Skip to main content

Impressions

This afternoon/evening we've been having the Saturday portion of our stake conference. It's been generally pretty good. Here are a couple of highlights:

Elder Fisher is presiding. He's actually from our stake and is a pretty good speaker.  I've been impressed so far. During the leadership session I attended this afternoon (and at which I sang!) he told the story of a woman in St George who was giving a talk about her fifth mission. She went on at length about how her mission was so wonderful and what the area was like. Then she finished up by talking about her 12 (!) children, how they were all married in the temple and that nine of them had served missions themselves. She sat down without ever having so much as mentioned Christ.

Then, out of the audience, another woman got up and approached the pulpit. The tension in the room was palpable - this was highly irregular. She slammed her purse down onto the rostrum and said - if that's what the Church expects of me, I'm not sure I want to be a part of it any more! and stormed out of the building. Elder Fisher said he wanted to stand up and applaud. I loudly said "amen!"

I think that we are so often caught up in the culture of the Church that we lose sight of the whole point of it all. The purpose of the Church is to bring souls to Christ, to be a repository for shared knowledge, to offer chances for service and learning, and (most importantly) to administer the ordinances of salvation. The rest is just the rest.

Then, this evening, a beautiful woman spoke about sending out missionaries. She started with saying that she was going to be honest and if she offended anyone that she was very sorry. She hoped that the message was something that the Lord would want her to relate. She said that when she dropped off both of her children at the MTC, it was not a glorious send off, or a tearful farewell. It was unmitigated grief. An absolute sense of loss. And she was NOT OK WITH IT. (I was totally bawling by this point. Her feeling was so real and raw...) She said she was not ok with sending her "babies" (using quotes because that's the word she used, and it was used in the sense that a only a mother who has feared for her children, who has loved them and then felt the gaping hole in her heart when they left to go out into the world...) to where they could be accosted and assaulted and cursed and mocked and even loved. She felt only grief. The world can be a very evil place.

And she would know. She's a social worker in some scary areas of Ogden, and has seen the emptiness of soul and heart and character that exists in some people. She said that the only thing that could make it ok was the thought that her babies would help to bring the light of the gospel to a darkened world.

Oh, it was powerful. I am still moved to tears thinking of it. Such majesty, dignity, and feeling! So rare and precious in our world - even in our Church. I loved it.

It inspires me to want to do better myself.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ephesus

Paul got around. Ephesus is right on the Aegean Sea, on the coast of present-day Turkey. Yesterday he was in Galatia, which was much more towards the middle of Turkey. And when he actually wrote these letters, he was in Rome... So the man could travel. He probably walked. Today's item of interest comes from chapter one in Ephesians. Verses 18 and 19 are particularly interesting: 18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power This is not the first time Paul talks about an inheritance. In Galatians he talks about the inheritance that comes of being part of the Abrahamic Covenant. He notes that we are joint-heirs through and with Christ. In Ephesians, he uses the word "adoption" - that we are adopted as the Children of Jesus Chris...

Engaged

Three Dog Night got it wrong.  One is not the loneliest number. They were more accurate when they said Two can be as bad as one.  I really wonder how people can survive Without being fully engaged. How they live through each day Without the intimacy I so very much crave... Maybe I am unusual in my desire  To have this intimacy, To want to feel that soul So close to my own Sharing light and warmth, Sharing love and passion, Sharing life. Alas! Alas! Alas! For when I do seek to share It is often only to be rebuffed Denied Or used up, Sucked dry, And left an empty husk.  I want SO MUCH to share And all I have is the cold, digital world Of typing out a blog.

The Other Art

I'm not sure we appreciate photography as much as we do other art forms. Part of this comes from the reality that surrounds and permeates a photograph - it's very, very real, and the photographer strives for clarity and crispness in the representations. Perhaps this is why black and white images continue to be relevant - they strip away extraneous information (color) and leave us with something that is at once familiar and also non-existent - for nothing exists in black and white. Nothing. I also think that pictures are becoming too common-place... Everyone has a camera in their pocket, and while that's a very democratic thing (everyone can express themselves in a picture easily and readily, and can find an audience for these images, which are casually taken and casually viewed, and perhaps just as casually forgotten) I think that we embrace that casual attitude, and it spills over to all aspects of the media, making it impotent. So I read this article this morning: h...