Guest Post: Radical Equality

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Glynn from Dallas emailed us this guest post, along with a message to keep up the good work. We will, Glynn, and we hope more modern mormon men and modern mormon women out there follow your lead and send in guest posts.

So I have this concept that I apply to my marriage: radical equality.

In the April 2011 talk “LDS Women are Incredible!,” Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles made this clear statement:

"Our doctrine is clear: Women are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves them. Wives are equal to their husbands. Marriage requires a full partnership where wives and husbands work side by side to meet the needs of the family."

For our entire marriage both my wife and I have worked to support our family in an equal manner. We are both focused on doing the best we can and making our home a wonderful place for our children to grow. We also work together to try to instill a sense of equality in our boys.

We have a church couple that we interact with frequently and they are incredibly traditional in their approach to how their house is run. Their house is very patriarchal, where he is the head and what he says goes. It is odd to us to see something that she wants become secondary to his desires. Seeing the difference between them and us is striking at times. We view our marriage as an equal partnership or collaboration, whereas the traditional structure has an inherent hierarchy built in that minimizes the collaborative structure. In other words, for them their collaboration goes only as far as he agrees with it. I think men of the next generation should view spousal relationships in much more of a partnership or collaborative light - not a hierarchy. As the next generation of mormons grow into their relationships, we must remember that our wives are our partners in life and not someone to be told what to do.

Image via here.

In Character: Bishopric Edition

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by Topher Clark (bio)

As some of you might know, I am a counselor in a bishopric. Please do not let this sway or alter your testimony in any way. I didn't ask to do it, and I barely voted for myself. God calls in mysterious ways, and I've always been taught that you never say no to a calling (except working at the cannery.) In this first year of of my bishopric I have learned three important things:

1. Everyone sustains the bishop once a year at ward conference, and then the rest of the year three quarters of the ward complain about him.

2. The best part of my job is class hopping. Is sunday school boring today? How about a visit to the Primary! Is today a Deacon's Quorum kinda day? Or do I feel more like hanging out with the membership clerks? I love that.

3. You do NOT grow a beard in a bishopric. Despite there being nothing said about this in any current manual or ecclesiastical degree, THERE WILL BE NO BEARDS. Don't even imagine the possibility of a beard on your face. If your face is even a little bit scratchy you have irrevocably changed the face of the gospel for every old lady in your ward.

But one of the most important lessons I've learned is the "bishopric face." You learn this very quickly, because you have to. You must never show unrestrained emotion on the stand. Because 500 people are staring at you, and they want to know what you think. Almost all the time, someone is staring at you. Don't dispute this! I see you doing it. You take turns. You want to see if we like something, or don't like something, or are in any way super uncomfortable. And guess what? We're not going to break. You cannot break our faces. But if you are patient, and acutely observant, you'll see little cracks of emotion peeking through.

Herewith, then, is a little how-to pictorial to let you know what we are really feeling up there. Watch closely. These pictures are almost indistinguishable:

Ope! Someone just made a "Brother Clark is bald" joke! My favorite. I support your "jokes" and I hope they really kickstart your talk. Just remember, your bum is in my face and I could make "jokes" about that! (I won't.)

Mormon Doppelgängers 1, 2 & 3

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by Scott Heffernan (bio)

If you’ve never seen TotallyLooksLike.com, it’s worth checking out. Part of the Cheezburger network, it compares two pop culture images that look eerily similar. It’s creepy and hilarious, but is lacking on the Mormon front. So I’m starting a series called Mormon Doppelgängers, which hopes to bring to light examples that are more relevant to our neck of the woods. Here’s a few to get us started.

See all Doppelgängers here.

Spencer W. Kimball & Yoda

Had to get this one out of the way. Rumor has it Yoda was actually modeled after our beloved prophet. Rumor has a lot of things that aren’t true though. Still, with the voice, hair, ears, and overall cuteness, one has to wonder.

J. Golden Kimball & James Cromwell

You may remember James Cromwell from such films as Babe, L.A. Confidential, The Queen, or the 153 other movies and TV shows he’s appeared in. Or maybe you only recognize him as Mr. Skolnick in the made for TV movie Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love. More importantly, he looks a heck of a lot like our favorite swearing General Authority. The resemblance is so uncanny it makes me question my beliefs about reincarnation. Elder Kimball died in 1938 and Mr. Cromwell was born less than two years later in 1940. Follow the logical conclusion, people.

Design Mom & Valeria Golino

A beautiful mommy/lifestyle blogger and a beautiful Italian actress. Don’t know who Valeria Golino is? Think harder. Think Rain Man, Hot Shots! (along with Hot Shots! Part Deux of course), and Big Top Pee Wee. She even dated Pee Wee Herman during filming. Design Mom a.k.a. Gabrielle Blair never dated Pee Wee (as far as we know). However, she is a pioneer, a trendsetter, and runs one of the most successful mommy blogs out there. We’re proud to claim her as one of our most creative Mormon icons.

Images via here, starwars.com, here, here, justinhackworth.com, and IMDb.

Please refrain from making any personal attacks on anyone featured. Cruel comments will not be tolerated. And yes, I realize the irony that the post itself could be considered a cruel personal attack.

Want to submit ideas or images? Do it.

Guest Post: Duck Beach

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Despite being married, we find ourselves badly wanting to see the documentary Duck Beach funded and created so we can spy into the lives of single mormons. If you feel so inclined, click here to find out how you can support the team trying to make this potentially intriguing documentary. But first, a quick word from one of the filmmakers, Stephen Frandsen. Stephen is co-founder and executive producer of Big Iron Productions. In addition to working on major film sets in New York City, he produces photo shoots, commercials, documentaries, and the like. Thanks for stopping by MMM, Stephen. Good luck with the film.

Wallace Stegner once wrote, "It is almost impossible to write fiction about the Mormons, for the reasons that Mormon institutions and Mormon society are so peculiar that they call for constant explanation."

While freelancing on commercial film sets in New York City, I hear a lot of people talking about Mormons. Maybe it's due to the new Book of Mormon musical. Maybe it's due to the possibility of two Mormons in the upcoming presidential election. Regardless the cause, despite our seeming coming-of-age in mainstream American culture, many people tell me I'm the first Mormon they've met. People are now aware of Mormons, but they don't know Mormons personally.

I realized now would be a perfect moment to tell a story that might help demystify the modern mormon experience. And, luckily, a (not Mormon) director friend approached me with an idea. He wanted to document Duck Beach, the annual migration of up to 1,000 single Mormons to the outer banks of North Carolina.

It is the perfect vehicle to tell a part of the mormon experience. We have found a wonderful cross-section of single Mormons. We will film them as they experience what some call the Mormon Spring Break. Please consider our following plea for funds. And hopefully, this story will help the next Wallace Stegner not find Mormon society too strange for fiction.


Duck Beach from Big Iron Productions on Vimeo.
*****

Again, click here for more information.

I'm His Dad

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by Josh (bio)


N at Disneyland.

My son N was never an easy child. As a baby, he was fussy and didn't eat well. He slept restlessly and woke us up for years at 5 a.m. As a toddler, he seemed easily shook up. At home he did OK, but anything out of our routine was a bit of a nightmare. We have vacation home movies where it seems like he is crying in every shot. Our first born had had colic, so we just assumed that N was a tough baby too, and left it at that.

As N got older, there were elements of his behavior that felt a little different somehow. Every kid goes through phases, but these phases felt longer and more relentless. By the end of N’s first year of pre-school, we knew something was off. He was arguing with other kids, refusing to follow directions and there were a couple of times we had to come to the school and pick him up because his behavior was too much for the teacher to handle.

Late last year, with the help of a great pediatrician, a lot of prayer, and a lot of research (done by my wife who knew in her heart this wasn’t just a phase), N was eventually diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Asperger’s Syndrome is on the autism spectrum and it is typically defined as people who have difficulty communicating and socializing with others. They see the world though a literal lens and have trouble understanding nuance, flexibility and adapting. Kids with Asperger’s typically have a singular focus - something they are obsessed with that they spend all their time thinking about. While Asperger’s is more understood now than it was a generation ago, when hearing about it, people still give you a bit of a blank stare. N is not retarded (and really, can we just do away with that word all together?). He can’t count things really fast (like Rainman.) He is not stupid. His intelligence is not developmentally delayed at all.

Can the Future Influence the Past?

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by Scott Heffernan (bio)

Imagine you have an important test to take. You study beforehand and then you take the test. What if I told you you can increase your score by also studying after you take the test?

There are some fascinating experiments being conducted by Cornell Professor Daryl Bem. And this is not some crackpot “doctor” you might see on The Secret or What the Bleep!? He is one of the most widely published and respected psychology professors in the country.

In one of the studies participants are shown 48 words (one at a time) on a computer screen, then asked to recall as many as possible. Participants type as many words as they can remember and that is the score they receive on the test. Then they are shown 24 randomly selected words from the list and asked to type them again. Obviously this would help participants better commit these words to memory. But the test is over by this point, the scores are set.

Test results showed that participants were better able to recall words that they had retyped after the test. Dr. Bem states, "The results show that practicing a set of words after the recall test does, in fact, reach back in time to facilitate the recall of those words." What the what? Can we somehow feel the future? Are events that are occurring in the future affecting the present?

What are your thoughts on retrocausality and precognition? Is time linear? Does this have any doctrinal implications? Fascinating stuff!

See NPR’s (more professional) report here and Dr. Bem’s original article here.

I Swear ...

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by Seattle Jon (bio)

ScottHeff and Aimee were over for dinner the other night. Scott was exhausted after a long day of managing the curse-word-controversy he'd created with his latest post. As we sat down, we noticed on everyone's plates a menu, hand-written by our ten year-old daughter, detailing the night's food.

What a sweethea...wait, what? For our prayer over the meal, we thanked God for his sense of humor.