It seems like we talked about this just last week! But I guess it’s only natural that finding ways to support and strengthen mixed-faith families is one of the central concerns of our community. (Not that shared faith makes marriage easy or anything.) Sometimes you have the joy of discovering that your friend made a similar faith journey, but you can’t usually count on it. Reaching across faith lines is hard, so it’s likely you’ll have some strained discussions ahead. Possibly involving your underwear. And how do you teach kids your values without seeing families as instruments and children as products?
Religion often focuses on sex, yet sexism is about power — who gets a little, how it’s exercised, and how it gets abused.
Atheists put up a cool new billboard in Salt Lake City (not this one)! Congrats, and don’t forget to do some humanitarian work as well, not to mention your community responsibilities. In other news, there’s some disagreement over LDS church history and doctrine. Leaving the fold often leads to changing your look and fun new questions! So why not share your experience with others?
And let’s close with some cool Mormon material culture to remind you to contribute to Sunstone! Happy Sunday! 😀
Speaking of material culture, what do you make of this?
Why are Mormon kids flying a rainbow flag on a pioneer trek?
Very interesting!! I hate to jump to conclusions, so it’s hard to know exactly what to make of it…
Chino — BTW, that’s a great new set of sidebar headlines!
Regarding the D. Todd Christofferson talk:
When that talk was given (back in 2006), one of the bloggers of Outer Blogness (whose blog has since disappeared, sadly), wrote an excellent piece about it. He argued that that talk would likely be stepping stone out of the church for many people (kind of like the more recent BKP talk that deconverted Invictus Pligrim).
It’s astonishing that he could praise a guy who stood idly by for a year, letting his wife iron his and his five sons’ shirts, knowing that the task caused her intense physical pain. It’s hard to comprehend what was going on in that guy’s head, that he could watch her go to the bedroom and cry from the pain, and not immediately think of perhaps learning to iron his own shirts. Or, if he’s afraid of making her feel inadequate [though, really, no human should be made to feel her worth is dependent on her ability to iron], he could suggest it as a learning experience for the kids: “These boys will be going on missions some day, and will have to iron their own shirts — they should start practicing now!”
Hey, thanks for noticing. 🙂 Todd’s dumb talk put me in turbo exmo mode. And it’s got me thinking about how much I disagree with Kristine Haglund about this, esp. her assertion that “exit is not a productive mode of articulating criticism”:
I don’t think she takes into account how conditions on the ground have changed in recent years. She contends that exiters lack leverage vis–vis the institutional church “unless you belong to a large, identifiable cohort”… to which I’d simply reply: The Washington Post links to our exmo projects just like they link to the Bloggernacle. At some point, I expect she’s gonna have to admit that we qualify for “large, identifiable cohort” status. In the meantime, BCC can keep pretending we don’t exist by banning and ignoring us, but the only thing that accomplishes is warping their own view of the situation, and we’ll just keep adding to our numbers and raising our visibility and developing exactly the kind of leverage that Haglund wants to suggest will always be beyond our reach.
From that Washington Post piece:
We’re here. Update your assumptions.
Back to the subject at hand.
Crap like this pisses people off, Todd. So, thank goodness for insider critiques that hold you accountable. Behold the awesome power of this highly productive mode of Bloggernacle criticism:
*eyeroll*
By the way, Todd, I asked Jesus what he thought about your story, and he said he’s waiting for you to ask him yourself. Directly. Something about some bet he’s got going with Matt and Trey.
I know what you mean about the assertion that exit is not a productive mode of articulating criticism. Considering how unresponsive the hierarchy is to criticism, it’s hard to judge whether this mode is less productive than any other.
If nothing else, it’s a productive mode of remaining sane, judging from the patronizing climate expressed in the article you linked about Mormon men waiting longer to marry, worrying church officials:
So, to recap: According to the old white men in charge, men just want to have fun (and marriage is a drag), whereas women don’t want to have fun being single and generally enjoying the carefree life with their friends.
Is that true of Mormon women? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But coupling this with the ironing story above, is this the kind of self-worth assessment that you want your daughter to learn and internalize? Kinda makes that exit door look awfully tempting…
I’m not convinced that the hierarchy is unresponsive to criticism. Such an admission strikes me as little more than acceding to bought-and-paid-for framing in the absence of a strong grassroots counter-narrative. And admittedly, I’m stumbling toward a thesis here in this extemporaneous threadjack, but one thing I’m fairly certain of is that this supposed absence is already a historical footnote. The current reality is that the counter-narrative is alive and well and the popcorn-worthy spectacle of Bloggernacle apologetics is mostly about the inability of the best Mormon minds to silence the annoying beep-beep-beep on the radar screen of a host culture that takes an increasingly dim view of racism, sexism and homophobia. That said, it’s probably too early to expect ‘naclers to acknowledge that exmos are bravely volunteering to fly some of the most dangerous sorties. So it goes. While we’re capturing their kids, they’re consoling themselves that “we don’t know why” there’s such massive disaffection/desertion under way. From one parent to another, I remember what it was like being a teenager in an LDS home and it’s the feigned ineffability that grates the hardest.
It’s an interesting thesis, and I wouldn’t call it a threadjack. Actually, I was going to suggest that — since it’s not possible to comment on the sidebar headlines directly — people should consider the latest SiOB to be an open thread where any of the Mormon news can be discussed.
Or maybe not. I tend to agree with your argument that…
Seriously. Exit = sanity. Amen.
At some point, constantly culling the headlines for “Mormon” news becomes a fool’s errand (as if I’d left my Weltanschauung to loiter on the sidewalk outside my favorite club, people-watching in wait for some eye-popping, paradigm-shifting late arrival).
It’s the same rabbit hole that Josh Marshall has explored over at TPM by following the scent of every insane bunny vying for the GOP nomination. At some point, the realization ought to kick in that you’ve spent the better part of your God-given cerebral capacity chronicling the comings and goings of damaged people.
Not that Kaimi is damaged. Or Kristine. Or Cheryl. Or Joanna. Or John. Or any number of admirably lucid Mormons too numerous to mention. And especially not any of the regulars here at MSP, but seriously… the fascination is unsustainable. At the end of the day, it’s a creaky model that I’d be better off forgetting until next summer when we rendezvous for Sunstone.
Here’s what bothered me so much about Christofferson’s talk. The obvious solution is for dad and the boys to do the ironing. OTOH, I can see that the idea that she was taking care of and serving her family could have been an important part of the mom’s self-image, so dad wouldn’t want to just take over.
But Christofferson never even mentions the obvious solution. He never says anything like, “Of course, we could have done the ironing, but….” The idea that dad could have ironed — or the idea that that was the obvious solution — never seems to have occurred to him. He just treats the idea that women are supposed to iron for men as the natural order of things.
@9 — What the…? Are you suggesting that a man could iron his own shirts, even if there’s a woman living in the house with him…? Kuri, that’s crazy-talk!
😉
@4 & @6 — I do have a bit of an objection to Haglund’s claim about the irrelevance of leaving:
As a person who left as a young person “in the transition from youth programs to Relief Society,” I feel so important knowing that Haglund thinks my exit was one of the ones that “matters.” (Go me!) But seriously, the three categories she mentions are people going through transitions, many of whom will simply leave for their own personal reasons.
The folks who leave after establishing a Mormon family are the people who have the most invested in the CoJCoL-dS, and who have to make huge sacrifices when they leave. They’re the folks who don’t leave unless there’s something really wrong, and they’re the solid foundation members that the CoJCoL-dS needs most.
If watching such people leave “simply doesnt matter” “for the institution,” well, that is already a glaring red flag that there’s something wrong with the institution.
When I first joined the church, one of the neighbor families was an older LDS couple. They were around 60, I suppose, and their children had all moved out. I was was talking to the woman once, and she said she had to leave because she needed to iron her husband’s shirts. She said he had 30 shirts, so it would take awhile.
It was a definite WTF moment. First, why in the world did anyone need 30 shirts? (All white, I imagined — at least, I’d never seen him in any other kind.) And second — and double-plus WTF — why doesn’t he iron his own shirts?
I’d never imagined there were people who lived like that.
Kristine’s argument is crap, an attempt to justify staying in an institution that she knows oppresses her.
There was recently a discussion on the fMh facebook page about women explaining to their young daughters that they can’t have the priesthood, and trying to deal with the confusion and hurt the daughters feel. As distressed mother put it, “I’ve accepted injustice, but why should she?”
Why should she? And can Kristine Haglund really tell that daughter that she should stick around because exit is not a productive mode of articulating criticism”?
At some point, women who stay active Latter-day Saints face the proposition of thinking less of themselves, or thinking less of their leaders–if they are strong enough to make that choice. I actually think most of those who stay end up thinking less of both themselves and their leaders. Todd’s mom didn’t think much of either herself or her husband. She was surprised by his belated kindness and didn’t believe in her own right to ask others to do work for themselves that would spare them suffering.
And Kristine Haglund thinks we should tell our daughters that opting out of that is “not a productive mode of articulating criticism”?
Oh, and this from Kristine:
Since the category “post-mission men” ultimately includes most LDS men, and since many “pre-mission men” are included in the category “young people in the transition from youth programs to Relief Society or Elders Quorum,” what Kristine is really saying is that “women’s departures don’t matter” and are not a productive mode of articulating criticism.”
Though they might matter if A) we could get enough of them to do it and B) women mattered in the LDS church in the first place.
And it’s not like staying is really proving itself “a productive mode of articulating criticism,” or people like Kristine might have actually made some improvements that would do something to stem the exodus of young LDS women at the rate of 80%–behold, that ever so unproductive mode of registering criticism.
In my comment above, I was giving her the benefit of the doubt that she meant men who just finished their missions since, as you point out, otherwise it means men’s departures matter and women’s don’t. But I’ll grant that maybe that really is what she’s saying.
That is an excellent observation.
Also, I don’t quite agree with her whole theory that “the church has an unbreakable monopoly.” She seems to be arguing that if you believe in Mormonism, then you believe that only the church itself has authority, so even if you disagree, you’re still stuck. I’d say it’s possible to believe in the Restoration and still question whether the CoJCoL-dS has the authority monopoly it claims to have.
However, it’s true that the strong belief the infallibility of the CoJCoL-dS + the observation that the top leaders are often very wrong leads people to question their beliefs at the very core. I don’t think her interpretation of the interchangeability of Christian sects is quite right (Ms. Jack, perhaps you can comment on that…?), but it’s likely that the CoJCoL-dS is producing a disproportionate number of atheists (compared to other religions) because of its strong authority claims. (eg. it’s harder for Mormons to say “That one leader is dead wrong, but my core beliefs are still true,” than it is for mainstream Christians to say the same.)
@Kuri
God forbid that a wife iron her husband’s shirts. She certainly wouldn’t do it because she loves him and wants to help him or some kind of ridiculous reason like that. Because in a marriage everyone knows that the secret to success is that you take care your own needs without a thought of the other person’s needs.
The reasons why I donate to Dialogue, Sunstone and Dehlin Enterprises are admittedly somewhat convoluted but ultimately defensible, in my view. If that’s a discussion anyone here would be interested in having, let’s go (and as long as you’re here, Holly, are you suggesting there’s a case to be made for defunding one or all of these projects?).
dpc — You’re alive, after all these years!
Seriously, though, that’s great if she wants to iron for her family. Full disclosure: I do all of my family’s laundry. However, if you read the comments carefully, you’ll see that that’s not precisely the problem.
Besides that, I think you have it a little backwards:
The critique wasn’t that she was selfishly thinking of her own need not to be in pain instead of thinking of her husband’s need to have ironed shirts. The critique was that the husband was so focused on his own need to have his shirts ironed (without being bothered to do it himself) that he failed to consider the needs of others. (Hey, a guy could do something out of love for another, too, couldn’t he?)
i’ve supported such projects with my money and my writing. As long as they’re venues where people who have left or never been Mormon can talk about Mormonism, I will continue to support them. If any of them ever make activity in the COJCOLDS a prerequisite for publication, then I’ll be done.
But I do have a friend who insists that going to Sunstone or subscribing to Dialogue is about like continuing to hang out with active participants of the KKK. OK, he says, maybe it wasn’t your choice to be raised in the KKK. Maybe you want to explore how being raised in it scarred you. Doesn’t mean you should fraternize with those who still put on white sheets or take seriously their defenses of white sheetism.
It’s a position I’ve argued against–I don’t think supporting a forum ABOUT Mormonism is the same as supporting Mormonism. But he does.
I have a friend who insists that if I’m going to pester folks about religion, I ought to make a special effort to try to be friendly about it. Otherwise — per my friend’s bizarre logic — why bother?
@21 — I’m all about civil dialog, but I don’t get that logic either. There are so many different possibilities — I would never claim that there’s one canonical “right” approach.
chanson — I can only be lazy for so long. I’m glad to know that you are still around, though. I appreciate this post because I have been thinking deeply about social relationships and religious faith a lot recently. I believe there is a correlation between relationship difficulties (marital or familial) and leaving one’s religion. I don’t think that the one necessarily causes the other, but there is, in my mind, a definite link. And one day I will actually write a blog post that sets out my reasons why I think that way
dpc — cool, I look forward to reading it! As I’ve said in the above post, strengthening one’s relationships through a major change (like leaving ones religion) is a central concern for our community.
@22 — My reference to my (imaginary) friend was tongue-in-cheek. For all the Sturm und Drang that’s apparently part-and-parcel of discussing Mormonism, I really don’t get why we have to be so mean to each other.
Maybe because we all succeed fairly well at emulating a father who subjects his children to tests they can’t pass, banishes them from his presence when they inevitably disappoint him, expects them to be enthusiastic about the ritual execution of a brother, plays favorites with apology, and withholds from them access to their mother for reasons no one can explain.
We’re taught that being like a cruel, nasty deity is the height of righteousness. In many regards what is remarkable are those occasions when we manage to better than the god we were taught to worship, not those occasions when we imitate him far too well.
Holly- If I’m going to fit Sunstone into my schedule, I need assurances that MSP is going to run our own panel. What you just unloaded in that comment of yours is exactly what I don’t have patience for.
I think it’s not unreasonable to imagine that they’ll allow an MSP/Outer Blogness panel. It’s just a question of submitting one and negotiating it.
My proposals are nearly done, though they might need a bit of work before submitting them…
Your proposals rock, chanson. I’m cool with sexy, and demographics, and meta … what I’m not cool with is self-marginalization … it’s been done before and I’m not keen on conjuring up the latest iteration of that phenomenon.
The ironing shirts example was unfortunate because it brought in a scenario from a past age to an audience not really equipped to understand the context.
Back in the 1950s women ironed shirts. It was part of what they did. And they didn’t have wrinkle-free shirts like you do today – so yes – they really did need to be ironed. And men really did need a lot of them – because that’s all men wore to the workplace in those days. And if you keep wearing the same ones over and over, they get ugly yellow stains around the collar and armpits.
And if a man tried to tell a 1950s wife to “take it easy” and do the ironing for her – some might have taken him up on it. But an equal number would have been utterly humiliated and felt like failures at their own sphere in the world.
See?
Modern solutions don’t always work the way you planned when you lift them wholesale and chuck them back a half century as a proscriptive remedy.
I agree that USE of the example in the 21st century was unfortunate and sent some wrong messages. But that’s no reason to bag on the couple featured in the talk.
I wonder, Seth R., why your keen insight hasn’t managed to trickle up to Todd’s level? As far as I can tell, the bulk of Bloggernacle objections to the BOM Broadway musical are mostly coming from a place that misunderestimates just how powerful an effect the white-shirt-and-tie motif has had on the uninitiated/unchurched masses. Is it their fault for finding it odd or your fault for not bothering to switch up the wardrobe during the past 50 years?
chino @29 — That’s why I proposed two panels. One where we can talk about our own goals without (the usual) having the faithful frame the discussion of what “apostates” are like, and another where we’re discussing our place in/with the greater Mormon-interest community.
Seth @30 — Great, I get it was the 50’s, but the talk was given in 2006 to give an example of manhood for 2006. I’m with Kuri @9, that the key problem was that there wasn’t even an acknowledgement that it might have been possible for him to iron his own shirts. A little aside like “Sure, this sounds crazy today, but it was the ’50’s, so…” or “Ironing was one task that Mom had always taken a special pride in…” would have gone a long way. Just so that we’re not left with the impression that “Of, course, it goes without saying, that, as a woman, Mom would have felt incomplete at the very hint that she wasn’t up to ironing her husband’s and sons’ shirts…”
And, honestly, defending this anecdote — which has to be one of the most misogynistic stinkers to grace conference for a decade — gives the impression that no matter what the GAs say, no matter how obviously wrong, you will simply knee-jerk battle any criticism of it.
Good grief Chanson.
When did this automatically become “one of the most misogynistic stinkers to grace conference for a decade”?
It’s a story from the 50s that a guy didn’t have the self-awareness to contextualize for everyone, tinted by his own leftover attitudes about sex (which many disagree with).
That last statement honestly, gives the impression that the folks here have a knee-jerk urge to see the worst in anything coming from the LDS Church. Your rhetoric is a bit over-the-top here.
Misogynistic my butt…
Chino, I have no idea what you are trying to say there.
@33 Well, I haven’t been following conference that closely. Why, you have some examples to beat this one…?
I don’t know Chanson.
Honestly, I’m just a little surprised at the use of the word misogynistic here.
Sure… I guess you could make an argument that it’s a bit misogynistic… I guess…
The same way Pride and Prejudice could be termed “misogynistic” if you were so inclined to boil down the matter to one aspect. Or the same way stories of any American woman doing household chores in the old days could be labeled “misogynistic.”
I guess Little House on the Prairie might count.
But really, I think this rhetoric is more than slightly over the top.
@34 — Right back at ya’ … Or maybe you could bother to explain exactly what threw you for a loop?
Seth — If you’d like to go on record as claiming that it’s somehow “over the top” to find that there’s something very wrong with using this anecdote to illustrate true manhood in 2006, that’s fine. I’m perfectly happy to agree to disagree, and allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
Chanson – then I guess I’ll leave it there. I don’t have much more to say on the topic anyway.
Ahhh, nevermind. Here’s the gist, Seth R.:
You admit that “The ironing shirts example was unfortunate because it brought in a scenario from a past age.”
My point was that nearly everything about Mormon culture reminds almost everyone of a “past age”…
Honest question: Do you really think your church is doing your growth prospects any favors by insisting on a uniform that is quickly becoming North American shorthand for “deluded” and “naive” ??
Oh, I see.
I had nothing to do with my comment but was just method for bringing in another trivial gripe about the church.
Got it.
Seth R.: In all seriousness, is there any point that I could offer up as a suggestion that you wouldn’t interpret as griping?
If not, why should I bother with your inveterate moaning? Seriously. Do you really think you’re doing right by your faith with this routine of yours?
I read Kristine as referring to the exit unto itself being useless. Not necessarily everything that comes after exiting, or the whole state of ex-Mormonism.
On the point of ironing in the 1950s, what comes to my mind was Julianne Moore’s character in The Hours, an example of a 1950s (lesbian) woman who felt domesticity and motherhood were her duties (and would not have wanted her husband to venture into her roles), but couldn’t articulate why somehow these roles weren’t enough.
CB, That’s up to you and the acceptance committee next year. Sunstone doesn’t historically mess with panels once they’re accepted, but they do sometimes ask for revisions to proposals that are unfocused or unlikely to attract an audience or unsatisfactory in some other way before they accept them.
So if you want to run your own panel, submit a strong proposal, find all the speakers yourself ahead of time and include their names and bios with the proposal, and do it early enough that everything can be decided and arranged before you buy a plane ticket.
Because no one can give you any assurance about what will happen with your panel before you submit the proposal for it.
Right, she’s saying it doesn’t give you real leverage to change the CoJCoL-dS. Of course, most people don’t leave in hopes that their exit will change the CoJCoL-dS — they leave because they’ve given up on the organization. If the institution then views it as irrelevant that so many would-be-devoted-members are headed for the exits, then, I guess, it’s mutual.
I was a licensed attorney making more money than my then-husband, who was also an attorney and a very independent woman. With all that, the church indoctrination runs so deep that my ex still said to me one day, with a perfectly straight face, “If you loved me, you would want to iron my shirts for me.” I laughed, thinking he had been joking, but he had been serious. I had to explain to him that if I love him, I might be willing to iron his shirts for him, at my discretion, even though I hate ironing, but ironing does not equal love and love does not equal ironing. I never ironed anything for him again, even though before that time, I would always ask if he needed anything ironed while I had the iron and board out when I was doing my own ironing. The fact that he did not reciprocate didn’t necessarily bother me because I knew he hated ironing even more than I did and it took him 10 times as long (as the oldest daughter in an LDS household, I had done all the ironing for a family of 7 for over a decade), but that I was supposed to love doing it as a wife was too much.
Well Chino, I really do think the whole white shirt thing is an unutterably trivial and stupid complaint against the Church.
I thought so years ago when Steve EM would always gripe about it on 9 Moons, and I still think so.
I actually think the white shirt, tie and slacks routine is a very, very good idea if you are sending out a missionary force actually. I kind of laugh at the suggestions that come up every once in a while suggesting a more “casual Friday” (aka – I want to look like a homogenized loser) look.
You should have seen how WE dressed in my mission when we were on our “Preparation Days” and allowed to dress how we wanted. Believe me – we looked pretty awful. Our moms would have been appalled at our lack of good taste.
Ever watch “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?”
Yeah – we would have been the appallingly dressed schlub BEFORE all the experts were done with him.
The missionary uniform ain’t broke. Please DON’T “fix” it.
It burns me up that the Church changed its missionary policy and no longer requires elders to wear hats. I’m with you Seth, if the missionary uniform ain’t broke, then leave it alone.
Talked to a guy last week who almost died of sunstroke on his mission because he was not allowed to wear a hat. Of course he applied sunscreen, but he’d sweat it off after a couple of hours. An obvious solution (one with no just immediate but long-term ramifications for his health, given how nasty skin cancer is) would be to wear a hat–but that was absolutely not permitted.
So yeah, the uniform definitely ain’t broken, and don’t need no fixin, not from nobody.
sorry, make that “not just immediate”
Seth probably doesn’t remember, but during the same period that he says a wife wouldn’t think of letting her husband or sons iron their shirts, missionaries were required to wear black ties. Who messed up and let that slip by?
My father also tells me that in the 50s, companions were required to share a bed. He started his mission being told that it was absolutely necessary to share a bed with whatever companion he was assigned to, because it fostered closeness, and ended his mission absolutely forbidden ever to share a bed with his companion, because… well, just because.
I have to say (as a non-LDS person) that the current missionary uniform is, well, off putting, to many non-LDS people. I’m not saying that missionaries look awful (some look wonderful), but that the dress code is terrible.
To start, missionaries are usually far more dressed up than the people they’re interacting with, which makes people uncomfortable. We’d hardly call a person that wears a ball gown to the office respectable or respectful for being very formally dressed- we’d say its inappropriate to the situation.
The style of clothing sometimes looks suitable for adults twice the age of the missionary wearing it (more a problem for men than women). This is a separate issue from ‘levels’ of formality; I’m referring to color, cut, fit and fabric. This is also discomforting- not because its its very dressy clothing in everyday situations, but because its ‘someone elses’ very dressy clothing on a young person. AKA ‘My mom picked it out’ syndrome.
When the missionaries ask if there is ‘anything they can do’, its obvious they’d look ridiculous attempting anything remotely physically challenging. Many people wouldn’t ask a missionary if they’d get the step-stool out and bring the punch bowl down from the top shelf. Asking that question makes missionaries look insincere.
On a more sensitive note, the traditional white shirt on male missionaries often does not help people’s curiosity about LDS garments.
If clothing makes the first impression, when I look at LDS missionaries in the park or street tracting, it looks like they don’t belong. They don’t look like they’re making an effort to fit in with the local people or culture. They look like they’ve gotten lost on their way to an important church function. And if the LDS missionaries look like they don’t belong, doesn’t that point to the average non LDS person looking like they don’t belong in the LDS church…? However much the dress code strengthens the LDS/missionary group identity, it probably does raise two negative unconscious thoughts with potential converts: ‘these are strangers’, and, ‘will I have to adopt their dress code if I join?’
Overall, the missionary uniform really needs an overhaul. People could say its about appearing mature, or unified, or powerful or attempting to appear authoritative- but it usually just looks very odd. It doesn’t look respectable. It looks clueless, or old fashioned at best. Its terrible PR.
There’s nothing wrong with polos, button front dress shirts in a variety of colors, chinos, dress pants or dark wash jeans. Or women wearing pants. Or hats. Or shorts, or saris, if the climate dictates.
Nah, outside the US, the uniform is an even better idea.
The white sleeve shirt is pretty much universal anywhere. Believe me – the missionaries would stand out more trying to dress their own way in Japan than they do now – and not in a positive way. Same thing in South America, Tonga, Africa, just about anywhere in the third world actually. The polos would be highly out of place.
Also keep in mind that one of the last priorities you have as a missionary is “blending in to the crowd so people don’t even notice you are there.”
True, it’s their intention to stand out and be easy to spot (yet to be difficult to distinguish from one another as individuals). Still, the “no hats” thing doesn’t seem like a very well thought-out rule for people who have to spend a lot of time outdoors.
My only issue is…short-sleeved button down shirts should be destroyed off the face of the planet. Maybe people disagree, but instead, why not just roll up the sleeves of a long-sleeve button down*.
*There ARE ways of doing this without looking like a politician who’s trying to trick people into believing that he gets his hands dirty from helping the Common Man.
I don’t know – seemed applicable in our case. Because we usually were “getting our hands dirty.” We did a lot of service on my mission – and the short sleeved shirts were the only way to go about things during the summer as far as we were concerned.
Chanson, what hats would we wear? During the summer, most missionaries I knew wouldn’t wear them if you told them to. I served in a mission that was about as hot as Georgia in the summer. No way did I want or need a hat. During the winter – you did want one. I snagged a New York Yankees baseball cap. My zone leader didn’t like it much, but I didn’t see many alternatives. Honestly, it looked pretty bad (another example of how a 19 year old guy is going to screw up his wardrobe if left to his own devices).
Did snag a stylish brown umbrella though that I was quite fond of…
Lol. They should be destroyed off the face of the planet because they’re tacky.
I asked the missionaries at Temple Square why they’re all women, and one suggested that the various colors of their dresses is much more welcoming for foreigners than male missionaries’ drab attire. Of course this was an opinion, but I can definitely see how the appearance of male missionaries’ attire can be off-putting as it shouts correlation/corporation.
Seth R. you actually added a baseball cap to the unbroken, Lord endorsed missionary uniform? My you are a free thinking radical. Next thing you know you won’t feel the need to defend every dot and tittle of the Church.
When my kids and I go somewhere during the summer, I wear a broad-brimmed hat and my kids wear baseball caps to protect us from the sun. During the winter, we wear warm hats to protect us from the cold. It’s perhaps a matter of personal preference, but it’s nice to be able to protect your head from the elements if you’re spending more than a few minutes outside.
There exist hats that can go reasonably well with a business suit, though I know it’s not the current fashion.
“Believe me the missionaries would stand out more trying to dress their own way in Japan than they do now and not in a positive way. Same thing in South America, Tonga, Africa, just about anywhere in the third world actually. The polos would be highly out of place.”
Well, I don’t live in Japan, South America, Africa, Tonga or the developing world. The missionaries really stand out here. Not in a positive way. Its more a ‘They must make them wear that….’ sentiment.
” Also keep in mind that one of the last priorities you have as a missionary is blending in to the crowd so people dont even notice you are there. ”
Seth, together this seems contradictory to me. Do you want the missionaries to look (somewhat) like the locals or not? I’ve outlined why (in my location) the dress code puts people off (overly formal/age inappropriate/ appearing inappropriate for helping others/obvious non-local). Noticeable for the wrong reasons is usually worse than blending in.
Do you think the dress code actually gives that much in the way of positive attention to LDS missionary work? I suspect you’ve spoken to (numerous) people who came up to you because you were easily identifiable as a missionary, but never talked to (numerous) people who knew you were an LDS missionary from fifty yards away and avoided you. Please consider the negative associations many people have with uniforms/the corporate look, the negative feelings many people have toward missionaries, and the general association of the LDS and control/conformity (which the ‘I’m a Mormon’ ads try to dispel, but tens of thousands of missionaries reinforce with the dress code). I think the dress code really hurts the chances of a missionary getting to speak to most people beyond ‘hello’ . I’d guess that the Temple square (sister) missionaries get better reactions from the average passer-by because their dress code is less uniform than what the men wear.
Or is there some other reason for wanting to stand out? (finding a companion in a crowd?)
It’s one thing to argue that missionaries should wear a uniform for one of the standard reasons people wear them: so others know instantly what they are. It’s another to argue, as Seth does, that they should wear a uniform because they’re unable to dress themselves without looking ridiculous.
People who are not competent to dress themselves respectably unless forced to adhere to a rigid uniform should not have the responsibility or privilege of sharing with others god’s one and only plan for happiness in this life and the next.
re: sister missionaries–in case people missed it, here’s a news from story earlier this year about sister missionaries being encouraged to be less frumpy. The recent uniform for sisters–sober colors and no prints, among other things–wasn’t in place when I was a missionary, for which I am eternally grateful. I’m also glad that at some point someone realized it was a mistake. Sisters looked dowdy, and people actually feared that if the joined the church, they’d be expected to be equally as frumpy.
Yeah Holly, well – you should have seen what the sisters were getting away with in the 90s. A good half of it was pretty bad. People who go out and live poor and devote themselves to the Lord tend to put looking presentable on the back burner. They’ve got other priorities. As a result, a lot of them end up looking like slobs.
Parker, this entire conversation has been a bit ironic for me. Because I never have been a that much of a fan of all the “corporate theme” stuff people are bagging on here. It’s just I consider it trivial crap to be moaning about. You guys act like its the end of the world that missionaries have to wear shirts and ties instead of polo shirts.
Well, I think there are very good reasons for having the uniform the way it is. Just like there were good reasons for having uniforms in the workplace as well – before everyone casual-Fridayed the national fashion sense to hell.
Seth R, you need to go back and look at most of your responses. You dismiss most comments that you consider negative about the Church as being too trivial to even discuss, while being excessive in your defense of the Church’s position. You are the one who is saying the uniform ain’t broke–but you don’t seem to realize that the uniform changes over the years. So which version of the uniform ain’t broke, and are your going to protest when the inevitable changes occur, or will you jump to its defense, and call anyone’s questions, or observations “trivial crap?”
Who’s acting like it’s the end of the world? Looks to me like we’re having a conversation, and you’re at least as involved in it as anyone else.
I can’t speak for others, but one of the reasons I like to spend my free time discussing Mormonism is because it’s more fun and less stressful than discussing real problems like the economy or the environment.
Amen to that Chanson.
Parker, I understand that the uniform changes. But I don’t think that’s relevant to the overall thrust of what I was saying in the first place. That’s why I didn’t bother to respond to all the fun back and forth you and Holly were having further up in the comments. It wasn’t really addressing anything I said to begin with.
Really? I thought people who devoted themselves to the Lord just naturally embraced modesty, simplicity, cleanliness and respectability. That’s why appearance is such a good gauge of moral worthiness: people who love god are neat, clean, conservative and don’t get tattoos or multiple piercings, unlike those who don’t.
Well, I guess everyone doesn’t fit into those neat categories you’ve given them.
I guess not either. perhaps you could pass that on to someone in charge, so that there are fewer sacrament talks about the unrighteousness of bare shoulders, multiple piercings and facial hair.
Yet more issues I couldn’t give a flying fig about – one way or the other. We don’t have Sacrament Meeting talks on these issues to begin with – and if we did, I think it’s fine. Advocating for a dress standard for your group is acceptable. Being mean to people is not.
But the two do not automatically go hand-in-hand. They don’t in my ward anyway.
Are you so sure about that? Do you know how the losers and outsiders on the fringes of your ward feel about it? (Not saying you don’t don’t — I’m just wondering.)
Having been on the short end of the stick to some degree or other within LDS society for most of my life, I have a bit of an idea.
But I shouldn’t generalize my own experience to everyone else. People have a variety of situations.
To add what I said about the sister missionaries at Temple Square, it wasn’t so much that the white shirt/black pants getup was broken on a single individual, but if you think about how many missionaries are at Temple Square (hundreds?), then it would definitely be off-putting, or even downright scary, for everyone representing the Church to be wearing the same thing. (Although, this doesn’t explain why Temple Square doesn’t have both female and male missionaries. Anyone know the real reason behind why Temple Square is all sisters?)
American society has been inundated enough with Mormon missionaries that when people see two of them, they don’t think, “Oh, don’t those young men look clean, neat, and professional?” Instead, they think about how all the missionaries they’ve seen look the same: uniformity, politics, corporatism.
I can see Seth’s point, though, about how the uniform might make sense overseas.
Alan — I think you’ve answered your own question. The uniform (to make the guys easy to identify) makes sense where they’re rare, but the sister-missionary lack-of-uniform is more inviting in places where the mishies reach a certain density.
Yes, but all women and no men? What about a 80%/20% mix or something? Once you get passed the logic about the attire, then it becomes a question about how the situation got resolved along gendered lines. Then again, I guess the Church’s same-sex spaces are part of its trademark.
Hey, I didn’t make their strategy. I’m just making wild stab-in-the-dark guesses. 😉
Alan, if I had to guess why it’s all women (and it isn’t – if you count the MANY senior couple missionaries on the campus), I would say it’s part of the whole hospitality thing. It’s why even today most tour guides at popular resorts tend to be pretty females. This used to be more true than it is today, but it still holds in many hospitality locations. People respond more positively to a pretty girl. Among some of my friends, we used to joke about how the prettiest girls went to Temple Square. But I have no idea if that’s just urban legend or has a basis in truth.
Don’t forget that Temple Square remains one of the top tourist destinations in the United States. I’d say appearances matter a lot more there than they do in other missions, and for good legitimate reasons.
And, for the record Alan – no you don’t speak for how all Americans view the LDS missionaries. Having spoken to some of these non-members, I can tell you that it’s much more of a mixed bag of reactions.
The world, as it so happens, is more diverse in opinion than certain corners of the Internet.
Are you referring to sex appeal? If so, that proves the Church is very hypocritical. If you’re referring to neoteny, then I’m torn about whether this is necessarily bad.
As I’m sure you’re aware, in Japan, cuteness as a marketing tool is huge — whether referring to people or plush animals. But it applies to both women and men. Even in America, given that money doesn’t just flow through the hands of men, I think cute males would make for a good marketing strategy. =) (Although, admittedly I’m a bit biased on the matter.) However, this would require the Church to think differently about women’s roles (i.e., that advertising toward women is important).
“in Japan, cuteness as a marketing tool is huge whether referring to people or plush animals.”
That’s true.
“But it applies to both women and men.”
No Alan, it pretty much just applies to the women.
As far as gender roles go – put Japan about 10 to 20 years behind the United States and you’ve got a fairly accurate picture.
I beg to differ.
Uh huh….
“More” being the key word here.
I live five blocks from the temple. A few months ago at the grocery store I heard some guy chatting up a couple of elders while his wife looked on. He was recently home from being a mission president and was quizzing the elders about their work. They said they were assigned to Temple Square as part of a pilot program to see how having elders there worked. That was all I heard before I moved out of the aisle.
And I have indeed seen a few elders there–not many, but a few.
A friend who served his mission in a place with a temple that was also a major tourist attraction said that he thought single sisters and couples were assigned to visitors’ centers more often than single elders because couples and women would put up with the nearly intolerable tedium of standing around all day and waiting for people to come up and talk to them, while elders would not. He said that sisters who got to actually go out and work were envied by those stuck standing around all day.
Seth @70:
Your comments indicate otherwise. Your comments indicate that you care a great deal about personal grooming, especially if less attention to it is suggested as a viable alternative to the standard missionary uniform. Your comments indicate that you care a great deal that “everyone casual-Fridayed the national fashion sense to hell.”
Seth @77:
And, for the record Seth–no you don’t speak for how what all people did to our national fashion sense. Nor do you even necessarily have an accurate view of its current state.
You would do well to remember that yourself. A great many people find the LDS emphasis on conservative personal grooming as evidenced by the BYU dress code, the missionary uniform, and not just sacrament meeting but conference talks on the evils of unruly hair etc off-putting, shallow and misguided.
Seth @70
In fact, many people feel that the LDS penchant for judging people on the basis of their appearance is a way of being mean.
chanson ~ I dont think her interpretation of the interchangeability of Christian sects is quite right (Ms. Jack, perhaps you can comment on that?)
In case you missed it, Kristine delivered that talk on a panel along with myself and Kaimi Wenger. The point about Christian denominations being somewhat interchangeable was my own. I had mentioned that, when evangelicals get mad at their leaders over changes made or lack of changes made in their own denominations, they tend to just defect to other denominations or start new ones. That can’t be done in the LDS church.
Re: Christofferson’s “ironing” story, we discussed this at MDB once. I was initially in the camp of, “That’s outrageous, couldn’t the men do their own damned ironing???” Harmony posted the following comment:
If you pay any attention to MDB at all, you would know that harmony is not the type of person to shy away from criticizing LDS leaders. So I was struck by the fact that she spoke in Christofferson’s defense on this.
I think the fact that Christofferson didn’t think to mention that shows how out-of-touch he is with the present generation. But I don’t think it makes him misogynist. I seriously wish that the church would hire a very astute 20-or-30-something person to read these proofread these talks in advance and point out stuff like this.
I didn’t miss that she was talking about what you said. I simply wasn’t certain whether reporting your point accurately, which is why I asked for your comments.
I think that Mormons sometimes misinterpret the Christian plethora of sects. To clarify what I mean by that, allow me to quote my own youthful views from my deconversion story:
So I was curious as to whether Kristine’s report was passing through a similar sort of Mormon-interpretation filter.
Or maybe they could even go crazy and have people of a variety of ages, backgrounds, and genders in the leadership. 😉
Yes, the story naturally leads people to wonder: Why didn’t somebody from correlation clue this guy in that his story is at best anachronistic? And that question leads to the obvious follow-up question: Why am I listening to this guy at all?
To recap Haglund’s point:
Since Christians believe in the ultimate authority of the Bible (but not necessarily on how to interpret it), if you agree with everything your sect believes except for one tiny point, then it’s easy to find or found another sect that matches your beliefs more precisely. Whereas, members of the CoJCoL-dS believe that the ultimate authority is the CoJCoL-dS itself. So members can’t switch to an almost-identical alternate church without rejecting their core beliefs about where authority comes from.
I essentially agree with that, though (as I was trying to say @15), I’d add a couple of caveats:
1. People vary (even within the CoJCoL-dS) when it comes to which beliefs they consider most central and most important.
2. People can believe that the true priesthood was restored to Joseph Smith (and believe that that priesthood authority is necessary for saving ordinances) without believing that the CoJCoL-dS holds a monopoly on that authority. That’s basically the vector by which the fundamentalist Mormon groups get most of their converts.
Pardon me for talking to myself here — curse you, time zone difference!
Haglund’s follow-up point is essentially the following: Since people stay or leave based on their belief in the authority of the CoJCoL-dS — not on agreement/disagreement with specific church policies or doctrines — leaving the church is not seen as a commentary on any particular policies or doctrines that might need improvement.
To that I’d say yes and no.
When your core belief is that the CoJCoL-dS is operating on instructions straight from God, yet you’re frequently confronted with things that make you go “The church is dead wrong on this one” — that motivates you to question your core belief (in the church’s authority), which often eventually leads you to the exit. So exiting the church may not be a direct commentary on church policies that need improvement, but it can be an indirect one.
Then, to tie this thread of the discussion back in with the other one:
When a man is granted a level of authority that women are explicitly excluded from, and he can stand up and use that mantle of authority to tell a story like that one for the instruction and edification of millions of people — whether it makes sense to call that “misogyny”, or whether it’s “over the top” to call it “misogyny” is question of semantics (and not a very interesting semantic question, IMHO).
The point is (as I said back @3 — long thread, huh?) that — regardless of whether you can explain/defend/excuse the story — it’s the kind of talk that makes people go “WTF?” and, as such, it is a potential stepping-stone on people’s journey out of the church.
Hey, here’s something from your time zone: Austrian priests defy Catholic Church, face showdown
Go, Helmut.
@87: Sounds good to me.
On top of which there’s also the proverbial straw that broke the testimony’s back, or the back of the ability to endure to the end, or whatever. Over and over you hear exit stories where people say things like, “I was able to convince myself it was all OK until the ERA thing/the September 6/Prop 8/ whatever.” People write letters to church leaders telling them they’re ending church attendance or having their name removed because of specific policies and doctrines. So if indeed Haglund is correct that the hierarchy adopts a view that such departures have nothing to do with the departees’ stated reasons for departing, the hierarchy is being more than a tad cavalier.
Well it doesn’t help that a lot of ex-Mormon talk after leaving the Church takes on a very ad-hoc, “I’m just making up justifications for my earlier choice after the fact” sort of feeling. I do actually think it’s true that at least some of the gripes floating around out there had nothing to do with the actual exit event.
@88 — Wow!!
Seth @90 — Ultimately, you can believe what you want about other people’s actions and motivations. It would appear that the CoJCoL-dS agrees with you on this, and — since they don’t believe the exiters’ issues are real — the CoJCoL-dS will continue not to address them. Meanwhile, the exodus accelerates…
At certain moments the leadership probably makes a calculation — “okay, some might leave over this matter, but those who remain will be all the stronger.” Thus, when the exits do occur, the leadership already knew they were coming. Even in instances that might seem a bit of a surprise, such as [I imagine] after Prop 8, the leadership soothes themselves by thinking that they weeded out the worst weeds on accident. I’m not sure that there’s ever been a mass exodus enough that the leadership has ever had to regret their decisions.
If there’s a decade-long lull in conversion or an increase in deconversion after a century of huge growth, then they look at this more as a marketing and cohesion problem as opposed to looking at the theology or organizational structure. A rather gruesome analogy might be that they focus on bleeding gums when the liver is shot. Or even if they take their lactolose for the liver, they don’t stop drinking. The theology is dead-last for consideration. And there’s a good reason for this: look at what ending polygamy did. It created a situation in which a part of the scriptures are considered invalid, which puts a wrench in the whole hermeneutic system that never heals and you have to keep changing the bandages around (sorry to have gotten all medical in this comment).
I don’t think Seth is entirely wrong, although the mechanism is different from the way he describes it. People indeed often have their last straws exactly as Holly said. Then, once the camel’s back breaks, all those other things that never seemed so heavy suddenly take on a new weight.
So somebody might leave because of, say, Prop 8, but once they do, suddenly blacks and the priesthood, discrimination against women, polygamy, Joseph Smith’s character, the Book of Abraham, the mountain of evidence against the Book of Mormon’s historicity, and so on and so forth become important. (And in a lot of cases, most or all of those issues are new to the person who left because of something else.)
So I think Seth is right that sometimes the issues a given person talks most about after leaving didn’t have much to do with their exit. But they aren’t “making up justifications,” they’re dealing with issues that are newly important to them.
@94: Yeah.
it’s like leaving an abusive romantic relationship. People often stay in them too long for all sorts of reasons that seem really important and sometimes ARE really important at the time: lack of viable options, wanting to stay married to the other parent of your children, fear of retaliation, pressure from other family, not wanting to be a failure, etc.
And then something happens that finally makes it impossible to stay. So they do leave, and realize that life’s actually better when you’re not in an abusive relationship. And all those reasons you stayed seem inconsequential compared to all the reasons you should have left ages ago.
Most divorces don’t involve serious abuse from either of the spouses – emotional or physical.
And neither do a lot of exits from the LDS Church.
@94 @95
I was accused of trying to shut down the discussion for pointing this out earlier, but many (if not most) of Seth’s comments are subtly emotionally abusive.
In this thread and the discussion on his first post, he repeatedly negates anyone who disagrees with him even on minor things, claiming that their qualms with the LDS church are either fabricated or exaggerated. And when he’s called out for believing mean or nonsensical things, or has the implications of something he said pointed out, he gets indignant and acts like it’s your fault somehow. Or minimizes any point that you made, without seriously considering it.
I feel that this is immature and abusive behavior, and that it’s endemic to LDS culture.
Holly, I guess you just didn’t realize that since “most divorces dont involve serious abuse from either of the spouses,” then obviously none do, and therefore, there is no such thing as emotional or spiritual abuse in the LDS Church.
Who said that Parker.
For example, I consider places like Molly Muses to be frankly – nuts.
But I don’t really question her accounts of being treated badly by her Mormon parents and so forth. I see that as entirely possible. I even consider it likely that that stuff does happen.
Tachyon, you’ve got a whole blog of people here who agree with you, and you’re upset that I don’t?
Having taken a bit more time to think about Tachyon’s comment, he’s not actually wrong. I’ve got my own share of personality defects. I’ve never been good with handling people who are sharing their emotional distress in a forum meant for debating the issues. That’s certainly true enough.
#98, “Who said that Parker.” [sic] You did Seth.
I re-read post #95 Parker.
It doesn’t say that at all. You’re just engaging in hyperbole here.
Please tell me what it says. And, by the way, look up0 the definition for hyperbole.
Tachyon @96 — I’ve been thinking about your comment, and I’m still not sure how to respond. I’d like to throw out some ideas — to open up discussion, not to claim I have the answers on this.
My first gut reaction is that “emotionally abusive” isn’t precisely the measure we’re going for at MSP with respect to whether a comment is kosher or not. The thing is that a behavior that might be rightly called “abusive” in a personal or family relationship isn’t necessarily the same when coming from some random person on an Internet forum. Different sites have different styles, and we’re not going for an RfM-like atmosphere of “we’re in a delicate state of recovery, hence we can’t handle people disagreeing with us.” I especially don’t want this to be a place where people are protected from reading dissenting viewpoints.
The measure I prefer is “is the comment civil and constructive (even if critical)?” We can discuss whether people’s comments on this thread have been civil, and what makes a discussion constructive.
Seth @100
Discussing the ways in which the church causes emotional distress, or how people react to that emotional distress, is not necessarily the same as sharing it.
Peevishness and irritation are forms of emotional distress, and you’re certainly willing to share them.
So perhaps you could look at the ways you use a conversation that isn’t even happening as an excuse for engaging in behavior you say you object to.
I guess that isn’t a bad suggestion.
If I’m going to comment here, it would probably help if I wasn’t always getting cranky about being the only one holding certain views.
Found this link to an excommunication story yesterday. It’s fairly funny, and it’s true that this particular departure didn’t seem to make any difference to the church–largely because the men conducting the excommunication didn’t have enough sense or self-knowledge to understand the reasons for the former member’s departure, her explanation for it, or even what they were saying to her or each other. The prayers that open and close the trial are, as the writer points out, absolute nonsense. But the goal in those prayers was not to say something appropriate or sensible; the goal was to follow the script. The script decreed that the excommunicant was as exotic and inscrutable as a leprechaun, and how could it matter if something that far outside your realm of experience ups and quits your church? It could only matter if you were self-aware enough to realize that it’s downright weird to end an excommunication by saying to the person you’ve just exed, “It’s been a pleasure to meet you….”
Paul Toscano’s comparison of his own excommunication to being raped by the care bears comes to mind here.
So yeah. Exits don’t matter, according to the script. But the script is a fiction, and can’t explain any number of problems the church faces. And since Todd, Tom and Dieter et al can’t really see the problems, they’re very unlikely to stumble upon any effective solutions.
just finished reading the new SiOB. Liked the link to Brent’s list of “worst talks ever” at Doves & Serpents. Noted this passage from BKP’s Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council:
You read something like that, and it’s pretty clear that exits DO matter to the church, quite a bit. They matter in that they can make both members and leaders think “that the Church somehow is doing something wrong to members or that the Church is not doing enough for them,” an absolute fallacy that must be countered, condemned and eradicated, for the church is never wrong.
@104 Chanson:
Very true! Safe spaces are needed for people in recovery, but this doesn’t have to be one of them. I would like to call out Seth’s attitude for what it is, though, and express my opinion that it’s characteristic of LDS culture to blame the victims and minimize their concerns. Viewed in that light, some of his posts seem a little less civil and more than a little less constructive.
@106 Seth:
You’re admitting why you feel defensive, then. *grin* I’m not trying to rub it in, I actually consider that a constructive and more self-aware response.
If you’re here just to argue, nobody is going to try to stop you. But if you’re here to build bridges and repair relationships in a spirit of Christlike love, as your first post suggested, you’re going to have to first accept that your church has its victims. And that they’re justifiably upset with (or even afraid of) it.
@100 Seth
The emotional distress felt by those who’ve left the LDS church is one of “the issues,” and a discussion of the issues isn’t complete without taking into account their experiences.
Admitting that you’re uncomfortable with that, as you did in #106, is a good first step to accepting and not negating the people who share it as part of the discussion. If this isn’t a “safe space” for those who have been abused by the LDS church, though, as Chanson explains in #104, it certainly isn’t for LDS church members either.
Tachyon, I’ve always been quite open about the fact that my participation in interfaith dialogue and engagement with atheists and ex-Mormons and such is not primarily motivated by a desire to build bridges.
I enjoy a bridge well enough I guess, but that’s not why I’m here.
I’m here to define my own identity as a Mormon. That’s my first and foremost goal. Whether you get a connection with me, or feel some sort of catharsis, or even whether you convert back to the LDS Church is…. well… it’s not irrelevant to me. But it’s also not the primary goal.
I’m here to figure out who I am. Not who you are.
Obviously those motivations have some built-in drawbacks.
“like iron sharpens iron, so one blogger sharpens another” ~Seth R, 27: 17.