Up All Night

That's an Unwritten Law song. At one point I wanted to just have all my posts have song titles and I thought I was being creative, but apparently there are TV shows that would do the same thing with naming their episodes. I think it was That 70's show that named all their episodes from different seasons after Led Zeppelin songs and other bands songs. Anyway...I couldn't think of anything so that's what I decided to do.

I got an interesting link, courtesy of April the artist formerly surnamed Tartar (right?). It is here. And guess what it's about.The church is encouraging the members to use new media (i.e. internet, blogs, etc.) to develop the conversation surrounding the church. There is so much information, and misinformation, that there is no way it can be entirely covered by the authorities of the church. So it is depending on the members to spread the word, more particularly, the truth and help people learn from the horse's mouth, so to speak. It's a brief article so please read it.

A couple weeks ago my bishop gave the lesson that focused on Sister Beck's conference talk, Mothers Who Know, and he brought up an interesting point that was meant only as a side comment to the topic. By the way, I love that something controversial comes up and it kind of rubs people the wrong way and the church simply will not back down because some shmoe is upset. Anyway, my bishop is a Marriage & Family therapist and was in conversation with a colleague of his and she had said that for men in the church, it's not so much a matter of if a man starts looking at pornography, but when. That kind of startled me. The threat of pornography is just so pervasive, and we really have to take advanced measures to safeguard our virtue. We really do. Since he gave that lesson I have been meaning to ask him when I had a minute with him alone about what kind of prevalency rate he thought pornography use would be among male members of the church. I was thinking something like 50-60%, but then he said, "oh at least 80%." That startled me even more and so I asked, really? He responded by saying, "Chris, of all the male patients that I have come into my office, at least 95% of the men have problems with pornography. And I know that is just of the men that are coming in for therapy, so I can only assume that there are many, many more who are out there trying to deal with this stuff on their own, who aren't saying anything. At least not yet." Pretty crazy, huh?

When I think about graduate school and the direction I'd like my career to take, a couple things really interest me. Underneath the social psychology umbrella of topics that I think would be really interesting, understanding the outcomes of media influences really interests me. And then within that field, I think it would be really interesting to delve into the kind of research that people like Dr. Judith Reisman have pursued and really develop good, reliable, valid research about the pornography question. If only because I feel like there is just so much misinformation out there regarding the issue. I have many other interests within the field, but that is one of them.

Tonight I went to my friend Aaron's house to celebrate his birthday with his family. I felt really privileged to be among the few that were there because the guy really does have a lot friends. I will always be amazed by just how good it feels to observe and be with a family that really practices the gospel. We all mentioned something like like about him, we laughed a lot, we read scriptures, and we even prayed together. It really was just an honor to be among those people tonight. That right there is what brought me to the church. When it all comes down to it and you see that kind of family, that right there is one of the best reasons of why the church is true. It fosters a strong family that is happy and genuinely appreciative of one another. I really can't point to a better fruit of righteous living than that.

If I weren't so tired already, I'd do more to thread the common theme between these various topics, but I think my readers are smart enough to make up their own. Have a good one.