So this will be short and sweet.

1. This tragedy in Connecticut is inconceivable, its unconscionable, and totally evil and disgusting.  We need to get real about our mental health in this country.  Just like we educate our youth about their veins, arteries and nerves, we need to teach them about their brain and how it can be ill/healthy.  We need to teach the most vulnerable (23-30) of signs and show treatment options.  Most importantly we need to be clear that mental health treatment is not a punishment or condemnation in any way.  It is a treatment!

If a child had the plague would we not turn that child over to proper treatment and authorities?  As a society would we not enforce that happened?  And yet if our child has a severe psychosis we do little to nothing!  It’s got to end.  Mental health is like any other kind of health, and sometimes we get sick.  I get sick, you get sick, but we get treatment.  Just something to think about.

Anyway, my thoughts and prayers are with the people affected.  I can not imagine what they are going through.  All I can do is pray and hope for a better future.  Jesus declared the little children to come unto Him.  I can only imagine Him comforting the little one’s who came to him today and sending special love to their families.  It is so overwhelming.

Can we finally talk about our violent angry culture too? Sigh…

2. Now for the stupid thing.  So there has been all of this hullabaloo about wearing pants to church. Boy does it seem inconsequential now.  As an LDS blogger who has blogged about Mormon Feminism I felt I should mention something.   Here goes:

1.  I will be wearing skirt/dress to church Sunday because it is what I feel comfortable in when worshiping.   I also feel it sets my apparel apart from the rest of the week.

2. I think staging a protest for equality as one blogger said is inappropriate in sacrament meeting.  It isn’t the time or place.

3. I’m not sure exactly what they want to accomplish.  They aren’t getting the priesthood or more positions.  You can already wear pants if you want to.

4. When I worked at the temple frequently Latino women came wearing pants and no mention was made, nobody was treated differently.  I think it is a silly distinction.

5. Whether they would admit it or not even the pants wearers have social customs that inhibit their activities.  For instance, they may want to wear pants to church but would they wear a swimsuit to church?  Probably not.  We all have our own agreed upon standards for what is appropriate for certain situations and to thrust new customs upon a group of people at a religious setting, especially when people could be really grieving this week is a little cold and insensitive.  Think about your own standards of dress and how you would feel if someone else dictated a change to you in a public setting.

6.  The blogs/facebook have gotten brutal on both sides.  Some have wondered why Mormon’s can say such terrible things.  First, I’m not convinced all the people on the Mormon sites are truly Mormons.  I think some are formers or anti’s trolling around trying to make us look bad.  No proof of that but there are trolls and I don’t know what would stop them.  Second, we live in a culture where being called a bigot is about the worst thing a person can be called, so when people talk about inequality at church or women wearing pants a certain degree of defensiveness can come in.  They don’t want to be labeled a bigot and their precious views contorted and changed into something bad.  I’m not excusing their behavior just trying to explain it.

7.  I have long been a fan of Mormon feminism and so while I am not wearing pants those who want to go for it but I have a feeling you’ll be disappointed by the non-story it all is.  I would bet you’ll leave church and think ‘oh that was just like any other day at church’.

It is just clothes after all.

So there you blogging world.  Something important.  Something stupid.

https://smilingldsgirl.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/mixture-of-thoughts/