Writing Our Own Psalm of Praise

 

I'm teaching Psalms in Sunday School this week, and it would be the week we're starting on the 25-minute lesson, so the chances of me being able to play any of the musical renditions of these songs of praise are pretty slim.

So as I prepare, I ponder: How would it be if, as a class, we wrote our own psalm?

The psalms are pretty varied in form. They don't necessarily rhyme. Some of them contain many ideas and shapes and thoughts and praises.

We could do it. Start with a few basic ideas, but then really dig into what class members praised God for this week -- and if they maybe can't remember anything, maybe encourage them to write things down this week, or make efforts to praise God for *something* that happens in the coming weeks.

Vivaldi's "Nisi Dominus - Cum Dederit" is his setting for Psalm 127:

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Their use of it in Bob's Burgers always confused me a bit:

But certainly Louise ate the bread of sorrows . . . 

Eight-Legged Elephants

I got a peek today of what adult Sunday School might be like come September when our teaching time is cut to 25 minutes -- and it came because I substituted in Primary.

Twenty-five minutes is not a lot of time to teach one of our Come Follow Me lessons. I knew that going in, but figured this audience -- a bunch of nine-year-olds -- deserved a good lesson without any fluff.

We discussed the major points of the lesson: God allowing Israel to have a king to maybe convince them through poor kingmanship that God was the better leader; our callings being from God; and God looking not on the outward appearance, but on the heart, in that twenty-five minutes.

The spirit was strong in that room, and I know the kids felt it. They participated. They asked questions and made meaningful comments. They got a buzz from the object lesson of optical illusions as a fill-in for God looking on the heart and couldn't believe this elephant had eight legs.

They paid attention, even the kid I'd pegged as being the one most likely to be distracted.

It's gonna work, folks. Because God is in charge.

Old Testament? Not my Favorite

I'll admit the Old Testament is not my favorite bit of scripture to teach.

A few weeks ago, my wife got to avoid teaching this particular tale from Genesis 9:

After the whole ark business, Noah gets a bit drunk and passes out in his tent, starkers. His son Ham comes in, sees the naked dad, and he and his brothers cover Noah up.

Upon awaking, Noah learns of the thing and curses Canaan, Ham's son. Grandkid gets cursed because his dad saw grandpa's ding-dong.

Even our lesson materials has this to say:

This week, I get to avoid talking about other drunken escapades where Lot's daughters get Dad drunk and have sex so he can have, well, I don't know I guess. Descendants? Because his daughters don't count?

Our materials say this is included to show origins:

So that'll be fun. I guess it does show that you could take the daughters out of Sodom and Gomorrah, but not Sodom and Gomorrah out of the daughters.

Anyway, this is what I feel like sometimes:

 

We have state legislators who want daily Bible reading to be part of the public school curriculum. Fine. But they have to read these parts too.

Reflections of A Scientist

If we pause for a moment and think about things, we're not altogether all that far apart on things.

That is, of course, a big "if."

That's part of what Henry Eyring addresses in his book, "Reflections of a Scientist," a series of essays he wrote and that are compiled by his son Harden.

More about his life here, including his contributions to science, specifically chemistry. I won't pretend to understand any of it, but it seems significant enough.

Eyring breezily, and easily, discusses that science and religion aren't all that far apart. Both invite investigation, skepticism, and a willingness to keep on trying and looking past the warts and difficulties to find what works, or "the truth," as he describes it.

My favorite quote: "There are all kinds of contradictions and religion that I don't understand, but I find the same kinds of contradictions in science, and I haven't decided to apostatize from science."

He recommends a hearty science eduation -- naturally -- particularly one that "contraditcs" what many religious faiths hold true. In that he supposes that exposure to the contradictions will ease new minds into understanding and pondering them, rather than looking at them superficially and deciding which way to go without much study. That's a lesson we could all learn on a great many subjects.

The Only Voices Worth Listening For

There are a lot of voices out there -- some of them our own, in our own heads -- telling us lies about our lives, ourselves. Making promises that won't be kept, because the voices don't care about promises; they want us to be miserable.

It's important to listen to the voices, and they can be hard to hear, that offer encouragement, hope, resilience, and love.

Those are the only voices worth listening for.

Chalkboard Distraction

I am an easily distracted person, so to have this on the chalkboard when I walked in to teach Sundy School this weekend wasn't helping.

Firstly, it's a shark. That's easy. But what is the second critter? A chicken? A turkey? How did this interaction take place? Is it a super-whatever, given the size of it? Speculation ran rampant.

I didn't erase it. Such strong, controversial art deserves a wide audience, and it would do us all a lot of good to allow the speculation to continue.

My Soul Delighteth in the Song of the Heart

We read this tonight in our Gospel Doctrine lesson:

"For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads." (Doctrine and Covenants 25:12)

The writers of the lesson ask us to ponder which are our "songs of the heart," through which the Spirit has spoken to us. They suggested we sing a few as a family.

To tease me, my wife started singing "Give Said the Little Stream," as that's a song I referenced often in lessons with our kids when they were younger. It's certainly a song that speaks to me; one that is a song of the heart.

I have others, of course. I'm highly, spiritually, succeptible to songs of the heart. Many speak to me, some in ways I can't really explain.

This one has always been dear to me, and became more dear after I served a mission in France and learned it was written by a medieval Frenchman, also seeking to come closer to God through song:

If ever a song of the heart wants to make me leap out of my chair and shout, it's this one, though by the fourth verse I'm melting and can hardly sing anymore:

Jehovah speaks! Let earth give ear,

And Gentile nations turn and live.

His mighty arm is making bare,

His mighty arm is making bare

His cov’nant people to receive.

This one, I truly believe, will be sung as an intercessory prayer in Heaven as God watches his children struggle on Earth, working to find their way home.

And there's this one. Probably not on many lists of songs of the heart, but a certain lyric blasted through my teenage worries and the sound of a brick saw to slap me -- spiritually -- right in the heart as I worried about being worthy enough to serve a mission.

The song said to me. I took the steps to become worthy.

Thanks, Weird Al.

I'm just saying through all the backhanded gallantries the lyrics possess, that line "You're not perfect, but I love you anyhow" was God speaking to a young but weary heart. So this song is indeed a song of my heart.

Hold Your Peace, or Listening to "The Gambler"

Difficult things to do, it seems, come in small packages.

Take for example this counsel, given to Hyrum Smith by Father in Heaven, from Doctrine and Covenants Section 10:

"Keep my commandments; hold your peace; appeal unto my Spirit;"

I'll concentrate on the "hold your peace" portion, as it's one that's risen to the surface of my life this week.

It's an odd phrase. One we hear commonly in the secular wedding vow: "Speak now or forever hold your peace." Brides magazine says this vow is "fortunately" falling out of fashion at weddings. Not surprising, considering it's falling out of fashion in general.

We need to pick it up again.

What does it mean? Does it mean "shut up"? I don't think so. We can be inspired by the Spirit to say wonderful things that can positively impact those around us. Holding our peace, I believe -- and I have evidence for this -- means knowing when to speak, and when not to speak, and in relying on the Spirit to give us what we should say in the moment we need it, rather than just blasting out with the first thing that comes into our heads.

My evidence comes from Job:

Job held his peace. Though he suffered mightily and could have lashed out at God, at any of his many critics, he held his peace. "In all this did not Job sin with his lips."

Holding our peace, relying on our learning and on the Spirit of God to help us to know what to say and when to say it, will help us avoid sin with our lips. Holding our peace implies listening to understand others as they talk to us, not listening until we know what we're going to say.

And that's hard. Damned hard.

Holding our peace doesn't imply not fighting injustice, or shutting up, or having to tolerate abuse. It does mean waiting with a cooler mind for inspiration. And that means filling our heads with the word of God and being worthy of the Spirit to be ready for when inspiration comes.

Maybe Kenny Rogers said it better:

Or, if that's too secular for you, listening to "I Need thee Every Hour":

Things As They Really Are in my Brain

So this is why it's important to cram your head full of information, and to record it when new information crosses with old information.

I'm currently reading "The Outrage Machine" by Tobias Rose-Stockwell. It's been enlightening. He promises solutions to curbing or understanding or eliminating the outrage we feel on social media (I'm not exactly sure what'll happen, as I'm still doing the reading).

"Our agency is being manipulated and scaled back, app by app, notification by notification. The recognition of this collective interference, and our part in it, is something akin to a mass existential crisis. This kind of manipulation challenges our basic understanding of human choice. It shows how these predictive systems are just one step away from being systems of control "

~Tobias Rose-Stockwell, "The Outrage Machine"

What he said reminded me of something from Elder David A. Bednar's "Things as They Really Are 2.0" speech, which he gave back in November.

"The ease of use, perceived accuracy, and rapid response time that characterize artificial intelligence can create a potentially beguiling, addictive, and suffocating influence on the exercise of our moral agency. Because AI is cloaked in the credibility and promises of scientific progress, we might naively be seduced into surrendering our precious moral agency to a technology that can only think telestial. By so doing, we may gradually be transformed from agents who can act into objects that are only acted upon."

~Elder David A. Bednar, "Things as They Really Are 2.0"

Tie what you know with what you're learning. That helps you develop a bigger picture of things.

Doomed. Maybe Doomed.

Christianity, online, is . . . *interesting.*

Or doomed. Maybe doomed is the better way to say it.

Saw this meme on the Facebooks tonight, for example:

So maybe the meme goes a little overboard, blotting out things that don't necessarily have to do with judgment. But reading the comments. Oh, the comments. Context is everything. And it seems like the context people want is context that allows them to be . . . judgy.

So here's the pertinent context:

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

I am an imperfect person. Every time I manage to cast a beam out of the ol' peeper, more settle in or pop to the surface.

Context: Don't judge because you, yourself, are imperfect. Maybe work on your own sins and shortcomings before you dare judge others. Does that mean we don't offer help? No. Does that mean we don't pray for others? No. But it does mean we don't judge. Context or otherwise, "Do not judge" seems to be the kernel of these passages.

But boy are folks bent out of shape. They want context. Context so they can judge, it seems. And maybe I'm wrong; it's hard to see through all these beams.

Read if you dare.

A Warning to Gospel Weenies

I am open to correction on this, but I also wonder.

I read the following in 2 Nephi 28:14:

They wear stiff necks and high heads; yea, and because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men.

I know this chapter is specifically aimed at the "other" churches established in the last days and the troubles they face. Yet I wonder at the specific warning in this verse, as people being led by overzealous application of gospel aspects into error. That's aided by the reference to 2 Peter 3, and the warning against "steadfastness."

Peter and his contemporaries would have been innately familiar with the Law of Moses, and the strict application to that law that was common among many of the Jews. Too strict an application could lead to trouble, as shown by those who brought the adultress to Christ and demanded Jesus punish her according to the law. Jesus pointed toward a better way that did not ignore the violation of the law, but opened the door to repentance and eventual forgiveness, which is how I hoped that story played out.

I see a lot of "steadfastness" in my own church, and worry about it. It's easy to go beyond the mark in application of gospel tenets and forget that it is a gospel of joy, repentance, and forgiveness. A lot of people forget that judgment is the job of God, not us. Everyone has to be careful that they are led by Christ, not by the precepts of men that use Christian language to justify things that are not in harmony with the gospel.

 

That Well-Traveled Road

Just watched the MASH episode "Follies of the Living, Concerns of the Dead" from season ten.

Seen it dozens of times before, of course.

If you're not familiar with it, it focuses on the ghost - or spirit - of Private Jimmy Weston, killed in action and wandering the 4077th trying to convince others he is not dead.

The closing scene, shown in the photo, shows Weston joining a nameless soldier and others, including Chinese soldiers, civilians, and other combatants walking up a road, destination unknown.

Dad had a dream about that road. He dreamed he was on one side of a river, and saw Mom coming up the other side, struggling mightily with a walker on a rough path. She saw him and plunged headlong into the river, startling him. He called out to her, but saw her go under.

Then she came out of the water, swimming strong, and young as she was when they met. She came out if the water into his arms, and they continued their journey in the road, arm in arm.

At my sister Marina's graveside service earlier this year, I had a strong impression that Mom and Dad were there, waiting for her to come out of the water so they could journey together.

We'll all walk that road eventually. There's some comfort in knowing what lies at the end.

Cry Unto Him for Mercy; for He is Mighty to Save

Folks, it's been a stressful week for me at my full-time job, but I'm here to say I've felt your prayers and the prayers of others around me.

My wife and I went to the temple last night, and as we sat in the Celestial Room, I again had confirmation that God knows me and knows my concerns and fears and he sent a comforting spirit to help me feel that.

I know God listens to prayers, and wants to help us in all we do as we do our best and remain worthy to tap into His blessings.

As I sat there, I grabbed a copy of the Book of Mormon, and opened it and random. I landed in Alma 34, where Amulek testifies that we can and should pray for temporal and spiritual blessings:

17 Therefore may God grant unto you, my brethren, that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance, that ye begin to call upon his holy name, that he would have mercy upon you;

18 Yea, cry unto him for mercy; for he is mighty to save.

19 Yea, humble yourselves, and continue in prayer unto him.

20 Cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea, over all your flocks.

21 Cry unto him in your houses, yea, over all your household, both morning, mid-day, and evening.

22 Yea, cry unto him against the power of your enemies.

23 Yea, cry unto him against the devil, who is an enemy to all righteousness.

24 Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.

25 Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase.

26 But this is not all; ye must pour out your souls in your closets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness.

27 Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you.

Thank you for your help.

I Will GOOOO I Will DOOOOOOO!

It’s something I shout from the rooftops when my wife isn’t around to stop me:

I really don’t like Hymn No. 270, “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go.”

The words? Well, they’re okay. I remember, however, being regularly cudgeled with them as a callow youth at many a fireside or camp meeting or whatnot, when those in charge of us felt we were derelict in our duties or threatening to become so. We sang it in the mission field – sometimes in English, sometimes in French – when mission shenanigans were getting out of hand and president called us all together for a meeting.

The tune, though. It’s the tune that gets me every time. It’s a slow-motion fall down a flight of stairs put together by a nearsighted carpenter with a terminal case of the hiccups.

That probably sounds cruel. Because, well, it is. While I can sing passing fair, I can no more compose a tune than give mouth-to-mouth to a dying fish through a tuba connected to a trombone, so I should not criticize. I also realize there are many people out there who love this song, tune and all, and I’m okay with that. Others can love things I don’t like, just don’t expect to hear it at my funeral. Or maybe do, since I won’t be around to have to sing it.

Irony: I read tonight that the tune is the second assigned to the words in question, with the first being dumped because, in the words of Mary Deveau, former Municipal Historian of Griswold, Connecticut, it was “unsingable.” What a disaster that first tune must have been to make the current one better.

Yet.

You knew there was a yet coming, because not only does God work in mysterious ways, I’m pretty sure He also really enjoys hitting me in the Ironic Punishments department.

Because whenever we sing the song – as we did at the conclusion of a fireside tonight – it sticks with me and sticks with me and once my brain gets past the batty tune, the words seep through and I truly do understand what those youth leaders and those mission presidents were trying to accomplish with it: “Alert Stupid Here He Can Do Better.”

(Aside: The Primary song “Nephi’s Courage” is similar in vein and near unsingability, but at least we get the joy of hearing the Primary kids shout “I will GOOOO I will DOOOOOOO! The THING the LORD commands!”)

Because I truly can do better. My wife wants me to do better. Those who put me in church callings want me to do better. The missionaries stopped by yesterday and, in so many words, invited me to do better. I know the Lord looks at me and says, “You can do better.” And when we sing this song to that terrible tune, He uses it to speak to my heart.

So tonight as I’m sitting here in my study with that song falling down the haphazard staircase in my mind, I’m reminded of all the things I need to do better. I’ll make a list; maybe work on a few things.

I’ll say what you want me to say, dear Lord; I’ll be what you want me to be.

Just don’t make me sing it.

SAY IT LOUDER FOR THOSE IN THE BACK!

President Russel M. Nelson said this back at Conference in October 2020. I believed it then, and I believe it now.

I've tried to work past my prejudices, to accept that all are God's children, and that we should, as he called for in his address, to "let God prevail."

So I was saddened today to read not just a few comments on this Church News story about saints in Ghana opening their churches to their Muslim neighbors, giving them a safe place to gather for Ramadan.

We either sustain President Nelson as a prophet, or we don't. Making statements that contradict his statements is wrong.

More importantly, we believe that Jesus is the Christ, or we don't. Making statements that contradict his statements is very wrong.

Luke 10:25, for a start.

Then Matthew 5, lingering in particular on verse 43:

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

44 But I say unto you, Love your benemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Doubt Your Doubts

I did not want to go to church Sunday.

Thought it out: Fake sick and such, have a low-key day.

But I went to church.

A prayer in my heart, because I needed help. Nothing major, just stress over work (which resolved itself as a damp squib on Monday, as the work stress typically does, but that doesn't mean I can't spend my weekends in exquisite agony).

Easier to go to church than not to go to church, to be sure. Fewer questions and such.

But glad I went to church. Fast and testimony meeting, and a member bore his testimony of the gospel but not of the church -- or at least this ward -- and left, carrying his son. "Church isn't giving me what I need," he said. But rattled off that people have been checking in with him and his family.

What does he need that the church isn't giving him? He didn't say.

And there I sat, not wanting particularly to be there.

But I felt it differently. So many people there willing to shake my hand, say hello, help me be involved. So many people who care.

Was it the same with the other? I don't know. But I"m not generally outgoing. I'm introverted. Still, I felt welcome and wanted. I don't know what the problems are, but clearly there are problems.

But how do we sort them out?

Going to church is half the battle. Or at least part of it. I don't know his story, but I know mine.

I thought about things, after his testimony. The more I thought, the more I felt the spirit saying this is where I need to be, though maybe I don't understand all the reasons why.

Keep going. Doubt your doubts. Don't blame others, or seek that beam. Look for the mote, which is what I'm doing.

It's not easy. But it's worth doing.

Grinch Gets Stuck

For reasons unknown, we took our son's van to church today.

Also for reasons unknown, I was consigned to the seat way in the back. To get to it, one has to climb over a set of folded seats. This proved difficult because:

1. I am not a small man

2. One of my feet got wedged and to unwedge it I had to pop my shoe off.

When we got to church I had to crawl out, butt first, and I suspect it all looked like a manatee giving birth.

I am fairly confident no one took pictures, because they were all too enthralled by the spectacle to remember to get their phones out.

I post this here because after all that, I've used up whatever dignity I had in store for the day.

Going Postal -- Or Avoiding Sounding Brass

Once again I'm probably going to make secular humanist Terry Pratchett a bit upset.

But as I read his book "Going Postal," I can't help but to see its themes on hope and restoration as a parallel to the faith and redemption in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Bear with me a moment.

Take, for example, these passages from pages 276-77 of my American edition:

Handing all that gold over to a copper had been a difficult thing to do, but there really was no choice. He'd got them by the short and curlies, anyway. No one was going to stand up and say the gods didn't do this sort of thing. True, they'd never done it so far, but you could never tell, with gods. Certainly there were queues outside the three temples, once the Times had put out its afternoon edition.

This had presented the priesthoods with a philosophical problem. They were officially against people laying up treasures on earth, but they had to admit, it was always good to get bums on pews, feet in sacred groves, hands rattling drawers, and fingers being trailed in the baby-alligator pool. They settled, therefore, for a kind of twinkle-eyed denial that it could happen again, while hinting that, well, you never know, ineffable are the ways of gods, eh? Besides, petitioners were standing in line with their letter asking for a big bag of cash were open to suggestion that those most likely to recieveth were the ones who had already givedeth, and got the message once you tapped them on the head with the collecting plate a few times.

Even Miss Extremelia Mume, whose small, multipurpose temple over a bookmakers' office in Cable Street handled the wordly affairs of several dozen minor gods, was doing good business among those prepared to back an outside chance. She'd hung a banner over the door. It read IT COULD BE YOU.

It couldn't happen. It shouldn't happen. But, you never know . . . this time it might.

Moist recognized that hope, It was how he'd made his living. You know that the man running the Find the Lady game was going to win, you knew that people in distress didn't sell diamond rings for a fraction of their value, you knew that life generally handed you the sticky end of the stick, and you knew that the gods didn't pick some everyday undeserving tit out of the population and hand them a fortune.

Except, that this time, you might be wrong, right? It might just happen, yes?

OF course, Pratchett and his ilk feel they've got the greed behind this kind of "religion" right. And for the most part they do. I've heard the sermons of the so-called prosperity gospels, even seen a bit of it in my own church.

But what the mockers and scoffers miss is that, at the fundament of it all, there is that sincere hope.

But it's hope combined with works. And here is where I get in trouble with most mainstream Christians, who tend to believe that faith is all that's needed.

Not so.

Many seem to forget this admonition of James (emphasis mine):

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

And note this does not refer to works by God, or miracles, or mysterious bags of wonga falling form the sky or being dug up by charlatan postmen with winged hats.

The main word in that passage is you.

If we do not works, if we do not act in ways that could be the answers to prayers or if we do not act in godly ways, it is our faith that is dead. Not the faith of those who ask and receive not -- and receive not because some secular humanists tells them their hope in God is vain because he doe snot exist. It is because the fellow-believers in God do not act in God's name.

We have to have works, or this happens:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

This, from the first letter to the Corinthians.

Good works turn faith into action, and that is what many Christians miss, and their critics rightly pick up on.

Moist von Lipwig, who prayed to the gods to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, had the works -- he knew where the money was buried. Literally.

And those who saw him had hope. Hope in a charlatan, yes. But hope in a man whose works came in time for redemption.

So again, Mr. Pratchett. Thank you for teaching me how to be a better Christian, even if I had to pray to Anoia in order to become such.

A Message of Hope

To quote Linus from the Charlie Brown Christmas special: "Fear not. [Drops blanket.]"

Before and After

Before

I sit here thinking thoughts.

I was Scoutmaster for four years. That’s longer than the current bishopric has been in place. So my meeting with the stake president tonight (or a duly appointed representative) likely won’t be for that.

What is possible? Anything, I guess. But the law of averages tells me maybe something in the Elders Quorum – the current presidency has been in place for three years, and they tend to rotate through them faster. That’s my worst-case scenario.

Or maybe a quiet clerk’s job. Or maybe something connected with Sellers Creek, the new trek center up in the foothills. I responded to a stake survey many moons ago regarding possible talent that could be loaned to the center. I put down writing. You know, brochures and such. So maybe that. That right there would be the best-case scenario.

I sit here thinking thoughts, before I meet with You Know Who tonight.

Below, my thoughts afterward. Whether or not my lips will be numb in the telling is yet to be seen.

After

Membership Clerk. Details to follow.