A Latter-day Voice

Romneynews

2012-01-30T10:28:00.001-05:00

I’ve watched the Republican primary battles with great interest. I follow presidential politics closely each cycle, and have been doubly intrigued to have prominent LDS candidates in the hunt. It has been interesting, of course, to see how the press and other candidates deal with Romney’s LDS faith.

This article which appeared in today’s Detroit Free Press (my local paper) caught my attention:

Mitt Romney's run for president spurs interest in Mormon faith

It’s a pretty favorable story – as most stories on the church are in the Free Press. There’s a sidebar in the paper that also comments on Romney’s father’s faith and its role in his political career:

Mormon faith helped George Romney decide to run for governor of Michigan

It’s inevitable that the church will turn up in conversations about Romney. I think at the face-to-face level with friends, most church members are happy to help clarify issues of facts around the church’s beliefs, as the Free Press article illustrates.

Personally, most of the non-member associates I have don’t make a big deal (to me, anyway) of Romney’s religion. Many of them see Romney the way the media portrays him -- as the defacto nominee who will win that nomination because of his business background and his superior campaign organization. The relative lack of concern about his faith may be a result of his father’s already having had a high-profile political career here, but I think it’s more likely that most people around here just don’t care.

Daddy Danger

2012-01-26T06:00:00.004-05:00

Norbert over at BCC posted a really thought-provoking post on Tuesday around the question, “What is the greatest threat to your family?” Without transcribing his post (please go read it; it’s really quite good), I’ll cut to the chase:

Norbert suspects that his instructor meant to ask What is the greatest threat to THE family, but in response to the question asked, he determined that he – the dad -- was the greatest threat.

Many commenters (myself included) identified with his perspective. I am a little conflicted on this topic, though, and wanted to explore it a bit more.

Certainly the reality of Section 121 holds for fathers perhaps more than in any other circumstance:

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion (v. 39).

For me, unrighteous dominion in the home is most insidious precisely because it is so easy to get there from here. Men are taught by the church to preside. Parents are taught to teach their children. There is an implied message that parents can be evaluated by how their kids behave. And so it is exceptionally easy for Dad to compel behavior in the name of “reproving betimes with sharpness.”

The other reason unrighteous dominion is so insidious is because the stakes are so high. The Proverbs teach “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it” (22:6). By golly, as a dad I want to ensure those kids are trained up right! But in doing so, I risk violating the terms of Section 121. In my zeal to have my kids “turn out right” I can easily do more harm than good.

There are some other complicating factors:

1. Many men (and maybe women, too, I suppose) really like the notion of control. I am one of those men. I am uncomfortable with uncertainty. Especially as a young father, I knew what a “happy family” looked like, and I was going to have one if it killed us.

2. Humans have an inborn “fight or flight” reflex that shows at the sign of conflict. Part of overcoming the natural man, I suppose, is overcoming this particular impulse. But those of us who lean toward the “fight” side of that pairing can be pretty tough to live with (and even dangerous in extreme circumstances).

3. Children are not highly predictable beings. Because they are constantly growing and learning, each day can be a new adventure for parents. For a dad who detests uncertainty, that can be particularly trying.

Section 121 actually offers a remedy, as well:

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;

By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile (v. 41-42).

Of course as a parent, we sometimes need to offer correction. It’s part of our job, but even that requires the proper approach according to Section 121:

Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;

That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death (v. 43-44).

I’ve written about this before, but the sharpness of this verse, as taught by Theodore M. Burton, is the sharpness of a clear photograph, not the sharpness of a caustic acid. So we can offer clear correction, but that correction needs to be enveloped in enough love that our children know that our faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.

There’s another thought that bears mentioning here. Our children have their agency. They will make bad choices. It is part of their earth-experience to do so. A friend of mine suggested that we should pray for our children to make their bad choices while they still live at home so that we are there to help teach them.

At some point, we are not responsible for the choices our children make – certainly by the time they are adults, but some might argue after age eight. We are responsible, as parents, to help our children feel the consequences of those choices so that they can learn right from wrong. In the end, however, our children will make their own choices.

I’ve been a parent for over 30 years, and my youngest child is 11, so we have a number of years to go before all our kids are out of the house. (We’ll never stop parenting, we’ve discovered, but the “away” parenting is very different from the day-to-day retail parenting of minor children.)

I’ve had some really great moments as a dad. And I’ve had some really bad ones. I can really understand Norbert’s suggestion that a father may be the biggest threat to his own family. Even a good, well-meaning father can make mistakes.

The good news is that the atonement extends to fathers, too. We can seek the forgiveness of our children if needed. We can repent. We can improve. We can take parenting classes. We can study. We can seek the help of a professional therapist if needed. We can listen to the counsel of our spouse. We can enjoy the guidance of the Holy Ghost.

As we approach the right behaviors in teaching our children, according to Section 121, there is a remarkable blessing available:

The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever (v. 46).

A good friend taught me that in his view, the greatest way that promise can be fulfilled is if our children (our everlasting dominion) come to us without compulsory means – that is that they want to be with us now and in the eternities.

More apostolic counsel some might have missed...

2012-01-23T08:51:00.000-05:00

Last week I blogged about apostolic counsel regarding beards. I must say, there were lots of hits to that post – it rose to one of my top ten posts in two days, and over the weekend it hit the top five. This one might not be so interesting. But I thought I’d note some other apostolic counsel that might have gone unnoticed.

Elder Scott spoke about temple worship in 2009. His talk is here.

In his talk, Elder Scott lists ten things we can do to improve our temple worship.

Number six on his list:

Remove your watch when you enter a house of the Lord.

Now, I attend the temple pretty regularly. And lots of people I see haven’t removed their watches. I’ve not heard anyone repeat Elder Scott’s counsel in any meetings. But I try to remember to take off my watch when I’m in the temple. Why? Because that bit of counsel is really helpful to me. It helps to center me on the moment that I am in the temple. I’m less tempted to think into the future to the next three things on my day’s agenda. And the act of removing my watch is a physical reminder of the timelessness of the work I do in the temple.

Do I believe that the removal of my watch when entering the temple is a commandment?

Nope.

Why not? An apostle said it in conference.

If it were a commandment, as I suggested in my last post, I suspect it would have been discussed more in conference and in policy documents from the church.

Is it good counsel?

You bet. I try to follow it, and it helps me to feel more “present” in the temple, just as Elder Scott said it would.

What about all those people wearing watches in the temple session?

What about them? They are not my responsibility. Maybe they didn’t pick up on Elder Scott’s counsel. Maybe they just forgot this time around to remove their watch. Maybe for some reason they need to wear a watch. In reality, it doesn’t make any difference at all to my temple worship unless I worry about it. Which I don’t.

I don’t think someone who wears a watch in the temple is making a grave error. Maybe for him or her the counsel isn’t as important because a watch is not a distraction as it is for me.

By the way, here’s Elder Scott’s complete list. There’s some really good stuff here:

Understand the doctrine related to temple ordinances, especially the significance of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

While participating in temple ordinances, consider your relationship to Jesus Christ and His relationship to our Heavenly Father. This simple act will lead to greater understanding of the supernal nature of the temple ordinances.

Always prayerfully express gratitude for the incomparable blessings that flow from temple ordinances. Live each day so as to give evidence to Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son of how very much those blessings mean to you.

Schedule regular visits to the temple.

Leave sufficient time to be unhurried within the temple walls.

Rotate activities so that you can participate in all of the ordinances of the temple.

Remove your watch when you enter a house of the Lord.

Listen carefully to the presentation of each element of the ordinance with an open mind and heart.

Be mindful of the individual for whom you are performing the vicarious ordinance. At times pray that he or she will recognize the vital importance of the ordinances and be worthy or prepare to be worthy to benefit from them.

Recognize that much of the majesty of the sealing ordinance cannot be understood and remembered with one live experience. Substantial subsequent vicarious work permits one to understand much more of what is communicated in the live ordinances.

Realize that a sealing ordinance is not enduring until after it is sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise. Both individuals must be worthy and want the sealing to be eternal.

Apostolic counsel on beards

2012-01-19T07:00:00.006-05:00

I really enjoyed reading a blog at my blogging-friend Middle-Aged Mormon Man's site the other day. The link is here. (Go ahead. It’s a quick read.)

MMM deals with two subjects: dress and grooming. And he got me thinking because he explained at least one of the reasons why he does not have a beard. He posted this quotation from a talk by Elder Russell M. Nelson:

To bear the priesthood means you have a personal responsibility to magnify your calling. Let each opportunity to serve help to develop your power in the priesthood. In your personal grooming, follow the example of the living prophets. Doing so gives silent expression that you truly comprehend the importance of “the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God.” Russell M. Nelson, October Conference, 2003.

He listed some other reasons, but they don’t matter to me at all.

I have from time to time reflected on why I have a beard. I’ve worn a beard off and on (several years on, several years off) since grad school over 25 years ago. And when anyone has asked me why I have a beard, my answer (thought, not always spoken) is, “Why not?”

I’ve only been asked to shave my beard once in all those years, and that was a few years ago when I was called to serve as an ordinance worker in the Taipei Taiwan Temple. I happily shaved. (As I told a young friend who thought it unfair that I had to shave, I would have gladly shaved my head to work in the temple.)

I’ve worn my beard while serving as a bishop (twice). The first time was in Latin America and I had a beard at the time of my call. It never occurred to me to ask if I could keep the beard. I just kept it. And no one said anything about it – not my stake president, not the area authority seventy who lived in our stake, not even Elder Hales, whom I chauffeured during his visit for a regional conference.

The second time was in the US, and I specifically asked my stake president at the time he extended the call. He said it was my choice. There was another bishop serving in our stake at that time who also had a full beard.

No one at work has ever asked me to shave, either. I’ve had a beard while working far from our home office in foreign assignments and also while working in the world headquarters of our Fortune 10 company.

My family likes my beard (although my youngest daughter doesn’t like it when I’m growing a new one; it’s too scratchy). My wife likes my beard, but has never pressured me to keep it.

I have no issue recognizing that in certain callings (for instance, temple service and full time missionary work) the church asks men to shave. That is the church’s prerogative, and I feel no need to justify that choice or to have an explanation. But except for Elder Nelson’s counsel as quoted by MMM, and the specific guidelines for temple workers and full time missionaries, I have seen nothing official that suggests a restriction on beards for men. (Yeah, I went to BYU, so I know they also have restrictive grooming standards, but BYU is not the church.)

And since reading MMM’s blog the other day, I’ve looked. Searching the last ten years’ worth of conference addresses and church magazines, I found lots of discussions about dress and grooming. The “dress” part is almost always around modesty for women (with a perfunctory nod toward men, also) and proper attire for blessing and passing the sacrament for young men (white shirts and ties preferred, but not required). And the grooming comments, also directed primarily at the youth, are summarized by the words “neat and clean.”

So what to do with Elder Nelson’s counsel? I could:

1. Ignore it, assuming this is one man’s opinion.

2. Interpret it as a dictum against beards and shave mine in obedience to the counsel of an apostle.

3. Assume I am following it. After all, I do look to the Brethren for guidance in my dress and grooming: I wear white shirts and ties (if not always a suit; sometimes I wear a sport coat and dress slacks) to church. My hair and beard are neatly trimmed and are quite conservative in their appearance.

Some background on how I feel about this sort of thing:

1. I dig obedience. Nephi was obedient and was blessed. Joshua was obedient and blessed. (Those are the two prophets I’m reading about right now as I’m reading for Sunday School and trying to keep up with my son’s Old Testament reading for seminary.) And I do sustain the apostles and first presidency as prophets, seers and revelators, so I’m anxious to be obedient. To obey is better than to sacrifice (see 1 Samuel 15). Blessings are predicated upon obedience (see D&C 130).

2. My mission president taught us an interesting lesson from his experience. Although of German descent, he lived in Idaho prior to his call as a mission president. He used to drive to Salt Lake for conference, and then home again. He liked to drive fast. In one particular conference, President Kimball reminded people in his concluding remarks to obey all traffic laws on the way home, and my mission president was crushed. The 55 mph speed limit was in force in those days on interstates, and he felt compelled to drive that speed because President Kimball asked him to. (Don’t start a discussion about why he wouldn’t obey traffic laws without the prophet’s specific request; that’s not the point.) So, obeying prophetic direction is a good thing.

3. Also on my mission I heard Elder Theodore M. Burton speak. He was a Seventy and was the Area Administrator (a predecessor to area presidents) for the area that included our mission. He taught a valuable principle for scripture study: the most important lessons are repeated in the scriptures. It’s more reliable, he taught us, to focus on doctrine that is found in multiple passages than in one half of one obscure verse. The most important truths are taught regularly.

4. I believe that we can often receive counsel specific to our situation and our circumstance in conference. The revelation that comes through the Holy Ghost may or may not be directly related to the message we’re hearing. President Eyring visited our stake and talked about this once. He said he’s learned not to disagree with someone who thanks him for speaking on a specific subject that the listener needed to hear, even if he did not specifically address that topic. He said he’s learned that sometimes the spirit will augment what he says so that a listener may get the message he or she needs. Similarly, I’ve noticed for myself that some messages in conference bear more weight based on my needs or questions at a particular time.

So with that background, what do I do?

1. Apparently when Elder Nelson made this particular comment it didn’t strike me enough to make an impression – at least not the impression that I shouldn’t have a beard. Many conference messages do strike me, by the way. I take notes in conference and I note specifically messages of importance to me.

2. It seems a no-beard reading of Elder Nelson’s comment has not been corroborated specifically in other conference addresses. I’ve heard no one else speak in those terms in other conference addresses, in other leadership meetings, or even in our post conference discussions of Elder Nelson’s talk.

3. I do not like the notion that whether I wear a beard or a white shirt (or whether a sister wears a particular style of dress) is a tacit indicator of my righteousness. And I don’t think Elder Nelson would be happy with that idea, either. (Elder Nelson has given plenty of talks suggesting that all of God’s children can qualify for his blessings, and plenty of the Brethren have reminded us that we should be accepting of diversity among us, encouraging all to come unto Christ.) I do my best to honor my covenants and to keep the commandments. I frankly wouldn’t enjoy looking at my fellow saints and wondering why they do or don’t shave or wear the same clothing as I do or have some number of piercings or tattoos. That said, I completely agree that we ought to dress and groom carefully for church to honor God (not to show off – remember those nasty Zoramites?).

As for me and my beard, what will I do? I don’t know. Probably nothing for now. But I’ll keep thinking about it. And you can bet if my wife or my bishop or my stake president asks me to shave it, I will.

PS: As I did some research for this post, I found a number of commenters on other related posts who claimed that President Hinckley taught "some years ago" that all priesthood holders should be clean shaven. If someone can provide me an accurate reference for that quote, maybe I'll provide a prize!

On the faithless Laman and Lemuel

2012-01-17T10:06:00.000-05:00

I remember when I taught gospel doctrine in my freshman year at BYU, I had a team teacher who used to say she thought old Laman and Lemuel got a bad rap. She imagined from time to time that it might not have been easy to have Nephi as a brother. And it was his record we were reading, after all.

I used to roll my eyes when she’d say these things as we prepared our lessons. And I’d hope she wouldn’t say them while we were teaching.

So it surprised me a little this past week in Sunday School as I felt a twinge of sadness for Laman and Lemuel. Our discussion was around their lack of faith, like that was their Chief Character Flaw. I’m not sure anyone meant the discussion to sound as it did, but from where I sat it sounded like “if they just had more faith, they would have been more like Nephi and less like, well, you know.” Less like themselves.

I don’t mean to defend Laman and Lemuel. They had their agency just as Nephi did. But as the parent of seven kids, I can tell you the notion that Laman and Lemuel and Nephi and Sam all had the same parents plays differently in my head. I know that I parented my first few kids very differently from how I’ve parented the last ones. My first kids taught me valuable lessons as a father, and my younger kids are the beneficiaries of those lessons. My father was the same way. I –- the youngest in my family -- benefited greatly from the sometimes challenging relationship that my older brother had with my dad. (I should point out that my older brother and my dad are both great men, and that they love one another completely. But my brother was my dad’s first teenager. Any of you who have had a first teenager understand. Those who haven’t, just wait.)

Laman and Lemuel were older when they left Jerusalem. They may have had a better –- or at least different -- understanding of what they were leaving behind than young Nephi. At least some of Nephi’s formative spiritual experiences came as his family traveled in the wilderness, when he was at an age that those experiences could shape him. His brothers did not have those experiences at that age. And so their experience was not the same as Nephi’s.

I don’t seek to absolve Laman and Lemuel from their poor choices. Of course one can go to the Lord in prayer at any age and learn His will. But consider how many general authorities talk freely about really coming to their testimonies while serving on a mission. Is there something about that experience at that time of life that affords a certain set of experiences? I think my own experience would suggest that there is. A young man who does not serve a mission will not have the same experiences. He can still gain a testimony and strengthen it, but it will not be the same experience. Similarly, it may be that Nephi’s older brothers did not have the same experiences as Nephi at least in part because of their age.

I don’t know about Lehi’s family, but I know that my younger children were born into a far more prosperous family than my oldest ones. My oldest three came while we were still in school. They had a dad who was preoccupied with school and working and all the stress that comes with poverty-line living. And then they lost their dad to establishing his career. My youngest children have had a completely different experience. (My younger children might point out that their parents are a lot older than their older siblings' parents, so the differences cut both ways.)

Nephi is right when he asks his brothers if they have sought the Lord’s help in understanding their father’s dream. We all can go to God for help and understanding. But there are lots of reasons Laman and Lemuel might not make that choice, might not have the faith, to seek divine assistance.

It is convenient to put black hats on Laman and Lemuel and white hats on Nephi and Sam and to simplify the good-guy / bad-guy myth of the Book of Mormon. But the record itself reminds us that even that story is nuanced: Sariah loved all her sons; Laman and Lemuel did follow their father into the wilderness; even Nephi examined his own personal flaws, recognizing that he was not perfect; and some generations of Lamanites were more righteous than their Nephite brethren.

We benefit, I believe, by remembering – particularly as we apply the Book of Mormon to ourselves – that the story is not a simple one, just as our lives are not simple.

What I taught about GAS...and how nobody died

2012-01-12T06:30:00.001-05:00

Last Sunday I taught Lesson One from the new Teachings of the Prophet manual. As I was preparing for the lesson, I determined to use parts of the overview of President Smith’s life included in the manual, since I assumed many of the high priests in our group are like me and don’t know a whole lot about President Smith. Furthermore, there’s plenty from the historical sketch that illustrates that President Smith practiced what he preached in Lesson One, namely living the gospel instead of being a member in name only.

I was also aware of some research about President Smith’s life that was not included in the biographical material. During the week of my preparation, J. Stapely over at By Common Consent provided more detail in that regard by linking an outstanding article in the Journal of Mormon History (J.’s post at BCC is here; the article is here, starting on page 120). In that article, BYU Rel. Ed. Professor Mary Jane Woodger presents compelling evidence from President Smith’s own journals that in addition to whatever physical maladies he may have had, President Smith also likely suffered from depression and anxiety disorders.

Prior to reading the article in JMH, I had decided not to mention what I’d heard about President Smith’s mental illness, but after reading the article, I felt like I should include it in my lesson. I can't say for sure I was inspired to do so, but I certainly could have been, and maybe I was. Of course, then I wondered about the balance of introducing material from outside the manual in my teaching compared with whatever benefit might accrue from sharing the information. I'm aware of the counsel to use the manuals and official sources in our lessons. And I'm also aware that the teacher, in the end, is the one called to teach.

Let’s be clear: the lesson I taught was from the manual. We read and discussed scriptures. We read passages of President Smith’s words. We illustrated them with examples from his life which were included in Lesson One and in the historical introduction in the manual. I did not teach a lesson on mental illness; I did not advocate for the rights of the mentally ill; I did not offer diagnostic or treatment recommendations (nor could I; I’m not qualified to do so).

What I did, however, is I pointed out, as J. did in his post, that there is considerable evidence from President Smith’s own journals that he likely suffered from depression and anxiety issues, and that those were likely a large part of his reason for his recuperative period mentioned in the historical overview. I also observed that it was unlikely that there would be any contemporary (to President Smith) diagnosis since the study of mental health at the turn of the 20th century was insufficiently developed to offer such a diagnosis. I added that perhaps this knowledge might comfort some who either wrestle with mental illness themselves or who have family members or close friends who do. I suggested that there is value in understanding that any illness need not be taken as an indictment of our worthiness or fitness for service to the Lord, as evidenced by the fact that President Smith served significantly and faithfully despite his illnesses, whatever they were. (We pointed out that he was not alone in serving while suffering with health challenges.)

There was, frankly, no discussion of the point. A few heads nodded. No one wondered why I had introduced this information that was not part of the manual (I identified it as such, by the way, since I suspect a fair number of our group would not have read the historical summary). (Oh, and no one died.) I think I was completely consistent with the instruction given to teachers at the end of Lesson One:

To help us teach from the scriptures and the words of latter-day prophets, the Church has produced lesson manuals and other materials. There is little need for commentaries or other reference material (quoted from Teaching, No Greater Call: A Resource Guide for Gospel Teaching [1999], 52).

It would have been interesting to go into more detail about his illness, but that was not the purpose of our lesson. The lesson was to talk about how we can live the gospel and not be members in name only, and I was happy to have ample material to illustrate that President Smith was a great example of that principle that he taught.

Slow Sunday: The impact of the fast

2012-01-09T08:50:00.002-05:00

As my wife and I discussed who we might include in our fast this past weekend, we were a little surprised at the length of the list of family members who have particular needs, ranging from children with employment concerns to extended family members with serious diagnoses. It caused me to reflect on our practice of fasting.

The law of the fast is well explained in Isaiah 58:

Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not (v. 5-11).

This description comes in answer to the question why the Lord does not recognize the fast of the Israelites (and smite their enemies), and the answer is that they are fasting wrong.

Our practice is to fast when we seek specific guidance (a newly called president might fast for inspiration in recommending counselors) or specific blessings (as in fasting for the health of someone who is sick, or for one’s own employment). I remember being taught as a child that fasting would be easier if I were fasting for something (when we used to say, only half-joking, that it would be better called "Slow Sunday" instead of Fast Sunday).

I’ll admit it: fasting has never come easily to me, natural man that I am, but I have learned to do it. I really learned to fast on my mission, where – contrary to standard policy, but with permission – our mission president urged us to fast once a week. He often reminded us, however, that the weekly fast was unique for our mission, and that when we returned home, he would recommend we make use of the monthly fast day. He also taught us that it was appropriate to fast for multiple concerns in one fast.

I thought about that teaching as I considered my list of people I was including in my fast yesterday.

The blessings promised by the Lord through Isaiah include personal blessings of health and prosperity (contingent upon our caring for the poor), but also that the Lord will answer our call. That is my hope and prayer as I consider those I love for whom I fasted yesterday. I am also aware that they will make their own choices and that blessings they receive are also contingent upon their faith.

I do not pretend to understand the cosmic accounting that measures my faith and the faith of others together with the Lord’s will. But I am grateful for his promise in Isaiah, and for the opportunity to lend my faith in their behalf.

Happy Kings Day!

2012-01-06T09:34:00.000-05:00

Sometimes known as Epiphany or Theophany, January 6 is a traditional holiday on which is celebrated the manifestation of the Son of God in the human form of Jesus Christ. Many Christians commemorate the visit of the Magi to the Baby Jesus. Hence the term Kings Day (or Three Kings Day).

Of course growing up I’d never heard of Kings Day. It was not part of our family celebration when I was a child (and my parents were active in the Presbyterian Church), and our conversion to Mormonism did nothing to bring the holiday alive.

I’ve really only had two brushes with the holiday (except, perhaps, for my enjoyment of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which is said to be from a story told on the eve of this holiday).

The first was in Germany on my mission. It was customary in some families for children to find bags of cookies or other treats hung on their door, presumably left by the visiting kings, just as they had done for the Savior. In others, eating of a special cake or plundering the goodies from the Christmas tree are common (though in my house this starts on Christmas morning!). My companion and I returned home from working on this day and found a bag of cookies on our door, left by a member family who lived not far from us.

The power of this act of kindness cannot be overstated. I had been in Germany less than two months and my companion and I did not get along well (largely, I think, because of my stubbornness at what I thought a “good” missionary should do and my lack of compassion toward a companion who had had a very different mission experience from my vision). We had enjoyed a last-minute invitation to an older couple’s home for Christmas dinner where neither they nor we quite knew what to do to make ourselves comfortable. (The families we knew best were either traveling or otherwise occupied.) I had been unable to reach my parents by phone on Christmas because of limited phone connections and their travel schedule (they were on a brief visit to my brother’s for the holiday before returning to Nigeria where my father was working at the time). Poor me.

The memory of this small act of kindness of a few cookies in a bag still stirs me.

My second experience was in Venezuela when my family and I lived there for my work. We had a certain mountain village we liked to visit. As we were driving there on a particular January 6 (I had forgotten completely that it was Epiphany), we were suddenly faced with three speeding horses with riders dressed in colorful robes that charged toward us, and then around us on both sides of our car. Only then did I notice the people lining the street watching the horsemen, and it was only some distance up the road that I sorted out that they represented the kings, and that we had inadvertently driven into a celebration of the kings.

(To this day I wonder if I missed a road block, but it would not surprise me if I didn’t; traffic in Venezuela was often a bit uncontrolled.)

It was kind of exciting to have them zoom past us, hooves clacking against the cobblestone street, and to see the whoosh of color run by. I wonder if the Magi who visited the Savior were slow and methodical in their journey or if they felt the urgency of the players who passed us in Maracay.

Once more, with feeling

2012-01-03T11:39:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I spoke about the separation of spiritual experience and emotion. Today I’d like to talk about the combination of the two.

I quoted Elder Packer in the last post in which he described how the Holy Ghost communicates with us: it whispers; it speaks understanding. In his description there was nothing to suggest that spiritual communication was also emotional.

Doctrine & Covenants 6 bears this idea out, speaking of Oliver’s experience with his testimony of the prophet Joseph and his work:

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time.

Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind; and now I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the Spirit of truth (Sec 6:14-15).

And also later the Lord reminds Oliver:

Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God (v. 23)?

That said, in Doctrine & Covenants 8, the Lord tells Oliver Cowdrey that the spirit speaks to mind and heart:

“Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart” (v 2).

And the Lord’s instruction to Oliver confirm that spiritual confirmation may come at least near the heart:

But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right (D&C 9:8).

Alma also hints at the heart as receiver of spiritual communication when he teaches the Zoramites:

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me (32:8).

It’s easy for me to see why some equate emotional response with a burning in the bosom. Except for me, that’s not the way it happens.

I can tell when a movie (or an AT&T commercial) is going to make me tear up. I know where the feeling starts and how the tears will come. Sometimes I have similar reactions in sacrament meeting, especially if someone relates an experience with which I can easily empathize. That tearing up, for me, is not the spirit bearing witness.

Other times, however, I will feel the burning in the bosom – the confirming witness that truth is being taught – and then, in response to that stimulus, I may have an emotional response, as well. Emotion, for me, comes after the spirit.

That is my experience, and it took me some time to sort all of this out for myself.

There’s another component of this process that is important to me. When teaching the Zoramites, Alma also says:

Yea, he that truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed (32:15).

Alma’s talking about the fact that the Zoramites’ humble condition makes them able to feel spiritual promptings. The role of humility in our being able to feel the spirit is significant in my experience. I’m not in anyone else’s skin, so I can’t speak for others. But for me, I need to be in a position to receive the witness. That may be because I’ve been studying something out for some time. It may be because I’ve fasted and prayed. It may be because I’m (finally) willing to follow the Lord’s will instead of trying to dictate to Him what I hope His will will be.

An experience:

Late in my high school years, I came home from a month’s foreign exchange experience in Europe to find my mother had signed me up for youth conference. I was not excited to go, but agreed to attend because my mother wanted me to (she almost never played the “mom” card, so it was impossible for me to say no to her). Conference was ok. There were classes and dances, and the normal stuff from a 1970’s youth conference.

Of course we didn’t sleep much. We ate dorm food. We had a dance until late into the evening on Saturday and met on Sunday morning (early, without breakfast) for a priesthood meeting (the girls were in a young women’s meeting), followed by a testimony meeting.

Like all the other boys, I was tired going into that priesthood meeting. It was a little hard to stay awake. Our visitor from Salt Lake (I don’t remember who he was) was an entertaining speaker though, and at least he kept me awake.

As he taught, I became increasingly interested in listening to him. He taught about the pre-mortal existence, the fall of Adam, and the plan of redemption. It was a message that touched my heart. I was not emotionally charged by what he said, but I felt that swelling in my breast that Alma described. I knew in my head and in my heart what he was saying was true. I knew more then – that day – than I ever had before that God loved me, that Jesus Christ had atoned for my sins, and that I could enjoy the power of his redeeming love in my life.

When I reflect on that experience now, I am often a little weepy. Not because the tears are a sign of the spirit’s confirmation, but because of the significance of the event for me in my life and the changes it prompted me to make in my thinking and in my plans, and the course it drove me to choose. It was a tender moment, and, yes, even a tender mercy in my life.

I’m grateful for the Lord’s speaking to my heart and my mind that day and many times since.

"Feeling" the Spirit

2011-12-29T16:40:00.001-05:00

Elder Packer taught a group of new mission presidents:

The voice of the Spirit is described in the scriptures as being neither loud nor harsh, not a voice of thunder, neither a voice of great tumultuous noise, but rather as still and small, of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it can pierce even the very soul and cause the heart to burn. The Spirit does not get our attention by shouting ("How Does The Spirit Speak To Us?", New Era, Feb 2010, from an address to new mission presidents from June 1991).

In the same address he said:

When we experience a spiritual communication, we are wont to say within ourselves, “This is it. Now I understand.”

In these two quotations, it is interesting that Elder Packer does not talk about emotional feelings. I have had plenty of times in my life when I’ve felt the influence of the spirit. And sometimes I have also felt great emotion. It took me some time to realize the difference for me.

I get emotional about a lot of things. I weep at movies. My kids joke that I cry often in church. When I used to travel more, I’d weep at the AT&T commercials they showed on my international flights (and I’d want to call my kids right then). Knowing that I weep easily, I have had to learn to avoid assuming that tears meant spirit.

Elder Packer’s second quotation above is the key for me. “Now I understand.”

I can point to specific times in my life when I have been able to say this. Marking my experience at those times, I’ve come to understand how the spirit speaks to me. Here is one of those experiences:

During my freshman year at BYU, I came to know some of the issues surrounding the prophet Joseph Smith. I had a roommate whose dad was not a friend of the church, and my roommate and I spent a lot of time talking about his concerns. I had by then had enough of my own experience to accept Joseph’s first vision and the Book of Mormon as true. But I was fuzzy on pretty much everything else. As I studied that year, I got more and more concerned about my own testimony.

As the time to put in my missionary papers drew near, I knew I wanted to serve. I resolved, consciously, to put my concerns about Joseph on a shelf, trusting my conviction about the first vision and the Book of Mormon. When I attended the temple for the first time, and subsequently during my time in the LTM (shortly before its re-birth as the MTC), I felt peace there. When I came to the temple for my own endowment, I felt the same peace I’d felt as a child at our family’s sealing.

After my mission, I continued to consider my concerns about the prophet Joseph and the things I could not piece together. I still felt unsettled, but continued onward, trusting what I knew to be true and hoping for resolution of the rest.

Some fifteen years after my mission I was teaching church history and the Doctrine and Covenants in Gospel Doctrine. As I was preparing for a regular class one week, I was prayerfully considering whatever sections were the subject matter. As I did so, it was as if a tumbler turned in my brain and pieces I had previously not understood fell into place. Without completely being able to explain what happened, I came away with more understanding – spiritual understanding – of Joseph’s role in the restoration. My testimony of God, of Jesus Christ and of the church was strengthened. And since then, that testimony has been reinforced from time to time with further understanding as I have sought it.

This particular moment of enlightenment was not emotional. It was not a booming trumpet that proclaimed the truth. I did not feel a rushing of wind. I did not see a vision. I simply understood what I had not understood moments before.

Update: Please see my second entry in this series, "Once more, with feeling"

Peace

2011-12-26T22:46:00.000-05:00

In Germany we called the day after Christmas “second holiday.” In the British Empire it’s known as Boxing Day. For me, it’s one of my favorite days of the holiday season.

I’m fortunate to work for a US company that shuts down between Christmas and New Year’s, and so I always have that week off work (unless I’m working at an overseas affiliate in a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas as I’ve done twice before – then I use vacation days).

As much as I love getting ready for Christmas (and despite whatever I’ve said to my lovely wife on Christmas Eve, I really do love getting ready for Christmas), I also love the relaxation that comes after the Big Day, too. We can calmly visit, play with the Christmas gifts (or read or watch them), eat left overs (from the Swedish Smorgasbord on Christmas Eve and the Christmas ham dinner and whatever cookies we may not have given away). Really sweet.

Our Christmas Day was delightful. We had a plan, since we had 10 am church added to our Christmas mix, and our kids were very supportive and helpful, allowing my wife to get to church plenty early to play the prelude. Our sacrament meeting was superb for several reasons:

1. Our deacons normally pass with eight young men and this week (perhaps anticipating a lighter attendance), they passed with only six, and we had a much larger than normal attendance, so the sacrament portion of the meeting took nearly twice as long as normal. That was really nice from my point of view, since it’s the point of the meeting, and it was cool to take the sacrament on Christmas Day.

2. We sang eight congregational hymns. All but the sacrament hymns were Christmas carols, and even the sacrament hymn was God Loved Us So He Sent His Son, so it also nodded to the Savior’s birth. Both our ward organists played, which was also cool.

3. Our bishopric were the speakers – each for five minutes or less. Lots of scriptures and tight testimonies. The spirit was terrific and their messages were really meaningful to me. They speak very rarely in our ward, and I’m glad when they do.

We opened “Santa” presents early in the day, then had our traditional breakfast (more of the smorgasbord from the night before) before going to church. We opened the rest of presents after church, while Skyping with our kids who were in the Pacific Northwest instead of at home. Amazing that we could be “together” that way.

I’m grateful for a holiday that brings me to focus on the Savior and on my family in the way that Christmas does. I know theoretically I could do this any day of the year, but there is something about Christmas that makes it special.

I always hit that moment in the days before Christmas where I’m sure that we will either not get everything done or that something will not be enough. And I’m always happy when I’m wrong. And this year, thank goodness, I was wrong again.

Peace.

Free Gift! Salvation

2011-12-22T20:51:00.001-05:00

We were reading 2 Nephi 2 in our family scripture reading tonight. This is the famous “opposition in all things” and “men are free to choose” chapter. But my favorite verses come earlier in the chapter. Lehi speaks to Jacob, who as a young man has already had his own vision of the Savior, and says,

And thou hast beheld in thy youth his glory; wherefore, thou art blessed even as they unto whom he shall minister in the flesh; for the Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free (v. 4).

He states that the law does not justify anyone (in fact, the law cuts people off from God). But:

Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth.

Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered (v. 6-7).

The ends of the law are only met through the redemption of Jesus Christ, the Savior. And to drive the point home:

Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise (v. 8).

From here, Lehi then expounds (now famously) on opposition – that the punishment brought by the law is required for the joy that may also come, and that those opposing forces are required in order for each to exist. Men are, after all, that they might have joy.

And the path to joy? Through Jesus Christ, of course:

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit (v. 27-28).

Here’s where the concept of free begins to be developed in an interesting way. Salvation is free – that is, it is available to all. But men are also free, precisely because the Savior has made them so through his redeeming sacrifice. And, according to Lehi, men are wise to choose to follow the Savior.

Salvation: a free gift. As I ponder the Savior’s birth this week, I’ll surely also ponder this great gift.

Christ is still in Christmas here...

2011-12-20T08:19:00.000-05:00

I have read for years about communities that are systematically excluding Christ from Christmas, with ever-increasing commercialization of the holiday, removal of religious symbols, and (in some cases) mixing of religious and secular symbols. (Here's a recent story.)

I’m happy to report that in my little town of Plymouth, Michigan, we still have a nativity scene in Kellogg Park, the “town square” in the heart of downtown. The park is also filled with Christmas trees sponsored by neighborhood businesses and organizations and decorated for the season. In addition to the crèche, there are also statues of three wise men riding camels that are moved closer and closer to the crèche until they are at the stable on Christmas. (The park also sports a large lighted menorah, and Santa has a house there, too, where he greets the children who come to see him.)

Not only is the crèche in the town square, but there are crèches that adorn the lawns of many of the churches in town, and the neighborhood yards, as well. (One of our neighbors used to have a sign in lights in their front yard, “Happy Birthday Jesus!”)

We attended holiday orchestra and choir concerts for my kids where we heard songs of the season, including religious songs (something that many districts won’t allow).

I’ve long believed that my family’s religious training is my responsibility. We pray at home, and I don’t particularly want my kids to pray in school. Our home has (my 11-year old daughter just counted them) 41 crèches. My wife’s piano students all see the three prints of the Savior we have in our living room. (A few years ago, the dad of one of those students – not LDS – defended us as Christian to one of his friends who claimed we weren’t, in part because of those prints.)

But I’m happy to live in a community where there is tolerance and acceptance of religious belief. We have many strong Catholic and Protestant congregations in our community and most of our non-LDS friends are active in one (which makes for tough missionary work, but great neighbors).

What about where you live? Do you see signs of Christ in Christmas?

A heap of guilt with a side of shame?

2011-12-15T06:00:00.017-05:00

One of the lessons participants in certain 12-step support groups learn is about the difference between guilt and shame. This is particularly helpful for co-dependents who may seek help through Al-Anon or Families Anonymous, or the church’s Family Support Group (a companion program to the Addiction Recovery Program, still in pilot stages in selected locations). As co-dependents let go of things that don't belong to them, they hopefully also learn to release guilt they have falsely carried related to their loved one's lives. Overcoming shame (for the co-dependent and for the addicted loved one) may be more difficult.

Alma teaches Corianton about the proper place for guilt:

And now, my son, I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance.

O my son, I desire that ye should deny the justice of God no more. Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point because of your sins, by denying the justice of God; but do you let the justice of God, and his mercy, and his long-suffering have full sway in your heart; and let it bring you down to the dust in humility (Alma 42:29-30, emphasis mine).

Guilt can be a positive force in our lives, if, as Alma teaches, we allow it to bring us to repentance.

Consider Enos’ experience:

And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.

And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.

And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away (Enos 1:4-6, emphasis mine).

His guilt was swept away! Awesome. And just right. That is precisely the point of the atonement (one point, anyway). Through the blessing of the atonement we have the opportunity to turn from our sins and change and be better than we were. Our guilt can be swept away.

Shame, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. If guilt is that feeling that motivates us to change – that Godly sorrow that moves us to repent and to call on the Savior’s love and mercy to rescue us, shame is that deceitful web of the adversary that would have us believe that there is no hope for someone like us, that since we’ve sinned, no one could love us, especially God. (Of course the fact is that God has already loved us; His Son has already paid the price of our sin long before we committed it!)

Shame may keep us from seeking repentance because we believe we are unredeemable, or the pain or embarrassment (for us or for those we love) of repenting will be too great.

It is easy to leap from shame to pride – to suggest that somehow shame is our fault. I would recommend against that. Pride is pride and shame is shame; they are not the same. There are some whose pride may prevent their repentance, but that is not shame. Shame is often externally imposed, perhaps even unwittingly (in my generation, many were reared in shaming homes: “You should know better than that. How could you do such a thing? We don’t do that in our family!”).

Well-meaning church teachers might also instill shame when they teach (even unthinkingly) that certain sins are so serious they are virtually unredeemable, even though that is clearly not true. President Packer taught in the most recent conference:

You may in time of trouble think that you are not worth saving because you have made mistakes, big or little, and you think you are now lost. That is never true! Only repentance can heal what hurts. But repentance can heal what hurts, no matter what it is ("Counsel to Youth," October 2011 General Conference, emphasis mine).

Guilt focuses on what we have or have not done. Shame focuses often on who we are.

When we care for one another by bearing one another’s burdens, comforting those who stand in need of comfort and mourning with those that mourn, ideally we are easing a burden, not adding to it with shame. (A nice discussion of this thought, with reference to Job and his "friends" here.)

The good news – that is, The Good News – is that the atonement can help us in both cases. Not only did the Savior bear the pain of all our sins, but he bore all our pain so that, as Alma taught, “he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12).

It is helpful for me to remember the story of the father with incomplete faith as recorded in Mark. The father approached Jesus, pleading with him to heal his son who was beset with a deaf and dumb spirit. The Savior teaches him, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (9:23). The father instantly confesses his belief, but then adds (perhaps sensing that the Lord already knows that his faith is weak), “help thou mine unbelief” (v. 24). The Savior does not chide him, nor does he refuse to help. Instead, he casts out the spirit and restores the boy to health.

It is helpful to remember that the Savior was willing to bless this boy and his imperfect father. And I believe he is willing to bless me. Even though I make mistakes that cause me guilt, they need not bring me shame.

The whisperings of the spirit

2011-12-12T09:17:00.001-05:00

One of the reasons I can say I have a testimony of the gospel is because of what happened in my temple recommend interview yesterday.

As our bishop’s counselor reviewed those standard questions with me (questions I still have memorized from my own decade of giving temple recommend interviews) I had what is still for me a remarkable experience, even though it’s happened before.

As he asked me the first three questions – about my testimony of God, the Eternal Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, about the atonement of Jesus Christ and about the restoration of the gospel – I felt a distinct change in my own heart as I affirmed my testimony and the spirit, in turn, reaffirmed it.

It was not an emotional thing. It was not earth shattering. But it was enough to remind me, and I’m grateful for that.

I remember the first time I really realized the power of those first three questions. I was bishop in our ward in Venezuela, and our mission president was a member of our ward. He asked me to give him a temple recommend interview. As he and I met in his apartment and he answered simply and affirmatively those basic questions of testimony, the spirit in the room was palpable. That particular interview continues as one of the great spiritual milestones of my life.

I can’t count the number of temple recommend interviews I’ve given, and not all of them are spiritual feasts. Most of them, in fact, were routine – pleasant enough, but routine nonetheless. And, frankly, most of my own recommend interviews have also been rather routine. I would say the spiritual experience I had yesterday is probably the exception rather than the rule. That may be because I’m not as sensitive as I should be, and it may just be that that’s the way it is.

My interview yesterday was not dramatic – I didn’t even mention what I felt to the counselor doing the interview. And I didn’t have the same experience when I later met with our stake president’s counselor for my second interview. But it was still significant to me because I noticed what happened, without my expecting, intending or even hoping it would. It was a small spiritual gift for me, one which I was grateful to receive.

Is this a prayer or a talk?

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

Like many I enjoyed the music and talks and the short film in the First Presidency Christmas devotional Sunday evening. We watched via the internet in our family room, which was great because I couldn’t go to church that day since I’m recovering from surgery.

I had a bit of a struggle at the beginning, however. I shouldn’t have. I know I shouldn’t have. But I did. I know I’m not perfect, and Sunday night was just one more example of that.

It was Brother Beck’s opening prayer cum talk.

I’m old enough to remember Elder McConkie’s counsel on the length of prayers. Here are two quotations from Mormon Doctrine (I know it’s out of fashion, but these guidelines still stick in my head). The first is from Elder McConkie:

Certain proprieties attend the offering of all prayers. Public prayers, in particular, should be short and ordinarily should contain no expressions except those which pertain to the needs and circumstances surrounding the particular meeting then involved. They are not sermons or occasions to disclose the oratorical or linguistic abilities of the one acting as mouth. (2nd ed., p. 582).

In the second, Elder McConkie quotes Francis M. Lyman who was president of the Quorum of the Twleve:

It is not necessary to offer very long and tedious prayers, either at opening or closing. It is not only not pleasing to the Lord for us to use excess of words, but also it is not pleasing to the Latter-day Saints. Two minutes will open any kind of meeting, and a half minute will close it (Improvement Era, 50:214, 245; quoted in Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed., p. 583).

I don’t know where or when I first encountered these guidelines, but I confess that it’s now sometimes hard to listen to a prayer without measuring it against these. And I did it on Sunday night.

I had to consciously tell myself to knock it off. And it was hard to do. And so the opening prayer wasn’t as meaningful to me as it could have been.

And, by the way, that’s my fault, not Brother Beck’s.

A friend, jmb275, posted a great item over at Wheat & Tares yesterday on reigning in the analyst. And that’s something I need to work on. There are times – and I think during a prayer is one of them – when it’s a time for devotion, worship, and feeling the spirit, not analysis of the speaker’s motivation, education or erudition.

I'm feeling a little Christmas...

2011-12-05T05:54:00.002-05:00

Now that Thanksgiving is safely behind us (and I LOVE Thanksgiving, by the way), and Black Friday is over (and I HATE Black Friday), and Cyber Monday is past (I'm abivalent about Cyber Monday since I sort of ignored it)...

Our lights are up outside; our tree is up inside. Our collection of Nativity scenes are spread all around the house. Christmas carols are playing on the family CD player (much to my curmudgeonly 15-year-old's dismay).

Here's a little video to get you in the spirit:

Merry Christmas.

Can we have the priesthood without the church?

2011-12-01T10:17:00.001-05:00

In my post on Monday, I suggested that the church is what allows us to have the ordinances of salvation. Commenter Michael suggested with a finer point that the priesthood allows those ordinances, not the church organization.

For me the two – the priesthood and the church -- are inextricably linked. Here’s why:

It’s true the priesthood came first, with the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood in May 1829 (see D&C 13) and the Melchizedek Priesthood following in the same year (confirmed in D&C 27:12).

Section 84 reaffirms that the priesthood is the means by which ordinances are performed and have validity:

And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live (D&C 84:19-22).

I understand “this” in the final line of those verses to refer to the power of godliness, which is derived from the authority of the priesthood used in performing the ordinances of the priesthood.

Those verses alone would suggest that Michael may be right: the priesthood is all that is required, not the church itself.

But D&C 20 makes clear that the priesthood is a part of the church:

No person is to be ordained to any office in this church, where there is a regularly organized branch of the same, without the vote of that church (v. 65, emphasis mine).

And so is the ordinance of baptism:

And again, by way of commandment to the church concerning the manner of baptism—All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church (v. 37, emphasis mine).

And so is the sacrament:

It is expedient that the church meet together often to partake of bread and wine in the remembrance of the Lord Jesus (v. 75, emphasis mine).

The Lord not only revealed these organizational matters, but also the name of the church:

For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (D&C 115:4, emphasis mine).

Of course this pattern is not new. We read similarly in the Book of Mormon about the establishment of the church and its ordinances in the time of Alma and the naming of the church as well.

Elder Oaks reaffirmed the relationship between the priesthood and the church in his talk in the October 2010 conference:

During His earthly ministry, Jesus Christ conferred the authority of the priesthood that bears His name and He established a church that also bears His name. In this last dispensation, His priesthood authority was restored and His Church was reestablished through heavenly ministrations to the Prophet Joseph Smith. This restored priesthood and this reestablished Church are at the heart of the priesthood line (“Two Lines of Communication,” emphasis mine).

I accept that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encompasses the restored priesthood of God, restored and revealed through the prophet Joseph Smith and that that priesthood authority and power are present in the church today. I have personally benefitted from that priesthood power, both in the ordinances of the gospel and the organization of the church and the blessings each has brought into my life.

Pure Religion: Does it require a church?

2011-11-28T10:15:00.000-05:00

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world (James 1:27).

I admit that for most of my adult life, I’d paraphrase the first half of this scripture and leave the second half out. As we discussed it yesterday in Sunday School, however, I realized the problems such an approach causes: One can visit the fatherless and widows and relieve their suffering without a church.

Is that what James really means?

We developed a list of things “religion” is – primarily a system of belief or faith. Our instructor moved on before it occurred to me that religion is also the performance of ordinances.

The key is in the second half of the verse: keeping oneself unspotted from the world. The simple answer is that we should keep the commandments to keep ourselves unspotted. And yet we all sin. We all have need of repentance. And we all have need of the sacrament as part of that process of ritualized cleansing.

Without the church, without the priesthood, there is no sacrament. Nor are there other saving ordinances of the gospel. And without those, we cannot be unspotted from the world. Indeed, having the church and the temple as an occasional place of refuge is a great blessing in the second half of Peter’s description of pure religion. And, if we heed prophetic counsel, it can also be an enabler in the first half.

A Grateful Heart

2011-11-24T10:35:00.000-05:00

A sign hangs on our kitchen which has a quotation from George Herbert: "Thou that has given us so much, give us one more thing, a grateful heart."

Herbert was a Welsh-born English poet, orator and cleric. He served a stint in Parliment during the reign of King James, but returned to the ministry after King James' death.

I was surprised and happy to find the poem from which the quotation was lifted (and apparently altered). The final stanza is offset just as Herbert had it done when the poem was originally published:

GRATEFULNESSE
by George Herbert (1593- 1633)

Thou that hast giv'n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a grateful heart.
See how thy beggar works on thee
By art.

He makes thy gifts occasion more,
And says, If he in this be crossed,
All thou hast giv'n him heretofore
Is lost.

But thou didst reckon, when at first
Thy word our hearts and hands did crave,
What it would come to at the worst
To save.

Perpetual knockings at thy door,
Tears sullying thy transparent rooms,
Gift upon gift, much would have more,
And comes.

This not withstanding, thou wenst on,
And didst allow us all our noise:
Nay thou hast made a sigh and groan
Thy joys.

Not that thou hast not still above
Much better tunes, than groans can make;
But that these country-airs thy love
Did take.

Wherefore I cry, and cry again;
And in no quiet canst thou be,
Till I a thankful heart obtain
Of thee:

Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare days:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Atonement Blessings: Give Peace A Chance

2011-11-21T06:00:00.004-05:00

I am grateful for the atonement. Why? Because of what I have come to learn through my own experience with the atonement. The thoughts for this post grew out of discussions my wife and I have had about the atonement as she prepared a talk for this past weekend’s stake conference on the same subject. (Her talk was outstanding, by the way!)

Perhaps the first blessing of the atonement (though maybe not the first one I realized in my own life) is the free gift of resurrection. Through the Savior’s resurrection, we all overcome the physical death that comes to us because of the fall.

The first blessing I realized from the atonement, however, is the gift of repentance – the opportunity to right a wrong. I can think of times when my parents taught me this principle when I was a small child, before I really needed repentance (though we didn’t know that at the time; we didn’t leave our protestant congregation for the LDS church until I was nearly nine). I learned as small child the power of apologizing and trying to correct a mistake. As my wife points out in her talk, the value of repentance is that it helps us get in a place to feel the influence of the Holy Ghost.

And for many years, I believed repentance was the key to the blessings of the atonement in our lives. As a bishop some years ago I watched the atonement come alive for more than one person who sought to return to the Lord’s path. And as a father, I’ve enjoyed the healing balm of the atonement as I’ve recognized and corrected errors in my own parenting.

But in the last five years or so, I’ve come to understand another benefit of the atonement, namely that I can forgive someone else. I had always assumed the atonement was so I could seek the Lord’s forgiveness. But now I believe it is just as important for me to forgive. And I can only do that effectively because of the atonement.

In Alma 7 we read of the power of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ:

And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities (v. 11-12).

Because the Lord has taken upon himself the pains and afflictions and infirmities of every kind (including mine!), I can freely forgive. I can do so without expectation of retribution or recompense. I can allow societal and legal consequences to fall where they may, but I do not need to exact my pound of flesh from one who hurts me because the Savior has made me whole. The atonement has offered me the healing balm I need.

One of the key products of forgiveness for me is peace, because when I forgive, I can leave behind the anger and resentment that I otherwise carry around with me. The act of “letting it go” lightens my burden (by laying it at the Savior’s feet).

My wife concluded her talk with this verse from John. It is, for me, the gift of the atonement most available to me in this life:

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27).

That's a peace I'd like to give a chance.

Unbridled Optimism

2011-11-15T09:26:00.001-05:00

When I was studying literature and theatre history back in my BYU days (when we rode dinosaurs to class and dirt was new), the prevailing thought was that there would never be a great LDS tragedy. The reason: the atonement is essentially a message of joy and reconciliation, and tragedy is not part of The Plan.

That may be, but it still seems there are plenty of folks in and out of the church who struggle, who do not see hope, or who simply prefer to tear down rather than build up. Optimism, they say from a jaded perspective, is naive; it ignores the pain and suffering of the world; criticism makes us stronger.

My son taught family night last night, and his lesson came from Gordon B. Hinckley’s Standing For Something (thanks to my lovely wife’s arm twisting – er, encouragement).

My son started with the quotation from the beginning of Chapter Nine ("Optimism in the Face of Cynicism"):

My plea is that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that as we go through life, we “accentuate the positive.” I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment and endorse virtue and effort (p.99).

Perhaps because my son is 15, and perhaps because I am his father, my son tends to favor cynicism, so his choice of this topic was ironic and delightful. It’s frankly a topic my lovely wife addresses regularly in our home. And she, I must say, is a pretty great example of seeing the positive without living in a sugar-coated world.

When I think about President Hinckley, it’s hard not to think of his unbounded optimism. He spoke often about the positive things of the world in which we live, the brightness of the future of the church, and hope for those who love the Lord.

I’m not surprised by his optimism, either. He was a prophet. He more than anyone understood the way this game of life will end. He understood better than most who would win, and he was aligned with the winning side.

Optimism does not require our ignoring suffering. But what it allows us to do is to have hope in the face of suffering. The savior’s atonement allows us relief from our personal suffering, knowing the Lord knows what we feel and experience. And as we bear one another’s burdens and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, as we care for the poor and needy, as we live our lives filled with the pure love of Christ, we can be conduits of hope for others.

I do not believe President Hinckley’s optimism was based in naiveté, but rather grew out of his prophetic mantel. And I’m happy to try to reflect it in my own life, as well.

"Important, But Not Essential"

2011-11-10T06:30:00.003-05:00

I had an interesting phone call this week. I was a participant in the latest Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life poll. The caller identified herself as being a part of the Pew Research group, assured me it was not a sales call, and confirmed I was the youngest adult male over 18 in the house.

She asked a number of sets of questions. First were questions on specific political figures. I was to rate each one on a four point scale, and she asked about Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. (Only Sarah Palin got the lowest mark from me.)

She asked about my religious affiliation and when I selected Mormon from her list, she then confirmed that I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (her list included the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Community of Christ and “another Mormon group”).

She asked a series of questions in which I had to choose the statement I agreed most with (the toughest of those was a question on abortion because there was no nuance in the statements). She asked a group of questions about things that were extremely important, somewhat important, not very important and not at all important, including having children, being married, and having a high paying job.

She asked about whether I thought Mormons (or other religious groups) were targets of discrimination. And she asked whether I thought Mormonism was similar (very similar, somewhat similar, not very similar, not at all similar) to Judaism, Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity and Islam. She asked if I held a current temple recommend and confirmed my age and income level.

But most interesting to me was the section from which this post’s title comes. She asked some specific doctrinal and behavioral questions and asked for each item if I thought the item was essential, important but not essential, not very important, or not at all important. The items included believing that Joseph Smith was a prophet and translated the Book of Mormon, caring for the poor and needy, believing that Jesus was resurrected, abstaining from coffee, abstaining from alcohol, not attending R-rated movies, among others.

As she worked through her list, I did a quick calculus in my mind to sort out what parts of my beliefs are essential and what parts are important but not essential. I created a quick forced-ranking, and I acknowledged that just because I have a testimony of the truthfulness of a particular thing, it does not necessarily mean that thing is essential.

In the end, for me at the moment, there were few essentials: acceptance of Christ’s mission and keeping his commandments. Everything else was important but not essential. Even as I worked that through in my mind (in the few seconds we stayed in this section), I realized that although logic would suggest an acceptance of Joseph’s role as a prophet would make my keeping the commandments revealed through him easier, it was not essential in my rubric of the essential things’ being acceptance of Christ’s mission and keeping his commandments.

I will continue to think about what is essential and what is important, but not essential. I’d be interested in knowing what you would put on each list.

From weakness strength

2011-11-07T08:59:00.002-05:00

My present church assignment is to work in the Addiction Recovery Program as a group leader. The Addiction Recovery Program, and its companion the Family Support Group (not yet available everywhere), are there to assist those struggling with addiction and also to assist their loved ones. They are twelve-step approaches to help one -- either an addict or a loved one -- learn to enter recovery.

I’m not new to twelve step programs; I actively participated in another 12-step program before working with ARP (and I still participate there). One of the things we do in a 12-step program is to acknowledge our own powerlessness over addiction and over the lives of others. In accepting our own powerlessness, we also admit our own weakness.

We spend a lot of time in addiction recovery talking about weakness, and one of the steps of recovery is to prepare to have God to remove our character weaknesses; the next is to ask God to remove our shortcomings.

What I’ve wondered about over the last while is the difference between our weakness and our weaknesses.

Often when people (including me, like here) paraphrase the weakness scriptures (2 Nephi 33:4, Jacob 4:7, Ether 12:27, to note a few) they say God will make our weaknesses into strength. But Ether 12:27 reads:

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

This verse talks about weakness, not weaknesses. In fact, all of the verses in the topical guide on this subject use the collective noun weakness, not the plural noun weaknesses.

It makes me wonder just what that weakness is. I think about what King Benjamin taught:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father (Mosiah 3:19).

I wonder if our weakness is our natural-ness –- the fact that by our nature we are not submissive; by our nature we do not yield to the enticings of the spirit. Any individual weaknesses I have stem from this overarching weakness, namely that I am natural.

In both Ether and Mosiah we read the remedy: we must come unto Christ. We must humble ourselves. We must yield to the enticings of the Spirit. We must accept the blessings of the atonement in our lives. We must have faith. We must submit.

In those acts of submission, those acts of humility before God, those moments of faith we become strong. We receive the power of the atonement in our lives and become prepared to yield to the enticings of the spirit.

As we, through the grace of Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice, conquer our weakness as humans, God will help us conquer our weaknesses through the blessings of the atonement.

It's a Small(er) World After All

2011-11-03T09:20:00.000-04:00

The bloggernacle, the world of LDS blogging, became just a little smaller for me yesterday.

I had lunch with jmb275, a perma at Wheat & Tares. It was nice to put a name and face with a blogger id. Thanks to jmb for the suggestion we meet.

It happened that I mentioned Ann Arbor, Michigan in a comment on a post at W&T a while ago, and jmb asked if I lived there. Turns out I live east of Ann Arbor and he is just west. We met for lunch at a sandwich place and learned a little bit about one another. I learned, for instance, that although I complained about the cold weather on my mission in Germany, I had nothing on jmb who served his mission in Russia (yikes). And I learned a bit more about Wheat & Tares.

Of course the blogging community is huge, and even the LDS blogging community is unwieldy for me. I’ve identified a few blogs (some listed on the blog roll to the right of and below this post -- scroll down past the archive if you're dying to see it) that I like. Some are subject- or point of view-specific, authored by one person, like Keepapitchinin or Middle-aged Mormon Man.

Others are “group” blogs that feature multiple authors and many themes and ideas. Wheat & Tares is one of those. It has a fairly diverse group of regular bloggers who are linked by their connection to the LDS community. Some would be change agents in the church; some seem to like to stir up discussion; some blog from specific personal experience.

Frankly, I’m not wild about every voice at W&T or at the other group blogs I follow, but I like the fact that there are a variety of voices from which I can choose. Even the voices I don’t agree with provide me a different point of view, and perhaps a window into how others in my faith community may feel. Understanding those divergent points of view, I believe, puts me in a better position to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.

And sometimes they move me to think differently than I have before.

jmb mentioned to me that he didn’t blog for others but more for himself. I suspect a lot of us blog for therapy to some extent. I believe there are others who blog in order to convince others of a point of view (otherwise, how could there be all those political debates?), but my observation is that most of us are not swayed by an opposing argument no matter how well reasoned. Instead we tend to look for self-confirming evidence of opinions we bring with us. I’m no different, I suppose.

What does move me, however, particularly when I read a point of view I had not considered, is when that new point of view acknowledges what I may already know and feel, and adds a new dimension to my experience. Often (usually) it is not an admonition that I must change my thinking (I don’t want to be told how to think any more than the next guy), but an account of someone else’s faith journey that differs from my own can be compelling and deserves my respect.

Anyway, it was great to meet jmb. At least for a while, I’ll likely read his posts and comments a little differently since he is no longer completely anonymous to me.

Good news and bad news: Who are you again?

2011-10-31T09:24:00.000-04:00

The good news is I was praying for my son last night in our family prayer. The bad news is I couldn’t remember his name.

Those readers without children (or with only one) may find this hard to believe, but even if you grew up with siblings in your family, you might remember that your parents got your name wrong from time to time.

It would have been less embarrassing to me if the son whose name I forgot had not been kneeling right next to me. And if he weren’t the only son left at home.

His comment after the amen: “Well, at least you went through the names in order.” (I could have added, “At least I didn’t confuse you with one of your sisters.”)

My favorite experience with name-blur was the night I came home from my mission. It’s important to note that I have one brother, David, and he is seven years older than me. All the way home from the airport, my mother was calling me by my brother’s name. I was still getting used to the fact that I had a first name at all, so I wasn’t bothered by it. Dad found it very funny.

As we were sitting down to dinner, Dad was still ribbing Mom about calling me by my brother’s name, and then he turned to me and said, “David, will you say the blessing?”

There’s some lesson there about stones and glass houses.

The good news is, I know God knows my sons and me (and my wife and daughters, too). I can only assume that since he’s perfect, he doesn’t mix up their names as often as I do.

But I’d rather have him call me the wrong name than not call me at all.

Any day without a kidney stone is a great day

2011-10-27T07:59:00.000-04:00

Monday was a great day this week. Because I didn’t have a kidney stone on Monday.

Of course, there are many, many days I don’t have a kidney stone. But Monday was especially sweet.

Why?

Because Sunday I had a kidney stone. And Monday I didn’t.

Sunday: Pain. Monday: No pain.

Sunday: Wondering if I should go to the ER. Monday: Not worried about the ER.

Sunday: More pain. Monday: No pain.

Sunday: Lots of ibuprofen. Monday: No ibuprofen needed, thanks.

Sunday: Eight glasses of water in two hours without any, er, relief. Monday: Water (and relief) when I wanted it.

Sunday: Grumpy dad. Monday: Dad's back at work so no one at home can see if he's grumpy.

Sunday: Worrying if this is ever going to end (even though I know it will). Monday: No worrying. (Being happy.)

This was my third kidney stone in nearly 15 years. Fortunately, I know it when it happens thanks to a patient doctor’s instruction (and corroborating evidence on WebMD and the Mayo Clinic website) the first time around. I had no fever or nausea, so there was no need to go to the hospital. Just lots of fluids and waiting. I know that I’m luckier than some who have a much tougher time of it.

Lehi had it right when he said

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility (2 Nephi 2:11).

All those things I wrote about Monday were also true on Tuesday. But Monday was something special because it was juxtaposed to the misery of Sunday. The way things are can be defined by what they are not. Comparing and contrasting is the way we see things, the way we learn things, the way things show up in life.

Yes, any day without a kidney stone is a great day. But the next day after the kidney stone passes is especially sweet.

"I know the scriptures are true"

2011-10-24T15:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was, by attendance counts, the most popular sacrament meeting of the year in our ward: the Primary Program.

I have always loved the Primary, ever since, as a child, I attended Primary with my Mormon friend Kerry. It was the first LDS church meeting anyone in my family attended. I first taught in Primary before my mission, when it was still meeting during the week. Through the years I’ve gotten to visit as a bishopric member and substitute in lots of classes (usually my own kids’), and even take a few weeks subbing as the Primary music leader, one of my favorite things to do.

Our ward’s Primary presidency did a few really cool things with our program this year. Of course it was a blend of songs and short spoken parts from all the kids in the Primary.

I’m not quite sure how they did it, but somehow all the words that the Primary children spoke were their own. I don’t know if the Primary leaders took notes during the year and recorded thoughts and then pieced them together, or if they asked specific kids their feelings about particular themes. But every child who spoke spoke his or her own words.

The other thing they did was that classes did not march to the podium together. Instead, ages were mixed on the stand, so that 10- and 11-year olds helped 3- and 4- year olds get to the stand, climb up and speak (well, most of those little ones had no trouble speaking once they heard how cool their voices were over the microphone…). More often than not, it was older children helping younger children, not teachers or presidency members doing so. My 11-year old daughter (an age at which being in a Primary program could seem a little childish) was thrilled to help some of the younger children.

Of course the kids sang beautifully (and more than just in a Professor Harold Hill Think System kind of way). We have a large Primary, so even longer songs, where some clearly didn’t know the second verse, had plenty of support. The ward choir joined with the older Primary kids to sing “How Will They Know,” one of my favorite Primary songs. Our super-talented Primary music folks did a great job keeping the energy up in the singing, and the children followed their music leader like a choir. (The fourth verse of “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer” was particularly dramatic.)

By the end of the program, there was quite a sweet spirit in the room; I also knew from that witness that the scriptures are true.

Something you probably won’t hear in General Conference: "Be the coffee"

2011-10-20T10:09:00.000-04:00

An object lesson I heard in a stress reduction class I attended with my lovely wife yesterday evening:

There are three pots of boiling water. One pot of boiling water has carrots in it. One has eggs. The third has coffee grounds.

After a period of boiling, what has happened?

The carrot, which started out straight and strong has become soft.

The egg appears the same on the outside, but the inside has become hardened.

The coffee grounds have not changed, but instead have changed the water.

If the boiling water is adversity, which do we want to be? Do we want to be the carrot that weakens its resolve in the face of adversity? Or the egg, that hardens its heart? Or do we want to be the coffee which changes the boiling water into something useful?

Of course the story works – like so many object lessons – if you don’t think about it too hard. Yes, we could change the coffee to herbal tea to make it more palatable to a Mormon sensibility. And we could argue that maybe we need to be more flexible in adversity so that cooked carrot may be a good thing. And we could argue that a firm cooked egg is more useful (and durable) than a raw one.

The fact is, in any case, that adversity will change us. It will draw things out of us that we did not know we had in us – good and bad. And it’s likely it will come to all of us. And it just might (if we let it) make us better.

"God must not think too much of you..."

2011-10-17T07:00:00.002-04:00

I was listening to a Mormon Identities podcast from the Mormon Channel in which Richard and Linda Eyre were the guests. I’ve read a few of the Eyres’ books over the years and almost passed on this particular podcast, but I’m glad I didn’t, if only for this story that Richard Eyre told.

The Eyres and host Eric Huntsman were discussing the fact that our kids come to us not as a lump of clay just for us to mold, but that they bring genetic elements and (according to our LDS belief) they also bring something of who they were in the premortal existence. As Linda Eyre said, they come as who they are.

This principle is important when we think about those families who have apparently perfect children and parents who seem to take credit for their children’s perfection. Richard told this story:

We were in a Sunday School class once where we were visiting. No one knew us. And it was on parenting. And, uh, there was one guy there who, bless his heart, he just was a know-it-all. You know, he had all the answers and he just kept bragging, and he’d say, “Well the way we did it with my son the valedictorian and the quarterback…” and then he’d give some thing, you know. This happened maybe ten times during the class, and you just got the impression that all his kids were perfect and he was perfect and blah, blah, blah, and I knew it was bothering people.

And then, at the very end of the class a little fellow who hadn’t said a word got called on and he stood up and addressed this guy that had all the answers. I’ll never forget what he said, Eric. He said, “Excuse me, sir, but God must not have thought too much of you, sending you all those easy kids.”

I loved this story. It reminded me that as parents we do have a role to teach and guide our children as best we can. But in the end, our children will make choices and they own those choices, their parents do not.

Years ago I read an article in which Martin Sheen was telling how he had at the time intervened in his son Charlie’s life. At the time (this was years ago, not the most recent binge of Charlie Sheen weirdness), Martin did something to move Charlie toward recovery from his addictions. Charlie subsequently said his father had saved his life. Martin corrected that thought: He said he did not save his son. Charlie saved himself. Charlie owned his recovery.

I believe that we should neither take responsibility for our children’s mistakes, nor credit for their successes. Of course we can mourn with them when they fail. And we can celebrate with them when they succeed. But it is their failure and their success, not ours as parents.

To be sure, environment is an important element in rearing our children – both the environment of our home and the world in which we live.

Elder Packer has said:

The measure of our success as parents, however, will not rest solely on how our children turn out. That judgment would be just only if we could raise our families in a perfectly moral environment, and that now is not possible.

It is not uncommon for responsible parents to lose one of their children, for a time, to influences over which they have no control. They agonize over rebellious sons or daughters. They are puzzled over why they are so helpless when they have tried so hard to do what they should (Ensign, May 1992, p 68).

He goes on to speak of the power of the sealing ordinance eternally to help our children find their way home.

I believe this concept serves as a comfort and a warning to parents.

If we acknowledge that our children are each unique spirit children of loving heavenly parents, then part of our role as parents is to understand them for who they are (something the Eyres also advocate). And part of our role is to influence them in ways they will understand. And to provide alternatives to the evil influences of the world.

If, however, we seek to force our children into our mold of what we believe they should be, ignoring who they are to begin with, then we are, in my view, violating the principles of Doctrine & Covenants 121:

…when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved… (D&C 84:37).

When, on the other hand, we succeed at recognizing who our children are, when we influence them with love and kindness, teaching them well, even if they take paths divergent from ours, we may know the blessings of Section 121:

…thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever. (v.48, emphasis added).

A Sign -- From Heaven?

2011-10-13T08:45:00.002-04:00

Well, at least from a local Presbyterian church I passed last night:

"If you can't think of anything to be thankful for, check your pulse."

I have one, and I'm thankful. :-)

Stratford Ontario, Scripture Memorization and Me

2011-10-10T09:06:00.000-04:00

My wife and I have a nearly annual habit now of heading east to Stratford, Ontario for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. The festival runs from April through October and this year included a dozen plays, including four Shakespeare plays several musicals and some smaller works. We saw two plays: Twelfth Night and Camelot (Shakespeare wrote the first, not the second).

Twelfth Night was of particular interest to me since the last time I saw it was with my daughter in Taipei. She had bought us tickets for a visiting company’s performance. The sales clerk assured her it would be in English, since there would be Mandarin subtitles. Well, the touring company was from Russia, and the performance was in Russian. We don’t speak Russian, so we relied on our best recollection of the story as we watched what amounted to a ballet of Twelfth Night. (By the way: a spectacular ballet; the performance was delightful even though we couldn’t understand the words.)

So this time I was excited to actually hear the words, too! And we were not disappointed. Stratford’s productions have always been top notch. They are innovative and engaging; performances are by top actors in North America (Brian Dennehy was a featured guest this year, though his performance as Toby Belch was great, it was not the highlight of Twelfth Night).

What is fascinating in Shakespeare, however, is the text. The words are delicious to hear and they combine to tell complete and complex stories that entertain, instruct and move an audience (but first and foremost entertain!).

I studied Theatre History in my college days, and have learned my share of roles. Memorizing a part is challenging, but also exciting as actor and character form a bond through the text. Memorizing Shakespeare is more challenging because each word carries such importance (every playwright would believe his words carry importance, and many do, but none like Shakespeare’s).

So as I watched these great actors perform great theatre, I thought also of Elder Scott and his counsel to us to memorize scriptures. Just as a play or poetry takes on new meaning when spoken out loud, so do the scriptures. Just as a character’s words come to life in the mouth of an actor, so can scriptures come to life in our mouths as we memorize and give voice to them.

Elder Scott said:

Great power can come from memorizing scriptures. To memorize a scripture is to forge a new friendship. It is like discovering a new individual who can help in time of need, give inspiration and comfort, and be a source of motivation for needed change.

I’m memorizing seminary scripture mastery verses with my son this year. We practice them on the way to seminary in the car each morning. And I find the words coming back to me through the day. At least a part of my head is filling with divine direction and heavenly teaching. And those words come to me in quiet moments reminding me of who I am and who my Father is.

I can only hope it’s happening for my son, too.

New African Temples and Me

2011-10-07T07:48:00.001-04:00

I know that several new temples were announced in conference, and as interesting as good fishing in Wyoming sounds to me (btw, interesting is that word your mother taught you to use when you couldn’t think of a nice one), it was the two new African temples that caught my attention.

I have never been to Africa, but my parents lived in Lagos, Nigeria while I was on my mission in the late 1970’s. During those years President Kimball announced the revelation on the extension of the priesthood to all worthy men of the church.

I have in my missionary journal a letter from my mother in which she writes:

Yesterday, Sunday, August 20, 1978 marked a day of history.

On Friday, Brother Merrill Bateman [then a BYU professor] and Edwin Q. Cannon, first counselor in the International Mission presidency arrived in Lagos. They visited us, Brother Miller, a Brother Miller-Aganemi who became a member of the church while doing graduate work in Utah. He is a native Nigerian and is, of course, black. Yesterday [we] held a REAL meeting. [My folks had been meeting just the two of them each week, with Brother Miller joining them a time or two a month.] Sacrament was observed, testimonies and one calling and setting-apart. And this is the “first.” Your Dad was called to be Nigerian Group Leader, to locate those Nigerian men who were baptized during their educational periods in the U.S. and have since returned to this country. These men will now have the opportunity to realize the priesthood.

I would never have imagined that my convert parents would be on the cutting edge of the history of the church. To be sure, they were on the edge. Two senior missionary couples later came to Nigeria and Ghana and did the heavy lifting regarding the initial growth of the church there. They visited with my folks from time to time, but the real work was far from Lagos. But decades later temples came to Ghana and to Nigeria.

I’ve been interested in the development of the church in Africa since my parents were there. An additional temple in South Africa is a great thing. And a temple in the Democratic Republic of Congo is awesome to me. More blessings closer to more people. The Johannesburg South Africa Temple is 350 miles from Durban, and over 2,000 miles from Kinshasa.

I look forward to more African temples in the future.

Thanks, Sister Dalton, for your counsel to fathers

2011-10-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

First, Sister Dalton, thanks! We don’t often have sisters in conference speak directly to fathers. I know my daughters are not my possession. But I know they are my daughters, on loan from our Father in Heaven, and I’d like to do what I can to help them find their way home again.

Thanks for continuing to think about how our daughters can find their way home, and how we can help them succeed in developing into the women we hope that they will be: strong, faithful and virtuous, confident that God loves them and confident in His plan for their happiness.

Thanks for reminding me to love my wife. I always like getting a challenge that is easy to meet.

And thanks for challenging me to model virtue in my own life, confirming that it is not just a value for young women, but also for their fathers.

I’m happy to report I have never had to go looking for any of my daughters because they didn’t come home on time. (Of course, the youngest is only 11, so I suppose there’s still time for me to have that experience!) ;-)

The Awesome Elder Hales

2011-10-03T12:29:00.001-04:00

I was surprised when I saw Elder Hales at conference. I live far from SLC and was not aware of the seriousness of his continuing health concerns, so when I saw him at conference, I was really shocked by how he looked.

Elder Hales is the only living apostle I've ever met personally. When I lived in Venezuela, I was his driver when he and his wife came for a regional conference. Since that brief chance to get to know him a little, I've paid close attention when he's spoken in conference. And I've found he's given some of the most straightforward talks on key gospel principles over the years.

His talk Sunday morning was delightful, and it was a great personal blessing for me to be able to hear him speak.

Two quotations from his talk struck me in particular, but for different reasons. The first:

Too often we pray to have patience but we want it right now.

This is a consistent message of his for some time now. He has talked before about his own health concerns and how he's even wondered if he has learned enough from them. And, of course, I'm one of those who so prays.

The second:

To all the Marys and Marthas, to all the good Samaritans who minister to the sick, succor the weak and care for the mentally and physically infirm, I feel the gratitude of a loving Heavenly Father and His blessed son. In your daily Christ-like ministry you are willing to wait upon the Lord and you are doing our Heavenly Father’s will. His assurance to you is clear: Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me. He knows your sacrifices and your sorrows. He hears your prayers. His peace and rest will be yours.

This quotation was my balm in Gilead for this conference, and if I had heard nothing else, this would have been feast enough. It is that sweet apostolic comfort that few can give and reassures me to my core.

Bless you, Elder Hales.

Update Oct 10, 2010: Here's a link to an item at LDS Newsroom on Elder Hales' recovery.

How Can You Beat TV Church?

2011-09-29T08:06:00.002-04:00

TV Church. That’s what a friend of mine calls conference weekend.

I love conference, and I really look forward to its coming around each Fall and Spring. We have for quite a number of years participated at home via the internet. We don’t get cable (and none of our local cable stations carry conference anyway), and we can’t use a dish because our home’s trees don’t allow a clear line of sight to the satellite (without a VERY tall tower which I’m unwilling to have built). So I’m thrilled that the church has dramatically improved the availability of video feeds of conference through the computer.

We used to go to the stake center in our family’s pre-internet days (yes, children, there was a time when not every home had a computer with a high-speed connection). I can remember spending conference weekend in the “children’s” room with kids playing on the floor while we watched the small TV at the front of the room. (I remember sneaking out of that room into the cultural hall for the solemn assembly sustaining of President Benson.)

The internet has been especially helpful when we lived in Asia recently. “Conference weekend” is a week later there, since the live broadcasts are in the middle of the night. Sessions were available at our stake center in Mandarin and English, though we watched most of them at home, thrilled to have figured out how to use our TV as a monitor for our daughter’s laptop. (Yes, we can be taught…)

This was all a marked improvement over our experience in Japan years ago, when we'd received videos of conference weeks later and circulate them among the English speaking members of our ward. By the time we got to Venezuela, we had someone in Utah record the English sessions for us, since only Spanish tapes came to the stake, but we convinced our stake president to allow us to watch a session of conference in lieu of Sunday School and Priesthood; there was a real power in our ward's being able to watch conference together.

My wife and I tend to be note takers during conference. I do it out of habit – for years I had one assignment or another that required me to be able to recall what happened at conference (either planning speaking assignments or preparing conference quizzes for seminary or institute or priesthood lessons). My wife (again) has a calling where she participates in determining which talks will be used for the Teaching For Our Times lessons.

Now I tend to take note of my impressions during the talks more than the subject matter of the talks. I note talks I’ll want to go back and read or listen to first when they’re available. (I also load the talks onto my I-Pod as fast as I can so I can listen to them en route to work shortly after they are televised; hearing them a second time allows me to get new nuances I’d missed the first time around.)

I try hard to go into conference with a clean slate of expectations for the meeting. Of course I pray about issues that are important to me and listen for counsel on those subjects. But I try not to guess what the speaker will say before he or she says it. Sometimes I’m surprised; sometimes I’m comforted; sometimes I’m gently prodded to improve (sometimes by my son who hears a talk he thinks I need to pay specific attention to: a number of years ago when Elder Oaks told fathers what their children wanted most for dinner was for their fathers to be home, my son leaned over to me and said, “He’s right, Dad”).

Our children are getting too old for conference bingo, though I think we may implement a little game our sister-in-law uses. She sets out bowls of various goodies with a word attached to each one. When the word is mentioned in a talk or song, the goodies are available to those who hear it. (He who hath ears to hear, let him munch!) That might be enough to keep my 15-year old awake for a session or two.

I hope you’ll fire up your La-Z-Boy and enjoy some TV Church of your own this weekend.

You can tune in at lds.org. Live sessions are Saturday and Sunday at 10 and 2 MDT in the US (UTC +6).

Heard in sacrament meeting: "I love coffee!" (Twice!!)

2011-09-27T08:17:00.005-04:00

I love my ward. We had a terrific sacrament meeting on Sunday.

Our first speaker was a new member (less than a year) who talked about his conversion story and his experience reading the Book of Mormon. He said years ago a friend gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, and he tried to read it, but he could not understand it. In the last year, however, something changed. As he was taking the missionary lessons (after he wandered into an LDS chapel), he not only was able to read the Book of Mormon and understand it, but he couldn’t put it down. He read late into the night and within days had finished the book and had a testimony that it was true.

I was reminded of the Parley Pratt story from his autobiography:

“I read all day; eating was a burden, I had no desire for food; sleep was a burden when the night came, for I preferred reading to sleep” (Quoted in “The Extraordinary Life of Parley P. Pratt,” Ensign, April 2007).

Our good brother then pointed out that as he read, he kept himself awake with a cup of coffee. He said, “I love coffee.” He acknowledged that learning to live the Word of Wisdom was a challenge. If only for his talk last Sunday, I’m glad he’s made the effort.

The next speaker was sister who joined the church at about age 20 – 30 years ago. She began her talk by acknowledging that she also loves coffee, and that before she came into contact with the church, she did many of the things common among the youth in the European country of her origin, including drinking coffee. She then reassured the first brother that he would be fine.

I was reminded of what Clayton Christensen taught us a few years ago in some leadership training, that if we don’t smell some tobacco in our sacrament meeting, we’re falling short, suggesting that it is good for us to have in our midst those who are striving to be better than they are today, and that associating only with those who have “arrived” at righteousness (if such a thing were possible) would shortchange us.

I’m grateful for those who are willing to associate with me, despite my striving to improve, and I’m grateful for those around me who show me how to improve.

Happy (Re-)Birthday To Me

2011-09-22T09:52:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is my other birthday, my born-again birthday, the anniversary of my baptism 44 years ago. I was 11 days shy of my ninth birthday when my parents, my siblings and I were baptized. I have some clear memories of that event and some not-so-clear ones.

In our branch's building (now a stake center), the baptismal font was in the hallway outside the cultural hall. I think our baptismal service was held in the chapel (because I think I remember being confirmed there).

At the time, I had no idea how unusual it must have been to have a baptism of an entire family of six. We were introduced to the gospel by a family up the street. I went to school with one of their nine children, and he invited me to a Primary Halloween activity. (I chickened out on the activity when I realized my store-bought costume sans mask looked completely dorky next to his uber-cool pirate get up.) Fortunately for us, my friend invited me again, and I became a regular Primary attender. His sister invited my sister, and eventually his folks invited the six of us to join the 11 of them for a family night.

My mother, to be polite, invited the parents only to a quiet dinner at our home. They ate in the dining room (we kids were banished), and Brother and Sister S. invited my parents to hear the missionary lessons. My parents accepted. (Twice before my folks had been tracted out, but the missionaries did not return either time; we were far from any chapel, and maybe the elders didn’t have enough miles on their car to make the long trip to see us a second time.)

Over the next few months we took the lessons from Elder Kelly and Elder Gledhill (and once in a while a stake missionary or another full time elder on a split). Those were the flannel board discussion days; the lesson I remember was one in which Christ is show as the cornerstone with apostles, prophets, etc. added on. The flannel board display was contructed so that when the cornerstone was removed, the rest of the pieces fell off the board, as well.

I smile when I think about what the missionaries must have thought when – after several months of lessons -- my folks told them we were going away on vacation, driving from Pittsburgh to Idaho to see my dad’s parents and that we would call when we got back. They must have thought they had lost us forever. (I would have thought that as a missionary, for sure.) But we read the Book of Mormon in the car across the country.

We did return, and plans were made for the baptism. I remember practicing how to hold onto Elder Kelly and how to plug my nose at the same time. I remember asking the missionary in my baptismal interview what the O in David O. McKay stood for (he didn’t know; he said it probably didn’t stand for anything). I remember our baptismal night, though I don’t really remember standing in the water and actually being baptized, though I remember blue tile in the baptismal font (was it really blue?) and the excitement in the dressing room as each baptism was performed. I have a vague memory of being confirmed – surrounded by men with their hands on my wet hair.

As a boy I was thrilled to have been baptized. I loved being a member of the church then, and I do now. I had what I considered then (and still do) to be significant spiritual witnesses of gospel truth. I spoke freely about our family’s baptism with people I knew. Our family began immediately to be involved; Dad helped with scouts and became an assistant clerk; Mom taught Junior Sunday School. We prepared to be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple (which we were about ten and a half months later, with special permission to go early).

Happy (re-)birthday to me.

42 Questions To Virtue

2011-09-19T12:59:00.000-04:00

Sister Mary N. Cook of the general Young Women’s presidency visited our ward two Sundays ago. She happened to be in our area for training and stopped in our ward before returning to Salt Lake, and she
gave quite a lovely talk on Virtue in our sacrament meeting.

She highlighted what’s in the new Young Women’s value in the YW Personal Progress program, and she mentioned an activity that seemed pretty cool. The third activity recommends:

“Read Alma chapter 5. Make a list of the questions Alma asks. Answer the questions for yourself….”

This is a really cool exercise. I love Alma 5; it’s one of my favorite chapters of the Book of Mormon to teach.

As Sister Cook talked about this exercise, she mentioned 42 questions. I’d never looked at the chapter in this way, so I went and counted them. All 42 of them.

Two interesting things about the exercise:

1. The value project is about temple worthiness
2. None of the 42 questions is specifically about sexual purity

Young Women are invited to list the questions and answer them, and then to make a list (based on the questions) of ways in which they need to be worthy to go to the temple.

There are some interesting questions. I won’t list all of them here (count them yourself!), but here are some that stand out to me in terms of thinking about temple worthiness and virture:

Have you sufficiently retained in remembrance the captivity of your fathers? (v. 6)

There’s a series of questions on the history, and it reminds me of Moroni’s preamble to his promise, that as we ponder the Book of Mormon, we should also ponder “how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things” (Moroni 10:3). These questions also remind me of the “testimony” questions at the outset of the temple recommend interview.

And now I ask of you on what conditions are they saved? (v. 10)

There are some doctrinal questions about salvation and atonement that are deep and moving. How much easier for young women (and any of us) to strive for virtue when we understand the doctrine.

Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? (v. 14)

This core question of the change of heart is at the center of a lot of teaching around this chapter. And it’s a critical question for a young person: if you haven’t experienced the change, how can you do it? And if you have, how can you retain it? (Of course King Benjamin spent some time on retaining a remission of our sins, and Alma will teach a similar lesson.)

Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? (v. 15)

Verse 15 starts a series of performance related questions – are we exercising faith, keeping commandments and covenants? Some of these questions will be more near to a young woman’s experience than others. I imagine most young women will not feel warm and fuzzy about questions like: “How will any of you feel, if ye shall stand before the bar of God, having your garments stained with blood and all manner of filthiness?” (v. 22) But intermingled with those hard questions is a great deal of discussion of pure and white garments, signifying one who has lived worthily and taken advantage of the blessings of the atonement.

I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances? (v. 19)

Ok, two for the price of one here. The pure heart and clean hands is what worthiness is all about, and it’s what virtue is all about. And how to get there is implied in the second question. When we so live that we reflect the Lord in our lives, we are approaching virtue.

Behold, are ye stripped of pride? (v. 28) …of envy? (v. 29)

President Benson’s landmark address comes to my mind, but likely not to the minds of young women who were not even glimmers in their parents’ eyes when he gave that talk. But what parent wouldn’t be thrilled to have a daughter free of pride and envy?

Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety? (v. 45)

More great lessons on how to learn truth from the spirit. Alma’s inference is If I can do it, so can you. You can do what I did: fast and pray for many days.

And there’s more! (Not that I want to sound like a Sham-wow info-mercial…) Alma teaches the atonement. He teaches us to give up costly apparel, to care for the poor, not to punk our enemies (it’s in there – extra points for anyone who can identify the verse).

42 questions to virtue. Very cool.

God: Good; Me: Bad? No!

2011-09-15T10:24:00.000-04:00

I listened to a Mormon Channel Conversations podcast yesterday featuring Rodney K. Smith, former president of Southern Virginia University. I’d recommend the interview to anyone: Brother Smith is a legal scholar and educator and an experienced academic administrator. He articulated a unique vision for SVU that I had not previously appreciated, and his own conversion story was great to hear.

That said, Brother Smith mentioned a concept in relation to his own life and to one of the guiding principles for SVU that stuck in my craw. It’s not an uncommon idea, and it’s frankly one I have espoused in my life before. Basically, he said that when something good happens, he thanks God; when something bad happens, he blames himself. He calls it accountability. I used to call it humility.

Now I call it unhealthy.

Don’t get me wrong: I started this post speaking highly of Brother Smith. I do not intend to attack him or his ideas here, and I suspect I’ve drawn more meaning out of his two-second comment than it deserves. This post is about my idea, one that I myself used to espouse, not about Brother Smith. He simply reminded me.

We should be accountable for our failures and our successes. It’s healthy to examine what went wrong and what we have power to change in the future. But it’s equally healthy to examine what we did right that led to success so that we might repeat it.

Attributing all success to God and all failure to us robs us of a part of the blessing of the atonement, namely the power to improve.

Don’t get me wrong (again): We should praise God. We should thank him for every blessing in our lives. Without Him, His plan of happiness, the atoning sacrifice of His son, we would be nothing. As King Benjamin teaches, we are beggars, and we are regularly blessed, even in ways we do not see. We owe our Father in Heaven a debt of gratitude, and we should offer thanks continually. The very fact that we can improve is by the grace of God and through the atonement of our Savior.

Still, when I stay up late working on a project for my employer and deliver more than is required I want my employer to reward my efforts. I don’t go to work for the fun of it; I go to be compensated so that I can support my family (and I’m very fortunate – even blessed! – to have the job I do). So when I succeed at work, I also want the commensurate rewards. Do I also thank God for facilitating that success? Of course I do: He gave me opportunity in my life to learn; He gave me intellect; He gave me health. But I used those God-given gifts to the advantage of my employer. And so I want my employer to reward me (and I believe God does, too).

Attributing all success to God and all failure to ourselves is not humility. And it’s not accountability.

Accountability is reporting on my stewardship – good and bad. When the ruler gave various talents to his servants (see Matthew 25), they then accounted for their efforts – one returning ten for five, one four for two, and one returning only his original talent. Each of those servants was held accountable; two were rewarded and one was not.

Focusing only on my failures is false humility, and it is unhealthy. If I see myself as one who only fails, how can I enjoy the blessing of the atonement in my life? The Savior suffered that we might live. Failing to accept that gift suggests that it has no value to me.

In twelve step programs, participants engage in a fearless written moral inventory, including their weaknesses and their strengths. Most veteran 12-steppers understand the value of remembering our strengths as we engage in self-examination. There is something of value in each of us, something worth saving, worth building upon. If we seek to be like Christ, then we must also find his qualities in us, however weak, however small, so that those qualities may grow. As we see them grow in us, we recognize that the atonement is working for us and on us; we value the Savior’s gift.

Let me conclude with the words of Elder Uchdorf from the Priesthood session of conference in October 2010. He was speaking about pride, as a postscript to President Benson’s landmark address on that subject just over two decades earlier:

I also remember one interesting side effect of President Benson’s influential talk. For a while it almost became taboo among Church members to say that they were “proud” of their children or their country or that they took “pride” in their work. The very word pride seemed to become an outcast in our vocabulary.

In the scriptures we find plenty of examples of good and righteous people who rejoice in righteousness and at the same time glory in the goodness of God. Our Heavenly Father Himself introduced His Beloved Son with the words “in whom I am well pleased.”

Alma gloried in the thought that he might “be an instrument in the hands of God.” The Apostle Paul gloried in the faithfulness of members of the Church. The great missionary Ammon gloried in the success he and his brothers had experienced as missionaries.

I believe there is a difference between being proud of certain things and being prideful.

I do, too. I believe we can feel good about our successes. We can thank God for our blessings, but still recognize the value of what we, as His children, can do.

Are Men Biologically Adapted To Nurturing?

2011-09-13T17:42:00.002-04:00

We know that The Family: A Proclamation teaches that fathers are to preside, provide and protect, and that mothers are to nurture, and that they are to support one another in these roles. We’ve heard a number of talks in recent conferences that seem to suggest (or directly state) that mothers are more in tune with the tasks of nurturing than men.

That may be, and I do not intend in any way to refute the Proclamation, but there’s a new study published in The Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, and reported by the New York Times that would suggest that fathers also are biologically adapting to a more nurturing role.

Lee Gettler, an anthropologist at Northwestern University and co-author of the study said,

This should be viewed as, "Oh, it’s great, women aren’t the only ones biologically adapted to be parents."

Humans give birth to incredibly dependent infants. Historically, the idea that men were out clubbing large animals and women were staying behind with babies has been largely discredited. The only way mothers could have higly needy offspring ever couple of years is if they were getting help.

The study, which tested men before and after becoming fathers involved over 600 men in the Cebu province of the Philippines:

Testosterone was measured when the men were 21 and single, and again nearly five years later. Although testosterone naturally decreases with age, men who became fathers showed much greater declines, more than double that of childless men.

And men who spent more than three hours a day caring for children -- playing, feeding, bathing, toileting, reading or dressing them – had the lowest testosterone.

Researchers view the drop in testosterone as a positive thing for families, hormonally encouraging men to be more faithful to their families than straying.

“This is part of the guy being invested in the marriage,” said Carol Worthman, an anthropologist at Emory University who also was not involved in the study. Lower testosterone, she said, is the father’s way of saying, “’I’m here, I’m not looking around, I’m really toning things down so I can have good relationship.’”

So, it would seem there is some biological evidence that a father’s role extends beyond conception, and that the father is biologically tuned to participate in the nurture of his children.

The Law of the Letter

2011-09-08T13:39:00.000-04:00

Dear Reader,

Ok, it’s not so much a law as a discussion.

Maybe less a discussion than a remembrance.

Recently I wrote about letters written by my lovely wife to a friend in their youth that were recently returned to her. They’ve been interesting for her to re-read. In addition to exposing the lie that was my story of when we met, the letters also reveal things my lovely wife thought about in those days and provided some insights into her character.

I’m not going to reveal any of that. Let my lovely wife write her own blog if she wants to spill all that. (Don’t hold your breath, by the way. My greatest surprise was seeing that my wife wrote actual letters at all: she really does not like to write, and I understood her remarkable sacrifice to write to me during my mission.)

But these letters do demonstrate some things my children may never know: the value of the written word – and by written word I mean word written by hand on paper and put in an envelope and mailed – not half-words typed into a telephone keypad to be sent out into the ether to be captured by another phone, consumed in seconds and deleted forever.

These letters used complete sentences, capitalization, spelling, paragraphs – all that stuff your English teachers have been trying to get you to do! These letters required some organization of thoughts, because each letter included multiple thoughts and stories (unlike texts and tweets); each letter included reflections and conclusions and even promises of what was to come.

And, perhaps most importantly now, these letters could be saved to be read later. They are historical artifacts. I suppose there may be some giant repository of electronic stuff that contains tweets and texts and Facebook status lines, but I certainly don’t know how to get at it.

Letters still have a place in our world, even beyond credit card offers that come in the mail. In my lovely wife’s family, for instance, there’s a monthly family letter to which each sibling (or spouse of sibling in the case of my lovely wife) contributes. That letter (which is emailed as an attachment, ready for printing) serves as part of an ongoing family history, recording events and milestones.

I have written specific letters to my children at key times in their lives or mine. Most of those go as e-mails now, but I hope they’re still saved for future reference. I save copies of each one. Topics range from financial planning to politics to family relations to gospel principles. Some are sent to individuals and some to the children as a group. The value of the letter over a phone call is that I can think more carefully about content, and my child can choose to read or not read, and I’ll never know the difference.

We still encourage our children to hand-write thank-you notes. It’s our small contribution to their letter-writing education.

May you engage occasionally in the great art of letter writing.

Best Regards,

Paul

Presiding with equal partners

2011-09-05T11:38:00.001-04:00

The proclamation on the family is clear: "By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness...."

But it's also clear: "In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."

How does Dad preside when Mom is an equal partner?

We discussed this topic in our high priests' group yesterday, and although we did not resolve it, we had some good thoughts.

In his talk "Priesthood Authority in the Family and the Church," Dallin Oaks helps us understand the relationship between partnership and presiding. He says that although the structure in the church is hierarchical (we follow our "file" leaders), in the family it is patriarchal. He quote the partnership line from the Proclamation as I have above, and he quote President Kimball who urges wives to have a full partnership with their husbands, not a limited or silent one. He reiterates that the concept of partnership between husbands and wives is not the cultural norm all around the world, but that it is ordained of God. And he quotes Doctrine & Convenants 121:

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge (verses 41-42)

declaring, "When priesthood authority is exercised in that way in the patriarchal family, we achieve the 'full partnership' President Kimball taught."

As I listened to the discussion, I thought about what I've heard about how the Quorum of the Twelve functions -- that they and the First Presidency consider matters of policy for some time, that they have open discussions, and that they often carry over those discussions for weeks in order to allow all members to come to consensus. This certainly seems to be the process described in Edward Kimball's biography of his father's presidency of the church (Lengthen Your Stride) when President Kimball discussed his revelation regarding extension of the priesthood to all worthy male members of the church (see OD2).

And I thought of an example in our family from the past week. We have a particular delicate issue that my wife and I are trying to works through with one of our children. There is no easy answer, and we are not personally equipped to resolve it on our own. We have discussed the matter a number of times over the past months, and in the last few days it has become more acute. We agreed to pray separately and together. We have been discussing the promptings we have received (some in the moment we need them). Our path to consensus has been bumpy. At some moments we've been completely aligned and at others we've appeared to be diametrically opposed to one another. But we continue to counsel together to find a solution.

In this matter, I would never assume that as "presider" I had the sole right to revelation on the matter. Nor would I want to "delegate" the matter to my lovely wife -- not because she is not capable, for she is! -- but because I would not want to ask her to bear the burden alone.

We have not come out on the other side of the tunnel, yet, and we may not for some time. But I'm grateful for an equal partner who is sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit and who is gracious in how she shares the burdens of parenthood.

It was all a lie!

2011-09-01T09:16:00.001-04:00

I learned this morning that I’ve been living a lie.

And it’s the fault of those friends I blogged about earlier this week.

Turns out our friends brought my lovely wife a packet full of letters that she wrote to her friend, including letters from my wife’s first year at college. Some of those letters from our first year in college mention me. And how we met.

(Here’s comes the lie.)

I have for years (35 of them, in fact) been telling the story that we met on the first Friday of our freshman year. Say it out loud. First Friday of our freshman year. See how nicely it rolls off the tongue? First Friday of our freshman year.

Except it’s not true.

In a letter dated September 12, my lovely wife (then my lovely wife-to-be, though neither of us knew that then) told her friend that we met when my college roommate and I visited her apartment on the first Saturday of our freshman year.

You can see why I’m upset. Our whole history is based on our romantic beginning on the first Friday of our freshman year. And now, after 35 years, I learn it was a lie.

Well, a mistake.

Oh, and I’ve always gotten the date right: September 4, 1976. And, yep. That’s a Saturday.

So this coming Sunday, when we celebrate the 35th anniversary of our meeting, at least we’ll know we got the date right. And I’ll have to look for a new alliterative way to tell our story.

How about the first Saturday of September?

Old Friends Made New Again

2011-08-29T12:00:00.000-04:00

We had a delightful surprise last week. The son of good friends we knew in college (and my dear wife knew in high school) is beginning grad school at a university near us, and so son and his wife and baby, AND their parents (our old friends) spent nearly a week with us while son and his family were finding a place to live and getting settled.

Old friends are remarkable. When we got together it was like we'd lived next door to one another instead of having decades between us and our last visit. We found we still share many interests in common, and we've even had preferred TV shows, books and movies in common after all these years.

And it's not like our paths have been similar. I'm a career corporate guy and my wife is a SAHM; our friends are fiercely entrepreneurial, carpe diem kinds of folks. Yes, we've all stayed active in the church, but even our church experience has been unique because of where we've lived.

But still, the things that make us friends, the shared history (even if long ago) and the ties of love and friendship still endure all these years later.

It's made me reflect on why some friendships last (like this one) and others seem to fade as our circles of shared interest or activity migrate away from one another. To be sure some friendships fade because the bonds were never in place; they may have been driven by a shared activity or geography but never deepened enough to withstand distance and time apart. Others may fade because one or the other person changes enough to strain the common bonds -- a change in political views or religious practice may make the relationship too uncomfortable for one or the other.

I yearn for close friendships. Seeing our old friends this week, and staying up late into the night each night despite the need to get up for work the next morning, reminded me of the happiness of shared experience, shared trust, shared love and support. The bond we have with these friends is unique for us. Though we have other friends, I don't know that our other friendships will ever stand the test of time and space that this one does.

How fortunate to have these friends to bless our lives.

Open Your Heart -- or Surviving the Youth Sunday School Class

2011-08-25T08:24:00.000-04:00

I taught my son’s Sunday School class this week. It was The Dreaded Fourteen And Fifteen Year-Old Class. And I survived. In fact, it was pretty cool. I was bishop to many of these kids when they were baptized; maybe that’s why they went easy on me.

Of course we use the same manual and same scripture blocks in the youth classes as in Gospel Doctrine. I prepared but didn’t quite know what to expect. I probably over-prepared. (Ok, I certainly over prepared, but I was glad I did.) When I teach a youth class, I like to have lots of arrows in the quiver just in case I need them.

The lesson this week was on Paul’s second missionary journey. We looked at the maps of his journeys, and we had the kids draw a world map on the board so we could talk about to what “world” the apostles were carrying the gospel. We reminded them of the story of Saul / Paul (and they loved playing dumb about it…). We then talked specifically about how Paul had to listen to the spirit to know where to go on his journey, and that the spirit constrained him from going some places, and led him to others.

Then we read in Acts 16:14 about Lydia: “And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul” (emphasis mine).

We stuck on this idea of opening one’s heart for most of the lesson. We probably used that phrase “open heart” about three dozen times. We talked about what it meant to have a closed heart and an open heart. We compared the closed heart feeling to how the class members felt about their little siblings who had messed with their stuff or their rooms or told on them. We suggested the closed heart was in a box under the bed, in a safe, or in a Swiss bank account (all their ideas). We talked about how an open heart might feel different from that and how. And we talked about how they might open their hearts to spiritual things.

I remember being 15. It was like I was on the dark side of the moon, out of radio contact with spiritual things. Even though as a younger kid I was really tuned into what I thought was the spirit, at 15, I was aloof, and trying my best to be a little rebellious. I see the same thing in my own son, and I’ve seen it before. Part of my goal as a dad, as a bishop and as a friend to some of these kids, has been to do what I can to keep the gravitational pull of the spirit strong enough so that when they return from the dark side of the moon, they’ll be swept up in it and feel it again.

So we didn’t talk about Thessalonians. And we didn’t talk about Paul’s different missionary companions. And we didn’t talk about signs of the second coming. Frankly, most of the lesson was left on the cutting room floor, except for this idea of opening our hearts to the spirit.

By the time it was done, I felt pretty good about myself. Until I got home later and my son reported that I hadn’t done too bad. “Thanks,” I said. “What was the point of the lesson?”

He thought for a while. “Well, I drew a map of the world.”

Me: “Yeah…”

Son: “And we talked about Paul.”

Me: “Yeah…”

Son: “What?”

Me: “What about the point? That I said about three dozen times?”

Son: “What?”

Me: (moving my hands in an opening gesture)

Son: “What?”

Me: (still gesturing) “Open….”

Son: “Oh, open, uh, open…”

Me: “Open…your…”

Son: “Oh, yeah. Open your heart.”

Radio silence? You bet. (Sigh.)

Mission Moments: Unexpected Meetings

2011-08-22T09:20:00.000-04:00

My nephew is serving his mission in Arizona where several of my wife’s siblings (and therefore his aunts and uncles) live. He is presenting living and working close to all of them, and they see him on the street pretty often. He is, by all accounts, an outstanding missionary, and there’s no evidence that his occasional brushes with his extended family are distracting in any way. Reading recently of their sightings of said missionary made me think of the very few times I bumped into people I knew from home while I was on my mission.

I served in Germany over three decades ago. When I went, I assumed I would be in a completely different world from friends and family I left behind. (My brother had served in Kentucky, and was never more than a day’s drive from our home his whole mission.)

To my surprise I did see people I knew from before my mission a few times. The first was most startling. My companion and I were changing trains in Mainz, trying to make a quick connection to get back to our city of Bad Kreuznach. We were running for our next train when I heard someone call my first and last name. A female someone.

I’d been out more than a year and no one had used my first name except in letters, so just the hearing of it startled me. I did not recognize the voice, but stopped and began to look around. A few feet away on the platform was a girl I’d gone to high school with. We had been good friends and had many friends in common. She was not a member of the church, but she knew I was, and probably knew that I was a missionary. As we chatted briefly (we missed our connecting train, of course), she introduced my companion and me to her male friend who was with her. The two of them were distributing Bibles for their Christian group, and had been in Europe for a while.

After a few minutes, we shook hands (I was a missionary, after all, and in Germany everyone shook hands) and went our separate ways. The chance meeting was no big deal to my companion, except for the great coincidence; nor was it a big deal for me. I think my reaction was helped by the fact that I was well into my second year; I don’t know if I would have been more distracted by such a meeting earlier in my mission.

Within weeks of that experience, I had another chance meeting. I had just put my companion on a train to go on an exchange, and I was waiting for my temporary companion to arrive. Since I had an hour to wait, I decided to walk home. As I was leaving the station, a young man showed up at my side and called me by my first name. Turns out he was a kid I’d gone to church with in my youth. He was the only member in his family and had slipped into inactivity, and was in Bad Kreuznach to visit his brother who was in the US Army. We chatted until I got to my apartment.

The last one came a few weeks later, when my stake president and his wife dropped by my apartment on a P-Day. They were in Germany visiting their daughter whose husband was stationed at a base not too far from where I was assigned. When the bell rang, and we let them up, I was surprised to see them, and even more surprised when she gave me a big hug, saying, “I probably shouldn’t do this, but I promised your mother I would!” I didn’t mind. And I’m sure my mother wouldn’t have minded, either. They stayed just a few minutes.

These chance meetings, each quite brief, were actually blessings to me. They helped me to see even more clearly how much I was on my mission. They were little blips, pleasant moments, but not distractions. I knew what I was there to do, and I was happy to be about the work I was doing.

The Real Elder Price and the Mormon Boys

2011-08-18T16:04:00.001-04:00

For your own good, please go read Margaret Blair Young's wonderful series on Mormon missionaries in Africa at Meridian Magazine. The fourth article in the four-part series is here. You can link the other tree from the fourth, and it's well worth the trip.

Make Your Bed...

2011-08-15T11:31:00.000-04:00

I took the day off work today because it's my son's birthday and some of our adult children are in town to help celebrate. So this morning my wife and I had the opportunity to make our bed together. (Usually we follow the "last one out" rule -- the last one out of the bed makes it. On my work days, my wife is usually last one out, unless she can't sleep. On sleep-in days, I am usually the last one out.)

As we tugged at the sheet and bedspread to get them even, we laughed as we pulled them out of one another's hands until they were finally aligned. It would have been just as easy to be annoyed at the other's tugging, but we had a common goal, and we were well rested enough to laugh rather than scowl.

A valuable lesson in marriage: common goals and a propensity to laugh rather than scowl can make all the difference.

Lessons from my Garden: Poison Ivy

2011-08-11T08:18:00.001-04:00

Not only is poison ivy a pernicious weed, but it’s, well, poisonous.

My most memorable experience with poison ivy came at a church service project when I was in grad school. The stake center I attended just outside Pittsburgh had been remodeled with a new addition, and members were helping with the landscaping. Part of that process was the clearing of a hillside of weeds and brush in preparation for planting of some ground cover.

I worked without gloves, and, apparently, most of what I pulled were poison ivy vines. Within twenty four hours, the welts on my hands were red and itchy. I did the only thing I knew to do: I coated them with Calamine lotion, hoping to sooth the itching a bit. A doctor friend at church noticed my hands and phoned in a prescription for me for something that would reduce the swelling. It still took some time, but eventually the welts faded, the dryness and itchiness passed and my hands returned to normal.

When I wrote about vines a couple of weeks ago, I talked about how difficult they are to remove completely. When they are poison ivy, not only are they difficult to remove, but they can be annoying – and even dangerous in the extreme.

When I seek to protect my home from evil, I need to be careful. Sometimes that evil can be dangerous to me, even as I try to eliminate it.

When I now try to eliminate poison ivy from my tree stands, I dress to protect myself with long sleeves and gloves. I consciously avoid touching anything with the gloves I use, and I work slowly to avoid coming into contact with the poison ivy vines.

Similarly, when we seek to protect our home from evil, we can suit up in the “whole armor of God:” Truth, righteousness, faith, salvation and prayer (see Ephesians 6).

Paul reminds us: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). Dramatic? Yep. Worth listening to? You bet.

As we consider what to allow into our home, Paul’s cautionary words are a good reminder. Is that new hip TV show worth what it might bring along? Is that music (or its lyrics) suitable for all ears? Are those images that are a mouse click away acceptable? The slope is remarkably slippery if we have one foot in Zion and one in Babylon (yeah, I mixed those metaphors, but you get my meaning).

My mission president told a story he heard from Sterling Sill (a former Assistant to the Twelve, then member of the First Quorum of Seventy). When Elder Sill was a young man, he served in the military and had seen a pinup poster of whoever was on pinup posters in his day. Decades later, as a general authority of the church and in the temple, the image of that poster flashed into his mind, uninvited, unintended and unwanted. Once the image, the lyrics or the content enter our brain, they are stored and cataloged to be retrieved, sometimes when we least expect it.

Even when I am well covered, sometimes the poison ivy’s fluid finds a patch of skin. But it’s far less likely to happen if I am careful, deliberate and prepared. In the same way, when I wear the whole armor of God, I’m far more likely to be protected spiritually.

Supporting Sinners

2011-08-08T09:30:00.000-04:00

Elder Clayton Christensen, then an area authority seventy, taught us in a stake conference a few years ago that maxim that the church is not a resort for the perfect, but a hospital for sinners. He said if we didn’t smell tobacco in our sacrament meeting, then we probably weren’t working hard enough to reach out to others (either in missionary work or reactivation).

King Benjamin taught a similar principle: our obedience to God’s commandments does not put him in our debt, ever. We are always in His debt; we are nothing; without the atonement, we are worthless (see Mosiah 4).

In our zeal to protect our home and family from evil (which we should do), how do we hate sin and love sinners? How can we judge (being sinners ourselves)? Mosiah 4 speaks of sharing our substance with those in need; does that extent to our sharing our love with fellow sinners who are also seeking a path home? I believe it does.

I remember when someone shared his love with me. I was a new Sunday School president just about the time Sunday School presidents were becoming less relevant. We had no more opening exercises. And soon teacher inservice would be phased out, as well. Being the young return missionary I was, I thought I knew all there was to know, and I resisted the efforts of my stake Sunday School president to support and train me. My rebellious attitude must have been obvious to him, but he was unflappable. Each time he visited our ward, he put his arm around me and told me how much he loved me, and told me how pleased he was with what I was doing.

Despite my pride, his love was genuine (and disarming). It was impossible for me to ignore it. And I remember it thirty years later.

It is easy for us to find fault with others, to find reasons not to relate, not to engage. But that’s not what the Savior taught us, is it?

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.

Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil (Luke 6:27-35).

A lesson Richard taught me

2011-08-04T09:02:00.000-04:00

In 1998, we moved back to the US from Venezuela, where I’d been working for three and a half years. During our time there, we had collected a lot of books – church books, children’s books, reference books and others. It has been this way in each of our overseas assignments: each trip back to the US included an expensive trip to the bookstore since we could not get English reading material in our host country. (In Japan, we could buy English books, but they were very, very expensive, so we tried very hard to stay out of the English bookshop in Hiroshima.)

As we were preparing to move, I wondered about moving all those books home. Logistically it was no issue: the company was moving us and there was certainly room in our shipping container. But I thought about the church members we’d come to know there. We attended a local ward and new some new members and others who had been members for most of their lives. Quite a few read English and others were anxious to learn. Leaving behind a library of books would be a blessing to our new friends.

So we determined to give away most of our books. I took them to church one weeknight in the trunk of my car, and we invited anyone who was interested to take what interested them. I had underestimated their enthusiasm. One long-time member who had not traveled outside Venezuela practically caressed the paperback volumes of the History of the Church. Her husband was in the stake presidency and they were both great students of church history and the scriptures. (Every talk I heard him give included at least one great story from the Old Testament.)

Youth were excited to have novels in English with which they could practice, and mothers were happy to have picture books for their children.

In the end, all the books were taken. I’m sure some were soon forgotten, but others, I hope, were well used.

I doubt it would have occurred to me to offer them had it not been for Richard Ellsworth. Richard was a professor of English at BYU, and a cousin to my mother-in-law. He passed away recently, and Margaret Blair Young’s touching recollections over at BCC caused me to reflect on him this week. I took just one class from Richard – a 19th century American lit class – toward the end of my English degree. But I also had the good fortune, with my wife, to visit him and his wife in their home.

I remember sometime during our semester together, Richard counseled our class not to keep all our college textbooks. He said as English majors, most of what we had was literature anyway, and it would easily be found in the library, so we need not schlep boxes of books across the country between graduate school and teaching appointments. I admit I was a little surprised. I would have expected a lit professor to treasure the books, but of course what he treasured was the literature itself.

I still love to hold a book in my hand. I have not made the leap to Kindle- and iWhatever-fueled electronic reading (except for blogs and emails, which I still do from my laptop). In our community we have a great library, and we are regular patrons (which just about keeps up with my 11-year-old daughter’s 10-book-a-week habit). We still buy some books that we know we want to have for reference.

But, as Richard taught me: it’s the literature, not the books.

Two quotations from yesterday’s sacrament meeting that I thought were cool

2011-08-01T10:06:00.000-04:00

The first from a young woman, age 15, who was baptized a few months ago. She was the first in her family to be baptized, and was followed by her mom a few weeks later. The young woman was speaking about standards and the value of living them. Her quotation: “Peer pressure is for losers.”

The second was in a great talk about tithing by a long time member of the church. She spoke of her family’s own struggle with church contributions years earlier – no miracle promotion, no pot of money to replace the contributions made; instead her husband lost his job! But here’s the quotation she used:

“Things cheaply purchased are seldom appreciated. Attitudes which cause us to look for bargains in some areas of life will carry over into more important things” (F. Burton Howard, “On Giving And Getting,” New Era, October 1985).

Her point was that the blessings of paying tithing or making other contributions in the church do not come cheaply; it does not pay for us to seek bargain blessings.

Yesterday was a good day to be in sacrament meeting.

Lessons From My Garden: Water

2011-07-28T09:28:00.002-04:00

Since I live in the Midwest, we get some rain during the summer. But we still run sprinklers in the lawn and flower beds to keep things looking good.

Some of the plants in my flower bed thrive and not so much. There are a few that seem particularly dependent upon water and are planted just at the edge of the range of the sprinklers. Those plants always look less robust than the others: the leaves wrinkle, they don’t bloom as well, and they are smaller than those that seem to be better watered.

As far as I can tell, the dirt is pretty much the same. They all get the same dose of Miracle Gro every few weeks. The big difference in their care is the water.

When I think about my own gospel experience, I sometimes ask myself how close I am to the water. If I feel my enthusiasm flag, if I find myself hypercritical of my friends at church, if I find myself complaining about being asked to serve or to attend a meeting, I have learned to ask how close I am to the water.

Unlike my plants, I can move closer if I need to (or want to). I can read the scriptures more. I can pay more attention to my prayers. I can open the door and invite the Savior into my life. I can give more freely of myself. All of those things help me to drink more freely of the living water of the gospel (See John 4).

One of my favorite promises is in Isaiah 58, a great chapter on the law of the fast. If we draw near to the Lord (by properly fasting and caring for the poor in this chapter), we are promised, “And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (Isaiah 58:11).

That’s something I – and the plants in my garden – would like.

Early Church

2011-07-25T09:32:00.000-04:00

We moved to early church this week.

It happened because some boundaries were moved in wards in our stake, and now our building has two wards instead of three. Before the change, meeting blocks started at 9, 11 and 1. We were in the 11:00 time slot, which is perfect if you have teenagers (and pretty awful if you have little kids). Since we are out of the toddler stage, we loved 11 am church.

But now we’re at 9 am. (Yawn.)

My 14-year old son summed it up when a week ago last Saturday he said, “Well, tomorrow is our last day of normal church.”

And not only did we need to be at church for sacrament meeting at 9, but we had a choir practice at 8:30 since we were singing for pioneer day. (Double yawn.)

Of course, we woke up to chirps from our electric alarm clocks, climbed out of our soft beds and into warm showers. We enjoyed a breakfast of Pillsbury Pop-n-Fresh cinnamon rolls, sliced fresh fruit and boiled eggs. We dressed in our nice Sunday clothes and drove the 10 minutes to church in our air conditioned car.

A century and a half ago our pioneer forefathers (my wife has Mormon pioneers in her family; mine are just good ol’ American pioneers who embarked on the Oregon Trail) may have woken to the sound of chirping birds at sunrise, crawled out of their bedrolls on hard ground, built fires to cook whatever it is they could scrape together (or hunt, or pull out of their meager supplies, if they had any that day). They likely put on the same dusty clothes they’d worn the day before (assuming they’d taken them off to sleep the night before). And, if they weren't observing the Sabbath, they'd begin their daily 20-mile hike.

Maybe early church isn’t so bad, after all.

"Youth Conference was Awesome!"

2011-07-21T08:48:00.000-04:00

That was my son’s Facebook status a few weeks ago after he returned from a couple of days in Kirtland. It’s the kind of thing that makes the heart of a parent of a mid-teen soar, especially when for a long time that mid-teen seemed to find something to complain about with everything he did, especially at church.

I don’t know exactly what made his youth conference awesome. (I do know he was really impressed by the bathrooms at the Morely Farm – very high-tech ones in a trailer, but with wood floors and MoTab music piped in…) In any case, I’m glad that the conference was awesome enough for him to note it.

There’s that saying that 90% of life is just showing up. I don’t think that’s really true, but I do think it may be true for teenagers. Getting them to the right place at the right time is crucial to the development of testimony, values and character (hopefully those three intersect well).

The summer before my senior year, I was away from home when my mom signed me up for youth conference. When I came home, I complained just a little, but my mom played the “Do it for me” card (one she played only very rarely in my life). I went. And it was awesome, and for more than just the bathrooms (frankly I don’t remember the bathrooms!). I made a new friend at that conference that significantly influenced a couple of key future decisions in my life, like going to BYU and going on a mission. I felt the spirit in that conference like I hadn’t in several years, and had a testimony rekindled. That conference – and the keynote speaker in particular (someone from Salt Lake whose name I no longer remember) – contributed significantly to who I am today.

By the way, I love Kirtland. If you haven’t been, it’s well worth the trip from wherever you are. Apparently, even the bathrooms are awesome.

Lessons From My Garden: Virginia Creeper

2011-07-18T11:40:00.001-04:00

I am not a great gardener. In fact, I’m not even really a very good gardener. But I do enjoy working in my yard, and particularly in the flower beds that adorn my front yard. As I plant and weed and mulch and fertilize, I have a chance to think about things, and often about the lessons gardening can teach me.

Today’s lesson:

Vines are impossible to pull out from the root.

Our home is surrounded by beautiful tall trees, and in the tree stands is a mixture of English ivy, pachysandra and trillium (the last is a native wildflower in Michigan, and it’s protected by state law; I’m thrilled to have some growing in my woods). Unfortunately, we also have another vine, uninvited: Virginia creeper.

The Virginia creeper is an invasive species not native to our area, likely introduced (according to a ranger at a local park) by homeowners who were trying to provide quick groundcover (like those who planted my English ivy, which is also not native to our area). The Virginia creeper grows fast and stands taller than the ivy I want, and shades it so it does not thrive.

Unfortunately, the Virginia creeper is almost impossible to remove. Even if I am successful at getting a vine in my hands, quickly I discover it’s wrapped around the English ivy vines; pulling out one means pulling out the other. So at best I can pull up only part of the vine.

Most years I keep ahead of the vines pretty well. This year I was late to my weeding of the tree stand on the north side of our house, and I discovered (well, my lovely wife pointed it out to me) that the Virginia creeper had crossed the path and begun to climb the house, Jumanji-style. In fact, it had wrapped itself around a basement window, climbed under our siding at one place, and climbed the wall toward the roof in another. And I also discovered a couple of vines that had worked themselves under the corner molding of our siding and climbed the entire distance to our roof in the dark, seeking the light at the top. Left unattended, the vines could have done some real damage.

Here are some lessons the Virginia creeper teaches me:

1. Although it is a “benign” plant, it can be destructive if it’s growing where it shouldn’t. There may be “good” things that if they are done to excess or are in the wrong priority in my life, they can be harmful to me or to my family.

2. Because it grows taller than the English ivy that is meant to be there, the Virginia creeper can stunt the growth of the desired ivy. Like the tops of the trees that became too strong for their roots in the Allegory of the Olive Tree (see Jacob 5:37), the Virginia creeper can upset the balance in my tree stand. I need to preserve proper balance to nurture the things I want to grow in my life.

3. Pulling the creeper out by the roots is nearly impossible because of the length of the vines, and the fact that it is intertwined with the desired ivy. I cannot remove evil from the world. I can’t even remove it from my family’s view. I can do my best to keep it at bay; I can teach my children how to avoid it, I can try to keep it from my house. But I must be constantly aware of its potential influence.

4. Finally, there are some who might argue that I should let the Virginia creeper flourish. They may say that it is as reasonable to grow it as to grow the other non-native species I have in my tree stand. But I am the gardener here, and I get to decide what should be there and what shouldn’t. Similarly, my Father in Heaven is the gardener in my life, and he gets to choose what is right and what is not. It’s not up to me to decide what is evil, but to look to Him and His prophets, ancient and modern, to help me understand.

I Need A Hero (or do I?)

2011-07-15T14:11:00.000-04:00

My 14-year old son has taken a liking for movies about unlikely heroes. With the help of his Clear-Play DVD player and Netflix, he’s watched Schindler’s List and Hotel Rwanda. In both, unlikely heroes surface to do something they would not have assumed they could do beforehand.

In sacrament meeting last week, one of the speakers talked about Ester and her being in the right place at the right time to serve her people in a heroic way.

I think stories of accidental heroes appeal to us because they reflect on the innate goodness of someone to do the right thing, and that the right thing may have a significant impact. (I’d be tempted to quote 1 Nephi 16:29 in which we read, “And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things,” except that I’ve always been struck by the irony of that statement. The liahona may have been small in size, but certain not in technology or impact!)

I don’t know if my son wonders if he will be an unlikely hero someday, but he does like to be the one to buck the system in his teenage version of righteous indignation (just like his father, some might say). It’s striking to me that according to the book (I’ve never seen the movie) Oskar Schindler seemed to be an unremarkable man before and after his work to save Jews from the Holocaust. Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life hotel manager and hero in Hotel Rwanda seems to have done the only thing he could at the moment – to save the lives of over 1,000 people in his war-torn city.

My mother told her own story of heroism, though she never couched it in those terms. One morning she set out to do her visiting teaching and came to the home of one of the sisters on her list. The door was open, and the woman was passed out on the kitchen floor. My mother entered the house and called an ambulance, and probably saved the sister’s life (the sister certainly credited Mom with that). My mother would say all she did was what anyone would have done. And she points out she was only doing her visiting teaching, not responding to some remarkable prompting to go on that particular day.

Bertolt Brecht did not accept larger than life heroes, and did not write them into his plays. In Galileo, the title character is presented as decidedly human. One of my favorite moments in the play is when Galileo explains to a student that a scientist proves nothing is true. In fact, he says, the scientist creates a hypothesis and then does all he can to prove it wrong. Only in failure to prove himself wrong does he believe he has found truth. This anti-hero succeeds in failure.

The Savior’s teaching about the first being last and the last being first, the leader being the servant, and the unlearned being wise suggests that the prideful view of hero-as-pinnacle is probably not the celestial view. Indeed the Savior’s most heroic act was one no mortal witnessed (as those closest to him slept).

Perhaps it is not good for us to try to be heroic, but to be, as President Hinckley taught, the best we can be. If we do, it is likely that along the way we may be heroic to someone, as my mother was, and maybe to many.

The Power of Worrying

2011-07-11T10:26:00.000-04:00

There’s plenty to worry about in the world. Macro events, micro events. Global warming, unusual weather patterns, natural disasters, war. Family concerns. What the kids are up to. Will one's job last? Will one finish school? Will one get accepted into school? And on and on.

All of these things (and more!) can disturb our peace of mind.

The question is, does worrying do any good?

Not for me.

Part of the point of the gospel is to bring us peace. Consider the Savior’s words to Peter and the apostles prior to the Lord’s atoning sacrifice. Just after he prophecies that Peter will deny him three times, the Savior says, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1). Later in the same chapter he says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (verse 27).

Don’t worry. (Resist the urge to hum like Bobby McFerrin.)

Telling someone not to worry is a little like telling someone not to think about an elephant. The first thing that comes to mind is the elephant. The best ways not to think of an elephant is to think actively about other things. In John 14, the Lord reminds his apostles of the many mansions in his father’s house. He does the same thing in Doctrine and Covenants 98. Think about those mansions in heaaven.

Taking the long view seems standard counsel for those who suffer privations in this world. And it works for me.

I often write about my experience with the 12 steps of recovery. The first three steps are commonly summarized in this triplet: “I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let him.” Those first steps are all about what’s in my power to control and what isn’t. For the alcoholic or addict, the addiction is not in his control. For the loved one of an addict, the addiction (or any person) is not in his control.

A friend of mine recommended once that I ask myself a question when I begin to worry: “Whose problem is this?” If it’s mine, then I can worry about it only enough to do something about it. If it’s not mine, then I ought to stop worrying about it and focus on things I can do.

One way for me to stop worrying about things that aren’t mine is to focus, as my friend recommended, on my own knitting. Another is, as the Savior taught, to take the long view. Sometimes I do an exercise that walks me to the most awful possible conclusion of a particular concern. Then I take a deep breath and tell myself (out loud), “And that’s ok.” And it is. In the long run, the eternal scheme of things, I can accept much more now than I used to.

But if I had to rely on myself alone, I doubt I could do it. I also require the grace of the atonement to calm my troubled heart. My faith lifts and supports me when I need it most.

In the end, Emma Lou Thayne’s text describes my experience. The last two verses of “Where Can I Turn For Peace”:

Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.

He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end. (Hymns, 129)

Turning Weakness Into Strength

2011-07-07T10:20:00.000-04:00

Ten days ago I wrote about personal inventories, and a week ago, I wrote about sharing those inventories.

An inventory will likely include at least three things: some strengths (what we’re good at), some weaknesses (what we’re not so good at), and maybe some sins (what we’ve done wrong).

There is for me a key difference between weakness and sin. To me, a weakness is a lack of strength. It is an area where I may not have a natural talent, or where I may struggle with a particular temptation. A sin, on the other hand, is action taken by me to transgress God’s law. My sin may grow out of weakness. But it may also grow out of strength if my pride (a weakness) leads me to overestimate my strength.

Scriptures teach us that the redemptive nature of the atonement can save us from sin if we repent, and it can help us turn our weakness to strength. If I identify physical weakness, I might engage in a program of exercise and physical training to overcome that weakness. I may be more successful if I engage the help of a guide who understands the science of exercise. My personal efforts may lead directly to my overcoming my weakness.

Heber J. Grant is famous for overcoming his weakness in baseball and handwriting. Persistence and exercise helped him.

When I struggled with my response to stress in my life, a professional therapist helped me work a series of exercises that allowed me to have better control over my response to that stress, contributing to an improvement in my relationship with my wife and children.

Our trials may reveal weaknesses. In Ether we read:

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them (Ether 12:27).

In addition to whatever we may do by ourselves, the power of the atonement can also help us to overcome our weaknesses. That change may not come on our timetable, and we may not be able to control the outcome of that change. But it can come.

In the twelve-step program, the next step after sharing our inventory is preparing to have God remove our weaknesses, and then asking him to do so. Those steps make me think of Lamoni’s father who was willing to give away all his sins to know God (Alma 22:18). I think of preparing ourselves to have God remove our weaknesses like a visit to a chiropractor: the chiropractor aligns the spine for optimal performance; we align ourselves to God’s will for our optimal performance.

In the case of sin, we can repent. In the case of weakness, it’s not really repentance we need, but grace. In the case of our strengths, it’s humility. All three come to us through the atonement.

Freedom Isn't Free

2011-07-04T13:21:00.001-04:00

Freedom isn't free!
Freedom isn't free!
You gotta pay the price
You gotta sacrifice
For your liberty.

So said the song on my father's Up With People album when I was a kid.

I used to hum that tune all the time, and this year it's come back to me. Maybe it's because my wife and I were in Boston last weekend and did the Freedom Walk, visiting those pre-revolutionary sites and reminding ourselves of that city's great history (before sampling absolutely AWESOME cannoli from Mike's Pastry in the north end).

I am one of those people the polar opposites of politics derides: I'm a moderate. I am as likely to vote my party as not; I'm one of those swing voters presidential candidates love to court. I'm a big fan of the political process, but not a big fan of politics. I vote in nearly every election, and have even when we've lived overseas. I watch political conventions (of both parties) and debates.

I appreciate that part of the strength of our union is also what strains it: the taking of sides, arguing of position, debate of views -- all those help to refine our direction.

I'm grateful for family members, friends and others who serve in our military. I'm grateful for the rule of law.

I have no Mormon pioneers in my genealogy; my parents were converts to the church long after wagon trains headed west. But we have plenty of American pioneers -- some who settled Virginia in the 1600s, some who settled the Pacific Northwest in the 1800s. While many of our immigrants came before this was a nation, others came in the great waves of immigration in the late nineteenth century.

When I was in high school, I spent a summer as an exchange student in Germany. Before I left, my father told me he suspected I'd find a lot of wonderful things in Germany -- and many might even seem much better than the US. He cautioned me, however, not to judge my home country too harshly. His counsel was wise (and maybe not even needed -- I was in the summer before my senior year and probably less aware of the world than he gave me credit for).

I later served my mission in Germany, and then have lived with my family in Latin America and twice in Asia. Each time, as happy as I was to be where I was, I've been happier to come home.

After Inventory, What?

2011-06-30T08:45:00.000-04:00

On Monday, I posted about the value of a personal inventory.

Once we’ve done the inventory, then what? On the surface it seems pretty simple: repent where we need to. Once we recognize our sins, we can feel remorse, seek forgiveness, restore what has been lost and never repeat the sin.

But the inventory is about more than sin. It’s also about what we’re doing right in our lives. And it’s about identifying weaknesses that may be different from sin.

Twelve-steppers will move next to confession: telling God and another person about the inventory they’ve done. For me, telling someone else (in the church’s Addiction Recovery Program, a bishop is also included if needed) has a curative effect. It takes the weaknesses that are buried inside of us and puts them on the table, so to speak. We share the burden. Someone can comfort us, mourn with us, help to bear our burden.

The Savior counsels us to share our burdens with him:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

That passage of scripture actually shows what’s next for twelve-steppers (and the rest of us if we’re wise): after we share the burdens, then we take up the Lord’s yoke. We put ourselves in a position to have him remove our weaknesses.

More on that in my next post.

But as for that sharing of our inventory: it’s not as scary as it seems. I have done a personal inventory and shared it with my wife. She was not surprised by anything on my list. She had been living with me for over 25 years and knew me pretty well. In fact, my list had some positives and some negatives. And, bless her heart, she added another positive item to my list that I had left off.

But the power of sharing the list gave me courage to seek to turn weaknesses into strengths.

A post worth reading

2011-06-28T11:10:00.001-04:00

I normally post only twice a week, but every once in a while something pushes me to post more often.

This week, Ardis Parshall at Keepapitchinin relates a remarkable experience she had teaching the Gospel of John in her Gospel Doctrine class. I encourage you to read it. It was the subject of our family scripture study yesterday morning just after I read it. Enjoy.

(And thanks, Ardis.)

Fiery Serpents or Closed For Inventory

2011-06-27T07:59:00.002-04:00

My first Sunday home from my mission was ward conference, and my dad was a high councilor at the time. He happened to speak that Sunday in sacrament meeting about the importance of personal inventory. His perspective was interesting. He had recently come home from a long term (about the time of my mission) assignment in Nigeria for his work. While they lived there, my parents had sacrament meeting with just the two of them, plus one other fellow about every other week.

That time was a chance for my folks to think about their relationship with the church, absent church buildings and friends and missionaries and all the trappings of our normal church experience. It gave them a chance to do their own personal inventory.

Participants in 12-step programs are encouraged to do a fearless moral inventory. It’s a critical part to their recovery from addiction or co-dependence. In the 12-step process, the inventory follows the humbling steps of admitting one’s powerlessness, and admitting God’s power in our lives and submitting to His will.

That the inventory is fearless does not mean it is without fear. Everyone I’ve talked to who has undertaken a “Step 4” in a recovery program has done so with some fear. But fearless means in spite of fear, not without fear.

A friend compared that inventory with the fiery serpents. The children of Israel were beset with fiery serpents. Moses put one on his staff and told the children of Israel that they needed to look at the serpent and be saved from their poison.

When we do our inventory, we look at our fiery serpents. We examine what it is in our life that does us harm. We examine our own weakness and our own sin (those aren’t the same, by the way – subject of another post to come). Rarely can we do this once and be done. We (and Ogres) are like onions. We will get so deep in our self-examination in one round and come back another day for more.

The inventory is that first “R” of repentance we learned in Primary: Recognition. It’s that chance for us to stand up against the sign at the roller coaster to see if we measure up: are we tall enough to ride?

What the inventory isn’t is a chance for self-loathing and self-blame. It’s not about how bad we are, but rather about where we are. When Matilda – that voice in my car that gives me turn by turn directions – plots my route, first she has to find out where I am. The personal inventory helps me figure out where I am.

And where I am is a great place to start.

Read my next installment, After Inventory, What? here.

Update: I'm of course not the first to talk about inventories. As Stephen mentions in his comment below, he posted on the same subject at Wheat & Tares in April. I should have referenced his post in my OP, as it was in part the inspiration for mine.

31 years of highlights...

2011-06-23T09:19:00.000-04:00

My lovely wife and I celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary this week. We've been on the road for a number of reasons -- a nephew's missionary farewell talk, a daughter's having moved into her own place on her own for the first time, and a conference we're attending in Boston. So as part of our trip, we spent our anniversary at a lovely inn in NE Pennsylvania.

As we sat on the porch of the English arts and crafts inn, we enjoyed a delightful gourmet dinner while overlooking the beautiful English garden. And I mentioned that I'd been wondering what we could consider the "highlights" of each of our 31 years together.

So as we ate our meal, we went year by year and reminisced about the best things from each year. Of course we remembered our wedding itself, the birth of our seven children, high school graduations, college graduations (including our own!), family moves, and special family vacations. But we also remembered small everyday things that have made our life what it is. Some details we had a hard time placing in a specific year, especially the nine years we stayed in one place (it seems easier to anchor memories around the moves!), but we did the best we could.

We couldn't avoid also remembering a few bumps in the road, some of which we've made it through, and others we're still working on.

But it was wonderful to sit on that porch enjoying a couple of hours' reflection on the very best of times with my best friend and sweetheart.

I know that not everyone is as fortunate as I have been, and I can't begin to calculate why I have been blessed with the remarkable marriage I have. But I know I have been blessed, and I'm grateful for it.

And I look forward to the next 31 years, and the next, and the next...

Helicopters: Bad; Thanks, Dad: Good

2011-06-20T10:56:00.000-04:00

A quote from my daughter, who has recently moved on her own for the first time (previously she’s either lived at home or in college apartments with roommates):

“I don’t like asking other people for help, except you.”

I’m flattered, of course (I guess), that my daughter wants my help. And she’s half-joking, because she did actually get someone else to do the thing she said I could do when I came to visit.

But there is a broader point: part of the independence we hope our kids will learn is building their own systems of support apart from their parents. It’s not that parents don’t want to help (we do!), but we also know our kids will not always have us to rely on.

If the helicopter parents of the world had their way, their children would never have to do anything for themselves. Bad, bad idea.

I know my wife was a little proud inside when our oldest complained that he was the only one among his freshman roommates who knew how to clean a bathroom. She was proud, of course, that he could do it. (Whether the others couldn’t do it or just didn’t isn’t clear.)

Another son quickly became the prime chef in his community of young adults when they realized what a great cook he was. (Thanks again, Mom!)

I know we watched with nervousness when another son moved out right after high school, refusing our help, except to cosign his first lease. Yes, he had bumps along the way. He had to kick out that deadbeat roommate. (Did we warn him or did we bite our tongues? It doesn’t matter; had we warned him he would have ignored us, but in the end he learned the lesson he needed to learn.)

Part of a kid’s job growing up is to separate from his parents, to become independent. I know few parents who, at a child’s 18th birthday, write them off forever, but we do want our kids to need us less and less.

My wife grew up in a family of 12 kids. There just wasn’t much time for helicoptering in that home. My own mom had a favorite mantra when I was a kid: “Fight your own battles.” I don’t remember her ever intervening, even when I was a high school sophomore and my “fighting my own battles” ticked off certain students at my high school who broke into my locker and stole everything – textbooks, notebooks, my winter coat. She did not stop me, nor did she rescue me (well, she did buy me a new coat). Thanks, mom.

To be sure, there are some scary moments when we allow our kids to make their own choices, fight their own battles, blaze their own trails. They sometimes make choices we think are dumb (and maybe even dangerous). I’m not advocating that parents allow their children to live recklessly, but that they allow their children to enjoy the dignity of the consequences of their choices.

Relying on grace, like Peter

2011-06-16T13:33:00.000-04:00

A thought occurred to me on Sunday.

I was considering Peter (one of my very favorite characters in the scriptures). In Matthew we read about his attempt to walk on the water:

And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. (Matthew 14:28-30)

I have always read this story as a failure of Peter’s faith (and the Lord in the next verse, after he saves Peter, makes that observation: “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”).

But here is my thought:

Peter did have faith. He had faith to climb out of that boat. He had faith to walk on the water. He had faith to follow the Savior (even when he didn’t understand, which was often).

But Peter also had weakness. He faltered on the water. Perhaps he was distracted. Perhaps he doubted. Perhaps he did not have enough faith to continue walking.

And when he faltered, he called out for the Lord to save him. And Jesus did save him. The Savior’s grace saved him.

When I falter, when I lack faith, when I am in a moment of my weakness, I hope I will have the faith of Peter and rely on the grace of the Lord to lift me out of my stormy sea.

Listening to a prophet today

2011-06-13T08:28:00.000-04:00

A comment at another blog a week or so ago got me to thinking. The discussion was about modern interpretation of the Word of Wisdom and the present (lack of) focus on the counsel to eat meat sparingly. The commenter observed that the general authorities today don’t seem to be too worried about that particular item (based on her observation of their behavior). She said, “If they start emphasizing it, I’ll worry about it. Until then, I’ve got plenty to worry about.”

That’s a practical approach for many things. It does not say (in the specific example) that the meat issue is not important, but it doesn’t seem top-of-mind for the brethren today. It suggests instead that there are other matters that seem more urgent. I hear a speaker recently talk about going through the general conference talks and finding direct counsel he felt he should consider. He said as he read with that thought in mind, he quickly developed a list of things that were important for him to focus on (including his own personal scripture study, his own contributions to the general missionary fund, and others), based on what was taught in general conference.

It occurs to me that the leaders of the church will emphasize particular doctrines or teachings or practices at one time that may not be emphasized at another time. For instance:

In the early- and mid-20th century, there was plenty of discussion about which hand to use in taking the sacrament. Today’s handbooks and recent general conference talks are silent on the matter. Either everyone should remember the teachings from nearly 100 years ago (an interesting requirement for a church that has such growth from converts around the world), or it’s not top of mind for the folks who worry about what things we ought to worry about. I don’t suggest that it was wrong to focus on this matter years ago. But there simply isn’t the same focus on it today.

These days there is plenty of talk about tattoos and the number of earrings our youth should wear. President Hinckley felt strongly enough to address those matters in a General YW meeting and in subsequent general conference addresses and the standard has been reinforced in For The Strength Of Youth, so for now that’s important. But in fifty years will it be? Maybe. Maybe not.

Since I sustain the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve as prophets, seers and revelators, I feel safe in looking to them for guidance on issues of my day.

This position doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to study my scriptures, study church history and to align my behavior with the Lord’s expectations. Of course I need to honor my covenants, keep the commandments, and listen for personal promptings along the way. Looking to church leadership for guidance seems prudent to me because I sustain the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve as prophets, seers and revelators.

But what I don’t need to do is look for areas where I believe my neighbors or my local ward council members or even the general leadership of the church are deficient (or divergent from the path I think is right).

On whether all roads lead to Rome

2011-06-09T08:29:00.000-04:00

While I was on my mission (back when we rode dinosaurs to appointments), my last companion somehow got invited to present a paper at a local university in Saarbrücken during a symposium on religion. There were other papers to be presented on a variety of topics, but his was entitled “Alle Wege Führen Nicht Nach Rom” (Not All Roads Lead to Rome).

His point, as one might imagine an LDS missionary’s point would be, was that there was only one way back to Heavenly Father, namely through the authorized ordinances of the restored priesthood. He did a credible job presenting; his non-native German was wonderful, and he was well received by the small crowd at the lecture. (We were actually working in a different city; he’d been transferred after he’d committed to present, so he got permission to go back.)

As I’ve grown older, I’ve had some different thoughts on the matter. While I agree with my companion that the saving ordinances of the restored priesthood are required for exaltation, how we get to those ordinances may be on very different paths.

I have for several years participated in 12-step programs. Part of the concept of most such groups is the acceptance of a Higher Power whose attributes are not specified except to note that the power higher than ourselves can restore us to sanity. The lack of specificity allows people of diverse beliefs to share the benefits of the 12 steps without reference to a particular religion. Many participants I know are Christian, so they have a similar (though perhaps not equal) concept of God to mine. But others do not worship God as we understand him, and still they are able to find a place on the spiritual journey of the steps. I should add that some who come to one of my 12-Step groups without religion take some time to sort out how to get past the idea of a Higher Power, but many eventually do, finding their higher power in nature or in the group itself or some other way. (The church’s Addiction Recovery Program is different in this point, as one might expect. There, one openly acknowledges Christ’s role in allowing us to change, and rather than restoring us to sanity, he restores us to spiritual health.)

I quietly worried about this Higher Power model for my first while in my non-LDS 12-step program. Should I not confess Jesus Christ as my savior? The answer is yes, but the traditions of the program I attend prohibit the discussion of specific religions. In the end, here is how I sorted it out:

I can believe as I do, but “check my belief at the door” when participating in discussions of a Higher Power in order to allow the group to function as it does. In so doing, I can contribute to the greatest recovery for the greatest number (another part of the organization’s traditions) by avoiding polarizing discussions of religion that have little bearing on the other elements of the program. I do this already in many other aspects of my life. I do not discuss religion at length in the workplace. Nor do I discuss my faith with my doctor or mailman or plumber.

I can also acknowledge God’s power to reveal Himself to people when He and they are ready. It occurred to me that if others in recovery accept a Higher Power to allow their progress on the spiritual journey of recovery, they will also find God eventually. As they work the steps, they will apply the lessons and blessings of the atonement to their lives, and in that process, God will speak to their hearts in His way and His time. And eventually He will help them to be prepared to take another step and learn about saving ordinances of the gospel. I can respect that God’s timeline is not mine, and I can strive to see if I have a place on His timeline, and I can be patient if I don’t.

I can share my faith quietly and privately as moved by the Spirit (or invited by others) to do so, just as I can with my co-workers, my doctor, my mailman or my plumber. In the meantime, I can recognize that God has far greater power than I do in the sharing of His word. In recognizing that, I don’t seek to avoid my responsibility to share the gospel, but I recognize that since it’s His work, I can seek to understand His plan for me and act upon that.

Gospel truth is gospel truth. If someone learns truth in an LDS sacrament meeting or in self-study of the Bible or in the hands of a Buddhist monk or at the tables of recovery, it is still truth. In time, a person can learn enough truth to begin to want the ordinances of the priesthood. The paths to that point may be quite diverse. And that’s ok.

On the language of testimony

2011-06-06T08:45:00.000-04:00

I love the ward I live in. It’s a rather mature suburban ward in the Midwestern United States. There’s a mix of local members – some second- or third-generation, some converts – and transplants from elsewhere because of large companies who hire people from top grad schools (including BYU). Though employment used to be dominated by one or two companies in the ward, it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

I’d say the ward is quite conservative politically. I cringe every so often at something I hear in a hallway conversation or at a table at a ward activity, but we don’t preach politics from the pulpit or in the classroom as far as I can tell. Though our ward is economically diverse, it skews to higher end of the income scale in our stake. And it’s clearly a “teach from the manual” ward – a point driven by our stake president (who resides in the ward) and those who serve with him. (“Teach from the manual” does not necessarily mean “Ready, Aim, Read” however.)

After reading recently about the language people use in their testimonies and how testimony meetings work in some places, I thought I’d pay closer attention to yesterday’s meeting in our ward. I’d say it was a typical testimony meeting. We had about a half hour for testimonies after the bishop’s counselor bore a very short testimony to get things rolling. In addition to the counselor we heard from:

Seven adult women
Five adult men
One 11-year old primary boy
One young woman

Of those fourteen, I think I’ve heard from no more than three of them in the last three months (maybe only two).

By my count, ten of them used the words “I know”, six of them included expressions of gratitude, one used the word “testify” (rather than “know”) and one “witness”.

But as I listened I found those specific words were far less important than the experiences people shared – not so much the “what” but the “how” of their testimonies. I remember serving in bishoprics in the past in which we began Fast and Testimony Meeting by reminding those attending that a testimony is a brief expression of what we’ve come to know and how we have come to know it.

In our meeting yesterday, we heard (among other things) about gaining strength from the Lord in times of trial, comfort from knowledge of the Lord and His gospel, that sometimes the “hedges of safety” in our lives are removed so that we can grow in faith, a tender experience of a sister who performed the vicarious sealing of her mother to the mother’s parents, and more than one expressed gratitude for parents who had joined the church thus giving the member testifying the blessings of the gospel.

I found I was touched in most cases by the experiences my brothers and sisters shared, particularly those experiences that resonated with my own – I have felt the Lord’s presence in my life in times of trial; I’ve known the comfort that a witness of the Lord brings; I have felt the vulnerability of the lack of “hedges of safety”; I’ve enjoyed the blessing of participating in sealings for loved ones who have passed on; I’m grateful for my parents’ choice to join the church when I was a child.

These were all sincere expressions of personal experience, even the Primary boy’s testimony. Although there was some common phraseology, these were not cookie-cutter testimonies.

I was fortunate to be there to hear them.

Don't we (already) have an app for that?

2011-06-02T13:19:00.001-04:00

We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church, namely apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth. (Articles of Faith 1:6)

Most people who have been around the church for a while get a pretty clear view of how things work. The global organization is pretty centrally run – First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, Seventies. Locally we have stake presidents and high councils, and bishops in our wards.

At the retail level, in the wards and branches, the heavy lifting is done in the day-to-day work of priesthood quorums and Relief Society. Quorums help folks move, cut lawns and trim trees for widows, visit and bless the sick. The Relief Society sends in meals, helps families in crisis manage home duties, and does its own work of visiting the sick and needy.

Some of this work comes by assignment in a ward council or priesthood executive committee meeting. Some is arranged by presidencies who see needs and fill them. Some is simply performed quietly by visiting teachers and home teachers who see needs and meet them. And some is done by caring neighbors who don’t wait for an assignment to be actively engaged in a good cause.

Still, in nearly every council of the church I’ve participated in at the ward and stake level, we’ve taken up the question of how to reach The One, how to rescue One Who Has Gone Astray, how to reach out to Youth In Need, how to build testimony where it is weak and how to lift up those hands that hang down. Sometimes I’ve led those discussions.

From time to time there will be a new program of choosing some number of families for a quorum or group to consider prayerfully for reactivation, priesthood advancement or temple preparation. Once in a while auxiliary and quorum leaders will be asked to identify in presidency meetings those who need extra attention and concern. And all of that is good. One doesn’t have to spend much time in President Monson’s recent biography to remember the value of reaching for The One.

What’s interesting to me, however, is that President Monson’s example is not in the creation of a new program. It’s in his personal efforts to reach out to The One. His visits to hospitals. His calling on his widows. His personal interviews. His hallway and sidewalk conversations.

Many times as I’ve sat in those ward and stake meetings, I’ve thought, “Isn’t this what home teachers are for?” (In fairness, I should as often have thought, “Isn’t this what visiting teachers are for?” but I didn’t for two reasons: first, I’m not a woman, so my thoughts don’t automatically go to visiting teaching, and second, in every unit of the church I’ve lived in, the visiting teachers ran circles around the home teachers, so -- right or wrong -- I automatically assigned deficiencies to home teaching.)

How much work of rescuing could be done by home teachers if they would just do it? And how much is being done? Probably a lot, over a long period of time.

Two examples:

1. A brother I know came back to church a few years ago after having been away nearly 30 years. His home teacher had visited him faithfully for years (like 5-10 years), and when he finally decided it was time to come back, he knew where to come because he knew his home teacher.

2. Another brother was my 20-something son’s home teacher. This particular son hasn’t been to church in nearly 10 years. This brother home taught him for a couple of years after my son moved out of our house on his own. My son moved from our town three or four years ago, but every time my son is in town, this brother arranges to have lunch with him. He’s still shepherding him, even years after his home teaching assignment ended.

I served a few years ago in a bishopric with a counselor who would regularly bring us back to what the Lord has given us instead of trying to reinvent the wheel: “Couldn’t the home teachers do that?” “Couldn’t we do that in ward council instead of having a special meeting?” “Does Brother Smith already have a connection to someone in the ward with whom he’s comfortable? Wouldn’t that be a good place to start?”

It wasn’t that this counselor was trying to squash innovation. He was happy to be guided by the spirit to do new things. But as often as not, the spirit guided him to use the tools the Lord had already given us.

In Memorium

2011-05-30T09:14:00.002-04:00

Today is Memorial Day in the US. It began as a tribute to fallen Union Soldiers after the Civil War, and now honors all those who have died in the service of their country.

I have no such soldiers in my own family that I knew personally, though in the generations that preceded mine, we have many veterans of various wars. And I have friends who have lost loved ones in war. And today I gratefully bow my head to honor those who have so served.

Our family has lived overseas a number of times because of my work. It's been exciting to live in Asia and Latin America, to learn new languages (or to try!) and new cultures, to see exotic place we otherwise would not have visited, and to learn about what makes us the same and different across the human family.

One thing my wife has worked particularly hard to do is to help our children to retain their American-ness while overseas. She and I are grateful to have been born in the country we were, and we have sought to share a love for that country with our children. And our children (and we) have had that patriotism tempered by our international experiences.

That is to say, I know that the United States of America is a blessed land and great country. But it is not the only great country. I know that many Americans, regardless of which side of the political aisle they occupy, love their country. But I know that citizens of other nations love their county, too. I know that American ingenuity and opportunity have allowed many to achieve the American dream -- rising out of poverty, improving one's circumstance, able to give their children better lives than they did. I believe I've been able to do this for my own children. But I also know that parents in many countries seek this same ideal and many achieve it.

I also know that the United States is not perfect. And by not perfect I do not mean disagrees with my flavor of politics (though there are plenty who do and that's ok).

We were talking about the Pledge of Allegiance yesterday. My son asked my daughter if they are still saying that every day in her elementary school. She reported they were and he was aghast! I pointed out that one of the reasons they are is because when I learned a few years ago they weren't, I wrote letters to the principal and to the school board encouraging them to do so.

My all knowing 14-year old son insisted that America is NOT a country of liberty and justice for all. And he cited some political hot buttons to bolster his case (he argues just like his father...). I allowed that the United States is not perfect. But it is also a place where for hundreds of years political power shifts from party to party peacefully. And a place where that political process allows for open and vigorous debate.

And it is a place I'm happy to call home.

"I like the way you swear"

2011-05-25T17:01:00.000-04:00

I wasn’t going to bring it up, but after TWO related posts on Middle-aged Mormon Man (here and here), I couldn’t resist.

I don’t swear. Well, I don’t swear in front of other people. And when I do swear in front of other people, I don’t use swear words. Some of my favorites (really): By golly! and Jumping Jiminee! I also like Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat (but not as much as the other two).

We finished an awful project at work about a week ago. By awful I mean big, hard, unwieldy, lots of late changes, and (most important to me) lots of late nights in the office for several weeks on end. Toward the end, a co-worker and I were working late and I got frustrated by something we were doing where the data didn’t line up the way I wanted it to, and I used my favorite two phrases.

My friend smiled, looked at me, and said, “I like the way you swear.”

This is not the first time something like this has happened to me (though it’s the first time anyone told me he liked the way I swear). Years ago I was in a meeting with my boss. He let fly a string of profanity (very common in my company among men and women). He then looked at me and paused. “You don’t use words like that, do you?” I thanked him for noticing and confirmed I didn’t. He let that sink in and went back to our discussion (and didn’t censor himself in the process).

My parents were converts to the church. There was minor biblical swearing in our home before and after our conversion (though less after, and much less as time went on). My mother delighted in telling a story from their Sunday School class. (Spencer Condie and Orrin Hatch, both in grad school at the time, team taught the class.) Orrin was teaching and mentioned in a discussion of swearing (perhaps a 10-commandments lesson regarding taking the name of the Lord in vain?) that sometimes he would rather “swear than punch someone in the nostrile” (my misspelling is intentional as Mom reported he pronounced that last syllable with a long i sound).

Well, I also would rather not punch anyone in the nostrile. Hence my favorite swear words.

Inspiration or Revelation? Yes.

2011-05-22T21:58:00.000-04:00

We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God. (Articles of Faith 1:9)

One of the hallmarks of the restoration of the gospel is that the heavens are still open, that God today operates by Amos’ Old Testament teaching, “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).

We also know, thanks to Joseph Smith’s experience, that God also reveals himself to individuals to answer prayers. Joseph followed the New Testament admonition of James to seek wisdom where he lacked it (see James 1:5), and received an answer he did not expect.

In today’s church, apostles and others speak of revelation and inspiration interchangeably. One may receive personal revelation or inspiration for one’s sphere of responsibility – for personal use, for one’s family as a parent, for one’s organization as an auxiliary leader or one’s quorum for a priesthood leader. This revelation may extend to callings to be issued, lessons to be taught, counsel to be given, service to be rendered. One should not expect to receive revelation beyond one’s scope of responsibility, however. I should not presume to receive inspiration for my bishop or for the church in general.

Some seek to distinguish between inspiration and revelation. Orson Scott Card in a recent article in Mormon Times, for instance, suggests revelation is more rare than inspiration (and more meaningful). A recent commenter on another blog suggested specific limitations for revelation, including that it must be written down and is given in the first person as if the Lord were speaking. This comment draws on a rather long article at Zomarah, and both suggest that because revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants are written down and published, all revelations must be.

I can’t support either Card’s or Zomarah’s point of view.

My dictionary defines inspiration: “to communicate ideas, etc., by a divine agency.” And revelation: “Something revealed” (which is defined: “to uncover and allow to be seen”). (The Oxford English Dictionary, which provides context over time, makes clear that in the 1800’s revelation referred to “communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency” – quite similar to our modern definition of inspiration. The OED confirms that inspiration is “special immediate influence or action of the Spirit of God upon the human mind or soul.” )

The Bible dictionary in the LDS scriptures confirms the definition of revelation: “The English word revelation is translated from a Greek word apocalypse, meaning to make known or uncover.”

The Bible dictionary continues: “Continuous revelation from God to his saints, through the Holy Ghost or by other means, such as vision, dreams or visitations, makes possible daily guidance along true paths.”

The Guide to the Scriptures, another study guide available at lds.org, says revelation is “communication from God to his children on earth. Revelation may come through the Light of Christ and the Holy Ghost by way of inspiration, visions, dreams, or visits by angels.” The same guide says inspiration is “divine guidance given to man by God. Inspiration often comes by the Spirit in a variety of ways to the mind or heart of a person.”

Of course the scriptures teach us about receiving personal revelation. Moroni reminds us that through the Holy Ghost we may know the truth of all things (Moroni 10:5). Section 6 of the Doctrine and Covenants reminds us of Oliver’s experience seeking a testimony of Joseph’s work. The Lord repeatedly reminds him that he spoke peace to Oliver’s mind. And in Section 8 the Lord teaches Oliver that answers will come in his mind and in his heart (verse 2). Finally Section 9 completes the triptych by counseling Oliver to study it out in his own mind before bringing a solution for ratification. That counsel is similar to Moroni’s in his 10:3 that we should ponder the circumstance under which we received the Book of Mormon before seeking to learn of its truth.

We see the pattern repeating itself in the modern church. Before President Hinckley announced in 1998 the audacious goal of 100 temples by the year 2000, he had spoken at conferences for the three years prior about how the subject of temples and temple work had weighed on his mind. He spoke of the need to bring temples closer to the people, and he introduced the rather revolutionary idea of smaller locally-staffed temples that could be built and operated at significantly lower cost than larger more traditional ones. Whether that direction came in a first person dictated revelation or through the process outlined in Section 9 is immaterial to me. The Prophet of the Lord was directed to make a radical change in the way temples can be built in order to advance the Lord’s work. As I attend one of those smaller temples today in my area, I feel the confirming witness of the Lord’s guidance in that direction.

Edward Kimball’s biography of President Spencer Kimball’s presidency details the process President Kimball followed in seeking and receiving revelation regarding the extension of priesthood blessings regardless of race – a long process of his actively seeking, and finally receiving, the Lord’s direction – and the process of President Kimball’s helping his fellow apostles to gain the same witness that he did. And President McKay’s biography by Prince and Wright confirms that he sought similar revelation but did not receive it. We do not have a text of the priesthood revelation, nor do we know the form it took, but we have accounts of the spiritual manifestations associated with it as the Lord’s will was revealed to his prophet.

Carol Clark writes in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism:

"Inspiration" and "revelation" are sometimes used interchangeably by LDS leaders in explaining the source of prophetic authority. The First Presidency of the Church said, "Moses wrote the history of the creation, and we believe that he had the inspiration of the Almighty resting upon him. The Prophets who wrote after him were likewise endowed with the Spirit of revelation" (MFP 2:232). President Wilford Woodruff later noted, "This Church has never been led a day except by revelation. And He will never leave it. It matters not who lives or who dies, or who is called to lead this Church, they have got to lead it by inspiration of Almighty God" (MFP 3:225). [MFP refers to Messages of the First Presidency.]

For me, the dichotomy between inspiration and revelation is a false one. I’m grateful for the revelation that guides the church, and the revelation I can receive of its truth.

The Progressive Gospel

2011-05-19T09:12:00.000-04:00

In his talk in the final session of the April general conference, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said this:

Obviously as the path of discipleship ascends, that trail gets ever more narrow until we come to that knee-buckling pinnacle of the sermon of which Elder Christofferson just spoke: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” What was gentle in the lowlands of initial loyalty becomes deeply strenuous and very demanding at the summit of true discipleship.

Elder Holland referenced the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5-7), speaking of the gentle blessings of the beatitudes and the more demanding higher law of avoiding lust, not just adultery, of avoiding anger, not just murder.

There are those who claim that our standing with God is dependent only upon an attitude or a one-time confession of faith. While I agree that I cannot pave my own way to heaven with my good works, I also acknowledge that the Sermon on the Mount requires my effort to live as Jesus would have me live.

That way of living spans from my relationships with others (friends and foes alike) to my innermost thoughts to my treatment of the poor to my relationship to God.

A growth in the gospel leads, according to Elder Holland, to an increasingly steeper path. That’s no surprise to me. A growth in testimony leads to clearer understanding of what I don’t understand as much as what I do. A progression in the covenants and saving ordinances of the gospel leads me to increasingly poignant commitments with the Lord. And an increase in understanding leads me to greater responsibility for what I understand.

Fortunately the Lord provides iron rods and liahonas along the way. I may search the scriptures, learn from the living prophets and seek my own answers through prayer. But the fact is, I must search. learn and seek. I cannot simply rest on some plateau, satisfied that I’ve traveled far enough.

And I must also remember that I cannot save myself. My only choice is to rely upon the merits of Christ, who is the author and the finisher of my faith (see Moroni 6:4).

Second attempt: Quality Prayers

2011-05-16T09:06:00.002-04:00

I posted this last week, but a glitch at Blogger made it difficult for nearly everyone to find it. So I'll try again today...

It’s easy to think about the great prayers of the scriptures. The Savior in Gethsemane, Enos on his hunting trip, the brother of Jared with his sixteen stones, Joseph Smith in the grove. Prayers with purpose in places set apart with the attention of the prayer-givers focused intently on the matter at hand.

And yet, I also think about a prayer my MTC companion told me about. Late into our missions we were serving in the same zone. We happened to be on a split together and he told me about a moment with his companion that had so upset him that when he went to bed that night, all he could pray was this: “Heavenly Father, I’m so mad I could spit.”

It helps me to remember that God hears both kinds of prayers. And yes, of course the first kind is valuable (and more likely to be fruitful), the second also has its place as we lay our burdens at the Lord’s feet.

Sometimes I don’t know what to pray. And sometimes I’m so mad I could spit. And sometimes I’m so tired I fall asleep before the prayer ends. And sometimes I can pray in a place set apart from my routine, with purpose and focus.

Sometimes my prayers are those omnibus prayers – mention everyone by name and specific concerns I’m aware of. Sometimes my prayers are more general, grouping like folks together (“the kids” or “the kids at home”). Sometimes my prayers are focused on just one person – my wife or one of my children or another family member or friend – or one event. Sometimes my prayers are fixed in time and space and sometimes that prayer lives in my heart throughout the day.

It’s comforting to know that God hears them all.

The Release

2011-05-09T20:23:00.002-04:00

It’s happened only rarely to me in the past, and never quite like this. I was released from my calling yesterday.

Usually I’m released because we have moved. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been released without moving and not called into another position. And this time, I asked to be released. Well, sort of.

I come from one of those families where we don’t seek callings or releases. But my father taught me long ago that there’s nothing wrong with pointing out to a priesthood leader a change in circumstances that may move him to inquire if a change is warranted.

That was the case for me. Between some family things going on and the demands of my wife’s calling, and some things our bishop had said about needing to find callings for some folks in the ward, and the fact that I actually have another calling, I felt prompted to speak to my bishop.

He was quite understanding. And he agreed to consider my situation prayerfully. And in the end, he determined it was time to release me.

I’m quite excited about the brother who will replace me. He has an energy and vigor that will do the calling good. And I’m also at peace about my stepping aside for now. I will miss the association with those with whom I served. That, for me, is always the sweetest part of a church calling. And in another season (or whenever the Lord decides He’s ready), I’ll do more again.

Faith, Dinosaur Bones and Cavemen

2011-05-05T09:07:00.000-04:00

When I went to my high priests’ group a few weeks ago to discuss Elder Hales’ talk on Agency and Bishop Edgely’s talk on Faith (both from the October 2010 conference), I did not expect we’d also be talking about dinosaurs and cavemen.

I love my high priests’ group. I have lots of friends there who truly are my brothers. We laugh together, we help each other, we mourn together and comfort one another. Our gospel discussions tend to stay in the middle of the road; it’s a “stick to the manual” group for sure.

So this week, our instructor (who really does a great job with the Teaching For Our Times lessons -- he prepares carefully, asks thought provoking questions, and leads good discussions), wandered into a discussion of dinosaurs and cavemen and their relationship to gospel teaching. His point was delivered by a bishop of his years ago: This is something you don’t need to worry about as it’s not essential to your salvation.

Then I stuck my foot in it. I commented that my fourteen year old son was wrestling with the perceived battle between religion and science and that we talked about it often. It was not something he was willing to put on the shelf or stop worrying about. I had hoped to hear helpful suggestions and ideas about how to teach faith to a teenager, and I did get some of that. But I also heard:

1. Various theories of how dinosaur bones came to the earth (including cosmic dump trucks bringing in material from other worlds and that Adam may have been an alien)

2. That Science was written in today’s world by atheists specifically to exclude God, and if one carefully reviewed the facts, he would see that the scientists are manipulating data to their own ends

Fascinating (and just a little disturbing). What I realized is that we come to these questions with our own level of knowledge and our own experience. No one in my group meeting that day is a scientist; most are folks with business or engingeering degrees, though one is a medical technician and another a social worker. I was, therefore, not terribly surprised that we didn’t have any serious students of geology or biology or zoology among us (at least none who were willing to speak up). And most are around 50 years old or more, like me, so unless they’ve made a specific effort, their impression of church teachings is likely based on 30+-year old seminary lessons.

One group member suggested (as he always does; his faith is rock-solid, and well protected by his particular approach) that we need to teach our kids to remember what they know when they find questions they can’t answer right away.

I agree with that idea. But I also agree that there’s value in understanding what my church teaches and what the scriptures teach. (I’ve mentioned to my son half-jokingly that if he’s going to leave the church, he ought to be sure he’s leaving the right one, and not leave his church because he disagrees with what some other church teaches.)

We also came around to the idea that there are many in the church who have carefully studied the science and continue to be faithful latter-day saints. There’s value in learning how they’ve done it.

In the end, not every issue is important to every person. And what’s important to me now is different from what was important when I was younger. But the things that are important are important. It’s ok to ask questions, and to seek answers. And, as my friend said, it’s good to remember what we already know in the face of what we don’t.

Begging and Bargaining With God

2011-05-02T13:11:00.001-04:00

This weekend I remembered something that happened to me years ago.

I was begging God to let me live. And bargaining by offering whatever He wanted. Period.

Now, King Benjamin does teach us that we’re all beggars, but I’m not sure this is what he had in mind.

Here’s the backstory: I was on a plane from Hiroshima, Japan to Seoul, Korea. I felt an incredible tightness in my chest. Breathing became very difficult. And I hurt!

I was not yet 35 years old, but I thought I was having a heart attack. I kept trying to remember those warning signs I’d read about. Was it a heart attack? Whatever it was, it hurt.

And I was on a Korean airliner surrounded by Korean and Japanese nationals. And I don’t speak either Korean or Japanese. (And did I mention it hurt?)

So I prayed. I probably started off pretty calmly, trying to keep my cool. But very quickly, my prayer escalated to pleading in the first degree. Please, God, don’t let me die. I’ll serve any way I can, wherever you want me to serve. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Please don’t let me die on this airplane. Just let me land. Please. Please. Please.

All things considered, it was pretty selfish, wasn’t it? I don’t remember praying not to leave my wife a widow or my children fatherless. Don’t let me die.

And all those things I promised? I’d already promised all those things years before.

Well, I didn’t die. And I was grateful for that. By the time we landed, the chest pains had subsided (though I felt bruised for the two days I was in Seoul, like someone had punched me in the sternum).

When I got back home to Hiroshima (we were living there as a family at the time), I called my dad and told him about what had happened. Based on what my dad told me, it probably wasn’t a heart attack. It was probably a hiatal hernia (where the top of the stomach presses up into the esophagus).

A few weeks later the same thing happened as I was waiting for a meeting to start. Same 30 minutes of torture. Same pressure and pain. As it subsided I began to put the pieces together. Just before the second incident I had eaten lunch. Just before the airplane incident I’d eaten the sandwich served me on the plane. I had tried the horseradish at lunch (usually I never eat it). And I suspected horseradish in the sandwich on the plane. (Two years later I got some dip at a US restaurant that caused the same reaction and we confirmed it had horseradish in it.) For whatever reason, the horseradish produced the symptoms of the hiatal hernia.

I’ve thought about my begging for my life on that plane and my selfish prayer. I’m really grateful I didn’t have a heart attack, and I’m very grateful I did not die on that plane. I’m glad I didn’t leave my wife a widow and my children fatherless. But I’m not proud of my prayer that day.

In the intervening years (nearly two decades), I’ve matured a bit. First, I avoid horseradish at all costs. And I exercise 5-6 days a week to keep my heart healthy. And I have an annual physical. But I also have come to change the way I pray.

For many, many years, my assumption was that my personal righteousness was a golden ticket to having my righteous desires granted, so all I needed to do was make them known. As I’ve studied it in the meantime, I’m come to realize that there are really very few in the scriptures who are given that promise (one of the Nephis and Elijah spring to mind, but not many more).

I’ve learned instead to seek the Lord’s will for me. And to stop handing God my punch list with a perfunctory “Thy will be done.” Now my prayers most often (I hope!) are more along the lines of, “Here’s my situation. Here’s what I think would be helpful. What do you think?”

I do still seek the Lord’s blessings. And I do fast and pray for certain specific things along the way. But I hope my heart is more open to the Lord’s will for me rather than dictating mine to Him.

I can’t say how I’d pray if I were on that Korean airliner today, but I hope it would be more along the lines of, “This really hurts and I don’t know what’s going on. Of course I’ll accept Your will, but I would prefer to live through this so that my wife and kids are not alone.”

Missionary moments

2011-04-27T18:19:00.000-04:00

I’m the ward mission leader in my ward. And I’m afraid I'm not particularly good at it.

Yes, I love the missionaries, and I love teaching with them (and I’m pretty good at that), and I love teaching the Gospel Essentials class from time to time (and I’m pretty good at that, so I’m told). But I’m not great at sharing the gospel one-on-one with those I meet.

But I came across two things this week that have motivated me to make a greater effort.

First, an article in Forbes about Clayton Christensen. Brother Christensen served as an area authority seventy in our area and attended our stake conference a number of years ago. His teaching on missionary work (and everything else) was superb. Shortly thereafter, he and his wife had an article in the Ensign about how to share the gospel with others.

In the Forbes article, Christensen discusses his own health concerns (suffering heart attack, cancer and stroke in succession) and his views on health care. Christensen is a Harvard professor and consultant and super smart. He’s highly respected, oft-quoted in his field, and in demand. And in this Forbes article, he talks about his gospel life as much as his research and his own medical experience. His gospel experience is just as much a part of him as his skin and he speaks about it freely.

For instance as he begin to talk about his first heart attack:

For seven years I was one of ten people who have responsibility for the Mormon Church in the northeast quadrant of North America. Almost every week I had to go to a city where all of the churches in the area [known as a "stake"] came together to have a conference. My job was to help them be better Mormons.

I got assigned to go to Montreal. The stake president in Montreal was a physician. We stayed at his home. At the meetings on Saturday the feeling of the spirit of God in that room was deeper than I have ever felt in my life. It was extraordinary. You walk out of it just committed to improve your lives for better.

He was talking about his heart attack. He could just have easily said, “I was on a trip in Montreal and staying with a doctor,” but he didn’t.

Even more intriguing is what he says next:

We were sleeping in the extra room in their basement. At about 3 o'clock in the morning I just had a horrible pain in my chest. I never had a heart attack before. This was something bad. I was thinking, if I wake Christine and tell her, she'll wake the stake president and they'll take me to the hospital. It's going to mess up a wonderful meeting on Sunday. And there are 1,000 members of the church who are going to come to that meeting. So I knelt down at the side of the bed and I said to God, "I have a problem. Whatever this is could you please just make it go away?" And it went away. I fell asleep and the meetings on Sunday were comparable to the ones on Saturday. The meetings ended about 9 p.m. on Sunday night, so then we started to drive back to Boston.

He then explains that the next day (Monday, Veterans Day) he had another heart attack while raking leaves and then finally went to the hospital.

In those brief paragraphs he covers church leadership, feeling the spirit in church meetings, personal prayer, and miraculous healing.

If it were me, I might have said, “I had my first scare on a trip to Montreal, but the big one came the next day when I got home.”

The second thing that motivates me? This video from the Church’s Youth website: (Note: I haven't quite mastered how to embed videos, so it may already be playing. If so, run your cursor over the video and you'll get a chance to reset it to the beginning.)

Watching it, I was reminded of my own experience of being invited to church by a friend.

I need to talk more freely about my church experience, and I think I need to invite more.

My best Easter ever

2011-04-24T22:48:00.001-04:00

No, it wasn't today. But today was great. Our bishopric gave inspiring talks about the Savior and His life and ministry. We had a wonderful Easter dinner with extended family. And we had a wonderful spirit as we read scriptures tonight before the kids went to bed.

But my best Easter Sunday is still fresh in my mind. I was in graduate school in Pittsburgh about a quarter century ago, attending as an adult the ward I attended as a child. It was General Conference weekend, and there was something wrong with the satellite dish, so we couldn't get the first bit of the first Sunday session of conference.

Someone asked the bishop if we could sing hymns until the dish was fixed. He went one step further and assigned an opening hymn and prayer, and another hymn, and then, he announced, I would read the Easter story from John. During the hymns I madly searched for the Easter story in John (Chapter 20, I quickly discovered).

I don't know why he asked me to read it. Perhaps because I was sitting on the front row. Perhaps because I was teaching seminary at the time. Perhaps because he thought I could read through it clearly. Perhaps because he wanted me to have the blessing of doing it.

As I stood before the congregation and read, it was a remarkable experience for me. As I read those words aloud, the truth of the resurrection and the events surrounding it swelled in my heart. The confirmation of the spirit was clear and strong for me that day, and returns each time I read that chapter.

It happened again today as I deviated from our planned lesson in Gospel Essentials and read John 20 with our class today. (We did spend time on our planned lesson, too, but the meat was clearly in John.)

And it happened again in our living room as we read together as a family.

I'm grateful for that confirming witness that reminds me of our Savior's love for us, and for me.

Commencing

2011-04-22T01:18:00.000-04:00

My oldest daughter (and fourth child) graduated from BYU today. She’s the second of our kids to graduate college, and the first to graduate from BYU. It was hard not to think of our own graduation (my wife and I received our bachelor’s degrees together in 1983) and make comparisons. Her graduation was much larger than ours (hers in April, ours in August). Her commencement speaker was Richard G. Scott (delightful!); ours was Hugh Nibley (also delightful, but in quite different ways).

Our daughter is quite nervous leaving the safety of BYU, though she will also tell you she is ready. She has no job, yet, but has a few leads, including a big interview next week that we hope will go well. And she has a backup plan or two in case that doesn’t pan out. If all else fails, she can spend a while at our house and sort out options for the future.

As I look with her toward her future, I also look toward my own. I’m coming ever closer to the time when I said I’d go back and certify to teach, and wonder if I ever will. I face my own uncertainty about those big decisions that can change the future, and it’s no easier for me than for my daughter. In some ways it’s more difficult for me, since I still have kids at home to get through school.

But it’s telling that commencement signals the beginning, not the end. And many of us learn that each day is a new beginning. We do not “graduate” from things in life, but each day we commence anew, seeking to know God’s will for us that day, to know whom we can serve and how. We commence each week as we partake of the sacrament and renew sacred covenants. We commence as we attend the temple for those who have died before us and remember covenants we have made there and recommit ourselves to honor them. We commence as we regularly rededicate ourselves to those relationships that are most important to us. We commence as we repent of our mistakes and invite the blessings of the atonement to help us to improve.

A friend reminds me from time to time, Right where you are is a great place to begin. Here’s to beginning.

On knowing and believing

2011-04-18T09:02:00.000-04:00

I had an interesting conversation with a friend recently.

She is a convert to the church and she has had some remarkable experiences which have taught her that God loves her, and that He has intervened in her life. She will tell you that she knows that Jesus suffered for her sins and by His atoning sacrifice she has already been greatly blessed.

And yet sometimes she feels weak and inadequate. Sometimes she feels unworthy of His love. She feels, sometimes, that she is not worth rescuing.

As I listened to her, I thought of my own experience. I joined the church with my parents when I was about nine, so I effectively grew up in the church. I have never doubted that God lives. I have never questioned that Savior suffered and died for me. I have repeatedly felt the witness of the Holy Ghost testifying of the truthfulness of the plan of salvation as it has been taught to me and as I have taught it to others.

And yet when it came time for me to call upon the atonement in a very real way, I did not reach for it.

I knew it was true, but I did not really believe it was true for me.

Of course at the time, I did not understand that’s what I was doing. By clinging to what I “knew”, I was looking through a glass darkly, seeing the shape of the atonement without allowing it to lift and comfort me as I had watched it do for others. I knew the facts of the atonement, but I did not believe it (enough).

Often our discussion is on the progression from belief to knowledge. For me, in this instance it’s moving from knowledge to belief – or perhaps better said, faith. Specifically developing the faith that the atonement – which I had seen work for others – could also work for me.

Fortunately on most days I have crossed that bridge. And on many days so has my friend. And I’ve recognized and enjoyed those blessings of the atonement in my life. But it is, I suspect, a challenging bridge for most of us to cross, precisely when we need to cross it.

In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can’t see

2011-04-14T09:34:00.000-04:00

I am grateful for quiet answers to fervent prayers.

Answers that come as whispers, barely perceptible, but still essential to discovering a next step.

Answers that provide just a shade of comfort in the glaring light of adversity.

Answers that come in the form of a phone call, an otherwise casual conversation, a hand offered in fellowship that turns out to be a rescuing hand.

Answers that come in an expression of love from a church leader.

Answers that provide someone to comfort me when I stand in need of comfort.

Answers that illuminate possibilities that had previously been hidden.

Answers that reveal just one next step in the darkness, even when I’d prefer to see a lighted path.

Answers that are only clear in retrospect, which, when taken together, make clear that God is in His Heaven.

Answers that, while they do not solve a problem, still ease the burden.

Answers that come in familiar strains of music and oft-quoted verses of scripture when I need them the most.

Answers that prepare me to be aware of others so that I might comfort those who stand in need of comfort.

I am grateful for Him who sees my heart even when others cannot.

On Consecration and Welfare

2011-04-11T10:29:00.001-04:00

This quotation from President Eyring caught my attention in conference:

His way of helping has at times been called living the law of consecration. In another period His way was called the united order. In our time it is called the Church welfare program.

The names and the details of operation are changed to fit the needs and conditions of people. But always the Lord’s way to help those in temporal need requires people who out of love have consecrated themselves and what they have to God and to His work.

I was reminded of when I taught a fifth-Sunday lesson years ago. I asked the class if the law of consecration had been “repealed.” Many in the class said it had. And I disagreed.

I have always drawn a distinction between the united order and the law of consecration. The former, it seemed to me, was a method of implementing the latter. But the abolition of the united order did not mean the law of consecration was dead. I acknowledge that in Kirtland there was a more open practice of concecration which was distinct from the United Order. But the principles of concecration are very much alive. President Eyring seems to echo that idea, suggesting that today’s welfare program is similar to the law of consecration. (Of course, Nibley echoes this sentiment also in his essay, “The Law of Consecration,” found in his collection Approaching Zion.)

One of the key messages of the Book of Mormon for me is that we can judge a people by how they treat the poor among them. King Benjamin offers counsel to individuals as well as to his entire kingdom as he reminds them about the relationship of serving others and serving God (see Mosiah 2:17). His injunction to share of our surplus with the poor in order to retain a remission of our sins seems a personal injunction:

And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants (Mosiah 4:26)

Nibley’s essay, “How to Get Rich” (also in Approaching Zion) reminds us of several rules given to the Israelites in Deuteronomy (“And,” he clarifies, “the rules for them are the rules for us!” (emphasis his)):

1. Everything you have or ever will have, individually and collectively, is a gift from God; you owe it all to Him (179-180).
2. We have not earned the good things we enjoy. God Himself gave us the capacity for success because of the covenant He made with our fathers (182).
3. Since God is giving it all away free to everyone, regardless of all other circumstances, everyone has a right to whatever he needs to live on (184).

So what is left for me to do? It seems it is more than just slipping the value of two fasted meals into the blue envelope each month.

Among the bishop’s resources for the care of the poor and needy are fast offering funds, food from the bishops’ storehouse, services of LDS Employment Services and LDS Family Services, and Deseret Industries (even available in my Midwestern community as a training resource), and me.

The Lord’s storehouse, available to each bishop in each ward, also includes all the resources – “the time, talents, compassion, materials, and financial means” – of members of his ward (Handbook II 6.1.3).

So, President Eyring, King Benjamin and Jehovah (as recorded in Leviticus & summarized by Nibley) remind me of a few things about a covenant that I have made:

1. Everything I have is God’s.
2. Even if I “earned” something, my ability to do so came from God, so see #1.
3. Returning a portion of what is already God’s back to God (like tithing) and calling it a day is not enough.
4. I must share my surplus – whatever I don’t need to live on.
5. How I care for the poor will determine whether I retain a remission of my sins.
6. Sharing of my surplus is the essence of the welfare program, but sharing it through the welfare program is not the only way I can do it.

Now, to sort out what I need to live on so I can understand the surplus…

My conference Top Ten

2011-04-07T12:25:00.001-04:00

I’m trying to hang on to the spirit of conference for just a few more days. Here are ten of my favorite thoughts that I noted as I listened over the weekend. Feel free to add yours in the comments if you like.

By the way, I note that texts are available at lds.org today (but were not by the time I posted this -- but are now); I have not yet consulted them. These are from my notes, and I freely admit that I may not have heard exactly what the speaker said. But this is what “spoke” to me.

Elder Gonzales: Our covenants are an expression of love.

President Eyring: Act on covenants to help others. And remember, Bishop: The Relief Society President may receive revelation before you.

Elder Ballard: Don’t look for the large nuggets: look for the flecks of gold

President Uchtdorf: Am I going to through motions or am I experiencing joy?

Sister Allred: Her international experience as a Relief Society leader.

Elder Bednar: Light as a metaphor for testimony. The experience of Saul / Joseph Smith / Alma the Younger are unusual, not “normal.” (I note that President Uchtdorf also taught a similar message.)

President Monson: Sacrifice now in temple service as others did in temple building in the past.

Elder Scott: A beautiful testament of his love for his wife. Satan seeks to undermine the significant of temple ordinances.

Elder Robbins: No checklist to “be”.

Elder Holland: Bedlamites. If we speak with the spirit and you listen with the spirit, prophetic epistles will come.

There are others, and I’m sure that I’ll find more as I read and listen again to the talks in the coming weeks. Maybe these will remind you of something you heard that touched your heart. I hope so.

Post Conference Let-Down

2011-04-04T17:39:00.002-04:00

I remember on my mission that I loved zone conferences. I could see other missionaries I knew. I could escape the day-to-day grind of whatever city I was working in. I could listen to my mission president (whom I loved). We often would spend a part of the conference doing street contacting, and always with other companions than our own (which, depending on the time of my mission was a blessing to me and / or to my companion).

I happened always to travel to another city for zone conference, and always by train. I found that whatever spirit I took with me out of the conference seemed to have a half-life equal to the time it took the train to roll into my city. Getting back to the same-old-same-old seemed to overshadow the spirit of the conference.

I find that General Conference is the same way. I love spending the weekend listening to the talks and music. We prod our kids to listen, plying them with snacks for Conference Bingo or whatever inducement we are using. (This time is was a suggestion from The Friend: my daughter wrote the topic, a quotation and a personal application or action for each talk.) I take notes of what I hear and what I feel prompted to do.

But still, come Sunday evening, it’s all a bit of a blur. Those talks I felt sure I would remember all mix together in the conference stew in my head and by Monday morning, I can rarely remember who said what, except in the broadest of terms.

Of course, I’ll review my notes, and I’ll listen to the talks on my i-Pod, and I’ll read the talks in the Ensign when it comes out. In our ward, most sacrament meetings are based on conference talks (sometimes too much so, but that’s another post), and of course we’ll cover some of the talks in Teaching For Our Times lessons in priesthood.

But even with all that study, the spirit of the conference, of the meetings themselves, of having the speakers in my family room with me, of listening to the remarkable music (and even the remarkably slow music…), of sustaining the general authorities and auxiliary leaders, of hearing the off-the-cuff remarks that don’t make it into the written record, does not always shine through in the same way.

So, I’ll do my best to remember what I felt this weekend, and I’ll remember to come back in October for more.

A conference tale

2011-04-01T10:43:00.000-04:00

A friend told me years ago a story he’d heard. Of course, he was telling the story second hand (he reported that his friend had heard it related by a visiting authority at a stake conference), and therefore likely got specifics wrong, and it’s been many years since he told me the story so I’ll likely get details wrong, too.

Seems there was a member of the Seventy sitting in conference in the tabernacle (helps you know how long ago it was!) listening to yet another of the brethren speak about a basic principle of the gospel as he watched dust float in the shafts of light. He wondered when the Saints would finally graduate from milk to meat, when conference talks could be substantive and filled with new (or at least rich) doctrine.

As the session ended, he rose to leave the hall, saddened that there was nothing new to be learned at this session. As he looked up to go, he saw two brethren embracing, tears streaming down their faces, talking about the wonderful spirit they had felt in the conference session that day.

And he was saddened that he had missed it.

Conference and Learning at Home

2011-03-31T09:30:00.000-04:00

I love conference weekend, and it’s not just that I get to attend church from my La-Z-Boy recliner in the family room. (We’ve come a long way from getting just one session, time-delayed, over the local PBS station!) Since my time in the MTC (before it was the MTC, in fact), I’ve really tried to participate in as many sessions as possible. Because I’ve never lived in Salt Lake City, that participation has always included some electronic connection, and I’m grateful for ever-increasing improvements in that regard.

I was reading a talk that David Bednar gave while he was president of BYU-I (“Teach Them To Understand”, BYU-I Education Week, June 4, 1998) , and he caused me to reflect on 3 Nephi 17:1-3:

Behold, now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words he looked round about again on the multitude, and he said unto them: Behold, my time is a t hand. I perceive that ye are weak, that ye cannot understand all my words which I am commanded of the Father to speak unto you at this time. Therefore, go to your homes, and ponder upon the things which I have said, and ask of the Father, in my name, that ye may understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow, and I come unto again.

Always before, I had read those verses as a sign of the Savior’s compassion (I see you’re tired, so I’ll stop), and a suggestion that they go home and get some rest.

But Elder Bednar (he was an area seventy during his time at BYU-I, so I think I can still refer to him as Elder Bednar even in that period) suggests a further bit of learning:

What a marvelous formula! (1) Go to your home, (2) ponder upon the things that have been said, (3) ask the Father in Christ’s name that you will understand, and (4) prepare your mind for additional instruction.

This weekend as I watch conference, I’ll remember Elder Bednar’s counsel. After three sessions of conference on Saturday (including Priesthood), I’m sure I’ll be a little weak (our excellent pre-Priesthood ice cream social notwithstanding). But I’ll also make an effort to ponder about what I’ve heard, to pray for understanding, and to prepare for more instruction the next day.

Why adversity?

2011-03-28T10:29:00.000-04:00

I’ve been thinking about adversity recently. It’s not that things are going particularly poorly, but it’s been on my mind. Some random thoughts and quotations that have been bouncing around in my head:

Alma 7:11-12:

And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

From Neal A Maxwell’s biography, A Disciple’s life:

In March 2000, when he was in a pondering mood about his illness, with its implications both dreadful and miraculous, Neal had a sacred experience… The soul voice of the Spirit came into his mind to whisper, "I have given you leukemia that you might teach my people with authenticity” (562).

Not that I can compare myself to the Savior or to one of his apostles, but perhaps to show that I can learn from them: when I was called as bishop years ago, my family was struggling in a variety of ways (some of which we would not know for years). For instance, the day I was sustained and set apart was my 16-year old son’s last visit to church (and he attended that day as a token of kindness to me). Other trials would come, and I found myself wondering why I should serve instead of one of the other dozen men who could easily have been called. But I learned much later it was precisely the imperfection of my family that allowed certain of my ward to find comfort in my words.

Is one of the reasons we have adversity in our lives so that we can learn how to mourn with those that mourn?

Addiction -- A Family Disease

2011-03-25T13:50:00.000-04:00

This is Part II of my wife’s notes from her ward conference presentation to sisters on addiction. Part I is here. I’ve edited her notes slightly for reading.

Addiction is a family disease—the effects of one person active in an addiction will be felt by all who are close to him or her. Family and friends of addicts can feel emotions of hurt, betrayal and loss. They may be overcome by feelings of anger, fear and sorrow. They may ask themselves why this is happening to them or what have I done wrong? They may feel responsible for not helping in the right way or protecting or nurturing family members well enough. They may be trying to keep up appearances that all is well when it is not. They also might feel like they are in a situation that they don’t know how to escape.

Feelings of fear, guilt or shame may dominate their thoughts and affect their relationships with others and with God.

Trust in their addicted love one may be shattered and some even feel that God has failed them by allowing this pain and suffering to come into their lives.

If any of you are like me and have been in this cycle, then you know that where anger and fear exist, there is no peace and faith: one’s emotional and spiritual health are affected. My greatest crises of faith have been a result of my reactions to my loved ones’ addictions.

Even though the snare of addiction is vicious and the consequences of addictive behaviors are destructive -- even disastrous -- to both the addict and his /her loved ones, there is a way to heal and find peace.

Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Our Savior promised that as we surrender to Him the burdens we carry that we can receive his promise, “…my peace I give unto you…Let not your heart be trouble neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Healing and lasting peace can come by letting the Savior step in. Using the power of the Atonement to heal the wounds gives us strength and guidance to carry on.

Elder Ballard counsels:

If anyone who is addicted has a desire to overcome, then there is a way to spiritual freedom—a way to escape from bondage—a way that is proven. It begins with prayer—sincere, fervent, and constant communication with … our Heavenly Father. It is the same principle in breaking a bad habit or repenting from sin of any kind…fervent prayer is key to gaining the spiritual strength to find peace. Heavenly Father loves all of His children, so thank Him and express sincere faith in Him. Ask Him for the strength to overcome the addiction [or destructive emotions and thoughts] you are experiencing. Set aside all pride and turn your life and your heart to Him. Ask to be filled with the power of Christ’s pure love. You may have to do this many times, but I testify to you that your body, mind, and spirit can be transformed, cleansed, and made whole, and you will be freed.

A way to follow Elder Ballard’s counsel is through the Addiction Recovery Program.

The Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) is specifically designed by the Church to help those suffering from addiction heal by applying the Atonement through a 12-step program, but makes clear that family members can also benefit from participation. The Family Support Group (FSG, a program similar to AlAnon; FSG is still in the pilot phase and has only limited availability) offers that same help for family members. The first “12 step programs” were developed in the 1930s by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. This inspired program has helped countless individuals find and maintain sobriety and peace in their lives over the years because it is based on the principles of faith, hope, repentance and forgiveness that, when exercised, can allow the Atonement to heal all wounds and change hearts.

The church has based its Addiction Recovery Program and Family Support Group on these 12 steps but has also included teachings from Latter-day Prophets and LDS scriptures in its readings. The program is intensely spiritual and confidential. Anyone can attend these meetings. For more information about these meetings you can ask any member of your Relief Society presidency or your bishop, and there is a geographical listing of meetings online through lds.org.

For any of you who may be suffering any of the effects of addiction your life or the life of someone close to you please know that you are not alone. The Lord loves you and all those around you; He will help you as you come to Him and release you from the bondage you feel. I know because He has been with me as I have walked this path.

Addiction and Agency

2011-03-23T08:59:00.001-04:00

Last week I posted a rather negative response to a Family Home Evening on addiction presented by LDS Living. In an effort to add something positive to the conversation, I offer the following:

This is a guest post of sorts. My wife is a member of our stake Relief Society presidency and gave a brief presentation based on the following notes to the sisters at our stake’s ward conferences earlier this year. This is Part I. Part II will follow on Friday. I’ve edited the notes for reading.

I have been asked to talk about a topic that is serious in nature and much more common around us than we would like to believe. It has been called the number one health problem in the United States today and many of you have had either personal experience with or someone you love has had to deal with the pain of this disease. This disease is so vile and pernicious that it not only does it affect one’s physical health but will also seriously damage one’s emotional and spiritual health and some of that damage can spread to family members. The name of the disease is addiction.

While the damage and pain experienced by those caught in its snare can be massive, there is hope for healing. I will leave the physical healing to medical doctors but today I want to discuss how those who suffer emotionally and spiritually from addiction can find healing from the One who can heal all wounds –our Savior, Jesus Christ.

What is addiction?

To try understand this disease let’s begin by looking at a story that Elder Ballard told in last October’s General Conference :

The goal of the fly fisherman is to catch trout through skillful deception...He will often craft by hand the lures he uses. He knows these artificial insects embedded with tiny hooks need to be a perfect deception because the trout will identify even the slightest flaw and reject the fly.

The use of artificial lures to fool and catch a fish is an example of the way Lucifer often tempts, deceives, and tries to ensnare us.

Lucifer knows our … weaknesses, and tempts us with counterfeit lures which, if taken, can cause us to be yanked from the stream of life into his unmerciful influence.

Satan is the father of lies and will try to make evil seem good to ensnare us.

One of our greatest gifts from God is our free agency. It was part of the plan of salvation and is required to show obedience to our Father in Heaven. In His plan He could give us mortal bodies but we have to choose to follow His commandments to be able to be blessed by Him in this life and return to Him after we die.

Our free will is the only thing we truly have to give to the Lord.

One of the chief ways Satan lures us to give away our agency is through addictions.

Elder Ballard said:

The battle over man’s God-given agency continues today. Satan and his minions have their lures all around us, hoping that we will falter and take his flies so he can reel us in with counterfeit means. He uses addiction to steal away agency. According to the dictionary, addiction of any kind means to surrender to something, thus relinquishing agency and becoming dependent on some life-destroying substance or behavior.

How does this work? Elder Ballard continued:

Researchers tell us there is a mechanism in our brain called the pleasure center. When activated by certain drugs or behaviors, it overpowers the part of our brain that governs our willpower, judgment, logic, and morality. This leads the addict to abandon what he or she knows is right. And when that happens, the hook is set and Lucifer takes control. Satan knows how to exploit and ensnare us with artificial substances and behaviors of temporary pleasure.

This process has been likened to an allergic reaction. Once the brain is exposed to the chemical reaction it changes. Engaging in the addiction literally changes the brain’s chemical function.

Elder Russell M Nelson summarized this affects one’s free agency: “Addiction surrenders…freedom to choose. Through chemical means, one can literally become disconnected from his or her own will” (“Addiction or Freedom”, Ensign November 1988, 6).

Addiction can take many forms. Drugs (including prescription abuse), alcohol, tobacco, eating disorders, gambling and pornography are a few examples. People who are inclined to addiction may suffer from a number of different addictions.

Once the addiction sets in it is a bondage that entraps the person. Addiction is not just a bad habit to be conquered by willpower alone. Caught in this bondage the person can become so dependent on a behavior or substance that they no longer see how to abstain from it.

Telling a person in addiction that if they really cared they would stop destroying their lives is like telling a person who is sick with pneumonia not to cough. Until they get the appropriate treatment the problems will persist.

Elder Ballard counsels, “Medical research describes addiction as “a disease of the brain.” This is true, but I believe that once Satan has someone in his grasp, it also becomes a disease of the spirit.”

Coming in Part II – Addition is a Family Disease; How to Find Help

A simple testimony

2011-03-21T08:40:00.000-04:00

Our mission president attended our sacrament meeting last week. What a nice guy he is. His role in the times I’ve heard him speak seems to be cheerleader-in-chief. I’ve only known a couple of mission presidents with any more than passing acquaintance, but the ones I’ve known have been genuinely kind and loving men with deep respect for the gospel, for the missionaries they shepherd, for the members they serve and for the non-members they teach.

Our mission president here is no different, though I judge that only from a very few interactions I’ve had with him.

Our bishop invited the president to share his testimony, which he did just before the youth speaker. He was gracious, succinct and eloquent as he spoke very briefly and in a way that did not overshadow the young woman who followed him or the rest of the program.

Here’s basically what he said (from my hastily written notes; I’ve not captured it all word for word): My testimony is simple. There is a God. He creates worlds and he knows us individually. He knows our individual burdens, struggles and victories. He parted the heavens to speak to the prophet Joseph Smith. The fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored, and evidence of that restoration is in the Book of Mormon. I rejoice in the power of that book.

His testimony was simple, straightforward and powerful. I do not recall his using the word “know.” But I do recall the spirit which testified with him.

FHE Lesson on Overcoming Addiction? Really?

2011-03-17T08:48:00.001-04:00

This week’s LDS Living Family Home Evening suggestion was on overcoming addiction. You can read more here.

I’ve been trying to figure out in what context that FHE lesson could possibly make sense. I suppose that FHE lessons by nature tend to be general and require refinement for application in any given family. And the 12-step slogan, “Take what you want and leave the rest” applies, as well.

If the lesson helps families to be aware of the church’s Addiction Recovery Program, then great. Elder Ballard’s talk on addiction, referenced in the material, is also great in its own right. But packaged as a Family Night lesson? I’m still trying to make sense of that.

You see, I have addicted loved ones. I’ve been involved in a 12-step program for several years and my wife and I now serve in our stake’s application of the Addiction Recovery Program and the church’s pilot of the Family Support Group (for families of addicted persons).

The lesson presented in the link introduces the ARP guidebook, tells a story of someone who is coping with his addiction while attending 12-step meetings and then has a family activity of an obstacle course. I can’t imagine that a family with young enough children to use the obstacle course (which does provide an elegant lesson by itself) would also use the story of Jeff, a lifelong member who overcame his issues with tobacco and alcohol on his own, but needs 12-step help with his pornography addiction.

I can’t see parents teaching this lesson in FHE in the hopes that a child might therefore agree to enter treatment. (That said, if I squint really hard I can imagine using something like this lesson to explain why a family member is in treatment, though the confidentiality of recovery and the need to allow each person to tell his own story would still require significant modification in the lesson.) My experience is that addicts don’t seek recovery until the pain of recovery is less than the pain of their addiction. And I’m all in favor of the church’s Addiction Recovery Program. I’ve watched it change lives in the 18 months I’ve been participating in it. And family members of addicted persons need their own recovery as much as the addicted persons do; the 12 steps have blessed my life in incredible ways. And any member could benefit from working the steps of recovery.

But the FHE lesson as outlined just doesn’t seem to be the way to get there for me. Far better in my view is to teach the pure doctrine of the Plan of Salvation, to teach repentance and atonement, to teach submitting to the will of our Father in Heaven. That is what one learns working the steps. Indeed, one could teach a series of lessons based on the steps themselves.

UPDATE: This post seems to draw some traffic from Google searches. I wanted to link to another helpful post on the blog.

Lessons from Mom

2011-03-14T10:41:00.001-04:00

My mother seemed to enjoy telling us how spoiled she was as a child, perhaps trying to preempt our own spoiling during our young years. One story in particular that I remember was when her ~~mother~~ grandmother had a dress made for Mom, who was then about three. Mom did not like the color, as it turned out, and cried and fussed (and probably held her breath) until her mother agreed to have another one made in the color Mom preferred.

I don’t think we were particularly spoiled, though we had a pretty good life. Mom was not afraid to say no to us, and not afraid to tell us she could not afford this or that wish of our hearts. Yet we always had what we needed, and most of what we wanted, as well.

Dad told the story of Mom’s going to the local A&P grocery store when the family was still very young (right after they were married). She carried with her a ~~bag~~ box of coins – loose change they kept in a box on the top of the refrigerator -- planning to use them to help pay for the groceries. The grocery clerk refused to take the coins and gave Mom some rolls and told her to roll them first. As Mom ~~(with I don’t know how many kids in tow)~~ moved to roll the coins, the bag burst and the coins scattered on the floor.

[Prodded by my sister, I'm retelling the story correctly below:]

Just after my folks were married, Mom wanted to do some shopping, but had no money (only checks from wedding presents), but had Dad's shoe box of saved coins. She went to the bank, thinking they would roll them for her (which they did not -- they gave her paper rolls to do it herself). She then stopped at the store on the way home (before rolling the coins, with the box still in hand) planning to use some of the bigger coins to pay for the groceries. As she approached the counter the box broke, spilling coins everywhere. She reports: "Someone gave me a bag and helped me pick up the loot, but I was embarrassed and very happy to return to Coulter Street! What a way to begin married life!"

I can only imagine my mother’s embarrassment – first that she was trying to pay with a bag of coins, second that she was told she could not use them (after waiting in line with her groceries), and finally having to scramble to pick up the coins from the floor.

And yet, that was who Mom was – she did what needed to be done, whatever it was.

Despite Mom’s being spoiled as a child her life was not always easy. She had a complicated health condition about which the doctors knew very little in her youth. She had an ill-fated surgery to “correct” the problem as a young woman, and the complications of that surgery made the problem much worse for the rest of her life. She was prone to infection which would last for days, and then watched as three of her four children inherited the same condition from her.

And yet, there was something about Mom that kept her moving forward. She did not allow her medical condition to stop her from serving her family and serving others. She supported PTAs and polling places, classrooms, Cub Scouts and Brownies, and later, after joining the church, taught children and adults and eventually served twice as a Relief Society president and more than once in the stake Relief Society.

Her life was a living lesson to her children that one does not stop; one does not wallow in self-pity. One does what one needs to do.

When she was diagnosed with cancer in her 70’s, her observation was characteristically upbeat: she said she had already lived longer than she ever expected to, and that she had enjoyed her wonderful husband and children and grandchildren. When the doctor who diagnosed her wondered why the pain of the tumor on her lung had not brought her to him sooner, she said, Do you expect me to come to you every time something hurts?

I miss my mom some days. I’m grateful for the lessons she taught me. Today is her birthday.

"Cleave Unto God"

2011-03-10T14:01:00.000-05:00

Recently I came across this phrase in Jacob: “…and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you” (Jacob 6:5).

Jacob has already delivered his I-wish-I-didn’t-have-to-talk-about-this speech, and he already shared Zenock’s allegory of the olive trees.

His whole book seems to be about returning. Return from sin. Return from the diaspora. Come home to God.

In this verse, he reminds us that God already cleaves unto us. In the next sentence in this verse, he reminds us that God’s arm of mercy is extended toward us. (And all this prophetically spoken since the Atonement is still to come.)

How do I cleave unto God? Well, studying his word is a great place to start. I had gotten out of the habit of daily personal scripture study and a few weeks ago, egged on (inadvertently, I’m sure) by my teenaged son, I set about to re-read the Book of Mormon again. (I have no idea how many times I’ve read it, but this time is a “fast” read where I’m trying to read multiple chapters a day in order to get connections I don’t get when I go slowly.)

Daily prayer also helps. But real prayer – real communication, including listening for impressions that come in those quiet moments during and after prayer.

Obedience to the next commandment is important to me. Yes, I need to obey all the commandments, but I know that my spirit gets nudged from time to time about what I need to do next (like improving my scripture study a few weeks ago). It’s not so much keeping up the status quo (I haven’t been translated yet, so there’s got to be more I could do), but sorting out what should be next to do.

Living a life of love is probably related to obedience, and could nearly always be the next commandment for me. But it deserves particular mention. Loving my fellow man is Commandment #2, and King Benjamin and the Savior (among others) teach me that as I love my fellow man, I show my love to God. And that love, of course, is not reserved for strangers, but also for those closest to me.

I could go on all day, I suppose. But what I’d like to get to is this question: How do you cleave unto God?

"As the gospel requires"

2011-03-08T08:41:00.000-05:00

On the way to seminary each morning, we listen to scripture mastery songs to help my high school freshman memorize them. This week’s scripture is D&C 88:123-124. Verse 124 (“Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to sleep longer than is needful…”) is well known to me as it was the subject of my very first talk in church, a “concert recitation” in Sunday School on a Fast Sunday several months after our family’s baptism back when I was about nine.

But what has caught my ear this week came from verse 123: “learn to impart one to another as the gospel requires.”

What does the gospel require us to impart one to another?

The injunction follows the charge to cease to be covetous, which also intrigues me. Does that suggest that when I fail to share my substance with another that I am coveting? I believe so. And do I relieve my responsibility to impart one to another by paying my fast offerings and tithing? I believe I do not.

To be sure there is one element of sharing which includes putting my surplus in the storehouse (like fast offerings). The welfare principles of the church teach that the storehouse from which the bishop may draw includes the Bishop’s Storehouse where food orders may be filled, but it also includes the pool of talents and resources available in the ward. My contribution to that storehouse may include my time to help unload the moving van for a single mom or it may include counseling with a widow about options for dealing with her home she can no longer afford.

Another welfare principle of the church is to help our families before they go to the church for help. Some years ago, my wife’s family established a family emergency fund to which family members contribute. Over time this money has been used to help specific family members in times of need.

King Benjamin’s great speech about retaining a remission of our sins reminds us that the gospel also requires us to help the poor when they ask, if we are able (see Mosiah 4:14-20).

I’m encouraged by the injunction in D&C 88:123, however. I am to learn to impart one to another. It has taken me quite some time in my life to learn the principles I have, and I continue to refine their application to my life.

How about you? What have you learned about imparting one to another as the gospel requires?