The Wickedness of Hand-washing

For context, read comments on this Church Newsroom post about GAs getting vaccinated for COVID.

As a faithful Latter-day Saint, I was deeply saddened to discover the following image on the Church’s own website.

I am very disappointed to discover Church leaders–the men who I sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators–wading into such a politically fraught topic as hand washing without considering the effects of their words. I am especially disappointed to see repentance, a sacred gospel principle, being analogized with hand-washing, a wholly Satanic activity.

My family and I are deeply committed anti-hand-washers. We have not arrived at this conclusion lightly. We have done our research, and we will not be swayed by wicked and controlling government agencies such as the CDC, with their attempts to steal our liberty by forcing hand-washing on us.

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Would Jesus Heal Someone in a High Risk Pool? The Theology of Health Care Reform

Like many people I know, I was quite dismayed by the House’s recent passage of the abominable American Health Care Act, which seems to most fundamentally be about giving the rich a giant tax cut with the horrific side effect of making access to health care far more difficult for poor Americans in particular. (Don’t miss Michael Austin’s thoughts on this at BCC.) This one hits close to home—I was one of those who was uninsurable prior to Obamacare, due to having had the audacity to get treated for depression. I still remember the rejection letter I got from a health insurance company telling me that if I could manage to be symptom-free for seven years, they would maybe reconsider. The delicate question of how I was supposed to achieve the enviable status of being symptom-free for seven years with no insurance to pay for treatment was of course not addressed. I remember asking around about what to do, and people telling me that I should have just lied on the application and not mentioned the mental health care I’d gotten, especially given that it was paid for out-of-pocket; no one will ever know, they said. But possibly more out of neurotic paranoia that I would get found out than commitment to honesty, that didn’t feel like a real option to me, so I made my way forward with no insurance. I was lucky in that I was young and physically healthy, and yet every time I thought something be wrong with me, I would be sick with anxiety that it would turn out to be something serious and I would have no way to pay for treatment. Read More

30 and (probably) diabetic

You know how people always joke about their bodies falling apart when they hit milestone years? Well, now I know why. It’s totally true. (Okay, not really — if I really had to pick a point when my body failed me it would be when I got CFS, which was when I was 16. Still, I find this situation ironic.)

I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago to get general blood tests done so I could save money on my insurance next year. Most of the tests came back normal, but one test didn’t — my HgA1c level was high. For those of you not in the know (I wasn’t) this indicates that my blood sugar over the last few months has been high. Read More

To Be Healthier

Kevin had a nice post at BCC not long ago on losing weight. It is, after all the time of year for buckling down and deciding that this time, we’re going to do those hard things that we’ve been struggling with. While I’m fairly happy with my weight right now (I’m not quite where I want to be, but I’m steadily losing baby weight), it reminded me of a related goal I have this year: to be healthier. Read More