What You're Searching For

I've recently discovered the statistics feature in Blogger, and I'm fascinated with the interesting ways people find my blog. Usually people click on a link from some other blog that I've commented on or that links to me. Sometimes, however, people use search terms to find me.

This past week, people have used the following search terms to find The Posts of My House:

dating ethics lds - I'm assuming this person found my post Ethics and Dating in the LDS Context.
favorite old testament scripture - I'm assuming this person found my post My Favorite Scriptures.
francincense - That probably led to Gold, Francincense, and Myrrh.
god qualifies the called - I conveniently have a post with that very title.
no more strangers - I also have a post with that title.
paper sacrament cups and trays - This person probably found Paper or Plastic?
scriptures favorites - Most likely another hit for My Favorite Scriptures.
cdaph or unapei or fmh or cncph - I have no idea where this search string would have landed. I hope you found what you needed!

My Calling in Life

In a recent comment, CJ asked me why I want to be a professor. Here's my (rather lengthy) response.

As a teenager, I envied people who knew what their calling in life was. I didn't know mine. My father is an engineer, my grandfather is an engineering professor, and I showed early aptitude in math and science. Naturally, everyone assumed that I would become an engineer as well. My parents never pressured me in that direction, but my extended family and teachers at school did. There was just one problem with this: I hate math!

I joined the debate team in high school and I loved it. I also joined the mock trial team and I loved that, too. I decided to major in political science and then go to law school. I figured I would be a litigator. I thought it would be fun, but I still didn't feel any sense of a calling.

Are you considering law school?

Kevin Barney at By Common Consent wrote a post entitled All About Law School. He discussed his experiences in law school and invited the commenters to do the same. As regular readers of my blog know, I've had a rather difficult and atypical law school experience. That has colored my response to the questions asked. I've reproduced my comment below.

The Ten Commandments - Part 1

I've decided to do a series of posts on the Ten Commandments and what they mean today. When deciding to write these posts, I was confronted with a few challenges. First, what would I have to say on the topic that's new? I mean, these words have been around for a long time. The second challenge is that there are several versions of these commandments. Do I take the list in Exodus, the list in Deuteronomy, the explanation and expansion in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, etc.

I've decided to take the lists in both Exodus and Deuteronomy to illustrate the similarities and differences between them. I'll use other verses as appropriate to explain and expand upon them. I'll be sticking with the King James translation unless otherwise specified. Although it's not always the most clear of translations, it's the one I'm the most familiar with, and I love the beauty of the language.

With that said, on to part 1. I'll be taking the first two commandments (1. No other gods, and 2. No graven images) together in this post because they're conceptually related. It's hard to mark where one ends and the other begins. (In fact, a quick glance at Wikipedia shows that Jews, Catholics, and Lutherans view these as one commandment, not two.) For this segment, there is no meaningful difference between Exodus and Deuteronomy, so I'll just use the text of Exodus.

Come, Let Us Anew!

I had intended to write a new year's post on Saturday, but I've had a bit of a flare-up with my adrenal problems, and I wasn't able to muster the energy to write. I'm feeling much better today, so here it is.

I love the start of a new year. It's a new beginning and a chance to start fresh. 2010 was a really rough year for me. I started out with roommate drama that took up the first three months of the year. Getting out of that situation wiped out my savings so I had to work extra hours while juggling school. I started to get sick in May, and in July I was diagnosed with adrenal problems. The diagnosis came with a stern admonition to avoid stress. The very next day, the company I work for got acquired. I managed to keep my job, but stuff got crazy at work. Then I had the most insanely intense and busy semester of my entire education, all while working and doing an internship. I finished up my internship on New Year's Eve. So much for avoiding stress!

Gold, Francincense, and Myrrh

And when [the wise men] were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshipped Him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
Matthew 2:11

Just as the wise men gave gifts to the Christ child, we too should give our Savior gifts. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were all valuable treasures at the time, and what we give should equally be valuable.

Gold - Even today, gold is used as currency. We should give our wealth to God. One of my favorite scriptures is in Matthew 25 when Christ reminds us that when we feed and clothe the poor, we feed and clothe Him.

Frankincense - Frankincense is used as an incense. Incense represents our prayers. As we pray, we should remember that we can pour out our hearts to God.

Myrrh - Myrrh was used in Egyptian funeral practices. With death comes sadness. Christ invites us to drop our burdens at His feet so that He may bear our sorrows.

So, this Christmas, I'm going to give Christ my gold, my frankincense, and my myrrh. I will do this by helping the poor, pouring my heart out to Him, and dropping my burden at His feet.

Merry Christmas!

What do you want to read?

From checking my stats, it appears that the posts I like the best and the posts that people are more interested in reading/commenting on are not the same.

When I started this blog, I had two purposes. The first was to add my voice to the Bloggernacle by blogging about my take on LDS issues, both doctrinal and cultural. The second was to have a place to work through all the law school drama I was having at the time. I'm still in law school, but the drama has passed.

So, what do you want to read about? I enjoy the doctrinal posts, though they're more work to produce than the cultural or law school posts. I don't think I'm going to eliminate any category, since they're all a part of my life, but I do want to produce content that people are interested in reading.

I have a few ideas for posts that I'm going to float around to see what kind of interest they generate:

• I'm thinking of doing a series on the 10 commandments and how to apply them in modern life.
• I'm also thinking of a series of posts on the articles of faith.
• Next semester in school, I'm taking a class on Islamic Law. That might provide me with some bloggable material, though I won't know that for sure until a few weeks into the class.

Any thoughts? Are there topics you would like to hear my take on that I haven't mentioned?

The Eternal Implications of the Male/Female Imbalance in the Church

I've been thinking about the male/female imbalance in the church and what that means for the hereafter. People have pointed to the fact that there are more active women in the church than active men, and they extrapolate that to the Celestial Kingdom, and then posit that there will be widespread polygyny as a result. There's a great post at BCC breaking down population statistics over time. The conclusion is that based on historical infant mortality rates, there will be considerably more men than women in the celestial kingdom.

Given those numbers, there are a few possibilities:

Comments, Spam and Otherwise

I love comments. They're validation that someone is reading what I write. Plus, they help spark discussion. I operate from a philosophy of free and open discussion. The only comments I'll delete are ones that are obviously spam or are egregiously uncivil. In the nearly four years I've had this blog, I've only deleted a handful of comments, all spam. I keep moderation on for older posts to avoid hit and run spam attacks, but sometimes they happen anyway.

Unfortunately, Blogger has just ramped up their spam filter, and some legitimate comments are getting caught. I've let them all out now. I'm telling you this because if your comment gets caught, it's not my intention to keep it from seeing the light of day.

I don't check my blog every day and I don't check the e-mail I use for this blog every day. There may be waits between when I can clear out my filter. Please bear with me while I work out the bugs.

While I'm on the subject of comments, I've decided that it's time for a comment policy. This is not a reaction to anything. My blog started out in an obscure little corner of the internet and has now been noticed by the Bloggernacle. I'm getting more traffic, and I would rather have my policy in place before I need it.

So, here's the comment policy:
1. Comments are welcome. In fact, I love them.
2. No profanity. I may excuse some coarse language in an otherwise insightful comment, but I have no tolerance for the f-word. Any comment containing that word will be deleted even if the rest of it is brilliant. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to edit comments, only delete them.
3. You are free to disagree with me or with other commenters, but no personal attacks. Saying "Poster X is wrong about issue Y because..." is fine. Saying "Poster X is stupid/apostate/going to hell/etc." is not fine.
4. I try to respond to commenters, but sometimes that's not possible due to whatever else is going on in life. Please don't take it personally; I'm not ignoring you.

More on Dating/Marriage

SilverRain has an excellent post on her blog. It's entitled Singles of a Certain Age, or What I Wish Church Leadership Would Understand. She discusses the challenges that singles in the church face and the issues involved in singles' activities. She makes the excellent point that we want to be viewed as whole people and not as fundamentally broken due to our marital state. I want to give the whole post a hearty amen!

Other great singles-related blog posts:
I wrote a post about retention of YSAs in the church and a post on the ethics of dating.
Seraphine at Zelophehad's Daughters has a series of posts about being a 30-something single in the church.