"Dear God, Give A Bald Guy A Break"

One of my sisters died this week. Many prayers were said on her behalf. I gave her a priesthood blessing just prior to the crisis that led to her death, and I've been pondering many a thing since.

Part of the pondering: Was I listening to the spirit, or saying things I wanted to come to pass? The more I think, the more I'm unsure I even remember what I said in that blessing. I'm sure there were some of the typical bromides. I don't know. I wish I could remember.

I think I mentioned asking God to help her doctors know how to care for her. I know we saw that time and again this past month we were in the hospital, so maybe there's a ray of hope for my faith and my feeble grasp on priesthood power.

What Elder Holland said today in Conference is not new, of course, but hit me like a ton of bricks:

“It’s for reasons known only to God why prayers are answered differently than we hope, but I promise you they are heard, and they are answered according to His unfailing love and cosmic timetable.”

Then there was the admonition to pray out loud when possible. I can't remember who said it; I'll have to look again. That hit me too. Maybe articulting our prayers out loud gets away from the bromide side of our faith?

UPDATE: That was Elder Holland as well.

Tumultuous Times

As we look forward – mostly with nausea – to the coming November election, what I know of history tells me one thing: Whatever happens, that too will pass.

Do we live, goes the question, in tumultuous times?

Indeed we do.

One question we fail to ask, however, is when did those “tumultuous times” begin? I’m prepared to say they began a lot earlier than most of us think.

There’s a passage from William Manchester’s “The Death of A President, November 1963,” that comes to mind:

A certain amount of distortion was inevitable. Erratic individuals are eager to credit the incredible. A century after Lincoln’s death his assassination is still being laid at the door of a member of his Cabinet, and years after [President John F.] Kennedy’s death there would be those who would reject any information which did not fit their preconceived theories about the crime. These people did not want facts; they merely wanted to feed their own ravaged emotions. But that Friday stable persons were being misled, too.

Among the misled and the misleaders in this case, Manchester points out, was the Associated Press, who “flatly declared,” Manchester said, that Kennedy had been shot “in the front of his head,” surely fodder – though incorrect – that fed many of the conspiracy theories surrounding the president’s death ever since.

Manchester writes further in the foreword to his book: “Research, of course, is no substitute for wisdom. The sum of a million facts is not the truth. I had to immerse myself in this subject until I knew more about it than anyone else. Only then could I move on to the critical stage: the comparison of witnesses’ statements.

Are we, the stable persons, being misled. And if so, by whom?

Misled, I have to say yes. Sometimes on purpose. Mostly on accident, as the rush of facts comes at us so quickly even the experts, from journalists to politicians to philosophers to whomever, cannot fathom them all. Little time do any of us have to immerse ourselves in any subject at any length, as Manchester did to understand and then convey the events surrounding the assassination of Kennedy. Yet time and again pressure demands that we move on to the critical stage, the comparison of witnesses’ statements, without that foundation of wisdom.

Where to obtain that wisdom?

My bretheren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth no; and it shall be given him.

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. (James Chapter 1)

James talks of resisting temptation, the “trying of our faith,” leading to patience. Then, he advises, once patience has done her “perfect work,” may one ask of God for wisdom, asking only in faith, nothing wavering – because those who waver are unstable.

Part of me wonders if the word “temptation” doesn’t carry a double meaning in these verses, as we can be tempted spiritually, but also secularly, to believe this voice or that voice, to hew more to that line or to another. Man should rather, James says, rejoice in hearing diverse opinions, as long as those opinions lead to patience – not tolerance not acceptance, not capitulation or loss of principle – in understanding the views of others. And once the secular arguments reach the point where a person has studied them and needs further assistance may the wisdom sought be asked of God.

And once the wisdom is obtained, one may not waver from it as the secular arguments call not for mutual understanding, but for conciliation, for one side to give in to the other. One side must win at the expense of the other, our minds think, else there is no victory.

We have left behind the ambiguity of faith for the false promise of surety.

“Faith never demands an answer to every question, but seeks the assurance and courage to move forward, sometimes acknowledging, ‘I don’t know everything, but I know enough to continue on the path of discipleship,’” says Elder Neil L. Andersen, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When we dare to move forward, not knowing everything but having faith in humanity, in God, that we will be able to work things out, that is a good thing. A good enough thing to help us through tumultuous times.

Gandalf had faith. Frodo had faith. Neither one could see the end. Neither Frodo, the simple hobbit tasked with a mission that fell to him by chance, neither Gandalf, guardian of one of the elves’ rings of power, wise in both knowledge and wisdom. Both had faith – and faith alone – to rely on.

But not only faith.

They had works – for as James reminds us, “faith without works is dead.”

Works are the troubles of the double-minded men James speaks of. God may move mountains for us, the old saw goes, but we should not be surprised if he hands us a shovel. If God were to, with a wink and a nod, grant our desires, faith would be in vain. Wisdom would not arrive on the heels of patience. Works would not work blisters into our hands and feet, leaving the facts – the useless facts – our only surcease.

And facts we can find to fit any mode of thinking.

“I want to know God’s thoughts, the rest are details,” Albert Einstein said.

We have here the path to find the thoughts of God, as we fight on through time, tumultuous or not.

[Shakes Tiny Fist]

Elder Hales, with his fists in the air, did it for me. 

He recalled, during the priesthood session of general conference this weekend, as a boy being told that the world’s standards were at one point, indicated with a fist held in the air, with church standards at another point, indicated with a second fist. The two were apart, but not terribly so. 

Today, he cautioned, the world’s standards are far away, out the door. 

President Monson, even as I waited in anticipation for him to wiggle his ears, did it for me. 

He cautioned us not to pick and choose which commandments to obey. Why adhere to one and not the other, he asked – a caution against so-called Cafeteria Christianity in which we select the commandments that are easy to follow, rejecting those that are tougher.

And Elder Packer, struggling with his health as he is, didit for me. 

He cautioned us against falling into a “tolerance trap” that I’ll leave him to explain because I don’t want to muck it up: 

The permissiveness afforded by the weakening of the laws of the land to tolerate legalized acts of immorality does not reduce the serious spiritual consequences that result from the violation of God’s law of chastity. Tolerance is a virtue, but like all virtues, when exaggerated it transforms itself into a vice. We need to be careful of the tolerance trap so that we are not swallowed up in it.

I admit, though, to struggling with some of this, most particularly the tolerance trap. Elder Holland, of course, has an answer to that. Paraphrasing again, he advises that some of us feel it’s more faith-promoting to express doubts than to express faith. I need to show greater faith, obviously. Not that we can’t ask questions – but that we should ask questions in a context of wanting to understand the answers that come, not stand in defiance when the answers that come don’t fit with our preconceived notion of what the answer should be. 

Some tolerance is a trap – because it becomes one-sided. Some are expected to tolerate all while those pushing the toleration are willing to tolerate but little. The hypocrisy of it all stinks to high heaven, and yet those who are in that hypocritical stage can’t see it. 

At the same time, Satan – who is real – tries to push us into making apples-to-oranges comparisons in one of the many ways he tries to get us to shatter the commandments with the logic of men. I came close to that recently, pondering the perceived tolerance of the 1978 announcement of granting priesthood to all worthy male members to wondering why the same tolerance couldn’t be extended to gays seeking marriage. I see now the difference: There was never any doctrinal basis to the priesthood ban, while there is clear doctrinal evidence on maintaining marriage between man and wife, and in no other way. The tolerance trap nearly had me.

 

That doesn't open up floodgates of hate, however. It just means true tolerance and love. I can love my brother, because he is and always will be my brother. I do not have to tolerate his pornography addiction. There again, the tolerance trap. 

We’ll be persecuted for this stance, that is clear even before we were reminded of that at conference. We can love. We can accept. But we cannot and should not be forced to violate or invalidate portions of the gospel because the logic or tolerance of man dictates we should do so.

Back to Elder Hales. The church and Christ have not moved. 

So lots to think about. I want to maintain an eternal perspective on all of this – because what we do in this life is only a part of an eternity that can be endangered by what we do and do not do here. This is where life becomes a test. I aim to pass it.

Conference Time

I present tonight, unedited for your enjoyment, notes my 12-year-old son, new to LDS Conference priesthood session, and I took tonight. Okay, I put in line breaks, but the rest is unedited. I'll leave it to you to decide who took notes when.

Priesthood session

Bednar

Most distinguishing feature of church?

Priesthood

A boy or man may have the priesthood by laying on of hands, but unless he be righteous, and do his priesthood duties, he cannot have the priesthood.

Some random guy told an informative story.

ATY discovered that the Zoramites were worshipping idols and in synagogues recited the same boring prayer towards heaven.

Guy: Blah Blah Blah Blah and so on and so on.
Some other random guy talked a loooooooong time.

Guy: Blah Blah Blah sacred duty Blah Blah Blah and so on.

Priesthood is a holy gift. So is the holy ghost. And Legos.
Me: Why ees thees guy takeeng forever?

WHEN YOU EXERCISE PRIESTHOOD YOU PREPARE FOR DUTIES IN THe FUTURE.
Put your potential into action.

Uchtdorf
 Seek not only the what of our callings but the why. Eternal reasons behind whet er are commended to do

Eyring witness of priesthood keys
Love your wife nurture family with her
Enlist family to love one another
Correct in the lord's way

Monson

Go and do - not say this is a hard thing

As we fulfill our duties we will find true joy.
When service replaces inaction. The priesthood can act
Do your duty that is best leave to the lord the rest.
James doers of the word not hearers only.

747 Jokes and Other Conference Memories

Maybe it’s a sign of immaturity, but I’m wondering if next April the church will have a drummer at the ready to give President Dieter F. Uchtdorf a rimshot when he delivers his one-liners.

I don’t say this facetiously. I really enjoy his sense of humor. A little humor at conference – at any church meeting – is a welcome thing. I just bring it up because he had the best one-liners at conference this year.

Saturday AM: President Uchtdorf, in setting the stage for his talk on avoiding the temptation to get too busy that we forget spiritual matters and to experience the joy of life, said, “You’re probably wondering what this has to do with airplanes.” Big laugh. (Hey, we’re Mormons; this is us letting our hair down. Besides, Uchtdorf, a former 747 pilot for Lufthansa, always talks about airplanes.) He didn’t disappoint.

He compared rushing headlong into life without taking time to slow down, reflect, or ease our burdens to inexperienced pilots thinking that speeding through areas of turbulence is the best way to offer comfort to their passengers. Instead, flying fast actually increases turbulence’s effects. Flying more slowly, he said, provides a smoother ride. He advises us to do the same with our own lives:

We can all think of a list of tasks that will overwhelm our schedule. Some might even think that their self-worth depends on the length of their to-do list. They flood the open spaces in their time with lists of meetings and minutia — even during times of stress and fatigue. Because they unnecessarily complicate their lives, they often feel increased frustration, diminished joy and too little sense of meaning in their lives.

More laughs came during the Saturday Priesthood Session.

President Uchtdorf said when he told his wife that he’d been asked to speak on pride, she replied “I’m glad they gave you a topic you know so much about.” Not quite at the level of Homer Simpson-like paternal insult, but still enough to remind all of us that, yeah, we’re not perfect and that sometimes we, too, show our pride too much.

He went on to remind us what is wrong about pride:

So what is the difference between this kind of feeling and the pride that President Benson called 'the universal sin'? Pride is sinful … because it breeds hatred or hostility and places us in opposition to God and our fellowmen. At its core, pride is a sin of comparison, for though it usually begins with 'Look how wonderful I am and what great things I have done,' it always seems to end with 'Therefore, I am better than you.'

Pride is the great sin of self-elevation. It is, for so many, a personal Rameumptom, a holy stand that justifies envy, greed and vanity.

Other conference memories:

Our electricity went out Sunday morning, about fifteen minutes before Conference was to start. As Michelle cooked breakfast on the gas stove out in the camper, I frantically ran through the house trying to find radios and batteries so we wouldn’t miss anything. I did manage to hook Michelle up with an MP3 player that could get radio, but as for the rest of us, well, the emergency radios we had didn’t work that well, and we didn’t have enough batteries to cook up anything else. Finally Michelle found one that kinda worked, but it kept pooping out on us. Then she remembered one last emergency radio: We ended up listening to about an hour’s worth of conference via a radio inside a Snoopy plush toy she’s had since she was a kid. Thankfully, the power came on in time for us to have a better Sunday afternoon.

Social Justice

So, what is social justice?

Wikipedia’s circular definition is this: The application of the concept of justice on a social scale. But the concept of social justice involves things like a living (or minimum) wage, as proposed by John A. Ryan, prison reform and abolitionism as proposed by John Wesley in the Methodist Church. Martin Luther King, Jr., advocated for social justice when he expressed the wish that his children would be judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character.

Good things, yes?

Then you’ve got Glenn Beck railing against any religion that preaches social justice. When I heard that, at first I was a bit taken aback. Why should anyone want to rail against social justice? That doesn’t seem right.

Then this weekend, listening to Conference, it dawned on me what he was talking about. Not that I want to politicize Conference, but I think that a few things said this past weekend cleared the air for me.

First, consider what Elder D. Todd Christofferson said Saturday afternoon in his speech The Blessing of Scripture (emphasis mine):

In a complete reversal from a century ago, many today would dispute with Alma about the seriousness of immorality. Others would argue that it’s all relative or that God’s love is permissive. If there is a God, they say, He excuses all sins and misdeeds because of His love for us—there is no need for repentance. Or at most, a simple confession will do. They have imagined a Jesus who wants people to work for social justice but who makes no demands upon their personal life and behavior. But a God of love does not leave us to learn by sad experience that “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10; see also Helaman 13:38). His commandments are the voice of reality and our protection against self-inflicted pain. The scriptures are the touchstone for measuring correctness and truth, and they are clear that real happiness lies not in denying the justice of God or trying to circumvent the consequences of sin but in repentance and forgiveness through the atoning grace of the Son of God (see Alma 42).

Scripture tutors us in principles and moral values essential to maintaining civil society, including integrity, responsibility, selflessness, fidelity, and charity. In scripture, we find vivid portrayals of the blessings that come from honoring true principles, as well as the tragedies that befall when individuals and civilizations discard them. Where scriptural truths are ignored or abandoned, the essential moral core of society disintegrates and decay is close behind. In time, nothing is left to sustain the institutions that sustain society.

Jesus indeed taught social justice. But he taught it in a way that put requirements on that justice. We have to modify our behavior and personal lives in order to find the social justice he teaches. It’s true that many preaching social justice today do so at the expense of things such as marriage – we’re supposed to believe granting the right of homosexual marriage is socially just, even when it goes against scriptural doctrine. Those who point to the social justice of Jesus without regard to the requirements put forth – obedience to the commandments and ordinances of the gospel – want to have the security or the finger-pointing ability to rail against those denying their “rights” or their “social justice” by in turn denying that their behavior must be modified. Jesus taught us to love the sinner and hate the sin, not to tolerate the sin because we love the sinner.

That concept is echoed in Elder Quentin L. Cook’s talk, We Follow Jesus Christ. He said (again, emphasis mine):

The Savior’s charge to His disciples to love one another—and the dramatic and powerful way He taught this principle at the Last Supper—is one of the most poignant and beautiful episodes from the last days of His mortal life.

He was not teaching a simple class in ethical behavior. This was the Son of God pleading with His Apostles and all disciples who would come after them to remember and follow this most central of His teachings. How we relate and interact with each other is a measure of our willingness to follow Jesus Christ.

Again, those who point to Jesus as a great moral teacher or philosopher and who transpose modern ideals of social justice into these moral teaching and philosophies are giving only half the truth, half the story. God’s law must be obeyed while his children work to be socially just within the bounds of the laws God has set.

Unfortunately for Mr. Beck, this kind of thing isn’t easy to say or sum up extemporaneously on television, so it’s clear why he was misunderstood. I’m glad I listened enough at Conference, and thought about these things enough on my own, to recognize how the concept of social justice fits within the Gospel of Christ.

If we want to apply the social justice as taught by Jesus Christ – love your fellow man as yourself, love the sinner, hate the sin – we can’t at the same time negate the laws that have been set in order to squeeze in our modern concept of social justice. Negating the rules, or seeking to have one’s cake and eat it, too, is a logical, intellectual and spiritual fallacy.