometimes before I had sex with my wife. This illustration does a good job of juxtaposing the unity that believers express in their common descriptions of their spiritual experiences with the anger they often express when discovering differences in their beliefs. Perhaps the goal of the cartoon is to point out how ridiculous prayer is.  Perhaps it's to point out how ridiculous all religions are, by showing how no one can agree on which one is the correct religion.  Or perhaps there was some other intent.  Regardless, it made me think about prayer, as I have many times since I left the LD...