This Mormon Life

Time, Talents, and Everything the Lord Has Given Me

2011-03-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

Jesus suffered - before the spear wound and the nails - scourging (which in itself killed some), the crown of thorns crushed into His scalp, deprivation of sleep and sustenance, humiliation, unbelief, scorn...all this, AFTER the expiatory agony of the Garden. As he trod the Via Dolorosa in a near state of physical, mental and emotional collapse, He could at any time have "self-medicated" - or, more specifically, self-healed. He alone among mortals - for He was mortal - had the power to do that, for He had nascent Immortality in Him. He could have healed Himself in every moment in every particular. But at every stage, He practiced Self-denial: "No. I will not do this for Myself, that I MAY do it for others."
Because of His choices in my behalf, I will never be alone in suffering or in agony; I will never be faced with more than I can bear. He only asks that I do as He did, that I use whatever "powers" He has given me, whatever talents, gifts, capabilities, callings, stewardships - not for my own benefit, but for others'.

...and geese in my kitchen

2011-01-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

More Mystery: I sat eating breakfast at the kitchen island, because the dining room table was cluttered with wiring and a new light fixture. The kitchen window is reflected in the granite countertop of the island; because of the angle, I could see more out the reflected window than I could by taking in the view from the window itself. I was at the same time writing in my journal, so I was pondering and gazing in front of me, when a startling hint of motion riveted my attention to the countertop, and here is what I saw: an oblong block of light on a green-black granite background, and across it in classic V-formation, a flock of geese, reflected in, but unhindered by, solid rock.

Geese flying in a granite sky! I did not see them out the kitchen window, but in the reflection of the kitchen window. Such a delicious whisper of ethereal delight it was! Once again, I felt as if I were part of some otherworldly conspiracy, allowed a momentary glimpse of what lies just beyond the limited spectrum of mortal consciousness. Glory!

Comets in My Bedroom

2011-01-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

Saturday I slept in till 8:00! I stood up from my prayers and walked around the bed toward the dresser, when I stopped for a moment - don't know why; perhaps I was trying to remember something. At any rate, as I stood pondering, all of a sudden I became aware of a shaft of sunlight directly in front of me. I saw that the bedroom drapes, which we usually keep closed, were open just a slit at the top. The sun was in just the angle to shine directly through that little slit. I saw particles darting through that sunbeam, almost in the way stars are portrayed slipping past a traveler in space, for it seemed that each one was charged with light: one little shaft, right before my eyes, filled with micro comets. I stood transfixed, transported to another sphere of existence, as I watched countless tiny brilliant iotas, each one on a mission, on its way from Somewhere to Somewhere. I felt that I was in the presence of things beyond my ken.

You may say that what I witnessed was no phenomenon at all, that everyone knows the air is charged with particles of all sorts and varieties, all the time. That would be true, but it would also be irrelevant; the moment itself was magic. How pathetic is modern science, wherein man seeks to reduce All to the explainable. What I witnessed, what became clear to me, is that there is, at any given moment in any given spot, unperceived Light all around us. I say, let there be Mystery!

And there is Mystery, and it is glorious, and it can be perceived, but not by the natural man. We must seek for eyes to see and yes, for ears to hear. If it had not been for the sunlight through that little gap at just that moment, if I had not stopped to ponder in just that place, I would never have apprehended that joyous phenomenon. We walk in the presence of Glory; perhaps, if we become as little children, if we walk in humility, gratitude and courage - perhaps we will be privileged to apprehend it more often.

What?!

2010-12-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

When you look at all

the wonders of which

the natural world is Made,

How can you say

there is no Maker?

!!!!!

You can dabble

in the absurd

if you wish;

I have no use for it.

The Wise Man Built...

2010-12-06T02:21:00.001-08:00

In our Relief Society lesson on Sunday, Sister Wheatley spoke of her brother's house, which is built on a mountain side, so that the bottom floor is a basement on one side but has a back door on the other, out of which if you stepped out, you were likely to find yourself running down a hill.

Her brother had a retaining wall built a good way down the part of the hill that was his yard, then filled in the area in between the door and the wall so that it became level. We talked about how we can avoid making a "slippery slope" of our lives by learning of and coming to our Savior through prayer, study, obedience to his commandments, walking in his footsteps through service, worshiping in the temple, and so on. Thus, He is a retaining wall, and helps us fill in the space, so that we find ourselves standing firm.

As our discussion progressed, into my mind came a picture of my parents' house. Dad built it about seven years ago, when he was 75. When Mom saw the lot upon which he planned to build, she was incredulous: "How do you intend to build a house there?" she remonstrated. "It's solid rock!"

Yes, it was solid rock, but the location was amazing - right on the crest of a small mountain, with a gorgeous commanding view.

Well, he did it, and it is a lovely, welcoming, comfortable house, with its foundation sunk into bedrock. The wind blows savagely up there sometimes, so much so that the heavy glass tabletop from their patio set was blown right off the table and broken on the rocks below; but the house itself stands firm, shielding its inhabitants from the wind and the weather.

Considering my father's house from the standpoint of the lesson, I saw that it is symbolic of the decision my parents made long ago to fully commit themselves to their membership in the Lord's kingdom. They married at 18. By the time my sister and I had come along, they saw the need to be united in their belief system. My mother had always attended the non-denominational community church, but my father was a less-active Mormon. When they discussed the church in which to bring up their family, there was no doubt in Dad's mind: his.

Accordingly, Mom participated in missionary discussions, seeking and receiving a testimony of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Before her baptism, she gave my father this ultimatum: if we go this route, there will be no half-commitment; it will be 100%, full steam ahead. He said okay, and neither of them has looked back since.

Sixty years later, their house is a visible witness of that commitment. Their marriage, their lives, and what they bequeathed to us, their posterity, are built upon the Rock. For each of us who remains true to that foundation, the house on the top of the mountain will stand firm throughout eternity.

"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man"

2010-11-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

We comfort ourselves with a belief system,

But we inevitably feel Truth knocking to come in.

Sometimes she breaks in upon us

With a Light Force so great,

We feel we simply must shut the door,

Plunging ourselves into a known darkness.

She, however, is merciful, and finds a window.

Sacrament meeting talk: Works and Grace

2010-11-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

When I was a student at BYU, we received a caution from our Priesthood leaders that there were some then circulating among us, which had made a whole religion out of a single principle of the Gospel, such as The Word of Wisdom, or Preparing for the Last Days. These people tended to focus on the one principle, to the exclusion of all others, and then preached according to their understanding, thus fomenting a misunderstanding of the Gospel in general among those who chose to listen. We were cautioned not to be swayed by their preaching. These people, though members of the Church, preached “up unto themselves their own wisdom and their own learning,” something Nephi warned against; they “set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they [sought] not the welfare of Zion (2 Ne. 26:20,29).”

Such was very much the case, when our Savior walked the earth, with those who were supposed to be the leaders and teachers over the people of God. Because of their state of apostasy, it had been a very long time since the Jewish people had been led and taught by a prophet, who spoke and acted under authority from God. Their leaders had also “set themselves up for a light” by making up countless rules, based more and more loosely on the Law of Moses, which they said people must strictly adhere to if they were to be considered worthy of the Kingdom of God. By the time the Savior and his forerunner, the great prophet John the Baptist, had begun their ministries, almost the entire Jewish religion depended more upon the outward performance than upon the state of the heart. The law of Moses had become their whole religion, rather than what it was meant to be, and what indeed it was to the righteous peoples of The Book of Mormon: merely a tool to point people to the Savior. As stated in the Gospel of John, 1:17, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

The apostles who spread the true Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the predominantly Jewish world found it necessary to lay a great deal of emphasis upon the principle of grace, in order to help them see the Law in its true light: as a “schoolmaster” that leads unto Christ (Gal 3:24-25), rather than as the defining goal in and of itself, as the Jews in general had come to believe. The apostles taught that it is “Through the grace of Christ, we shall be saved (Acts 15: 11, Rom. 3: 23-24; D&C 138: 14),” that “we have access by faith to his grace (Rom. 5: 2),” and that “by grace [we] are saved through faith (Eph. 2: 8). “The grace of God brings salvation (Titus 2: 11).” “Come boldly unto the throne of grace (Heb. 4: 16).” “God gives grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5: 5).”

It was very necessary for those who desired to be part of the Kingdom of God to understand that, as Paul taught, “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (2 Cor. 5:17)” through the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and through his Resurrection and Atoning power.

The Jews had to rethink their whole idea of salvation and of the Messiah, whom they had come to expect as One who would deliver them from earthly bondage. They had to come to see that it was from the bondage of their own sins that they most needed deliverance, and that such redemption was only possible in and through the Atoning grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The apostles of the New Testament era were charged with the daunting task of undoing hundreds of years of false teachings that emphasized salvation through man’s works, teachings that excluded what the prophets of the Old Testament had plainly taught: that a Savior was necessary to save us from our iniquities, that an atonement was required for our sins, an “infinite atonement,” as Nephi tells us (2 Ne. 9:7; see also 2 Ne. 25:16 and Alma 34:12), to which every sacrifice ever made by the priests of the temple pointed.

“It is through the grace of the Lord Jesus, made possible by his atoning sacrifice,“ we are told in the Bible Dictionary, “that mankind will be raised in immortality, every person receiving his body from the grave in a condition of everlasting life.”

It was very important for the people of New Testament times to understand this principle, so the apostles reiterated it again and again. This was occasioned, as I said initially, because the leaders of the Jews had created an entirely different religion, based upon their own interpretation, in order to set themselves up as a light, to gain unto themselves followers who would uphold them and support them.

We all know what happened, eventually, to the Lord’s apostles; Paul had warned that “the time [would] come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (2 Timothy 4:3-4).”

What I understand from Paul here is that, after all the efforts of the apostles to teach and to spread the true Gospel again, so that people would know to Whom they must look for salvation, and would know the way in which they must walk in order to receive the blessings of salvation; notwithstanding being led by the power of the Priesthood of God and by the Gift of the Holy Ghost, yet eventually people would choose other ways, would follow those who “set themselves up as a light” in order to get gain; and the true Gospel would be taken from the earth once more. The people would be left with only a “form of godliness (2 Tim 3:5),” until many churches would be built up around this or that principle, but none would have a fullness.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie spoke in 1984 at a devotional at Brigham Young University, concerning this Great Apostasy, and what has sprung out of it. He says:

"I wonder how many of us are aware of one of the great religious phenomena of the ages, one that is now sweeping through Protestant Christianity, as only one other thing has ever done in the whole Christian Era.

"We are silent witnesses of an almost worldwide religious craze that had its birth in the minds of a few great religious reformers nearly five hundred years ago and which is now receiving a new birth of freedom and influence.

…

"But before zeroing in on this religious mania that has now taken possession of millions of devout but deluded people, and as a means of keeping all things in perspective, let me first identify the original heresy that did more than anything else to destroy the primitive Christianity.

"This first and chief heresy of a now fallen and decadent Christianity--and truly it is the father of all heresies--swept through all of the congregations of true believers in the early centuries of the Christian Era; it pertained then and pertains now to the nature and kind of being that God is.

"It was the doctrine, adapted from [pagan beliefs], that changed Christianity from the religion in which men worshipped a personal God, in whose image man is made, into the religion in which men worshipped a spirit essence called the Trinity. This new God, no longer a personal Father, no longer a personage of tabernacle, became an incomprehensible three-in-one spirit essence that filled the immensity of space.

"The adoption of this false doctrine about God effectively destroyed the true worship among men and ushered in the age of universal apostasy.

…

"The Second Greatest Heresy

"Nearly a millennium and a half later, during the sixteenth century, as the Reformation grew out of the Renaissance, as a means of breaking the hold of the dominant church, the great Christian reformers lit a new doctrinal fire. That fire, burning wildly over the dry and arid prairies of religious autocracy, is what really prepared the way for the restoration of the gospel in modern times.

"It was nonetheless the doctrinal fire--the burning, flaming, heretical fire--that became the second greatest heresy of Christendom, because it effectively destroyed the efficacy and power of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ by whom salvation comes.

"The first great heresy, sweeping like a prairie fire through the struggling branches of a newly born Christianity, destroyed the worship of the true God. And the second, a heresy originating in the same courts of darkness, destroyed that very atonement of God's only Son.

…

"This second heresy--and it is the delusion and mania that prevails to this day in the great evangelical body of Protestantism--is the doctrine that we are justified by faith alone, without the works of the law. It is the doctrine that we are saved by grace alone, without works. It is the doctrine that we may be born again simply by confessing the Lord Jesus with our lips while we continue to live in our sins.

…

"Interwoven with this concept is the doctrine that the elect of God are predestined to be saved regardless of any act on their part

..."

You see what has happened? The doctrine of grace, which the apostles found it so necessary to emphasize in order to combat the false Jewish ideas of outward performance, has itself become “a religion of its own” in the eyes of many today, to the exclusion of other principles of the Gospel of Christ that are every bit as essential to salvation. It is the doctrine that appeals most in today’s world, and so it is touted by those who “set up themselves as a light.”

So, we could say that the pendulum has swung the other way in our time; among those who purport to follow the Gospel of Christ, the value of one’s works is diminished; “the conviction that the sinner is justified by faith alone, without the works of the law“ has overridden all other considerations.

Now, as I have grown up in the Church, I have observed an interesting phenomenon, and it is best illustrated by a conversation with a friend of mine several years ago. As we sat discussing the challenges of being a Latter-day Saint, he expressed the belief that he had “just about made it.” He clicked off the basic commandments, as he viewed them, expressed his modest evaluation that he kept them conscientiously, and pronounced therefore that he felt pretty close to being a candidate for the Celestial Kingdom. His wife, on the other hand, felt that no matter what she did, she was abysmally far away from being a candidate for the Celestial Kingdom. In short: he had made “works” his religion, and she was in dire need of understanding grace.

To continue from Elder McKonkie:

"We believe and proclaim that salvation is in Christ, in his gospel, in his atoning sacrifice. We are bold to say it comes by the goodness and grace of the Father and the Son. No people on earth praise the Lord with greater faith and fervor than we do because of this goodness and grace.

"As the Lord's agents, as his servants, as ambassadors of Christ--sent by him, sent to speak in his place instead, sent to say what he would say if he personally were here--we testify that no man, as long as the earth shall stand, or the heavens endure, or God continues as God, no man shall ever be saved in the kingdom of God, in the celestial kingdom of heaven, without doing the works of righteousness.

"As far as man is concerned, the great and eternal plan of salvation is:

"1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; faith in him as the Son of God; faith in him as the Savior and Redeemer who shed his blood for us in Gethsemane and on Calvary;

"2. Repentance of all our sins--thus forsaking the world and its carnal course; thus turning from the broad way that leads to destruction; thus preparing for the spiritual rebirth into the kingdom of God;

"3. Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; baptism under the hands of a legal administrator who has power to bind on earth and seal in heaven--thus planting our feet firmly on the strait and narrow path leading to eternal life;

"4. Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost--thus enabling us to be baptized with fire; to have sin and evil burned out of our souls as though by fire; to be sanctified so as to stand pure and spotless before the Lord at the last day; and

"5. Enduring to the end in righteousness, keeping the commandments, and living by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God.

"Thus saith the Lord:

'He who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come. [D&C 59:23]'

"As God is true, and Christ is the Savior, and the Holy Ghost is their minister and witness, such is the plan of salvation, and there neither is nor ever shall be any other.

"Let those in the world think and act as they please; let us, the Saints of God who know better, together with all who are willing to live by the higher standard of the gospel, praise the Lord for his goodness and grace and do so by keeping his commandments, thereby becoming heirs of eternal salvation."

In the Bible Dictionary, we read: “It is … through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts.”

Brothers and Sisters, let us not just hold on to those parts of the Gospel of Christ that are the easiest, or that make the most sense to us; let us not hold on to any “private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20)” at all, wherein we build up our own religion. We have the first principles and ordinances before us; all of them revolve around the great atoning sacrifice of the Savior in our behalf, because the Father and the Son want us to become like them: “For this is my work and my glory: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39).”

Moroni, in almost the last verses of The Book of Mormon, summarizes how this is accomplished:

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

"And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot (Moroni 10:32-33).”

Coming unto Christ is our part, our little but absolutely necessary part, involving obeying his commandments and keeping our covenants to the very best of our ability; his “amazing grace” does the rest. In this way “when he shall appear we may be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen (Moroni 7:48).”

note: James E. Talmage's tome Jesus the Christ was an invaluable resource in the thoughts expressed in this talk.

2010-06-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

Father's Day.

To Blaine: You are amazing, amazing, amazing. All I've ever dreamed of, really and truly, my ultimate and lasting choice.

To Dad: You believe in me. It is a source of power I call on continually. So witty, so kind, so solid, so devoted. And you married the best possible spouse.

To Andrew: I'm in awe, man, I'm in awe. You are proof that doing what works, works.

To Benjamin: You dig in, and you never give up. You shine. You are the only one who doesn't know how much you shine.

To Matthew: Sweet, humble, FUN, hard-working, insightful. Even though we're not "joined at the hip" anymore. That's as it should be.

To Jared: You buckled down, and you took life by the horns. You are proving the master of the greatest challenge of all: yourself. You rock.

To Lawton: I LOVE how you love my daughter. I love how your children adore you. I love how you are committed to them all.

To Jesse and Anthony: Hang on guys, your time will come! Jesse, she's out there, I know she is, and she'll be so happy when you find her. Anthony, one step at a time, man, one step at a time, and you WILL climb that mountain, and I think I can see her waiting for you somewhere on the summit. In the meantime: you guys are great just the way your are.

And Jared A.: Can't wait to see you with baby-blurble on the shoulder of your best suit! SO excited for you and Rachel.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO THE WONDERFUL, INCREDIBLE MEN IN MY LIFE.

2010-06-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

For my buddies from Girls Camp 2010: Back to the Future

Ode to Girls' Camp 2010

Man, I used to be down on Girls Camp.

Girls Camp was, like, Dullsiville to me, Daddy-O.

But then I got cool.

I mean, I got scintillatingly frosty, Man.

I mean, Girls Camp became, like,

Wowsville, Daddy-O.

I started counting my bees, Momma,

till I got all six,

and then more.

I went back to the basics, y'know?

Like, way back,

like Future back.

And I remembered.

I felt, like, renewed, Daddy-O.

I could feel myself grooving on

into Paradise -

And that's not Dullsville, my sister.

That is Home.

by me, Linda Hyde,

and embellished in performance on June 9 by Susan Slauson bangin' on the bongos

Aspire Higher

2010-04-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

Recently I heard our principal say over the morning announcements that everyone needs to practice safe sex so that they can avoid sexually transmitted disease. That was painful on many levels, not the least of which has to do with the fact that there were undoubtedly, and contrary to popular opinion, many tender, chaste young hearts pierced in the hearing of it. Nevertheless, too many young hearts have also become inured to the gentle promptings to the chaste life: A few days ago I substituted in an English class and found it necessary to mention to at least two young women that the amount of cleavage their attire showed was unacceptable (actually, that's a very low number compared to what I see daily in the attendance office). Occasionally I see students fondling each other in the classroom. Often in the hallways I see “public displays of affection” from which I must abashedly turn away.

It seems to me that what we are dealing with here is a spiritually transmitted disease. We have foresworn ourselves from teaching values, however, from teaching the sanctity of the human body as the temple of the spirit God placed in it, and from teaching purity and morality.
We leave ourselves therefore with very little to back up our pitiable rules and dress codes. If there is, ultimately, no real right and wrong, what is the reason for doing anything?

Is there any wonder that from this little beginning, the individual and the society that produces him stumble around in a moral miasma, floundering in the swamp created by failed relationships, tepid education, and an amoral economy?

We have to have some kind of standard; people realize this: "Because things work out better that way, because it contributes to the common good."

Guess what, though? When it comes to selfish desires, those reasons simply don't hold sufficient sway to direct a person's conduct. I see such reasoning in modern textbooks on citizenship and I am torn between shaking my head that someone actually went to the trouble of publishing such banality, and outright guffawing - except it really isn't funny at all.

"Because God gave us commandments, because he loves us and because they are therefore for our best good, and because we stand to lose a great deal on the eternal scale if we ignore purity and morality."

Now those are reasons to do something.

Most of all, because Jesus Christ set the example, paid for our sins, heals our sorrows, and makes up for all that we miss out on in this life, through his infinite and eternal Atonement; we owe it to Him to do our little part, to show our gratitude and our obedience, and to shine a light for those of His children who do not yet know these things. A solemn obligation is upon us, in fact, to repent, or perish.

"Aside from Jesus Christ and his program of giving," I remember C. Terry Warner saying in a speech at BYU, "there is no real reason for doing anything."

I am looking for ways to share that message, because basically I am persuaded that most of those young hearts are yearning for something loftier, something, as Viktor Frankl would say, more meaningful. Pray with me that they will find it, and blessings upon you as you too strive to share it.

A Marvelous Work and a Wonder

2010-03-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Liza, a new convert to the church, made some great chalk drawings on our driveway one day. They were based on stories from The Book of Mormon. One of them told the story of Ammon's heroic efforts to save the flocks of King Lamoni (Alma 17). There were the severed arms on the ground, along with the dumbfounded enemies of the king. The caption read, "I think I'm beginning to be astonished!"

We all got a good laugh at that. That one simple phrase seemed a huge understatement of the actual event.

Recently, though, I have been pondering that phrase. I was reading about Alma's and Amulek's public conversation with Zeezrom (Alma 10-13), and in chapter 14, the word "astonished" appears again in much the same context: as the sophistry of Zeezrom begins to erode before the sure tide of the revelation-founded prudence and authority of Alma and Amulek, Zeezrom is "astonished:" an evil man who has laid a cunning plan finds his secret laid bare, and is completely routed.

In the New Testament we are shown that the people were astonished because Jesus " taught them as one having authority from God, and not as having authority from the Scribes. (JST Matt. 7:28)" He confounded the leaders of the Jews at every turn in the simple majesty of truth and divine power: "Talitha cumi...And straightway the damsel arose [from the grips of death] and walked...And they were astonished with a great astonishment. (Mark 5:42)" Saul, the militant Pharisee, full of zealous purpose, blinded by the Light, trembled and was astonished. Perhaps Lucifer's hosts, cast out of heaven, "began to be astonished," all that precipitous fall to earth.

I can remember feeling astonished at various times myself, doing something "my way," and finding my purposes confounded. I imagine the creators and navigators of the Titanic and the Hindenburg "began to be astonished" as their mighty inventions sunk or blazed into nothingness, leaving unimagined grief and tragedy in the aftermath.

Pride, I gather, infuses the "natural man" with boundless confidence that his cunning plans are unstoppable; yet by what simple means, whether by a man whose father was given divine assurance that he could not be harmed, or by the word of testmony, or by nature's force, or by any number of providential ways, do the efforts of the natural man vanish into thin air. When you've put a lot of sock into a "foolproof" plan and it falls apart completely, and you are helpless to stop it, in the process fearfully "falling into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31)," it is most emphatically astonishing.

If being astonished can lead to being amazed, to recognizing utter helplessness, to falling down in abject humility, calling upon God, to receiving his grace and his forgiveness, to leaping from one's bed of affliction, to becoming a mighty servant of the Lord [as it did at least for Paul and Zeezrom], then let the marvelous works and wonders come, and let us all be astonished!

A Grim Tale

2010-02-21T14:34:00.000-08:00

I have read many stories over the past few weeks of people reaching out to people, particularly amid the rubble that is now Haiti, and I applaud every effort, even the one mentioned in Wendi C. Thomas' column "Center Has Soft Spot for Kids in Hard Times," in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, which championed a safe place for young people dealing with same gender attraction. However, I must respond to the underlying "born-that-way" implication that someone dealing with same-gender attraction has only one recourse, which is to submit and embrace homosexuality.
We seem to be living in the grim fairy tale world in which the emperor is parading around naked, yet we all feel compelled to exclaim over his dazzling new clothes. In this world, to hint that homosexuality is not a sentence but a challenge, is to be denounced a heretic. One who so proclaims is forthwith accused of "gay bashing" and is relegated to the lowest possible rung of societal opinion.
Notwithstanding, I feel compelled to say unequivocally: there is a way out of homosexuality, just as there is a way out of alcoholism, or of sexual addiction of any kind, or of any addiction, whether genetically imposed or environmentally disposed or consciously chosen. There is always a way out; I have seen it happen. One must ask: Did Christ come for nothing?!
Had we not embraced such a casual attitude toward right and wrong that families began to fall apart, that marriage became optional and "shacking up" preferable, that sexual relations among teenagers became normal and expected, then we would not have arrived at the place where we find ourselves today, where homosexuality too has become normal and natural, and where further moral erosion threatens the innocent in ways we dare not (as yet) imagine.
We have, as Isaiah describes it, "turned things upside down" (Isaiah 29:16), as societies before us have done; and, while we fiddle our own tune, like Nero, modern Rome - I mean our Western world - burns. For while the emperor was "born that way", his nakedness exposes him to dire repercussions, unless he finds a way to be clothed.
I say this, not because I hate, but because I care.

What Stuff Is This?

2010-01-19T11:06:00.000-08:00

So, the other day I saw a YouTube video, “The Story of Stuff.” The presenter, Annie Leonard, is obviously very committed to her cause, which is essentially to get people to stop the unchecked flow of consumerism, and to take responsibility by wise management of our finite resources. It was pretty good. There were a couple of things, though, that raised a red flag for me. One was her adamant demeanor, the way she seemed to demand that we draw the same conclusions she was drawing. The other was what she said about government’s role: that “they’re supposed to watch over us and take care of us. That’s their job.” This statement seemed to me to negate the sentence she used to preface it, that government is of the people and for the people. I wonder what happened to “by the people.”
Be that as it may, I felt alarmed at her implication that government is responsible for our welfare. That is only true in a protective sense; it is not true in a providing sense. What Annie finds objectionable, that our government has become too cozy with big corporations and has indirectly, therefore, assented to the plundering of the poor and of third world countries, is indeed heinous and tragic; however, I believe that what she is advocating, at least by implication, that government step in to legislate economic endeavors in favor of the “green” way, is fraught with the same caveats.
As I wrote in a response on Facebook: “I think expecting more government to take care of us is what got us into the mess she describes in the first place. We let go of individual responsibility, of government by the people, by allowing government to ‘take care of us.’ If we continue in that mindset, but in the opposite direction, you can bet we'll just end up with another corrupt system.”
With so much wrong with our government, and with so much clamoring in so many different directions as to ways of correcting it, it is easy to become confused and befuddled, as I think many people have. The tendency at that point is to do nothing, which allows the enthusiasm of the Annie Leonards in all walks of life to run rampant.
What’s wrong with that? Only this: while we are indeed living upon a finite planet, we are infinite beings, with an eternal purpose. Government is “instituted of God for the benefit of man; and …he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society….no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life (Doctrine and Covenants 134:1-2).”
In other words, only as we conform to eternal principles of truth, and govern ourselves accordingly, can we act within and support effective governments. Otherwise, causes become religions in and of themselves, inevitably encroaching upon “the free exercise of conscience.”
The problem today is not the Constitutional government, but the way in which “we, the people,” through our abandonment of those eternal, true principles in our headlong pursuit of our own individual wants and desires, have allowed our rulers to violate their trust, under the guise of catering to our demands. In the 50s, consumerism made sense, and the politicians, for their own purposes, catered to it. Today, we see its horrific downside and in a panic, run off in the opposite direction, to which today’s politicians will pander, again for their own purposes, and with the same disastrous results.
The only safe way is to hold to eternal principles of truth that never vary, because they are not finite. The Constitution was written in adherence to those principles; it behooves us to return to it, in strict adherence ourselves.
President Ezra Taft Benson, who served under President Eisenhower as Secretary of Agriculture and who was a patriot in the best possible sense of the word, wrote and gave many outstanding addresses on topics like government and individual freedom. From his speech, “The Proper Role of Government,” which can be accessed on YouTube, comes this statement, which is actually a quotation:
“No historian of the future will ever be able to prove that the ideas of individual liberty practiced in the United States of America were a failure. He may be able to prove that we were not yet worthy of them. The choice is ours.” (Charles Hallberg and Co., 116 West Grand Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60610)
In point of fact, President Benson said what I have been trying to say far more convincingly and eloquently, so I urge and exhort all who read this to go to that speech, which can also be googled for the text.
To conclude: I applaud Annie Leonard for her very real concerns, but I wish to sound a voice of warning to her and to everyone, that we must subject all our concerns to the standard of the one overarching and eternal Governor. Only then will our purposes and our efforts find fruition.

New Year Poem

2010-01-03T15:54:00.000-08:00

I was asked to write a poem for the new year for our Relief Society Newsletter. Here is the result:

“Come What May, and Love It”

Last year was full of stark and lovely things;
We know not what the coming year will bring.
Yet I feel just to say within my heart:
“Be still, and let the Savior do his part.”
His covenants stand firm beyond all time;
We honor them - we feel a joy sublime.
Despite all current woes and cares, we know
His over-arching hand holds all below.
His arm in solid, steady mercy held
Supports us, though this earth is darkly veiled.
In Satan’s temporary grasp it reels,
Yet death, hell, and demonic hosts will kneel
Before His mighty Majesty divine.
Fear not, my soul: forever in Christ, shine!

"Some, in speaking of war and troubles, will say, are you not afraid? No, I am a servant of God, and this is enough, for Father is at the helm. It is for me to be as clay in the hands of the potter, to be pliable and walk in the light and countenance of the Spirit of the Lord, and then no matter what comes. Let the lightnings flash and the earthquakes bellow, God is at the helm, and I feel like saying but little, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth and will continue his work until he has put all enemies under his feet, and his kingdom extends from the rivers to the ends of the earth." - President John Taylor
“I know why there must be opposition in all things. Adversity, if handled correctly, can be a blessing in our lives. We can learn to love it.
“As we look for humor, seek for the eternal perspective, understand the principle of compensation, and draw near to our Heavenly Father, we can endure hardship and trial. We can say, as did my mother, ‘Come what may, and love it.’ ” - Elder Joseph P. Wirthlin

Merry Christmas`

2009-12-12T10:40:00.000-08:00

I feel it incumbent upon me to be a voice crying in the wilderness, just in case there are any out there who think that the unmistakable good will that pervades during this hoiday season has no direct connection to the birth of Christ. I have noticed over the last few years, a marked increase in other "reasons" to celebrate, an effort to diminish the Christian "reason for the season."
Kwanzaa is completely worthwhile; the celebration of Hannukah is totally legitimate; the winter solstice is awe-inspiring. They can enhance the season's enjoyment.
However, the effort to try to remove Christ from Christmas will yield a commensurate loss of Christmas spirit; the celebration will seem somehow empty, the good will, not "enough:" endeavors to engender those feelings will echo somewhere in the chambers of the heart that have been emptied of the one Eternal source of joy.
Humanity is not solely of the animals, not fully of the genus "mammal." Evolution is a principle of science, but is not All in All. As the poet Wordsworth expressed, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:/ The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,/ Hath had elsewhere its setting,/And cometh from afar:/ Not in entire forgetfulness,/ And not in utter nakedness,/ But trailing clouds of glory do we come/ From God, who is our home:/ Heaven lies about us in our infancy!"
I believe that the best scientists have much in common with the greatest poets, and perhaps even with the prophets. I believe that there is really very little that separates the spirit of inquiry from the beckoning of Mystery. One blogger, Rich Blundell, shared this observation: "A scientist's Christmas has humility and dignity both. It is humble enough to admit that our knowledge of the sacred will always be incomplete, without the need to declare 'war' on anything but ignorance. There is plenty of mystery to celebrate and plenty of ignorance to fear - Merry Christmas."
This year, I suggest that instead of denying the "knowing" deep within every human soul, that we instead acknowledge it, that we, as it were, give room for it. See where it leads. Celebrate it all, and celebrate Him who is the Source of it all. "Come in, and know me better, man!"

AFTER LIGHT

2009-10-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

“Whom seek ye?”
“I am he”
(Wise men still seek Him).

“Jesus of Nazureth.”
“I am he.”

“Where is he that is born King
Of the Jews?
For we have seen his star in the East
And are come to worship him.”
“Whom seek ye?”

The Great I Am.
They fall back before such majesty,
Those servants of the dark
Who come out as against a thief,
With swords and staves.
“Whom seek ye?”
"Jesus of Nazureth."
"I am he."

“Let us now go,” said the shepherds,
And see this thing which is come to pass.”
And they found the babe,
Wrapped in swaddling clothes
And lying in a manger.

Herod said, “Go and search diligently for the young child;
And when ye have found him, bring me word again,
That I may come and worship him also.”
“Whom seek ye?”

“Betrayest thou the Son of Man
With a kiss?”
“Whom seek ye?”

For light or for darkness -
We all seek Him,
To follow, to become Like -
Or to destroy, to make
Nothing.

Be not mistaken:
The Prince of Darkness seeks Him
With fangs bared.

Lord, let not anger turn me
From the Light;
Let not pride make of me
A servant of the dark.

"Woman, why weepest thou?
Whom seekest thou?"

May I say,
Always and ever: "Lord, Thee."

I am Olive

2009-09-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

I had an epiphany in the Salt Lake Temple. I realized that I am Olive. Olive is my granddaughter, a three-year-old bulwark of individuality, a dark-eyed, adorable little firecracker of a child with a glorious halo of impossibly curly blonde hair. The realization that I am Olive came to me like a spiritual/mental firecracker. Given my 57-year-old persona, I would not have thought it of me. Pity; evidently, to paraphrase Wordsworth, the world has been "too much with me" for too long. How did I go from being Olive to ... my present persona: staid, measured, timid almost, when it comes to engaging with people: not wanting to impose myself upon anyone. Holding back - holding back my true self when I could be blessing lives with my true self - because I fear offending.
Olive on the other hand, has no qualms about being her true self. She tells it like it is, remarkably adroitly. She recognizes her supreme right as a child of the universe to be, nothing withstanding; she makes no apologies, nor demands any from others.
One day she was disgruntled, injured over something (I can't remember what) that had happened to her as a result of her own behavior, and her aunt remonstrated, "Well, that's what you get."I am still trying to figure out what was behind Olive's reaction; her head snapped up, there was a look of ... what was it? a look of utter incomprehension -"that does not compute" - along with a quizzical expression - “What does this mean?” and I found myself fearing lest she should believe those words, but I was not quite sure why. I have been trying to figure this out ever since (we were visiting at the time).
I felt as if there were some profound truth in her reaction, the pure, unsullied response of an innocent child (all children under the age of eight are innocent; see Moroni 8:7-23 and D&C 68:25). What I have been asking myself is, what is that profound truth?What had happened, and I think it had to do with sibling wrangling, was a logical consequence of that wrangling, so in that sense it was indeed "what you get;" but I think her reaction said: "You are telling me that I deserved this?"
How can the answer to that question be, "Yes?" How can one imply culpability upon an innocent person by claiming that she deserves retribution? To answer "yes" to that question, it seems to me, would be to say, as Moroni so strongly exhorts against, that little children sin and therefore need repentance; Moroni "boldly" admonishes against that kind of thinking "That's what you get" implies “you deserved it,“ which in turn implies “you are lacking in some vital essential.“

That statement is verily true for us, who are “grown.” We have to rely upon and plead for the blessings and grace of the Atonement, have to toil all our lives back to the point where little children are. But little children are enough, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps the statement, "That's what happens when people fight with each other," would be more appropriate. That statement would be true, would be helping the child to understand what she is in for while in this mortal coil, that certain behaviors reap certain consequences, yet with no intimation of intrinsic shortcoming.
I don't know exactly why, but at some point in my young upbringing, I assimilated the idea that children - that I as a child - don't count, that children are second-class citizens whose feelings, thoughts, opinions...needs?...don't matter. I think it was a false tradition of the age, a lingering effect of the industrial revolution (people became programmable machines too); even, perhaps of the eons-old misconception that "children should be seen and not heard." For some reason and to some degree, I bowed down to that idol; I surrendered - not completely, but sufficiently for it to determine some of my attitudes and behaviors - to being "less than."
I think, in fact, that almost all of today’s cultures have been steeped in some false tradition that diminishes the worth of children. If the children of the world had the maturity and wisdom that ought to come with age, they might rise up in retribution. In some ways, in the amazing things they do and say, they do exactly that in their own subtle way.
I just want to know how to help them grown up, knowing how to perpetuate the truth. So - I am Olive. I am going to try to be more like Olive, so that I can help her grow up to be more like Jesus.
An Olive anecdote:A neighbor made tutus, those stiffly flouncing ballerina skirts, for the birthday of Olive and her seven-year-old sister Abbey. Olive wore hers every day thereafter. One day she and I went down the street to make a visit. She was barefooted. Her costume consisted of a slip overlaid by the tutu. She was riding her bike, which is a training-wheel-less two wheeler without pedals, which she scoots along the sidewalk with great prowess and good balance. A businessman getting out of his car in a parking lot observed, watching her, "It doesn't get any better than that: you got your bare feet, you got your bicycle, and you got your ballerina skirt." As we crossed the street toward the neighborhood bakery, upon the sidewalk of which stood a cluster of people, her bicycle gained momentum. With total aplomb, Olive shot right through, announcing without artifice, " 'Scuse me, guys. Bike coming through."
May Olive always be Olive, and may the “Olive“ in me come through.

Private Mourning Trumps Public Affair

2009-07-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

I saw a news item in our Memphis Commercial Appeal today, dateline Hailey, ID, which happens to be my hometown. I don’t know the people mentioned in the little article - after all, it has been a decade or two since I visited Hailey - but the subject of the article sparked a line of thought that I have followed on occasion. A family (I won’t state their name out of respect for their wishes) requested privacy from newshounds and sensation seekers as they deal with the heart-jolting notice of the capture of their son, an Army private in Afghanistan. Citizens of Hailey, desiring to show commiseration in some way, and I think fittingly, decorated the trees on Main Street with yellow ribbons.
My question: how is it that private mourning becomes a public affair? In fact, how is it that private feelings of any kind are deemed by “investigative reporters” as justifiable to expose to others, whose lives in general do not at the time follow some parallel track and who therefore have no business to know, nor need to be informed of such individual matters of the heart?
There is, on the one hand, the assault on the sufferer, who hardly knows how to process what is happening to himself, let alone the value or appropriateness of sharing that process with people with whom he is not acquainted. Any such intrusion compounds the difficulty of processing the traumatic events in his life in a way that eventually brings meaning and understanding, which are so necessary in being able to continue living an altered life.
On the other hand, there is the casual observer, the reader of the paper or the television spectator, who has just enough on his own plate to manage, and who is invited through this unwarranted introduction into someone else’s experiences, to be distracted from his own affairs, and perhaps to neglect them in favor of attending to someone else’s, and therefore less personally demanding, issues.
There is as well the enticement to the innate desire in everyone for attention; but attention in this manner, whether the giving or the receiving of it, is of no healthy nature and only serves to retard, rather than to encourage, personal fulfillment; and personal fulfillment, after all, is at the base of the desire for attention.
In short: this effort to go after private feeling for public entertainment is a lose-lose proposition. Those who report the news - or who bring us "reality" shows - ought to have the personal honesty to see and to understand that, and to exercise the courage, therefore, of walking away from an “easy” story, or from easy money.

'Tis High to Be a Judge

2009-06-15T17:05:00.001-07:00

Deep unmet needs. Pres. Kimball says that they are what sins result from. When we feel sinned against, we must ask ourselves, rather than choosing to be offended, “Does this action represent a deep unmet need?” Even though we feel hurt, does it follow that the intention was to hurt? Or even that if it was, that we have the right to feel offended, rather than to act compassionately?
Satan knows that sin occurs through unmet needs, and he takes advantage of that knowledge to tempt us into thinking that by doing thus or so, our needs will be met. There are people on the earth, but in much the smaller minority, who understand this also, and who take advantage of it. These people are perhaps past the unmet needs point, to deliberate choice, and are therefore truly wicked.
But come, we know our loved ones (they by whom we are tempted to be most offended) - we know that their desires are overwhelmingly good and righteous. Only God, indeed, only God, can judge the heart’s intent, so that we cannot even claim the truly wicked are wicked (unless as a priesthood steward one is inspired to do so) in the sense of standing as judge over them. How much less can we stand as a judge over a loved one, and claim in our hurt that he is wicked, to soothe our own hurts - our own unmet needs?
Surely this cannot be so. Thus, we see that ours is not to judge, not even to be offended. We can only take our hurts to the Healer, seek his grace in our behalf, and also in behalf of the offender, that we might be filled with grace toward him, and be a part of that healing balm of which he is in need.

Stand Up - Eve Approaches (Mother's Day 2009)

2009-05-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

Truth is, I didn’t get anything out in the mail in time - to my mother, to my daughters. That is a shame, because each one deserves a special wish for a happy Mother’s Day and recognition for how she brings her own precious, irreplaceable touch to the appellation “Mother.”
I was thinking recently, how my mother, Donna-Rose, seems to be taking on angelic attributes without the usual requirement of having to “pass on” to the next life first. She is more truly beautiful every time I see her; there is more light emanating from her, so that even her hair, her coiffure, is transformed into a halo.
Her voice has always had a musical dimension that is uniquely hers; when asked to say one thing about my mother during a Relief Society lesson, I answered, “My mother’s voice is like music.”
I delight in saying that. What a gift her voice has been in the lives of me and my siblings, let alone all the other treasures we cherish because of her: her patient love; her mildness - surely once or twice she must have raised her voice, but I don’t remember it; her pleading, gentle admonishing, always inviting us to come up, to be better, to do more, to reach out, to give, to understand. She was wholly involved in everything we did, our best editor, cheerleader, manager. Though not a "born Mormon," her testimony and commitment were rock solid and valiant.
Mom, if you have ever worried about it (because I know that as a mother, I have), I would gladly, with the breath of kindness “blow the chaff away,” for my mother is, it must be admitted, not quite a perfect person. Just almost.
Next, my daughter, Amy, who, though she insists she just “wants her body back,” nevertheless relinquishes it with fierce devotion to the care and nurture of her four children. Though she is full of fervor for saving the world and its people, she unquestioningly submits herself to the little circle of people that is her first priority, sacrifice of her time and zeal notwithstanding, while still managing to do an astounding deal of good in the at large world. She is virtually indefatigable. Her children are in for an adventure! Her world is a glorious, raucous profusion of glitter and dust, for she is refining and being refined, but always a queen.
Next, my daughter, Tamra, whose constant, pleading faith on behalf of her child is “long distance”, for she is a birth mother. This means that she loved her little one so very much that she gave him away, breaking her own heart in the process, allowing him because of that act, a twice-blessed life in the care of an additional loving mother, and father. He is always, I know, first in her prayers still, and she cherishes hope for the day when she will be able to see and know him, and to enjoy fellowship with his extended family, who is also hers in a very special way. Her love multiplies as she helps other young women with similar stories, and other families with similar needs. She is forever giving in some way or other to the benefit of others, especially to the “strays” of all species. She is a rising star.
We are blessed and privileged to have four lovely daughters-in-law as well, to whom we are very grateful for the love, joys and talents they bring into our sons’ and to our grandchildren's lives, and to ours by extension:
Sara, Andrew’s wife, is cheerful, fun, talented, creative, with seemingly inexhaustible energy. An anecdote: we were visiting them in Florida for Christmas, and I had taken Gabriel, 3, to the park. At one point he unexpectedly took off running toward what I perceived to be a ditch. Afraid I could not catch up with him in time, I called out, “Gabe, stop!” And he did. Immediately. Wow. Sara said that after an incident the preceding summer, when he had almost run in front of a car coming out of a hidden alleyway, she had decided to play a game with him. She would have him run up the hall, and when she called stop, he would stop, for which he would receive big kudos. That "game" translated into safety. Simple, yet phenomenal.
Alison, Jared’s wife, impresses me with her quiet devotion. The girl is true blue. She is happy, happy to be a “domestic goddess,” which is an especially good thing, given that because of the nature of their living situation, she simply can’t be gone from home much. Because of her uncomplaining willingness to “be the mom“, with all that implies, I know that Jared is a contented husband and father. She nurtures and nourishes little Madison with her time and attention, and is always interested in learning new and better ways. She is an artist and a good writer - some of her work adorns their apartment, and her blog is always interesting reading. She is a keeper!
Bergen, Matt’s wife, is a jewel that we almost missed in our crown (long story, but they would be glad to tell it to you if you have a couple of hours). She is a mom-in-waiting, come August. Bergen works with autistic young adults; her willingness alone to have that kind of job is admirable in the extreme, but she does it because she has a huge capacity to love. Little children adore her; ask Andrew and Sara! Or any of the other sibs, for that matter. I have been told many times that she looks like my daughter, which is an inexpressible compliment, for she is very lovely, but I have to say it is also gratifying, for I don’t know if I would have been quite so willing to give Matthew up if it were not so (somehow Matt and I were kind of “joined at the hip” spiritually and emotionally)! She is one hundred percent devoted to the Gospel and to the part family plays in it.
Bonnie, our dear sweet China doll (!), is Benjamin’s bride as of January. Not yet a mother, but with twinkles in her eye. She is a trooper, hanging right in there with every adventurous whim Benjamin can conceive of. She is a teacher par excellence, from all that I have been able to discern, plus, as already mentioned, she is wonderfully sweet, so much so that you just want to hug her on a continual basis, feeling that some of it might rub off. She, too, is a wonder with children, and may she and Benjamin have a quiver full! I can’t wait, on their behalf (well, on ours too, a little!).
As for myself, I remembered today during church, that my patriarchal blessing says that my parents love me with a love that I would only experience when I had children of my own. I wondered, as a young mother, if I truly loved my children as much as I know my parents love me. I don’t wonder any more. I love my children with a true, tried, deep, abiding love. I try to be, today, the mother I was not always able to be when they were younger, for motherhood is like an olive tree, ever bearing fruit, ever deepening roots, ever giving shade, ever standing witness of all that is eternal.
For all that the world might give, nothing in it can ever replace the privilege of motherhood.

For "Snatched"

2009-04-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

go to my February 17 entry

Oh, that C.S. Lewis! How Did He Know? WHAT Did He Know?

2009-04-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

I am such a sentimental creature! I have just finished reading Lewis’ The Silver Chair, the most recent of numberless times, and tears still start in my eyes when I read, “And out from the blackness into the moonlight - this would have been rather dreadful if one hadn’t known who they were - came, first, the long, leggy, steeple-hatted figure of the Marsh-wiggle, and then, leading two great horses, Rilian the Prince himself. …Pale though he was from long imprisonment in the Deep Lands, dressed in black, dusty, disheveled, and weary, there was something in his face and air which no one could mistake. That look is in the face of all true kings of Narnia, who rule by the will of Aslan and sit at Cair Paravel in the throne of Peter the High King. Instantly every head was bared and every knee was bent…”
The Silver Chair, at least for me where I stand today, seems to carry more symbolic meaning for today’s circumstances than any of the other Chronicles. As Aslan says to Jill at the beginning of the story, “remember, remember, remember the Signs.” How very important it is to remember, most importantly, the commandments of God, and our covenants with him to keep them. How much, how very much and how patiently through the ages He has lovingly and carefully taught us through the prophets’ words and through the whisperings of His Spirit to each of us, and has implored us to remember, remember, remember.
“Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night,” Aslan instructs. How similar are the words in Deuteronomy: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shal write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. (6:6-9).”
Jill and Eustace go, on errand from Aslan, seeking the Lost Prince, who is, in my mind at least and I believe almost certainly in Lewis’, a type of Jesus Christ (of course, so is Aslan himself). And how lost Jesus Christ is to the world at large today, and what a journey, fraught with adventure, danger, and hard work, it is for every earnest seeker, to truly find Him. It is not for the faint-hearted or the lover of ease.
How patiently and mercifully He helps us on our way, even when we “muff the signs.” How quickly He comes to our aid when we put ourselves on the right track once again. Even through times when all around us seems a dreary wilderness, which we may be tempted to think will go on unendingly, He is walking beside us and bearing us up; and all these things ultimately “give [us] experience, and shall be for [our] good. (D&C 122:7).”
When at last we find Him, we may not quite recognize him, for he has been shackled by the Dragon, who has sought through centuries of Apostasy to disguise him, and who has enslaved the people of the earth (the Earthmen) so that they do not recognize him even when he comes among them. Well did Aslan say to Jill, “And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the Signs.” Stay close to the Spirit of truth, that “giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkened to the voice of the Spirit. And every one that hearkened to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even the Father. (D&C 84:46-47).”
“And secondly,” continues Aslan, “I give you a warning. Here on the mountain [symbol of what? His temple], I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken [air of the Earthmen is very thick indeed]. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the Signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there [the Dragon, the Serpent, seeks in every age to hide and to disguise them deep in the philosophies of men]. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the Signs and believe the Signs. Nothing else matters (italics added).”
Remembering and honoring the signs, our heroes, our Everymen, release the doctrine of Christ from the “vile engine of sorcery,” the Silver Chair of Apostasy, and in so doing come to see before them the true Son of the King. With the aid of the meek and humble things of the earth, embodied in the common Marshwiggle, they conquer even the Dragon or Serpent.
Yet the fight is not over. There are men’s souls to be won, and a final struggle to be made. The bright light of the Restoration shines forth, the Earthmen awake and shake their heads as if waking from a dream, and embrace the light with joy, while the conquerors go on into the Unknown.
“Doubtless,” says the Prince, “this signifies that Aslan will be our good lord, whether he means us to live or die. And all’s one, for that.”
This is a message for our times. We face an unknown path, fraught with peril. Economic hardships, terrorism, violence on the home front, and moral entrapment and devastation all loom before us. But we have a prophet and apostles, the revealed word of the Lord, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and the covenants of baptism and the temple to guide and sustain us, with Celestial glory shining in solid light (“There I’ll pick you bunches of rubies that you can eat and squeeze you a cup full of diamond-juice.”) before us.
We have the stories of our own heroes, the Latter-day pioneers to encourage and inspire us. (While in Salt Lake City recently, I took occasion to visit the juried art exhibition in the Conference Center, “Remembering the Great Things of God.” One of the pieces was a large painting of a formidable peak in the Wasatch Range; under it was a triptych, with handcart pioneers in the first panel, facial portraits of the pioneer couple in the middle, and their Utah homestead in the third. Instantly upon taking in the whole effect, and gazing at their faces, the exhortation came to my mind as if I heard their very voices: “We did it. So can you.”).
What else can we say but what Joseph Smith exclaims in Section 128 of the Doctrine and Covenants: “Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren, and on, on to the victory!”
Prince Rilian, looking upon a task the immediate consequences of which are unknown, proclaims solemnly, “Friends, when once a man is launched on such an adventure as this, he must bid farewell to hopes and fears, otherwise death or deliverance will both come too late to save his honor and his reason.”
“ ‘Do you mean you think everything will come right if we do untie him?’ ” Eustace had inquired of the steadfast Puddleglum as they determined to set the bewitched knight free from the bonds of the Silver Chair, having seen clear evidence of the Fourth Sign but fearing the consequences of following it. “ ‘I don’t know that, said Puddleglum. “You see, Aslan didn’t tell [Jill] what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he’s up, I shouldn’t wonder. But that doesn’t let us off following the Sign.’
“They all stood looking at one another with bright eyes. It was a sickening moment. ‘All right!’ said Jill suddenly. ‘Let’s get it over. Good-bye everyone…!’ “
That is the kind of bidding farewell to hopes and fears to which the Prince refers: one doesn’t know the consequences of doing what’s right, one only knows that one must do it.
“In the name of Aslan.”

Sweet Child, Mine Accuser

2009-03-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

I saw a news feature on PBS the other evening about children in Africa, thousands upon thousands, who are having to raise themselves and their siblings because their parents have died of HIV/AIDS. There are numerous attendant social problems, as one can imagine. Many in schools and churches give assistance, and governments give financial aid, often used improperly. The central fact, though, is that there are children children children languishing without parental nurture or training, without the benefit of wise counselors from whose loins they have sprung, without the benefit of those who care only for them and who guide them as only parents can, who provide them with that sense of self and stewardship so needed to survive and thrive, that only involved parents can provide. This, beyond the obvious physical needs that go pathetically, anguishingly neglected.
Later, musing over this poignant reality, it struck me that every such child stands as accuser of those who, in this and all the “civilized” countries of the West and East, claim that sexual freedom is a civil right. Those children live in serious jeopardy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because “civil rights” were imposed upon them by their society, and by those who birthed them and then left them orphans.
“Yes,” they say, “tell me that sexual intercourse is the right and privilege of every male and female who finds himself attracted to any other male or female. Tell me that my coming in to life HIV-infected myself, only to lose a parent before ever I learned to toddle, thence to be thrown under the care of a 16-year-old big sister, herself an HIV/AIDS-infected single mother and responsible for five other siblings as well, is all well and good, and all a necessary sacrifice at the altar of civil rights-insured sexual freedom."
How many canaries do we need before we understand that the oxygen we think we're breathing is really some deadly toxin?

randmom thoughts

2009-03-03T13:08:00.000-08:00

I was about to write "random", but when I saw the word "randmom" it seemed more appropriate, because these are thougts relating to what I've learned from being a mom, a daughter, a wife, a sister, etc.
I've been thinking today about a class I took at BYU's Education Week about dysfunctional families, specifically about the hallmarks of a dysfunctional family, specifically the one that says dysfunctional families have their own particular set of little rules that become a really big deal if transgressed. One of ours was that the children did not use the towels in the guest bathroom....so what??!!
Anyway, what I've been thinking about today in connection with that particular warning sign of a DF is the "We don't do that" syndrome - as if our family is an exclusive little syndicate, just a cut above the normal, more "in the right" than just about everyone else. In actual fact, saying what we do or do not do is more an effort to control, to assure that the expectations of the one in control are carried out.
If we want our children to learn, truly learn good conduct, we might consider asking questions that require the child to ponder her behavior, that require him to make a decision about the course of action he as a person wants to follow. We want to appeal to the child's own sense of right and wrong, not corral her inside our own paradigm. Thus we encourage him to use his own agency, to try it out and to find it real, to discover that agency is the avenue to truth, to meaning, to fulfillment.
"And that's all I have to say about that." Today anyway.

Review of the movie Fireproof (written as a letter to the editor)

2009-03-01T11:51:00.000-08:00

I enjoy reading some of the movie reviews by John Beifuss in the supplement, GoMemphis.com.
When I learned through an email from a friend of a movie he did not review, other than a short blurb in the general listings, I at first thought it a shame that John did not deign to review this movie, Fireproof. Having seen the movie and after thinking it over, however, I realize that it’s best that he did not give it a full review. It is nearly impossible for someone who gets paid to write reviews to give this movie the glowing endorsement it deserves, without running the risk of having such a review discounted on religious grounds, readers possibly concluding that the writer is using his position to “convert” others. This is not, perhaps, the job of a journalist.
However, as an unpaid citizen, I can offer that glowing endorsement. I wholeheartedly recommend this wonderful movie to everyone. It is well-acted, professionally done, and substantial, which is not always the case in some well-meaning but bungling religious films, especially when many of the actors are volunteers! What I liked especially is the honest portrayal of the often unrewarded effort, time and anguish human beings must go through in order to make marriage a successful venture. I must, must also add that I was deeply gratified at the movie’s unabashed statement that successful marriage is impossible without making God a co-partner.
If you are willing to take an honest look at yourself and to make some serious changes, see this movie and “go and do likewise.”

2009-03-01T11:23:00.000-08:00

The next two pieces were written in 2007, when I was toying with the idea of blogging. I put them under the general heading "Family Files."

Family Files I

2009-03-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

I am in love with my husband. After 31 years of marriage, I can say this unequivocally. This is why it is good to stay married, and not to opt for divorce when the difficulties come. This is why making and keeping promises is a must in marriage. It is so worth it! After thirty-one years, I am delightfully, giddily, in love with my husband.
Oh, we were smitten at the beginning, all right. But children came soon, seven of them, and conflicts soon arose over how to rear them, and over how to spend the money my husband so doggedly worked to provide. Our backgrounds rose up snarling at each other -he was a child of divorce and of alcoholism, I a child of relative ease and indulgence. How often over the years we could have called a halt to the craziness and gone off to promulgate it in other ways.
Instead we stayed and worked it out. Our children grew up slightly less crazy than we were and much more wise, somehow.
In John Bayley’s introduction to Tolstoi’s great tome War and Peace, he opined that “marriage is the novel’s ultimate theme, its climax, its apotheosis. ’Marriedness’ is happiness; and to be happy is to be right, justified by life and at peace with it…The book ends with marriage,…not [as] a device for concluding the work, but, in a curious sense, [as] the justification for it .” Spencer W. Kimball, prophetic leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1973-1985, stated simply: “Home [is] the place to save society.”
As practicing Mormons, we believed that. So we stayed. We fought it out, so to speak, between ourselves, but most effectively, within ourselves. How many the times I cried in the night, how many the nights my husband ground his teeth in anguish. How angry we were with each other, but it was an anger that was tempered with submission and obedience. We had promised to do our best, to love each other and our children. How imperfectly we loved each other, interspersed as it was with personal psychological issues and, perhaps more tellingly, with selfish attitudes that kept the smolder of resentment flickering.
Ultimately, however, as I have already exulted, love won out. What a marvel! We have been to counseling, personally and as a family, several times over the years. We have struggled to the brink of absolute desperation, been consequently humbled, and have thus haltingly but surely progressed step by step. We have, at our best, submitted ourselves to change, to repentance, and as a result have seen amazing things come to pass.
Who can read this and say that God does not keep his promises when we keep ours? Who can imagine that holding to the foundation of human society - that is, honorable marriage and subsequent family - with all one’s might and mind, is not but what is best calculated, indeed, for the happiness of humankind?
Ah! We have accepted a false bill of sale in this world today. We, like the citizens of the emperor’s fabled town, behold all the counterfeits of marriage in a blinded state, and fail to see what is so blatantly clear, that the emperor is naked.
We have been trying to hide our exposed selves ever since Adam and Eve made aprons to hide their nakedness. This nakedness, however, is not so much physical as it is spiritual, and presents a conundrum for which we as mortals have no real solution. This sense of “being exposed” is a result of crossing that invisible barrier in our souls that tells us when we have done wrong. We try every way we know to “hide” that sense, we cover it with all kinds and shapes of aprons, with a multitude of politically correct platitudes, to the point that on some level we actually convince ourselves that we are clothed, hidden from ourselves and from God. But it is a tenuous cloak, and the first cold wind uncovers us again. Our reaction? To find some other way to hide.
It was God who made the coats of skins with which to clothe Adam and Eve, however, and it is only in Him that we find our true hiding place. Curious: we try to hide ourselves because we transgress his laws, but it is He himself who provides the only true covering.
This we know. We as a couple and as a family have hidden ourselves in him, and when we once again cross that unwavering line, as we unfailingly do as mortals, his “arm is stretched out still;” his cloak is still there, but it is He who covers us with it through our humility, our willingness to change, our obedience, because we ask Him.
Yes, I am profoundly in love with my husband, and that is irrefutably a miracle.

Family Files II

2009-03-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

What I am going to tell you is precious to our family. Please find that corner of your heart where sweet, tender things abide and read this from that place.
Jesse was a bonus baby. He came to us at a very stressful time. We were square in the middle of raising a large family, trying to keep a home together, trying to manage finances, busy in church and in school activities. We felt our plate was full. When I found out I was expecting, I did the logical thing: I went into a serious funk. I was foolish, I had jeopardized my own health and the well being of our family. My husband, Blaine, was equally distressed: how could we provide for seven children, let alone six? We were having trouble being parents already! We were a sorry duo.
After a few months of drowning in our own self pity, we received some very good counsel, and we followed it. I don’t need to tell you what it was, because it was good counsel for us; you’ve received and followed good counsel before, you know what it feels like. As a result, our attitudes changed. We began to realize that, contrary to what we had initially thought, the coming of this baby was not part of the ongoing struggle, but instead an instrument of resolution. We began to look forward to this birth, we felt at peace about it.
Jesse weighed in at 11 pounds 7 ounces, natural birth just like all the others (the obstetrician for my first pregnancy told me that my body was built for having babies - thank heavens!). Blaine was there as he had been for each preceding birth. Childbirth is an emotional experience, particularly when you’ve consciously met and labored through every anticipatory wave of preparation, all the way to that final whoosh, when that mysterious burden slips from his solitary inner world out into his new earthly landscape. One feels so glad, so exhausted, so amazed! Blaine, endearingly, cried every time.
I always insisted on my babies “rooming in” - staying in my room instead of in the hospital nursery. So the nurses, after cleaning Jesse up a bit and administering the standard tests, brought him back to me. I was sitting in a rocking chair; they handed this incredible little bundle of mystery to me; I received it in awe, still wrapped in the otherworldly spirit that is human birth. His deep blue eyes locked with mine - consciously. His whole face blossomed into a beatific smile, every feature alight, and we communicated in utter clarity: I’m here! Everything is going to be all right now. God had sent us our very own family angel.
That day our oldest son Andrew was in a “live” Cub Scout derby race: each scout (and his dad) made his own car out of a cardboard box, and provided the horsepower with his own two legs. Blaine and the other children, Amy, Tamra, Benjamin, Matthew and Jared, were the pit crew. Andrew’s car was the General Lee, complete with orange paint, 01 on the side, and a real metal grill (his car was so heavy that he came in last, but he was awarded best design).
This little family endeavor seemed to make Jesse’s birth all the more a family event. When the children came to the hospital for a visit later that day, there was a strong sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm; the great race and the baby’s birth seemed to take part in the same spirit, a joie de vivre that was particularly familial. Already Jesse’s presence was working its magic.
In fact, I guess that is what Jesse, our baby, has done for us, just by being who he is: he has had a binding effect upon us all; through his birth somehow we became truly "all for one and one for all."
Until that time, I had never been quite sure that our deliberate though prayerful decision to have six children was really right, even though, as I said, we felt fully engaged to the pressure point with that many. Once my change of attitude occurred, and with greater conviction after Jesse arrived, how many children we had wasn’t even an issue anymore somehow. It just wasn’t important. Jesse’s presence in our family was a testament to the fact that God knew us and was especially concerned for our welfare. He had us in the palm of his hand. We were not to worry, but only to do all that we could do. He would do the rest, in ways often seemingly contradictory, but always amazingly fulfilling.
And so it has been. The struggles still occurred, things still remained to be resolved. There was more joy present, though, more purpose. More "We can do this." It was as though we had all linked hands and were pressing forward, always forward. It was messy, it was inconvenient, it was turbulent. But we were in it together, and together we remain.
Jesse is almost 19 now. When he graduated last spring, I figured I had the summer to transition before he went off to college, but his summer job required him to live with the people he worked with. Even though it was still fairly local, it came as a blow to me. I questioned in my heart, I suppose, whether it was just to take him away from me so peremptorily. Into my heart came the response: You have had him for eighteen years; it is time to share him with others now.
“Oh,” said I, “Okay, I understand. Thank You.”
The name Jesse means gift.

letter to the editor of The Commercial Appeal, Feb 09

2009-02-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

I was delighted to read the heading of Wendi Thomas' Sunday column, "Adoption is what is best for children." I had spent a fair amount of time Saturday talking to my daughter and reminiscing over her choice several years ago to place a baby for adoption. It was an excruciatingly painful decision for her, but one which she has never regretted because she knows it was what was best for her child (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGCxBmoAIAE). Reading Wendi's remarks within the column itself, though, left me heartsick. While it is true that the foster system is far from perfect, I am not by any means persuaded that a baby needs two fathers and no mother, more than being placed in the foster system. Make no mistake: the world we live in is so full of contradictive family situations that it is only by grace that many children become fully healthy adults. The pattern, however, the ideal that we all need to strive for, and the one that has proven by far, hands down, most effective and beneficial, is a mom and a dad, married to each other and fully committed for life. Settling for less is not where our mindset should be; we ought always to strive for the best. Perhaps, just perhaps, instead of wanting to "impose his religious beliefs on all unmarried couples," Rep. Stanley is just trying to stand up for what is true.

notes to those who might read some stuff here

2009-02-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

Just want y'all to know that I just started this blog business, and I got excited and posted things that were hanging around in my files, that I've known I ought to share for years. I ought to have put those first, because now what I wrote years ago is the first thing you see. That's not bad, because what I wrote is pretty important, if I do say so myself; it's just that the things that you'll see further on are more recent and less portentious...maybe.

Snatched

2009-02-17T16:56:00.001-08:00

(Note: This is a talk I wrote during the Easter season, sometime around 1995)
Have you ever had the falling sensation before, the sense of impending collision, only to be snatched away at the last moment, and carried to safety? Literature, music, television and movies are full of this image: someone in jeopardy, unable to save himself, when suddenly along comes someone mighty -- some super hero, some lovely creature out of the best fantasy -- to the rescue. Thank goodness!
As we watch, hear, or visualize, we reach out empathetically: Oh no! Look out! Help! Somebody save him! Somebody save her! We feel this tremendous compassion; we’ve been there ourselves somehow, somewhere; that rescue is in some way a beacon of hope to each of us in our own moments of imminent danger.
I believe we feel this way because in each of us is an intense awareness, as spirit children of our Father in Heaven, of our own mortality, our fallen nature. We sense the current of mortal life leading us inexorably down into the whirlpool of mortal death. “Oh no! Look out!” something in us continually cries, “Help! Save me!”
“Now we see,” says Alma, “that Adam did fall by partaking of the forbidden fruit, according to the word of God; and thus we see, that by his fall all mankind became a lost and fallen people.” (Alma 12:22)
I believe we have an inborn sense of “fallen-ness”. It is said that the only things a baby instinctively fears are loud noises and falling. It is said that when a person dreams he is falling, he always wakes up before crashing, because if he sees that, he will die. Whatever the case may be, suffice it to say that we know, intrinsically, that we are in some kind of dire predicament that we cannot, try as we might, pull ourselves out of -- a nose dive that has no pull-out mechanism.
We try not to think about it too much. Some of us manage, as we grow up, to hardly think of it at all. We find other targets for our attention, other diversions that occupy our minds. Like Alma in his youth, perhaps, we opt for outright rebellion. “If I rage furiously enough against it,” runs the rationale, “it will go away.”
Alma had to face it, though; he had to face it really hard. You might say that Imminent Destruction walked right up to him with a glove across the face and challenged him to a dual. What was he to do? What could he do? Oh no! Look out! What Alma faced with that angelic warning to repent or perish, and what we all must face, are two specters: the death of our bodies, and the consequences of our choices.
“I was racked with eternal torment,” Alma told his son Helaman, “for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins. Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell…” (Alma 36:12-13)
So, here we have the human predicament: plummeting toward death, and faced with destruction, body and soul. What to do, what to do? “Oh, thought I, that I could be banished and become extinct both soul and body,” said Alma. Small wonder that there are so many philosophies of men that label mortal life a mere cosmic accident, with no causal beginning and with an end which is best described as a mere “snuffing out.” Alma knew better. We all know better.
Help! Save him! Save me!
“And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.” (vs. 17-18)
In that moment of overpowering anguish, on the very brink of hell, Help arrived - not on a galloping steed, not whizzing though the air, cape flowing in the wind - but in a way so real and so intense as to not be properly described, the Lamb of God himself reached down into the swirling abyss and caught that helpless, falling child in the gentle, mighty palm of his own hand.
“I was in the darkest abyss, but now I behold the marvelous light of God,” proclaimed Alma to those who, fasting and praying, had gathered around his inert body for two days and nights. “My soul was racked with eternal torment, but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.” (Mosiah 27:29)
Thank goodness! Thank God. For when Adam and all mankind fell, and “it was appointed unto men that they must die, and after death [[that] they must come to judgment” -- when that horrendous edict was pronounced, “God did call on men, in the name of his Son, (this being the plan of redemption which was laid), saying: If ye will repent, and harden not your hearts, then will I have mercy upon you, through mine Only Begotten son, unto a remission of [your] sins; and [you] shall enter into my rest.” (Alma 12:27,33-34)
So, onto the stage of mortality entered a precious Babe, in a stable (what more obvious symbol of mortal life could there be?), the Only Begotten Son of God, born, you might say, to die; because only He, mortal via his mother Mary, and God via his Immortal Father (“For as the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself’) -- only He, perfect and sinless, could submit himself to that awful Fall, and then - can it be? It is! - climb back out again: Victor, forever, over both death and hell.
He made it! He made it!
And behind Him, blinking incredulously in his Son-light, come all the rest of us. We, like Alma, are snatched, snatched by his resurrection from physical death, and by his Atonement, from spiritual death, conditioned only upon our faithfulness. When we go down into the water in baptism, it is as if we are going down into the grave; and when we come up out of the water, it is as a living symbol of the Resurrection, being brought out by virtue of his redemption, in “the hollow of his hand.” Every Sabbath day, we witness our willingness to continue in that state of grace as we partake worthily of the sacrament.
“O how great the goodness of our God,” exults Jacob, “who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell…And because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel,…death…shall deliver up its dead; which death is the grave. And…spiritual death [which] is hell…must deliver up its captive spirits,…and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel.”
Thank goodness! Thank God. We are snatched! Praises be unto him as we celebrate this Easter season, and forever and ever after.

How My Life Has Been Influenced by the Living Prophets

2009-02-17T16:53:00.000-08:00

(this is a talk I gave around 2003, as I traveled around the stake as Stake Primary President during ward/branch conferences)
Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shares this story, as recorded by Wilford Woodruff: At a meeting of the brethren, “…the Prophet Joseph Smith turned to Brigham Young and said, ‘Brother Brigham, I want you to take the stand and tell us your views with regard to the written oracles and the written word of God.’
“In response to that invitation, Brother Brigham ‘took the Bible, and laid it down; he took the Book of Mormon and laid it down; and he took the book of Doctrine and Covenants, and laid It down before him, and he said, “There is the written word of God to us, concerning the work of God from the beginning of the world, almost, to our day. And now,” said he, “when compared with the living oracles those books are nothing to me; those books do not convey the word of God direct to us now, as do the words of a Prophet or a man bearing the Holy Priesthood in our day and generation. I would rather have the living oracles [meaning the mouthpieces of God] than all the writings in the books.” ‘ “
“At the end of these remarks, the Prophet Joseph said to the congregation: ‘Brother Brigham has told you the word of the Lord, and he has told you the truth.’ “
Long ago when I served a mission, the missionaries had the blessing of meeting with the prophet in the solemn assembly room of the Salt Lake Temple. The prophet was President Harold B. Lee. President Lee told us that at times during those meetings, some of the missionaries would ask for scriptural documentation of some response they had been given. The prophet reminded us that a prophet, when speaking as the Lord‘s mouthpiece, need give no other documentation, for as the Lord stated in section 1 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verse 38, “…whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.”
What a precious gift we enjoy in these Latter Days, what a privilege, to be led by a living prophet of God! I believe that long before I understood that we need a living prophet, I accepted that we have one. One of my dearest possessions as a child was a little burgundy-colored volume given to me by my parents at my baptism, entitled, A Child’s Story of the Prophet Joseph Smith, written by Emma Marr Petersen. I devoured that book, and came to know and appreciate the great Prophet of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. My soft child’s heart was forever impressed when I read of the heroic struggle of the young boy Joseph to undergo a painful operation on his knee, having refused to drink alcohol to deaden the pain. I suppose that story, as much or more than any other, forged my own solid commitment to keep the Word of Wisdom.

Just as with our Primary children today, my young life was laced through with stories of the modern prophets: how Heber J. Grant overcame weakness; how Lorenzo Snow saved the Church from financial ruin by recommitting the membership to the Law of Tithing; how Joseph F. Smith stood up to would-be mobsters with unflinching courage, to affirm that indeed he was a “Mormon”, “died in the wool, true blue, through and through.” The imperative to listen, listen to the Still, Small Voice was forever burned into my soul as I read the story of how Wilford Woodruff saved his family from death and injury by heeding the prompting to get up in the middle of the night and move his wagon.
My family was able to travel from our home in Idaho to Salt Lake City many times to attend General Conference. How my heart soared within me to stand as the prophet entered, and to sing, along with thousands of the Saints, “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet”. From the year I was born till I was a freshman at Brigham Young University, the prophet and President of the Church was David O. McKay. Merely to say his name makes my heart swell and my eyes become wet. I loved President McKay! I stood at the rear exit of the tabernacle with a small cluster of members as he emerged from a concluding session of conference, still tall at ninety-plus years of age, with that beautiful full head of wavy white hair. He seemed an angel in our midst! One Saturday evening after General Priesthood session, the automobile carrying President McKay even cruised alongside us as we circled Temple Square prior to fetching my father and uncle, who had been in attendance at the session. There was the prophet, straight across from me, going the very same direction! A moment to treasure.
President Joseph Fielding Smith, President Lee, President Ezra Taft Benson, President Howard W. Hunter, and President Gordon B. Hinckley, all visited our stake for conference at some time or other, as apostles, and I was able to meet each one personally. Surely President Spencer W. Kimball visited us, too, but such was my acceptance of the FACT of a living prophet that I do not specifically recall! President Kimball was the President of The Church when our first child was born. She wasn’t two years old before she knew to recognize a portrait of the prophet. “Pimbo,” she would say, pointing to his picture. I cherish the anecdote concerning President Hunter, whose visit to the Church Museum of Art and History, prompted a little child to take off after his wheelchair. When asked by his parents where he was going, the child replied, “To follow the prophet.”
How have the modern prophets influenced my life? I do not believe there is a piece of me that does not resonate with the testimony that there is a prophet of God on the earth today, even Gordon B. Hinckley, that he leads and guides The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under the direction of the Savior himself, and that by listening to and abiding by his counsel, we will be a blessed and beloved people indeed. The knowledge of a living prophet sings through all the moments of my life, lending meaning and security through the joys and through the struggles. I believe I understand, if only to a small degree, the fervor in President Brigham Young’s heart when he exclaimed, “I feel like shouting Hallelujah, all the time, when I think that I ever knew Joseph Smith [or David O. McKay, or Spencer W. Kimball, or Gordon B. Hinckley], the Prophet whom the Lord raised up and ordained, and to whom he gave keys and power to build up the Kingdom of God on earth and sustain it. These keys are committed to this people, and we have power to continue the work that Joseph commenced, until everything is prepared for the coming of the Son of Man. This is the business of the Latter-day Saints, and it is all the business we have on hand.”
I fervently pray that we will prove ourselves worthy of the blessings of living in these Latter Days, under the direction of the Lord’s living mouthpiece, by carrying out the “business of the Latter-day Saints,” and I leave this with you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Pruning

2009-02-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

(note: this poem was written after driving home, witnessing the work of a brutal machine that "prunes" vegetation along the highway by ripping it out with a rotating chain)

“…Against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things…”

A tree stands wounded, broken, stripped,
Its branches hardly neatly clipped,
But left instead to dangle, mute
But weeping, on my homeward route.
Its numbers multiply along
The highway, one sick, silent throng.
It makes my stomach turn, this proof
Of wanton, thoughtless “work”: uncouth,
This show of cold, efficient thrift:
No recognition of the Gift.
It seems a wicked crack among
So many larger in the wall;
How long, O God, shall that be hung
Till fiery tide consume it all?

-Linda Hyde

An Urgent Call to Paradise

2009-02-16T11:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. C. S. Lewis,
Although, if what you imagined is true of Paradise, your continuing fame here is of little consequence to you now, I have to hope that what I am about to relate to you will be of some importance, even there. For, what I have to say speaks not only to life here in mortality, but also to the whole “further up and further in” eternal scenario.
It’s this: they’ve taken your beautiful Chronicles of Narnia and turned them into an event. In so doing, all that was pure and simple has been trampled on, left on the cutting room floor - no, not even having reached that far, never having been considered at all.
There I sat, still willing to allow for poetic license, still open, though with a growing sense of undernourishment, waiting. There was killing, Mr. Lewis - not chivalric warfare, where the protagonist respects his opponent, but bone-crunching, muscle-quelling, lung-thumping murder. And spectacle! Not royal processions and solemn ceremony, but sheer shameful spectacle, for its own sake: a phantasmic host in uniform, just for the show.
Because bigger must be better, you see. We denizens of modernity are far too sophisticated for stories plain and simply told, and standing on their own merit. No! We must have spectacle.
I thought to myself, There are small children here, come to see a children’s story! Would not Mr. Lewis forbid such a thing - that tender hearts and innocent eyes be assaulted in such a manner as to cause subtle wounds and long-lived nightmares? Is this the purpose for which The Chronicles of Narnia were written?
So I got up and left. Right as the swollen armies of the usurper Miraz were marching upon Aslan’s How, with its querulous occupants. What good, I asked myself, will this do? I had to do it, because of what I know. I know the Chronicles are simply child’s tales, direct and honest while engaging and enthralling, in their retelling of the greatest Story of all time. They need no garnishment, no special effects to fit “today’s sophisticated audience.” Today’s audience is jaded. They cry out, though they know it not, for simple, wholesome fare, for that which edifies because it is true.
If you have the wherewithal in Paradise, Mr. Lewis, if it is allowed, could you not whisper in the ear of some yet-mortal artist, one with integrity, to try again?
Ever your devoted fan, Linda Hyde

LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN: ON FEAR; OR, ON SADNESS

2009-02-16T11:39:00.000-08:00

My dear children,
Today I had a thought about sadness. We spoke in Sunday School and in Relief Society about the joy and happiness of the Gospel, and about how his covenant children are most blessed above all. Therefore we ought to be of all people the happiest. I asked myself, “Why was I so sad as our children were growing up?” Especially you older ones.
The obvious answer is that we were not my ideal of a happy family; we were not like my family. Also, I was such a failure. It was so hard, and all my efforts seemed to go for naught. And on and on.
But the real reason is that I listened to the insidious little voices that whispered in my ear. I did not listen to the voice of the savior, the one that said, look to me in every word; doubt not, fear not. The voice that said, Trust in the lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. The voice that said I love you. Believe.
Over time and through affliction, I started believing and hoping more, and I came to the realization that happines and joy are indeed my heritage. I know that those insidious little voices come from liars, from the father of lies. I flick them off my shoulder: Be gone. You are not the spirit of truth in which I trust. If I feel sad on some occasion or because, perhaps, of some clinical genetic miswiring of the nerves, I acknowledge that it is just that, a feeling. Not a reflection of what is real.
My purpose is to warn you: growing up under the tutelage of a mother too often sad, and perhaps, born with that odd miswiring, you are dangerously susceptible, some of you more than others, to follow those voices into gray mist. Don’t wander off into it and become lost. Hold, hold, hold, to that iron rod which proclaims, “Men are, that they might have joy.” Believe that joy and happiness are pleasing to the Lord. He has no pleasure in gloom. Though we have responsibilities and obligations, burdens and temptations, to which we fall prey too often, yet joy is our inheritance, and will be ours for the seeking. Let us not be guilty of the greater sin of not allowing it in, of judging ourselves unworthy. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Not ours.
Ways to which we have grown accustomed are always, in their odd manner, comfortable. We feel alarmingly exposed coming out of that comfort into the light of something greater and better (“See,” says Satan, “you are naked!”). In this case, though, repentance is not a case of covering our heads with dirt and lying down in sackcloth and ashes; it is a case of allowing happiness to take us over, to move us to hope, to trust, to have faith, which in turn move us to abound in good works. This process feeds upon itself to produce more hope, more trust, more faith, and more abundance in good works.
All repentance requires a stepping out into the darkness, inspite of the doubts and fears. Let us nevertheless make the attempt, and walk into joy. Continually.

Seeking After Righteousness

2009-02-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

I search Thee out,
Down boulevards of thought.
Elusive, Thou art and art not there.
It is, in truth, my own undisciplined mind,
Powerless - or weakly able -
To stay upon the Sublime,
That slips off the curb,
Stumbles in the gutter,
And up again.
I will stay myself upon Thee.
Hold Thou, I pray, on to me.

Linda Hyde
unpublished copyright, 2008

Stopping the Tape in the Middle - Thoughts on You’ve Got Mail

2009-02-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

I really like the movie You’ve Got Mail, it’s so charming and sweet - except for the fact that they’re both living with someone. That’s unfortunately not a big deal these days. Next thing you know, Kathleen and Frank are talking about how they’re “perfect” for each other, but, funny thing, they just don’t love each other, and isn’t that amusing, and Frank walks out with his typewriter, and it‘s just a part of the plot that brings Joe and Kathleen together. .
Today I found a copy of Redbook magazine in the teacher’s lounge at the school where I work, and I brought it down to our office to read in the off moments, but I only made it halfway through before I couldn’t take any more raciness. When I was a child my mom read Redbook all the time.
Kids at my school talk about same-gender relationships in the same way they talk about the latest shoe styles.
Last Christmas, it seemed as though the Babe in the manger were slipping further and further away from our celebration, and with him, the magic - even though people make elaborate, fanciful substitutions to pretend the magic is still there. You can’t have magic for long , though, while ignoring the source. You can’t hold on to it because you’ve cut off the current that produces the glow.
Relationships aren’t supposed to be casual. I am not just waxing nostalgic here; we really are losing what is precious, precious and meaningful, and we are clinging more and more frantically to - what? Fluff. Insubstantial, elaborate, showy fluff.
Relationships were never meant to be casual. Ironically, that is the very reason You’ve Got Mail is so sweet and so memorable, because we know, deep down inside, that relationships are meant to mean something, to be substantial, to last. We just know that Joe and Kathleen will be forever.
But becoming “forever” would take a major change of heart for anyone caught in the sophistry of casual relationships. All that witty, cosmopolitan (sorry, Redbook), casual, racy magazine talk is so insubstantial, so cold, so devoid of meaning, so like eating cotton candy - all you’re left with is sticky fingers, for all its gloss and surface appeal. Why do we long for that stuff? We don’t. It’s just easier to come by, more available, more accepted. It’s only a substitute for the real thing, and we wonder if there really is anything more out there.
There is! There always has been and always will be, so much more. So much more. It starts with making and keeping promises. And it builds on a rock, and it stands through everything, absolutely everything, that life can throw at you. The Apostle Paul - yes, I will quote the Bible, and not some watered-down version of it either, because the Bible is more current and more real than any of your glossy, casual, sophisticated fluff, and ever will be! - the Apostle Paul said that we ought to seek after “whatsoever things are true…honest…just…pure…lovely…of good report,” anything of virtue or worthy of praise. He exhorted us to “think on these things.”
Don’t fall for the sophistry that has us eating cotton candy - or worse. The old virtues are still the real thing. It is still possible to live by them, to hold on to them. They will surely hold on to you, if you are true to them, they really will. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise!

Why Moral Issues Eclipse All Others

2009-02-16T11:28:00.000-08:00

Okay, I’ve been thinking about whether or not same sex marriage, abortion, pornography, and all the other prevalent-but-not-so-big-a-deal-anymore moral sins ought to or ought not to be higher priority issues than poverty, environment, education, etc., or whether in fact they are just part of the overall “family issues” list along with the rest. Here are the thoughts I have on the subject:
If you mess with pro-creation, what kind of respect are you going to have, really, for the rest of Creation? Idolatry and Adultery (in the broadest sense of sexual sin) are both infidelity, ultimately to God. Unfaithful to what we have been given and to Who gave it, to the greatest stewardships possible: our physical creation. Throwing back in His face that he took on mortality and “corruptibleness” for us, in turn to lay it down, in turn to pick up, in all our behalf, immortality and incorruption.
Can a world that wholeheartedly espouses immorality (adultery, infidelity) in fact produce any kind of financial, environmental, educational well-being? No. Everything else is in jeopardy unless the fundamental building block of virtue, morality, is in place. Environment, health, education become smoke screens to mask where the attention needs to go first and foremost in order for all those other things to be assured. “If we make enough noise about those things," the thinking becomes, "we won’t have to pay attention to the still, small voice that keeps droning the same thing: honor, virtue, integrity.” The prince of this world, who never had and never will have a body, wants to distract the brothers and sisters from whom he is eternally estranged by encouraging them to get involved in secondary causes first, so that the covenants they must make to return, live with, and be like their Father never quite come to pass.I think the Brethren’s stand is in concert with this outlook. That’s why, as an issue, moral rectitude eclipses all others, because it strikes at the very heart of Heavenly Father’s Plan: that he sent his children here to gain a body, to attain unto perfection through the only means possible, by means of the Atonement: in families.
So, yes. Morality first. In my mind, that ought always to be the basis on which I make political and all other choices, because nothing else is really possible without it.