Ok, ok, my friends and family seem to be on sabbatical; no, it’s just that probably no one can keep up with my insatiable desire to know! everything! now! Or at least to read! something! now! So, I was lurking on some other blogs, and reading some (necessarily) disturbing posts about what ped*ph*les can do with your family pictures if you post them on the web. (you put in the * so the bad men — assume they are male? — cannot google you that way). Some women have had horrible experiences with harassment; this was aimed at their professional blogs.
The scariest and most convincing post I read was on Rocks in My Dryer, a great blog by a self-described “Bible-believin’, Jesus-lovin’, pew-sittin’, Holy-Spirit-claimin’, hymn-singin’ child of the King,” who also happens to be very blog-savvy and a good mom (I gathered a lot from my 30 minutes on her blog). But one commenter on that disturbing post (linked in the above paragraph), Her Bad Mother, made some good points about the sheer number of images out there and the need to create “art” regardless of what some sickos might do. Not that my photographs are art (or that she was saying mom blogs are “art,” but, you get the idea).
The entire situation is so disheartening. Why is the world — why are there people who would think of behaving with such depravity?
That said, I wonder what harm it does to our children if someone far, far away copies an image from a blog and possibly photoshops it and then uses it for evil purposes? Emotion aside, and assuming no physical threat (any hint of credible, physical danger is a different matter entirely), how can that hurt my child? Does/can the evil of one affect the virtue of another?
This reminds me of one of my pet peeves about the Book of Mormon* (I confess, I have more than one — number 1 being the scarcity of women’s voices, names and stories; the sincerest form of flattery is caring enough to get upset, right?). But the one to which I refer is (hopefully) just a rhetorical device or semantic misunderstanding. In Moroni 9:9, the bad Nephites deprive the Lamanite daughters of “that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue.”
I think the writer is trying to condemn the offenders in the harshest language possible and in the starkest terms appropriate for a volume of scripture. (In the next verse the murder of these women is reported — that would make life less precious than “virtue”?). I don’t think he intends to say that virtue is something that can be taken by another. If virtue is something that anyone can take, by force, then of what value is it to me? Why should I guard my virtue if it can be so callously, casually stripped from me? Is virtue a physical or spiritual quality?
If virtue and chastity are meant to be synonyms of virginity, the scripture works in a physical-literal sense. But it is still problematic; how can virginity be the most precious and dear of things when it is rather a barrier (for most of us) to the old “multiply and replenish” commandment?
As I sit writing this, two volleys of gunshots have been fired on my block. Dick called the police, and hopefully they will show up sometime. Our house has been shot into and major drug busts have occurred, twice, in the house 10 feet from our house, in the past two years that we’ve lived here. And yet, we still live here; we’re trying to remedy that situation, but, it is hard to do, honorably.
I want to keep my kids as safe as possible, both physically and spiritually. Can’t argue with other mothers who want the same for their kids. But for now, our pictures stay up.
*Mitt Romney, smarmy candidate of the month, was asked what his favorite book was. After embarrassedly back-pedaling from his off-the-cuff choice of Battlefield Earth, he said the Bible. I don’t know if I hope he was lying or if I hope he was telling the truth.
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shannon
it’s interesting that you bring all of this up. moroni 9 is one of my favorite passages of scripture because it deals with things that go on a large scale both in the united states and in the rest of the world. and the things that i’m referring to are much worse than death. I thought of writing about this when you brought up fears, but I thought that it might be too serious of a subject. I read an article a couple of years ago that changed how I look at this world and the things that I fear. what I fear most is the kidnapping of my children. I have this article that I’m referring to but I can only email it to you. i can not post it here because it would be up to you to post something as horrible as this. if you are interested in knowing why loosing virture is worse than death, I will email it to you.
sylwia
shannon
by the way I woudn’t worry about your kids pictures. the evil people have other means of making nasty images. i dobut they use family blogs. i have a good freind who is an immigration officer and has to deal with the smuggling of child p*r**g**p*y.
and if you live in such a bad neighborhood, why don’t you move. I don’t mean quit job, but just go to a nice part of town. i’d rather live in an apartment in the nicest part of town than in a fancy house in the slums. I live in a small 2 bedroom apt with 4 kids in the nicest part of town and I love it. I wouldn’t trade it for a house. I love the schools and the safety. Just a thought.
sylwia
Hi Sylwia,
i appreciate your comments, but you’ve misunderstood me on the virtue thing. I am not arguing in any way that what the women in wartime often suffer (the accounts coming out of Darfur are horrifying enough today) is not worse than a quick death. what i find upsetting is the idea that “virtue,” a spiritual quality, can be taken or destroyed by evil. similarly intriguing concepts, to me, are “innocence” and “knowledge.” Innocence is used in both physical and spiritual senses in the scriptures and in the world. I think that innocence (both physical and spiritual) can be taken/destroyed. but this is not problematic, to me, because innocence is not praised as “the most dear and precious thing.” it can’t be because, for example, Adam and Eve had to move past innocence to knowledge in order to fulfill the multiply and replenish commandment. So my overall point is that evil cannot destory virtue. if it could–what is the point of anything?
now, about the house. of course, you’re right, we should move. our house has been on the market for 6 months as of 2 days ago. we made a bad decision two years ago, when housing was booming, to buy. we examined our finances carefully and prayed and thought we were making a good decision. we’ve lived in worse neighborhoods before and we were confident that with the market going up our neighborhood would continue to improve and that the tax benefits, etc of owning would be worth it.
even now, our mortgage payment is quite a bit less (300-700?) than what we would pay for a 2 bdrm apt in the nicest part of town. and i don’t think i could survive in a 2 bdrm with 3 kids anyway. we have 1200 sq ft here, and that’s crowded. 9 out of 10 nights our neighborhood is as quite as my parents, but 10% is pretty high for disturbances, huh?
Shannon
I think there is a definition problem with the word virtue. When someone takes the virtue away from a child, i don’t think it makes the child evil or makes him/her a sinner, but it does damage them severly. Perhaps even for the rest of their life. It is such a serious emotional/physical scar that often thier struggle continues until the grave. That is why this is it a such serious sin to take someone’s virtue away and it has serious consequences. It would be better than a millstone were tied around that person’s neck and he were drowned in the dephts of the sea.
Maybe the problem you are having with the scripture is because you think that some of the fault is blamed on the victim. It not fault, but painful consequences that the victim has to suffer. That’s why it is our job to protect our children from such experiences. That is what the scripture is teaching to me.
sylwia
Virtue is a spiritual quality and yes it can be taken away. When it is taken away a person for the rest of their lives can have a low self esteem, be truly depressed, feel dirty all the time, have trouble having relationships, have trouble being intimate, or have trouble being moral, have trouble with their gender and may become gay……to name just a few.
But you already know all of these things. I think the reason why murder and the taking away someone’s virtue are such serious things is because it changes for the rest of their life and not in positive ways. The family of a murdered person will suffer for generations. The same may be true of a s*xu*lly abused person. The healing may not come in this lifetime. Even when we have the gospel, it is often difficult for us to have enough faith to completly draw on the atonement to have complete healing in this life. Though I believe it is possible to be healed completly through faith, but it is rare.
sylwia
Shannon’s emphasizing the word “virtue” to mean goodness & morality, I think. You can’t take away someone’s goodness. Of course, one person can violate another person in every way possible, but someone’s goodness is something that they can only give away–”waste”–like when someone has premarital or extramarital s*x. Virtue in this sense cannot be stripped from a person.
Is that what you mean, Shannon?
yes, Marcy, that’s what I mean.
Sylwia, you are absolutely right that evil can psychologically, spiritually, and emotionally, as well as physically, damage a person, and impede their progression. and i think that you’re right that this is why those sins are so heinous and so severely punishable.
but, i maintain, evil cannot destroy virtue. virtue is not, or should not be, equal to virginity or innocence. virtue is something more valuable, precisely because it, like our will/agency, is something only we can surrender.
To me this whole issue is just a problem of semantics. Definitions of Virtue from dictionary.com:
?noun 1. moral excellence; goodness; righteousness.
2. conformity of one’s life and conduct to moral and ethical principles; uprightness; rectitude.
3. chastity; virginity: to lose one’s virtue.
4. a particular moral excellence. Compare cardinal virtues, natural virtue, theological virtue.
5. a good or admirable quality or property: the virtue of knowing one’s weaknesses.
6. effective force; power or potency: a charm with the virtue of removing warts.
7. virtues, an order of angels. Compare angel (def. 1).
8. manly excellence; valor.
In Moroni 9 I think the word virtue is being used as a synonym for chastity – meaning no s*x*al relations except for with the person you are married to. I don’t think that the scripture implies that evil can take away someone else’s “moral excellence, goodness, or righteousness.”
thanks Melinda! (when all else fails, pull out the dictionary; maybe i need to put one back in the bathroom so i can get in some quality reading)
it probably is just a problem of semantics, but then, so is the f word and a whole lot of other things. Avery has started casually repeating my language (took her long enough; for almost 6 years she exercised not-helpful-to-my-growth discretion); this has finally convinced me that i really should watch my language. our use of language is powerful.
even though i agree with all of your interpretations of the scripture, it still bugs me. we gave up our virginity when we married; did we give up our virtue also? what about our chastity?
What if I lie? Would that make me a dishonest person? One lie would make me dishonest for life? How about two lies?
If I blaspheme, am I forever a blasphemer?
If I misspell a word, am I a bad speller? 20 words in 20 years?
If I steal a pencil, am I a thief forever?
If I kill one person, does that make me a murderer forever?
If I mol*st one child, am I a mol*ster forever?
If I am mol*sted, does that make me a victim forever?
“Judge not,” He says. Pretty hard. Love the sinner. Harder yet. But then, no one said that virtue was always easy.
When does the indelibilty apply?
note: Shannon has added cute asterisks to this comment to deter weird googlers.
Hi Grampa,
I knew I’d get you on here if we just had the right conversation.
Indelibility is a Catholic concept, right? i’ve never heard it in conjunction with mormon theology. so i just looked around on the internet for a few seconds to get some idea of what it encompasses (please correct me if i’m wrong). there was something about the indelibility of grace. does this mean that grace is a free gift to all, and cannot be revoked?
on the indelibility of sin, i don’t know. we do have a hierarchy of sins, with the top three being, 1) the unpardonable sin, denying the witness of the Holy Ghost, 2) murder, 3) adult*ry. interesting that only one of those is considered unpardonable. but as to judging…
my reading of the KJV, with mormon footnotes, is that He says, Judge not unrighteously, for with that judgement that ye judge ye shall be judged. we have to make judgements every day. if you mol*st one child, yes, as far as my children are concerned, you are a mol*ster forever. there was a fascinating article in the nytimes recently about a church that had to confront this issue. i would say in that instance, yes, come to church, and no, you will never be alone with my children.
but explain to me about indelibility.
I didn’t mean anything theological by the term “indelible.” I simply meant that some sins seem to label one for a lifetime and some for a shorter period, if at all. I do believe that the catholic position is that sins against any commandment is equally offensive to God, but not to us, by any means.
Perhaps some of the difference might be that it is your job (genetically) to protect your children from abuse, but not your job to ferret out sins I may commit that don’t affect you.
I grant what you say about judging people. The passage in Matthew does say that we will be judged by the same standard we judge others; the harsher we judge, the harsher we will be judged and vice versa. It goes on to say, Why behold the mote in another’s eye and ignore the beam in one’s own eye. Mother Teresa was once asked what one should think of a notorious serial killer. She said, Just thank God you’re not that person. I suppose she suggests that the more we can identify with others (all sinners, by the way), the more good we will be able to do. This is an excellent example for somebody like me whose natural reflex would be to get out my pistol to protect the ones I love, or even to wreak vengeance on anyone that hurt me or mine. I guess that makes me like Peter who cut off the guard’s ear during Jesus’ arrest. The others just split. Who among the disciples should be our example for this situation? Later, at Golgotha, there were Mary, Mary Magdalen, and John, who at least were there.
I just want to say that I don’t think the scriptures say that virginity is what you should be striving for, but rather chastity, which in Mormon theology is only having se*ual relations with your husband or wife that you are legally married to. So, getting married does not cause you to give up your virtue or you chasteness. What are you bugged by again? I am confused.
Just as an aside, Elder Oaks (one of the 12 apostles of our church) had an interesting talk on judging. Essentially he shows the distrinction between judging righteous judgement and judging others. We do know when an action is wrong (say an extreme example of murder) we can judge that action as wrong. Likewise with ad*ltery, greed, etc. However, we are commanded not to judge others, meaning eternal judgement: “that person is going to hell, etc.” We can’t see the grand scheme of things and predicting (judging) where someone will end up is not our call, but if they are doing something wrong we can identify it and avoid it in our lives.
Grampa,
Peter sure is interesting. He cuts off the guard’s ear, and yet, later, he denies knowing Christ 3 times. His faith wavers when he’s walking on the water, and yet he is the leader of the church when Christ leaves. Maybe an example of what we are all capable of if we can only remember, and act on, our faith?
I’ve been thinking of Mother Teresa recently in conjunction with motherhood generally. I was trying to formulate kind of a mission statement about motherhood, and I was thinking how it would have to include caveats for women who are not “mothers” of their own children, and women who do not believe it is their greatest work in life to be a “mother.” I thought of Mother Teresa, and other nuns. We don’t do celibacy in the Mormon church; I mean we don’t consider it better/harder/more-like-God to be celibate than to be married with children (rather the opposite–that we have to, at some point, be married with children to even think of becoming like God, and you know that we’re heretical enough to take that as our goal). So, interesting, to me, a Saint like Mother Teresa who obviously did so much more good than I can even imagine.
Any thoughts?
Melinda,
I guess I’m bugged by the imprecision of language, and therefore the impossibility, sometimes, of knowing what a writer (particularly a dead writer translated from reformed egyptian) really meant or of taking him to task for speaking imprecisely. (On the other hand, I love the nuances in language, which probably rely on imprecision)
chastity (from dictionary.com):
1. The condition or quality of being pure or chaste.
2.
1. Virginity.
2. Virtuous character.
3. Celibacy.
I am bugged that virginity:virtuous:chastity:celibacy. I think this stems from something I say to my fil (“Grampa”) above in this comment. In LDS theology, we don’t do the nun/monk thing. Rather radically, we believe that family (married) life is the ideal, and the eternal. In Catholic theology (correct me if I’m wrong), virginity and celibacy are the highest of ideals.
Anyway, it’s not life or death (though the pen is mightier than the sword, eh?), but it’s just something that, despite all of the entirely apt comments to my post, still bugs me. Why do we never hear of a man’s virtue being taken from him? Biologically much more complicated, but I did see a law&order once (where a villainess was steeling high-octane sp*rm by foul means) that leads me to think it’s possible. Yet, it sounds ludicrous to even say it. I assume men do have virtue (to take)?
Brock (Melinda’s Husband)
(I don’t know what it is about this blog that most men who comment feel it necessary to relate themselves to a woman before commenting, but hey, that’s kind of cool. Like the opposite of when my arch-nemesis at church calls me “Tom’s wife”).
Excellent point from Elder Oaks. I think maybe I was a lawyer in a former life, so I appreciate his logical style. Couldn?t agree more with how you interpret his words.
Well, I can’t argue about there being imprecision in language in the scriptures. It definately exists, which is why we have a prophet and the spirit to guide us. Yes I know that chastity is oftened used synonymously with virginity and celibacy, but I don’t think it is used that way in Mormon theology. I think you are reading way too much into this virtue thing. The word for virtue in Reformed Egyptian might not have the multiple meanings that it does in English, or it might. We don’t know if every time the word virtue appears in the Book of Mormon if it is the same word used all the time in Reformed Egyptian. Does that make any sense? I mean sometimes in translation there might be two different words in Arabic but I translate them both to the same word in English because we don’t have two different words in English. In any case, I know that God views his sons and daughters as equals, even if the English language does not.
[...] meantime, I’ll keep posting pictures, because while sticks and stones may break my bones, the photoshopping of images will never hurt me. (I [...]
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