General Conference Odyssey

“Unto One of the Least of These”

by

This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

In Michael Shermer’s book The Moral Arc, he has a section in which he discusses restorative justice vs. retributive justice. Retributive justice is a “theory of justice that considers proportionate punishment to be the most effective means of deterring crime…” Restorative (or reparative) justice is a theory in which the “perpetrator…apologizes for the crime; attempts to set to rights the situation; and, ideally, initiates or restores good relations with the victim” (pg. 371). The notion of rehabilitation over punishment is gaining momentum among prison reform movements. One example is the Insight Prison Project, a program that “aims to help incarcerated men learn new emotional skills and correct problem behaviors in order to succeed in and out of prison. IPP offers a multipronged approach to personal transformation, including classes in violence prevention, yoga, and mindfulness. It also brings victims and survivors together with inmates, so that the men can be exposed to the human impact of the types of crimes they’ve committed. VOEG group circleThe process doesn’t just help the inmates to grow. It can also help the survivors.” Prisoners go through “an intensive, yearlong program designed to help them open up, learn to trust each other, and take greater responsibility for the harm they’ve caused. They explored how crime impacts everyone—not just the direct victims, but the victims’ spouses, children, parents, and communities—while developing empathy for victims through directed exercises. They also learned about the effects of childhood trauma and abuse and how these experiences may have impacted their personal psychology, all the while developing skills like emotional regulation and anger/stress management.” In 1997, “the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Department ordered Wash­ington into a jail program called RSVP: Resolve to Stop the Violence Project. In his first week there he met a former skinhead, Aaron Mosco­vitz, who had already undergone a dramatic transformation through the program. Moscovitz went from perpetrating violent hate crimes to becoming a public speaker against violence. If the program could take violent racists like Moscovitz and return them to society reformed and peaceful, Washington was curi­ous about what the program could do for him.” The exciting part is that this kind of approach actually works: a 2013 meta-analysis found that restorative justice programs were more cost-effective, led to a decrease in post-release recidivism, and greater victim satisfaction.

I think restorative justice is an excellent way to describe Victor Brown’s talk in the October 1971 Conference. He begins,

In June of this year I was invited to attend a graduation exercise conducted by the LDS Institute of Religion and Church Social Services Department held at the Utah State Prison. Seventeen men received certificates of award: nine received their first-year certificates, five their second-year, and three their third. Twenty-four others had participated in religion classes but did not quite qualify for certificates.

As I recall, only two had been released from prison and had returned that evening to receive their certificates. All of the others were inmates. Many of them were not members of the Church.

One would hardly expect in the environment of the prison to hear the beautiful, stirring hymns “I Need Thee Every Hour” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” They were sung by two choruses composed of white and black prisoners.

Men dressed in prison uniforms offered humble, sincere prayers to God, expressing gratitude for their blessings and for the knowledge they now have of his gospel. Several stood at the pulpit and testified that they know God lives, and expressed gratitude for his goodness to them. May I tell you of just two of these men—men whose lives were seriously out of step with society; men with internal, personal problems that really are not much different from those of many who have never been in prison.

One prisoner Brown describes gave up coffee and smoking, “became involved in the various religious programs sponsored by the Church social service agency,” and felt loved “as a son” by his home teachers, “something he had never experienced in his life, even as a little boy.” And this was only “[a]fter a few weeks of exposure to the program of the Church specially designed for prison life…” Another inmate “had some particularly wonderful home teachers who occasionally brought their own children to the prison to have family home evening with him. The children consider Ed as an older brother.” Following his release, he was invited to speak at the program’s graduation service. He held up a piece of paper for the audience to see and said, “You probably can’t read this, but this is the most important document in my life. This is my baptismal recommend that will permit me to be baptized next Thursday.” He was baptized. “After his confirmation, he walked over to a corner of the room where he could be alone and wept. He wept even more when he was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood.”

Brown explains,

Certainly these young men were faced with serious problems. Yes, they had lost their physical freedom by being confined in jail, but this was not the basic problem. Even more serious was the lack of purpose in their lives. They had no place to go. They were lost. Life had no meaning. They had no idea why they were here on earth or where they were going.

Release from the prison would not begin to solve their most urgent problems; and yet, in the environment of prison, they found the release that could ultimately make them truly free men. They found their Savior, Jesus Christ, and his gospel.

And this gospel was brought to them by others. May we seek to be more Christian not only to those whom we think deserve it, but to those who may actually need it more:

I was in prison, and ye came unto me…Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matt. 25:36, 40).

Other Noteworthy Quotes & Insights:

LeGrand Richards:

“When the foundation [of the Salt Lake temple] was being laid, we are told that it was sixteen feet wide, and at one time President Brigham Young came and saw the workmen throwing in chipped granite. He made them take it out and put in those great granite blocks with this explanation: “We are building this temple to stand through the millennium.” Isn’t that a good thought? Each one of us ought to want to build our lives and help our families to build their lives so that we can stand through the millennium.”

A. Theodore Tuttle:

I was tempted to write about Tuttle’s talk and the modern gospel of busyness:

“Note again the admonition [of D&C 121:34-35]: “their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world”—not on the things of the spirit. And they “aspire to the honors of men,” rather than seeking approval of God. Have we sought “so much” for material things while missing, even ignoring, the things of God? The beauty of nature at this or any other season goes unseen and unappreciated. Our lives are ruled by a schedule and appointments while the Christian acts of kindness wait—ofttimes in vain.”

“The trials through which today’s young people are passing—ease and luxury—may be the most severe test of any age.”

“The responsibility rests on the family to solve our social problems. Youth search for security. They search for answers to be found only in a good home. No national or international treaty can bring peace. Not in legislative halls nor judicial courts will our problems be solved. From the hearthstones of the homes will come the answers to our problems. On the principles taught by the Savior, happiness and peace will come to families. In the home youth will receive strength to find happiness.”[ref]This is extremely important, especially when one considers Brown’s talk above.[/ref]

“[A] home where the accumulation of worldly goods has become so important…is a poor place to teach the worth of a human being in terms of love and sacrifice.”[ref]The knock against working mothers in the full quote is, in my view, outdated but forgivable given the overall point.[/ref]

Honesty: A Principle of Salvation

by

This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

I kept thinking of the above research as I was reading through Mark E. Peterson’s October 1971 talk on honesty. What is so troubling about Dan Ariely’s research is the fact that most people are dishonest in small, incremental ways, yet still think of themselves as good, honest people. As Peterson states, “Honesty is a principle of salvation in the kingdom of God. Without it there can be no salvation. Just as no man or woman can be saved without baptism, so no one can be saved without honesty. As we cannot advance in the kingdom of heaven without a resurrection, so we cannot move into celestial realms without honesty. As God condemns immorality, so he denounces hypocrisy, which is one of the worst forms of dishonesty.” The list he provides next is thought-provoking:

  • The lie of the drug peddler that tempts a child to indulge.
  • The lie of the seducer that persuades a girl to surrender her virtue
  • The lie of the shyster that traps his victim in the fraudulent deal.
  • The lie of the tax evader that puts him behind bars.
  • The lie of the student that turns him into a cheat at school.
  • The lie of the child—and too often also of the parent—that creates the generation gap.
  • The lie of the shoddy workman that hides a faulty repair.
  • The lie of a husband or wife that leads to infidelity.
  • The lie of the embezzler that makes him falsify his books.
  • The desire to lie and cheat that turns a mother into a shoplifter.
  • The child who assists her into a potential criminal.
  • The lie on the lips of the neighborhood gossip that brings character assassination to many innocent victims.
  • The dishonest one who seeks to take advantage of or to humiliate or to deliberately injure a fellow human being.
  • It is dishonesty in a householder that persuades him to cheat a little newsboy out of his collections for delivering his newspapers.
  • The lie of a clergyman teaching premarital sex as a type of trial marriage that persuades a girl to lose her virtue.
  • The lie of the hypocrite who berates his wife and belittles his children and is a beast in the home that persuades him to assume a pious role on Sunday and sing in the choir and partake of the sacred emblems of the Lord’s supper.
  • The lie of the infatuated girl who deceives her parents as she enters a life of sin with a boy who would only drag her down.

Honesty is an act of vulnerability, humility, and love. According to Peterson, “Dishonesty is directly related to selfishness, which is its origin and source. Selfishness is at the root of nearly all the disorders that afflict us, and man’s inhumanity to man continues to make countless thousands mourn. If all mankind were honest, we could have heaven here on earth. We would have no need for armies or navies, nor even a policeman in the smallest community, for there would be no crime, no invasion of other people’s rights, no violence of one person against another. There would be no grounds for divorce, nor would we have errant husbands or unfaithful wives. Conflict between children and parents would disappear, and juvenile delinquency would come to an end.” Think about the list above. While there is greed and enmity involved, there is also shame and disconnection. How many cheat in school or work out of fear of not being enough? How many gossip with others in an attempt to create connection, no matter how counterfeit? How many crimes are committed in hopes of gaining acceptance, through status and the like? The sad thing is that dishonesty erodes trust and trust is vital to deep, lasting relationships. This is why no one is saved without honesty because no one is saved in isolation. Dishonesty is a form of betrayal. Psychologist John Gottman, one of the foremost experts on relationships and marriage, has emphasized the importance of trust in relationships. He uses the acronym ATTUNE:

  • Awareness of your partner’s emotion;
  • Turning toward the emotion;
  • Tolerance of two different viewpoints;
  • trying to Understand your partner;
  • Non-defensive responses to your partner;
  • and responding with Empathy.

He shares a personal story to demonstrate what he means:

John Gottman

But how do you build trust? What I’ve found through research is that trust is built in very small moments, which I call “sliding door” moments, after the movie Sliding Doors. In any interaction, there is a possibility of connecting with your partner or turning away from your partner. Let me give you an example of that from my own relationship. One night, I really wanted to finish a mystery novel. I thought I knew who the killer was, but I was anxious to find out. At one point in the night, I put the novel on my bedside and walked into the bathroom.As I passed the mirror, I saw my wife’s face in the reflection, and she looked sad, brushing her hair. There was a sliding door moment. I had a choice. I could sneak out of the bathroom and think, “I don’t want to deal with her sadness tonight, I want to read my novel.” But instead, because I’m a sensitive researcher of relationships, I decided to go into the bathroom. I took the brush from her hair and asked, “What’s the matter, baby?” And she told me why she was sad. Now, at that moment, I was building trust; I was there for her. I was connecting with her rather than choosing to think only about what I wanted. These are the moments, we’ve discovered, that build trust. One such moment is not that important, but if you’re always choosing to turn away, then trust erodes in a relationship—very gradually, very slowly…By contrast, the atom of betrayal is not just turning away—not just turning away from my wife’s sadness in that moment—but doing what Caryl Rusbult called a “CL-ALT,” which stands for “comparison level for alternatives.” What that means is I not only turn away from her sadness, but I think to myself, “I can do better. Who needs this crap? I’m always dealing with her negativity. I can do better.” Once you start thinking that you can do better, then you begin a cascade of not committing to the relationship; of trashing your partner instead of cherishing your partner; of building resentment rather than gratitude; of lowering your investment in the relationship; of not sacrificing for the relationship; and of escalating conflicts.

To ignore his wife’s sadness and avert his eyes would not have been a lack of awareness, but an act of dishonesty. It is within these small moments that we lie the most and thus miss out on the chance for connection. To love and reach out is one of the most vulnerable and honest things you can do. “In the most emphatic and urgent meaning of the word,” write Terryl and Fiona Givens, “love reveals truth. It does not create the impression of truth; love does not merely endow something with a subjective truth–love is the only position or emotional disposition from which we become fully aware of the already present reality of the other person as more than a mere object among other objects in a crowded universe. Love alone reveals the full reality and value of the other person.”[ref]Terryl and Fiona Givens, The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2014), 16-17.[/ref] Peterson notes that Christ “knows that the sinful life is the costly and miserable life, and that wickedness never was happiness. He invites us to bear a lighter burden, one of joy, relief, and deep satisfaction[.]”

And this joy, relief, and satisfaction comes through honest, vulnerable, loving relationships.

—

Here are the rest of the blog posts for the General Conference Odyssey this week.

The Word is Mightier than the Sword

by

Week010 - Mind the Gap - Smaller

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

One scripture has been on my mind more than any other over the last several years. That scripture is Alma 31:5. This takes place just after the story of Korihor (who met his end in Alma 30) and successive Lamanite invasions led by Amalekites (in Alma 25 and 27-28). No sooner have the Nephites survived that war, then then apostate Zoramites threaten to lead the Lamanites into starting a new one. So it is a time period of great uncertainty and danger for the Nephite people, with divisive threats inside their lands and betrayal and invasion lurking on the borders. This would have been a dark, dangerous, and confusing time.

This is how Alma reacts to the impending crisis:

And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.[ref]Alma 31:5[/ref]

The idea that the “preaching of the word” could have such an impact was one of those things I just had to take on faith when I read the Book of Mormon as a young man. To me, it seemed that the arc of history was largely dominated by soldiers and spies, by politicians and inventors. That even seemed to be the message of the Book of Mormon at first, with Captain Moroni’s brilliant strategies and defensive innovations.

The longer I’ve read, however, and the more I’ve lived I realize how superficial that perspective is. All of the things that we usually pay attention to—the wording of laws, the exact structure of government, specific inventions, or individual leaders—none of them matter compared to the sum total of a million individual, every-day decisions by ordinary people. We just don’t like to pay attention to that because it’s almost impossible to measure, quantify, or incorporate into formal models and theories. But in the long run, I believe that’s what really matters. And so the biggest influence on the course of nations and cultures is not found in momentous events, but in the accumulation of the lives of the individuals who make up those nations and societies. And those lives are themselves most heavily influenced by what people believe in. What they want. What they hope for. What they work for. And that is where the “preaching of the word” has such a profound impact.

It’s something to keep in mind as we head into another contentious election season. I am not saying that it doesn’t matter who is president, but I am saying that the character of the voters in the years leading up to an election have a much, much greater impact on the nation than the outcome of any particular vote.

This was all brought to mind in reading Elder Mark E. Peterson’s talk, Honesty, a Principle of Salvation. He begins by making a claim I have never heard before:

Honesty is a principle of salvation in the kingdom of God. Without it there can be no salvation. Just as no man or woman can be saved without baptism, so no one can be saved without honesty.

He then goes on to list all the ways in which dishonesty, that relatively minor offense (at least, that’s how we often think of it relative to murder or rape or even theft) leads to huge cumulative impacts: drug addiction, fornication, fraud, infidelity, theft, all come down to dishonest. Even the generation gap—a frequent topic in these talks—comes from “the light of the child—and too often also the parent.” An individual lie may indeed be a small thing, but in the end, “to resort to dishonest practices is to apostatize from the Christian way of life.”

The most important line in the talk, for me, is one that doesn’t at first seem connected to honesty. Elder Peterson says that “if we are interested in the gospel in the least degree, we should live it wholeheartedly.” Of course there is a connection. What we say we care about should mesh with what we actually care about. What we say and believe with what we do. And this, too, is a kind of honesty, although it often goes by the expression “integrity” as well.

And that is a message that resonates deeply with me. I’ve started two personal blogs in my life, one in 2006 and then this one as a reboot in 2012. In both cases, one of my first blog posts was a recap of that very idea: pursuing integrity—honesty—between what we think we care about and what we actually care about, between what we want to be and what we actually are. Here’s the 2012 version, if you’re curious: Mind the Gaps.

These are small things. An individual lie in a person’s entire life, an individual honest person in a whole society, but the big things—the life, the society—aren’t made of anything else.

—

Here are the rest of the blog posts for the General Conference Odyssey this week.

 

Practicing (Obeying) Virtue (the Commandments)

by

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

In some of my previous posts, I’ve connected the counsel of Church leaders to that of the ancient concept of eudaimonia (flourishing). Lately, I’ve been going through a couple books on the topic of virtue ethics. One of them is philosopher Julia Annas’ Intelligent Virtue, which argues that virtue can be learned as one would a skill. One can continually progress and become more dynamic in their use and application of virtue, just as they can with an acquired skill. This is not unconscious habit, but knowingly applied mastery. Given my interest in developing a theology of work that draws on studies in organizational theory and positive psychology, I was excited to see her compare the state of virtue with the concept of flow.[ref]This lecture by Yale professor Tamar Gendler is a good overview of Annas.[/ref] This virtuous state described by Annas reminded me of Christ’s Beatitudes in Matthew 5. As one pair of biblical scholars explains, “[W]e often interpret [Matt. 5:9] to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “if you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English.” This is because “happy sounds trite…”[ref]E. Randolph Richards, Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 75.[/ref] The Greek makarios conveyed much more than a mere psychological state: “In the wider Greek world that sets the background for biblical use makar- was used of the gods, who were above all the vicissitudes of life, of the dead, who had left it all behind, and of people who were thought to be in a good situation and were deemed to have reason for being happy: wealthy, having family, being wise or famous or an honored citizen, and so on.”[ref]John Nolland, “Blessing and Woe,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, Nicholas Perrin, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 87.[/ref] In essence, one could say that makarios was the divine life. The idea of living the divine life–of flourishing–through the practice of virtue is something that pops up again and again throughout this session.[ref]The word “virtue” isn’t employed, but the notion is there.[/ref]

Richard L. Evans starts it off by explaining that far from needing to be “rewritten,” the commandments need to be “reread.” The reason for this is because “the experience of the ages has proved the need for them, and has proved what happens if they are ignored.” According to Evans, the commandments are for our benefit. “Essentially,” he says, “this is what the gospel is: counsel from a loving Father who says to his children, “You have limitless, everlasting possibilities. You also have your freedom. It’s up to you how you use it. This is what you can become if you take my advice—and this is what will happen if you don’t. The choice is yours.”” Evans declares that “there is a law of compensation that is built into life,” one that echoes the words of Alma: “…the meaning of the word restoration is to bring back again evil for evil, or carnal for carnal, or devilish for devilish—good for that which is good; righteous for that which is righteous; just for that which is just; merciful for that which is merciful” (Alma 41:13). Obedience for the sake of obedience is not inherently virtuous. Embracing and doing “the good” because it is good is what brings about more good. Obeying the commandments is practicing the skill of virtue.

ElRay L. Christiansen continues this trend by noting, “Man’s progress is to a great degree dependent upon his willingness to remain steadfast and immovable, especially when faced with opposition and adversity.” To choose virtue in all situations leads one to become truly virtuous and obtain “that which is most precious and desirable—peace, liberty, and salvation” (italics mine). The lack of virtue leads to “crime and contention” and “crises and violence.” It is likely a similar recognition that led Bernard P. Brockbank to say, “The Lord personally gave commandments that would help mankind to grow and develop his Godlike attributes.” The commandments (specifically the Ten in Brockbank’s talk) are not arbitrary. Rather, they are “a basic part of God’s way of life and a basic part of the gospel of the kingdom.” And what is the foundation for God’s way of life? According to Milton R. Hunter, “The central theme and the most dynamic force of the gospel of Jesus Christ is love.” This is because ” [o]ur Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son both have intense, comprehensive, and full love for us. They have much greater intelligence and understanding than we have, and so their feelings of love go far beyond our capabilities to love. The attribute of love is so highly developed in these divine Beings that the scriptures state: “God is love.” (1 John 4:16.) In fact, Deity’s transcendent love is above and beyond our deepest feelings and keenest conception. At times of great spiritual experience when we feel an abundance of the Spirit, we have a greater realization of the magnitude of God’s love.” Quoting President David O. McKay, he states, “Homes are made permanent through love.” (Pathways to Happiness [Bookcraft], p. 114.)” This is because “[l]ove should also characterize the center of the family life. Each child should be made to feel at all times by his parents that he is of great importance in the family. Parents should express their love to their children and show them in numerous ways that they love them dearly. Then the Spirit of the Lord will reside in the home. The family will be love-centered and thereby God-centered. The children in turn will reciprocate the love to the parents and strive to please them.” As I pointed out in a previous post, “Family life is the context in which the good life is found.”

Finally, S. Dilworth Young gives us an idea of the spill-over effect of this virtuous living:

The revelations given to Joseph Smith on this subject are numerous and were among the early ones. To care for the poor is one of the first and early obligations. To help the needy and those who mourn follows close behind. All of us have some time, but those who are not given great responsibility in the organizations have more time to seek out the poor, needy, and helpless. And this help is badly needed. All about us are those in need of encouragement, assistance, and help—help of a kind we can all give, not money, but time and attention and personal encouragement, especially to those who must bear great responsibility for loved ones and who cannot pass it to others for the simple reason there are no others to whom to pass it.

He continues, “There are many lonely people, people whose loneliness is hidden. We need to seek them out and relieve them. There are those who feel they are not accepted, who need to be built up in spirit and helped to find themselves.” We flourish as we establish connections with each other, building quality relationships. The commandments are pro-social in nature. They are meant to build Zion, to establish families, and make us of “one heart and one mind” (Moses 7:18).

Let’s start with practicing them.[ref]I left out a couple talks. Hartman Rector, Jr.’s wasn’t bad. It was on sacrifice, but I didn’t have much to say about it. Howard W. Hunter’s talk seemed to reduce the doctrine of redemption for the dead to rituals for the sake of rituals. Because reasons.[/ref]

—

The other posts from this week’s installment of the General Conference Odyssey are:

 

 

This Is What the Gospel Is

by
One of my favorite depictions of a loving Heavenly Father, by Cima da Conegliano.
One of my favorite depictions of a loving Heavenly Father, by Cima da Conegliano.

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

This week we’re covering the Friday afternoon session of the October 1971 General Conference, and there is one talk that stood out to me: Should the Commandments Be Rewritten? by Elder Richard L. Evans.[ref]Spoiler alert: the answer is no.[/ref]

The title of the talk is stern, and the opening paragraph is blunt:

Perhaps I could begin with an interesting question posed recently and an equally interesting answer. The question was, “Don’t you think the commandments should be rewritten?” The answer was, “No, they should be reread.”

It’s easy and it’s tempting to write off a talk that opens like this as a fossil of an older, more black-and-white time. Just obey. Stop thinking. Right?

Well, no. Absolutely not. What this talk conveys–and what is probably the number 1 lesson for me in going through General Conference talks written before I was born–is that they reward the person who comes with an attitude of humility and a thirst to learn. Not only that, but they quickly, consistently, and emphatically confound the stereotypes. Consider Elder Evan’s words from just a couple of paragraphs further into the talk:

Some things the commandments say thou shalt not do, and if that is what they say, that’s what they mean, and there’s a reason for it.

This paragraph starts out on a straight railroad track headed directly to Divine Command Theory Central. Divine command theory is “a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action’s status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God.”[ref]Wikipedia[/ref] In simpler terms: DCT is the idea that if we ask God, “But why?” he will respond with just “Because I said so.” And that’s all there is to it.

Because Elder Evans’ talk has a stern tone, you might think that this is where he’s headed. But at the last moment, Elder Evans suddenly veers off in a completely different direction. We aren’t supposed to keep the commandments just because God says so. No, “there’s a reason for [them].” Just a couple of paragraphs later, he elaborates:

Essentially this is what the gospel is: counsel from a loving Father who says to his children, “You have limitless, everlasting possibilities. You also have your freedom. It’s up to you how you use it. This is what you can become if you take my advice—and this is what will happen if you don’t. The choice is yours.”

Now, let me make a quick digression. The quote from LDS.org actually says “a living Father” instead of “a loving Father.” I was pretty sure that was wrong. “Loving” makes a lot more sense than “living.” So I cued up the video and watched. First of all: I was right. Elder Evans is talking about a loving father. Secondly: hearing him read the talk was also incredibly eye opening for me.

We all know, as denizens of the Internet, that tone is hard to convey in text. We’ve all had experiences where we got into trouble because we tried to make a joke online and it was taken the wrong way, or because someone said something that seemed rude or unkind to us, only to realize later that they had been trying to be playful. The same thing is going on here. I can’t help but think of Nephi writing,

I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.[ref]2 Nephi 33:1[/ref]

Nephi understood the difference between the spoken word and the written word, and he well understood the limitations of writing. One of those limitations is tone.

If I’d been listening to Elder Evans’ talk all along–instead of just reading the text–I would have realized much sooner that his dogged emphasis on obedience was not born of an authoritarian disposition but out of a sense of urgent concern. In this sense, Elder Evans is modeling our Father. In that case, too, commands are not about bossing underlings around. They are about beseeching wayward, recalcitrant, stubborn, and (quite frankly) bumbling and incompetent children to be careful.

As I continue to read these talks, I am humbled again and again to find that a lot of the things that I have grumbled about in the past “Why aren’t the General Authorities more clear about X?” or “Why don’t they just come out and say Y?” are actually there, plain as day, in  talks that I could have easily read any time. It is, quite frankly, a little humiliating. In a good way.

The first is the clear dismissal of DCT in favor of moral realism. Here’s another one, from this talk: sometimes I’m frustrated that the General Authorities aren’t more clear about the need for members to be autonomous and independent in our obedience. To figure things out on our own. To stop depending so much on the leaders. And yet here is Elder Evans:

The Lord expects us to use wisdom and common sense and not quibble about what obviously isn’t good for the body or mind or spirit or morals of man.

Also, this is a talk where Elder Evans quotes from Emerson, Cromwell, and Ruskin. Clearly, when Elder Evans said, “I have a great respect for scholarship, for education and research, for academic excellence, and for the magnificent accomplishments of sincere and searching men,” he meant it. He knew what he was talking about. And so clearly, when he followed that up with, “But I also have great respect for the word of God, and his prophets, and life’s purpose; and it comes to a question of where to place our trust,” I should pay attention.

So that’s my experience with the General Conference Odyssey thus far in a nutshell: I’m embarrassed that I didn’t start reading these much earlier, and incredibly grateful that I finally have the opportunity to do so now. I won’t have time, unfortunately, to watch the videos for all the talks. I read much, much faster than the talks are given. But, in addition to learning that I have a tendency to misread the tone, this also makes me more grateful that in just a couple of months I’ll be able to listen to the talks live.

Yes, that’s right. It’s January, and I’m actively looking forward to General Conference. And not just because I get to stay home. No, I’m actually impatient to have a chance to listen to the talks. That’s a really, really big shift in my approach. I’m honestly kind of shocked at how much of a change this project has already had on me, and I’m as excited as ever to see what the next decade brings.

Now, here are some other quotes from some of the rest of the talks given during this session.

The Ten Commandments (Elder Bernard P. Brockbank)

“Respect for father and mother is respect for your own birth and life.”

“By Love, Serve One Another” (Elder S. Dilworth Young)

“There are many lonely people, people whose loneliness is hidden. We need to seek them out and relieve them.”

The reason this struck me so forcefully is that it reminds me of some of the most important research I’ve ever learned about: Adverse Childhood Experiences. Read this article to see more about that topic, and how true it is that there are so many people–friends and neighbors–laboring under the burdens of invisible tragedy. This whole talk was a really beautiful sermon on service.

The Vitality of Love (Elder Milton R. Hunter)

“Each child should be made to feel at all times by his parents that he is of great importance in the family.”

Definitely something for me to keep in mind in my own home. My children are in sort of the childhood sweet-spot. They’re old enough to be mostly self-sufficient, but they are still young enough to hold my hand now and then in public. It’s a treacherous time, however, because now that they don’t literally require supervision, it’s tempting to turn away too often. And I know if I do that that, in the blink of an eye, the window of opportunity will be gone and they will be teenage strangers living in my house. And so I appreciate–deeply and truly–every single reminder I get to focus my energies consciously and deliberately on being a more present parent. It’s not just a duty to be there for my kids. It’s one of life’s greatest blessings.

Which, if you think of it, is a great model for all commandments. They’re not really obligations. They’re stepping-stone to peace, happiness, love, and safety.

—

Here are the rest of the blog posts in this iteration of the General Conference Odyssey.

 

 

It’s Dangerous to Go Alone

by

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

This week I’m going to start out with pop culture and Dietrich von Hildebrand before bringing it home to Elder Eldred G. Smith’s talk from the Friday morning session of the October 1971 General Conference: Decisions.

The crux of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s The Heart: An Analysis of Human and Divine Affectivity is that Western philosophy has been wrong to ignore the heart (“the affective sphere” or, in simple terms, our emotional nature) in favor of its obsession with rationality and will. His argument is complex and covers a lot of ground, but here is perhaps the one quote that has stayed with me the most since finishing the book:

If a man were impelled by a Kantian duty ideal to help suffering people by efficient actions of all kinds, but did so with a cool and indifferent heart and without feeling the slightest compassion, he certainly would miss an important moral and human element. It may even be that the gift bestowed on a suffering person by a true and sincere compassion and by the warmth of love cannot be replaced by any benefit we can bestow on him by our actions if these are done without love.

Serving is not enough. Your heart has to be in it.

I believe this is true, but in a way it also confounds our beliefs about obedience. The trick is that we can force our actions to conform to standards, but we cannot directly force our heart to feel a particular way. Anyone can give 10% of their income to tithing, if you just exercise the will power to do it. But how do you make yourself love your neighbor? How do you make yourself love God?

Of course there are good, practical tips for fostering and protecting feelings of love (often discussed in self-help books for marriage or family relationships), but we can’t avoid the fact that our control over our heart is indirect. And, at first, there’s an odd contradiction here between Nephi’s “I will go and do” attitude toward obedience (which is very much centered on action) and the actual greatest commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor involve action, of course, but they are also focused on emotion. So, how do we “go and do” something that relies on our heart feeling a particular way?

We can’t. Not alone, anyway.

This has been a really profound realization for me, and I had it on my mind already as I read Elder Smith’s talk where he said, for example, “the Lord will not permit Satan to try us beyond our ability to resist or withstand his efforts, if we will accept his help.”[ref]Emphasis added.[/ref] That’s a really important qualification, and for me it’s new.

In a sense, of course, the information has always been there. Nephi’s famous “go and do” speech[ref]1 Nephi 3:7[/ref] includes the statement that he knows God will provide a way for us to accomplish the commandments we’re asked to perform, but somehow I’ve always had the idea that this means there is a way—a road or a path—but that we’ve got to walk it on our own. That’s not actually what Nephi said. That’s just how I’ve always heard it.

But going it alone is never a part of the hero’s journey. I’m reminded of the classic 1986 Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda. The hero, Link, gets his first weapon from an elderly man who tells him, “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.”

Dangerous to Go Alone - Original

Another example would be Harry Potter’s confrontation with Serpent of Slytherin in the Chamber of Secrets. Prior to the battle, Dumbledore told Harry, “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.” During the battle, the Sorting Hat appears and gives Harry the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, with which he is able to defeat the basilisk.

You might think it’s a little silly for me to quote children’s books or 1980s video games alongside Catholic theologians all to make a point from a General Conference talk. And I’ll admit, part of it is in fun. But I also strongly believe that there are so many sources of light for us in this world, if we only know where to look for them. In a way, that’s one of the things that reading the General Conference talks helps me to do: calibrate my relation to the Spirit so that I can find sources of inspiration all around me.

And I need that constant reminder. Because, returning to Elder Smith’s talk, “The Lord has made no promise to those who try to go it alone. As soon as you think you can lick the devil alone, on your own, without the Lord’s help, you have lost the battle before you start.”

That exact quote has come back to my mind again and again: “The Lord has made no promise to those who try to go it alone.” I had another chance to feel the bite of that mistake on Sunday. I am a Gospel Doctrine teacher, and I love this calling. There is no calling I would rather have ever, and I try very, very hard to do a good job of bringing the Spirit into my lessons and teach what the Lords would have me teachr.

But I don’t always succeed.

There are basically two variables in how a lesson goes, at least from my perspective. The first is how much I prepare. The second is how I feel as I go into the lesson.

On Saturday, I spent four or five hours working on my lesson, which is longer than the 1-2 hours that I usually spend. I was really pleased with my research and my outline. I felt confident that I had it covered. And when I went in and taught my lesson… it didn’t go very well. Not as well as I’d hoped, anyway. I frequently felt lost as I was teaching, struggling to remember where I’d placed a quote in my notes or unsure about which way to take the lesson when there was not enough time to do everything.

The problem was I thought I could go it alone. I thought I had this one. And so I didn’t rely on the Lord as much as I ought to have.

The sad thing is how many times I’ve had to relearn this lesson. I’ve been teaching for 3-4 years now, and the pattern is always the same. I have to work hard to prepare the lesson and I have to rely on the Lord. In practice, this means I have to be a little bit scared going into it. Hopefully I’ll grow out of that and be able to rely on the Lord with confidence instead of out of nervousness, but the point is: I need to realize that I need help. And then it’s there. As Elder Smith said, “When you desire to do what the Lord wants you to do because he wants you to, then ask him for help; then keeping these laws and commandments becomes easy.”

Here are some quotes from the other talks that I also liked:

The Purpose of Life: To Be Proved by Elder Franklin D. Richards

“Although it is not customary for one to seek out the difficult or unpleasant experiences, it is true that the trials and tribulations of life that stand in the way of man’s growth and development become stepping-stones by which he climbs to greater heights, providing, of course, that he does not permit them to discourage him.”

“A temple, first of all, is a place of prayer; and prayer is communion with God. It is the ‘infinite in man seeking the infinite in God.’ Where they find each other, there is holy sanctuary—a temple.”

“I Know That My Redeemer Liveth” by President John Fielding Smith

“The supreme act of worship is to keep the commandments, to follow in the footsteps of the Son of God, to do ever those things that please him.”

The Only True and Living Church by President Boyd K. Packer

“Some members of the Church who should know better pick out a hobby [piano] key or two and tap them incessantly, to the irritation of those around them. They can dull their own spiritual sensitivities. They lose track that there is a fullness of the gospel and become as individuals, like many churches have become. They may reject the fullness in preference to a favorite note. This becomes exaggerated and distorted, leading them away into apostasy.”

A Time of Testing by Henry D. Taylor

“We will all have our Gethsemane.”

“This Is My Beloved Son” by Loren C. Dunn

“Although the amount of time we spend is important, probably the more important thing is the ability to build our children into our lives.”

Satan’s Thrust—Youth by President Ezra Taft Benon

“The critical and complaining adult will be less effective than the interested and understanding… We must love our young people, whether they are in righteousness or in error.”

—

Here are some of the other talks from this weeks’ iteration of the General Conference Odyssey. Not all the links were ready when this post was finished, however, so check out the constantly updated index for a complete list. You can also follow along by joining the Facebook Group.

“A Little Bit of Heaven on Earth”

by

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

Last year, I made a joke at work about beginning an official book club for the linehaul department at our terminal. About a week later, one of my co-workers was texting all of us a list of books to choose from. We ended up choosing journalist and linguist Christine Kenneally’s The Invisible History of the Human Race, which covered the very Mormon subject of genealogy. The book demonstrates the power of family history–both in regards to genetics and culture–in shaping our personal lives.[ref]There is a good review and summary of the book in The New York Times.[/ref] Research continues to find that the experiences of individuals can be passed along genetically, including major trauma. Findings like this give new meaning to the common LDS/biblical phrase “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” (Mal. 4:6).[ref] Sam Brown explains, “The priesthood power that Elijah brought to the Latter-day Saints was inextricably linked to covenant theology in several distinctive exegeses of Malachi’s prophecy that the immortal prophet Elijah would “turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children.” In an 1844 sermon, Smith returned to the translation of the book of Malachi–a book he had termed “correct” in the KJV at the conclusion of his New Translation in 1833. “Turn,” he announced, was better rendered “bind or seal,” absorbing the KJV’s rendition of Malachi into Mormon covenant theology. An obscure word in the Authorized Bible found new life in the Mormon temple. In this sealing stood the maturation of the covenants and seals of the first years of the church’s existence. In 1843, Smith taught that Elijah “shall reveal the covenants of the fathers in relation to the children..–and the children and the covenants of the children in relations to the fathers.” Elijah established such covenants that believers “may have the priviledge of entering into the same in order to effect their mutual salvation”” (In Heaven As It Is On Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death, 166).[/ref] The idea of creating “a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children” is an at-one-ment of generations. It is intergenerational healing and forgiveness:

For we without [our dead] cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times (D&C 128:18).

Through the sealing keys and covenants, we are integrated into a cosmological family, stretching from pre-mortality to the Adamic origins of the human race to worlds without end. Being “made perfect” through this integration is to become whole: to have an eternal sense of belonging and identity.[ref]One study finds that children benefit from knowing more about their ancestors, leading to a greater sense of identity and well-being.[/ref] Salvation and divinity is found in family.

I was reminded of this during Loren C. Dunn’s talk, in which he states that the “special ties between parents and children…tend to make the family organization a little bit of heaven on earth.” He goes on:

I am impressed by the fact that the plan of redemption and salvation for all mankind was worked out between a father and his son, even God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. I believe that one of the significant parts of the Joseph Smith story was when the angel Moroni told young Joseph to go to his father and relate to him everything that had happened. Even in the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Lord was careful to recognize the relationship of this young boy to his father, and he made sure that nothing would damage it. Yes, the association of a father with his children can and should be a very special one.

Author and historian Dan Vogel has used Joseph Smith’s family dynamics as an interpretive lens to Smith’s prophetic career.[ref]See his Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004). While Vogel is a secular critic of Mormon origins, I think his analysis provides valuable insights for believers as well.[/ref] Whether resolving conflict within his own family or mending the fractured nature of human history,[ref]See Philip L. Barlow, “To Mend a Fractured Reality: Joseph Smith’s Project,” Journal of Mormon History 38:3 (Summer 2012): 28-50.[/ref] Joseph Smith’s project was all about family. Dunn’s reminder that the architects behind the Plan of Salvation were family members is a subtle, but profound insight into what Joseph Smith called “the grand fundamental principle of Mormonism“: friendship. Or, perhaps more appropriate, kinship. “Love,” taught Joseph Smith, “is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and ought to be manifested by those who aspire to be the sons of God. A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.”

If you can’t tell, I wasn’t all that impressed with this session. However, I thought Franklin D. Richards provided some food for thought when he said, “The story of most men and women who attain a degree of greatness and achievement is generally the story of a person overcoming handicaps. It appears that there are lessons that can only be learned through the overcoming of obstacles.” What hit me the hardest, though, was his point about sacred truths that emerge from suffering: “One of the great truths that came from the so-called prison temple, Liberty Jail, had to do with priesthood and Church government.”

I had to really dig for some good stuff this session. I’m hoping the next one is better.[ref]You’ll notice that I didn’t mention most of the talks. A quick rundown as to why: Joseph Fielding Smith’s talk was a nice testimony. Nothing more. I don’t have much to say about it one way or the other. Boyd K. Packer’s was Mormon triumphalism at its finest. Henry D. Taylor’s was a pretty poor handling of the problem of evil. Eldred G. Smith’s wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great. Unmemorable and largely unquotable. Ezra Taft Benson’s reminded me of the parents who think that AC/DC stands for Anti-Christ/Devil Child or KISS stands for Knights in Satan’s Service. It was extreme to the point of parody.[/ref]

—

Here are some of the other talks from this weeks’ iteration of the General Conference Odyssey. Not all the links were ready when this post was finished, however, so check out the constantly updated index for a complete list. You can also follow along by joining the Facebook Group.

The Path Out of Shadows

by

We’ve reached our first major milestone in the General Conference Odyssey: we’re wrapping up our first conference. Today we’re covering the Tuesday afternoon session of the April 1971 General Conference. Next week, we’ll be covering the Friday morning session of the October 1971 General Conference. One down, a whole bunch more to go!

The talk that struck me the most from this session was Elder William H. Bennett’s Help Needed in the Shaded Areas, which echoed one of my favorite themes: intellectual humility:

As individuals, we have some limitations when it comes to our understanding of things as they really are. We can see so far, and then the earth and the sky come together, so to speak, and we cannot see beyond.

And then again later:

It is important that we remember also that no matter how intelligent we may be, no matter how hard we work, no matter how good our teachers are or how favorable the other conditions for learning, in our allotted span of years on earth we can master only a very small fraction of the total field of knowledge; and what we do master usually is in a narrowed-down, specialized area. Consequently, we, in and of ourselves, have limitations.

This reminds me a lot of some of the things that Marcelo Gleiser had to say in his recent book The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning. For example: “Because of the very nature of human inquiry every age has its unknowables.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, as an atheist I’m sure Gleiser would not agree to the principles that Bennett is teaching. But that doesn’t mean that the connections are purely spurious, either. Consider another quote from Gleiser:

Both the scientist and the faithful believe in unexplained causation, that is, in things happening for unknown reasons, even if the nature of the cause is completely different for each. In the sciences, this belief is most obvious when there is an attempt to extrapolate a theory or model beyond its tested limits, as in “gravity works the same way across the entire Universe,” or “the theory of evolution by natural selection applies to all forms of life, including extraterrestrial ones.” These extrapolations are crucial to advance knowledge into unexplored territory. The scientist feels justified in doing so, given the accumulated power of her theories to explain so much of the world. We can even say, with slight impropriety, that her faith is empirically validated.

The separation between religion and science is not as stark as many would like us to believe in these days when (again, citing Marcelo), “scientific speculation and arrogance are rampant.” Religion and science are not enemies. They are, fundamentally, siblings. They are two branches of mankind’s pursuit of knowledge that branched off when new tools—from mathematics to telescopes—allowed the study of quantifiable, physical phenomena to become a community project in a way that religion, because of it’s internal, personal nature, can never be.

So there are definitely differences, but there are also commonalities, and it makes sense to talk about “faith” in both religious and scientific contexts. The scientific “faith” that Marcelo talks about is the willingness to extrapolate beyond empirical evidence in the pursuit of intuition. Two of Marcelo’s biggest examples are Newton and Einstein who followed their instincts beyond empirical boundaries:

As Newton had done with his universal theory of gravitation, Einstein extrapolated his new theory of gravity from the solar system—where it was tested—to the Universe, confident that the same physical principles applied everywhere.

As Marcelo pointed out in the previous quote, however, the scientist must then validate her intuitions. Which is essentially the same model that Alma famously presented: even if you can’t muster anything more than a desire to believe: start there. Then experiment. See what happens.

Intellectual humility, the understanding that our knowledge is limited, is the first step to the path towards greater knowledge. Marcelo wrote, “We strive toward knowledge, always more knowledge, but must understand that we are, and will remain, surrounded by mystery.” But, as Elder Bennett said, “we need not walk alone.”

There was one other comment that I wanted to share as well. It came from the session’s closing remarks by President Joseph Fielding Smith: A Witness and a Blessing.

There are good and devout people among all sects, parties, and denominations, and they will be blessed and rewarded for all the good they do. But the fact remains that we alone have the fullness of those laws and ordinances which prepare men for the fullness of reward in the mansions above. And so we say to the good and noble, the upright and devout people everywhere: Keep all the good you have; cleave unto every true principle which is now yours; but come and partake of the further light and knowledge which that God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever is again pouring out upon his people.

The idea that being a Mormon consists in finding truth wherever it may be is famously associated with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, who often spoke about truth in expansive and inclusive ways. But clearly this vein of our faith didn’t end there. It was still alive and well in the 1970s just as it is today. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have something unique and precious to offer the world, and it’s our duty to share it. But we do not have a monopoly on truth.

Here are the other posts in this week’s installment of the General Conference Odyssey:

You Have Entered the Twilight Zone

by

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

In his book Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership, author and historian John Dickson argues that humility (Greek tapeinos; Latin humilitas) was not a virtue in the Greco-Roman world. In this ancient honor/shame society, humility was most certainly associated with the latter. Humility before the gods or emperors was appropriate, largely because they held the power to end your life. Humility before an equal or a lesser, however, was seen as immoral or unjust. The world order was understood to be rational, with people in their present statuses because they (for lack of a better phrase) deserved it. Yet, Jewish tradition focused on the downtrodden and the humiliated; a tradition borne out of exile and defeat. In the case of Jesus, God Incarnate was placed at the lowest, most shameful place in the ancient world. And from that low point, he revolutionized the moral fabric of Western civilization.

BYU professor Bradley P. Owens has conducted some of the most in-depth studies on humility and its impact on organizational outcomes.[ref]I’ve written on this in more detail at Worlds Without End.[/ref] Owens and colleagues developed a model they call “expressed humility” by focusing their attention “on the expressed behaviors that demonstrate humility and how the behaviors are perceived by others.”[ref]Owens, Michael D. Johnson, Terence R. Mitchell, “Expressed Humility in Organizations: Implications for Performance, Teams, and Leadership,” Organization Science 24:5 (2013): 1517.[/ref] They define “expressed humility” as “an interpersonal characteristic that emerges in social contexts that connotes (a) a manifested willingness to view oneself accurately, (b) a displayed appreciation of others’ strengths and contributions, and (c) teachability.”[ref]Ibid.: 1518.[/ref] A significant finding in Owens’ study was that “expressed humility has a compensatory effect on performance for those with lower general mental ability. In other words, though expressed humility had a relatively small positive impact on performance for those with high general mental ability, expressed humility made a considerable difference in performance for those with low general mental ability.” In fact, “[c]ompared with self-efficacy, conscientiousness, and general mental ability, expressed humility was the strongest predictor of individual performance improvement…”[ref]Ibid.: 1527.[/ref] Humility is the key to growth and development.

I was reminded of all this when William H. Bennett declared in the Tuesday afternoon session,

It is important that we remember also that no matter how intelligent we may be, no matter how hard we work, no matter how good our teachers are or how favorable the other conditions for learning, in our allotted span of years on earth we can master only a very small fraction of the total field of knowledge; and what we do master usually is in a narrowed-down, specialized area. Consequently, we, in and of ourselves, have limitations. Our thinking is often highly selective and segmented and our judgment is often faulty.

Economist Thomas Sowell has argued that “it is doubtful whether the most knowledgeable person on earth has even one percent of the total knowledge on earth, or even one percent of the consequential knowledge in a given society.”[ref]Intellectuals and Society (New York: Basic Books, 2009), Kindle edition, 14-15.[/ref] This realization is likely one of many reasons Nathaniel has written extensively on epistemic humility and its relationship to faith. And it seems that Bennett is addressing this very same concept. He stresses the need “to get at the facts and at the causes and to see relationships among them clearly,” so that “we are in a good position to interpret correctly and to arrive at sound conclusions.” The more “we just fool around with opinions and symptoms, we may prolong our difficulties and postpone the time for arriving at lasting, satisfying solutions.” But given our inability to gather and analyze all the “facts” and “causes,” what are we to do?:

As we journey along through life we, as individuals, come in contact with many shaded areas, twilight zones, and even dark alleys, where we, unless aided by a higher power, are not able to see clearly, to interpret correctly, and to come to sound conclusions. Some of these shaded areas are found in the physical world, some in the intellectual world, and some in the realm of the spiritual. Let us remember, however, that the Lord has said that all things unto him are spiritual (bold mine).

For Bennett, there is a way out of these twilight zones:

If we will just live the way we should and do our part, we can experience what a great strength and blessing the Holy Ghost can be in our lives. It can broaden and extend our horizons and can turn the lights on for us so that we can see more clearly in the shaded areas of life and, in fact, in all areas of our living. Some people seem to be more inclined to disbelieve the scriptures and the teachings of our present-day prophets than they are to believe them. I have said in my heart that if they would put forth the same effort to believe that they do to disbelieve, and would humble themselves, exercise faith, and study diligently, the Holy Ghost would help them, and they would find that they believe many of the things they now think they disbelieve.

Parley Pratt’s description of the Holy Ghost’s power seems apt:

The gift of the Holy Ghost adapts itself to all these organs or attributes. It quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands and purifies all the natural passions and affections; and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates and matures all the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness and charity. It develops beauty of person, form and features. It tends to health, vigor, animation and social feeling. It invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens, and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being.[ref]Key to the Science of Theology, pgs. 98-99. However, it should be noted that Pratt’s understanding of the Holy Ghost was different from that of modern Mormons. The Pratt brothers “defined the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, as an intelligent, cosmic ether, virtually limitless in extension.” Orson Pratt argued that the Holy Spirit was “the Great First Cause itself” (Terryl Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, 125-126).[/ref]

In Bennett’s mind, the Holy Ghost can help us see “things as they really are, and…as they really will be” (Jacob 4:13). The Holy Ghost can help us exit the twilight zones of life and step back into the light. The Holy Ghost can, in the words of Neal A. Maxwell, “lift ourselves above the secular smog.”

While the above talk caught my attention, there were others with some excellent counsel and/or worthwhile quotes. Delbert Stapley reminds the saints that honesty is a major part of the 13th Article of Faith: “Honesty embraces many meanings, such as integrity, sincerity, according to the truth, just, honorable, virtuous, purity of life, moral character, and uprightness in mutual dealings. These principles are required virtues of true Latter-day Saints. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands for the highest ideals, principles, and standards known to man.” The talk focused on “the building of character,” explaining that “little omissions lead to more serious errors and subtle practices.” These small omissions range from returning surplus change to the cashier to employees actually giving an honest day’s work. “One can overlook many sins,” he says, “but the sin of dishonesty is most difficult to forgive. We are sympathetic to the weaknesses of men and tolerant in our relations with them, but there is nothing that upsets or disturbs confidence more than dealing with a dishonest individual.”

Paul H. Dunn[ref]Yes, that Paul H. Dunn.[/ref] makes an excellent point about the importance of parent/child relationships and their shaping of individuals:

In today’s fast-moving, materialistic world, unfortunately many fathers place their business affairs ahead of their children. I am appalled as I look around me, as was Eddie Cantor some years ago, when he said that a man will spend a whole week figuring out what stocks to buy with $1,000—but he won’t spend an hour with his child, in whom he has a greater investment. Is it any wonder that many of our young people are troubled with identity problems? We who are older speak of building a better world, but our progress is slow. Real generosity to the future lies, then, in giving all that we have to the present. Now, you young people, listen to the counsel of your parents. They love you. We are not perfect. One day you will stand where we stand, and you will have a similar challenge of rearing your young. Will you go with us the extra mile in trying to understand our true nature and purpose?

While I wasn’t overly impressed with Henry D. Taylor’s talk, I did love this quote from Lorenzo Snow on the testimony he received from the Holy Ghost:

I had no sooner opened my lips in an effort to pray…than I heard a sound, just above my head, like the rustling of silken robes, and immediately the Spirit of God descended upon me, completely enveloping my whole person, filling me, from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, and O, the joy and happiness I felt! No language can describe the almost instantaneous transition from a dense cloud of mental and spiritual darkness into a refulgence of light and knowledge. … I then received a perfect knowledge that God lives, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and of the restoration of the holy Priesthood, and the fulness of the Gospel. It was a complete baptism—a tangible immersion in the heavenly principle or element, the Holy Ghost; and even more real and physical in its effects upon every part of my system than the immersion by water.[ref]He cites Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, pg. 8.[/ref]

Finally, Joseph Fielding Smith invites those not of our faith, “Keep all the good you have; cleave unto every true principle which is now yours; but come and partake of the further light and knowledge which that God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever is again pouring out upon his people.”

A satisfying conclusion to the first conference in the General Conference Odyssey.[ref]I didn’t say anything about the talks by LeGrand Richards or Eldred G. Smith. The former was a long, rambling, disjointed hodgepodge of scriptures bolstering Mormon triumphalism and its literal fulfillment of random prophecies (or something). Smith’s talk was a weak sauce attempt to lay out the doctrine of genealogy, priesthood, sealing, and adoption.[/ref]

Here are the other posts in this week’s installment of the General Conference Odyssey:

 

Escaping “The Box” Through Families

by

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey series.

The 1949 film noir The Third Man—starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles and written by Graham Greene–is considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made.[ref]It is currently #57 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.[/ref] Given the fact that the film came out nearly 70 years ago, I’m not overly concerned with spoilers. The movie centers on the supposed death of Orson Welles’ charming, but nefarious character Harry Lime, which we learn was faked due to Lime’s involvement in a penicillin racket. Given the scarcity of penicillin outside military hospitals in war-torn Vienna, Lime began selling stolen penicillin on the black market. However, Lime diluted his product, leading to the death of thousands of penicillin-dependent war victims. In one of the most famous scenes of the film, Lime meets with Cotten’s Holly Martins at the famed Wiener Riesenrad. Aboard the giant Ferris wheel, Martins attempts to talk some sense into his old friend. Unfortunately, he is unsuccessful:

Lime continues: “Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs – it’s the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have I.” Martins responds with, “You used to believe in God.” Given Lime’s outlook in the clip above, his next response becomes all the more frightening: “Oh, I still do believe in God, old man. I believe in God and Mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor devils.” The reason this is so frightening is summed up well by fellow DR contributor Allen Hansen in a blog post from a couple years ago:

What is particularly chilling about Harry Lime is that he still cares (somewhat) about (certain) people, he feels pity, and believes in God, yet makes a very profitable living from swindling children’s hospitals. Innocents die, and Harry knows. This is a very human evil, an evil that can be rationalised and made to fit- or improve- one’s lifestyle. Harry isn’t even exceptionally fearless or desperate, and he certainly isn’t certifiably insane. What Graham Greene does best, in my opinion, is to avoid black and white thinking when it comes to people, all the while never forgetting that there clearly is both good and evil, right and wrong. Evil is scary not because it is is distant and alien, but because it occupies the same sphere as we do. It could be present in our best friends, in our lovers, or scariest thought of all- it could even be part of ourselves.

What Lime engages in is a kind of objectification or dehumanization of others. Flesh-and-blood human beings become mere abstractions, caricatures, or “dots.” I thought of this film as I was reading through the Arbinger Institute’s The Anatomy of Peace. It is a modern fable that is used to relay concepts for conflict resolution.[ref]Their book Leadership and Self-Deception is similar in nature.[/ref] It explores the various ways in which we delegitimize and eventually dehumanize those we don’t know, those we work with, and those even within our own families (what the book calls being “in the box”). Most of us recognize what the story describes as the “better-than box” as the most common form–if not the only form–of dehumanization: I am superior or better than another. I am more important or perhaps more virtuous. By implication, they are inferior, irrelevant, and wrong. The other methods of dehumanization, however, are a bit more subtle and easily overlooked. The “I-deserve box” views oneself as victimized, entitled, and unappreciated, and therefore sees everyone else as mistreating, ungrateful, and unfair. The “must-be-seen-as box” requires one to be thought of well, to play a role. This turns everyone else into an audience; a threatening, dangerous, and judgmental one at that. Finally, the “worse-than box” beats oneself down as broken and deficient. This automatically makes others privileged and advantaged. These worldviews lead to feelings of indifference, disdain, anxiety, or bitterness. To move out of “the box” toward people is not so much a way of acting (though this is obviously important) as it is a way of being. Genuine connection with others requires that we recognize their inherent worth and dignity as people and as individuals. This is the anatomy of peace. This is what love starts to look like.

Thomas S. Monson’s story about a boy Jack and his father in the 1971 April conference reminded me of the content above. As Jack storms out of the house following a quarrel, his father calls out to him, “Jack, I know that a large share of the blame for your leaving rests with me. For this I am truly sorry. I want you to know that if you should ever wish to return home, you’ll always be welcome. And I’ll try to be a better father to you. I want you to know that I’ll always love you.” The words later ring in Jack’s ear as he rides the bus to his distant destination, inspiring him to return home and reconcile with his father. “Here,” says Monson, “was a father who, suppressing passion and bridling pride, rescued his son before he became one of that vast “lost battalion” resulting from fractured families and shattered homes. Love was the binding band, the healing balm. Love—so often felt; so seldom expressed.” Jack’s father stepped outside of “the box” in order to truly see his son. He could have easily painted Jack as wrong, ungrateful, disrespectful, a burden, but he didn’t. Instead, he tried to be with him. In the Book of Mormon, Alma preached that to be baptized was to covenant to “to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9). In both Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and Sermon at the Temple in 3 Nephi, he states, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:9; cf. 3 Nephi 12:9). Notice the similarities of His teaching and the blessings toward the end of the same chapters: “Love your enemies [who else do we really make peace with?], bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven…Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:44-45, 48; cf. 3 Nephi 12:44-45, 48). “As the context makes clear,” writes New Testament scholar Craig Evans, “the imperative “Be perfect” means to demonstrate a complete love, a love that expresses itself toward enemies as well as toward family and friends. This is the kind of love that our heavenly Father has.”[ref]Craig A. Evans, Matthew: New Cambridge Bible Commentary (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 136.[/ref] Is there a better example of “mourning with those who mourn” than the Savior’s Atonement when he “descended below them all” (D&C 122:8)? Did he not die for “the natural man” (i.e. all of us), which “is an enemy to God” (Mosiah 3:19)? Implicit in John’s declaration that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16) is the notion that God thought “the world” was worth saving despite being under the control of Satan (see John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).[ref]This cosmic conquering of Satan is the Christus Victor model of Atonement.[/ref] This is why Monson states, “In reality, each one of us is numbered in what could well have been the lost battalion of mankind, even a battalion doomed to everlasting death.” With the angel’s pronouncement at Christ’s empty tomb, “the “lost battalion” of mankind—those who have lived and died, those who now live and one day will die, and those yet to be born and yet to die—this battalion of humanity lost had just been rescued.” Monson reminds us to follow Christ and seek to rescue other “lost battalions” such as “the handicapped, even the lame, the speechless, and the sightless…the aged, the widowed, the sick…mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, who have, through thoughtless comment, isolated themselves from one another.” And finally, those that “struggle in the jungles of sin” or “wander in the wilderness of ignorance.”

I think Monson’s story connects well with a couple other talks from the Tuesday morning session on the importance of family. Not merely the form of family, but its potential and necessary power. James Cullimore lays out the Church’s position quite well when he says, “Marriage is a sacred relationship entered into primarily for the rearing of a family, in fulfillment of the commandments of the Lord. Marriage with children, and the beautiful family relationship which can come of it, is the fulfillment of life” (italics mine). This last part is reinforced by a quote from President Joseph Fielding Smith that Cullimore employs: “[Marriage] is the foundation for eternal exaltation, for without it there could be no eternal progress in the kingdom of God” (italics original). The why behind marriage and family is beautifully laid out by Marion D. Hanks. Setting aside the “duty or commandment or admonition” of family life, Hanks instead “speak[s] of invitation, of opportunity, of privilege, of love, of gratefully taking time while there is time to enjoy the blessing of our family and home. How much joy are we missing that we could be having and are meant to have, joy that we could experience only in our own home and no other place, only with our own family and with no other group?” In my interpretation of Hanks’ remarks, marriage and family provide the context for divinization (“eternal exaltation”). It is where we (should) learn to be godly:

Kindness, consideration, courtesy, care, laughter, unselfishness, prayer, thoughtfulness, doing things for each other, forgiving each other, sustaining each other, loving each other—these are notes that form a family symphony happily enjoyed and eternally remembered. If a family loses its cherished human values and deteriorates into only the form of a family, it has lost what a family is for. Whatever changes are said to have occurred in our time, there is left to the family the most important purpose of all—the satisfaction of the basic emotional and spiritual needs of its members. In any era, one has written, society is a “web of which the family forms the central strands.” In home, family, and love lie the resources that fulfill the life of the individual and the life of the community; indeed, the resources that would redeem our troubled world and bring it lasting peace. Children must be safeguarded and reared. Only in the home can children be assured of the love and direction they need to live life, and only parents who genuinely love can meet those needs. But it must be more than a preached or pronounced love; it must be love that takes time, makes the effort, listens patiently, gives freely, forgives generously, “provides the amenities that will grace and adorn and make beautiful the relationships of family life” (bold mine).

To move out of “the box” is to recognize the basic emotional and spiritual needs of others and then seek to meet them. And it is within the family that we first learn this fundamental attribute of divinity.

To say the least, the last three talks of the Tuesday morning session gave me quite a bit to chew on.[ref]I don’t have much to say about the first two talks. Boyd K. Packer’s was unremarkable and pretty much reinforced the “I knowism” in Church culture as well as the “too sacred” line about spiritual experiences and the temple. Alvin R. Dyer’s talk was more-or-less a list of scripture passages that reference the second coming. The main point was kind of lost on me. Either that or the point wasn’t all that important.[/ref]

—

These are the other posts from the General Conference Odyssey this week: