Questions about Mormons

we all have 'em...

here are some VERY GOOD answers

something better

Joseph Smith once prayed simply, "Lord we thank Thee for this Johnny cake, and ask Thee to send us something better. Amen." (It wasn't long after than a man came bring flour and ham to the home.)

This idea of praying for something better... this is huge. I mean of course God has blessings in mind for me that are so much bigger and understanding that is so much better than i could ever imagine -- but am i possibly not receiving it because i haven't asked? It's not that I'm not asking (because I do a LOT of that) and it's not that I am asking for things I shouldn't... it's just that I'm not thinking bigger... so what am I missing out on because I don't ask, and therefor seek, for the BETTER?

Sheri Dew wrote that we shouldn't try to "limit or restrain the Lord by the smallness of our vision or hopes or petitions"  -- we shouldn't be afraid to pray like Joseph did for something better. I am going to try to expand my view of what is possible and what the Lord may give me.

I will try to pray and thank the Lord for what I have, ask him for what I think I need, and then ask for something even better.

our great potential

"these gifts of which I have spoken, which are spiritual, never will be done away, even as long as the world shall stand, only according to the unbelief of the children of men" (Moroni 10:19)

How do you picture those who don't believe? Because most likely it's the same way I have... and I didn't fall into that group. Like so many scriptures it's taken me until now to see how I actually do, in scary ways, fit negative definitions. We are supposed to put ourselves into the scriptures, and it's a much easier thing to do in the positive ones, but it the ones where I become a sinner and an unbeliever...well, of course those scriptures aren't about ME...those are about THEM...right?

It's the "All is Well in Zion attitude" and it needs to change. Think of unbelief the way Sheri Dew does: "the most sobering kind of unbelief is actually that of faithful members of the Church sitting in sacrament meeting every week -- members who don't really believe the Lord will reveal His mind and will and workings to them, and have thus hardened their hearts to their spiritual possibilities, potential, ad privileges." (If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard) And now, we can start seeing ourselves in it.

President George Q. Cannon makes it even clearer:

"Yet we find, even among those who have embraced the Gospel, hearts of unbelief. How many of you, my brethren and sisters, are seeking for these gifts that God has promised to bestow? How many of you, when you bow before your Heavenly Father in your family circle or in your secret places, contend for these gifts to be bestowed upon you? How many of you ask the Father, in the name of Jesus, to manifest Himself to you through these powers and these gifts? Or do you go along day by day like a door turning on its hinges, without having any feeling upon the subject, without exercising any faith whatever; content to be baptized and be members of the Church, and to rest there, thinking that your salvation is secure because you have done this? I say to you, in the name of the Lord, as one of His servants, that you have need to repent of this. You have need to repent of your hardness of heart, of your indifference, and of your carelessness. There is not that diligence, there is not that faith, there is not that seeking for the power of God that there should be among a people who have received the precious promises we have. Instead of the sick being healed, why, it is as much as you can do to get faith to believe that the administration of an elder will be attended with effect. There is not that seeking for the gift of healing and for the gift to be healed that there ought to be among the Saints. And so with other gifts and graces that God has placed in His Church for His people. I say to you that it is our duty to avail ourselves of the privileges which God has placed within our reach."

this life or the next?

"If we are too quick to adapt to the ways of this fleeting and flawed world, that very adjustment will maladapt us for life in the next"

-Elder Neal A. Maxwell

It's sometimes very scary to think the more I love the things of this world the more I'm not ready for the next... because I do love many things of the world, not just things that I "shouldn't" but many beautiful, interesting, yet also trivial and temporary things. we are supposed to be preparing for a better world and i'm not sure the things i do are preparing me all that well... and really, when it all comes down to it, shouldn't EVERYTHING I do be doing so?

Sheri Dew wrote that "this life was designed to be a test -- a test to determine if we want to be part of the kingdom of God more than anything else. Mortality offers a wide range of experiences and opportunities, everything from countless ways to serve our fellowman to an endless array of distractions, deceptions and modes of self-gratification. When all is said and done, perhaps the most fundamental question we each answer is, Do we want to be part of the kingdom of God -- both here on earth and in eternity -- more than we want anything else? And do we demonstrate by our choices and priorities, by how we live our lives -- everything from the way we spend our time and energy to the way we spend our influence and resources -- what we really care about? (from If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard)

But it's hard sometimes to recognize.

In his book Christianity and Culture C.S. Lewis discusses how "the real business of life" is "the salvation of the human soul" (agreeing with what the Lord himself has said, "For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life on man" Moses 1:39). He explains how he began to Question the worth of culture -- those highly valued natural things, "of intellectual and aesthetic activity" -- to a true christian (and if it is not "good for its own sake or good for man" then, "how are you justified in spending so much of your life on it?"). While I won't get into the mechanics of his foray into answering this question, one thing that came into my mind when I asked myself the same question was the later part of the 13th Article of Faith "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." I think any activity, intellectual, aesthetic, or otherwise must be judge on an individual basis. Does it encourage virtue? Does it exemplify loveliness? Is it worthy of praise for the value it gains in promoting charity or glorifying God? The degrees may change, but if something is can be said to be GOOD, i.e. of God or (according to the dictionary) approved by the standards of the principles of the gospel and possessing/displaying moral virtue (and not merely giving pleasure for the sake of pleasure or advantage in worldly respects) then I think you can begin to make your own determination as to the time you allot to it.

Going back to the quote above from Elder Maxwell, the simplest answer is if what I am doing is not aiding me in my preparation to be a part of the world to come...then it is "maladapting" me. And I really don't have time to waste on it...I need all the preparation I can get!

we are not dots - we are lines

So I've been reading The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner and beyond the fact that is devastatingly poignant and well written, it has also opened my mind up to a new idea: That to know someone isn't just to know about him -- but to know about everyone who has come before him and led up to his being. I'll let Stegner explain: ...The understanding of any person is an exercise in genealogy. A man is not a static organism to be taken apart and analyzed and classified. A man is movement, motion, a continuum. There is no beginning to him. He runs through his ancestors…

I am as much the choices of my mother, father, grandmother, great-gradfather, etc. as I am the choices I have made. Everything they did led to my being were I am today. In Nature/Nurture terms, my nurture (environment/context of my life) was determined by them -- where I happened to be born and when, etc. -- as well as my biological make-up and the blessings and challenges that come with it. That IS genetics. And things within me, from them, are released: The process of growing older is perhaps a simple process of breaking down cell walls, releasing things that have for a while been bound up in the firmness of young muscle. 

Like the tendency towards heart disease, stubbornness, even strong faith in God... It is handed down and ...how far back beyond one ought to go, and how infinitely much one could fill in to the bare outline of two generations! 

To know myself I HAVE to know them... I think this is why I never regret the time spent listening to stories of ancestors, reading family histories, trying to understand my family.

To know what Harry Mason is, as of JAnuary 1931, I should have to know every thought, accident, rebuff, humiliation, triumph, emotion, that ever happened to him and all his ancestors, and beyond that I should have to with him against a set of standards to which I was willing to subscribe. That would be understanding but that kind of understanding can only happen instantaneously in the mind of God.

I can never know everything -- but I can know a lot. And I can be grateful for it.

the constitution

"Some of the things said by various persons in recent public discourse
cause me to urge that we be more careful in the way we throw around the
idea that something is unconstitutional. A constitution should not be
used as a weapon to end debate." - Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Inquire of the Lord

This an excerpt from a speech Harold Glen Clark gave to a group of BYU students at a devotional. (I recommend reading the whole thing.) I've underlined/bolded the bits that caught my attention.

Inquire of the Lord

Just one word to the hundreds who, in their secret hearts, have come here to find someone with whom they can share companionship and a love which will last forever. Let me tell you that you too must do your homework. So many storm the Lord to get him on their side, with all his blueprints. This is a poor start, especially when we've never "studied it out first in our own minds," to quote the Lord's word to Oliver Cowdery. Let not that person think that he should receive anything from the Lord, for the Lord will leave him alone with his problems. He is not teachable by the Lord or anyone else, and he will be driven by the wind and tossed while waiting in vain for the Lord to give him a picture of the girl he's to marry. One of our great prophets, Jacob, said:

Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works. [Jacob 4:10]

When we have lived the commandments, when we have learned to know and follow his will, and the person we want to marry does the same thing, we will both be drawn together in the Lord because we have much to share with our Father and with each other. We put ourselves beyond serious doubts and fears and foolish errors. Our whole bodies will be filled with light when our eyes are single to the mind and will of our Father in heaven, and we will comprehend all we need to know to make a good choice, and our companion will also (D&C 88:67). Why is this so? It is because our affections are based on eternal principles. When are two Latter-day Saint people in love worthy of each other? When can a couple be truly sealed for time and all eternity in the temple? It is when they love their Father in heaven enough to say, "Father, we have thought through our marriage, we have our own ideas, but we know that you ordained marriage, you made us male and female, you told us to leave father and mother and twain be one, and we want to be guided by you. We want to know, for we love you. We want to keep and make, make and keep sacred promises with you in your house, and in your own way."

Is it possible to love any woman, or any man, any more than we, or they, can love God, covenant with him, and follow his will? The answer is no. That's why marriage in the temple has so much potential for those who come here with an eye single to his glory. The successful temple marriage begins when two people want God's blessings in the way he has ordained. Then our Father in heaven can promise these two everything that he has and deliver it. He knows that with this spirit the couple will say more than just "Lord, Lord." They will wait to back it up by being worthy of all the requirements found on the temple recommend. Eternal love, as Erich Fromm says, is more than a feeling, for feelings come and go. How can we be sure on this basis alone that love will last forever? You can be sure only when feelings are supported by a judgment, a decision, a meaningful promise before God. Everything in our lives falls into place when we continually ask and answer the questions "What does my Father in heaven want me to do?" And "What did I do today to fulfill his will?"

In the scriptures, in the quiet of our study, in a clean body and mind, and in the busy and anxious bustle of good causes in our priesthood and Church and civic and home duties, God answers our inquiry. But until we find him and his will, and until he finds us and our will, we begin, as H.G. Wells says, "at no beginning and work to no end," and nothing in the universe or in our lives will fall into place.


{So, we must first learn ourselves to follow the will of the Lord --- but we must also find/wait for our companion to do the same. I will know the right choice to make when I comprehend God's will -- and my companion must know it by the same means and we will thereby have a relationship and love based on eternal principles rather than just feelings. We will be able to make commitments centered in our promises to God (not just to each other). We will do it His way and thereby receive the best possible outcome: His blessings. Nothing will fall into place -- and all of our work will inevitably be fruitless unless we do this. So we MUST inquire of the Lord and do His will.}