Why I dread getting the Deseret Book Catalog

Along with all the other junk mail we receive, we get regular mailings from Deseret Book. We live far from the intermountain west, so we can’t wander into a store and browse, and I used to enjoy getting the mailers to see what latest church books were available.

I have enjoyed reading LDS books over the years. The apostles’ books that were either the result of their year’s focus in talks (like Elder Maxwell’s) or those that are edited talk collections (like Elder Eyring’s) appealed to me, as did collections of Women’s Conference addresses (these were especially helpful when I was a new bishop many years ago; they helped me gain a better understanding of a key part of my flock). I’ve never been too big on LDS fiction, though I enjoyed reading the Tennis Shoes series with some of my kids, and though I didn’t read any of his other books, Gerald Lund’s book on the Hole in the Rock expedition was interesting because of a family connection to that story (not my family, but my wife’s; I have no Mormon pioneers in my heritage, just old fashioned American pioneers…).

I also have enjoyed a variety of biographies published and marketed through Deseret Book, including those of church leaders and prominent members. And recent efforts at church history like Massacre at Mountain Meadows and the Women of Faith series have been awesome.

But the catalogs that come in the mail trouble me. Now, I am a fan of the free market. I work for a huge corporation that is very happy that customers buy our very expensive products. But I grimace when I turn the page in the Deseret Book mailer and see framed temple pictures selling for $250 (and that at half price!), and Christus statue replicas for $100. I realize that several hundred dollars for an object of art isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, especially for some consumers. And I surely want artists to be compensated for their work. But the framed temple pictures are photographs. And the original creator of the Christus statue has been dead for some time.

Is there something wrong that there is a market for high priced trinkets of our faith? I can’t help but have the same question in my head as arose under different circumstances in the New Testament. Couldn’t that money be better used to help the poor?

I know I’m really on sensitive ground here. Each of us makes purchase decisions that are unique to us. One man’s luxury is another man’s normal. And our covenant to consecrate all we have to the building up of the kingdom doesn’t come with a ledger book for keeping track.

After each reading of Nibley’s Approaching Zion (and I haven’t read it in a while), I find myself thinking twice about many purchases – do I need to go out to that restaurant? Do we really need the low-fat hamburger? Do we need the artisan bread instead of the store brand?

I’ve lived enough places in the world to know that my middle class American standard of living is far above that of most of the world’s population, and, frankly, it’s well above many of my fellow Americans’, too. And so from time to time, like when the Deseret Book mailer comes, I find myself wondering about how I use my resources. Am I sharing my surplus with those in need? And what is my surplus? And how should I share it? Is a generous fast offering enough? Is there more I should do?

There are no set answers to these questions of course, and my answers will be different from yours. And that’s ok, as long as we periodically ask ourselves the questions.

On Consecration and Welfare

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…

A consecrated life -- an example from the front lines

One of our sacrament meeting talks this past week referenced Elder Christofferson's "A Consecrated Life" (from October 2010 conference). As I listened to the talk in church (our speaker focused on Enoch as an example), I thought of other examples.

The first that sprang to mind was my own father. He was not a perfect man, but he was a good man, an honest man, a hard working man. My father was a convert to the church in his early thirties. He and my mother had four children (I was the youngest) and were doing their best to rear us in a good way. Dad worked professionally as an engineer, and they were active in their Presbyterian church.

When my father heard the gospel, he accepted it as we all did. He had a struggle to give up certain habits that were not consistent with church membership, but he did it. He developed the faith to pay his tithing. And he dedicated himself to service in his new church.

During those years of young and growing children, Dad worked more than he wanted to, was away more than we wanted him to be, and still served faithfully wherever he was called. He was not the most eloquent high council speaker, but he was sincere and devoted to the Lord. My mother often helped him with research for his talks, and I traveled with him on multiple occasions over his years of service. He was diligent in his other assignments, whether shepherding his assigned ward (which he attended every week) or planning a youth conference, establishing family history centers, organizing stake temple trips or whatever else he was asked to do.

He worked hard to provide for us. His traditional thinking firmly rooted him as provider and protector of our family, and provide he did. He also repaired and improved our home, and enjoyed laughing with his kids. At some family nights, when we had all reduced ourselves to giggling uncontrollably after singing many, many hymns (at his insistence), he would finally suggest that we let Heavenly Father in on the joke as we said family prayer.

He taught me mostly by example, rarely by lecture. He encouraged me to believe I could do anything if I worked hard enough, and that I should not assume deficiencies in myself. He warned me the night before my wedding that my new bride should finish her degree or he would be most disappointed.

About the time I left on my mission, my parents moved with Dad's work to West Africa, before the church sent missionaries there. That time away from the mainstream church (my folks held a sacrament meeting in their living room each week for themselves and another expat or two who would attend at times; later, after the revelation on the priesthood, the senior missionary couples would sometimes join them) gave my father a chance to rethink and renew his commitment to living the gospel and serving in the church. Upon his return to the US, he also returned to service on the high council, and I heard him speak in a ward conference the week I came home from my mission.

Even in his most senior years, he served. In retirement he was a branch president in West Virginia, serving many hours each week to meet the needs of his little flock. (He was released after a stroke disabled him for a time.) And years later from his assisted living facility in Michigan, after my mother's death to cancer, he traveled with another member of the high priest group leadership monthly to the Chicago temple to work as an ordinance worker.

I don't know that he was a great scripture scholar. I don't think he considered himself a great teacher. And his approach as often as not was decidedly pragmatic rather than mystical.

But if he had something to give, he gave it. If he could serve, he did. And I would do well to follow his example.

My father passed away three years ago this week.