To eat or not to eat...

When I was in the Teachers quorum and after the sacriment was over, while putting away the sacriment trays etc., we would eat the bread. I don't recall if this was sanctioned by our advisor or not. I never saw a problem with it, and I would rather eat the excess bread than just throw it away.

Has anyone heard anything official about this? Is it sacriledge to eat the bread in this way? What say ye?

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

I have personally wondered who came up with that statement. I have always thought it was bunk, until now. My family decided to try an experiment, we decided to let the house get to be a total disaster and see if we can get close to God, and still be messy.

Ok, so that last statement was mostly a lie. We let the house get messy because we are on the lazy side. Ok, maybe lazy is too weak a word; perhaps I should say that we are both (a) packrats, and (b) slobs. I can say that because my wife usually doesn’t read my blog. If you are reading it sweetheart, I mean slob in the best possible way J. I would also add that I am a bigger slob than she is, for what it’s worth.

So, our house has been messy for say, ever since we have been married. We have been married nearly seven years, and the house has been clean, truly clean only a handful of times. I’m not talking bacteria infested, filthy dirty or anything, I’m talking boxes piled everywhere, clothes hanging off of everything, toys scattered everywhere. Yes, we would clean the living room and the kid’s rooms superficially. Things looked decent, but there was always an underlying mess.

We moved into a rental a little less than a year ago. The rental was brand new, so the owner came by to do a first year inspection for warranty purposes. Since our house was a deep-seated mess, we decided that we didn’t want the owner coming into this place and it be a total mess. My wife, with some help from my Mom got cleaning. It took about three days to get to what most people would call normal. I applaud them for their hard work. Rest assured, I bought my wife flowers. (In my defense, I work full time and am taking two college courses, Math and history, which are like a full time job for me)

Long story short, the spirit in our house has completely changed. My wife feels much more relaxed. She doesn’t feel the weight of a dirty house. She no longer feels like spending a little time on the computer is wasting her time that she should be using to clean. (Oops, maybe she will read my blog now) The kids aren’t fighting as much. Everything is much calmer. I think the spirit may very well be more able to dwell in our home. Perhaps not because of the cleanliness itself, but because it is easier for us to act in ways that invite the spirit in more because of the cleanliness.

I personally feel that, when everything is disorganized, somehow your brain gets all mixed up and confounded and you are more likely to get frustrated and/or angry.

Perhaps cleanliness is next to Godliness.

C.S. Lewis on Mormonism...maybe.

We bought the DVD of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and my kids (6 and 3) love it. I decided to start reading the book to them. I also decided to go through the beginning of the others to find which book was what. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (my favorite when I was younger), the first paragraph has something in it that I found quite odd. Here is what it says;

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence, and he masters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him for he had none. He didn't call his Father and Mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegitarians, non-smokers and tee-totalers, and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on beds and the windows were always open. (bold mine)

My question is, were Eustices parents Mormon? I mean he seems to be describing the Word of Wisdom, and the wearing of garments. If indeed he was describing Mormons, then I wonder if he was making a statement about Mormons in general. Eustice isn't a very pleasant or smart boy at all. He is a book worm with no imagination and no friends.

I would love to know more about what he thought of the church.