Favorite Terry Pratchett Passage.... so far

So lately I've been reading Terry Pratchett books, because they're hilarious. Anyway, after reading this last passage, which comes from the book The Light Fantastic, I decided I should share some of the joy. So here goes:

"In yet another part of the forest a young shaman was undergoing a very essential part of his training. He had eaten of the sacred toadstool, he had smoked the holy rhizome, he had carefully powdered up and inserted into various orifices the mystic mushroom and now, sitting crosslegged under a pine tree, he was concentrating firstly on making contact with the strange and wonderful secrets at the heart of Being but mainly on stopping the top of his head from unscrewing and floating away.

"Blue four-side triangles pinwheeled across his vision. Occasionally he smiled knowingly at nothing very much and said things like 'Wow' and 'Urgh.'

"There was a movement in the air and what he later described as 'like, a sort of explosion only backwards, you know?', and suddenly where there had only been nothing there was a large, battered, wooden chest.

"It landed heavily on the leafmould, extended dozens of little legs, and turned around ponderously to look at the shaman. That is to say, it had no face, but even through the mycological haze he was horribly aware that it was looking at him. And not a nice look, either. It was amazing how baleful a keyhole and a couple of knotholes could be.

"To his intense relief it gave a sort of wooden shrug, and set off through the trees at a canter.

"With superhuman effort the shaman recalled the correct sequence of movements for standing up and even managed a couple of steps before he looked down and gave up, having run out of legs."

Of course, this passage is funnier if you know the history of the chest, which you can read about in The Color of Magic, but the stoned shaman is hilarious enough in itself.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Sunstone

So I've had some time to digest everything that went down at the Sunstone Symposium, and I've figured out why overall I didn't particularly enjoy it. (This isn't to say I couldn't enjoy it, just that three full days was way too much.) It was because of the hierarchy of questions posed there.

Questions on the Church's teachings on male/female roles became more important than whether it was God's church. The political and social aspects of the Church were more important than the eternal ones. Not only that, but whether it was God's church became a question of its standing on political and social issues.

This is exactly reverse of what it should be. First comes the question of whether it's God's church, then comes the question of the correctness of its stances on political and social issues.

Certainty

So one of the sessions at the Sunstone Symposium was about how members of the Church are too certain about some things that might not be true. I really resonated with this, because I've recently come to the same conclusion, especially about myself. I started this after the Church came out against Prop 8.

See, as with any new commandment or doctrine from my Priesthood leaders, I prayed about it to get my own testimony. The difference this time was that I got an answer that I shouldn't support Prop 8. I shouldn't be openly against it, but neither should I be openly for it. Now, every other time I can remember--other than a couple times on my mission, but that was zone leaders, not General Authorities--I always received an answer in accordance with the new doctrine/commandment/whatever. Until now.

At first I thought I must've misinterpreted my impression, so I prayed again. And got the same answer. This process was repeated a good 4 or 5 more times before I finally decided that I hadn't been mistaken after all.

Except now what?

Suddenly if supporting Prop 8 wasn't right for me, what about other declarations from the General Authorities? Could I trust them? If so, for how long? I was reminded of polygamy and blacks and the Priesthood, where the Church completely reversed its position. What could I be certain about?

Since then I have been systematically going through different aspects of the Gospel trying to figure out whether it's actually an eternal princple or law, or whether it's something subject to change; and thus not something I should be completely certain about.

(See, I worry about what would happen if I was certain about something that the Church then reversed directions on. Would my faith sustain me?)

Either way, I have found precious little that I can actually be 100% certain about. Faith, love, prayer, scripture study, the Atonement and Plan of Salvation, that this is God's Church; a few other things, but much less than others seem to think I should be certain about. You know, though, I don't think I agree with them.