Of Words and Challenges

June 7, 2023 Leave a comment

Photo by Jesse Orrico on Unsplash

Based on an actual conversation at breakfast, between two people, whom I will call Sally and Jim:

Sally:  I got the word today on just 3 tries.

Jim:  That’s great.  What was the word?

Sally:  Shout.

Jim:  But that had none of your usual start letters.

Sally:  And that was helpful.  You learn a lot about the structure of words through this exercise, interesting things, especially about five-letter words.

Jim:  That could make for a good educational tool, beginning with middle-school kids.

Sally:  If you could get the kids actually to do it.  They might find it too challenging these days.

Jim:  Good point.  Too many are quick to avoid challenge, and too many others quick to accommodate the evasion of challenge.

Sally:  And unhurried to reward those who are willing to take on a challenge.

Jim:  Education is supposed to be about challenge.  Engaging challenge is a great way to learn.  If you don’t, the more you evade challenge, the more challenges you will have.

Sally:  There are challenges we can avoid, and should avoid.  But life is challenging.  It’s supposed to be.  Challenges will come, looked for or not.

Jim:  Yep.  You can avoid some, but not all.  The learning is in how to manage challenge, how to face it, and how to overcome it, if you can, and how to cope if you can’t.

Sally:  Some of the biggest challenges come from those who are selling to people, especially young people, that they can avoid all challenge.

Jim:  Who promise ‘challenge-free’ paths of life.  They offer making this ‘The land of the safe, and the home of the careful.’

Sally:  Where is the joy in that?  The better path, the path of fulfillment, is in ‘The land of the free, and the home of the brave.’  Not only do we overcome challenges. . .

Jim:  . . . and help each other face them . . .

Sally:  We grow, and many things that once seemed challenges no longer are.  Then we can take on bigger and better things, becoming stronger, more able, more fulfilled by accomplishment.  All the while, more compassionate, kinder, more charitable.  That is why God sent us here.

Jim:  It’s in the scriptures, “there is an opposition in all things.”  We discover the joy in life, find and live a joyful life.  Not an easy life.

Sally:  “Having no life,” without the challenge of opposition, as the scriptures teach.  But very loud, persistent voices promise challenge-free, problem-free, easy lifestyles.

Jim:  They promise.  The challenges come as the promises are not kept, not delivered as advertised.

Sally:  And then the challenges multiply—and accumulate, and hang around.

Jim:  To be faced by a weakened people, in ‘The land of the safe, and the home of the careful.’

Sally:  A life of constant challenge but few achievements.  And plenty of frustration.”

Jim:  Again, where is the joy in that life?  A life missed.

Sally:  Where has that ever worked?  Nowhere.

Jim:  In the end, not even for those who promised it.  Life gone amiss.

Sally:  That might be tomorrow’s word.

Filed under abundant life, culture, demagoguery, education, God, joy, life, mediocrity, opposition, tribulation Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Being Lucky and Blessed

March 29, 2023 1 Comment

Photo by Corey Hearne on Unsplash

“Insanely lucky.”  What does that conjure up for you?  I encountered it this morning at a repair shop where I presented my electronic hand-held device.  I began the conversation by saying, “I bring you the cleanest cellphone you are going to see.  It comes out of the washing machine.”

The technician’s response was, “Buy a new one.”

The look on my face led him to add, “There is no way to fix it.”  He had merely seen it in my hand, nice and clean and shiny.

I explained to him that I had dried it off, that it was on and working when retrieved, and that I immediately had turned it off.  With a slight shake of his head he reaffirmed his unexamined diagnosis.  Seeing that I was not yet convinced, he continued, “Unless you are insanely lucky, it cannot be fixed.”

Not ready to surrender hope, I handed it to him.  I even showed him the leather-bound case with an interior plastic sleeve that had enclosed the device (without explicitly mentioning the wash, rinse, wash and rinse again, and multiple spin cycles it had been through).  Friendly and nonplussed by my explanation, he repeated, “You would have to be insanely lucky for it to be fixed.”

Yet, obliging a would-be customer who remained cordial through the exchange, the technician removed from the device what I think was a sim card (for all I know).  Looking carefully, turning it on, examining the sides, running his finger across the glass, he handed it back. 

Worried that this was the end of the transaction, I asked the technician what I should do.  He said, “Take it with you and use it.  You are insanely lucky.”

Sure that it needed to be opened up, I asked, “Aren’t you going to take off the cover and see if there is any water inside that needs to be dried?”  He responded, “No need to.  It is completely dry.  No water got in.”  With a smile the technician reaffirmed, “You are insanely lucky.”

Leaving my thanks, I was too surprised to say more.  After a few yards toward my car, I knew I should have told the technician that I was not lucky, I was blessed, as I later recounted to my wife.  She replied, “You should have explained to him that we are all blessed.”  And so we are. 

We have a saying at the Washington Temple, where I volunteer several days each week, that there are no coincidences in the Temple.  Statistically unlikely incidents of joy and happiness occur so often there that we are sure that we see the hand of God in our labors.

I see the Lord’s  hand outside the Temple as well, in ways large and small.  For an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly-loving God, how can there be anything that happens by chance?  In things as small as my machine-washed but undamaged cellphone to great matters of mortal life I have perceived my Heavenly Father blessing me every day.  Actually, that is what Easter is all about, and what Jesus Christ came to make possible for us all.

Filed under abundant life, Easter, God, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, joy, miracles, Temples Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Of Living and Dying

May 31, 2022 Leave a comment

Photo by Sara Bakhshi on Unsplash

“Why will ye die?”  So asked the ancient prophet of the Jews, Jeremiah, of his unwise king, Zedekiah (Jeremiah 27:13).  God knew what Zedekiah knew but what the king did not want to believe, that the Babylonians were ready and able to conquer all the lands about them.  Since Zedekiah and his people had chosen evil and rejected the Lord, the Lord could not help them.  So, through His prophet, the Lord gave Zedekiah the next best advice:  do not fight the Babylonians, but submit to them and live.

Zedekiah rejected the Lord’s counsel again, and so he died, blinded physically as much as he had blinded himself spiritually.  Jerusalem was captured and laid waste, its walls leveled.  The Temple of the Lord, built by Solomon, was destroyed.  Most of the people were transported captive to Babylon.

To the people of the Jews in captivity, the Lord asked the question by another prophet, Ezekiel.  “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked . . . turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” (Ezekiel 33:11)

In ancient America, to a people once free and prosperous, but whose social corruption put their government in the hands of gang leaders, the Lord again by His prophet asked, “Why will ye die?”  The prophet, Nephi, diagnosed their malady:  “ye have set your hearts upon riches and the vain things of this world, for which ye do murder, and plunder, and steal, and bear false witness against your neighbor, and do all manner of iniquity.” (Helaman 7:17, 21)

The Lord did not want them poor, having blessed them with prosperity, material and spiritual.  Yet they turned their focus to the perishable things of the world, its vanities, turning against each other in a spiral of death and destruction instead of triumph of kindness and life.

Now, in more modern times—and we always live in modern times—the Lord has both blessed and warned us.  In the summer of 1859, the Lord’s prophet, Brigham Young, warned that, “The Lord will sift the people, and the time is not far distant when he will sift the nations with a sieve of vanity, and the time is at your doors when he will hold a controversy with the nations and will plead with all flesh, and it will be known who is for God, and who is not.  (Brigham Young, July 31, 1859, Journal of Discourses, Vol.7, p.204).  It was not a new prophetic warning, but it was one about to be fulfilled, which sifting began within two years of the prophet’s words.

The Lord frequently cautions and invites us to life.  His prophet of today, Russell M. Nelson, recently reminded that God is not a God of contention.  He called for us to be followers of Christ, “the Prince of Peace.  Now more than ever, we need the peace only He can bring.  How can we expect peace to exist in the world when we are not individually seeking peace and harmony?”  The prophet encouraged us to build momentum in personally doing good, in laying aside contention.  “None of us can control nations or the actions of others . . . But we can control ourselves.”

The sifting of the world with a sieve of vanity is on.  We see it.  Let the sieve sift out the vanity, as we focus on the stuff of life that Christ offers to us.  In the words of the ancient American prophet-king Benjamin, in his last address, “I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual . . .” (Mosiah 2:41)  Otherwise, why will ye die?

Filed under abundant life, Brigham Young, death, God, Jesus Christ, life, prophets, Russell M. Nelson, spirituality, vanity Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Christmas and Easter

April 15, 2022 Leave a comment

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Christmas, in all its depth, is marvelous.  It gathers together a world, nay, a universe of goodness.  It also attracts that which may not be so good, but in this world that can be said of nearly all good things.  Love, which is the greatest virtue of all, attracts a plethora of counterfeits, some of which are cheapened varieties of love, too many of which undermine love.  Many broken marriages so teach us.

I love Christmas, because I love Easter.  It is from Easter that Christmas derives its profound meaning and joy.  The depth of meaning and joy involved in Easter is unfathomable, yet there is joy in seeking to fathom it.

All goodness and happiness in life and this world are founded upon what Jesus Christ suffered and accomplished in those last few days of His mortal life, His brief experience in the world of the dead, and His resurrecting entrance into eternal life.  The ancient prophet Lehi taught that everything has its opposite.  To his son, Jacob, he said, “there is an opposition in all things,” nothing excepted, “neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.” (2 Nephi 2:11)  Christ plumbed the absolute depths of evil, suffering all of the pain, sorrow, and the effects of evil for all, and then overcame it all.

Consider what it means when Jesus Christ’s perfect love for all the Father’s children meets with His omniscience, His knowledge of everything, before, then, and since.  Consider all your sorrows, and comprehensively combine them with the sorrows of all who ever lived and all who will ever live.  To Christ that whole weight was fully and completely revealed.  Christ considered and knew and experienced.  In so doing, He earned in the balance of justice an infinite supply of mercy that he offers to you and me.

Thereby consider the opposite to the sorrow, a fullness of joy that overwhelms that weight.  No wonder when, shortly after His resurrection that guaranteed the resurrection of all, Christ met with a multitude of disciples who loved Him as much as those who wanted Him crucified hated Him.  Beholding these disciples, Jesus blessed their sick, one by one.  Surround by their children, He said, “And now behold, my joy is full.”  How much would it mean for the Creator of the world, to experience fullness of joy? 

Filled with that joy, Christ “wept, and the multitude bare record of it”.  Then Jesus “took their little children, one by one, and blessed them . . . And when he had done this he wept again . . . and said unto them:  Behold your little ones.” (3 Nephi 17)

Christmas is a delight, because Easter is a joy, and Christmas points us to it.

I have heard that before the days of Lenin, it was customary for Russians to greet each other on Easter with the words, “Khristos voskres!” To which the reply would be “Voistinu voskres!”  Christ is risen!  Indeed, He is risen!  I understand that many in Russia have resumed that Easter greeting.  There is rejoicing that can lead to a fullness of joy for each of us, everywhere.

Filed under abundant life, atonement, children, Christmas, death, Easter, eternal life, Jesus Christ, joy, resurrection Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Vanity and Measureless Worth

January 14, 2022 Leave a comment

Photo by Jean Wimmerlin on Unsplash

Millions who were recently fully employed today choose to remain off the market.  The unemployment rate, measured by the number seeking work who have not landed a job, is therefore approaching record lows.  Available jobs outnumber those looking for them.  The total of all employed remains fewer than it was two years ago.  Too many have stopped looking.  With generous government benefits for doing nothing, more than a few have concluded, what is the point?

That is bad for the economy, but it is worse for those who have taken a pass at gainful employment.  It is the ancient attitude of personal desuetude.  Solomon, the King of Israel of antiquity, wrote, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” (Ecclesiastes 1:14)  Has the spiritual wind that brings value to life gone out of people’s sails?  Or have many stopped unfurling their sails?  Giving up on work, are they giving up on living?

Having seen it all, and explored and pondered life, Solomon, the richest and wisest of kings, ruled Israel at its peak in wealth and sway.  Observing “all things that are done under heaven,” he concluded, “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.  What profit hath a man of all his labour . . .?” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 3)  Solomon presented a powerful case.  He described the profound emptiness of the ephemeral existence he perceived.  Generations of people come and go, forgotten.  People’s eyes are not satisfied with seeing nor their ears with hearing.  There is little remembrance of what was done in the past, and what will come will be little recalled by those who come after.  Man’s search for wisdom finds grief and his increase in knowledge increases his sorrow.  “There is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9ff.)

A cursory reading of Solomon’s Biblical book, Ecclesiastes, has led some to regard Solomon’s wisdom as having soured on existence.  A more careful reading reveals an inspired wisdom that reaches beyond the world.  Solomon recognized, and hoped to cause others to recognize, that lasting value is not to be found in the perishable things of mortality.  He declared, “I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.” (Ecclesiastes 2:13)  He taught that wisdom was not to be found in a focus on things under heaven, but in the things from heaven, the eternal things.  God gave us the world as the school for us to prepare for heaven.  A focus on the world itself is folly, nothing but dust in the end.  A focus on the eternal, however, can enrich life now and to come.

What are the eternal things?  The scriptures resonate with counsel to make our life bountiful.  In modern times, Jesus Christ offered an exemplary list of things that give us joy and meaning today and endow us for heaven.  “Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.” (Doctrine and Covenants 4:6)

The temporary and transient are provided to be harnessed by us as we secure now and take with us what can be never ending.  What is that?  It is all that can go with us beyond the temporary grave, such as our family relations and the virtues that are developed in a family better than anywhere else.  I recently heard my daughter say that being a mother is the hardest work she has ever done, and she loves it.

Solomon urged a rearrangement of our priorities from an attraction to what would become inevitable vanity under heaven, to the use of what the Creator has given us to prepare for living in heaven.  “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.”  This is what Solomon called, “the conclusion of the whole matter . . .” (Ecclesiastes 12:1, 13)

The gift from Jesus Christ is to guide, preserve, magnify, and hold to every good thing which, if we will accept His gift, “without compulsory means . . . shall flow unto thee forever and ever.” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:46)

Filed under abundant life, death, eternal life, family, God, heaven, Israel, Jesus Christ, mortality, vanity Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Good Leaders and Society’s Safety

June 30, 2021 Leave a comment

Photo by Megan Thomas on Unsplash

The story is told in The Book of Mormon of a society in ancient America that was under constant threat and frequent attack from another people who were fierce and far more numerous.  They were also related, which made hostility acute and seemingly ineradicable—save one should eradicate the other.

Like everyone in the western hemisphere their roots were planted by immigration.  These immigrants from the Old World were largely from two interrelated families.  They barely got along while the founding patriarch, Lehi, lived.  When he died, leadership succession threatened bloodshed.  Rather than fight it out, one group, led by a younger son, Nephi, left.  The other group, which over time became larger, was led by the eldest son, Laman.

The two societies could hardly be more different, because their leaders, though brothers, could hardly be more different.  Laman was opposed to emigrating from the Old World.  Lehi was given a prophetic charge to leave.  God told Lehi (who like his contemporary, Jeremiah, was a prophet of Christ) that his city, Jerusalem, was doomed, descending into social disorder and vulnerable to predictable conquest.  Laman doubted the prophecy.  Nephi, supporting his father, was given divine confirmation of the Lord’s warning.

In Lehi’s day the differences were occasionally resolved, but only superficially.  Laman, and those who listened to him, having little faith in his father’s prophecies, only with reluctance cooperated.  Nephi believed.  With that faith, confirmed by his own communion with the Lord, Nephi was instrumental in facilitating the pilgrimage to what the Lord vouchsafed Lehi and his family would be a promised land.

For centuries following Lehi’s death, both sides tried, in their characteristic idioms, to bridge the schism.  The people of Nephi, according to the record, devised “many means to reclaim and restore” the people of Laman “to the knowledge of the truth”.  Their record reports, on the other hand, that the people of Laman “sought by the power of their arms to destroy us continually.” (Jacob 7:24)

Which would prevail?  In terms of reunification, neither succeeded for more than four hundred years.  Measured by prosperity, the people of Nephi flourished.  While the chronicle is brief, it describes a society as advanced as any global contemporary of the fourth century B.C.:

And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war. . . and all preparations for war. (Jarom 1:8)

Compare that with the description of the people of Laman, who fell into degradation:

. . . they became wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents, and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin girdle about their loins and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow, and in the cimeter, and the ax. And many of them did eat nothing save it was raw meat . . . (Enos 1:20)

By one gauge, the people of Laman exceeded the people of Nephi, “they were exceedingly more numerous”.

The moral of the story is this.  The people of Nephi prospered, not only materially and socially, but they also succeeded in holding their enemies at bay, enemies whose hostility was implacable, constant, and fierce, and who were “exceedingly more numerous”.  How so?  The crowning message inscribed in the ancient records of the people of Nephi was that their kings and leaders “were mighty men in the faith of the Lord”.  Thereby the people were led in safety.  That is a vital message for our society, or any society.

Filed under abundant life, civilization, immigration, Jesus Christ, leadership, national security, prosperity, The Book of Mormon, war Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Of Anger and Gratitude

December 8, 2020 Leave a comment

The week before His atoning sacrifice and resurrection, Jesus Christ told His Apostles that a time would come when, “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”  Once again, in our day, Jesus Christ has called Apostles to spread His message.  This November, when much that was swirling around the world made it feel like such a time was upon us, Christ’s prophet, Russell M. Nelson, called for people to rise above clamor and cool the global distemper.  He asked that people take the week of Thanksgiving to flood social media, each day, with expressions of gratitude.  Millions responded.

Here is the collection of my expressions of gratitude, employing the label #GiveThanks:

Illumination.  Spent a pleasant afternoon with Christmas lights, preparing for Thanksgiving Night to flip the switch for the Christmas season.  I am grateful for the people who invent these wonderful beauties and for our trading system that makes them available.  Cambodia was this year’s new source of bright LEDs.  

Books.  I have long thought that one of the greatest bargains in the world is a book.  An author spends years, perhaps a lifetime, writing and sharing his thoughts, his research, his experience, his ideas, his wit, and charm, his spiritual insights, and much more.  And we buy it for a few dollars.  I am grateful for those who write, publish, and make books available.

Music.  The Christmas season quickly approaches.  Music is one of the most wonderful and penetrating ways of celebrating Christmas, in all of its aspects, from the sacredness of the birth of Christ, to the many wonderful traditions and fetes of celebration.

I have a theory that all truly great music—simple or complex—is not created but rather discovered by the composer.  Such music is, I envision, part of a body of music already known and celebrated in heaven.  I could be wrong, but some music is so sublime that it seems to me impossible that heaven could not already be aware of it.  It is my thought that “Greensleeves” belongs to such a class of discovered music.  Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the folk tune “Shenandoah,” among many others, are part of that divine play list, along with beauties yet to be discovered.  So it seems to me.  I am deeply grateful for those who write, perform, and make music available.

Work.  I have come to appreciate work.  I am grateful for work.  It gets stuff done.  My father was a worker.  He was always working, on the job, at home, at Church.  My sons know how to work and are quick to pitch in.  My older son tells me it’s the key to his success in his career:  he looks for the tough jobs and succeeds with them.  I have seen it, in him and his brother, as the key to success throughout their lives.

I am grateful for the opportunities to work, at home, at Church, and in my career.  I am grateful for those who work and those who gave me the opportunity to work and allowed me to apply inspiration to work smarter.  I have found work to be the key to faith:  you work at what you have faith in, and you get more faith.  It keeps on growing.  It’s worked for me.

By the way, my Dad liked to tell me that lazy people made the world go round, because they found easier ways to do more.

Art.  A multitude of thanks to those, throughout the ages and into the present, who have produced art that has stirred my soul:  mind, spirit, and body.  I think that the artistic sense is part of the divine in each of us, as examples of artwork are coequal with human history.  As with all gifts from God, some nurture their artistic sense and produce inspiring wonders.  I love to see such works as I visit art museums, which can stimulate the “muse” in me more than other museums.

The National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., is a favorite.  Having seen others around the world, it is truly world class.  The Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, is breathtaking, especially since the remodeling has achieved marvelous things with light.  It takes nothing away from these wondrous museums to admit that I was stunned with my first visit to the Louvre.  The incomparable wealth of artistic beauty into which I was immersed overwhelmed me.  I am grateful for these museums, and for many smaller gems of artistic display that I have visited.  I never feel that there is enough time to take in the experience—good reason to keep going back.

Friendship.  Humans are social animals.  My experience tells me that we all need friends.  I am grateful for my friends, and I thank them for their friendship.  I thank them for welcoming my friendship.  Our friendship enriches life and strengthens us in times of challenge.

One of the great challenges of recent months has been to overcome barriers to friendship, whether physical barriers, psychological barriers, or even political barriers.  I thank my friends for their innovative and extra efforts to rise above those barriers.

I recall the lyrics to the song, “What a Wonderful World:”

“I see friends shaking hands, saying how do you do. They’re only saying I love you.”

It is healthy.  I love my friends.  They make me wealthy in what really matters.  Thank you.

Family.  Families are meant to last.  I am grateful that I have been part of a family all my life.  I first learned of love in my family.  The joys of family—such as we experienced in today’s Thanksgiving Day gathering—can make existence in this world of sin all worth it.

Thanks to those who form and keep families, who work hard to preserve and strengthen their families.  I think of not just the family of my wife and me and our children, but a family that reaches in both directions, a family with roots and branches.  My ancestors have not disappeared into nothingness, and I anticipate a posterity that extends forever.  I am strengthened by them all, through Jesus Christ who made families, such as His, to last forever.  Of this I am forever grateful.  It literally means everything.

Filed under abundant life, civilization, family, friendship, gratitude, Jesus Christ, music, Russell M. Nelson, Thanksgiving, work Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Prophets and Modern Times

October 14, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

In the eighth century, B.C., kings of Judah looked toward an alliance with Egypt to protect them from the Assyrians.  A prophet of God, Isaiah, warned them that insecurity would come from it.  He reminded the king and his people to trust in God, the source of their defense in their days of strength, spiritual and material.  Under divine inspiration Isaiah prophesied,

“Say ye not a confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither shall ye fear their fear, nor be afraid.  Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.  And he shall be for a sanctuary . . .” (Isaiah 8:12-14)

After efforts at alliance proved unreliable, Hezekiah, the king of Judah, eventually followed the Lord’s counsel.  As prophesied (see Isaiah 8:8), the armies of the Assyrian empire overran the land and laid siege to Jerusalem, reaching “even to the neck”, but the city did not fall.

In another part of the world, an ancient military leader in the Western Hemisphere wanted to know where his people were who had been taken captive by an invading army.  He asked the prophet of God, Alma, who inquired of the Lord.  Alma told the general where to find them, whose army then surprised the invaders, “and there was not one soul of them . . . that were taken captive” that was lost (Alma 16:8).

As a child I often mused how marvelous it would be to live in a time when Jesus’ Apostles, who lived so close to the Lord, walked the earth.  What would it be like to hear directly from those who personally knew the Savior?  In my youth I discovered that Apostles, called by Jesus Christ, were on the earth once again.

Through the power of modern communication, they recently spoke to all who would listen, as they do every six months (and as often as possible in between).  Here are some of the things that a few of them most recently said:

“Each of us has a divine potential because each is a child of God.  The question for each of us, regardless of race, is the same. Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? Are you willing to let God be the most important influence in your life?  Will you allow His voice to take priority over any other?”—Russell M. Nelson

“I bless you with an increased desire and ability to obey the laws of God. I promise that as you do, you will be showered with blessings, including greater courage, increased personal revelation, sweeter harmony in your homes, and joy even amid uncertainty.”—Russell M. Nelson

“The Lord’s teachings are for eternity and for all of God’s children.  As followers of Christ we must forgo the anger and hatred with which political choices are debated or denounced in many settings.  We move toward loving our adversaries when we avoid anger and hostility toward those with whom we disagree.”—Dallin H. Oaks

“We must notice the tribulation of others and try to help. That will be especially hard when we are being sorely tested ourselves. But we will discover as we lift another’s burden, even a little, that our backs are strengthened and we sense a light in the darkness.”—Henry B. Eyring

These are but a few nuggets chipped from the vein in the goldmine.  They are reminders that God the Father remains so mindful of us as to place living Apostles and prophets among us today as He did anciently.  I first learned that in my youth.  I have learned it again every day since.

Filed under abundant life, divine nature, Heavenly Father, Israel, Jesus Christ, kindness, national security, prophets, revelation, Russell M. Nelson, tribulation Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Life and Creativity

July 18, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by Amauri Mejia on Unsplash

Our Heavenly Father gave us life, and He intends for us to be creative with it.  In so doing we find joy.  God wants us to have joy.  Facilitating our joy is what He does with His life.  It is His creativity.  In the process He gains a fulness of joy.

Let me illustrate from ancient scripture.  When Jesus Christ, shortly after His resurrection, visited His disciples in the ancient Americas, He bid the multitude to kneel.  Then Jesus knelt, and He prayed to God the Father for them.  This is from their record of that prayer:  “no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.”  (3 Nephi 17:17)  How would you feel if you heard Jesus Christ pray to Heavenly Father for you?  Could you find words to express your joy?  Neither could these disciples.

How did Jesus feel?  The account relates, Jesus said, “And now behold, my joy is full.”  What does it take to fill the capacity for joy of the Creator and Savior of the world?

Some days later, meeting with those whom Jesus had chosen to lead the ancient church in the Americas, the Savior promised them that because of their faithful service their “joy shall be full, even as the Father hath given me fulness of joy; and ye shall be even as I am, and I am even as the Father” (3 Nephi 28:10).

This was in keeping with what the Lord revealed through the prophet Lehi, some 600 years before, “men are that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25).

How does it happen?  Consider the difference between life and non-life, the difference between animate creatures and inanimate objects.  The distinctions are many, but for this discussion I would focus on the fact that those that have life are movers, actors.  They act upon the inanimate things around them.  I recall once complaining in frustration about my computer, when I was reminded that computers are stupid; they can only do what they are told to do.  Even the much vaunted “artificial intelligence” of computer programs is for all its sophistication still artificial; there is an artist behind it.

Every thing in the universe moves only as it is forced to.  The children of God are different.  In giving us life God gave to each of us the power to move, to initiate action, to create.  We can give (an endless power if used properly, whereas taking is always limited and has an end).

God created the earth (among an infinity of other works).  He organized the chaotic elements around Him and made something marvelously beautiful.  God “saw every thing that he had made” and He saw that “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).  And then He gave it to us.  He did so that we might have something to work with as we learned to create.  God did not build the farms and the cities.  He left those for us, allowing us to participate in creation, and experience the joy of creation.

His creation is our example.  It is creation with a purpose, it is organizing the resources around us for greater joy.  The most meaningful form of creation is creation-giving, creating what we then pass on to others.  If you consider the commandments of God, they all have as their purpose to enhance our ability to create and then bless others with our creations, to receive more from God and each other that we might create more and share more, and in the process that we might learn so that we might go on creating forever.  Sin is what limits our creativity.

What we create and keep to ourselves has a way of becoming unsatisfying.  It has an end in us, and in that end the joy is lost; it might just as well have not been created at all.  When we give, when we create-give—and in return receive and give—this creation moves forward.  When the creation and the joy are passed on, as they are passed on, they have no end.  The creative work lasts forever and becomes more.  Man, by engaging in such creation experiences joy and creates joy.  That is what our Father sent us here to learn to do.  By so doing, we learn to become like Him, creatively joyful in turn.  We gain more life, we become more lively, until the Lord gives us all that He has, eternal life.

Filed under abundant life, commandments, creation, divine nature, eternal life, giving, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, joy, life, sin, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Material and Spiritual

June 2, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by Angus Gray at Unsplash

Selfishness or selflessness?  Hard to find many defending selfishness or saying a word against selflessness.  Yet these two concepts are intertwined in thousands of years of philosophical debate over materialism and immaterialism.  While those two philosophical ideas appear as opposites, they each are, at most, half of reality.  Indulged in, each can lean toward a self-centered view of the world, the materialist surrounding himself with all that he can grasp, the immaterialist indulging in a cocoon of isolation from which he never emerges.

As most of us go about our daily lives, it may seem hard to conceive of the libraries of books filled with one side arguing that all that our senses constantly perceive is all that there is, while another school of thought just as vehemently asserts that it is all illusion, that the material is a false cloak covering spiritual reality.  Which is right, and which is wrong, and does it matter?  Can we bring the ideas together?

To shorten a very lengthy debate, materialists contend that the history of the progress of mankind is the story of overcoming physical obstacles and learning how to make the elements yield to our control, resulting in longer, healthier, more productive lives.  In similarly abbreviated fashion, the contention of immaterialists—sometimes referred to as spiritualists—is that at the end of the day all that physical “progress” means nothing, that its focus makes no one happy, that it chains people to an aggressive pursuit and struggle against one another that fails to bring lasting joy, instead feeding greed, covetousness, and hostility.  There is much more to the arguments, but that is their flavor.

To engage the debate on more practical terms, the materialist might argue that the spiritualist, by rejecting a very material world, is starving while living in a garden, dwelling in poverty amidst plenty.  The spiritualist might reply that the materialist may satisfy his appetites by feasting, but in the end he will still die, and by failing to transcend his surroundings he will die unhappy, having accomplished nothing lasting.

You may consider yourself partial to neither approach.  That would be understandable and proper, for man is by nature physical and spiritual.  The scholarly division is contrived, unnatural, isolating indivisible halves of existence.  The gospel of Jesus Christ, however, embraces the complete man.  When Jesus, as Creator, “saw every thing that he had made” of a very physical earth that included man and woman, He pronounced it all “very good” (Genesis 1:31).  Later, in our times, Jesus declared, “And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used . . .” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:20)  Furthermore, the scriptures teach, “there is a spirit in man” (Job 32:8).

The material is real; we are immersed in it.  As spirit children of a Heavenly Father, our challenge is to put our spirits in charge of the physical things, to control our environment as the Father does.  The physical is not here to slow us down or to bind our spirits.  Neither is it an instrument of penance for us to overcome and then be done with.  The material exists to facilitate our development and enhance our being.  We became more when our spirits united with our bodies.  The material is here to be used, first for learning and then for doing.  Joy comes in discovering how to use the physical well.  We are to subdue the earth, to become masters over the physical, not masters from the physical or to escape from the material.

The evil is when we shorten our vision, no longer employing the material for our growth and progression but becoming slaves to wanton appetites, food and drink devolving into our gods of gluttony and drunkenness, material things becoming objects of avarice instead of instruments of service.  We come to worship our tools, betraying our divine heritage as makers and wielders of tools.

The truth of the whole matter is found in the union of the spiritual with the material.  As children of God, it is our heritage to become like our Father.  Growing in the love of God, we govern our appetites and enlist our tools in the cause of ennobling one another.

The Master, Jesus Christ, explained it this way:

For man is spirit.  The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected receive a fulness of joy.  And when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy.  (Doctrine and Covenants 93:33, 34)

God created this very material world out of available elements, placed our spirits into physical bodies to learn how to control material things.  Christ was Himself born into a physical body that He also might enjoy the union of spirit and element.  Then He  willingly surrendered that union in death so that He might be resurrected from the dead, inseparably united as spirit and body, ensuring that for all of us the separation of spirit from body would be merely temporary while the unity of spirit with body, and the joy of that union, could last forever.

In so doing, Christ, and each of us, may receive the fulness of eternal joy that only our combined nature can achieve.

Filed under abundant life, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, joy, materiality, resurrection, spirituality Tagged with , , , , , ,

← Older posts