Kyra Moon

 "Gratitude and succor are modes of forgiveness. Gratitude is the work of forgiving things for being whatever good they are, rather than what I wanted them to be. Succor, in turn, is the work of forgiving things for needing from me the good that I am." -Adam Miller, "Original Grace"

I have been writing short essays about the Come, Follow Me topic for the past several weeks. If you are looking for something else to read, check these out! https://kyramoon.substack.com/

 Me: Nephi's Courage is one of my favorite Primary songs. What is one of your favorites? 5yo: Follow the Prophet . . . because I like learning about atoms. As it turns out, there is a theory called panpsychicism which suggests that even atoms have awareness and thus an ability to obey God. Who knew that when we sing, "Adam served the Lord by following His ways," some kids were learning that atoms do that too?

Tonight I was playing some songs for the kids on the piano and they would guess what I was playing. When I played the theme song for "PJ masks," one of them yelled, "Hey, it's the Skip Intro song!" The intro song has become the skip intro song. Video streaming has redefined the role of music in media.

 I have been thinking about the Parable of the Sower from a different angle this morning. My thoughts aren't all fleshed out but here's what I've got so far. Sometimes, my family sits down together and watches old family videos from when we were kids. It is funny to see that our facial expressions and mannerisms haven't changed too much since then. My dad calls it "continuity of personality."  I think we all have a lot more continuity of personality than we might think. Don't get me wrong -- this is mostly a good thing. We are all still the same wonderful people we were when we were kids. We are all inherently good and creative and curious. But we still all have our quirks. We still have our triggers. And here's the part that might seem hard to believe -- those don't change even when we change our minds. That is, you might have had a political, ideological, or religious shift in your life. You might look back at your former self and think, "Wo...

Raphael came to paint the Nativity scene.

Today, I'm grateful for toilets and running water. If you want to stop reading there, go for it. Because what follows is an assortment of thoughts that have been floating around my brain for a few weeks. Bear with me. To me, one of the most important requirements for civilization is a good wastewater system. When you are living by yourself or with just a few people, you don't need a fancy system. If there's no one else nearby to worry about, you can probably figure out a way to get rid of it that doesn't make you sick. But as soon as you get a lot of people living close to each other, you need a good system or there will be a lot of water-borne illness. So when a city has figured that out, I count that as a huge success, one that will really allow people to get out of poverty because they won't be dying of cholera or dealing with hookworm. (Look up Lowndes County, Alabama. It's a problem there.) When a society can handle something this unpleasant in a sanitary w...