Just sayin'....

Our son popped in from Utah and we have been enjoying him these last few days!  How does someone pop in?  However it's done...he did it!  We have visited and played games and eaten way to much food and yesterday he and I went to two movies.

First we saw Hidden Figures and then, like any doting Mum, I took SonnyBoy to Beauty and the Beast.  I thoroughly enjoyed one and my reaction to the other was Whhhaaaatttt?!?!?!?  Loved and enjoyed on every level HF.  B&TB?  Thumbs down except for music and a few scenes.  Have I truly evolved into an old stew hen?  Am I a negative sayer?  A full fledged naysayer?  Do I think I know so much about everything that I'm now a critic of, something so highly acclaimed, as a Disney movie?  Honestly I feel like the person in The Emperors New Clothes!  The one that declared he was wearing his birthday suit and nothing else.

Perhaps I still believe in the beauty and magic of imagination and imaginings of Fairy Tales.  Ethereal filmy gauzy beautiful images.  Filled with light and love and a kiss at the end with birds atwitter and floating hearts and bursting fireworks.  Enchantment and tenderness.  Always the one dark cloud, of an evil person or a poison apple, and that is always conquered by pure love of the highest degree.  I guess I should perhaps as there is no perhapsing.  I do believe in all of that tempering of the evil and violence not only in life but in modern renditions of fairy tales.

Most likely I'll be boo/hissed for not liking the movie but that is okay.  My daughter and her girls loved it.  She called and talked to her Dad last night while her brother and I were at the movie.
I look forward to hearing her take on it and she will listen to my take and we will be in opposite camps and that is fine.  Our closeness is based on love not how we feel about a movie based on a Fairy Tale!

(I missed Gaston making me laugh with his puffed up ego.  I also wanted some huge wedding production at the end.  I wanted lots put in and lots left out!)

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Less on my soapbox but really I'm still stunned that anyone would do that picture taking.  Back in the day...yes, dark ages to you!...we in my world, all of us, knew there was a code of behavior and we all knew we were to adhere to it.  We all marched to the same drummer on morals and if we marched to a different drummer?--we were aware we were off beat and also off the path.

This wasn't because we were all LDS with those particular standards, it was just the way things were.  We knew we weren't to drink and smoke and make-out.  IF we chose to do those things we snuck around because in our hearts we knew it wasn't right.

Why?  Because we all had the Light of Christ!  Those few youth, like you Natalie, had the Holy Ghost.  The rest of us though did have the guidance of that birthright light and we knew and felt prompted in our conscience what the proper/appropriate conduct was.  We were warned and even though we were clueless about where that direction came from, we did have those feelings of right and wrong.

That is what stuns me about this picture taking!!!  How can any youth, of any faith or no faith, feel at ease in stripping down and then sharing a picture?  

In years past, (ancient history.  I know.  I know.).  anyhow, in years past I gave lots of talks at different youth events...Youth Conference/Girls Camp/Standard Nights and YW lessons by the boatload.  Oh, and Seminary.  There is always that chastity/purity lesson each year.  In all of those opportunities to teach there was always mentioned modesty/chastity.  Never once, and I was known for speaking frankly and honest, did it ever even occur to me to tell these girls to avoid taking nude pictures of themselves much less to do such and post!!

I'm horrified.  Why?  Why on earth would they be so utterly stupid????  Are there minds so darkened that they think this is just fine??  

A few years ago I became aware that girls also view pornography.  I was so shocked!  I thought that was a male thing.  Nope.  It happens and it happens here.  I'm so innocent though that I'm still trying to absorb the fact that crooks and thugs are no longer the only bad guys and crime is done only by the Mafia!  It could be my friendly neighbor!

Acknowledging these are the perilous times of the last days ...is this a part of it??  I stopped saying Surely things can't get any worse, a long time ago.  This behavior though is just breaking my heart.

1 Timothy 4:12
Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

Have to admit that this is suppose to be the last of my rant, and I'll now settle down.

me the dreaming ranter!