{"id":75588,"date":"2019-06-30T13:53:30","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T19:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=75588"},"modified":"2019-06-30T14:06:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T20:06:55","slug":"gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html","title":{"rendered":"“Gee, but it’s great to be back home”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Moulton<\/a>
There are still times when the mountains here take my breath away. Tyler Moulton took this photograph of Mount Timpanogos from the parking lot of a burger joint a few years ago, using his cell phone. I use it on this blog with his permission.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gee, but it\u2019s great to be back home:
\nHome is where I want to be.
\nI\u2019ve been on the road so long, my friend,
\nAnd if you came along
\nI know you couldn\u2019t disagree.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, while I\u2019ve been out and about since the last of April, others have been busy as well. \u00a0Including the good folks on what I call the Peterson Obsession Board. \u00a0And it doesn\u2019t matter in the slightest degree where I am:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same old story, yeah.
\nEverywhere I go,
\nI get slandered, libeled,
\nI hear words I never heard in the Bible.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh well.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve just returned from our ward\u2019s Sunday services. \u00a0It\u2019s good to be in our own congregation again after an absence of eight or nine weeks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sacrament meeting was a huge one, since it was simultaneously a missionary homecoming (for a sister who served in Alberta, Canada) and a missionary farewell (for an elder who will be serving in the Philippines). \u00a0I believe that we have eight missionaries currently serving from our ward.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It being the fifth Sunday of the month, we had a joint meeting of the elders quorum and the Relief Society\u00a0in the second hour. \u00a0Significantly, the lesson (taught very effectively and interestingly by our neighbor across the street<\/a>, a CPA and an MBA with a very great deal of experience as a corporate financial officer, overwhelmingly most of it outside of Utah) was about financial prudence, and particularly about avoiding unwise and even fraudulent investments. \u00a0The lesson was based on official Church materials, the production of which I can only assume was provoked by the deplorably high incidence of Ponzi schemes and affinity frauds and other such phenomena in Utah. \u00a0The frequency of such things seems, in my judgment at least, to represent a vulnerability of Latter-day Saint culture: \u00a0We trust each other, which is a good thing. \u00a0But our trust offers too-easy and too-tempting targets for bad people, or even, as our teacher stressed, for good but flawed people who have unrealistic dreams and who then become desperate when they find themselves in over their heads.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I suppose that I would rather live in a community with too much trust than in one in which nobody trusts anybody else, but surely there ought to be some middle ground between the two extremes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not, perhaps, entirely unrelated, here is an interesting perspective from Dr. Jeff Lindsay<\/a>, a prolific and valued contributor to the Interpreter Foundation<\/a> who has been living in Shanghai for the past eight years. \u00a0He\u2019s seeing Utah with rather fresh eyes, and liking what he sees:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBYU: A Beautiful Solution for the Needs of Many Families and Students in China\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Gee, but it\u2019s great to be back home: Home is where I want to be. I\u2019ve been on the road so long, my friend, And if you came along I know you couldn\u2019t disagree. \u00a0 Of course, while I\u2019ve been out and about since the last of April, others have been busy as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"Gee, but it's great to be back home"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Gee, but it's great to be back home: Home is where I want to be. I've been on the road so long, my friend, And if you came along I know you\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Gee, but it's great to be back home"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"    Gee, but it's great to be back home: Home is where I want to be. I've been on the road so long, my friend, And if you came along I know you\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-30T19:53:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-06-30T20:06:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/10\/Timpanogos.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html\",\"name\":\"\\\"Gee, but it's great to be back home\\\"\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-06-30T19:53:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-30T20:06:55+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\"    Gee, but it's great to be back home: Home is where I want to be. I've been on the road so long, my friend, And if you came along I know you\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"“Gee, but it’s great to be back home”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/\",\"name\":\"Sic et Non\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\",\"name\":\"Dan Peterson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Peterson\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\\\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Gee, but it's great to be back home\"","description":"    Gee, but it's great to be back home: Home is where I want to be. I've been on the road so long, my friend, And if you came along I know you","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Gee, but it's great to be back home\"","og_description":"    Gee, but it's great to be back home: Home is where I want to be. I've been on the road so long, my friend, And if you came along I know you","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html","og_site_name":"Sic et Non","article_published_time":"2019-06-30T19:53:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-06-30T20:06:55+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/10\/Timpanogos.jpg"}],"author":"Dan Peterson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Peterson","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html","name":"\"Gee, but it's great to be back home\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-06-30T19:53:30+00:00","dateModified":"2019-06-30T20:06:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045"},"description":"    Gee, but it's great to be back home: Home is where I want to be. I've been on the road so long, my friend, And if you came along I know you","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/06\/gee-but-its-great-to-be-back-home.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Gee, but it’s great to be back home”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/","name":"Sic et Non","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045","name":"Dan Peterson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Peterson"},"description":"\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}