By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

A few months ago, I was attending a university level criminal law class in a Muslim country that recognizes sharia law in the constitution.  The class was lively, the students were prepared, and it was incredibly enjoyable listening to these students chew through topics like the presumption of innocence and burden of proof.  At one point, during a discussion of the country’s penal code, a student raised his hand and asked why drinking alcohol was against the law in that country, when it was not criminalized in America.  “How can one act be a crime in one country, and not in another?”  The teacher, probably not willing to be waylaid by a philosophical discussion of “what is crime” punted the question and briefly talked about sharia before moving on.  I think it’s too bad that the teacher didn’t delve into the question of “what is crime” because approached from a comparative law standpoint, it is pretty fascinating. Read the rest of this entry »

This week, Lowe’s pulled advertisements from TLC’s show “All-American Muslim” about several Muslim families in the Dearborn area. I don’t watch the show.  I don’t need to watch a television show that “normalizes” Muslims.  My Muslim friends and co-workers are normal enough to me without television.  Frankly, I don’t shop at Lowe’s all that much either, but I won’t be shopping there at all any longer. The people urging Lowe’s to pull the ads had a message to share.

I have a few messages to share here: Read the rest of this entry »

There are only four women mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon, and three of them are pretty straightforward female archetypes: the virgin, the whore, and the nagging wife. While they may serve the purpose of fleshing out the larger story that they appear in, they are not fleshed out themselves. I’m sorry about that. I wish more women’s stories were included. The fourth woman, however, is a bit of a surprise. Read the rest of this entry »

I just found out that one of my best friends is a closet revolutionary.  I like her even more now. Read the rest of this entry »

In the comments to the recent post on modesty, it was pointed at that many of the young women are receiving guidance on modesty, but that the young men aren’t.  To even things out, should the young men be included in the trend?  I have an idea:  Read the rest of this entry »

A new crop of women is coming of age, matriculating into the universe of higher education, and entering the workforce.  They grew up in an age of intense marketing towards children, and an age of specialty marketing towards girls.  The Disney film franchise was entering a Renaissance period with the release of “The Little Mermaid” in 1988–with a wide-eyed plucky mermaid dreaming about growing up and becoming part of the world, and then “Beauty and the Beast” in 1991 with a wide-eyed plucky village girl dreaming that there must be more than her provincial life.   In fact, Disney made a fortune on remaking the image of girls in movies.  The old Disney films were filled with beautiful but vapid, lifeless girls who needed to be saved by even more vapid, lifeless princes.  This new crop of heroines were defined in a different way:  pretty, plucky, adventurous–they were corporate packaged junior feminists.  They got into scrapes, they got out of them, they learned to love, and everything came up roses.  Ever wondered how Ariel would fare in corporate America….

Read the rest of this entry »

“So can I ask you a question?” This is a fairly awkward phrase, right?  If the question is truly innocuous, no one will precede it with an implicit warning.  When you hear the question “so can I ask you a question?” you brace yourself, you take a breath, you smile and say “of course.”  If you’re a Mormon and you hear this, you know you have about a 50% chance of someone asking about polygamy, your mission, or your underwear, so you try extra hard to stick on that super pleasant smile that says “you betcha.”

My boss walked into my office a couple of years back and said “so can I ask you a question?”

“You betcha.”

“My wife and I have been noticing something kind of strange at this house in our neighborhood.  There are a lot of young women living there, and they move in and out fairly often.  And pretty often some guys in suits will come over and visit.  And the girls are all really pretty.  And they dressed really skanky at Halloween.  We think it’s a brothel.  But this morning, when I was waiting at the bus stop I saw one of them, and she asked me about the bus schedule, so I started up a conversation and asked where she was from.  She just graduated from BYU.  So, apparently she’s a Mormon.  Do you know what’s going on?  Is this normal?”

“Ah.” I said, realization dawning.  “So, here’s the thing, you live smack dab in the middle of a single mormon mecca, and you don’t know it.  All of that is perfectly normal.  They’re looking for husbands.  Pay them no mind.”  (aka “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.  Move along.”) Read the rest of this entry »

Discuss your choice below, or tell us what you’ll be doing in the comments. 

The article featured on BCC’s sideboard found here has inspired me to inner musings.  I like the idea that a community’s choice to exceed the mark, to communally do good simply for the sake of rightness has a lasting legacy, even if that legacy is only on a few individuals.  I also like the common theme of integration that weaves through such stories. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m getting very sentimental this year.  Next week, I’m leaving on a jet plane for South Asia (India and Sri Lanka) where I’m spending Christmas with a couple friends instead of my family.  It made sense this year.  My parents are on a  mission, and my (0nly sibling) brother is spending Christmas with his in-laws.  I have a friend who lives in the middle east, and is not coming back to America for Christmas, so we’re meeting on the other side of the globe to do some touristy things and celebrate Christmas together.  It sounded like a great idea in September.  Now I’m getting a little weepy and sentimental.  I’m listening to Christmas music every chance I get, spending more time at public celebrations (hello Nutcracker and Santa Lucia at the Swedish Embassy!) and trying to find the perfect presents to put in the mail this week before I go.  Trying to deconstruct these feelings is a bit interesting.  What am I going to miss?  Is it sentimentality over missing my family and the trappings of Christmas, or is it a suspicion that celebrating Christmas in a hotel and on a beach will make the day less special, less focused on the spirituality of the event, and tantamount to skipping the holiday altogether?  Read the rest of this entry »

I sat outside St. Peter’s Basilica twice this week.  Too late to get in the building, I made do with sitting in the square and remembering.  I could not be in Rome and not pay some kind of homage to this holy place.   Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a fairly accurate transcript of a recent conversation I had:

Friend A:  I think I’m going to visit Jerusalem this year.

Me:  That sounds fun.  I’ve always wanted to go.  I asked my Dad if he wanted to go with me and he said he thought the Second Coming was too near so it wouldn’t be safe.

Friend A:  Your dad doesn’t think he’s righteous enough to be taken up into heaven?

Me:  Mormons don’t believe in twinkling.

Friend A:  You mean you don’t believe in Revelations?

Me:  Uh….

Friend B (studying to be a Priest):  Maybe they just believe that it’s more metaphorical.

Me:  Uh….

Friend B:  Or maybe they think John the Revelator was crazy.

Everyone laughs and smiles–thinking to themselves: “yeah I’ve thought that before…”

End Scene Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve often wondered how much of an effect foreign missions have had on the culture of the church and its members.  I know that for individuals, two years or eighteen months living in a different culture is life changing.  Often missionaries return to change their majors, career plans etc.  I also know many returned missionaries who have chosen to live overseas, recognizing from their mission experiences that they enjoy the adventure of it. Read the rest of this entry »

Like many other Americans, I recently spent $14 to witness a truly amazing 3-D spectacle.  Some people are calling this visual masterpiece “Avatar.”  I call it “Dances with Shrek.”  Read the rest of this entry »

I just cleaned out a cupboard in my kitchen that was full of food storage water.  I wanted to put away some small appliances in a more convenient place, so I decided to start drinking the water, but it was disgusting.  I checked the dates, wondering when I bought it, then realized it was about 8 years old.  Oh yeah.  I remember.  Living in Washington D.C. in the season of fear.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight, the world celebrates the coming of the new year with clinking champagne glasses, eventual slurred speech, and possible DUIs.  You, my teetotalling Mormon friends?  For you, I present the great mocktail recipe exhchange.  Eat, drink, be merry, and wake up tomorrow without a hangover, contemplating how you don’t need to set goals, because you constantly strive for anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy (including virtuous–or rather virgin–beverages).  Read the rest of this entry »

I had a flash of deja vu a week or so ago, something triggered a childhood memory and I was struck by the oddest thought…I’ve somehow become the person I wanted to marry.  I guess I’ve always been a planner, and I had a very clear vision of what I wanted as a child.  I wanted to live in Northern Virginia, married to a man who was a lawyer, and who did international work.  (What that actually meant was a little hazy to me, but that’s what I wanted.)  I now live in Northern Virginia, and am a lawyer who facilitates criminal justice reform in other countries.  (I have a better grasp now of what the job actually entails, which I’m sure is a relief to my boss.)  Read the rest of this entry »

I signed up for my comprehensive exam today.  October 31.  Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I figured it would bring me good luck, and I’m going to need it.  See, I’m in trouble.  In order to graduate this December, I have to write my culminating paper this fall and pass the exam.  Normally, this program is one and a half or two years, but I took a couple of years off to move to Afghanistan, and so I took the introductory courses four years ago.  Apparently the exam is based on the introductory courses.  Right now my plan is to befriend some young, innocent, smiling grad student and cajole their notes out of them.  The fact that I go to class at night when I’m cranky is kind of a road block to this plan, but I’m cagey and tenacious, so I figure I can pull it off somehow.   Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been at my current job for four years.  During that whole time, there has been a homemade sign hanging up in the bathroom stall:  LADIES PLEASE REMEMBER THAT OTHERS USE THE RESTROOM BEHIND YOU!! PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE OF OTHERS AND CLEAN UP BEHIND YOURSELVES.  ALSO THE AIR FRESHNER (sic) IS HERE TO USE.  THANKS TO ALL.  Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t dream much. When I do dream, they tend to be vivid and memorable. The other night I had a surprising vivid dream that I’m still thinking about: I had a conversation with my great-grandmother who died six months before I was born. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t think that gratitude is a natural emotion for human beings. Well, let me clarify, because that isn’t quite true. I think that gratitude can be classified in two ways. There is gratitude that we feel for indivuals–for recognizable and identifiable others who have performed a recognizable and identifiable good for us. The actual strength and level of gratitude we feel for others is probably tied up in the status of our relationship to those people and to the level of good that they performed for us. I think we can feel a profound sense of gratitude towards other people, and that feeling is often tied up with any number of other feelings, love, admiration, indebtedness, embarrassment, etc. That’s not the kind of gratitude that I’m talking about here. I’m talking about meta-level, non-individualized gratitude. The “count your many blessings” type of gratitude. I don’t think that kind of gratitude is natural for human beings, and I suspect that evolution is to blame. Read the rest of this entry »