From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #117 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Monday, July 31 2000 Volume 01 : Number 117 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 12:52:00 -0600 From: Steve Perry Subject: [AML] MERRILL, "God's Purpose for the Artist in the Gospel Plan" Hi Listers, Love to know what you think about Keith Merrill's article, "God's Purpose for the Artist in the Gospel Plan." http://www.meridianmagazine.com/arts/000629artists.html Steve P. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 17:51:12 EDT From: "Rex Goode" Subject: Re: [AML] DUTCHER, _God's Army_ Thanks, Jonathan. I agree very much. It might be helpful to relate the context of Colleen Bernhard's statement. She was speaking to a conference partially on the topic of addictions. She was relating some of the difficulties she faced in bringing addiction recovery issues a degree of legitimacy among Latter-day Saints. Her book, _He Delivered My Soul From Bondage_, is a workbook developed based on her search for Book of Mormon scriptures that support 12-step methodologies (as in Alcoholics Anonymous). I don't know if anyone remembers a talk given in general conference many, many years ago. I don't recall the speaker, but it seemed to me at the time to be somewhat a jab at the Alcoholics Anonymous pillar of someone who has quit drinking forever referring to himself as an alcoholic. The leader giving the talk did not single out Alcoholics Anonymous, but the wording of his comments left little doubt in my mind, and I was pretty young at the time. This leader seemed to feel that if an alcoholic gave up drinking, it was inappropriate, from a doctrinal standpoint, to continue to refer to himself as an alcoholic. This is a pivotal point for 12-step programs. Alcoholism is considered a disease for which there is no cure. There is only recovery. If I was ever an alcoholic, but haven't had a drink in thirty years, I'd still introduce myself at an AA meeting by saying, "Hello. My name is Rex and I am an alcoholic." This was opposed to the thinking in the Church at the time regarding the efficacy of full repentance, changing us from a sinful nature into one with no more disposition to do evil. To continue to refer to oneself as an alcoholic after giving up alcohol bordered on blasphemy. Also annoying to many LDS observers was the nearly heretical first step which states, "We came to admit that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable." At a time when "grace" was a dirty word and "free agency" had not yet been replaced by "moral agency," admitting powerlessness over something was nothing short of preaching false doctrine. To a recovering addict, these attitudes represent an odd sort of profoundly Mormon denial, denial being the main force that keeps an addict from entering recovery. So, when Colleen Bernhard says that the first commandment of the Mormon culture is, "Thou shalt avoid all appearance of evil," she is speaking to the individual, cultural, and sometimes doctrinal denial that Mormons suffer from regarding the existence of addiction among Mormons. This attitude is very powerful even today. As LDS Family Services units start to address these problems, they often face opposition even regarding the possibility that LDS people might actually include a few alcoholics and drug addicts. Because this problem is cultural and not doctrinal, as Sister Bernhard's remark suggests, it works its way into the mindset of everything we do, including our taste in art. I suppose that doctrine also works its way into the way we operat, but I think it has to filter through the culture first in order to reach our art. In other words, the doctrine that through the atonement, we can overcome even our sinful nature gets processed through a cultural standard that repudiates referring to ourselves as being anything that sounds sinful, like being an alcoholic. Some take it so far as to think that if someone writes about a Mormon alcoholic, alcoholism is being promoted. You don't become an alcoholic by reading the sad story of an alcoholic. To Thom's point, our fears about the way people dress also play into this denial. At last years Grammy's (I think), Jennifer Lopez wore a dress that I hear was little more than a bandage. The next Sunday in priesthood meeting, someone brought up the incident to blame it for the growing problem the Church is having with pornography addiction. I associate with a great many LDS men struggling against pornography addiction through my Clean-LDS and LDSR.org web resources. Pornography addiction is born in dysfunctional homes, not on television and not in literature. To be afraid of a woman who wears slacks to church or doesn't dress up to standards for a dance is a way of denying that we create our own evil in our often less-than-perfect homes. My oldest son, who is the least rebellious man I know, has been wearing shirts to church dances that don't button all the way down for a long time now. He was sent home from a dance a couple of weeks ago for wearing a perfectly modest shirt that only buttoned halfway down. It was too casual, according to the chaperones. Though how we appear does affect, in some degree, how we behave, it is the inner vessel that Jesus commands us to clean. This makes Colleen Bernhard's statement about the first commandment of the Mormon culture interesting as compared to the true first commandment. Some people would want us to shine up the outside, but we are asked to shine up the inside by loving God with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. How we appear will take care of itself. [MOD: Compiled from another post by Rex]: I've been giving an incorrect title. The book is: BERNHARD, Colleen, _He Did Deliver Me From Bondage_. [Rex Goode] ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 16:09:01 -0600 From: Kathleen Woodbury Subject: Re: [AML] Is the Desire to Write Genetic? At 09:52 PM 7/27/00 EDT, Lisa Peck wrote: >As far as your question about desire to write being genetic, I feel like an >odd duck compared to others who have posted. I am definitely an odd duck in >my family. My father is in the medical field who has read maybe one fiction >book and no, it wasn't mine. My mother was a stay-at-home mother who believes >the only books worth reading are doctrinal and my brothers are all becoming >accountants and only read business books and think I torture myself every day >writing. As far as I know, all my ancestors were in the medical field or >happy homemakers. I keep looking around my family wondering where the heck I >came from. Well, you're not the only odd duck around, Lisa. My father could have been a great writer, and he wrote some, but he enjoyed doing the research more. His mother was into poetry, however. The few and relatively far between writers in my family tended to dabble at it, which still counts as writing, but none of them have plugged away at it as long as I have and actually managed to get paid to do it. Even odder, as ducks in my family go, I have a knack for mathematics and science--but my dad barely avoided flunking algebra, while my mom never even got that far. But we all love books (back to the literary aspects), even though we tend to read different kinds. I suspect something like that is more what we brought with us (and I have a theory about that which doesn't pertain to Mormon letters, so I won't go into it) than it is either nature or nurture. (Scientists can only discuss the latter two, but we know that we brought well-developed personalities with desires and talents all ready going strong when we came to this earth, right?) Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury workshop@burgoyne.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #117 ******************************