Postmodern Pastoral

 Something I find fascinating is the distrust heterosexual men and women have for each other. Despite being mutually attracted sexually and romantically. This is what I've observed, please comment to let me know if your observations are different. I'm conducting some anthropological research on the heterosexual psychology. Lol. I have a lot of girlfriends (girlfriend in the gay way obviously) who say they like gay men because they feel safe around gay men. Implying there is some kind of threat from straight guys. This can be terrifying for the straight man, and the threat is like, so abstract. He knows he's a threat, but doesn't understand why, because he feels like he's a nice normal person. A straight man might think "geez Louise if I even breathe wrong I will be seen as a threat! I can't do anything!"  There is some responsibility on the women to understand why she feels those threats. I'd appreciate it if the threatened feelings were more clear...

 My only goal in life is to die in a way that doesn't cause too much sadness or anger, and go relatively quietly. The general idea is to be 95 years old, living in Tucson, probably in a nursing home where my death is routine for the employees there. I want a traditional funeral, I want to be embalmed and have a viewing, lots of white roses and an oakwood casket (maybe particle board with a vinyl coat that looks like oak). I want an average funeral, people sharing cute stories about me and want to be buried in the Mormon cemetery in Tucson. I have a funeral playlist that I want to share with all my funeral guests. Or if you want it now I'll send you the link. If I died now, people would be really sad, and feel survivors guilt and question God and whatever else comes with losing a young person. I don't want to do that to anybody. But if I'm 95 years old other people won't be too upset, they'll be a little sad I'm sure, but it'll be easier for them. I feel ...

 I just dropped some cruise ship passengers off at a nature tour in Ketchikan, Alaska, and was heading down a narrow dirt road in my bus. In the road I saw a Book of Mormon, laying in the mud, all bent out of shape and ripped up a little. I recognized it the moment I saw it (it's easy to recognize, the book is blue the church is true) and my first instinct was to just drive on, but my second instinct was to stop and pick it up. I stopped, put on my hazards and ran back for the Book of Mormon. When I got back to my bus, another bus was coming up the road, and thankfully where I was stopped was the only point in this narrow road where I was able to pull over and let my coworker drive more cruise ship passengers to the nature tour.  In the Mormon faith that instinct is called a "prompting of the spirit" like, it's God nudging you to do something. It's up to interpretation whether that prompting is your first instinct or your second instinct, or just like a nagging fe...