Richard Bushman: An Interview

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by Seattle Jon (bio)

Richard Bushman, one of my personal heroes, recently gave an off-set interview to CNN’s In the Arena. Here are some highlights, but I encourage everyone to read the entire interview.

About The Book of Mormon musical…
Mormons experience the show like looking at themselves in a fun-house mirror. The reflection is hilarious but not really you. The nose is yours but swollen out of proportion.

On blacks and the priesthood…
For over a century, the Church did deny the priesthood to blacks for reasons Mormons themselves did not understand: perhaps there was a doctrinal basis, perhaps it was a policy adopted by Brigham Young in an era when blacks were commonly excluded from many white activities… The Church is conservative in the classic sense of changing slowly, but it does change deliberately in its own good time.

About his testimony of the book of mormon…
I studied everything and prayed hard for some kind of light. In time I arrived at a rational explanation that allowed for a miracle in the book’s production, but along the way I experienced something more important than the book itself. I caught a glimpse of a higher form of human flourishing, something forceful and ennobling which I can only call sacred. It was this encounter with a kind of elevated goodness in the book that won me over.

About the upcoming election…
I am one who is pleased to have Mormonism in the spotlight. I don’t mind the ribbing we get, or the attacks from skeptics, or the evangelicals’ objections to Mormon presidential candidates. I like the feeling that we are all in this together, trying to reconcile religious belief, politics, and our conflicted views of policy. We all want to know how they can work together for the public good.

Music: Jake Ballentine

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We first discovered the music - and harmonica-playing - of Jake Ballentine when he followed us on Twitter. His newest venture, Acoustic Hymns, features new-every-month versions of well-known LDS songs. The MP3s are free to download if you sign up on the website. His first release, As I Have Loved You, you can watch below. He just recently released his second acoustic hymn, There Is Sunshine In My Soul. Head over to both sites to support Jake!

Music: Hip-Hop and the Modern Mormon Man

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by Seattle Jon (bio)

As DJ mentioned yesterday, it's a challenge for some of us mormon dads to contemplate giving up the hip-hop we used to listen to. In my opinion, the key is not to give up the genre but to find rap that speaks to who you've become. For example, this single about the parking lot at Whole Foods really speaks to me ...

Note: Given our readership's sensitivity to curse words (see comments on this post), please mute your speakers at approximately 2:33 for three seconds.

Guest Post: The iTune-al Struggle

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DJ was born and raised in Salt Lake City, and has learned everything about other states and countries from TV and returned missionary reports. He is a proud father of four and husband of one and convincingly portrays someone who knows what he is doing.

I have found myself fighting an internal struggle with my teenage daughters’ music. She isn’t listening to explicit lyrics or death metal, but most music seems so suggestive now. What kind of a father am I if I allow bad music in our home? I found my answer, and we only have to flash back 25 years . . .

Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s you were literally imprisoned by your parent’s music collection. There was no iTunes, internet radio, mp3’s to pass around or cds to easily copy and share. I was stuck with The Moody Blues, Neil Diamond, The Doors, Led Zeppelin and an album with Barbara Streisand in her underwear and a superman shirt if I remember right. With the exception of Streisand, not a bad bunch of cellmates.

As I grew up and went through elementary school, there was a jail break. Of course I had the Mormon Rap and Bart Simpson’s debut album, and I would have agreed to do anything to spend one day with Weird Al Yankovich, but there was something else calling to me. My cousin showed me the answer with what looked at the time like a very disturbing, evil collection of music. Men in women’s clothes, men with women’s hair do’s, men in make-up – and they looked . . . manly. Poison, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Metallica and Quiet Riot were shamefully hidden under my bed in some dark, twisted congical visit. Thankfully my dad was so old school that the thought of dressing like these neon queens of debauchery never crossed my mind. And as I look back now I wonder – were my parents more disappointed by the sneaked hair metal or the out in the open New Kids on the Block tapes?

Adventures in Homeschooling: Part Two

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by Seattle Jon (bio)

Adventures in Homeschooling: Part One can be found here.

Once the initial inspiration to homeschool came, Charlie started mentioning it to a few of her friends. The response she got was overwhelmingly positive, which surprised her. One friend even shoved some books about homeschooling at her. "Here," the friend said, "I've always dreamed about homeschooling but every time I pray about it the answer is not to do it." I continued to remain skeptical until Cher had me read one of the books her friend had given her. I finished A Thomas Jefferson Education in just a few days and was in. Since Charlie is the driving force behind our efforts to homeschool, I’ve asked her to describe what the last three years of our kids’ education has looked like.

*****

One of the loveliest things about Seattle is that due to the popularity of homeschooling, several of the area school districts have homeschool resource centers (“HRCs). Each HRC has a principal, staff teachers (employed by the district) and workshop teachers (independent instructors who come up with classes that get approved by the district). Our HRC is housed in an old high school, so it has a cafeteria, a library, a computer lab, a theater and a gym. HRCs can best be described as “college for kids.”

Classroom settings are what you’d expect to see in a normal school district except that they are mixed-grade classes. For example, our ten year-old might take a class in Latin and have 4th and 6th graders sitting alongside her. Below is an example of some of the classes our kids have taken over the years, as well as a video of Will giving a speech on Chief Seattle in his Great American Speeches class (sound is horrible, apologies).

Musical Theater (the school puts on several plays a year)
Latin and Spanish
Greek Myths
Simple Machines (they study simple machines and then build them in Legos)
Great American Speeches (study great orators and memorize a speech, see video below)
American Girl History (history taught through the stories of the American Girl dolls)
Art & Literature (illustrate stories and poems they write)
Report Writing
P.E.

Another eHarmony Success Story

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by Ken Craig (bio)

image via strollerderby

I was recently the recipient of a most intriguing text. It was 10:18 in the P.M. when my cell phone vibrated in my right, front pants’ pocket. Instinctively, I demanded everyone stop talking or moving around or carrying on with any frivolity and shenanigans, so I could give the proper respect and attention to my incoming text.

But I was suddenly perplexed by what I read:

Hi Ally. Just wanted to say hi. I hope it’s not too late. Justin.

Now, for those of you keeping score at home, my name is not Ally. Never has been. Not even to my most intimate friends. And the only Justin I know who would text me is my brother. And he rarely calls me ‘Ally.’ And he knows I keep late hours, so unless he was texting to ask me if it was too late to apologize for breaking into my locked trunk while I was out of the country for two years on my LDS mission and subsequently losing not one but TWO mix tapes I had made before leaving, then I couldn’t see why he would be asking me if it was “too late.” (And no, Justin, it’s not late to apologize for that. I forgive you. Whew – I’ve been waiting for that one! Thank goodness that’s over. Water under the bridge, brother. Water. Under. The Bridge.)

Anyway, I immediately surmised that this fellow had the wrong number. So as a common courtesy, I simply typed:

Of course it’s not too late. Come on over. And giggled to myself at the thought of Justin showing up to Ally’s residence, unannounced and late in the evening. But then I thought, “This Justin character (if that is his real name) has my cell phone number. He could really make things annoying for me. Best I just leave him alone.” So I deleted my original message and went with the safer:

Justin who?

Guest Post: Parenting With Zone Defense

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Mark Wilcox is a professional writer and photographer living with his family in beautiful Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Beside loads of freelance writing, Wilcox also manages to write blog posts for his own blog: apparentparent.blogspot.com, which is featured on mormondaddyblogs.com. He has three kids that keep him busy as a loving "Daddy" to his children. Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone else entirely to be "Daddy." Wilcox writes about that little extra magic it takes. His topics vary widely from family outings to advice on bedtime from the battleground itself.

I'm pretty sure it was Confucius or some other wise philosophy type guy that once posited “When your third child you have, transition to zone defense you must.”

The syntax makes me wonder if it was Yoda.

I'm learning after our third child arrived last week just how true the principle is. Before, my wife would take one child and I would take the other, keeping mischief to a somewhat manageable minimum in the process. However, after my wife delivered our newest daughter with some complications, the man defense has been tossed. Now, my resting wife's zone happens to be a very large armchair with a sleeping infant on her chest. Since she's on doctor's orders to rest, relax and recuperate, I'm pretty okay with that, if not a little jealous.

Let's just say my zone covers a little more ground. Not that I'm complaining. I saw what she went through this week between childbirth and complications. The chair is hers, dangit.

Part of my zone is outside where I take the kids to the park. I get steamrolled, grass-stained, jumped on, slid upon and more. My kids ask me to climb the playground equipment in an odd place, which means doing it all with upper body strength. I dutifully ratchet myself up some bars going across a bridge, only to find I have seriously strained some muscles in my neck and shoulders, giving me the equivalent of a kinked neck after a week of camping on sharp granite boulders without a pillow.

Park time is over, but the zone defense has only just begun. Returning home, I fertilize the lawn while doing my best to keep stray children from swallowing the weed pesticides in the lawn feed because they look like yellow Nerds.