Ian

Mormon insta: aldred.ian

[Ian @IanAldred]

@carl_thompson70 @Robswisdom 👀

[Kirk Rollins @nicoraytruth]

I am not a member of this man's church. But I have thought hard about what that man was walking into on the morning he replied this to me, and I think I understand why he was going, and I think my own tradition has half forgotten something his has not.

Nobody inside that building is going to explain the tumor. What it does instead is put him to work. He goes down into a font resting on the backs of twelve oxen, and he is baptized for people he never met, who died in countries he has never seen, whose names somebody had to go and find.

That is the part outsiders never quite absorb.

The whole system runs on names. Somewhere a person is sitting with a parish register from a Danish village, hunting for a woman nobody has spoken of in two centuries, because in that theology it is intolerable that anyone be lost track of. It is the same instinct that sent teams into the snow in 1856 and sent their descendants back to Rock Creek in 1987 to write down the dead.

The mormons are a people constitutionally unable to leave a body in a ditch. He puts on white clothing, and so does everyone else in the room, and for a few hours there is no way to tell the surgeon from the widow.

Nobody inside the temple is going to ask him how he is holding up. Nobody is going to say the thing people say in the church foyer that makes you want to put your fist through a wall. It is one of the last rooms in America where the expectation is silence.

Grief with nothing to do with its hands turns inward and rots. The temple gives grief a job.

And then there is the veil. A curtain, with someone on the other side of it that you cannot see, and you are brought through it by the hand. For most people in the room that is a beautiful symbol. For a man in his condition it is not a symbol at all. It is the future. In the sealing rooms there are mirrors on facing walls, so that when you look into one you see the reflection going back and back with no end to it.

A family kneels at an altar and is told that this arrangement is not dissolved by death. And he has been taught something more specific than that, which their founding prophet taught and their leaders have repeated for nearly two centuries: that a child who dies is not lost to her parents, and that in the resurrection they will have the raising of her.

The phrase families are forever can hold a man up or it can paper him over, and which one it does depends entirely on who is saying it and why. Said to a father on the floor, by someone willing to get on the floor with him, it is one of the strongest sentences in American religion.

So when a man tells me that his daughter died of a brain tumor and then tells me where he is going to the temple, I do not hear a man with an answer. I hear a man refusing to let the tumor write the ending.

He is walking into a building where the dead are spoken of as though they are still somewhere, because they are.

In suffering, redemption is still possible, and love has the final word.

Final does not mean current. The final word has not been spoken yet. We are somewhere in the middle of the sentence, and the middle of the sentence is unbearable, but the final word will come soon.

[Academy of Ideas @acadofideas]

"The 6th biggest economy in the world is run by infantile fantasists with no understanding of financial markets.... There's nothing progressive about driving the economy of a cliff"📉⛰️

@LiamHalligan @ #BattleFest 2025 "From steel to railways: can the state revitalise British industry?"👨‍🏭🚆

👇

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

They bulldozed 100,000 trees in the Amazon rainforest for a highway to shuttle 50,000 delegates to COP30—and private jets are falling from the skies in a carbon confetti parade. The Avenida Liberdade (Liberty Avenue) slices 13 km through the protected Belém Environmental Protection Area south of Belém (Nov 10–21). The irony of desecrating the iconic rainforest to host a climate summit!

Red dirt is flanked by dense green jungle. Yellow excavators and bulldozers grind forward amid scattered vehicles. Experts warn of fragmented habitats, supercharged roadkill (Brazil loses ~475 million wild animals yearly to roads), & a red carpet for illegal loggers and sprawl.
Net zero on the tarmac: biodiversity in the ditch.
#COP30Hypocrisy #AmazonHighway #COP30

[Dr Manhattva @Manhattva]

It just gets more impressive the more one understands.

Longest book written on earth for ten years.

First try with no major revisions.

From a mostly uneducated kid in the woods on the frontier.

[Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11]

It’s all about Jesus.

[White Coppice CC @WhiteCoppiceCC]

Our 1st XI travels to face Thornton Cleveleys CC 3rd XI. Can the returning Smalley rally his troops and push up to 4th in the league? With only 30 points between the two teams, there's all to play for with the end of the season in sight. Go well, lads!

@pyramidcricket

[cricket.com.au @cricketcomau]

CALLING IT - BEST CROWD CATCH OF THE YEAR AND IT'S ONLY AUGUST!

Two cans in one hand, Kookaburra in the other.

#AUSvSA

[Niall Ferguson @nfergus]

"While the world fixates on Donald Trump’s populist cocktail of reciprocal tariffs and big, beautiful deficits, @JMilei is delivering a man-made miracle that should gladden the heart of every classical economist and quicken the pulse of all political libertarians." 1/5

[StandWithUs @StandWithUs]

⚠️WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT⚠️
Tal Shoham, his wife, and two young children were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. Recently, Tal — who survived 505 days in Hamas’ brutal and inhumane captivity in Gaza — shared his testimony on Israeli Channel 12 News (@n12news) in conversation with Yuna Leibzon (@YunaLeibzon)
A thread 🧵:

Credit: IDF

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

The Univ. of Vermont offered a graduate-level course on the Book of Mormon.

Neither the professor nor the students were Latter-day Saints.

No one approached the book as scripture, yet they took it seriously and recognized its richness and depth.

The class was a hit.

Details:

[Hank Smith @hankrsmith]

If you fixate on pointing out faults, weaknesses, & errors, your faith will fade. You’ll end up cutting yourself off from the Lord’s power.

If we lift others, extend grace, & overlook shortcomings - just as we hope others will do for us - God will infuse our lives with joy.

[D. Todd Christofferson @ChristoffDTodd]

The family is God’s creation, not a human invention. Our loving Father in Heaven sends His children to earth in families because this is an essential part of His plan for our growth, improvement, and happiness. It is strong families that make strong societies—today on International Day of Families and always.

The day-to-day activities that families do together give children the opportunity to see parents putting into practice the moral values they have taught. They see how those values find expression in—and even define—everyday life. This constant, consistent example communicates more powerfully than any sermon, planting true principles deep into the heart.

The families we form and nurture here on earth are but imperfect imitations of God’s heavenly family. His purpose is for us to find joy here and to prepare ourselves for everlasting joy with Him in the hereafter, where the pattern of families continues eternally.

[Jared Bell @jaredadairbell]

“You’re going to sit in the foyer until you’re ready to be reverent. We don’t scream during Sacrament. Do you understand?”

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

Repentance is a recurring theme throughout the Bible.

It describes the act of abandoning behaviors that distance us from God and adopting those that draw us nearer to Him.

A recent sermon by a Latter-day Saint woman is reshaping how many view repentance.

Let’s review it:

[BBC Sport Lancashire @BBCLancsSport]

"What it means is that @WhiteCoppiceCC has been saved."

Chris Maguire of White Coppice cricket club has been telling us how a local businessman has funded the installation of a new septic tank meaning that they can start the new @pscricket season at home.

[Rob Moore @robprogressive]

I just paid nearly £4k in council tax

With money ALREADY taxed: 

-25% corp tax 
-39% dividend tax 
-Had to add VAT of 20%

So that means I needed to earn nearly £14k (FOURTEEN grand) 

To pay tax to my CITY when I’ve already paid tax to my COUNTRY 

I get NOTHING from £14k just for the PRIVILEGE of living

And what do I get for it?

My bins emptied once a week

[White Coppice CC @WhiteCoppiceCC]

We had another great training session last night.

We're still on the lookout for new players for the 2025 season.

Get in touch & come along to Monday night nets.

🏏🏏🏏

[White Coppice CC @WhiteCoppiceCC]

Hello #ChorleysHour.

We're fundraising to pay a septic tank bill & secure the future of the club.

We have sponsorship opportunities available for local businesses - thousands walk through our ground every year.

Please support us if you can.

https://t.co/oNcxeccldx