I think you are right that men tend to sin in more spectacular fashion. But when we realize that God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, even the lesser transgressions disqualify us, and the various shades of gray become unimportant. Granted, a man who leaves his family in order to run off to Las Vegas with a cocktail waitress deserves all the opprobrium that can be thrown his way. Let’s just remember that it takes two to tango, and bear in mind the gender of his partner in sin. I guess what bothers me about the idea that women are naturally better than men is that I cannot manage to square it with my conception of God as fair. If we accept your proposition, the next step is to accept that men, because of their limited capacity, are not accountable, or as accountable as women. Without our Savior, we are all, both men and women, in the same boat, and the location of that boat is pretty far up a creek.

I appreciate your acknowledgement of behind the scenes service and the analogy of the hands and feet being part of the same body. It’s good to remember that when couple A cares for the children of couple B so that couple B can serve in the temple, the service performed by couple A is also valuable and no less worthy of honor.

Julie, #102,

Thank you for continuing to engage on this point, which I realize is peripheral to your main point.

You said: I’m willing to entertain the notion that the motherhood quote is hyperbole. To make your case, you’ll need to find me a statement that says, “_______ is is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.”

In response, I cite the following:

“The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 6:313)

“We have a work to do just as important in its sphere as the Savior’s work was in its sphere. Our fathers cannot be made perfect without us; we cannot be made perfect without them. They have done their work and now sleep. We are now called upon to do ours; which is to be the greatest work man ever performed on the earth” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1941, p. 406)

I make these citations not to argue about what is most important, but rather to establish that this is a rhetorical device that is commonly employed, and to suggest that we need to account for it when we quote church leaders. Having said that, I have no problem at all with the idea that motherhood is tremendously important, is now in the line of fire, and needs to be defended in the strongest possible terms.

I like the way you have inverted the tiresome old argument about traditional men’s work being of greater value than a Mom’s work, which is nothing but drudgery. But I think you argument breaks down when you assert that Mom’s work is the best work because she is doing something of eternal value. Wouldn’t it be better to recognize that a father’s involvement in the getting and spending of the temporal world facilitates his wife’s greater involvement with the couple’s young children, and therefore also has eternal consequences, as Matt’s analogy above would indicate? That idea keeps me going, and probably many other men too. I have no illusions about my job being important or of an eternal nature. In fact, if I awake after the resurrection and find myself sitting in a department meeting listening to a VP drone on forever about how we all need to go the extra mile in order to meet this quarter’s projections, I’ll know I have landed somewhere far, far south of celestial glory. But if I can place my job in the context of of my family’s needs, it’s all good.

And I am still having a hard time understanding how you MPP model applies to people outside the church. I’m not talking about a “16 yo who gets drunk and pregnant” (a little rhetorical flourish of your own there, perhaps? :> ), I’m talking about my good neighbors, honorable people who take their responsibility as parents seriously.

I think you are right that men tend to sin in more spectacular fashion. But when we realize that God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, even the lesser transgressions disqualify us, and the various shades of gray become unimportant. Granted, a man who leaves his family in order to run off to Las Vegas with a cocktail waitress deserves all the opprobrium that can be thrown his way. Let’s just remember that it takes two to tango, and bear in mind the gender of his partner in sin. I guess what bothers me about the idea that women are naturally better than men is that I cannot manage to square it with my conception of God as fair. If we accept your proposition, the next step is to accept that men, because of their limited capacity, are not accountable, or as accountable as women. Without our Savior, we are all, both men and women, in the same boat, and the location of that boat is pretty far up a creek.

I appreciate your acknowledgement of behind the scenes service and the analogy of the hands and feet being part of the same body. It’s good to remember that when couple A cares for the children of couple B so that couple B can serve in the temple, the service performed by couple A is also valuable and no less worthy of honor.

Julie, #102,

Thank you for continuing to engage on this point, which I realize is peripheral to your main point.

You said: I’m willing to entertain the notion that the motherhood quote is hyperbole. To make your case, you’ll need to find me a statement that says, “_______ is is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.”

In response, I cite the following:

“The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 6:313)

“We have a work to do just as important in its sphere as the Savior’s work was in its sphere. Our fathers cannot be made perfect without us; we cannot be made perfect without them. They have done their work and now sleep. We are now called upon to do ours; which is to be the greatest work man ever performed on the earth” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1941, p. 406)

I make these citations not to argue about what is most important, but rather to establish that this is a rhetorical device that is commonly employed, and to suggest that we need to account for it when we quote church leaders. Having said that, I have no problem at all with the idea that motherhood is tremendously important, is now in the line of fire, and needs to be defended in the strongest possible terms.

I like the way you have inverted the tiresome old argument about traditional men’s work being of greater value than a Mom’s work, which is nothing but drudgery. But I think you argument breaks down when you assert that Mom’s work is the best work because she is doing something of eternal value. Wouldn’t it be better to recognize that a father’s involvement in the getting and spending of the temporal world facilitates his wife’s greater involvement with the couple’s young children, and therefore also has eternal consequences, as Matt’s analogy above would indicate? That idea keeps me going, and probably many other men too. I have no illusions about my job being important or of an eternal nature. In fact, if I awake after the resurrection and find myself sitting in a department meeting listening to a VP drone on forever about how we all need to go the extra mile in order to meet this quarter’s projections, I’ll know I have landed somewhere far, far south of celestial glory. But if I can place my job in the context of of my family’s needs, it’s all good.

And I am still having a hard time understanding how you MPP model applies to people outside the church. I’m not talking about a “16 yo who gets drunk and pregnant” (a little rhetorical flourish of your own there, perhaps? :> ), I’m talking about my good neighbors, honorable people who take their responsibility as parents seriously.

Thanks, but I wasn’t really looking for sympathy. I was just making the point that not everybody gets everything they want in life. Why couldn’t we have children? I don’t know. Does that make either one of us less a child of God? No. Why do only men have the priesthood? I don’t know. Does that make women less children of God? No.

There are things we just don’t understand. Are they unfair? Maybe. But I tend to believe that my trials and experiences in life are the ones I need so I can learn to be like my Heavenly Father. That is why they are mine and not somebody else’s. Does that belief mean that I don’t struggle sometimes? No, we all do, and we all try to make sense out of what seems to be injustice in the world. Sometimes they are injustices we can correct, sometimes they are not.

Is the exclusion of women from the priesthood one of those injustices? I don’t know, and even though I have my opinions, it is not an issue that gets a lot of focus from me. I have my own struggles to deal with. Laurie, Julie in Austin, Rosalynde, and others have more of an interest in it, and I hope that they can come to peace with their answers. If women get the priesthood, great. If not, I hope they and other righteous women in the Church can find other ways to serve that give meaning to their lives. Motherhood is one of those ways. As I said in my earlier post, parenthood is not an option in my life, so my wife and I have to find still other ways to serve that can give meaning to our lives. Isn’t that what the gospel is all about anyway?

Keep the faith brother. I have walked in your shoes with infertility. I know the pain. Its hard to describe how it feels unless you have Exp it yourself.

LOL

Isn’t that what both priesthood and motherhood are for, anyway? To teach, to lift, to heal? The Savior taught that we would be known as His disciples by the love we have for each other.

This is a difficult discussion for me because, for reasons beyond our control, my wife and I are childless. And yet part of the reason I chose her as my partner for eternity was that she is the most nurturing, “mothering” person that I know. But since we are childless, she doesn’t count in this discussion because she is not a Mother. Miscarriages don’t count. Since I am not a Father, is my priesthood also diminished? On the outside, no. I still am eligible for any calling for which I am worthy. But I won’t have the opportunity to bless my children, to baptise and confirm them, to ordain my sons to the priesthood or anything else along those lines. So, in a very real sense, my priesthood is as diminished to me for lack of participating in fatherhood as her womanhood is diminshed for lack of participating in motherhood. Even if I were a General Authority, something would still be missing from my priesthood.

FWIW, we didn’t buy into that “every woman is a mother” line. As much as we would love to be, neither one of is is “really” a parent.

Check out the PEF. Enuff said.

And you demonstrate my point–the NT mentions the poor something like, what, 500 times? Far more than gay marriage, for instance.

I argue that the deletion of poverty from moral values is a grave error from the Savior’s perspective. And I hasten to give our Church credit in this regard–not only with the welfare system and humanitarian services, but also with the Inner City Project in SLC.

Elder Alexander Morrison, which whom I ahd the pleasure of working, often commented about our being “checkbook Christians” and what a mean-spirited society we are with regards to the poor.

I totally agree with him.