NOM

I have made a concerted effort since this was announced, that I would say, "hashtag light the world" everytime I did something nice, or tried to serve others, including members of my family. So far Sister M has snickered at the two times I did this, although the second chuckle lacked conviction. I'm convinced by Monday she will start to be very annoyed at this. I'd love to say that I'm going to stop, but I'm not going to. In many ways, still a punk kid in my late 40s.

It's the point, you see. Whatever happened to "take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them?" In that light, I ain't even going to outline what I did to "serve" today. But in the name of all that is holy, if you need your church to schedule nice things for you to do, do you not question what that church is teaching? As you can tell, this bugs me.

It totally bugs me, too, and I only have to see friends talking about it on FB.

One of the many things that really bothers me about it is that my friends are the kind of people who would do nice things in private, and now the church is basically appropriating their efforts as a PR move. Gross. Also, Mormons are far from the only people who want to do nice things for others during the holidays, so this whole thing makes them look tone-deaf with an over-inflated sense of self-importance. My daughter's 2nd grade class (totally non-Morridor) has an oral presentation they do each Friday. Today's topic: What nice things can you do for friends and family during the holidays? My kids' school has a dance and slipper day today. Guess what all the money raised goes to? Families who need help with Christmas! And it's done privately through the guidance counselor instead of being touted on facebook. I'm sure lots of people donate above the admission costs, but no one knows besides the guidance counselor. Seriously, Mormons, everyone wants to help others at Christmas. Most of them want to do it anonymously and not as part of a church PR program.

#sharegoodness
#freePR
#lighttheworld
#gagme

We had the sister missionaries over for dinner last night. They shared a spritual message "i.e. played a cute video on their ipad"

Then they talked about # lighttheworld briefly.

I simply chimed in, I've seen a bunch of # light the world on Twitter.

Nothing more, nothing less. Let them stew on it.

glass shelf wrote: One of the many things that really bothers me about it is that my friends are the kind of people who would do nice things in private, and now the church is basically appropriating their efforts as a PR move. Gross. Also, Mormons are far from the only people who want to do nice things for others during the holidays, so this whole thing makes them look tone-deaf with an over-inflated sense of self-importance. .........

Seriously, Mormons, everyone wants to help others at Christmas. Most of them want to do it anonymously and not as part of a church PR program.

#sharegoodness
#freePR
#lighttheworld
#gagme

I agree with you 100%. It feels more about PR than actually making a difference in people's lives.

It reminds me of the yellow vests/helping hands that the church makes volunteers wear when cleaning up disasters and hurricanes. It's like they want to make sure that if there are any press there, they they will clearly know that the church was there.

But in reality the church is never there. It is always the members.

I am so glad that I woke up.

I have an equal hatred of the yellow shirts. Once, I wanted to participate in a service activity, but I had no interest in purchasing and then wearing a yellow shirt, so I was informed that my help wasn't wanted.

I went and found another group that was happy to have me in the clothes of my own choosing.

The good people in the church are the resource that the leaders will keep exploiting until people step up and say, "no more!"

Um... What exactly are we "lighting"?

Is this just an underhanded hashtag created by some clever folks in a couple of US states where a certain substance was recently legalized for recreational use?

There are conflicting scriptures at play here. "By their fruits ye shall know them." and "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."

I also get a bit bothered when I watch those shows that do good deeds for people and get all the publicity. On the one hand it can spread altruism, but for the true Christian/Mormon it does seem a #Rameumptom.

It's just the Church saying "look, see we aren't self-absorbed. We don't just care about our organization. We care about the world, and our members are lighting it". But all the Facebook posts and tweets and social media whatevers don't change the fact that the Church really is self-absorbed and cares only about itself. When it tries to convince you otherwise it is just PR. It doesn't even care about its members, let alone the rest of the world.

glass shelf wrote:I have an equal hatred of the yellow shirts. Once, I wanted to participate in a service activity, but I had no interest in purchasing and then wearing a yellow shirt, so I was informed that my help wasn't wanted.

Wow! They care so much more about advertising than they do about helping people. Really church? WTF?

What also kills me about this whole #LIGHTTHEWORLD, it that every Mormon covenanted to do all theses things when they were baptized. This isn't supposed to be some new thing. It's actually a part of baptismal covenants as found in the BOM. And everyone on FB is acting like it is some new awesome thing.

glass shelf wrote:I have an equal hatred of the yellow shirts. Once, I wanted to participate in a service activity, but I had no interest in purchasing and then wearing a yellow shirt, so I was informed that my help wasn't wanted.

I went and found another group that was happy to have me in the clothes of my own choosing.

The good people in the church are the resource that the leaders will keep exploiting until people step up and say, "no more!"

Yep, I wore the yellow Mormonad shirt for one day while helping clean up after the Joplin tornado. I went home and threw it away. Never again will I go around as a human billboard that basically reads, "Hey look everybody, the Mormons are here, the Mormons are here! See how wonderful and charitable we are! The Mormons are here!"

glass shelf wrote:I have an equal hatred of the yellow shirts. Once, I wanted to participate in a service activity, but I had no interest in purchasing and then wearing a yellow shirt, so I was informed that my help wasn't wanted.

I feel very fortunate that the yellow shirt phenomenon is only insisted upon by the truly zealous in this area. I've been to a few of these activities, and it's not unusual to see half the "servers" wearing the vests, and the other half not. I just say no thanks to the vest, and it hasn't caused any wrinkles this far. That's a travesty if they told you to go home if you didn't wear one. Shows what and where the priorities are.

The good thing is that open twitter allows this hashtag to be targeted by brave anti's. There are some good ones on there. If this brings light and truth to only one TBM it will have been worth it.

Here is a response to the challenge posted on FMH:

http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org ... challenge/

It made me smile.

And one more just to keep it real.... (and because I find it hilarious)

Reddit/r/exmo is getting into the spirit with this hashtag.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... ud_of_the/
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... orld_memo/
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... shtag_get/

These all point to memes. They are all safe and non-porn, but are rude. This will inevitably end up with satire in the search results of devout believers.

This does bother me, and it took me a while to figure it out.

Service is great.
Evangelizing is annoying.

When the two are combined, it makes it difficult to be annoyed by them. They are doing good! But at the same time, it just grits against me.

At the same time, I think it leads to a large bubble where a group of people think they are the ONLY ones doing service in the community. If you toot your horn too much, people assume that you are unusual in the world of giving and service. We've had a few LDS people who have interacted with our parish and are amazed at the service we provide, whether during the season or not. They are shocked when we have moving crews, dinners for the sick, hospital visits, donations to the food bank, drives, money for the poor, etc. This isn't because our parish is particularly amazing because almost all other churches do just as much work as we do. We aren't unique.

In the same sense, the LDS church is not unique in their service. While they should be thanked for their service, they don't do particularly more or less than the churches around them. However, they just love to tell us how amazing they are all the time while the rest of us just sort of collectively roll our eyes at them.

This is what I am posting to civilly express a few of my ideas about # lighttheworld

"I want to thank all the good people, community service organizations, and churches who make it a priority to give service whenever, wherever, and to whomever it is needed without seeking acknowledgment from others. There are some amazingly unselfish people and organizations here in Anchorage who consistently and quietly give generously of their time, talents, and money. You know who you are, May you continue to prosper with generosity in your heart, an able body, and the support of your friends and family.

Is it just me or have posts on Facebook about this died off? The first day was really annoying, the second day was almost as bad, day 3, nothing. Now watch, they'll all come back because of FHE tonight.

TheRunningmom wrote:Is it just me or have posts on Facebook about this died off? The first day was really annoying, the second day was almost as bad, day 3, nothing. Now watch, they'll all come back because of FHE tonight.

Perhaps this will be like the Veteran 22 day pushup challenge. A lot of people did a few days and then gave up. I did.