Friday, June 23, 2006

Censorship verses Common Sense

Repentance Part II
I remember a story about an old woman who died and went to heaven. At the pearly gates, she met Peter, who was not only there to greet her, but to also show her around. Peter showed her the wading pools, the pristine gardens, and the different neighborhoods. At one point, Peter placed a finger to his lips, indicating that he and the woman should be quiet. After strolling though the neighborhood, Peter began speaking in his normal tone. The woman was puzzled by this, and she asked, "Why were we so quiet back there?"

Peter grinned and told the woman, "We just passed through the Mormon community. They think they are the only ones in heaven."


Yesterday, I posted a bit about repentance, and I received a few comments that puzzled me. Then it occurred to me that with my one page limit, I may have been curt and did not explain myself very clearly.

Repentance, in my point of view, has the following steps:
1. Feel sorrow
2. Confess to God
3. Ask for forgiveness
4. Rectify problems caused by the sin
5. Forsake sin
6. Receive forgiveness

[Edited Note: I list "Confess to God" here because I am talking about repentance from a religious point-of-view; for repentance, acknowledgement is key. United We Lay kept me honest on this one. You can substitute #2 with acknowledgement of your sin.]

I think what some are confusing is repentance with redemption (the main difference is that "Road to Repentance" doesn't sound as kick-ass as "Road to Redemption" for a movie title). Plus I never mentioned that repentance makes us more God-like. I talked about being reconciled with God, not approaching God-like status. I actually read my post this morning – I usually just write; I don't read my own posts. Anyway, I don't think the point of our lives are to be turned into divine beings. Through discernment, I can see making decisions based on moving towards God or away from God, but it is the road, not the destination that seems to be valuable.

The Real Post Today
Okay, recently the Peanut Queen has had her IT department block certain sites and monitor all sites. Yeah, I know, at my work they may (do!) monitor my activity as well. By the way, Stacey and Ddot are not related, have not knocked knees, or whatever. They are part of two different royal lines – Ddot is more of a benevolent dictator, and Stacey is more of ceremonial monarch.

Well, now Stacey is posting from home. And you know, when you have a choice of doing the nasty with the Peanut King, or blogging, blogging is going to lose each and every time. Perhaps we can read some of her stuff during "that time of the month." And those will be some quality posts, let me tell you. May I read that with a side of bitch.

Back to monitoring the Internet at work. I know, the employer pays for the connection, it takes away from work time, yadda yadda yadda. And those are valid points.

But if you are most concerned with outcomes – with sales, or customer service, or whatever – then monitor the outcomes that mean the most to you. I mean really – okay block porn sites, hate sites, gambling sites. But concentrate on what is most important to the organization. Isn't this a simple concept.

I mean, when I worked elsewhere, I fucked vendors in my office during lunchtime. If I were a manager, I would rather someone be looking at blogs than getting nakkid in their offices and being inappropriate with vendors. And the smart-ass remark (that I expect) is that I could get the guy to "sharpen his pencil" when it comes to price. But on the other side of the coin, I may have bought lots of crap for a booty call.

Oh, and if you were wondering, I repented for fucking the guy.

11 comments:

United We Lay said...

Don't you think it's possible to be repentant without a belief in God? Even atheists can be sorry for what they've done, seek forgiveness from those they have wronged, and work on not doing it in the future, which seem to me to be the most important steps in the repentance process. I think we (as people) get into trouble when we assume that there is only one path to any kind of redemption or forgiveness. This is how religious wars are started, and it leaves out a lot of people who are good people but do not believe in devine power.

Leesa said...

united: absolutely.

Grant said...

I heard the same joke made about the Catholics.

I feel the same as you - the IT people at my prior company (BS) devised a program that would automatically track your internet usage and, if you spent more than fifteen minutes online at one time, would send an e-mail to your manager with the sites visited and the associated cost you wasted, both in terms of Internet usage (as if they used a measured service) and based on your salary (yes, they had access to personnel records). My manager complained that I spent two hours on the Internet one day, despite the fact that a) I had all my work done, and b) except for 6 minutes spent tracking a purchase from Amazon during my lunch, it was all business-related. I learned to get by it for staying on no longer than 14 minutes at a time. I always said the same thing with that company - instead of devising new ways of ensuring we weren't doing things they didn't approve of, they should have measured us based on the results we obtained.

Advizor54 said...

United we Lay states that you can be "repentant without a belief in God" yet "repentance" in most dictionaries I consulted, put the emphasis on making restitution for a "sin" and "sin" is definitely a religious, god-focused idea. Without a God to define right and wrong, there can be no sin. There can be acts that are offensive or against the morals of a society, but SIN is a purely religious idea.

Leesa said, "Anyway, I don't think the point of our lives are to be turned into divine beings. Through discernment, I can see making decisions based on moving towards God or away from God, but it is the road, not the destination that seems to be valuable. "

As we become closer to God, follow His laws more faithfully, learn how He wants us to behave, remove the sin from our lives, we become more like Him, and therefore, begin to take on His attributes, that is His goal for all of us. Just as a master trains a student, God is training us to be like him.

As for turning into diving beings, we already are divine. God is our Father, we are His children and we will (can) grow up to become as He is. If He is not our Father then what is He, just a stranger who gives us laws so that we can worship Him?

The Gospel is given to us so that we can return to live an eternal life with God, to continue to grow and develop and become more and more like Him, to share in his joy and to pass that joy on to others.

I love your postings Leesa, keep up the good work.

Here are my two favorite Mormon jokes....

The assistant to the Pope comes in to the Holy Father and says, "I've got good news and bad news."

His Holiness replies, "Give me the good news first."

"OK," says the priest, "Jesus has returned to earth and is on the phone for you"

"Wonderful" says the Pope as he reaches for the phone, "What's the bad news?"

"He's calling from Salt Lake City"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why do you never invite only one Mormon to go fishing?

He'll drink all your beer.

(Granted, that's much funnier if you are already a member of the church, but it always cracks me up)

Pat said...

To be regretful and repentful of something you have to some kind of basis for right and wrong. For most of us it is God or some other diety (depending on your faith). Even atheists who regret and try to make up for some wrong have some basis for right and wrong even if isn't God and that's fine.
We are not perfect. Too many things considered sinful are just too damn fun and pleasurable for us to give them up. Like, for example, being a vendor on some days. ;-) Almost making me regret my career choice.

mal said...

I dunno about that, if you got a kick ass price for the 50 kazillion do-bobs you needed....... *L*

seriously, working the other side of the desk meant I got propositioned. (idiots were either blind, had bad taste or liked to live dangerously. Never had any interest in taking them up on it or in their business. I figured if they were going to fuck me one way, they would probably want to fuck me other ways too

United We Lay said...

Sin is what you believe it is. I can believe that I've done a bad thing without believing in God. A sin against man is much worse in my book than any sin against an invisible man could ever be.

The Seeker said...

As long as you repented, it's all good. ;-)

Debbie Pelberg said...

I agree that the point is to "follow in the footsteps of Jesus", not be Jesus. we can't possibly be god nor god-like as we are human.

Monitoring use of the internet at work seems so big brothery to me. I know they do it and it totally freaks me out.

Leesa said...

grant: yeah, but the joke is better with "Mormons". Catholics just aren't as funny, unless you mix in drunk priests or something to do with the Pope.

advizor: good points. I guess I was thinking of divine in a different way. I recant what I said.

rob: you actually made a suggestion that I not write a thinking post on Friday. Not sure I agreed to it. My work days are all messed up, though.

killdare: funny. We are not called to be happy though.

mallory: you are a cutie, sweetie. If they were blind, I think they just wanted to feel you better!

united: not sure we can rank sins -a sin hurts your soul damages you. Sometimes a sin against man damages the man more than your soul. Not sure which is worse.

seeker: thanks, sweetie.

deb_la: thanks, sweetie.

terri madison: caught me on that one. One vendor was every week for more than nine months. One vendor was one time.

heather: nice work on the pool table!

Prata said...

Yah..my rant on penance and repentance was not directed at you in particular...although maybe you can explain to me why you say repentance has this 6 step process, when it's not defined as such from a Catholic (and you are catholic?) point of view.

Repentance is remorse for your past conduct. Not any act of satisfying said conduct. I must be confused..but that would make perfect sense since I'm not a christian lol. Christian things confuse me..seriously..I'm not bein' a smart ass.