Sunday in Outer Blogness: Happy Thanksgivukkah Edition!

In a surprise move, the first day of Hanukkah fell on Thanksgiving this year! The Highchair Travelers provided some ideas on how to celebrate Hanukkah — and don’t forget to read the Hannukah story from the Bible!

I assume you already all know how to celebrate Thanksgiving: You think about those in difficulty and you think about the things you’re thankful for. Some thank God, but it’s not necessary. (Don’t forget to look around during the prayer!). Some are even thankful for the Bloggernacle:

I’m just thankful for all these awesome dragons we have here in Outer Blogness. 😉

Of course, all of this was just a prelude to the real holiday: Black Friday. In a point-counter-point, Andrew Hackman argued that it’s not so bad, but everybody else loves to hate it. Maybe we should just celebrate pie night instead!

A Mormon bishop played a little joke on those appearance-conscious Mormons, and the Mormon Women Bare project highlighted the body issues of a culture where “modest is hottest”:

So many Mormon women have so many issues with their bodies—as a lot of women do in our culture. But I think that Mormon women have even more pointed, specific body issues because they live in this patriarchy where they are judged by their looks almost more than anything and expected to be beautiful and dress well. There’s a really high standard for how Mormon women should look, and yet, we’re also supposed to be covered and not at all sexual in any sort of obvious way.

It’s hard (but worth it) to make an effort to check your privilege and affirm your allies:

It may be tempting for gay men in particular to hold on to the male privilege we have enjoyed in the church. We may want to distance ourselves from issues of female equality because identification with the feminine could threaten our standing with the male hierarchy that controls the church.

This we must not do. There are two reasons we must resist male privilege as we rejoin the church. First, as I have pointed out, placing the masculine over the feminine is what leads to rejection of both gays and women in the first place.

The second reason has to do with social capital—the amount of standing a person or group has within society. It is human nature to gravitate toward those with more social capital than ourselves.

In chuch-and-life, Heather’s husband told his exist story, and Profit got the cold shoulder from a former missionary companion. Thinker of Thoughts wrote a very interesting piece on the tale of Dr. Lowry Nelson — a man who challenged the racist doctrines of the CoJCoL-dS (back before the church decided that those doctrines never really existed). Mormon Heretic explained that Denver Snuffer got ex’d for apostasy — for claiming that the CoJCoL-dS is in a state of apostasy! (How’s that for I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I?). And Andrew S. discussed what is perhaps the key problem for liberal religions:

The basic problem is this: In addition to not finding Mormonism (or other religions) to be factual, I don’t typically find religions to be relevant to me.

Here in Switzerland we are having beautiful, snowy weather for this opening week of the holiday season! I’m not sure how long it will last, but (like Knotty) I had fun decking the halls yesterday! I hope all is well with you and yours as well, happy reading!