McConkie Insights

I often think I have to write a long, polished post, and that often prevents me from doing so... but here are a couple quick insights to share—neither long nor polished.

At work I'm proofreading some old speeches given by Elder Bruce R. McConkie, a former Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ. It's been interesting to glean some perspective from such a gospel scholar. Two quick notes to share:

1. In the talk I'm now reading (or now avoiding reading by posting this blog), he's discussing the issue of salvation by grace vs. salvation by works. As I read his description of it, it struck me through some of his wording that a key problem in this debate is often our terminology. In reality, it's not a question of grace vs. works. Grace is involved in salvation in both camps. Without the grace of Jesus Christ, neither the workers nor the believers claim salvation. In both doctrines, grace is the core concept.

The question, really is one of faith vs. works—or more accurately, faith alone vs. faith and works. To me that's an important distinction. Those who frame the debate as between grace and works set up a false accusation that those who appeal to works are denying the grace of Christ. But those who argue for the importance of works still hold to grace. The real question in this debate is not whether we are saved by grace, the question is how do we access that grace—through faith and works together or through faith alone.

2. Another subject addressed in these talks has been evolution. I have begun to believe over recent years that evolution is likely the tool God used to create the earth. It makes sense in a lot of ways, and I've become quite comfortable with that idea, almost advocating it at times in my conversations with others. But Elder McConkie pointed out a conflict with that idea that I had once heard but about which I had forgotten in my growing acceptance of evolution.

This conflict is spelled out in 2 Nephi 2, specifically in verse 22. In this chapter, Lehi discusses Adam's fall and its consequences, stating in verse 22 that if Adam had not fallen "all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end." This, coupled with other scriptural statements, indicate that Adam's fall brought death—as well as birth—into the world.

An Edenic existence—a paradise wherein there was no birth, no sickness, and no death—causes trouble with my "evolution as God's creative tool" theory. How can life evolve if there is no birth or death? Evolution depends on birth and death over generations and eons. Without birth, death, and a lot of time, the idea of evolution crumbles to nothing.

So I'm back to the drawing board on my understanding of how God created the earth. I still have an open mind to evolution; the evidence in favor of evolution as a biologic principle is too overwhelming to dismiss entirely. But how evolution and divine creation and scriptural writings mesh is still a mystery to me. And I'm ok with that. There are a lot of things about this life that I've begun to realize I won't understand until the next life.


Speaking of evolution: Two other recent ideas that have caused me to ponder this:

1. I read last week a quote by George Gallup, the famous U.S. pollster, who said "I could prove God statistically. Take the human body alone—the chances that all the functions of an individual would just happen is a statistical monstrosity."

2. At a dinosaur museum last week I saw a presentation about the theory that a giant meteorite caused global destruction and precipitated death of all—or nearly all—life, wiping out the dinosaurs as well as much smaller living things. After that presentation, it struck me that if that is true and if evolution is a true idea, life on earth would have had to evolve from nothing—or almost nothing—into complex organisms twice in the earth's history.

These two ideas again persuade me to reject a godless evolution. I simply cannot believe that through happenstance something as complex as the human body could evolve—even once. And for complex life forms to evolve by chance twice on the same planet seems preposterous to me. What are the chances?

A God-driven evolution, however, seems very likely. If God directed evolution and used it as His tool, I can readily accept it... but first we have to resolve how that fits with the paradise of the Garden of Eden.

iChat Tangents

I work with some delightful and entertaining people, and although some of us can hear the clatter of each other's keyboards, we still use instant messaging (via Apple's iChat) to brainstorm, discuss issues, or simply distract each other from work.

Like our meetings, our productive iChat discussions are frequently interrupted by tangents—or, rather, our iChat tangents are occassionally interrupted by productive discussions. The other day we had a particularly entertaining chat, portions of which I will share here, edited only slightly.

The chat included four individuals, whose real names I will not share. I will, instead, identify each by his or her iChat icon, which appear by every comment an individual makes in a chat:

1. Abominable snowman (the abominable snowman, from that claymation Christmas movie of years gone by)

2. Rubin (actor Crispin Glover in Rubin and Ed)



4. Fedora (a cool brown hat that has likely appeared in many, many movies and on the heads of various famous people)

3. Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame)


Background: The ostensible purpose of this chat was to brainstorm a title for a magazine article. Rubin, Calvin, and Fedora were each in their respective offices. After a bit of productive brainstorming by these three, Snowman joined the chat from a conference Snowman was attending in Seattle. As he/she chatted, Snowman was sitting in a session listening to a speaker, with other conference participants around him, presumably similarly attentive.

[Snowman joins the chat]

Fedora: wow, long distance chat now

Snowman: oh man they are talking about AJAX

Calvin: like the cleanser?

Snowman: like asynchronous Java and XML and microapplications

Fedora: ooh

Calvin: aah

Fedora: I'm so sad I'm not there

Snowman: there was a great one on blogging and commercial conversion

Snowman: but I digress

Calvin: "commercial conversion" is a nice title

Fedora: commercial conversion

Calvin: jinx

Fedora: baptizing a whole company?

Snowman: that's what I thought, but I was so wrong

Snowman: it's getting people to actually check out and buy the stuff in their inbox

. . .

Snowman: What is the most promising proposition [for a title] thus far?

Fedora: I liked the ones about gold and the ivory tower

Fedora: making gold in the ivory tower

Fedora: the ivory tower turns gold

Fedora: There's gold in that thar tower

Snowman: Spinning Theory into Gold

Fedora: spinning ivory into gold

Snowman: so I had 4 different kinds of chowder for lunch

Snowman: not sure how that is relevant

Calvin: wow, I bet you're full

Snowman: but smoked salmon chowder is surprisingly wonderful

Snowman: maybe it was because I burped

Snowman: (oops)

. . .

Fedora: did you see that NY Times article about the Napoleon Dynamite festival?

Snowman: i dated a girl from Preston

Snowman: I couldn't get the NYT to log me in so I missed it

Snowman: i was not converted

Rubin: do you think they felt insulted that none of the main actors came?

Rubin: by the way, i saw nacho libre—good

Rubin: in spite of my misgivings

Fedora: my favorite line from the NYT article:

Fedora: this napoleon impersonator is at a texas/oklahoma basketball game, performing

Fedora: attractive woman wearing a tiara asked for a signed photograph. "I thought, 'What kind of idiot wears a tiara to a basketball game?' " he recalled.

Snowman: oh gee they are actually showing code on the screen and talking about specific response tables

Snowman: glargh

Fedora: So, channeling Napoleon, Mr. Demke posed the question. "She laughed," he said, then introduced herself as Jennifer Berry, the new Miss America.

Fedora: "I felt so stupid. She thought I was playing in character. I was grateful she was a fan of the movie."

Snowman: that is funny

Fedora: you're not laughing in your conference are you?

Snowman: oh no I wouldn't dare

Fedora: hey, everyone, let's try to make [Snowman] laugh out loud

Calvin: he's making the sound glargh

Snowman: I might spew complimentary brownies


. . .


Calvin: [Attempting to redirect to productive conversation] Ideas for sale at BYU

Fedora: laboratory to real world

Calvin: goodies from the lab table

Rubin: entreprofessors

Fedora: shopping at the lab table

Snowman: From Blab to Lab to Fab

Calvin: lab table buffet

Calvin: entreprofessors is fun

Rubin: i'm liking [Snowman's}

Fedora: take a seat at the lab table and place your order

Calvin: I'd like two IsoTrusses, some sparkling yogurt, and an order of ceragenins

Rubin: also, one side of turkey

Calvin: hold the cholera, please

Fedora: I'm Professor Smith and I'll be your server. Our special of the day is Turkey Vaccine with a side of synthetic diamonds and water modeling to drink

Fedora: holy cow... I just realized my zipper was down...

Fedora: how long has that been?

Fedora: sheesh

Calvin: you didn't really have to tell us all that

Rubin: are you just trying to get [Snowman] to laugh?

Rubin: it worked on me

Calvin: or are you just trying to make [Snowman] laugh outloud

Fedora: hoping for a good guffaw

Rubin: and was that still part of professor smith's monologue

Fedora: no, that was me reclining while I type and suddenly looking down

Calvin: Serving up studies

Fedora: Peddling Ideas

Fedora: The Marketplace of Ideas

Fedora: The Idea Market

Snowman: Ohhh nooooo

Fedora: From the Lab Table to the Kitchen Table

Rubin: something to put stock in

Snowman: I've just been kicked out of the session

Fedora: :)

Snowman: like that guy with the cell phone on

Snowman: Don't Look Down... Never Look Down

. . .

Rubin: i interviewed someone named T today

Rubin: when I asked him "Are you T?" I couldn't help but chuckle softly

Calvin: did he have a goatee?

Calvin: lots of chains?

Calvin: mohawk

Calvin: did he call you sucka?

Rubin: no

Snowman: It's Time for T

Rubin: but i pitied the fool

Calvin: oh, must be another T

The Idea of Things

A co-worker asked the other day how I made my circle patio. As we chatted about it, I mentioned that we recently found a concrete bench at Wal-Mart, and as of Christine's birthday, the bench adorns our back circle patio.[^^]

"Not that I frequent the patio or regularly sit on the bench," I said, "but it sure looks nice. I like the idea of having circle patios in my yard."

I have found that I like a lot of things in idea form. Granted, the circle patios are definitely more than ideas at this point—rather concrete, actually. But my romantic notion of visiting the patios often to enjoy witty and erudite conversation with my wife (ala any Jane Austen novel/movie) or to take in the beauties of nature (or at least those found in my yard) or to ponder and write about the complexities of the universe (i.e., generate posts for my blog) is still just that, a notion.

(However, on Saturday I did take a brief break from mowing the lawn to sit with Lizzy on the patio bench and drink some water. And on Monday I looked out the kitchen window at the apricot tree, the patio, and the bench, all in a perfect line between me and the corner of the fence, and I found great satisfaction in the aesthetics of it all.)

Anyway, the idea is that I like the idea of things. Like circle patios. And sailing.

I once owned a sailboat. When other plans fell through one day in San Diego, a friend and I got a brief sailing lesson and wafted around Mission Bay for an afternoon. I found I loved being pushed gently and quietly across the water by the wind, just the flap of the sail and the slap of the waves against the prow, no roaring motors or rushing speed. So I bought a boat and sailed a few times.

But then one day a wild wind thrust the boat over, dumping my sister and me into the lake, and I was suddenly humbled by the power of the wind versus my tiny sailboat and my limited skill. I became a bit skittish, but I learned how to right a flipped boat and I kept sailing—though with a bit of trepidation. Then I became a Scoutmaster and got married and had kids and ran out of time to sail and realized I wouldn't trust my tippy boat with my children's lives. And a local sailing club borrowed my boat and used it more than I. And a vandal broke the mast. And I sold the boat to the club for a pittance—considered it a charitable donation. Then the other day I read a story of a family that lived my dream, sailing the world on a large sailboat, and struck a reef in the South Pacific in the middle of the night and almost died.

So I like the idea of sailing. Sailing itself I'm not so sure about these days. But I like to dream about sailing, and I like to read books and watch movies that involve vessels that run before the wind. And my head always turns to look at a sailboat in someone's yard, and I like to tell people that I once owned a sailboat, and I think someday I might want to have a very stable, small dinghy into which I can step a mast[<<] and do a little light sailing on a calm, small lake with my wife and my daughters and we could sing songs and tell jokes and have a picnic while the wind blows us merrily along.

You can see I have a lot of romantic notions in my head.

I also, by the way, like the idea of being a full-time independent writer, writing books and essays and articles about whatever I want and having people pay me lots of money simply to keep my brilliant writing going. And I like the idea of traveling the world. Or working at Sea World. Or owning a dog. Or having a swimming pool. Or moving to Scotland. Or living in an energy-efficient concrete home. One of the latest ideas I've begun to like is that of having a teardrop trailer to pull along behind my car—a cool, compact, comfortable way to camp.

But many of these things will likely remain ideas. And that's ok. I like to have something to dream about. I think it's good to have dreams, as unpractical as they may be.