More Musings of a Miniature Man

Requiem for dating...Facebook commentary continued

2011-07-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

I type too much, either here or on Facebook. Now I'm trying to reconcile the two. I apologize for, yet again, not concentrating on the more uplifting topics in life.

True to my word, openly promised starting some time ago (such as http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=167272561646&id=1356666137, followed by sufficient diligent effort), I’ve long been entirely withdrawn from the game of dating. I have my many reasons, but it’s summarized well in my father’s understanding response when I said, “Conventional dating is a waste of time for me”: “For you, it is.”

What I reject is not people, is not the goal, is not some form of effort, but the “artificial ritual” to which Jen referred. It’s when we force ourselves, in an empty world of dating, to do and act as everyone else does (without any thought given as to why it’s so, no matter how long that may have been the case) that we not only make ourselves miserable, but are less likely to stand out on any basis other than the shallow perceptions by which so much dating is conducted. I once tried to explain this to a slightly vainglorious individual, “What if you knew that every time you entered a room, there WOULDN’T be at least one person instantly attracted to you? What if you had to fall back on other things, and then learned that the others didn’t care about them, or at least weren’t focused on them in this setting? Would you linger?” Given a scenario where a woman could choose between my profile and a more “traditionally” or “instantaneously distinguishable” handsome man’s, I’d lose essentially 100 times out of 100. What many don’t realize is that even when they’re winning at that game, they’re losing. Success is thus built on the wrong foundation, devoid of communication of the lasting values.

A friend once asked if I’d date someone in my, erm, height class, because it could make both her and me feel better. In the first place, I’ve never seen a momentary ego boost as good cause for a date. That’s using someone else. True, girls sometimes have to be more sensitive, due to their better nurturing side, to the effects of compliments—not wanting to send the wrong message—but false praise given now only makes someone feel much worse down the road. How would she feel if later I had to say, “Oh, sorry, I just dated you for your height. I have no real emotional bond”? My response is always that I don’t rule out anything, but of far more importance to me is the mind and spirit, common ground of a rather more significant stature. I can’t see myself asking a gal, “So, did anyone crack a short joke today?” or “Had any surgeries lately?” or anything of that sort. More than a decade ago, I at least temporarily transcended the world of pain, and I don’t see that as a conversation piece. As much as more attractive people, I wouldn’t want to be interesting solely on appearance; I want to know first whether she can enter into my world of historical/philosophical/theological thought.

I no longer see it as my personal responsibility to play a form of dating Russian roulette—made so by the nature of the games to which people consent--with an astronomical number of loaded chambers. That “one” result will EVENTUALLY be safe is a poor argument, statistically or otherwise, for why we’re sticking a gun to our head in the first place. Method, folks! Some downplay the severity/urgency/drama of this method, even while sustaining it in other particulars. I perceive the mortal danger as arising from unduly created risks (often in the realm of communication), not because I’ve imposed an inflated sense of importance on the outcome: it might inflict greater damage where expectation was exaggerated, but the harm comes from an amoral/immoral system which is the last from which we should be taking cues about our self-worth. One of the contradictions with which I’ve contended in my own life is the sheer extent to which someone can respect me…up to the point at which I ask her out. (That’s where I pull the trigger.) I’ve long conceded that there’s an understandable hurdle to deal with in my mortal shell (in addition to the typical differentiation between all friendships and one with genuine potential for romance), but for those who already knew me well and only moments before acted like I was one of the best guys they knew to react so violently to the hypothetical thought of any other dimension to the relationship...it’s insulting. And that is good food for thought for all of us in our approach. Right or wrong, we should carefully scrutinize what it is within us that either creates or refuses interest.

I didn’t exactly have trouble getting dates, if I made that a focal point. I wasn’t cherishing greater feelings of respect on the whole as a result of not one woman ever having the backbone to tell me no to a first date. (One very soundly declined a second and won my respect in just getting straight to the point—without sounding like she’d as soon kill me as look at me--when asked.) Instead, far too many spent the majority of that first date sending out a host of preemptive signals rejecting a second, indeed, showing a breed of contempt for the first. Would that they’d started this assault in their living room and aborted the ill-conceived operation! Not long ago, I described certain behaviors toward me which I’ve come to accept as a matter of course, and a friend said, “Wow. That is COLD!” One doesn’t need to drop hints, never-ending OR case-specific, if they’ll just say it to my face. I may not understand why they seem to despise me for little good reason, but we needn’t prolong the treatment. This hurt all the more from those who ought to have known better, and known ME better.

The last woman for whom I ever made a concerted effort at dating was fairly consistent in not showing the same amount of openness; that much, I can admit. I still bought into the slow cultivation line which is sometimes fed to singles, and patiently bore with a steady procession of men courting her. She thought it personally motivated when I later pointed out that not all such takers were half so altruistically motivated when they stopped by. The inconsistencies, once outlined at great length in a 10+ page document whereby I purged my analysis, were primarily in her own behaviors, though they did trend toward the callous. This much abridged and newly angled version obviously omits the developmental stages.

On the final hopeful day, I drove over half an hour at her invitation, only to discover that there’d be another man involved. He sat between me and her in the theater, with her conversing amiably and somewhat privately with him during a movie. As I was leaving with an internal note of finality and acceptance, suddenly she expressed a great deal of interest in having me come back. I returned, only to have her abruptly depart. I THEN subordinated my self-respect and responsibilities for the rest of the day, yet she continued to consign me to back burner, if that. I’ve wasted enough of my life being sent to a corner while another man (or everything else, as the case may be) claimed the affections of my pursuit. So, what was new? She liked me a LOT as long as I remained on a short leash. There were stern, if unspoken, expectations about what I couldn’t possibly press for, no matter what I saw other men doing. To that, I’ve thought, “I don’t leash or muzzle you. How about you not do so to me?” I left the complex that night and sent her a message that it was probably best that I not go to so much trouble to see her any more. (Please note that she’d repeatedly stressed before that she wanted me to keep visiting.)

To this she replied quite diplomatically, with her usual airy indefiniteness. She expressed the willingness to explain herself if I wanted to come see her. Had she simply explained herself, no need for that subsequent visit, eh? After another long drive to her place, she shot the breeze for about 20 minutes and finally said, “You must have come here for something else.” Me, mentally: “Um, yes, dear. I’m not forcing you to say anything, but I did come on the understanding that you’d say it.” She then launched into a DTR sort of chat. To this day, I chuckle sardonically at the memory of her crying as she said that she “really, really love[d]" me, only to pause, alarmed, look up, and blurt out, “as a friend!” She wound up with, “I think you should move on.” (She thanked me for letting her speak her mind, as it were; I suppose there was no way to accelerate the theatrics and conclusion.) I was perfectly aware that it wasn’t even a dating relationship—she’d expressly forbidden such—and so I was doubly offended by her needlessly heavy-handed approach, using a cannon to kill a mosquito. She could have saved me a trip and a lot of time if she’d just e-mailed, texted, or actually called me just to say that line! I’d guessed as much, but was slightly curious as to how she was going to tie up loose ends if she thought it warranted another conversation. Did I not already give her the termination line she needed, respectfully enough? For someone adamant that it never be perceived that any advances had been entertained, she was sure jostling to be “first” to do some dumping.

Part of the offense was that she dealt this pointless blow with the comment that she’d been “trying” with guys, and that it wasn’t going to work with that other man, either. I’ve placed my finger on the firm disapproval with which I look upon her categorizing the access she permitted me as the same she permitted him. Without greater successive waves of charitable introspection, it’s possible part of me will resent that to the end of my days. (I know that various offenses, however much I’ve sought to technically forgive, from as far back as 1995 spring more readily to mind than ever did optimism when approaching the dating scenario.) She proved so automatically condescending with the couple of future contacts that I vowed to sever all possibility of our crossing paths.

I always make the point that there were sweet, admirable women along the way, who merely didn’t turn out to be the right ones for me. However, there was too large a bulk of contradictory messages, and uphill battles…which lots of men and women have, admittedly, experienced of a degree. I don’t think it’s my job, or anyone else’s, to spend weeks (or more) vying for the level of attention which a person will happily lavish upon another in under 15 seconds. That doesn’t even resemble competition, to which I have my own moral objections. It doesn’t remotely resemble fidelity, respect, or honesty. It’s the very antithesis of all that I seek in a companion. I answer to the latest experience, not summative in the least, but certainly representative, of all which has gone before, that no one will ever strictly circumscribe my sphere of action again. There’s an unfortunate risk if I develop romantic interest in someone with whom I actually am only a friend, but no girl toward whom I’ve expressed such an interest will ever again keep me around purely for her enjoyment, solely on her own terms, if it’s going to pain or demean me. I’m free to ask, and she’s free to turn down. Adult behaviors and full disclosure, right? I’m either worth a *genuine* first date or not, however unexpected, and 9 out of 10 girls I’ve ever asked out have had sufficient data to know their answer to that before I asked.

Lincoln and the Latter-day Saints

2011-02-21T17:42:00.000-08:00

It seems odd to be saying so much about Lincoln on a day when I’m primarily reflecting upon Washington. Yet I’ve known for some time I’d likely repost some Lincoln remarks from a Facebook thread earlier this month. (I’ve learned that people don’t have access to the URL I would have provided.) Seeing as the man who initiated my remarks in the first place—hereafter referred to as “Conrad”—has a new status for the day of “Today I celebrate only George Washington,” but within the comments showed a largely unrepentant attitude about his earlier Lincoln bashing (having become, as Paine, would say, more subtle but no more just), here goes.

My issue isn’t with celebrating only Washington—in technical point of fact, Lincoln’s never had a federal holiday, anyway—or even with the implication that there’s no day in the year he would celebrate Lincoln, but that he’d publicly piggyback such disdain onto the day’s festivities. He’s used federal holidays and landmarks to such an end in the past. His December 7 remarks were positively offensive. (And, yes, it’s crossed my mind several times that at least some form of blocking what I read on Facebook might give me more peace of mind generally. This ought to show the extent to which I’m willing to bear with others’ polar views, which they do not always give to mine.) What he doesn’t understand, in his agreement with others that even Washington’s greatness was diminished by his role against the whiskey tax rebellion, is that a nation like ours rejecting all meaningful history will come to have no meaningful future. I turn for perspective to President Hinckley’s “The Lord is at the Helm.”

I never have defined a hero as someone free of all mortal shortcoming; realizing that, we need heroic models. Historians—of which I am one—have failed their cause if their role is viewed purely as criticism from the sidelines, let alone interference which cannot improve. In the course of the more recent thread, an appropriate reference was made to an article put out today, which points out how “meaningful” Lincoln’s life is to Mormons. That is, those who have paid attention to the teachings of their own leaders and/or gleaned their history from sources other than conspiracy hack jobs. President Hinckley at one point, consciously or not, elevated Lincoln even above Washington, as “America’s greatest hero.”

So, moving on to the offending status of February 3...”Why do ‘rule of law’ Republicans heap praise upon a President who: suspended the Constitution and habeas corpus; launched his own military invasion; imprisoned thousands of citizens w/o trial; shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers, imprisoning dozens of their owners/publishers; censored communication; nationalized railroads; confiscated firearms; interfered w/ elections; and deported his most outspoken critic?”

Shortly before I jumped in, Conrad’s own grandfather posted, “Pres McKay felt that Abraham Lincoln was led by God. (President David O. Mckay, Conference Report, October 1968, Afternoon Meeting, p.144 ) “And we all know how God did guide Abraham Lincoln.’” Now for my usual overly done responses:

Shame on you, assailing a great man’s memory with self-serving and revisionist history! My admiration of Lincoln runs “counter” to an entirely Confederate pedigree and is free of any Republican “allegiance.” In this era of skepticism and historical implosion, I’m doing the truly bold and independent thing in defending him. Depending upon how one spun the words, quite a case could be made to appear against Captain Moroni as well (with some very similar allegations). Sadly, President McKay’s faith in the future outlook of the American people may have been too high, when he depicted the “life of the immortal Lincoln, in whom was ‘vindicated greatness,’ to whose character the passing centuries can add only more brilliant lustre” (TTF19; McKay lists him (ToL377), with the Smiths, among courageous and martyred defenders of truth, and President Joseph F. Smith included him (GD31) in the march of leaders of men inspired by Christ for the progress of society, specifically in this case in the areas of “emancipation and union”). I suppose, sarcastically, that President George Albert Smith likewise fell prey to a defective education in his laudatory, “[Lincoln] gave his life because of his desire for the perpetuation of the liberty that was guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States. He was unafraid. When the duty was placed upon him to battle for the liberties of mankind, he dedicated his life to that purpose, and in due time, our Father in heaven accepted his offering, and his name is emblazoned upon the pages of history as a great and noble man who dared to do right, and his praises will be sung and his virtues extolled throughout all time.”

President Hinckley had to bemoan the loss of heroes, clearly referenced in context as genuinely moral and essential to a solid education, after “the debunkers of Washington and Lincoln have done their job, and we all are the poorer for it” (DPGBH1:561, 563; see Ezra Taft Benson, TNSE22). He rightly taught, “I urge you to see the big picture and cease worrying about the little blemishes. Abraham Lincoln was a gangling figure of a man, with a long and craggy face. . . . Many . . . never saw the true greatness of the man. That enlarged view came only to those who saw the whole character—body, mind, and spirit—as he stood at the head of a divided nation in its darkest hour, lacing it together ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God’ gave him to see the right. . . . Of course, there are aberrations in our history. There are blemishes to be found, if searched for, in the lives of all men, including our leaders past and present. But these are only incidental to the magnitude of their service and to the greatness of their contributions. Keep before you the big picture . . .” (TGBH430-431).

I’ve easily read at least 5,000 pages more than incidentally about Lincoln, his life and his policies, and I find the selectivity of the linked articles reprehensible. It’s scarcely even worth debating the merits of lone post-partisan, yet anti-national, works with an ax to grind. The skulduggery brings a bare minimum of actual source material to support its assertions against the mortal whom President McKay really did believe was “the greatest Emancipator” (MMKFH394). One of the crying sins of our day is expecting men who were already exceedingly visionary to so far transcend their time that no one would have even understood them, to expect Joseph in Egypt to establish a republic or Luther to dethrone the pope, or some other such thing, when the Almighty Himself was moving by small and steady means against the devil’s tyrannical stranglehold. They accomplished the purposes for which they were sent (as President Faust once referred, TREUY71, to Lincoln’s “special gifts”), no matter if we feel to look back and condemn.

Lincoln spoke most cautiously to an electorate filled with racist notions, intending, and announcing his intention, to choke off slavery and condemn the institution to death while not doing violence to its holders. The Church’s abolitionist leanings led to a lot of grief in terms of polity, regardless of the rightness or wrongness in how others may have discovered it. Lincoln’s horror over slavery arose from a deep, abiding humanity. (Many have deliberately misunderstood his political application to the ethical dilemma, which actually greatly resembled how the Church might suggest going about it.) It was important that he lead the people by the hand to see as he did, without losing a debate because Douglas played on alarm that he was actually encouraging a slave revolt. (Gleefully calling forth Frederick Douglass’ angry belief that Lincoln moved too slowly to emancipate is hardly a historical argument that Lincoln was racist and oppressive. We all have political adversaries, as well as discord even among our own camp. Lincoln suffered Christian-like through far more than his mortal share.) To quote Washington, “A people unused to restraint must be led; they will not be drove.” The war came after all else failed, after decades of brash argument and counterargument. A Union private scrawled in a South Carolina court record, “South Carolina was the root of secession. The South are to blame for this war and none others. Why did not the Southern States wait and see whether [or at least HOW] A. Lincoln would interfere with slavery before they seceded?”

Those who quote the July 17, 1858 speech leave out his earlier-within-debate, “I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it read that all men are created equal except negroes.” Where Lincoln seems to disappoint our modern ears again, in reassuring his listeners that he wasn’t trying to elevate the black man too rapidly, he spoke in terms they could understand, “All I ask for the negro is that if you not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little let him enjoy.” As for another of the sparse quotations wrested from Lincoln, we’re supposed to be shocked by his use of the “n” word, which was a commonality in the nineteenth century, even—are you sitting down?—among the Brethren! The “proportion” which Lincoln defined, giving a hierarchy of crocodile, black man, white man, is seen in the original sources as his own restatement of the OPPOSITION view. HIS proposition, prefacing the paragraph, was, “The proposition that there is a struggle between the white man and the negro contains a falsehood. There is no struggle between them. It assumes that unless the white man enslaves the negro, the negro will enslave the white man.” He then had the courage to denounce slavery as the snake which must not be allowed into the children’s bed.

If a Latter-day Saint is to accept direction in their constitutional studies from the Brethren at all, they’d do well to consider that this Facebook status reflects the real distortion of history and complete ignorance of the clear implications of what the Brethren, quite averse to war on the whole, have felt constituted a legitimate defense of this nation. (Lincoln truthfully and with the approbation of heaven meant what he wrote: “We shall nobly save or meanly lose this last best hope of earth.”) In fact, perhaps we should approach their writings with a more questing heart and bring fewer of our own fanciful preconceptions or willful desires to the table, hoping in our blindness to scour support from some wild sector. President Benson’s writings are interwoven with quotations from Lincoln, as he, like so many others, quoted him approvingly. Someone asked how I intended to go about defending him, and I replied that, from an LDS standpoint, one didn’t have to dig deep at all to find the support. This prosaic piece is a mere sampling.

Indeed, I might challenge where among the teachings of the Church there is ever other than a largely uncritical and unanimously positive appraisal of the man (the exception of Brigham’s remarks was directed with his special flair against the office more than the man, as well as anti-polygamy legislation, as shown in passing at this link); this, as you see, also clearly places Lincoln among the company of worthy dead who appeared to President Wilford Woodruff, saying, “We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.” By Woodruff’s day, and his own statement, three presidents were excluded from such a status, but Lincoln was not!). They consider him one of the “great” men of history (Ezra Taft Benson, SSYR94, 148; Spencer W. Kimball, MF278). If Lincoln was a despot, one might wonder about the sanity of so many of our leaders in not pointing out whether there’s an actual inconsistency in—as if we’d quote Stalin about how to secure democracy—citing Lincoln’s “foresight” about preventing the birth of “Caesars and Napoleons . . . to dictatorships within a democracy,” with said solution [this from Lincoln] being that “the people . . . be united with each other, attached to the government and the laws, and generally intelligent, successfully to frustrate his design” (Harold B. Lee, DFSL218). President McKay, more frequently than others (such as President Howard W. Hunter, who also used it, appreciated Lincoln’s observation about love of the liberty bestowed by God being “the bulwark of our liberty and independence” more than all military might, and a guard against “the seeds of despotism” (see GI288). That Lincoln had to resort to such military means is so patently obvious that their endorsement of his views MUST be a statement to give one pause, else we’d succumb to cognitive dissonance. Just as President Grant taught—before C.S. Lewis—that Jesus was either a liar or what he claimed to be, for a false claim to divinity would debar one from the right to be a moral teacher, the prophets have inferentially accepted Lincoln’s right to instruct us morally, from his “lofty soul” (David O. McKay, CR, Apr. 1951, 93) on the very issues with which certain jaded “historians” and political enthusiasts now take issue.

You, sir, take your critique of all institutions too far, inciting national disunity during perilous times. It’s not, strictly speaking, Confederate propaganda, but it draws on the same spirit of pointless antagonism and strife, leaning on mistaken principle, in actuality hastening the unraveling of any collective fabric, the dissolution of so much as a desire to have united states. I don’t think you know what you’d supply in its place once depriving the United States of so many of its footings, for an appealing but utopian view of the Constitution, so permissive of so-called individual rights as to nullify cohesion. For me, it’s not enough simply to challenge the constitutionality of everything. That’s like asking whether a meal can be digested; that a certain sustainability ought to be in place goes almost without saying. The secondary and immediate consideration is then healthfulness. We ought to focus on what’s best for this nation to arrest our decline in all areas, mainly encompassed by a moral view. To quote Lincoln, in terms of advocacy rather than grousing, “No one who has sworn to support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it inexpedient.”

You lead us to a different brink. This is assuredly beam against mote type ideology, tragically again contradicting President Hinckley’s questioning “who can discount the beauty and the wonder of Abraham Lincoln’s words?” (DPGBH1:551) before once again quoting his charitable views, which I have always contended would have healed the wounded nation far better than the subsequent course. William Bennett records, “One Southern woman told General Sherman she was glad Lincoln had been shot. Sherman replied: ‘Madam, the South has lost the best friend it had.’” He was not one, as Brigham Young stated (broadly), to chasten beyond his ability to administer healing balm...or to chasten without love or purpose, very necessity. He emancipated the South itself, both black and white, for many contemporaries observed of the blasted region that the structure of their society, which set the aristocratic few above all others, was truly to blame. Men fought and died at the insistence, and through the rhetoric, of those propped up in economic power. Such backwards and unAmerican thinking could never have led to improvement via secession.

Lincoln’s respect for upholding the law always remained in defense of the overall democratic process: “There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any case that arises, as for instance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two positions is necessarily true; that is, the thing is right within itself, and therefore deserves the protection of all law and all good citizens; or, it is wrong, and therefore proper to be prohibited by legal enactments; and in neither case, is the interposition of mob law, either necessary, justifiable, or excusable.” One of Lincoln’s statements about “reverence for the law,” often quoted by the Brethren, and which I’ve asserted against rising concepts here that Latter-day Saints ought to engage in so-called civil disobedience in our present society, was prefaced in one usage by President Heber J. Grant—who practically opened his administration with an appeal to Lincoln’s good sense (CR, June 1919, 138-139)—with the declaration that “every Latter-day Saint believes that Abraham Lincoln was raised up and inspired of God, and that he reached the Presidency of the United States under the favor of our Heavenly Father” (this whole link is useful, but find #17 by search term “Lincoln”; see a near-identical reference in Messages of the First Presidency, 5:263). Grant’s statement was one of linkage, not mutual exclusivity, when he stated, “One of the Articles of our Faith declares that we believe in sustaining the law and supporting the rulers. So that not only should Latter-day Saints follow the advice of the immortal Lincoln [contained in the directly heretofore mentioned quotation], but they should follow the doctrines of the Church to which they belong” (CR, Apr. 1926, 5).
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He answered, “Kristopher, while Lincoln may have had his positive attributes, and perhaps even a divinely-justified mission (though I contest that the various specifics of everything he did meets with God's approval), my point still stands: he did not follow the law. He repeatedly broke it. Those who laud his actions argue either that God inspired him to do what he did or that the ends justify the means, but I've yet to see any response explaining that he did in fact follow the law in carrying out his actions. Do you contest this?”

Conrad, I’m not saying I have easy answers. What I am saying is that there are things you must not understand about the Constitution, the law, even wartime requirements/powers, and the hand of divine inspiration in history (much like those who got off the boat with the Manifesto, in spiritual comparison, unable to apply themselves to what is and is not actually justified). I’m offering a gentle warning call to go back to square one in formulating some of your arguments.

There’s a tendency on this page at times, when actually deferring to the LDS angle, to use Joseph Smith’s statement, “That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, ‘Thou shalt not kill’; at another time He said, ‘Thou shalt utterly destroy.’ This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.” As far as this applies to the debate at hand, such a sentiment was never meant as a justification in advance for social theory, but a justification in hindsight for what was undertaken with God’s command.

To continue, such a mentality—as I’ve seen it in yourself and others—is to support your own view, at all costs. Nothing is to be held sacred or to go unchallenged in arriving at your conclusions. Truth cannot be reached when one has undercut the very legs to stand on. You really are, if you’ll pardon the truism, throwing the baby out with the bath water. With reference to how I’ve seen the above quote used, if we differ, we’re forced to prove how God required it. However, if you differ, you evade the issue and hammer home your own interpretation of the Constitution.

I don’t know what your processing filter of acceptance of general authorities’ teachings is in application to the issue, but it would seem they’re at least as qualified to comment on the intentions of the Founding Fathers as we are, and there’s often a gap between your conclusions and theirs, however much you like to find what Charles W. Penrose described: “notions derived from obscure passages of scripture or isolated expressions made by prominent speakers and writers,” instead of taking “the recognized standards . . . as the proper written guide.” Since in the past you’ve utilized John Taylor to impart a disdain for every law with which you disagree (not the only, but evidently a primary, personal requirement for ascertaining unconstitutionality), and to strongly imply an incorrect course of action therewith, I’ll use what he’d likely say on the matter: “It is by taking up little odd texts that mistakes are often made and incorrect ideas conveyed. We must take the whole thing to ascertain what is intended, and rightly divine the word of truth.” Not only does your argument here hinge on your interpretation of constitutional powers, it apparently hinges on your own interpretation of Lincoln’s acts. The common saying that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter can cut both ways. I think it’s quite clear how the Brethren perceive the particular man currently under consideration. I’m surprised at you. If you really want to arrive at the truth, you can’t just dismiss their unanimous teachings while nabbing isolated sentences to support your opinions.

I don’t have the time to debate it with you, or the expertise in nuances. This is not a free pass to smugly conclude that the absence of response is defeat. I acknowledge my weakness in commenting on such sweepingly momentous issues as constitutional law and political reform. I will, however, say this much: reserved powers will apparently mean whatever you want it to mean. You’re coming across increasingly as a law unto yourself, with an acerbic tone about almost everything and everyone else. For instance, you never answered Michael Sparr’s valid question about whether you believed—the logical inference from your many remarks to that end—that all military personnel are thugs.

Ends justifying means is an unacceptable mortal modus operandi. Nevertheless, if God has indicated that someone WAS justified in what is, for us, the end, it warrants careful thought as to just what was or was not justifiable as he went along. I contend that much more than you think was allowable in the eyes of heaven. Earlier, I brought up the comparison to Captain Moroni. The good captain, whom you use for a page header, much more nearly resembles Lincoln than yourself. I say that quite objectively; it’s not a personal attack. For consistency, are you going to have a status update criticizing the measures Moroni took? It wouldn’t be enough to beg out on the grounds that scriptural verse justifies his character, as we have similar expressions from the Brethren for Lincoln, nor would it be enough to say that God commanded HIM, as little more is described for carrying out his motives than good character and personal revelation, the same basis offered for Lincoln.

Lincoln once answered his critics, “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.” If he were a war criminal or tyrant, from a theological standpoint, Abe wouldn’t have come out alright in the end, with a quoteworthy reputation among all the Brethren, who, again, know what they’re talking about in showing us great leaders. Calm down and realize we’re not saying to emulate every act and feature. I’m just politely asking that you stop tarnishing his total image and try thinking about his “positive attributes,” and how and to what extent it overshadowed other things. (You downplayed the only obvious conclusion from my prior composite of authoritative sayings, which left little room to doubt that the sum total of his positive attributes was much, much, much larger than any handhold by which to abuse him.)

In the light, rather than the darkness of criticism of a man whom God’s anointed also called anointed in important respects (meaning politically, and not just personally), you may then discover for yourself, and the good of others, how we can safely avoid any deviations to which he may have acceded during times of tough decisions. In conceding a divinely justified mission, are you saying he failed to meet it? Or that he pulled it off with a compromised character? The Brethren put Lincoln in a good light, which is where he ultimately belongs. I can’t even meet you halfway, in your assessment, “Lincoln's actions were clearly un-constitutional, and likewise tyrannical.” The Brethren haven’t said they were arguably, at times, such. Sarcastically (a poor note to end on), how good that it’s clear to you and not to them.
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Conrad posted nothing else on that thread, though an individual by the name of Ronald paused to say, “Just LOL'd upon reading the line ‘I don’t have the time to debate it with you’ somewhere in the middle of approximately 4,200 lines of debate from one commenter above.” I responded, perhaps a bit sensitively, “More like 111 lines, and I type more words than that number per minute. Perhaps you have a complaint about the substance, or an insinuation that it's vapid?

“Perhaps you overlooked my preceding portion of the debate (still well under 200 lines)? Even when one knows exactly where to go for material, it takes an astounding amount of time to compile, type, and spot check. Such was honestly intended as a service for all, so it kind of stings worse when such labors are met with scorn.

“I almost solely addressed the theological aspect because that carries valid weight with Conrad (and simultaneously required the least amount of preparation from me, given all options, to still remain sound in argument). It can't merely serve him when supporting a foregone conclusion and drop away when it doesn't. I applied myself to explicating my protest of a fundamentally flawed premise. To begin to lay out historical circumstances, executive/legislative positions, leading into habeas corpus...yeah, believe me, I DON'T have time to pull it together right now. It's best left for the expertise of others, BUT assuredly we realize one can find all kinds of source material, and not just a meager article or two operating from the same logic as that already presented in the first place.”

After three days of silence, Nathan weighed in:

So I've checked back at this thread a couple times to see if there was a response to Kristopher's comments. Seeing as no one has taken pains to respond, and seeing that I am familiar with material with which to do so, I'll provide the following. It seems that we have a thesis and an antithesis, so in my response I'll try to fashion a synthesis.

While we have the statements Kristopher has provided in favor of Lincoln, here are some against:

"The Lord has pointed out the fate of this Nation in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine & Covenants. He has said that when they became ripened in iniquity they should be cut off. That day has come. Their cup of iniquity is full. The whole Nation, rulers, and people are filled with corruption before god, and the President & Senate of the United States are sending men to Utah to rule over this people as a Governor & Judges who are so corrupt that they are a Hiss & bye word and a stink in the Nostrils of all people in the Streets. . . ."

[end of entries for year 1861--Abraham Lincoln's first term; in Wilford Woodruff's journal].

15 March 1861: President [Brigham Young] . . . remarked that Abel Lincoln was no friend of Christ, particularly, he had never raised his voice in our favor when he was aware that we were being persecuted. He was acquainted with Joseph & Hyrum, and had been a Master Freemason. [The Office Journal of President Brigham Young: 1858-1863, Book D (Hanna, Ut.: Collier's Publishing Co., 2006), p. 220.]

9 July 1861: Pres Young remarked to H. C. Kimball who had come in, that old "Abe" the President of the U.S. has it in his mind to pitch in to us when he had got through with the South. President Kimball observed that men that he had met with, whether they had little or much of the Spirit of God, were in favor of the South. [The Office Journal of President Brigham Young: 1858-1863, Book D (Hanna, Ut.: Collier's Publishing Co., 2006), p. 266.]

5 August 1861: The President [Brigham Young] remarked that Stephen A. Douglass was a far better man than President Abel Lincoln, for he knew his feelings were hostile to this people. Pres Wells acquiesced in these remarks. [The Office Journal of President Brigham Young: 1858-1863, Book D (Hanna, Ut.: Collier's Publishing Co., 2006), pp. 277-78.]

21 August 1861: President Young speaking of Abraham Lincoln remarked [that] if the Kingdom of God was not in the way, Abraham was [a] pretty good man, but he acted as if he would rather the Kingdom of God was out of the way; he was not the man to raise his voice in favor of Joseph Smith when his enemies were persecuting him. He with many others had assented to the deaths of innocent men, and through that he is subject to the influence of a wicked spirit. [The Office Journal of President Brigham Young: 1858-1863, Book D (Hanna, Ut.: Collier's Publishing Co., 2006), p. 284.]

24 August 1861: The feelings of the Brethren are gratified by hearing of the continued success which attends the Southern Confederacy. [The Office Journal of President Brigham Young: 1858-1863, Book D (Hanna, Ut.: Collier's Publishing Co., 2006), p. 285.]

2 December 1861: In conversation with the brethren about the policy and movements of federal government and Southern Confederacy, the President [Brigham Young] remarked we need not expect any thing sensible from them, for the spirit of wisdom is taken away from them. He remarked that Pres Lincoln and Congress appear not to realize that there is a war on hand. It is not so with the South—they are keen and alive. [The Office Journal of President Brigham Young: 1858-1863, Book D (Hanna, Ut.: Collier's Publishing Co., 2006), p. 316.]

11 December 1861: I will see them in hell before I will raise an army for them. Abe Lincoln has sent these men here to prepare the way for an Army. An order has been sent to California to raise an army to come to Utah. This is the reason why Ball came back. I pray daily that the Lord will take away the reigns of Government of the wicked rulers and put it into the hands of the wise and good. I will see the day when those wicked rulers are wiped out. The Governor quoted my sayings about the Constitution I do and always have supported the Constitution but I am not in league with such cursed scoundrels as Abe Lincoln and his minions. They have sought our destruction from the beginning and Abe Lincoln has ordered an army to this Territory from California and that order passed over on these wires. [Wilford Woodruff's Journal, vol. 5 (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1984), pp. 605-6.]

18 March 1862: Pres. Heber C. Kimball called in. The President [Brigham Young] discussed with him the wicked course the American Nation had taken with this people, observing the government was running into a despotism, and they were willing the government should be despotic while they were in power. The President observed that Abraham Lincoln was a sagacious man, but believed he was wicked. [The Office Journal of President Brigham Young: 1858-1863, Book D (Hanna, Ut.: Collier's Publishing Co., 2006), p. 362.]

So clearly Lincoln had his issues. This doesn't mean that he was evil to the core, however, and the wrongs he committed were quite possibly honest mistakes, perhaps with good intentions. Perhaps he was deceived in "assenting to the deaths of innocent men".

But there are two separate issues being debated here. One has to do with judging Lincoln's very character, and one has to do with judging his actions, especially in regard to the Constitution. I think Kristopher has made some important points about his character, and while it is perhaps not as clear-cut as he implied, he made some good points in defending it.

However, I think we can justifiably point out his mistakes and violations of the Constitution. It is not merely "[Conrad's] interpretation" that a number of his actions were unconstitutional, but it is demonstrated by a great number of legal scholars, and arguably easy to objectively recognize from even a basic reading of the text. The brethren have not commented one way or the other as to the constitutionality of his actions, and to imply that Conrad's awareness of this is somehow in conflict with the brethren--given their silence--is fallacious, not to mention snarky.

Of course, judging his character is much more complex. But even if we like Lincoln, we should condemn his errors, rather than justify them to fit our view of him. This way we will be able to avoid repeating them.

As for the comment referencing Joseph Smith's quote as "never [being] meant as a justification in advance for social theory", if this was in reference to my usage of it when discussing drug laws, you missed my point. It was used in order to reconcile what can be perceived as a contradiction between God's revealed eternal laws--which do, contrary to the beliefs of many, instruct us on political matters--and the then-current instruction from his servants.

I naively thought I could reply in haste:

Wow. You've been waiting for an opportunity to say something.

I only see two sources here...lots of spacing doesn't mean there's lots more to it. Collier's is a well-known apostate foundation. Even where somewhat acceptable, people find his ability to weigh sources questionable. Through the years, the Brethren have shown on principle that they don't appreciate having private, off-the-cuff records utilized as representative of their considered stances--especially where there almost seems to be a broad difference.

Even given some respectability, the Brigham Young office record as offered remains a snapshot, heated at times, from one administration. Some aren't even straight up Brigham at all, some (as anyone familiar with the history of the Journal of Discourses knows) may not capture his pronounced, settled view on the matter, and still others really don't address Lincoln in a more than group capacity. As for the rest, you've succeeded in showing that somewhere in LDS or possibly LDS writ there's a negative reference. Congratulations. (Although I already made the aside for what circumstances may have transpired during Brigham's time.) I sincerely hope no contrary evidence was omitted even from these scarce sources. Brigham also made this public telegram back East in October 1861: "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country."

Winders' recent book on prophets and presidents (and I use this as a link, not having the book itself on hand at the moment: http://thegreataccommodation.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html) shows that Lincoln was at least no more antagonistic than the general consensus toward the Mormons, probably less, and that Brigham also said--much as I generally prefer using all possible Conference addresses and official correspondence--to President Woodruff in 1860 that he hoped Lincoln would win. Contemporary wounded feelings over the persecution and expulsion led to a highly government-suspicious view for decades. At any rate, President Grant is responsible for publicly popularizing the "official" view that Stephen Douglas had turned against the Church.

Lincoln was a convenient scapegoat for conversation during Utah's Civil War days--isolated in the extreme--as representative of the federals.

Where do I think we stand in terms of synthesis of material? After the dust of the war settled, the unanimous assessment of Lincoln's presidency became and remained exactly as I already outlined. We have many, many--well, all--references from modern prophets going for the guy.

One might be surprised, as one digs, how very much legal scholars differ. It's daunting and contributes to the hapless feeling, as if the Constitution has gotten out of reach of the average citizen. I still don't have time to broach that portion of the debate, but article number one is evidently the habeas corpus. If the clause for its suspension, in cases of rebellion or invasion, wasn't at least up for fair consideration at the moment Lincoln stared it squarely in the face, I'm not sure when it would be. That too was inserted for a reason, not that the founders were wasting ink on an inadmissible issue constitutionally. Lincoln's methods as to its enforcement are more a subject for debate among the scholars (often influenced, surprisingly, by political leaning) than this thread has made it appear....
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To this, Ronald rushed in with the genuinely snarky, “Kristopher, your argument essentially comes down to ‘my GA trumps your GA’. Legally, we value the accounts of those who witnessed and experienced events first hand. In the church, we value diaries and journals for the great insights we get into the lives of the persons affected by the events of the day. Except when it concerns an idol, such as Lincoln, apparently. Even in BYU Law constitution classes, as in any other law school, it is admitted that there are multiple leaps in logic required to give Lincoln even the shakiest constitutional foundation. Oh well. The end justifies the means, right?”

I believe Ronald was still smarting from my unintentional slam in answer to Conrad’s unrelated status: “I wonder: what age do I need to reach before people who disagree with me will stop resorting to playing the age card as a defense of their argument?” Ronald had replied to Conrad, “Never. Playing the age card is as useful a tool as playing the ‘my GA trumps your GA’ card when arguing with a Mormon.” Much later on, I’d written:

There’s wisdom in seeking and receiving good counsel. [Taught in many forms ever since Joseph Smith’s scripturally based, “In the multitude of counsel there is safety” (TJS149).] Even the oldest and sagest of men do it. Still, folly rears its head at any age, but it’s as they say, there’s no fool like an old fool. Dave Barry, “You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.”

I’m mildly curious about that “my GA trumps your GA” notion. After a (short!?) lifetime of study, I think a large number of Mormons have fallacious ideas about synthesizing theology. What should never be arguments in the first place rapidly deteriorate; as President Lee would note, at least one and possibly both must be wrong. Some general authorities DO trump other general authorities. I’ve seen single members of the Seventy pressed into service against presidents of the Church, while unsubstantiated remarks by solitary presidents don’t carry the weight of the entire First Presidency in unison. On one particular issue, there are seriously members who think their interpretation of Roberts (70), Widtsoe (12), and a somewhat-inaccurately-quoted Talmage (12) is proof unassailable versus six presidents of the Church and at least 10 additional apostles.

At no time, per the teaching of many presidents, can something vague and unclear be brought to bear which is not already borne out by what has gone before, although the living president technically has the right to assert something over and against our understanding of predecessors. I find the way to safety is a thorough understanding of as massive a body of historical teaching as possible, coupled with a humble appreciation of the minute by minute present instruction.

The age card by itself, though...quite inappropriate. "Let no man despise thy youth." Let them despise our uninformed positions!

My final argument, after Ronald’s scathing post, which has since gone unanswered:

I had to dash off my initial response before heading to work.

@Ronald and Nathan: No, if my argument must be described in such a manner, then I insist that it’s all general authorities surpassing certain persons’ limited understanding of a single, long-dead one, something more like an entire deck against the hand of a card or two of low value. If any true discrepancy happened to exist, I’d say that “the living prophets always take precedence” (TETB136), though I deplore even so much as a gentleman’s disagreement being cast between Brigham just above and President Monson, who declared, “When I think of love, I think of Abraham Lincoln, one of the outstanding presidents of the United States. He was also one of the nation’s greatest writers and orators.” There goes any possible disclaimer that they’re using his words and shunning his deeds. He then quoted from a letter in which he said we could surely feel “within [our] heart the love that filled his,” one which, most alarmingly to the pessimistic worldview here, contained such propaganda as thanking a mother who’d lost “five sons who died gloriously on the field of battle,” earning “the thanks of the republic they died to save,” leaving their mother “only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be [hers] to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom” (Ensign, Mar. 1996, 6). The entire substance of that reference was naught but the old school historical portrayal trampled upon by Conrad’s misrepresentation.

Truthfully, President Monson and the multitudinous cloud of witnesses leading up to this day have the advantage of hindsight, while President Young was subject to the unfolding events of his own. There’s not a sufficient argument made to overturn the weightier testimony of so many of recent date. Their appraisal AFTER the events of the war carries more credibility from a historical standpoint than that given while in the agitated state of fog of war. He himself confessed that to the end of his life he had a weakness for temper. He said a lot of things about a lot of people. If we were to be strictly guided by such utterances, particularly those made behind closed doors, chaos would ensue. Brigham loved Joseph so much that he felt anyone unwilling to intervene was an accessory to the martyrdom. What’s more, anyone is in a heap of trouble who can’t differentiate between Brigham’s expressions of what he wished and felt, versus what he eventually soberly counseled people to do. He toned down considerably as Johnston’s army approached the valley (and they were likewise, and more murderously, nurturing threats)—it would have been a massacre if his first sermon were enforced instead of his last, in effect to “prefer [oneself] above the truth.” (Or, as I observed many years ago of the edited version of Crimson Tide, to enjoy the possibility of acting on initial contingency orders so much that one refuses to receive any subsequent ones.) President Young had no real dealings with Lincoln, for the Church was rightly riding out the war. We can derive a great deal of personal insight from journals of the day, but not doctrine, when it’s the odd man out. As a trained historian, I wouldn’t build a case solely on one witness when many additional ones of equal or greater value are available.

I’ve kept this civil, though I don’t appreciate its being made to appear that I’ve asserted something which the Brethren haven’t, in a forum which sometimes points to supposed “prophetic political silence” to justify its own ends. It seems that many would prefer silence, for the teachings of our prophets are perceived as meddlesome when vocal. This holds true for those who allow politics to affect their religious belief and practice, in a mistaken elevation of the wrong principles. If only they studied their religion as assiduously! I quote from President Lee (THBL525-526; see TETB139), in a format which will prove even more ominous by the time I reach my conclusion:

"We have some tight places to go before the Lord is through with this church and the world in this dispensation . . . which shall usher in the coming of the Lord. . . . The power of Satan will increase; we see it in evidence on every hand. There will be inroads within the Church. There will be . . . 'Hypocrites, those professing, but secretly are full of dead men's bones' (see Matthew 23:27). . . . Now the only safety we have as members of this church is to do exactly what the Lord said to the Church in that day when the Church was organized. We must learn to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through His prophet, 'as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; . . . as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith' (D&C 21:4-5). There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord Himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name's glory' (D&C 21:6).”

The prophetic commentary on the (end sum) constitutionality of Lincoln’s actions is bundled up in their hearty approval. Essentially all are agreed that the vexing catastrophe which befell the United States during the Civil War was punishment for its prior violation of civil rights (including those of the Saints). Lincoln was at the helm because God’s hand was still stretched out to preserve the nation for its divine ends, once the immediate chastening at hand was complete.

I wasn’t cavorting in the region of gaps in teachings, but filling them in for everyone. President Young was a passionate man, and I genuinely sympathize with you if the extent of your understanding of an issue is scouting out some blunt remarks from him. I can see why those who immerse themselves too deeply in the unrehearsed literature of the territorial period often develop some very strange ideas out of keeping with the direction the Church has actually taken. (I respectfully submit that I have intensely studied no inconsiderable volume of the teachings, older and modern.) Do you honestly believe that this paltry offering offsets that abundant material presented heretofore, or really even makes so much as a dimpled mark?

President Kimball described a man who fell away after having committed many older teachings from those times to heart, confessedly knowing them “infinitely better” than Kimball. “However, he was depending wholly upon himself and his own interpretation of the program and was moving farther and farther away from the truth. He said, ‘I know more about the sermons of the brethren in the days of Joseph and Brigham and Heber C. than does the President of the Church, or any of the apostles, or any of the stake presidents or the bishops. Why should I go to them?’” (TSWK446). Elsewhere (Ibid., 461-463), he went on: “Any new program or doctrine, which comes to the Church, will come through the authorities of the Church and be approved by them. . . . They who garnish the sepulchres of the dead prophets begin now by stoning the living ones. They return to the pronouncements of the dead leaders and interpret them to be incompatible with present programs. They convince themselves that there are discrepancies between the practices of the deceased and the leaders of the present. . . . As the critics of the Redeemer still worshipped Abraham and the critics of Joseph Smith could see only the Savior and his apostles, and as the apostates of Brigham’s day could see only the martyred Joseph, now there are those who quote only the dead leaders of the pioneer era.”

This is as good a place as any to indicate that this is why I can no longer in good conscience retrieve source material (admittedly a highly limited role to date) for Conrad. Let him painstakingly build his own case; why should I give with ease that which could readily support efforts with which I disagree (on a more than cantankerously personal basis)? It’s a shaky path to utilize something a prominent leader said in 1861 or thereabouts because we like the flavor, when such doesn’t neatly fit the totality of teachings, such as repeated supplemental statements on a similar issue a century or more later.

Ronald, I get the sense that you ridicule my argument for lack of an appropriate rejoinder, possibly hoping to draw me into a different field where you might unseat me more easily. I’ve already spoken my view on ends not justifying means, yet you persist in behaving as though you haven’t even glanced at my earlier arguments. Leaps in logic to give Lincoln any credit at all for constitutional behavior? Are we referring to the man confronted with a crisis the magnitude of a civil war? With states toppling like dominoes in dissent, and armies of hostile men amassing within striking distance of the capitol, yearning for a blow to be struck? (As another concession to the theological stance, so certain am I of Lincoln’s portrayal and purpose that I’m also confident my forefathers aren’t rolling in their graves, though four direct ancestors, and many, many more collateral individuals, were killed on the Confederate side in the war.) Many legal analyses which I’ve discovered—not tinctured with country-loathing or the libertarian cynicism—state that, while unprecedented in scope, his course was generally quite logical, even when raising eyebrows. Why is it so incredible to believe there might be positive assessments of his motives AND acts AND end results? (Pray stop harping on the misconception that I’m relying solely on the last.)

But that you may know I’ve given such considerations a great deal of nonpartisan thought, I spill the select offering of the tip of the iceberg, gleaned in a matter of minutes from the Internet and hardly a genuine glimpse of what I have studied and could study, in contravention of the above obscene viewpoint. These are best returned to after my closing arguments. As an eye opener, there’s this sensible overview of possibilities, presenting one of the Founding Fathers in a similar vein and introducing us to Justice Taney, who, for all his own forward looking, condemned Frederick Douglass [this should say Dred Scott] to renewed servitude. One interesting insight into Lincoln: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=29. A fair overview of one issue: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/hist-404pinsker/2010/10/26/ex-parte-vallandigham/. A far more extensive treatment (and note where it says “most historians” fall): http://www.d11.org/palmer/social_studies/teachers/schulzki/IB/Lincoln%20and%20the%20Constitution.pdf. The conclusion of this more “balanced” review—demonstrating the sheer broadness of the spectrum of intelligent application to this problem—is interesting: http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20030718_citron.html#bio. Another balanced and more entertaining piece casts some historical context the same as the largest article, and, importantly, describes sympathetically how little undue advantage Lincoln personally sought from having gained elbow room with which to conduct the distasteful war.

With increasing frequency, I observe the trend that only those with the most strident political agendas care to assert that someone else could have actually done the job better than Lincoln. As people here grow so upset when I touch their golden calf, undermining a beloved deduction, I wonder why they don’t take it up with so many of those living general authorities who’ve joined in passive refutation of their ideology, rather than miscasting every alternate argument I make in opposition to their fantastical premise? Why can’t they see it any other way, remaining perversely fixed despite so much evidence from the Brethren themselves that they may want to loosen their hold?

That brings me to my final points, and why so many libertarian policies are as fatal to the prosperity of this church and nation as any number of other philosophies. For example, I weary of so much pointing to protests against polygamy as though the historical comparison is a readymade one to our day’s political climate and needs. So much packaged hysteria and pathos as a method of debate! I cannot stress strongly enough how cautionary the Brethren are about the cafeteria selection plan which looks back to those days and disregards much more recently available counsel.

Consider whether remarks about the need for more maturity, or other such resistance, might not be the result of unfruitful discussions which alienate a significant and faithful portion of the Latter-day Saint population. Not that he wants it to be so, or necessarily believes it to be so, but Conrad’s anti-authoritarian attitude at times extends to leaders of the Church. I mean no condescension, but many times I’ve shaken my head in disbelief, wondering how it is that we could have grown up in the same church, and studied some of the same sources, and yet have such incredibly divergent conclusions. I know Conrad has many friends who take similar issue with him, but their public controversies with him have become few and far between. I’m leaving personal opinion on many matters out of this and openly tackling those which deserve comment. I never meant to come across as snarky, though those who crossed his path in disagreement have felt a brand of something similar.

Far gentler than the military he openly despises, the Church nonetheless has a command structure which we’ve covenanted to uphold. It sounds good to declare that "ultimately" his concern is to “never give a power to your friend that you wouldn't want your enemy to have.” (This concept would eliminate most loving relationships.) However, not long ago a President McKay quotation arose here, placing defense of the Constitution next to that of the Church. There’s no conflict; the latter hasn’t departed from the former. Too many profess that the Church has taught them their love of the Constitution, but offer evidences that they love very different things. Of the utmost concern to me, on the other hand, was that sentiment phrased well by President Benson (and upheld in similar statements by many others): “One who rationalizes that he or she has a testimony of Jesus Christ but cannot accept direction and counsel from the leadership of His church is in a fundamentally unsound position and is in jeopardy of losing exaltation.” President Woodruff reported that a member once presented a proposal for some unusual doctrinal system to the Prophet Joseph. Joseph exclaimed that it was beautiful, carefully adding that he had but one fault to find with it: “It is not true.”

I see a similar situation in so quickly setting aside the united wisdom and counsel of our leaders, as if to say one knows better because it seems an ironclad constitutional case can be made for one's own viewpoint. The Brethren both have and consult political and legal experts on their part, too, and never advocate anything but that which is right to the fullest extent of what they can consider in this life, and what is in their belief best for everyone. I’d also say they’re entitled to an enormous amount of inspiration in their sphere. Lo and behold, Conrad is helping lead a large contingent away from the clear, unequivocal stance which they have taken asserting support for Proposition 8. Have they done so unconstitutionally? Do we dare say they have done so unwisely? Can we seriously claim that they do it hatefully or divisively? This kind of specious antagonistic reasoning disunites the Church in its efforts at salvation in the last days. It’s often been reiterated in these forums that the Church won’t openly hand us a plan on how to rescue the Constitution. One such strategy lies right here, and so many turn from it!

Surrender the open, urgent, firm, yet loving advocacy of morality and there will be too few moral and religious people left to govern by the Constitution, whatever pleasant arguments we might have about the extent of governmental influence. Prideful members set in their ways ignore the fact that it’s not merely isolated apostles who condemn the notion that we can AVOID “legislating morality” of some form. Instead of a slippery slope of governmental control being their only horror, they ought to focus on the slippery slope of deregulating all of human behavior and interaction, to the point where anywhere we go, whatsoever a man does will be no crime, in effect legislating all manner of amorality and immorality instead. In the earnest efforts to encourage atomic breakdown to misguidedly believed individual rights, we learn too late that there is such a horrific thing as unity in evildoing and we have only hastened the ascendancy of the voice of the people in desiring that which is wrong.

Nathan, yours wasn’t the only usage of that sometime misappropriated Joseph Smith statement, but looking back now I see that it was you on the "drug legalization" issue. (I didn’t make a personal case out of it.) When we sustain our leaders as prophets, seers, and revelators, there is the inherent recognition that God’s commands will become more apparent through them. Justifications galore came out when I first posted these two links to show that the Church’s stance in favor of Prohibition was nothing to sneeze at: http://kristacook.blogspot.com/2010/08/prohibition-heber-j-grant-and-same.html, and http://lds.org/ensign/2003/05/loyalty?lang=eng, for President Hinckley's bridging the gap of history. (In fact, that talk’s theme of “loyalty” has everything to do with this part of my message.) Those were but a few of President Grant’s remarks, given in nearly every Conference year after year, so that he could declare the Church was “fundamentally for” Prohibition. The tragic response to his pleas led him to on more than one occasion craft the clever retort that people should add a modification to the end of their version of “We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet.” I hate to see President Grant booed out, and I must also state that he was hardly alone, as speaker after speaker united on the theme, which was eventually to be ignored by the membership. (In this, I see a fair comparison to current conditions.)

Following the repeal, the First Presidency (MFP5:339) noted that “members have always stood for temperance; they still stand for temperance, and should unitedly use their influence for the enactment of rational laws which will hold the liquor traffic in proper restraint, that we may never return to the golden age of the bootlegger, or the intolerable conditions which preceded him.” Prior to its repeal, they had made the Church’s sympathy with the restrictions then in place quite apparent. The entire First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve were in agreement on that.

In application to present-day coordinated efforts with like-minded organizations toward moral ends, these circulars demonstrate that the temperance movement and the Church’s reasoning WERE distinct. I know of no push for a measure banning tea, in response to one angry individual’s feeling that President Grant was just confused about whether the Word of Wisdom could be extended beyond the Church’s pale. Similarly, the desire to uphold Prohibition went well beyond sustaining the law already in place, to supporting it because it was the best thing. Therefore, the flaw in methodology was not the prohibition itself, but the unwillingness to shoulder any burden and seek out the most effective means of vanquishing the traffic once and for all.

In conclusion, a portion of keeping our eyes on our leaders, who will never lead us astray (in majority, or in singularity where the living president is concerned), is to observe their very behaviors. President Benson explained, “The expression ‘follow the Brethren’ has a broader meaning than some would apply to it. It means not only to agree with the counsel given to the Church by the Brethren, but also to follow their example in appearance and deportment.” This would entail making their priorities ours, and noticing the matters upon which they do not agitate. “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, until he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7, JST). In the ways that truly count, He has inspired our leadership to timely advocacy throughout our history. Theirs is the greatest cause to which we can lend our support. A dear friend taught me valuable lessons in my own youth about “putting a filter on [my] holy zeal,” showing from many examples and President Packer’s clarification that the lasting behavior and general tenor of our leaders becomes, by what is often unwritten, unspoken agreement, the binding tone and direction of church affairs. They are reverent, soft-spoken, constitutional scholars, civic servants—in short, some facet of Christlike personality is reflected all the time within the general body of the Brethren. They become all needful things to all people. They know and follow rules of authority and obedience, speech and refraining, and so forth.

This is no unquestioning, unthinking obedience. It calls forth every ounce of effort in study, observation, and prayer. It is extraordinarily far-reaching in scope and comprehensive in mental requirement. It does require an adaptability when change is urged, and there is expansive room for our own personal connection with heaven and within our individual, familial, and community spheres. Would that more members’ energies went into such a worthy pursuit!
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My rare public expression on political parties arose from Conrad’s gradual decline—observed by comparing his attitudes of several years ago—into the national Libertarian platform. It’s not that I’ve never seen any valid points made from their end. There was a time when they held my sympathies more than at present. But I remain, as I have for years upon years, unattached to any party line (hence, in accord with many general authority statements, and much freer to form opinions from a more “universal” and gospel-inspired frame of mind). However much many libertarian adherents protest their not accepting all practices of the nationals (defined by one fellow as “0 govt, free love and legal drugs, and pretty much whatever you want to believe”), J. Reuben Clark already noted in his review of certain Middle Age practices in Catholicism that in many instances, whatever line of contrary text someone can point to in a library somewhere doesn’t address the fact that a body’s canonized belief is that which it consistently trains its followers to believe. Conrad fails to realize that surrounding himself with young radicals who share his beliefs, and employing his own force of language (or the law degrees of some of his followers) against those who still disagree, differs little in my view from President Benson’s warning, “We sometimes look among our numbers to find one to whom we can point who agrees with us, so we can have company to justify our apostasy. We rationalize by saying that someday the Church doctrine will catch up with our way of thinking.”

The sort of counsel which is rarely found outside of the experience of wisdom in age is lacking precisely because of overlooking Joseph Smith’s admonition that “every man, before he makes an objection to any item that is brought before a council for consideration, should be sure that he can throw light upon the subject rather than spread darkness, and that his objection be founded in righteousness, which may be done by men applying themselves closely to study the mind and will of the Lord, whose spirit always makes manifest and demonstrates the truth to the understanding of all who are in possession of the Spirit” (TPJS, 94).

The kind of confusion they promulgate was expressed this very afternoon by one libertarian to Conrad (trusting him altogether too much, I might add): “I'm honestly still forming my opinion about Lincoln, as well as many of our national ‘heroes’. I think they all had their faults as well as admirable qualities. Part of my current struggle is seeing the Constitution as a ‘divinely inspired document’ as well as perhaps not the best thing that could have happened. I know there are those in the libertarian movement who would prefer that we had stayed with the Articles of Confederation, and I'm trying to sort out how one can be 100% for ‘liberty’ and yet believe what the brethren have said about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, Lincoln, etc.”

[The above severity of confusion is unexpectedly sustained by a comment from Conrad's crowd, from one of those existing in the murky nowhere land of reputedly acting politically as a Republican while maintaining Libertarian concepts. On February 22, in response to a discussion about a possible Congress shutdown, a new individual said: "I see no reason why they should meet once a year or even have legislators at the Federal level. They were originally created for times of war, am I right? If so then we should simply have the Governors of each state join together at times of war. They are in charge of the national guard anyways. then we would not have this run away Federal government with the ridiculous laws. The worst thing that happened to this Country was the Federal gov regulating interstate commerce. What was the point of that? Some argue that states were at war with each other with out the ability but the Federal government has not prevented economy wars. Just look at AZ and California now."]

Conrad has said, “What's the next target of the ‘war on drugs’? Elmer's glue? Radiator fluid? Nail polish remover? This insanity knows no limit.” Then, “If the government bans texting while driving, shouldn't it also ban other distractions such as looking at billboards, changing the air conditioning, applying makeup, speaking to another person in the car, adjusting the radio dial, or being consumed by one's own thoughts?” As if he really doesn’t know which actions constitute an actual physical threat to others as opposed to entirely his own person, or well-being. (While the thought gives rise to the act, not even in an ecclesiastical capacity do we believe in externally punishing that nascent state.)

It’s my observation that prolonged exposure to the primary tenets of libertarianism dulls one’s ability to discern the weight between issues ("weightier matters of the law," as it were) pertaining to liberty. (There’s a great deal of commentary about just how far Ayn Rand’s philosophizing can really go. [I know I'm oversimplifying things, as Rand wouldn't characterize herself as a libertarian. I find protean protests from individuals who point out the many (hydra) heads of the organization. Yet their antagonistic remarks are almost of a stripe, whether arising from self-styled "classical liberals" or any other name, and often no more contributory than, "So you think to save our liberties by restricting them?" I'd much rather be relying dogmatically on Paul than on (Ron) Paul.]) To the latter status, one wise, mutual friend, remarked, “Conrad: then should they also ban speed limits, traffic lights, what side of the street one can drive on, and all other traffic rules? You might be skirting with the difference between federalism and statism. I believe federalism is good, and constitutional.”

I then commented, “Following up certain libertarian leanings to their extremes can make one prey to every ‘slippery slope’ hypothesis there is, in attempting to weigh human liberty on the scale offered by such a philosophy. Similar dangers lie in adopting any philosophy too tightly which is, in the end, only a perspective. Just an insight into why so many were myopic during Christ’s ministry, failing to see how he wasn’t destroying the law, but fulfilling it. (The Church’s moves occasionally baffle those trapped inside of certain political constructs, no matter how frequently it attempts to show that we shouldn’t be bound by party.) Jacques Ellul commented that he in no way denied the beauty of Neoplatonism, only that it was in any way actually Christian, yet millions today swear by certain forms of Christianity constrained by definitions imposed by that philosophy. All I’m really saying is that one can inappropriately create a 'hedge' of redefining law around the Constitution, or just as inappropriately deny the parameters within which it intended to preserve order. The Founders hoped that the intelligence of our people would remain such as to hammer out reasonable details inside that tension.”

It’s a Tall World (After All)

2011-02-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

I was 30 years old before I truly realized I was short. Not in the eyes of God, nor in my own eyes—but, all the same, irredeemably “short.” There’s just no compensating for it. In the distant past, there was even some brief mutual flirting between myself and a girl who was something like 5'10", for we rapidly overcame our qualms in that initial realization that we had the same problem of being marginalized, even if coming at it from different directions. I’m certain this only prolonged the illusion and delayed the inevitable.

A blind mountain climber (with a seeing wife, incidentally), Erik Weihenmayer, explains the corner into which those of unusual circumstances are often painted:

People's perceptions of our limitations are more damaging than those limitations themselves, and it was the hardest lesson I ever had to swallow. . . .

The AFB asked me to do some TV interviews. One was a cheesy daytime talk show, on which I was showcased among a group of blind people deemed "amazing and inspirational." . . . I was featured first, and the host opened with, "A blind mountain climber. Isn't that incredible? Even I, who can see just fine, wouldn't think of climbing a mountain." This wasn't the first time I had heard the "Even I" statement. It was always meant as a compliment, but it never failed to annoy me. There might be a dozen other factors that prevented the host from excelling in the sport of mountain climbing. She might be fifty pounds overweight, wheezing with every breath, and might never have even set foot on a mountain, but in her mind, success or failure was automatically attributed to one factor: sight or no sight. . . .

People sensationalize the lives of blind people when, often, all they did was exhibit a semblance of normalcy. . . . Each of us on the panel was being honored for our heroic tales, but the recognition spoke more loudly of low expectations than of accomplishment. . . .

I told them about my failure to get a dishwasher job in college. "Some guy told me I needed to realize my limitations. I think too many people sit around realizing their limitations when, maybe, they should spend more time realizing their potential." (Touch the Top of the World: a Blind Man's Journey to Climb Farther than the Eye Can See [New York, New York: Dutton, 2001], 128, 166-167, 181)

Society won’t budge. It won’t even temporarily step aside. This was driven home as I happened across a book in the library this month, Normal at Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry’s Quest to Manipulate Height. The inescapable reality? “In 1936, the writer Hugh Morris wrote, in The Art of Kissing, that the ‘man must be . . . taller than the woman . . . for he must give the impression of being his woman’s superior (mentally and physically)’” (5). Crowned by the premise of standing “superior” to a woman, how has this managed to dupe and fossilize our culture? Conceiving of any direct connection between height and mental capacity is staggering. As for (wo)man’s bowing before Satan’s evolutionary construct in following a quest for physical superiority, never mind that I might be braver than 75% of men and at least as difficult to kill as the top quarter. Never mind any number of factors; a pointless subconscious insistence on height for protective assurance has become an open insistence.

I’m not alone in this. Many good men—some of whom I would have thought topped the most eligible lists in almost any category—have described rejection to me on grounds little more explicable than an inch or two of height difference. How devastating, and peevish, can such an opt-out be to one’s possibilities? I return to Normal at Any Cost, page 8, for a female perspective:

By the time Shirley had finished growing, at 6'1", she was taller than 91 percent of the male population: a potential social tragedy in a culture that insisted . . . that a husband must be taller than his wife. Theoretically, that left Shirley with, at most, a pool of 9 percent of young men her age as possible mates. If she’d stopped growing at 5'9", about half the male population would have been taller.

It’s not, strictly speaking, height difference leading to society’s angst, but whether the man will be taller. It’s so bad that Hollywood has unapologetically reinforced this ideal for years. All manner of sin can be forgiven in first impressions (and on down the line), but not male dwarfism. The girl can even be “ludicrously” shorter, so long as she’s the one who’s shorter. Many a time, I’ve heard a girl say to the guy she’s with, when looking at a picture of them together, “Wow. I had no idea you were so much taller.” (I’ve contemplated testing that as deadpan humor some time.) Somehow that doesn’t happen in reverse. Such a realization also has no negative impact on their ongoing relationship, because it fits the model.

One cannot hope to tamper with the triune characteristics—having no bearing whatsoever on character—which I’ve heard many women recite as desirable: “tall, dark, and handsome.” Normal at Any Cost also points out, “Nothing dented the preference among females for a taller mate. They’d give up on the dark and handsome long before they’d compromise on the tall. . . . One social psychologist called it ‘the cardinal principle of date selection’” (111). That kind of puts me at the bottom of the totem pole. ;-)

One of the impressive few who saw through this veneer once told me, “Please don't judge me on my 5' 4" status alone. I am barely that....and I am anything but typical.” There’s a definite, special charm to any girl rare enough to be interested, yet at the same time I find something subtly confining about such rarity in the first place. I long for selection, not hopeless compulsion by elimination. I’m open enough to possibilities and the value of every soul that my feeling forced is almost evidence enough in itself for me to withdraw. Have I passed up opportunities? Perhaps.... However, given that I settled once before (with divorce being the inevitable and tragic consequence), I no longer see the point in attempts where I haven’t felt more than faintly interested. Am I truly a beggar? Regarding my failure at times to reciprocate, I’m just as worried about a girl’s happiness as my own, to say nothing of a sincere sense of mission which must be served by a merger. I’ve explained myself so often before that it feels cliche to me—and why should I have to explain myself?

Valentine's Day has significance for me, but not for any of the right reasons. In 2001, I was restraining myself from going, as profusely invited, to a girl’s party, though we’d spent a great deal of time together. I’d caught on to what a good friend depicted as her treating me like a “eunuch” in her royal court. (Hence my nearly unreasonable insistence, after years of having enough, that I can only go so long around a single woman whom I genuinely find attractive, allowing her to have all the benefits of my friendship without any of the risks of going out.) Ere long, when she interrogated me over my reticence and obtained honest expressions of how negatively she made me feel, it led to some real nastiness. In 2007, I spent this evening in company with my ex-wife, renewed only long enough for me to be reluctantly goaded—not that I’d been happy in the marriage—to sign divorce papers, though they described a conflict which had never occurred and irreconcilability which was entirely by her choice. Her eyes lit up as I unexpectedly handed her half of my funds from a retirement account she didn’t even know existed and no court order would ever have made me turn over. In the end, it seemed she’d wanted me for money, soothing words, and shelter. She, too, had called out behind her, “Nobody wants you. Nobody will ever want you.”

There’s been a composite effect in my dating life that’s left me numb and detached. I’ve heard it said that when someone beats their head against a wall long enough, the killing blow is actually the weakest. Similarly, a girl in September last year is quite possibly the last one I’ll ever “try” with. She looked upon me without seeing my soul, and dismissed me out of hand when she tired of me. I now see women, despite all magnificence of being and necessity to being, somewhat like they see me: as a dating nonentity. It seems so much better this way, where things remain (however superficially) pleasant, diplomatic, friendly (to the extent, at times, that someone is your friend who can appreciate all the same supposed potential qualities, outside the untouchable triune, as those they apply to others of the opposite sex, and yet not see you as date-worthy). I commit no crime of showing an interest, and no more women are upset with me. Frankly, neither am I upset with any of them. This way, nobody gets too close and nobody gets hurt. The room I’ve reserved for legitimate affection has no place for such wasted emotions (or time and energy).

I conclude by speaking broadly of every girl who’s ever disappointed me in the dating realm. (Appreciating the sweetness of many, but not feeling it’s a match, is an entirely different matter.) If it seems unfair to make one’s assessment dependent upon acceptance or rejection as a date, just know that sooner or later multitudes of other men and women violate such a boundary . . . with varying success at impunity. Every woman from whom I’ve relented has retained a playing field open to anyone taller, I . . . to anyone shorter. Which encompasses more opportunity? I’m not sure whom they think I should be dating, but that’s never any concern of theirs. How many shorter women have I even known in my lifetime?

I’m no respecter of persons over height. I have nothing to say either for or against it. I simply haven’t experienced the needful convergence of personally suitable spirituality, personality, and intellect among the very few eligible short women, just as I haven’t with 99.95% of the average-statured female population. The samples are too small in both cases, but I assure you the pool of religiosity in which I’m quirky enough is exponentially larger in the tall camp. Height is truly irrelevant to those factors under consideration, in any event. Only the other day, I found myself sharing a small secret with someone of one thing I carefully observe in the opposite sex, which just so happens to have no coincidence with height or appearance.

Last week, I sat in the foyer of my family ward, reflecting upon how little I belonged there or in the singles ward from which I had graduated. Feeling in limbo, I looked up at the “lost and found” table, with a sudden urge to climb atop it and see if anyone would claim me. I’m often severely misunderstood, even among friends. What hope is there that I could let loose, full throttle, in voicing my thoughts, feelings, and concerns on religion, politics, and society—and not be rejected? With regard to dating, I say as I often have: I fear no rejection, but I reject the notion that I need any longer experience it. I have the faith to move mountains, but God Himself stops moving mountains in cases where agency must come to fruition.

I can no longer imagine any morning where I’d wake up thinking, “This might be the day I meet someone to share my life with.” The promises are sure, though. There’s always eternity, the great rectifier. If that seems dark, I apologize, rather than scoffing at the shortsightedness which condemns stoicism acknowledging a better future. So many have had it so much worse over so much longer time, and proven themselves so much better. I’ll press on to the end and ask no odds of any man or woman.

Thoughts on civil disobedience

2010-12-29T23:51:00.000-08:00

After a considerable hiatus, I break the silence to make a post that is both lengthy and easy for me...because I already produced it about a month ago. Someone asked that I do so. This is unscripted and only edited in two minor points. Were I to do it over again, no doubt I would tighten some propositions and clarify some loose ends.

From a thread at http://www.facebook.com/cboyack/posts/149834545064984, posing the question, “Are Latter-day Saints justified by God in participating in forms of civil disobedience? If so, under what circumstances?”

Copied directly from D&C 134:11: "We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded."

As President Monson has stated, "When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past." While even CIVIL disobedience is not a course to lightly enter into, and we always want to proceed with as much precedent and direction as possible from the church, history and futurity both clearly establish "times of exigency" (which is more to say collapse of ethical protection than application of private situational ethics). (I often contend that while we should be so mentally prepared, such times are not upon us at present.)

The last half of the quoted verse is not the only portion providing for such, for we also perceive that laws must exist which WILL "protect the same." There is longstanding scriptural allowance for self- and family-defense to the point of shedding of blood, as--obviously--standing pat and pacific when so threatened will not leave one future opportunity of application for redress.

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Spencer, you’re right: most of human history has been a seemingly endless struggle against tyrants. (I’ve written at length about such scriptural features as the depiction of the evils of a bad government, with 1 Samuel 8; see Ether 6:22-23; compare Mosiah 11, leading to Mosiah’s repudiation of the monarchical system in chapter 29.) Section 134 is rife with reiteration of what sorts of laws God holds governments accountable to establish, in order to retain our own exact obedience. (“Divine mandate” governmental theory went out the window, rightly, centuries ago; social contract is far closer to the divine practice.) By the way, verse 5 actually reads for your statement as to insurrection: “sedition and rebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished accordingly.”

My commentary has largely been in the context of present American politics and what may still be salvaged as a divinely inspired system of government. The problem outlined by most early Church leaders was the corrupt administrators of our constitutional government. In this respect, there is much midlevel legislation and perceived legislation still in flux, with plenty of wriggle room for vocal dissent. (Rabble-rousers might jump more immediately to stronger forms, when, as a lazy and apathetic, yet angry, people, we have hardly begun to express our disapproval by conventional routes.) For instance, I often attempt to point out to people that there are more public forum rights for religious expression on the books than we are often led to believe by those around us. The optimal form of dissent would be to find (D&C 98:10) ways to uphold good, honest, wise men in office, and send the rest packing.

What I can’t ever abide in interpretations COUNTER to the possibility of disapproval leading through stages of dissent to open disobedience, is the stance assumed by some—which is well opposed in Connor’s 12th A of F link above--that subjection to “the powers that be” means we would automatically incur God’s disapproval if we ever stepped out of line with any mandate from earthly government. (People unable to draw such lines offer delightful fodder for totalitarian regimes, and often end up assisting them in their deeds.) I've laughingly pointed out that many Latter-day Saints have, in their theological confusion, sought to undermine the basis for our own Revolution (or any revolution throughout all time against oppressive and/or bloodthirsty rulers), which was nonetheless approved by God.

It is naive for some to assume that obedience to God cannot require sacrifice from some other sector, that there will never be a day of irreconcilable parting between God and mammon. Still, I always put forward my own hesitance to declare the day of reckoning over matters, frighteningly eroded though our principled country may have become. Later on today, I’ll have access to President Benson’s actual teachings and counsel, but it’s sufficient at the moment to report Elder Oaks’ disbelief (http://lds.org/ensign/1994/10/our-strengths-can-become-our-downfall?lang=eng) that people could use him to justify tax evasion.

“When the wicked rule the people mourn” (D&C 98:9, an echo of Proverbs 29:2). This causes nearly daily tension between obedience to God and that to man. While we must honestly evaluate the extent to which we can turn the other cheek and bear patiently under suffering, particularly while attempting every legal recourse, and at which point it becomes unacceptable to do so any longer, there should be no question as to who claims the greater allegiance. I borrow from Acts 5:27-29, 40-42 (actually spoken by a corrupt, yet subservient and cringing, puppet government of another): “And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. . . . And when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”

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My prior honesty could get me in trouble, because I do believe in the theoretical/eventual possibility of disobedience (which must, to be proper, if effected, begin as civilly as permissible). When someone adversarily asked the wrong question about polygamy, “Can a Latter-day Saint be a true member of the Church and in good standing, who flatly denies the divinity and authenticity of the revelation on plural marriage?,” Charles W. Penrose of the First Presidency replied coolly, “No one can be counted a true Latter-day Saint who flatly denies the divinity of a revelation accepted as divine by the Church.” (It’s not like we were just off our rocker for a few years, or conducted a failed social experiment. Any thinking Christian should realize it will have to exist in heaven if loved ones in unusual circumstances are to have just opportunity to be together, though plenty of questions remain as to the scope.) The important feature here would be type and timing of “obedience.” (I cite your minds forward to the 7th and 8th paragraphs.)

One will search in vain among President Benson’s words for counsel encouraging rebellion. In this instance, perusal for common justifications of tax evasion yields nothing more than some remarks about certain uses of our taxes being for unconstitutional purposes. He didn’t seem to think this incursion on the sacred constituted a right to revolt. Even prophets deserve the right to subtly vent their spleen, without unstable individuals inferring an improper course of action therefrom (such as with Mountain Meadows). To use a lame example, I seem to recall that in the movie Christmas Vacation, Cousin Eddie went all out and kidnaped Clark’s boss based off some complaints. Speak of inappropriate application of resources! I concur with John’s earlier statement about the use of extremes to justify (means of approach to) minor issues.

Truth be told, we are surrounded by unconstitutionalities. While this is a sobering call to action, President Benson only seemed to advocate greater participation in due processes, not intervention or secession. (One of his common phrases was to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.) My above link to Elder Oaks’ commentary on this very thing talks about those who use a few words to “support their political agenda or other personal purposes,” “ignor[ing] the contrary implications of other prophetic words, or even the clear example of the prophet’s own actions.” In President Benson’s own words, “The expression ‘follow the Brethren’ has a broader meaning than some would apply to it. It means not only to agree with the counsel given to the Church by the Brethren, but also to follow their example in appearance and deportment.” It appears to me, from their words and works, that the injunction to befriend constitutional law does not contain an automatic adjunct to defy unconstitutional law. Were it so, President Benson would have spent his final years in prison, leading out by example.

Joseph Smith was no stranger to the courts, but he was always hauled there on charges not of his own doing. Regarding such vexatious suits, Brigham reported, “I know for myself that Joseph Smith was the subject of forty-eight law-suits, and the most of them I witnessed with my own eyes; but not one action could ever be made to bear against him. No law or constitutional right did he ever violate. He was innocent and virtuous; he kept the law of his country, and lived above it; out of forty-eight law suits, (and I was with him in the most of them), not one charge could be substantiated against him. He was pure, just, and holy, as to the keeping of the law.” (Hedges and Holzapfel recently upped the number to “more than two hundred legal cases.”) In the final conclusion, his foes, who often acknowledged to one Saint or another that they knew he was guilty of nothing under the laws of the country, determined to reach him by ball and powder where the law couldn’t touch him.

In the same Conference address as he used the quotation given by Steven, President McKay was speaking mainly in the context of American liberties for “an ideal society” in a world such as East German communism. He spoke of standing for inalienable rights, not grumbling over inconveniences. After alluding to property rights as being subject to “consent of the people,” he made the curious statement that “the right of property consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of all acquisitions, without control or diminution save by the laws of the land.” It was definitely no fiery call to arms. In the October 1967 Conference, President McKay quoted directly and at length from a diatribe specifically against ongoing “civil disobedience” in the land, wrapping up with a request that we remember to be “united as a country,” rather than inducing “contention and confusion.”

It’s well for us to take note of which liberties are being abridged, that we may press for repeal via acceptable methods, but it’s important to remember that we are more effective when assertively responsible than when simply standing on rights. The church’s default position is clearly that of obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law (with no obvious qualification inserted). Elder Quentin L. Cook said of our society, “Individual rights are demanded, but duties, responsibilities, and obligations are neglected.” The right to bear arms, for example, doesn’t confer a necessity to stockpile them. It is certainly hoped that there will be intelligent consideration of ethical usage thereof. The right exists to meet potential needs, not to create them. Indeed, America is still wonderful precisely because I couldn’t possibly have the time to select more than a few of the paths afforded me by my rights.

As for polygamy, while it’s true that plural marriages continued to be contracted after laws were passed, such laws were shockingly biased attempts to be retroactively punitive against men who sorrowed to be disenfranchised and refused to break up their families. This was no garden variety offense—if you will forgive the pun, still working in our overall discussion. Many in later years (i.e., post-Manifesto) ought to have been tried for their membership, for the disparity between law of God and law of man was once again removed. President Joseph F. Smith had to boldly remind members in Conference that, as the one who held the keys on this earth, he forbade any new plural marriages from being entered into, whatever skulking individuals might be performing.

On such matters as these, speaking of revelation adapted to circumstances, let’s consider Joseph Smith’s teaching: “Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.” By that token, it seems that of preeminent value for this matter, or any other, under consideration would be having God’s word at the moment. President Packer has remarked several times that there are fundamental beliefs built into who we are as Latter-day Saints, such that on many issues of the day we shouldn’t even have to ask what the Church’s position is. (He gives us credit for being attuned to the Spirit, the mind of Christ which brings unity in doctrine and principle. Once upon a time, I gaped at a young woman’s demands that I demonstrate from Church teachings that it is of first preference, and I wasn’t claiming by command or irremediable decree, that mothers be able to stay at home with their children—and, on another occasion, that she should tithe on a gift given her from a relative by check—simply thinking to myself, “Where is it NOT taught?”) Might it be that we are groping to find a doctrine for civil disobedience because there ISN’T one? An absence of any defined impetus is suggestive of the fact that something has not been commanded, and bringing fragments to bear is little more than wresting scripture. “Civil” disobedience, attractive at first sight, is in actuality striving to put a palatable adjective on an unsavory concept.

Latter-day Saints, as represented to us by our leaders over the years, have a well-deserved and needful reputation for being among the most law-abiding citizens that our country could possibly call upon. I’m not sure how far I could trust individuals who think to improve the law by flouting it, to protest, as it were, the direction a valiant steed is traveling by shooting it. It is also something like hammering away at a dam’s foundation in efforts to irrigate a field. That will introduce enough trouble to cause us to forget our original concern! If we want to tap into the vast, dormant American polity, we should stir the surface or open up designated channels. Extreme examples? It is also extreme to leap to disobedient action where so many other options are still available. President McKay taught that we, individually, each one of us, the people, make up “the vote” in America.

Civil disobedience, if nothing else, isn’t viable because it is too volatile. Here I shall rest my case on some of President Faust’s remarks in 1995 (in both THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA, 130-131 and IN THE STRENGTH OF THE LORD, 276): “Civil disobedience has become fashionable for a few with strongly held political agendas. Even when causes are meritorious, if civil disobedience were to be practiced by everyone with a cause our democracy would unravel and be destroyed. Civil disobedience is an abuse of political process in a democracy. . . . When we disagree with a law, rather than resort to civil disobedience or violence we are obliged to exercise our right to seek to repeal or change by peaceful and lawful means. There is a growing mistrust and distrust for all forms of government and authority. We claim the right to do what we want, but we are often slow to face up to our duty as citizens in a free land. Many of the rising generation have paid little price beyond that of paying taxes for the blessings we enjoy in this country.”

That would be my caveat: there must first be ample breakdown in all authority that our government ceases to exist as such, closer to D&C 134:6's “anarchy and terror.” One’s back must be to the wall, with no escape or possible way to maintain one’s character, with evil pervading all levels and commissioned with essentially every act. In my humble opinion, to override the peaceable default position, it must first become a crime to remain obedient to appointed authority. Disobedience shouldn’t just be a good way to make a point, but become a moral imperative “in the course of human events.” We are still so much closer to the democratic (republican, by whatever name to describe the unique) end of the model than the tyrannical that speaking of revolt as a mode of organizing a grassroots awakening to constitutional principle is like Elder Maxwell’s quip, “pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing!” We might be seeing “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” but it is as yet nothing comparable to former circumstances. King George had been unresponsive—aside from increasing pressure—to all attempts at rectifying the situation as it became increasingly “intolerable.” It is important to note that Rosa Parks actually had predecessors who successfully proved to the Supreme Court’s satisfaction that there were problems with the constitutionality of various state laws.

Using D&C 58:20-22, President Lee warned in October 1972 about some even affecting “weak and unwary among Church members,” “who are taking the law into their own hands by refusing to pay their income tax because they have some political disagreement with constituted authorities. Others have tried to marshal civilians, without police authority, and to arm themselves to battle against possible dangers, little realizing that in so doing they themselves become the ones who, by obstructing the constituted authority, would become subject to arrest and imprisonment.”

So I would caution against “strain[ing] at a gnat, and swallow[ing] a camel” (Matthew 23:24, JST; see also James 2:10, as these verses have a delightful use of the concept of “law). This is the very passage which President Kimball used to denounce false applications of “budding apostates” between what they can supposedly glean from dead prophets and set against “present programs,” advancing to the point where they challenge the direction of Church leaders. Also from President Benson: “We sometimes look among our numbers to find one to whom we can point who agrees with us, so we can have company to justify our apostasy. We rationalize by saying that someday the Church doctrine will catch up with our way of thinking.” It’s a bizarre theological premise to think it laudable simply to do things of our own will which don’t actually “bring to pass much righteousness,” and which, though operating in a realm where nothing has been commanded, make havoc of that which already has been.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m very frustrated by current trends in the American political process. I think many of our elected officials forget both that they were elected and even in which nation they stand as representatives. If anyone has a tempestuous temperament, it’s me, yet I remain mindful of George Q. Cannon’s counsel that “it is not an evidence of true courage to be willing to rush into a fight. Sometimes the bravest of people shrink from any such action as this; when the time comes to fight, however, they are the bravest, and the slowest to yield.” (As Joseph warned, troublesome times will be sad enough when they come that we need not wish their hastening.) Still, I delight in pondering another of Penrose’s statements: “Back in London we had an old veteran of the army who was a member of the Church; he was ordained a priest, and used to go out and preach on the street. One Sunday he was preaching and a man came up and slapped him in the face. ‘Now,’ he cried, ‘if you are a Christian, turn the other cheek.’ So he turned it, but exclaimed, extending his clenched fist, ‘Hit again and down you go.’”

The light of Christ (human conscience) bears witness when fundamental laws universal to humanity are broken. Police beatings would be one such example. By contrast, mounds of pointless paperwork or spiraling costs seem trivial. By the way, Connor, Huebener is one of my heroes. My mother as much as told me after we watched a documentary on him that she would expect no less from how she raised me, after I expressed my admiration for his clear conscience in writing a final letter to his own mother. I have taken issue with the mentality which led many church members to become Nazi collaborators. Just as I did with Valkyrie’s characters’ recollection of the righteous few possibly saving entire cities, I took comfort from the Winter 2010 BYU Magazine’s refreshing article about German Saints who resisted as they were able, with one woman declaring, “I did enough things in contradiction to Hitler’s instructions that they should have shot me fifty times.” Speaking once of the Holocaust with a coworker of no inconsiderable moral ambivalence, I could get nothing more committal than his allegation that “no one knows how we might have acted.” I wanted to cry out, “Come on, man! At least say you HOPE you would have done something.” I’m certain that I would have had a short life expectancy in the Third Reich, as I could never stand by silently.

I’ve been known to use two groups of ancestors as examples of appropriate responses to political pressures, in different climates. Both found sanctuary in America and would marvel at what we consider oppressive by today’s standards. The first (http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=561), driven from Catholic Salzburg in 1731 for their beliefs, were given one and only one option: convert, or remain as they were but dispossessed of all property and forced into exile. Their Lutheran tenets—slightly simpering, I confess—about near-total submission to ruling powers had their origin in Luther’s disgustedly trying to rein in excesses (like the French Revolution in nature) from a reactionary peasant revolt. Yet even Luther wrote, “We recognize the authority, but we must rebuke our Pilates in their crime and self-confidence.” Many of the early Protestant leaders struck upon a great deal of truth in trying the virtue of the word before that of the sword, allowing speech to precede act, and charitable, positive act to precede outright rebellion.

My threefold forebear, Charles Lapierre (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Charles-Lapierre/123161644402212?v=info), and his father-in-law’s family (link within the preceding), were thorns in the side of the king of France, in a deservedly active state of rebellion. One must recall that their right of assembly was entirely revoked. Indeed, troops often fired on them when located, leaving dozens or hundreds at a time wounded and dying. Their right to bear arms was nonexistent, for the king knew innately that those times permitted the use of arms against him. One cannot say too much about the peril in which they and their families lived. But among the worst of all grievances, in that time or any other, was the proscription/prescription of religious belief. Brousson, a compatriot, wrote many times in many ways to the king, right up to the time of his execution, begging him to alter his laws in restoration of human liberties, also remonstrating that the Savior had asked His followers to assemble but the king of France disallowed it.

While I derive much that is positive from my forebears, I also learn from their mistakes. Being of entirely Confederate composition, let me just say there was an extraordinary lack of wisdom in their “nation” asserting its technical rights so assiduously in the face of other concerns. I bear some sympathy for their waiting until after losing yet another election, with little promise of having the ear of national leaders. They should serve as a haunting reminder that no sizeable political bloc can be entirely alienated. (No matter what paltry arguments to the contrary have been adduced, I feel that Joseph Smith gave the correct solution to the slavery problem, via completely calm, legal means.) States’ rights are fading as a relevant issue in our collective memory because of substantial federal encroachment.

There may presently be isolated and passing instances requiring a bold stance which is incidentally “disobedient,” primarily in a cultural setting, but I know of no prolonged requirement for it in the America of today. Inalienable rights must be at stake, not merely annoyed or even threatened. Thankfully, Jesus’ example was fairly direct in not overthrowing authority until His second coming, so that Pilate could find no fault in Him while false religious zeal despised His refusal to seize political power. (It’s wholly beyond my ability to describe here how the kingdom of God is filling the whole earth with constitutional principles, supported but not dominated by our church’s direction. Elder Oaks and others have shown how prevalent is adoption, at least in part, of our form of government.) Jesus was very clear on the payment of taxes. Regarding that incident, Muggeridge has stated, “The cleverness of that reply was of course that it didn't specify exactly how much was due to Caesar and how much to God. He left us to work that out, and it's possible, as I have discovered in the course of my long life, to whittle down what's due to Caesar in favour of what’s due to God.” At any rate, there’s no warrant for deliberately fomenting conflict where none exists and all purposes may still be served. I’ve already explained some of my belief with regard to true times of exigency, when time and circumstances would likely permit neither recourse to the law nor consultation with church authority.

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I tried to anticipate some of the continuing objections posted after my comments. A careful reading will show a surprising amount of ground was covered. I don’t lack courage or moral conviction, or probable agreement with much of the disheartenment; I differ in conviction as to proposed methods. I’m just pleading that we channel all this energy for social change into constructive measures.

Without so much as commenting on the rightness or wrongness of the civil rights movement, it emerges that the Church has clearly enough demonstrated that strategy is not presently for us. (Many acts committed during the course of that movement would never stand approved.) I concede the possibility that’s because we have not dwelt in equivalent circumstances. We demean the valid past grievances of African-Americans in equating petty causes to theirs. It’s fatuous to make every matter of our daily lives a religious article to die for, when there are enough of a genuine stamp that might present the opportunity. May we have an awareness of general authority iteration that, though true martyrdom always involves a voluntary phase, it isn’t appropriately arrived at by choosing to go out of our way to take up a cross. I would challenge others to consider Will’s conditions, in conjunction, and be quite certain of their commitment. He also started to put his finger on the underlying motives for us. We may encourage the wrong sort of inspiration if embarking on revolt simply because we want it badly. Even that which might otherwise be noble or commendable sours when done at the wrong time (or over the wrong issue).

Examples continue to abound where freedom of religion or of speech were tangibly and permanently abrogated, reasonable answers to the posed question as to whether Latter-day Saints are EVER justified (in disobedience, “civil” or otherwise). I continue to stand on an insistence that criteria for living in “times of exigency” have not been met. Even so, one example given here, wherein Daniel was apprehended for praying when decree had been made against such worship, has a seeming counterexample (Mosiah 24:11-12), where those who prayed in their hearts instead were still found faith-filled and worthy of communication with the Lord and deliverance from bondage. Whether the difference was one of individual as opposed to disruptive group disobedience where the lines still hadn’t been broken with heaven, that Daniel was simply in a position to at least believe he could do so discreetly, a more immediate threat of guaranteed death where service to God could still be given without incurring it, or something else I haven’t considered, I don’t know, I’m just putting this on the table. Seeing as one of my Facebook likes is “Dare to be a Daniel” (closest thing to “Dare to be a Mormon”), I suppose my preferred reaction in that situation is apparent. President Kimball said, “Was there any question what he should do? He could save his life by abandoning his prayers to the Living God. What was he to do? A man of integrity could not fail. Daniel was the soul of integrity.” We do find that the entrapment of Daniel’s situation was set on account of his being so virtuous that only “concerning the law of his God” could they ever hope to find occasion against him. Similarly, the edict was made under a proposition so unalterable that the king himself regretted it. Right there, we see there was no avenue for repeal or redress, whereas perhaps those subjugated by Amulon felt no perjury in less preferred, but full, obedience to the law of God while giving basic adherence to something that might stand a chance of being altered. God provided the way of escape.

President Lee taught that what “comes from the authority of the Church” may “take patience and faith,” and “it may contradict your political views,” and so forth. Apostasy in premature pushes for resistance is but one step removed from criticizing our Church leaders, in that it pretends to praise their evident lack of lent support to one’s cause of choice, while persisting therein. Elder Cook has also taught, “Some who are not authorized want to speak for the Brethren and imply that their message contains the ‘meat’ the Brethren would teach if they were not constrained to teach only the ‘milk.’ Others want to counsel the Brethren and are critical of all teachings that do not comply with their version of what should be taught. . . . We are looking beyond the mark when we elevate any one principle, no matter how worthwhile it may be, to a prominence that lessens our commitment to other equally important principles or when we take a position that is contrary to the teachings of the Brethren.” To put an end to a specious belief in a sort of convenient “doublespeak” among the Brethren, as well as to lessen the severity of Steven’s suggested civil disobedience time frame for polygamy (40 years), I turn to the First Presidency’s “Address to the World,” adopted in the April 1907 Conference:

“Deceit and fraud in the perpetuation of any religion must end in failure. A system of religion, ethics, or philosophy, to attract and hold the attention of men, must be sincere in doctrine and honest in propaganda. That the Church employs deceptive methods; that she has one doctrine for the Priesthood and another for the people; that she teaches one set of principles to her members in Zion, and another to the world, is not true. Enlightened investigation is the very means through which the Church hopes to promote belief in her principles, and extend the beneficent influence of her institutions. . . .

“If patriotism and loyalty are qualities manifested in times of peace, by just, temperate, benevolent, industrious and virtuous living; in times of trial, by patience, resistance only by lawful means to real or fancied wrongs, and by final submission to the laws of the land, though involving distress and sorrow; and in time of war, by willingness to fight the battle of the nation,—then, unquestionably, are the ‘Mormon’ people patriotic and loyal.

“The only conduct seemingly inconsistent with our professions as loyal citizens, is that involved in our attitude during the controversies that have arisen respecting plural marriage. This practice was introduced by the Prophet Joseph Smith, at Nauvoo, Illinois. The practice was continued in Utah, and published to the world as a doctrine of the Church in 1852. In the face of these facts, Brigham Young, whose position in the matter was well known, was twice appointed with the consent of the Senate, first by President Fillmore, and afterwards by President Pierce, to be the governor of this territory. It was not until 1862 that Congress enacted a law forbidding plural marriage. This law the Latter-day Saints conscientiously disregarded, in their observance of a principle sanctioned by their religion. Moreover, they believed the enactment to be violative of the Constitution, which provides that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Notwithstanding this attitude and conduct on the part of our people, no decision of the Supreme Court upon this question was secured until 1878, more than thirty years after the settlement of Utah; nor were determined efforts made to enforce the law until a further period of five or six years had elapsed. Surely this toleration, under which the practice of plural marriage became established, binds the United States and its people, if indeed they are not bound by considerations of mercy and wisdom, to the exercise of patience and charity in dealing with this question.”

I stress that we cannot afford to resort to stripping prophetic utterance out of context, for personal gain. The Joseph F. Smith quote which Steven used unwittingly omits its proper source, leading one to believe it is joined to remarks from the April 1917 Conference (a decade after the above excerpt). In fact, the source text is contained in the Journal of Discourses, and arose during the April 1882 Conference, at the very height of the days of polygamic persecution. One of the dangers inherent to using the Journal thus has been too broad an interpretation/application of features applicable only while the practice of polygamy was permissible, and many references to constitutionality flew directly at this issue. If someone wishes to seriously establish a sure foundation of doctrine on such a matter as this, they will need to produce equally fervent sentiments from outside of that time period, with obvious pertinence to present-day societal quagmires. In assessing whether it’s acceptable for Latter-day Saints to engage in the practice, one would need to see a legitimate quotation emphasizing that civil disobedience is a great idea. It would have to offset a mounting body of evidence in opposition. (I have sought to show the reader foundational reasons why defense of polygamy was a far more drastic “right” than nearly all forms of protest issued today. President Smith spoke strongly in that vein, in the same April 1917 Conference: “I want to tell you just once more, and would tell it before all the world if I could, that I believe with all my heart, that if any man ought to be damned in this world, it is the man that will abandon the mother of his children. We do not do it, we will not do it, the Lord Almighty helping us not to do it.”)

I’m quite accepting of former-day statements where they can be shown to harmonize with latter-day preaching and practice. But one must be persuasive, and perceptive, and bring all the light, truth, and evidence to bear that is possible within human reason. I’ll continue to utilize Joseph F. Smith’s ministry, to expand a consistent view. Now, if we turn the page in Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith, to 408, we find this sentiment from April 1912, long post-Manifesto, speaking of the Constitution and American liberties: “We cannot go back upon such principles as these. We may go back upon those who fail to execute the law as they should. We may be dissatisfied with the decision of judges and may desire to have them removed out of their places. But the law provides ways and means for all these things to be done under the constitution of our country, and it is better for us to abide the evils that we have than to fly to greater evils that we know not what the results will be.”

Elder Talmage bound it more tightly than I have often considered, in ARTICLES OF FAITH, 422-424. As he wasn’t even a member of the First Presidency, I’m not suggesting all ramifications of his text are terribly binding, or more than informative, in nature, but what he says certainly joins a growing motif of uniform opposition to civil disobedience in our writ. I promise that I have not knowingly overlooked unfavorable quotations; I simply haven’t recalled or encountered them. I’m not on here to “please” myself or others, only to make a solid start at getting to the bottom of the truth.

From Elder Talmage, after referring to the passage about “befriending” constitutional law: “A question has many times been asked of the Church and of its individual members, to this effect: In the case of a conflict between the requirements made by the revealed word of God, and those imposed by the secular law, which of these authorities would the members of the Church be bound to obey? In answer, the words of Christ may be applied—it is the duty of the people to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. . . . In this day of comparative enlightenment and freedom there is small cause for expecting any direct interference with the rights of private worship and individual devotion; in all civilized nations the people are accorded the right to pray, and this right is assured by what may be properly called a common law of humankind. . . . Pending the overruling by Providence in favor of religious liberty, it is the duty of saints to submit themselves to the laws of their country. Nevertheless, they should use every proper method, as citizens or subjects of their several governments, to secure for themselves and for all men the boon of freedom in religious service. It is not required of them to suffer without protest imposition by lawless persecutors, or through the operation of unjust laws; but their protests should be offered in legal and proper order. The saints have practically demonstrated their acceptance of the doctrine that it is better to suffer evil than to do wrong by purely human opposition to unjust authority. And if by thus submitting themselves to the laws of the land, in the event of such laws being unjust and subversive of human freedom, the people be prevented from doing the work appointed them of God, they are not to be held accountable for the failure to act under the higher law. The word of the Lord has defined the position and duty of the people in such a contingency: [D&C 124:49, 50.]”

Next to nothing is truly “commanded” in life, per se, so in arriving at decisions we must evaluate all available counsel from God, study it out in our mind and heart, and try not to counsel Him. Plainly put, Church leadership would look with a very scrutinizing, steady eye, thinking long and hard, before putting anyone in a position of trust who had deliberately built a criminal record. If I have a “wait and see” attitude on civil disobedience, it is because we have years more of decline before I feel we’d see an alteration in affairs requiring such drastic measures. Are we making our lives of maximum benefit to humanity? Are we ever blinded to our true potential in a rage to dismantle a hated structure? To deluge society with acts which, as President Faust illustrated, would overwhelm our nation if everyone adopted such a form of dissent, is an attitude of entitlement. What’s to stop anyone and everyone from splintering the Constitution to tiny threads by pursuing their own desires in like manner? I think it detracts from the intended message, prattling, “I reject democratic discourse. I’m not budging until things are done my way.” We ought to be steadfast and immovable in good works and righteousness, and when others push upon us, not in a willful, bristling, obstructive way. I’m sorry, but in reviewing the lessons of history, I find that, even where rather immoral and at times downright wicked, our leadership so far have been no more than wannabe tyrants. Talk to me again in ten years and that might be a different story.

President Packer’s noted a growing tendency to elevate individual rights over the benefit of the community. Robert Bork wrote, “The unqualified language of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, reflected in the continual expansion of individual rights by the judiciary, feed our national obsession about ‘rights.’ That obsession, as Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon has pointed out, impoverishes cultural, political, and judicial discourse. There is no more sterile form of ‘argument’ than the bald assertion of rights.” I’ve similarly observed many times, in theological disagreement, that the buzzword “agency” tends to be among the last feeble cries of an otherwise lost dissertation. There’s a powerful appeal to appealing to the powerful doctrine. Yes, we know you can do as you please. We want to know why you passionately believe your rights should be so employed, and why this should sway us toward the same end.

The Spirit as an overruler of other considerations may be a highly valid card to play, but it’s as poor a persuasive argument—in standalone capacity—as it is a good rule for life (where the immature, inexperienced, and deluded don’t mistake its impressions, for we know what Joseph Smith said about the danger of those who only think they’re acting under its influence). It is especially deficient in hypothetical theorization. What I want to know is whether members are getting genuine promptings of such fierceness to set themselves against established, settled procedure in our church’s interaction with this, the best of all human governments. If so, they’re receiving more than I am, in a field beyond what has been taught. Of course Heavenly Father could command anything, yet there’s an eagerness for authorization of a predetermined course here which gives me serious pause.

1 Nephi 10:20 IS highly applicable! I once had occasion to summarize it thus: “A common misconception has it that we may push the line and the Holy Ghost will warn us before we’ve gone too far. An official definition of sin is to act contrary to one’s knowledge. Therefore, as Latter-day Saints, how can we expect ministrations of the Spirit if we consciously enter a questionable situation? Instead, truth be told, reception of the Holy Ghost and heeding its warnings will remove all desire to ever go near there. If we allow carnal considerations to override our indoctrination in correct principles, there will likely not be confirmation from the Spirit of any sort.” If an unexpected suggestion is required, the Spirit will offer it to the mind opened and prepared by obedience. Much more recently, I wrote, “We must not rush headlong down our own paths. Sometimes we are prone to such reliance on the advance warning system of the Holy Ghost that we act as though we are daring Heavenly Father to stop us. . . . Do we realize that . . . God’s respect for our agency is so great that we become our own judges and condemners? As ‘subjects to follow after [our] own will,’ we are enticed on one hand by the devil and on the other by the Spirit. To which side will we list, or yield? It is the Holy Ghost’s office to bear record of truth, not to enforce it. Ironically, while it is the Holy Ghost which gives us authority to utter the will of heaven, we ‘must exercise [our] agency to authorize the Spirit to teach [us].’” (Extensive documentary endnotes available upon request.)

This warfare we call DATING, revisited

2010-06-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

This will be but a pale successor thought to my original entry, over a year ago, particularly as I haven’t seen fit to do much bona fide dating. My remarks on this topic are more strictly about the culture which has arisen around the concept of dating than any real instances thereof. Not long ago, I declined an invitation to join some good brethren in a good-natured rendition of Mulan’s "A Girl Worth Fighting For," directed to a group of ladies. Feeling a tad truculent, I retorted—not adequately explaining how rare it’d be for me to sing to anyone, anyhow—that you wouldn’t see me doing that until I thought someone specific fit the title (not the content).

How goes the war? I’m only now realizing that the fact alone of dating being warfare would hardly deter me; the trouble is that I see it as someone else’s war, and a pointless one at that. Though I expect rejection, I don’t fear it. In a curious turnabout, I see such degradation as beneath me. A girl worth fighting, or dying, for doesn’t insist on it for the mere sake of an ego boost. Someone to stand with you through the storms of life oughtn’t be creating them. It’s an uphill struggle against my mother’s disbelief to say that nearly a majority of marriage stories these days appear to begin with the girl sort of despising/disdaining the guy. To my mind, this is indeed a severe inconsistency of character, likely created because their heart is occupied with the more immediate attraction of something superficial or, put more kindly, premature, which must be displaced. It also fosters an adversarial feeling, possibly verging on resentment, with the men most suited for companionship.

Princesses, lest you squander your own birthright, remember Orson F. Whitney’s counsel to the men, and consider your own situation: "‘Tis not the crowning that creates the king." The only girlfriend I’ve ever had once sent me on a fool’s errand to purchase feminine articles for her, purely for the entertainment value. (In hindsight, I see that she took a perverse pleasure in placing indignities on me.) Without a word, I completed the mission. Upon placing them in her hands, I took out a book and read the following poem (about 35% in jest), by Schiller, to her and her roommate.

Before his lion-court
Impatient for the sport,
King Francis sat one day;
The peers of his realm sat around,
And in balcony high from the ground
Sat the ladies in beauteous array.
And when with his finger he beckoned,
The gate opened wide in a second
And in, with deliberate tread,
Enters a lion dread,
And looks around
Yet utters no sound;
Then long he yawns
And shakes his mane,
And, stretching each limb,
Down lies he again.

Again signs the king, -
The next gate open flies,
And, lo! with a wild spring,
A tiger out hies.
When the lion he sees, loudly roars he about,
And a terrible circle his tail traces out.
Protruding his tongue,
past the lion he walks,
And, snarling with rage, round him warily stalks
Then, growling anew,
On one side lies down too.

Again signs the king, -
And two gates open fly,
And, lo! with one spring,
Two leopards out hie.
On the tiger they rush, for the fight nothing loth,
But he with his paws seizes hold of them both
And the lion, with roaring, gets up, - then all’s still,
The fierce beasts stalk around, madly thirsting to kill.

From the balcony raised high above
A fair hand lets fall down a glove
Into the lists, where ‘tis seen
The lion and tiger between.

To the knight, Sir Delorges, in tone of jest, Then speaks young Cunigund fair;
"Sir Knight, if the love that thou feel’st in thy breast
Is as warm as thou’rt wont at each moment to swear,
Pick up, I pray thee, the glove that lies there!"

And the knight, in a moment, with dauntless tread,
Jumps into the lists, nor seeks to linger,
And, from out the midst of those monsters dread,
Picks up the glove with a daring finger.

And the knights and ladies of high degree
With wonder and horror the action see,
While he quietly brings in his hand the glove,
The praise of his courage each mouth employs;
Meanwhile, with a tender look of love,
The promise to him of coming joys,
Fair Cunigund welcomes him back to his place.
But he threw the glove point-blank in her face:
"Lady, no thanks from thee I’ll receive!"
And that selfsame hour he took his leave.

And so I continue to have such feelings, only with different application. Worst of all was the sinking realization, upon having occasionally performed such feats, that rather than bestowing such amorous (but meaningless) returns, women frowned and expressed that they wished someone else had done them. As I wonder just what I did NOT sacrifice for that woman in the past—since at her behests I also quit two jobs and moved to another state with no prospects, etc., etc.—I now say that I have forevermore made all the sacrifices I intend to make in order to acquire love, though not to secure, keep, nurture, and serve it. Since love ought to be unselfishly given, in any event, I don’t see what the hubbub is about "earning" a girl’s attention or "winning" her affection. Nothing should be required beyond innate recommendation for a man of integrity to have a position in the line-up, so I reserve my efforts for the "good fight." The bravest knights in the realm need not condescend to the present scraping and bowing. Any act I undertake for a woman is so totally divorced from expectations that she should rest in the assurance that any romantic intent would be purely unintentional and likely unconscious.

I choose not to compete. Seriously, what abilities I may have been blessed with are meant for use, not display. It’s an apples and oranges thing, something like having a woman demand that a Navy SEAL on his way to the front stop and join a street brawl. I suppose I could whip out my skill set, but it appears that most girls really do prefer the more inefficient, barbaric style. (Really, I wish the women would consider that so many statistically are marrying jerks because of how this encourages men to be puffed up and devoid of brotherly love.) This is amusing, when one can look past its tragic nature, to those who have seen real battle and haven’t merely spent sporting time sparring with other men. As early as February, 2001, with no earthly idea of how much still awaited me, I could already write, "You look at me and see scars on every limb, But far more scarred is the heart within."

If a lady besought my protection in a truly worthwhile cause, then I would be at her service, though it proved a Thermopylae Pass to me. I can safely say that my type knows what's eternally at stake and where the battle lines are really drawn, and can draw these distinctions rapidly and regularly.

“If possible, they shall deceive the very elect,...according to the covenant.... And whoso treasureth up my word shall not be deceived” (JS–M 1:22,37)

2010-03-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

On a whim, I’ll wax exceedingly nostalgic again. I say nostalgic because these personal reminiscences, covering a time for which I’ve never publicly told the tale (or even privately in more than small pieces), once led me to declare that it had been one rough year. Subsequent experiences compel me upon reflection to say it was nothing much to blink at. God grants perspective in humility. I might add that anything suggestive of imbalance in my life should be taken with a firm recollection that my life has been and always will be anything but normal. I have not always asked to be so different, but I’ve sought to know what God would have me do with it when there’s no alternative.

AGE OF INNOCENCE
To set the stage, the onset of 2001 brought continuation of an odd relationship. This, in brief, is but preliminary to the real events of the year, so please bear with me, realizing that failed romance is invariably upstaged by more pressing concerns in my life! The previous semester, I had been in a German class which paired us off with secret partners. Nearly the whole class began to follow the prolific conversation which I conducted with mine via Blackboard. (There’s only one person on earth who has ever evoked German poetry from me!) Once we each had discovered who the other person was, we continued to communicate. Before long, we had "day dates," or whatever you call them. However, it soon became apparent that I was helping her fill time before her missionary came home. Yet one day she had told me she saw potential in us; immediately afterward, she fled emotionally, and it was never the same again. I didn’t know that my own unfamiliarity with having a girl want to spend time with me was destroying some objectivity on whether it was a good idea, in any event. My good friend was correct in observing that she was treating me like a "eunuch" in her court. That Valentine’s Day, I finally declined to attend her little party. (My parents were proud of me.) That triggered a series of events in which she was clearly incensed with me. I made the mistake of replying with a great deal of honesty about how she made me feel, and it was, all told, actually a fairly ugly ending. These days, she’s slightly famous, but not for anything I’d consider worthwhile. She was really nothing much to wink at. God preserves us from winding up with the wrong people.

My father is capable of exceptional honesty. He it was who first warned me that the girl in question wasn’t really worthy of my attentions, and he would be among the first to issue a similar warning in later years. It can be frustrating, really, when someone anticipates trouble before you can take a step or two in any direction. ;-) (It’s somewhat telling that he more or less agrees that traditional dating doesn’t suit me. He would rather I didn’t attempt it, for my own health. He and my mother were both wrong, though, about my move back to Provo in the summer of 2008, which proved healthy except for my lingering about four months beyond expiration.) At any rate, while Dad was slightly brusque about my need to brush myself off and get back into life again, upon hearing one demeaning statement the girl had made, he responded, "She obviously didn’t know you, Kris." That has become my watchcry to every rejection I’ve experienced since that time—except for one peculiar situation, in which the girl knew me well enough that she didn’t feel she could ever bridge our own gap, not that she gave me a chance to assist. (More than one person has commented that she gave up on herself, not on me.) That summer of 2001, I did recover, and rapidly at that. While continuing to work for a publishing company, I privately wrote a 200+ page manuscript on Matthew 5:48. God is a refuge and a sanctuary.

As summer changed to fall and I was pieced back together well enough to think of academic pursuits again, I happened to be stood up on a date for the second time. I dismissed this: not as happenstance, but as irrelevant. There are always things I could change. I have no doubt I could convey a more "confident" (read optimistic in its stead, and you’re not far from the truth) exterior, but the fact remains that my interior was sufficiently given over to God that I could confidently reply, "She obviously didn’t know me."

It was about this time that I began intense study of Church periodicals in the BYU library which I had not been able previously to obtain for my own library. My studies had already been in earnest for many years. If there was a school dance or something, I’d only sequester myself for that much longer. From that was also born another of my mottoes, phrased in various ways, but in effect: I’m going to have more to show for this evening than disappointment. I also was apparently the only student who ever regularly stopped by certain offices in the Joseph Smith Building and asked to borrow certain old Conference Reports, which I would read outside in the hallway and then return. I had many positive associations with professors who would stop and talk with me there. Once a fellow declared that he’d seen me in the temple the other day. He didn’t understand my perplexity about when that was, seeing as I’d attended several nights in a row. This is why a year later, one roommate forced reluctant agreement from me that I could afford to attend the temple less and go on more dates. (I hated admitting that when I felt emotional pressure rising, I’d rearrange all my affairs to rush off to the temple—not, of course, to the exclusion of duties and obligations.) All the same, I’ve never regretted a temple trip, and dating has yet to yield anything of eternal value! ;-) In many instances, the deceased (ever and always kindred) have been decidedly kinder. Furthermore, I can’t say books have been more beneficial than people, but I can without hesitation say they’ve been more beneficial than dates, to date.

As for those who’ve declared to me that single guys should never take girls to the temple, I retort that they’ve formed odd conceptions about the mingling of the sexes since baptism for the dead days at 12. Were they flirting then? I’ve been on enough "dates" that didn’t play to my strengths. The temple is one of my only safe zones, practically the only security on earth. It’s the most uplifting activity I can imagine, and so much more fun than what most youth do these days! Only an inexperienced idiot would confuse feelings of lust with the Spirit, or conjure up some impression that they must marry someone solely based on such outings. Believe me, I was once stuck with someone who talked like she appreciated the temple, but never would go. If there ever happened to be a chance I could marry, it stands to reason I’d need a pool of good women with whom I associate who actually enjoy going to the temple, though that would hardly be the determining factor. Besides, I need their help for female ordinances. What’s more, I wouldn’t even WANT to cozy up in the Celestial Room!

SATAN’S SEMESTER
On September 2, I received unusual forewarning "that I ‘may be on higher planes’ than my teachers, but to bear patiently with what I’m asked to learn and write. I should only stir things up if a matter of true principle is crossed." This ominous admonition proved to be the theme of the semester. Two days later, I sat in a "Literature of the LDS People" classroom as the teacher dragged us through atrocious stories, which for no apparent reason had to cover such topics as animal mutilation. He was proud of his work picked up by Signature Books, which he self-proclaimed to be the "Sunstone" of publishing. Sunstone is universally understood to be among those "symposia and other similar gatherings that include presentations that (1) disparage, ridicule, make light of, or are otherwise inappropriate in their treatment of sacred matters or (2) could injure the Church, detract from its mission, or jeopardize its members’ well-being." By some torturous reasoning I never could understand, he touted that we would be studying some anti-Mormon writings as well. He expanded the definition of "LDS literature" to incorporate anything by someone who had once been LDS, or pretty much was about the LDS at all. It was not our task to "question testimonies." To this, I raised my hand and said it’s one thing to struggle with your testimony and it’s assuming an entirely different level of accountability to publish such a struggle.

He was going to tell me that I don’t understand LDS literature if I haven’t read the writings of an author whom Presidents Kimball and Lee agreed produced trash? At that point in time, it was quite possible I’d already studied more doctrine than anyone else in that room (in particular the teacher), and he was suggesting that I hadn’t truly experienced "LDS literature." One girl protested vigorously, saying that they sometimes had to look at harsh things in her psychology studies, but nothing approached the negative spirit connected with what he was teaching. She got up and left. If she weren’t wearing a ring, I would have followed and asked her out on the spot. Long story short, I wanted something done about the situation. Not just to hold my own ground, but to deprive the teacher of some of his in a world gone mad. Merely dropping the class myself would leave plenty of sheep at the mercy of a wolf. In common with all anti-Christs, he was a master of language, posing actively as a friend, possibly even deceiving himself into that belief regarding his intentions. From the time that they joined the Church, my parents had hoped my sister and I would be able to attend BYU. This was not part of their hopes for us, to say nothing of being foreign to the tone from the Board of Regents.

I determined to write a letter spelling out what he had said. I really and truly did not know who the dean of the English Department was at the time, but I had the strong and distinct impression that the problem was pervasive enough that I should ignore the chain of command. In an unusual breach of protocol, I composed a letter directly to President Bateman. In it, I pointed out my concern that by driving out sensitive students on the first day (a very sinister ploy), he thereby avoided a balanced end-of-the-semester evaluation, so I intended to give mine up front and then save myself the damage of taking his course. His response was very polite, thanked me for the "thoughtful and concerned" letter, and (as a copy was sent to the dean) actually urged the dean to consider it in addressing his associates, and maybe even to take it up with the teacher in question. Two weeks later, he made some observations in a devotional which will prove still more relevant in upcoming paragraphs:

If you are a young person, it is especially important that you have the light and faith to make right decisions, to discern good from evil, to hold onto and develop the things that the Lord has in store for you. It is interesting that Satan offered Adam and Eve the opportunity to know good and evil (see Genesis 3:5). In contrast, Mormon indicates the purpose of mortality is to help us to "know good from evil" (Moroni 7:19; emphasis added). One can know evil without tasting it. . . .

The most important function of Brigham Young University is to provide you with an enlightened environment. I have heard some complain—primarily people outside the Church—that this campus does not provide enough choice. Since choice is made possible by opposites, the logical conclusion of their statement is that there is too much light at BYU and not enough darkness. They seem to suggest that we should "search in the dark"—at least part of the time—to prepare for the "real" world. Last week’s events suggest that there is enough evil in the world without inviting it into our lives. Moreover, Mormon’s words suggest that one need not partake of evil in order to gain knowledge. . . .

So, regardless of where you are, search in the light. It is better to search in the light of day assisted by knowledgeable friends than at night with Lucifer holding the flashlight. . . .

In the end, the opportunity to acquire spiritual knowledge will depend on your sensitivity to the Spirit. (Learning in the Light of Faith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2005], 211, 221)

It just so happens that I had a course that semester with the dean. He was miffed, and sent what was unmistakably a condescending letter. He assured me that he always instructed his teachers to instruct by the Spirit (therefore, it must happen), and reminded me that the scriptural mandate was "if thy brother or sister offend thee, thou shalt take him or her between him or her and thee alone" (D&C 42:88). I bit my tongue in the instantaneous reaction that: a) this silken-speaking man would never acknowledge ANY student as his peer; b) the sheer extent and monstrosity of his speech indicated that he was already in the camp more fit to "deliver . . . up unto the church" (D&C 42:89); and c) that the principle more likely at play in his case was "if any one offend openly, he or she shall be rebuked openly, that he or she may be ashamed" (D&C 42:91). I had not considered this a personal affront at all. As Lorenzo Snow stated, "When the Priesthood [or Church] is assailed, we should be more valiant in its defense than when the offense is merely personal" (in Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, 109). I’d actually had the nerve to briefly quote, in a friendly spirit, to President Bateman, from George Q. Cannon in expressing my feelings about the man’s course: "I made it a point never to read books or papers which villify [sic] this people. I really have too little time to read the works and papers which are instructive and pleasant to me, and with which I ought to be familiar, to spend one moment of time in reading abusive, lying and slanderous writings concerning this people or myself" (JD, 17:126). It was around this time that I first began having frequent recourse to one of President McKay’s statements:

Men in Israel, it is time that we take a stand against vile literature. . . . It is the duty of the parent also to keep the boy’s mind from becoming polluted with the vile trash that is sometimes scattered—nay, that is daily distributed among us. There is inconsistency in a man’s kneeling down with his family in prayer, and asking God to bless the leader of our Church, and then put into the hands of the boy, who was kneeling there, a paper that calls the leader a hypocrite. . . .

May be [sic] those are the great men who are writing the scurrilous articles, and these whom they attack are not the great men? Some may say: Give the children an opportunity to hear both sides. Yes, that is all well and good; but if a man were to come into your home and say to you that your mother is not a good woman, you would know he lied; wouldn’t you? And you wouldn’t let your children hear him. If a man came and told you that your brother was dishonest, and you had been with him all your life and knew him to be honest, you would know the man lied. So when they come and tell you the Gospel is a hypocritical doctrine, taught by this organization, when they tell you the men at the head are insincere, you know they lie; and you can take the same firm stand on that, being sincere yourself[,] as you could in regard to your mother and brother. Teach your children, your boys and girls everywhere, to keep away from every bad book and all bad literature, especially that which savors of hatred, or envy, or malice, that which bears upon it the marks of hypocrisy, insincerity, edited by men who have lost their manhood. (CR, Oct. 1908, 112)

At any rate, the dean closed his letter with the insinuation that so long as we can’t get along as a people, we’ll never be effective with the world. This in large part prompted my quotation from numerous sources in a subsequent talk that there is such a thing as unity in evildoing (remember all those secret combinations, Sodom, Gomorrah, or Babel itself?), but for us the clear counsel is "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them" (Ephesians 5:11). When Paul was shut out by one apostate bishop’s haughtiness, it’s lamentable that the congregation united with him in rejection of the greater light. I’ve also noted how often it’s been driven home in my life that there are nonmembers who speak to me of an honestly ethical life, independently of our differences, while many a sly member has put their arm around me, metaphorically speaking, to discourse on a dishonestly unethical life. I get along famously with the honest in heart, whether they’ve found the truth yet or not.

I’m reminded of the summer many, many years ago when I stayed with my fourth cousin and her husband, elderly, enthusiastic genealogists. The husband constantly praised how healthy and pleasant the Mormons were, and was pleased as punch when a repairman turned out to be a member and told me where the nearest meetinghouse was. Regrettably, it was too far away for them to transport me, so this good man decided that we should all go make new friends that Sunday. Imagine a Baptist and a Mormon attending a Mennonite service in central Georgia! I didn’t feel compromised in the least, especially as we gathered in a trailer afterward and these very, very fine people talked about all the conservative values that many "mainstreamers" out in the world have forgotten. My cousin and I fervently agreed with a quotation they read from one of their ancestors, and then from Menno Simons. This wasn’t the quotation, but I thought I’d share something neat that Simons wrote: "And although infants have neither faith nor baptism, think not therefore that they are lost. O no! they are saved, for they have the Lord’s own promise of the Kingdom of God; not indeed through any element, ceremony or external rites, but only by grace through Jesus Christ."

I well remember an elderly Mennonite woman who came up and wanted to make sure I understood thoroughly how much Jesus loved me. That’s right: there was more of the devil’s kingdom in that classroom at BYU under a wormtongue’s tutelage than out in the woods of Georgia surrounded by those not of my faith. My biggest issue is with those who willfully choose not to know better, especially the traitors to the faith who spread their confusion. I finally vented this in a dream in November 2007, wherein I thwarted the designs of two devilish men and then shouted at no one in particular, "I HATE FALSE DOCTRINE!" Around the time I was having all these troubles, more of which will soon be detailed, I also had a British poetry class with Leslie Norris. He was a delightful man with all the gentility and gentleness of a countryside poet, who wrote with an elegant Welsh script and spoke softly. He also wasn’t LDS. When I dropped a Brigham Young quotation in response to some passage, I believe either Coleridge or Wordsworth, he replied that it was a beautiful thought and added a secular quotation to the general idea, which I was grateful to have. However, with a different teacher (who will soon be portrayed), when I quoted Brigham Young in a sense with absolutely direct bearing on the topic about which I was supposed to write—keep in mind, this is at Brigham Young University—she was merely confused and wondered what it had to do with anything (perhaps because I wasn’t sustaining her position).

Anyway, I stuck with the course I had under the dean of the English Department. I imagine at first it frustrated him a great deal that I was far too amiable to resemble the warped person he believed he’d just put in his place. Don’t worry—he frustrated me, too. He made much ado for months in every possible comment to me that no man should presume to correct another until he has mastered himself. Oh, how I wanted to say, "Right back at you, mister!" In fact, like so much else in life, I endured quite a long semester, though his class was not my biggest concern. Still, I was rather annoyed at the considerable care he put into always arranging dialog which seemed to dichotomize matters of faith on purpose. One of his favorite expressions was once utilized by B.H. Roberts:

I wish I knew who it was that said, "In essentials let there be unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity." But if I ever knew who said it I cannot now remember who it was, and I don’t know that it matters, because the beauty and truth of the utterance is self-evident. It is one of those things which the world has accepted into its literature as being true and sensible, and it matters little who said it since it does not require other authority than the thing itself to commend it to men. (CR, Oct. 1912, 30)

I won’t contend that there are no adiaphora (non-essentials) in religion, but it’s refreshing that at that same Conference (pp. 63-64), Charles W. Penrose of the First Presidency (a very distant cousin of mine through Welsh ancestry), once referred to by Joseph F. Smith as his scriptorian, took that quotation to task as "very attractive at first sight and first hearing." He wound up with, "liberty in essentials—that is, the liberty to receive or reject when a principle or doctrine or idea is presented to us; we have the liberty to receive it and we have the liberty to reject it, but we take the consequences of our own act because we are responsible beings, intelligent beings, and there is a day appointed in which all people shall be judged for the deeds done in the body."

This English dean was one of those who loved to take the Satan in Milton’s work as his hero. I recorded in my journal, "The teacher and some student tried to say that Satan’s ‘unconquerable will’ at least is praiseworthy. I also find such a phrase in Alma 52:33, and it still only strikes me as stubbornness or zeal in abomination." He hosted insuperably interminable discussions about how one can truly have freedom regarding the wrong choice when all they’ve ever made is the "right" choice, along with truly pointless discussions about how it could be fair to condemn people who didn’t know everything about the light when they settle for the darkness, and speculation about hell. I wanted to "play God’s advocate" and ask how much liberty remains to someone who propels themself into the Grand Canyon, and why spend so long on a fate of which God—surely smarter than any professor—has spoken that "the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows; Neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof" (D&C 76:45-46). I say this only because of the extreme liberties and many hours put into going well beyond even what Milton artistically depicted.

The teacher was starting to sound like Satan: "Knowledge forbidd’n? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should thir Lord Envie them that? can it be sin to know, Can it be death? and do they onely stand By Ignorance, is that thir happie state, The proof of thir obedience and thir faith?" (Paradise Lost, 4.514-527). My dissent was not a product of inattention to the text! I wished we’d have more fruitful conversation (searching "in the light," as it were)! One day it was a tremendous relief when a fellow student was waiting for me outside, having recognized in me a kindred intelligence. That good man, who I believe went on to strengthen the law profession, shared an extreme impatience with the actually stupid discussions of those who prefer debating obedience to discovery through practice.

On another occasion, this teacher felt the need to end a class with the statement that we should believe whatever we wanted to about a certain subject, just not to let it affect our salvation. It also just so happens that Joseph Fielding Smith taught that what one believes about this matter would inevitably affect our salvation, and President Benson counted it among the falsehoods in crying need of combating. One of my best friends—who will appear elsewhere in this roving narrative—occasionally implied that I should put a filter on my holy zeal, and outright stated that I should be more patient with this professor. In one of life’s little ironies, some years later my friend ended up in the dean’s ward, with the former dean as Gospel Doctrine teacher. In telling me of this situation, he first talked about the extraordinary number who feel that just because the Brethren are polite, the mike is open for discussion on matters about which there’s really no discussion. Then he proceeded to tell me how this teacher spent countless time exploring scriptural characters’ human foibles rather than telling the story in any faith-promoting, productive fashion. With a weary sigh, he conveyed to me as strongly as was necessary, an apology for not understanding how much patience it took to bear with the man.

It’s important, albeit not all-important, as it doesn’t confer authority by itself, to note that this friend taught institute for decades and spent some time on the Sunday School General Board. I’ve made it a point for years to teach that every gospel student’s responsibility is to "trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister, except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments" (Mosiah 23:14), and every teacher’s responsibility, certainly when in church, is to consider himself appointed by the Savior to teach for that limited segment of time what the Savior wants His followers to learn. However much we may like the intellectually stimulating or the novel, that was not Jesus’ purpose in teaching.

But the primary antagonist that Fall 2001 was my Persuasive Writing teacher. She chose all the hot topics and made it apparent from the outset that it would gratify her immensely if the students argued from the wrong side of the equation. I have since then learned that many great men, including Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, adamantly refused to ever advocate for a position in which they did not believe. Ours is the task to find God’s truth and then remain steadfast in it. It was with considerable displeasure that I had to finish one response paper, which I opened with language similar to Elder Oaks’: "We rely on the prophets of God, who have told us that while there may be ‘rare’ exceptions, ‘the practice of elective abortion is fundamentally contrary to the Lord's injunction, "Thou shalt not . . . kill, nor do anything like unto it" (D&C 59:6).’ (Supplement to the 1989 General Handbook of Instructions, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1991, 1.)" (With Full Purpose of Heart [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2002], 32). It was astonishing to see the students fawning at her feet, who in a display of what Joseph F. Smith called "unwise sympathies" would permit exceptional accounts of pathos to overrule the teachings fundamental to Brigham Young University. However she stated it, she was not trying to assist their articulation against the common foe—she was enlisting them in his favor.

I employed the plain language of the gospel against her stances often, if nothing else to encourage her to choose whom she served and come out openly with her declaration as to actual allegiance. That is in large measure why she resisted my use of prophetic quotes. Curiously, one year earlier I had completed an intense personal study in the failures of many Christian denominations to meet the challenge two generations earlier of liberalism, which one author astutely identified as a competing religion which excelled at making inroads in a chameleon fashion. I adapted one analogy, as she was particularly attuned to politics, in declaring that no secret member of an independent party should by right be sent to represent the Democrats or Republicans and then proceed to demolish the entire platform, all the while calling oneself by an assumed stripe.

President Benson once, in speaking at BYU, quoted an admiral on this process: "Here we should recall the warning of the late Dean Inge: ‘History seems to show that the powers of evil have won their greatest triumphs by capturing the organizations which were formed to defeat them, and that when the devil has thus changed the contents of the bottles, he never alters the labels. The fort may have been captured by the enemy, but it still flies the flag of its defenders.’" Many descriptions of the original apostasy describe a revolution that stealthily took out the leadership and supplanted their guidance. I don’t doubt that it was important to her to have a class discussion about the harmful use of labels, making sure that "liberal" made it to the top of the list. Switching out identities is a readymade method for winning lots of debates. None of this clearcut identification of what something actually is, for President Lee sent many packing when he boldly declared (THBL, 394):

Unfortunately, some are among us who claim to be Church members but are somewhat like the scoffers in Lehi’s vision—standing aloof and seemingly inclined to hold in derision the faithful who choose to accept Church authorities as God’s special witnesses of the gospel and His agents in directing the affairs of the Church.

There are those in the Church who speak of themselves as liberals who, as one of our former Presidents has said, "read by the lamp of their own conceit" (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1939], p. 373). One time I asked one of our Church educational leaders how he would define a liberal in the Church. He answered in one sentence: "A liberal in the Church is merely one who does not have a testimony."

Dr. John A. Widtsoe, former member of the Quorum of the Twelve and an eminent educator, . . . . said: "The self-called liberal [in the Church] is usually one who has broken with the fundamental principles or guiding philosophy of the group to which he belongs. . . . He claims membership in an organization but does not believe in its basic concepts; and sets out to reform it by changing its foundations. . . ."

We should be liberal with our means, not our minds. Early on, in private conversation with me—for I thought I’d give a go of the whole between one person and the other thing—she professed to me that it was an extreme sense of watchcare for her students that led her to "prepare" them for what they might encounter institutionally, say, back East. Would that be by giving them an exact duplication of the experience? Might as well destroy or dampen their faith here, so it’s not done by someone else? Soon her pretenses dropped, and I realized it was something like a declaration of warfare, done in such a guarded and subtle manner that I wound up summarizing it on the end-of-semester evaluation as "a war of attrition." I could almost outlast the forces of nature. ;-) Her avowed goal was "to change [my] mind." She utterly failed, as I don’t do that at the behests of messengers who speak contrary to the will of the Father. I often caught her attempting to cross me in my words, setting traps, and seeking openings of any logical fallacy, perceived or actual, in any defense I might make.

One common tactic of such "liberal" underminers is taking isolated scripture, wresting it, and pummeling their opposition therewith. I recall one peer session to review each other’s papers, wherein they—floored—conceded that mine was not even of the same substance (or lack thereof) as theirs. I utilized the very same scripture one fellow had used and, in combination with many others and general authority direction, arrived at almost the exact diametric opposite conclusion. One girl queried whether I was majoring "in theology." I promise, I’m not refining this blog account at all. I’m not even trying to be persuasive here; I figure even the receptive are repulsed by the sheer length anyway. The teacher stopped exposing my ideology to my classmates. I would have been amused by another analogy I read contemporaneously with such experiences, if it didn't ring so depressingly true:

Many years ago, I had the great pleasure of serving as second counselor in the Sunday School presidency, with specific responsibility for what was then the Junior Sunday School. Each Sunday I would watch a particular father bring his son to Sunday School. The boy would be crying and screaming, begging not to be turned over to the teacher. I watched the father take him up to his classroom, push him through the door, and then hold the doorknob on the other side so the son could not leave, while inside the classroom the boy’s teacher tried to comfort him. It was almost as if the father were saying, "I haven’t the patience or the time to train this young man. I am turning him over to you, teacher, to teach him how to be reverent in his Sunday School class."

I had almost the same feeling some time ago when I spent a few hours with the president of Brigham Young University. I had asked for an appointment to discuss with him what the priesthood could do to help students live in accordance with the honor code at BYU. The honor code (which all BYU students agree to follow while attending the university) specifies acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for students at that institution. As I listened to the leader of that great university, I was reminded of my experience in Junior Sunday School many years ago. I had the feeling that many parents were bringing their children to the doorstep of BYU, pushing them through the door, then holding onto the doorknob, expecting the university to assume the responsibility for training up their children.

This same feeling comes to me occasionally when I interview missionaries who are experiencing difficulties in the mission field. Some parents must think, "If only we can send our child on a mission, it will make up for the many years we have neglected to teach him or her the principles of the gospel." . . . (L. Tom Perry, Enthusiasm [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1996], 15-16)

How sad that so many unprepared children were taken up by a "sympathizer" within the room, one who provoked their very outcry and directed it against the authorities! The pulse of ignorance was channeled as a roar of hostility, somehow seeking to alter or eliminate the very things that promise happiness. This manifested itself shortly in a most insidious form. One day she brought out her prized document, a piece that appeared many years earlier in the Daily Universe. A professor had written in that BYU was too selective in its forums/devotionals and repressive in its code of conduct, urging from the "opposition in all things" that "a lack of risk is present." She also used this as a springboard to launch an attack on the dress code, and I kid you not. True to form, we didn’t study a single opposing piece—so much for developing rudimentary forensic ability. (At the time this first came out, another professor made an able counterargument for BYU’s integrity...in a devotional, no less, apparently being trustworthy enough. There is a possible allusion in some of the prophet’s remarks as well.) It’s also noteworthy that the same friend mentioned earlier got a look at what he called that "puerile" document and remarked that I was probably the only student in that class strong enough to withstand its enticement.

On September 27, when we returned to class having read this assignment, which I summed up as breathing a spirit hostile to our religion, she exuberantly played to the audience, "Who liked it?" I’m pretty sure that at least 90-95% of the hands went up. Then, with a slight scowl on her brow, looking in my direction, she asked, "Who didn’t like it?" Up went my hand, prominently and, to my mind, reminiscent of the sustaining gesture of which I felt this was a part and parcel. I stood alone, and somehow she was taken aback. The only cute girl in the class wouldn’t even look me in the eyes thereafter, but I had no chance with women anyway, and why sell out for someone whose soul is sold out? My forebears never worried about how the deck was stacked against them, so why should I, with access to the fulness of the everlasting gospel? She attempted to move on quickly, but someone raised their hand and said, "I want to know why Kris disagreed." I had a brief opportunity to explain that my agency was in full enjoyment and exercise in the blessing and privilege of attending BYU and upholding its institutions. What I signed to enter its doors, I did with full knowledge and accountability, and considered it binding like a covenant.

I could not rest simply with that defense, as there was a burning in my bones. Later, at home, I woke up from a deep sleep and immediately cranked out a seven page rebuttal to the offensive article. It was no masterpiece and I had to draw on the resources then at my disposal. Since that time, I have filled pages with references to quotations I wish I’d had then. (Yet I must say it dawned bright and clear on me one day that this teacher wouldn’t be paying attention to an apostle either, if they were in my place.) One such example comes from President Packer, as contained in Mine Errand from the Lord, 348-349, 354-358:

There is the temptation for college teachers, in the Church and outside of it, to exercise their authority to give assignments and thereby introduce their students to degradation under the argument that it is part of our culture. Teachers in the field of literature are particularly vulnerable. . . .

Such will not go unnoticed in the eternal scheme of things. Those who convey a degraded heritage to the next generation will reap disappointment by and by.

Teachers would do well to learn the difference between studying some things, as compared to studying about them. . . .

Each year, many fall victim in the colleges and universities. There, as captive audiences, their faith, their patriotism, and their morality are lined up against a wall and riddled by words shot from the mouths of irreverent professors. . . .

How can we justify expending those sacred funds on a student who will dishonor the agreement he signed at the time of admission or on the salary of a faculty member who has his own agenda, which is at variance with the central mission of the Church, particularly when there is a lineup, ever growing, of both students and teachers waiting and anxious to come to learn or to teach and advance the mission of the university and the central mission of the Church? . . .

Granted, there may be a few among you who feel uncomfortable with the conservative philosophy at Church schools. Each has his choice. If it is a different lifestyle you choose, you are not chained here. There are plenty of places to find whatever lifestyle you desire.

But together with you, we will maintain this university with a style of its own. We who love this university will not allow some few to alter the lifestyle here. . . .

Those who think standards contradict their agency may wish to read the 78th verse of Section 101. . . .

Do not be intimidated by one who advocates philosophies or behavior that are in opposition to the standards set by the Lord. . . . Students in our schools have both the right and the responsibility to challenge such teachings. That may be part of your test. A student or a teacher who feels uncomfortable in our environment is free to choose another, but they are not free to substitute their own ideals or standards of behavior for those expected in an institution supported by the tithes and offerings of the Saints. . . .

In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it. It is the war between good and evil, and we are belligerents defending the good. . . . I want to say in all seriousness that there is a limit to the patience of the Lord with respect to those who are under covenant to bless and protect His Church and kingdom upon the earth but do not do it. . . .

One time I heard the president of a great eastern university describe his school in these words, "We can best serve as a neutral territory—a kind of arbiter where people can come to reason."

This could not be said of [Brigham Young University]. This school is not neutral; it is committed; it is one-sided; it is prejudiced, if you will, in favor of good, of decency, of integrity, of virtue, and of reverence, in a word, in favor of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This school is not a playing field where good and evil are invited to joust with one another to see which one may win. Evil will find no invitation to contest here. This is a training ground for a single team.

In my position piece, among many other things, I asserted that I went to the temple not to hear the opposing argument, but to see it handily dismissed in favor of light and knowledge. I then ranked BYU with that edifice and the home in sanctity, with an obvious allusion to "stand ye in holy places, and be not moved" (D&C 87:8). I’m omitting all my references and a great deal of text, but present a small sampling of how I threw down the gauntlet:

Usually when we express concern for others, that concern involves persuading them to lay hold of the iron rod—not to be sure we remind them that they can let go any time. They will have their turn with the devil, if they haven’t already. If you stand there long enough coaching them on the possibility of choosing evil, any reasonable person would begin to wonder which side you’re on. The fulness of Nephi’s intent was to "persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved" (1 Ne. 6:4). . . .

Satan and his hosts of devils are sufficient temptation without our needing to wilfully allow more agents to walk about campus. . . . Experience teaches us that there are many prepared to show us an alternate way if we forsake the path. For the sake of your agency, and in the name of Christ, resist them. Never mind what they might say about someone else’s agency in their efforts to get you to swallow their pill. . . .

Those who descend to misrepresentations of scripture describing the plan God operates for us, as if we could take that plan in our hands, will encounter my "opposition." By their own arguments—namely, that the necessary opposition which God has in store for us should be sought out by the machinations of man—I trust there is little room for complaint that they have found an opponent in my person.

I carried my little persuasive packet into class and followed proper channels, presenting it to the T.A. She was stunned as I told her that I’d prepared a persuasive writing argument against the "risk" article, and asked her to allow students access to it. (In a similar manner, I was once in a ward quite prone to allowing individual members, week after week, to announce their Sunday evening parties in general priesthood. To throw myself into the breach as offering an alternative more in keeping with the day’s holiness, seeing that they were permitted their run of things, I finally stood and announced that I would have gospel study and ice cream at my place. Even though no one ever came to see me, that successfully quieted the rash of irreverent declarations.) I have to say, it required an enormous amount of bravery to accept a copy of my paper in front of the teacher and her compliant classroom. One soul, only one soul, ventured to volunteer to read it. And great shall be my joy with him in the kingdom of heaven, while thousands of others learn to their dismay what President Joseph Fielding Smith expressed:

If a man should labor all his days and convert but one soul, he should have great joy in the kingdom of our Father, and if he should convert many souls, then much greater would be that joy. Reversing the picture, he who blinds one soul, he who spreads error, he who destroys, through his teachings, divine truth, truth that would lead a man to the kingdom of God and to its fulness, how great shall be his condemnation and his punishment in eternity. For the destruction of a soul is the destruction of the greatest thing that has ever been created. (Take Heed to Yourselves!, 190)

The following class period, as he entered the class, he lightly tapped me on the arm and said that he had enjoyed it. With some reluctance, another individual whose curiosity overcame his dutifulness to the teacher asked to see the paper. I don’t know what came of that, but he certainly didn’t take up arms against me.

This teacher began staying up nights, feverishly filling margins on my papers with her commentary. She resisted me at every turn. When my father insisted on showing it to one of his friends, they wrote on that copy that she was intimidated by me, and that she wasn’t correcting a thing, merely persecuting. I quietly left a copy of that comment in the final packet at her door, indicating that we’d obviously agreed to disagree, but I didn’t think it right for her to mark down my persuasive abilities just because she was easily as stubborn in her viewpoint as I was in mine. I pointed out how she’d had to take an entire day to teach the class a rather basic grammatical rule, while she obviously took the care of hours marking up my papers, assaulting their reasoning. Ultimately, she gave me the lowest possible grade in persuasive writing that I could have received without appealing the decision before the university.

How did I fare in January 2002? I signed up again for "Literature of the LDS People." It was a much tamer version, now under a different professor, yet still devoted the bulk of the first class to ridiculing standard LDS fare. He cited the example of his own sister as someone who read within the confines of a very "narrow" interest base. His curriculum still allowed for some questionable literature, with the caveat that one could substitute with something else if they found it offensive. Again, even at that time I had hundreds upon hundreds of Latter-day Saint books, and I certainly hadn’t specialized in anything offensive! In this classroom, I had the opportunity to raise my hand and quote President Benson that "one of the marks of an educated man today is to know what not to read—what not to see or what not to listen to." I went to the extra lengths of meeting with this teacher individually in his office, primarily to let him know why I would not enroll in his class. I showed him a list of what I’d read in the past year, to indicate that the more than 100 books were anything but the pursuit of a scrawny intellect. Having learned from some bitter experience, I indifferently informed him that my life was too short to spend the semester picking through the barren landscape of his offering, though I put it somewhat more tactfully than that.

We had scarcely started in an entirely different English course when the teacher handed out copies of the detestable "risk" paper. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I got this haunted feeling that it might be in the unofficial collective favorites of the Department. I quickly wrote out a one paragraph response about the implications to studying rhetoric and turned my back on another class. I wrote something to the effect that I was greatly concerned that rhetoric was admiration of style over substance, glamorous trivia over glittering truth. As I was mulling these things over, one night I had a frightening dream in which the secretary at the desk of the English Department demanded that I hand her my temple recommend. The interview question was driven home to me, "Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?" A succession of teachers and their practices flitted through my mind. I arose from slumber, weary of campaigning in a war that didn’t seem mine to wage, especially since I’m not a man of halfhearted measures.

I went into their offices and asked to see a counselor. Very few people know that I once double-majored in history and English. My grades weren’t stellar, it’s true, but there is only one reason why I don’t also have an English major. That day, I requested that they downgrade it to a minor. I was somewhere between 3 and 9 credits from completion. The lady asked me twice if I was sure that’s what I wanted to do. I’m not saying this renunciation is supposed to make much sense, and I’m definitely not indicating that someone else taking their English degree at that time or subsequently was in the least bit tainted. This has helped to define me, and I hope it won’t seem an irrational demerit in the eyes of potential readers. Somehow, it was important for me to wash my hands of the business and rededicate myself to the Lord. I wanted Him to know that, in pale comparison to Abraham, I would not take the slightest thing from the king of Sodom (see Genesis 14:22-23), that they would play no part in my future. I will never be beholden to those teachers for anything I accomplish in this world. I owe everything to God, and it should all be His.

“But as it was in the days of Noah . . .” (JS–M 1:41)

2010-01-23T00:13:00.000-08:00

In temporary avoidance of lesson preparation for this Sunday, I’m going to slightly expand on a subsection of last week’s lesson on the Creation. Obviously I wouldn’t have dwelt on the emergent topic at such great length, and this is going to be filled with reminiscences—because I feel like it, and also so that this entry will satisfy or nettle readers for months to come. As with my lesson, I put the preeminent thought/theme for the entire entry, one of my favorite quotations, up front and center. Refer to it constantly; remember it, if nothing else. I read it in the original, which looks something like this link, but obtained the exact page reference in a more accessible source for one inquirer's benefit:

This life is not given to us as a pastime. There was a solemn purpose in our creation, in the life that God has given to us. Let us study what that purpose is, that we may progress and obtain eternal life. (The Teachings of George Albert Smith, 130; see 17)

This goes to the accompaniment of other prophets: "The whole object of the creation of this world is to exalt the intelligences that are placed upon it, that they may live, endure, and increase for ever and ever" (The Best of Brigham Young, 53). "You are sent to this earth, not to ride merry-go-rounds, airplanes, automobiles, and have what the Lord calls ‘fun.’ You are sent to this world with a very serious purpose. You are sent to school, for that matter, to begin as a human infant and grow to unbelievable proportions in wisdom, judgment, knowledge, and power" (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 31). Something I would likely not use in a class setting is a thought I heard Elder Bednar express at a fireside in Austin, Texas in 2004, shortly after I’d informed a potential employer (desperate though my need was at the time) that "I’d object to captioning for NC-17 and R films." He reminded us that "Satan’s trap is the notion that you’re here to be entertained." Thus the tone was set for a far more applicable study than a mere recitation of what was created on which day. The premortal council is past, exaltation remains to be seen; of importance to us is the end to which the earth was created, and how to successfully navigate our own experiences while here.

Many years ago, the first time I lived in Provo, I stood with a group of onlookers to a soccer game, with which I was exceedingly bored. One choice lady there mercifully distracted me with some conversation leading to the remark that she was putting pressure on me. I responded that this was not necessarily a bad thing, and somehow drew the conclusion shared by both President Howard W. Hunter and Elder Bruce D. Porter about gravity’s constant and beneficial opposition. My copy of Elder Porter’s book containing that thought was signed, thanks to our having his wonderful son in our ward, whom I have continued to address as "President Porter." It was Elder Porter who first said (at a fireside I attended around that time) that "nerds make the best husbands." One of my Facebook friends incorrectly attributes this saying to a mutual friend. Provenance, in history and in doctrine, is one of my chief concerns in life. It lies at the heart of discernment, as it is the key to laying hold of principles of correct origin and detecting deception. I desire truth direct from the source, Comforter, or those authorized thereby.

At any rate, when we finally got in the car to head home, I wound up asking this woman what she planned to do in life. With breathtaking immediacy and clarity she replied that she’d like to find a righteous husband, get married, and have a family, but if not she would go on and get her Master’s degree. You’d be amazed how far and wide I’d have to search to hear what is, to me, among the best of all possible answers. Then again, it’s not exactly like this is a common topic of conversation, yet there was something refreshing in how at the forefront of her feelings lay these goals...in an articulate, calm, and worthy fashion. She cut right through the fluff to see things as they really are, and in so doing was very promising as for what they will be. (No, I never dated her.) This cut sharp contrast with other ladies who mocked the concept of actively seeking marriage, as if it would mean that they were only in Provo for their "MRS" degree. One such woman announced in my presence that it was too awkward dating men she didn’t already know, and that it was nice to have grown up around someone. I retorted that she wouldn’t have any more opportunities for that unless, of course, she was still growing up. (She was also overly fixated on the muscular type.) Just as I predicted, she wound up marrying a nerdy newcomer to her life.

Ah, how noble are those with an eye single to the glory of God, who can cease from "light speeches, from all laughter, from . . . lustful desires, from . . . pride and light-mindedness, and from all . . . wicked doings" (D&C 88:121; see Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3:303 for an explanation). I dispute one contention that the Puritans’ downfall was making everything sacred. Rather, they did not have a correct understanding of what God would have them do. The fatal flaw of our time is a near total absence of reverence. (See, for example, Section E of my June 25, 2008 blog entry—along with Joseph Fielding Smith, DS, 1:14.) Elder D. Todd Christofferson has given an excellent talk on the matter, only printed partially elsewhere:

I am afraid that many of my generation have been remiss in transmitting to your generation a feeling for sacred things and an understanding of how to respect them. . . . The importance of having a sense of the sacred is simply this—if one does not appreciate holy things, he will lose them. Absent a feeling of reverence, he will grow increasingly casual in attitude and lax in conduct. . . . Rather than drifting into carelessness, may your life be one of increasing exactness in obedience. I hope you will think and feel and dress and act in ways that show reverence and respect for sacred things, sacred places, sacred occasions. (Brigham Young University 2004-2005 Speeches, 219, 235-236)

In case you thought I was overemphasizing the virtue, which I feel was reflected in the woman’s life planning as offered heretofore:

The greatest manifestation of spirituality is reverence; indeed, reverence is spirituality. Reverence is profound respect mingled with love. . . . Reverence is the fundamental virtue in religion. . . . If there were more reverence in human hearts, there would be less room for sin and sorrow, and there would be increased capacity for joy and gladness. . . . Reverence for God and sacred things is the chief characteristic of a great soul. Little men may succeed, but without reverence and the desire to serve others, they can never be great. (The Teachings of David O. McKay, 257-259)

Once the course is appropriately set, with us it should be "thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son" (Moses 5:8). "We never should presume to do anything unless we can say, ‘Father, sanction this, and crown the same with success’" (Brigham Young, JD, 18:217). To quote a segment from a 2001 writing of mine:

In Alma 34:17-41, Amulek gave excellent advice about preparing in this life to meet God hereafter. Verse 38 counsels us to "worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in." . . . 2 Nephi 32:9 recommends that we "not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul." While we cannot always prioritize so that family responsibilities and church duties come out on top, we can certainly always avoid evil. You will recall President Benson’s counsel: "If you are engaged in things where you do not feel you can pray and ask the Lord’s blessings on what you are doing, you are engaged in the wrong kind of activity."

To continue the fraying thread:

As to the places we go, many years ago, President Heber J. Grant wrote this in a letter from Japan, when he was president of the Japanese Mission:

"We have no right to go near temptation," he said, "or in fact to do or say a thing that we cannot honestly ask the blessing of the Lord upon, neither to visit any place where we would be ashamed to take our sister or sweetheart." (Richard L. Evans, in Life's Directions: A Series of Fireside Addresses by the General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1962], 168-169)

All that being said, I redirect your attention to the opening quotation. Where the purpose of our existence and that of the earth combines is "Simply summarized, the earth was created that families might be. Scripture explains that a husband and wife shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation" (Russell M. Nelson, Ensign, May 2000, 85; see 1 Nephi 17:36; D&C 49:16-17). Holding those in mind, I introduce the only other woman who happens to have provided an answer strikingly similar to that of the one in Provo many years before. She, too, has done a great deal with her life while single, not to mention getting her remarkable perspective published in the Ensign.

I’m not defaming her or declaring anything other than respect. She happens to be approachable. (I have joked, perhaps too disparagingly, with a friend—after meeting a girl friend of his who, coming from a farming community background, showed sincere interest in me as a human being—that with far too many of the opposite gender, the degree to which they give you the time of day falls in a ratio of how attractive you are to them.) In quoting from correspondence I sent her in September 2008, hopefully I’m not betraying confidence (particularly as it says nothing about her reaction), but am merely using a helpful synopsis of earlier thoughts and feelings. This blog entry’s title mirrors that of the message I sent her.

Keep in mind that homosexuality is not the only perversion of the divine institution of marriage abroad in the land. Although President Hinckley and the Church Handbook of Instructions have wisely left the matter of children between couples and the Lord, I’ve felt few qualms about proclaiming the doctrines boldly to singles—for upward of a decade now—in contradiction to apostate views imbibed so freely. For instance, from an explanatory footnote in a talk seven years ago: "I’ve confined myself to the problem of prolonged honeymoons as escapes from the obligation of initiating family life. I mean no intrusion upon the sacred wedded relationship, but address singles’ declarations of intent." I’ve witnessed a troubling trend of young couples who resemble little more than playmates, with little to show after years of marriage other than Saturday morning cartoons and lots of movie nights. Procreation is an act of divinely ordained co-creation. Again, as I said in December 2002:

Considerations of health and finances seldom legitimately permit a couple to delay their first child’s entry to the world. [For some strong sentiments, see Joseph Fielding Smith, Take Heed to Yourselves! [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1966], 407-409; TSWK, 307-308; TETB, 542-543; TGeAS, 117-119.] . . .It behooves us to continually develop "a love for and a desire for children." [THBL, 239. See TGBH, 52, 418, 421-422.] Could we safely ignore the "prime purpose" [See THBL, 238-239] of marriage?

What is generally lacking is desire, not capacity, though every couple is free to arrive at the conclusions suited to their situation. And, to be sure, the woman is to be given first position of respect in such decisions. When Latter-day Saints make covenants at the altar, directly pertaining thereto, and then remain deliberately childless, though, I recall Brigham Young’s righteous indignation: "I feel sometimes like lecturing men and women severely, who enter into covenants without realizing the nature of the covenants they make, and who use little or no effort to fulfil them" (JD, 3:332). (This is something that none can assume unless it is given away by their own attitude, after marriage.) What ever happened to this notion? "Every true Latter-day Saint wants just as many children as he can possibly have" (Heber J. Grant, LEJ, 24:607; see Discourses of Brigham Young, 197 and Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, 271).

Marriage offers an opportunity to share in the love and care of children, the paramount purpose of marriage. "Without children—or without believing that children are important—marriage is complete and unfulfilled." True, children take time, give trouble, and require more patience than we sometimes have. They interfere with freedom, good times, and luxury. But the children are the real purpose behind marriage. If we do not put the proper value on parenthood, we are not emotionally or socially ready for marriage. (David O. McKay, in Youth of the Noble Birthright: A Series of Fireside Addresses by the General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1960], 24)

Marriage is but the beginning bud of family life; parenthood is its flower. (Russell M. Nelson, Ensign, May 2006, 36; see James E. Talmage, Vitality of Mormonism, 216 for very similar phraseology)

Er, anyway, to share my note to one woman of worthy ambition:

You needn’t worry about bringing up your dating discussion with [your roommate]. I’m never one to be overly sensitive—or very sensitive at all?—about truths or life experiences that surely relate to those truths. Even in the BYU social environment, even the best of our generation sometimes feel pressured to say one thing while thinking/feeling another. Obviously I’m not very good at that; but my point is that my family always believed in free discussion among peers. I must say that I’ve feared at times that precious few men and women still believe the reassuring things that you two expressed. . . .

Since you appreciate President Packer’s candor, I think you ought to see (perhaps, in your case, you’ve seen it) a talk I have bookmarked as "Pres. Packer gets frank."

I haven’t shared one connection with anybody. When one man asked me how to teach Isaiah, I said rather tongue-in-cheek that if he doesn’t yet see how something has fulfillment more than once in human history, he hasn’t understood the passage. My point being that the forthcoming "interpretation" is not the overruling single response to a verse...many commentators don’t know how to take it, while I know of at least one who leaves it open to such a scenario as President Packer brings to mind. Regarding the earth being "utterly wasted" at Christ’s coming without hearts turning (Section 2), we can take as premise that without the necessary family values and behaviors, no sealing/binding will be effective. Similarly, for every body of people on the other side, there’s always a description of an anchoring body on "this side of the veil." (When this side fails, the priesthood keys are taken from the earth, something we know won’t happen again, though we might come perilously close to it.) What I can easily envision with the quotation I’m about to give is a world of decreasing numbers and decreasing faith, ravaged across the whole face with those who remain killing each other (such as Mormon 2:8, for example—and this would necessitate some defensive posture, for which I believe God raises up individuals, but that’s another discussion entirely). The Proclamation on the Family tries to make this clear.

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In a new book "The Natural Family," Allan Carlson and Paul Mero sum up the issue: "Depopulation, not a mythical overpopulation, is the problem that nations face in the 21st century." . . .

The demographic disaster facing the planet today is not a population explosion but rather depopulation. . . .

Of interest to many of our readers is that numerous demographers note that the link between religious belief and fertility is especially strong in the LDS Church. Longman tell[s] us that "in Utah, where 69 percent of all residents are registered members of The Church (of Jesus Christ) of Latter-day Saints, fertility rates are the highest in the nation. Utah annually produces 90 children for every 1000 women of childbearing age. By comparison, Vermont—the only state to send a socialist to Congress and the first to embrace gay marriage—produces only 49."

One very interesting contrary view on the relationship between belief and birthrate comes from Mary Eberstadt, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. In a recent Policy Review article, "How the West Really Lost God," Eberstadt compellingly argues that, at least in Western Europe," Christians did not stop having children and families because they became secular (rather), at least some of the time, they also became secular because they stopped having children and families." (www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/7827212.html)

Maybe it is not a coincidence that the first recorded commandment from God to humankind is to "multiply and replenish the Earth." (Joseph A. Cannon, "Is Earth’s impending ‘empty cradle’ due to selfishness?," Deseret Morning News, Sunday, July 29, 2007, G2)
----------------
Here’s the catch: third world populations are still increasing. The majority of spirits are going to families in nations with crippling social grievances and many anti-American axes to grind. President George Albert Smith
said the flood was God’s great act of mercy precisely because there were no more worthy families for Him to send children to. Another catch is that the Latter-day Saint statistics are faltering as well. I well remember a
behind-closed-doors meeting with *** of the BYU English department, in which he aptly diagrammed the trouble I was having with certain liberal teachers, and the element always willing to follow them. He drew the straight line which is the Lord’s way, and below that a very sharp dropoff to nowhere (labeled the world). Between 15 and 20 degrees he drew another line that he labeled the confused members of the church. As he said, they continue to pride themselves on the fact that they’re not the world, without realizing that they’re really not the church either. Some of the more innocent in their confusion fail to realize that being a few years behind the world in a trend doesn’t mean you’re securely with the Lord’s program.

I just finished reading in the summer BYU Magazine how the rising generation is lagging in its emergence into adulthood. (It also offers mitigating explanations for what I feel is an inexcusable trend, with 18 year olds only being as mature as 13 year olds.) Hence Elder Oaks’ phrase "Peter Pan syndrome," demonstrating how it’s afflicting members. Truly, as President Joseph Fielding Smith often put it, he cannot see in light of the indisputable prophecies how this world is getting better. It is going to get much worse.

One year after I wrote that, Elder Nelson joined the counteroffensive for the family, in terms backing President Packer:

If there is any hope for the future of nations, that hope resides in the family. Our children are our wealth; our children are our strength; our children are indeed our future!

You are likely well aware of the ominous statistics. In the past fifty years, the birthrate has dropped in every nation of the world. In the nations of Europe the birthrate has dropped from the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman to the present rate of 1.5. Nations that cannot maintain their populations could even disappear, along with their culture and heritage.

Data from the United States show similar worrisome trends. In 1960, minor children formed half of the population; now they constitute only 30 percent. Predictions are that by the year 2025, single-person households will outnumber families with children.

What would happen to the future of nations if the next generation failed to appear in significant numbers? The answer is alarming! Yes, we would be poorer economically, but even poorer spiritually. (Hope in Our Hearts [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2009], 42-43)

Readers may also wish to peruse this relevant Church article. The adage holds true that God anticipates the world’s most vexing problems and sends the children whom He will call upon to wrestle with them. Are we welcoming them (and then properly training them), as Latter-day Saints? Do we think that we can delay, though our Lord doth not delay His coming, but will cut His work short in righteousness? As I also posed to my class, what of all our other brothers and sisters present with us before the foundation of the world? Where are they now? Are any of them being sent to circumstances in which they are disadvantaged from day one?

Returning to the creation of this earth, we may reflect upon certain benefices God gave Adam and Eve in Eden, namely agency, each other, and dominion. In balancing tension with the concept of stewardship, it is nonetheless true that the earth was created for man, and not man for the earth (see David O. McKay, in The Prophets Have Spoken, 3:504; The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 24-25). Elder Nelson even calls the Creation "a means to an end," coupled with the admonition to be wise stewards (Ensign, May 2000, 86; see True to the Faith, 45). While the world upsets the order of things, we acknowledge that "the earth was made for our possession" (John Taylor, Gospel Kingdom, 324), "that there might be a place provided whereon the children of our Heavenly Father could live and propagate their species, and have bodies formed for the spirits to inhabit who were the children of God" (John Taylor, in TPHS, 1:802). President Eyring brings counsel to our attention:

Some other words in the proclamation will have special meaning for us, knowing what we know about eternal life. They are in the next two paragraphs:

"The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. . .
."

Believing those words, a child could spot easily the mistakes in reasoning made by adults. For instance, apparently wise and powerful people blame poverty and famine on there being too many people in some parts of the earth or in all the earth. With great passion they argue for limiting births, as if that will produce human happiness. A child believing the proclamation will know that cannot be so, even before hearing these words from the Lord through his prophet, Joseph Smith:

"For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves." (D&C 104:17).

A child could see that Heavenly Father would not command men and women to marry and to multiply and replenish the earth if the children they invited into mortality would deplete the earth. Since there is enough and to spare, the enemy of human happiness as well as the cause of poverty and starvation is not the birth of children. It is the failure of people to do with the earth what God could teach them to do, if only they would ask and then obey, for they are agents unto themselves. . . .

Children are the inheritance of the Lord to us in this life, but also in eternity. Eternal life is not only to have forever our descendants from this life. It is also to have eternal increase. . . .

If we do not have those feelings in this life, how could our Father give them to us in the eternities? Family life here is the schoolroom in which we prepare for family life there. And to give us the opportunity for family life there was and is the purpose of creation. That is why the coming of Elijah was described this way:

"And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming." (Joseph Smith–History 1:39.) (To Draw Closer to God [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1997], 163-165; see this partial link)

Yes, many Latter-day Saints will be stunned to feel the full force of this neglected doctrinal drive. One such summary is provided by President Kimball at the very end of this page of an interesting blog site. (Another is among the Joseph Fielding Smith quotes, so forcefully damning that I will not reproduce it at this time, but it is a poignant expansion of vision, straight into the eternities, from that taught by his father, President Joseph F. Smith, contained in Gospel Doctrine, 276-279.)

Indeed, so confused are mortals at present that it has almost ceased to be a joke that in some quarters the watchcry is, "Save the trees! Kill the children!" At this point I reintroduce a phrase which one listener hastened to make their Facebook status (and I take the liberty of rewording my own statement slightly, though it could fully withstand scrutiny as originally constituted): "God is more concerned about global wickedness than He is about global warming." (See The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 171-172.)

Remember: we are at war, and the family is one of Satan's primary targets. For many, many years I have felt an almost crushing obligation in this war, akin to that "imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation, and to all the pure in heart . . . . that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness" (D&C 123:13), exposing them and offering the Lord's alternative. I owe the future leaders of the Church my best efforts in whatever area I may be to share the counteractive truth, so widely forgotten that it's almost frightening. May I never slacken my pace in doing what I can! I conclude with a careful chain of quotations (having omitted so many), putting all matter in its proper place in the universe.

Our young people constitute the most valuable materials in the universe. (Thomas S. Monson, Pathways to Perfection [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1973], 275)

Though you neglect some of the cattle, though you fail to produce good crops, even, study to hold your childrn’s love. . . . Our children are our most precious possessions; and the proper training of youth is the most important duty and obligation of society. (David O. McKay, CR, Oct. 1917, 58 and CR, Apr. 1928, 102)

We may desire the wealth of the world, but the most important treasures that we have are the sons and daughters that God sends to our home. . . . Those who follow the customs and habits of the world in preference to that blessing will someday find that all the things they have struggled for are wasted away like ashes, while those who have reared their families to honor God and keep his commandments will find their treasures not altogether here upon earth in mortality, . . . and those treasures will be their sons and daughters and descendants to the latest generation. . . . We comprehend that one child, born under proper conditions and reared under suitable circumstances, is worth more than all the cattle and sheep upon a thousand hills, aye, than all the treasures of the world. That is why, as Latter-day Saints doing our duty, we welcome these priceless treasures from the throne of God when they come into our homes. (The Teachings of George Albert Smith, 117)

In light of the ultimate purpose of the great plan of happiness, I believe that the ultimate treasures on earth and in heaven are our children and our posterity. (Dallin H. Oaks, With Full Purpose of Heart [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 2002], 34)

At a time when the world seems to be losing its understanding of the purpose of marriage and the value of childbearing, it is vital that Latter-day Saints have no confusion about these matters. (Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, Nov. 2005, 27)

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12; see Alma 37:35, D&C 122:9)

2009-11-18T23:49:00.000-08:00

1. Debasement and Humiliation
I am a 30 year old (and 4 days), divorced dwarf. Now, that introduction signifies a whole heap of living since my remarks in a stake priesthood meeting on June 9, 1996! Ouch! There are three automatic strikes against me. The funny thing is that I had no control over any of those things. I did not then, and do not now, have fear of answering to any ecclesiastical body in or under the heavens for my part in that marriage, one which I still attempted to save though it could spell lifelong misery, a continuation of what I’d already tasted. All I need say is that even though I’ve lived "alone" for almost three years now, I was actually alone before reaching that point. I’m permanently, effectually cured of all desperation for companionship at the expense of other qualities. It’s a great reliever of guilt when one knows one fought to preserve a marriage over the insistence of another to end it, long after it had already dawned on one that the person was horribly unsuited for the relationship and it was a ghastly arrangement.

In an unusual departure, I made a very brief trial of LDS online dating quite some time ago—and never shall again. I made a point of identifying myself clearly as a divorced dwarf. Having gotten the worst out of the way, I promised it could only get better from there. It is not in my character to deceive. Furthermore, one skilled jurist taught that one may sweep public debate by conceding supposedly fatal weaknesses—before the enemy can exploit them with some sort of coup de grace—and then showing why one’s side is still superior. My experience was that the site was crowded with people at least as shallow as in real life. While possibly, theoretically, some were struggling with unfair stigmas similar to my own, by and large it appeared like a collection of people with something to hide. Essentially, that time made for jollies from perusing hundreds of profiles which still did not prove interesting. Here are a few samples I copied down of what certain members offer online as enticement:

"I usually describe myself as easily entertained."
"I LOVE BOXING!!! I watch as many fights as I can."
"I’m not prefect." [sic]
"I’m not so much religious as spiritual."
"I’m looking for a nice, honest, tall man who’s active in the Church." (I got the hint.)

Aye, the real problem in dating IS the height. I witness people surmounting the other two features (viz, divorced and/or 30) all the time, and I was dead in the dating water years before acquiring these other two. Dare I say it? Yes, I do. The 18 to 30 year olds, in such a vast percentage as to almost constitute the whole, do not know how to date because they are looking for all the wrong things, and in saying that I am not holding myself forth as what they ought to be seeking. Even many who manage to come together (and stay together) do so largely or solely by the grace of God.

2. Ascension
But this is a fragmentary preface, and not the text for the evening. What if our lives were lived so that our remaining mortality were ever present, countdown style? Would that finally teach us "to be sober and diligent and lay aside mirth, vanity and folly, and to be prepared to die tomorrow" (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 176)? Elder Hales expands on this entry’s title for me:

Time stops for no man. . . . What we do with our time will determine the degree of lifelong learning and spiritual values we take to the eternities following our mortal test. . . . You will not be surprised to know that there is only one ultimate goal: living a faithful life and enduring to the end worthy of eternal salvation and glory. All other goals and achievements are corollary to faithfully enduring to the end. (Robert D. Hales, in Brigham Young University 2008-2009 Speeches, 178-179; also BYU Magazine, Winter 2009, 3)

A bygone general authority really set up the standard:

We are not doing all the things that the Lord has asked us to do—we are detouring, we are losing time, and that time can never be made up again. That time is lost. . . . Therefore, I would suggest to every member of the Church, that while we cannot change the length of time we live in mortality, we can change what we do with the time we have at our disposal. (Carl W. Buehner, Do Unto Others, 137-138)

Brigham Young: "There is no time allotted to us to use outside of the limits of duty" (JD, 5:1); "Of the time that is allotted to man here on the earth there is none to lose or to run to waste. After suitable rest and relaxation there is not a day, hour or minute that we should spend in idleness, but every minute of every day of our lives we should strive to improve our minds and to increase in the faith of the holy Gospel, in charity, patience, and good works . . ." (JD, 13:310).

In September 2007, I attempted to explain how an instructor of youth had gone far afield in theorizing with regard to the Second Coming. I remarked, "The official stance? Live every day as if He will come. Isn’t that the message to impart to the youth?" That effort failing, the Lord extended a near-immediate mercy of assigning me a priesthood lesson with the topic of my choosing. So I opened with Elder Talmage’s, "How would you feel if authoritative proclamation were made here today that on the literal morrow, when the sun shall rise again in the east, the Lord would appear in His glory to take vengeance upon the wicked, and to establish His Kingdom upon the earth?" (CR, Apr. 1916, 129). Examples of the next types of questions I then posed are, "Do any of us expect more advance warning than that? Is He going to come less speedily and stealthily than He has always assured the prophets He would? Why would we have to make adjustments? And what are we going to do about it? Isn’t the appropriately prepared life too busy coping with the signs of the times to be speculating on them?" As President Grant declared, "The scriptures tell us that no one knoweth. I am sure that some of the people who are wasting days, weeks and months of study trying to frighten themselves to death will not be successful" (CR, Apr. 1932, 99).

3. Aspiration
Seeking after signs is worse than ineffective; the Lord needs active labor. That is the message I hope to bear to my dying day: prepare for our returning King!!! Make His paths straight! One of my favorite quotations, by President George Albert Smith, was unfolded in my February 25, 2008 entry. It ties into a chain of prophetic reflection that I’m rather fond of linking together.

George Albert Smith (CR, Oct. 1917, 45): "Let us so live, that, by and by, when our work is done, it will be truthfully said of us that this world is better for our having lived in it."

David O. McKay (MS, 94:711): "Life is a mission in which it is the duty of every man to make the world better for his having been in it."

Ezra Taft Benson (TETB, 676-677): "We should be ‘anxiously engaged’ in good causes and leave the world a better place for having lived in it."

Gordon B. Hinckley (TGBH, 308): "You are good. But it is not enough just to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for your presence. And the good that is in you must be spread to others."

More pertinent for me than ever at age 30 are remarks I made at 20:

The story of mortality is not entirely about avoiding breakage, though. We must wage a war to bring our bodies into subjection to our spirit and to the Spirit of God. Occasionally our body will see that there’s little or no self-preservation in a certain course, and then our spirit ought to declare, "Never mind that. Wear out your life in service and you’ll get all the preservation you want hereafter." Yes, sometimes our bodies break. Our minds can even break. But our spirit never can unless we consent to it. I’ve been patched up in numerous ways. They put rods in my back several months ago just to keep my spine from sagging right into my heart and lungs. . . . This VW Bug may never make the 100,000-mile mark, but as long as I can start up in the morning I should be on the Lord’s errand.

In that same talk, to a Relief Society gathering, I relayed President Young’s advice:

Is there an individual sister in this Church out of the reach of doing good? Not one. "Why," exclaims a sister, "I am sick, weary, diseased; I cannot work—I cannot do anything." Is doing good beyond her reach? No; that sister who is sick and unable to cook her own food, wash her own clothing, or to knit or mend her stockings, can give good counsel to her brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, to the members of the family in which she lives, to her neighbors, and to all with whom she may associate. (JD, 11:350)

I have since learned that he likely made reference to his own mother, who died when he was 14. His brother Lorenzo recalled that when wasting away with tuberculosis, she remained a "praying, fervent" woman who "frequently called me to her bedside and counseled me to be a good man, that the Lord might bless my life" (S. Dilworth Young, Here is Brigham, 32).

4. Ancestral Dedication
In contemplation of passing mortality, I might say that death holds no terrors for those prepared to meet their Maker. I am incredibly thankful for a family notable for keeping their heads about them even as death dealt deterrence. Quite a bit has been outlined in past entries about those who met martyrs’ or soldiers’ deaths. Here is homage to a few who demonstrated contempt for the world in a more common fashion. My 3rd-great-grandfather, Wellington L. Mills (orphaned son of an English immigrant, hence from my only line not here in time to serve in the Revolution; he seriously had a brother named Prince Albert), graduate of the Medical College of Georgia just before the Civil War, died at age 32 after swimming across Blackshear’s Ferry during a storm in order to deliver a baby. (You can also click here.)

On June 11, 1738, Pastor Bolzius conducted a funeral at Ebenezer, Georgia for the child of my forebears, Hans and Anna Maria Floerel:

I had just come into their hut yesterday evening when the child was about to die, and the mother asked me to pray with her and those present. She said that she loved the child, to be sure, but she preferred for the dear Lord to take it to Him, for now she knows that it is dying a blessed death.

It was said of Herr Floerel that he was "a reasonable, intelligent, and careful Christian," "righteous and very industrious," "a pious, knowledgeable, and skillful man who knows how to deal with people in a true Christian manner and to make people accept his advice; and he wishes and is willing to give his time to the service of his neighbor and for the glory of the Lord, without any self-interest," that "he has a beautiful gift in getting on with children, is loved in the entire community, is content with little, and thus useful to God and man," and that he and his wife led a blessed marriage "as an example for all married people," and on another occasion that "Hanns Flerl and his wife are deeply devout people; and their blessed, quiet, and humble way of life is edifying for everybody in our community. I consider especially their frequent prayers and intercession a great benefaction for me and the entire community. But to them applies the saying: ‘Whom I love I chasten and scourge,’ etc."

They were "a godly couple," who "have God’s blessing, but also Christ’s cross; and they know how to find themselves in it." In 1747, he rushed to their home as "the child in her died and the mother was close to death. She had already taken leave of her dear husband and would gladly have passed on, since, filled with faith, she had recognized her Savior who blesses us all." She was the great woman of whom I proudly repeat, she "takes her Christianity very seriously." In pondering the type of future I’d like to have, I enjoy the phrase concerning those two: "our pious and dear mill manager Hans Flerl and his like-minded wife."

Hans’ brother, Carl, had no surviving children. In 1750, it was written:

Concerning Carl Flerl I was told that he praises God sincerely for the blessed departure of his little son from this world, by which good has been done not only to the child but also to its parents. The father recognizes that he loved this sensible child all too much and would have sought the world and temporal things to better its physical care. Now that it is with its Savior in heaven, his heart has been torn by the grace of God from all visible things, the child died an edifying death.

The tombstone of Walter Thomas Ferrell, my 3rd-great-uncle, who died at 8 months: "Sleep on sweet Walter and take your rest. God called thee home. He thought it best." A man being hanged later in Texas confessed to the most painful murder he’d ever committed, whereby he shot my relative, Nathaniel Stanley, from his horse to obtain his money. As Nathaniel’s life ebbed away, he did not quake or quail, but cantankerously demanded why the thief didn’t "come out like a man and kill him," whereupon the man hit him in the head to finish him off.

5. Epiphany
Finally, speaking of impending doom, that is curiously close to the type of personal feeling that has developed over the years in connection with dating. I quite literally have gotten this sense like ascending the gallows as the time drew near to go out. The process has been an unending stupor of thought, and I gradually came to realize that I dreaded it so much because there has never been an ounce of sustaining inspiration in the process for me. Because in other commonplace activities I had at least a shred more strength, I often came to wonder: "my dating life has been so strange, either God or Satan is intervening. If God, it’s odd that He’d tell me to persist while blockading; if Satan, again, why wouldn’t God remove the barrier?" (journal, 03/30/03). It was as though the Spirit, felt on every other occasion and in every other circumstance, drained away in punishment. This really wreaks havoc on the mind of one who wishes to do the right thing, which would seem to be persistence in duty.

I have long vented the frustration that in my life I could obtain with certainty the answer to anything through the gospel...except for this one matter. At times I’ve detected a tangible shade of a divine smile over the mystery. At long last, mercy prevailed after I turned 30. I have been desperately in need of reformulating my battle plan, and the problem persisted of silence in the heavens, so I turned to a priesthood leader for a blessing. The result was a crystal clear recapitulation of Elder Scott’s counsel on personal revelation. While many in my position—including myself, at one point—might have said, "Yeah, I know. That has yet to yield an answer. But shouldn’t something have given by now?", I felt it was a definite call to try again, to go to the Lord in private and seek Him earnestly. The heavens were opened on Sunday night, and I have been rejoicing in my newfound freedom ever since.

I submitted the question to the Lord, and was actually stunned that He approved of a determination of mine. Earlier this year, I vowed a vow . . . and I was almost afraid to run it by Him, though I knew it needed His approbation, modification, or elimination. You see, I grow weary of every variety of scheme to get me on dates. If simply going out brought joy, then, yes, I’d consent in a heartbeat. But what if it brings the opposite? What if it spells nothing but turmoil for an otherwise internally placid and hopeful life? What if I have actually been instructed to expect nothing but years of suffering on account of women? That alone would not obviate the burden for a single priesthood bearer to date. Without our Supreme Commander’s dismissal, though it be a suicide mission, ours should be like Colonel Magaw’s declaration to defend Fort Washington: "actuated by the most glorious cause that mankind ever fought in, I am determined to defend this post to the last extremity." There is General Wayne’s similarly devout dedication to Washington: "Give the order, sir, and I will lay siege to hell." In heaven’s unique testing of God’s children, the most glorious causes are often right up to the final hour those that are to all mortal appearances the most lost.

This brings me to the vow, which I carefully placed on the altar, framing it in a better spirit of humility than it was here formulated to a friend over a week ago: "I will never demean myself with dating again except on conditions that it is almost entirely under my control, at least initially, and in line with personal wishes, or I can tell that the Lord is definitely in it with me." And though mobs combine against me for it, I cannot mistake the fiery assertion from above that my underlying sentiment is, at least for the time being, correct.

Now, I’m not saying I haven’t gone out with some good girls over the years. But I am saying unequivocally that it’s been a demeaning time in the dating world. Overall, I’ve been treated very uncaringly, probably abominably—not that others don’t get this to some or just as full a degree. It tidily sums up the dating experience to report that one of the best and most complimentary girls in one ward, when I asked her out, unthinkingly replied, "Might as well." It’s too bad nothing better had come along for her sake, as my earlier belief that punishing a girl’s lack of honesty by taking her out against implied disinterest has been replaced by the knowledge that it punishes me at least doubly.

If this is what I’ve come to expect, and in some ways the best I've come to expect, from those who know something about me via ward dealings, why on earth would I ever agree to a blind date? I decided years ago, when it comes to being a man seeking dates, it is ironically better to be loved than respected. If one stands yea high and has just the right neolithic set of jaw and forehead, with proper cleft in his chin, it covereth a multitude of sins. ;-) Bonus points for biceps. (It’s pleasant to contemplate that one dentist, who had to perform an extraction due to overcrowding—still never had a cavity at 30!—informed me that I was tougher than the BYU football team. No, that wasn’t at the University of Utah. Again, I am not establishing a pedestal here; the Lord has affirmed that he will plead our cause. The whole point of this entry is that He has agreed to the performance of that promise on my behalf.)

So, while there’s a very real danger of people misinterpreting what may appear like personal revelation contrary to general counsel, I feel that my odds can’t possibly be any worse than they were before making this official. It is also contrary to my character to ask out women who don’t want to go, and heaven knows I’ve paid enough of a price that I shouldn’t have to go with those whom I don’t want to. There’s no longer any appreciable difference to me if some of my ex’s final words happened to be true: "Nobody will ever want you. Nobody wants you." (Thanks to my meekly bearing it, I can review the scene without any remorse.) What hurts is the haunting fear this might prove true, while forced to test the painful proposition constantly. I’m so much happier now that I can’t believe I spent more than a decade trying so hard to date, when it obviously wasn’t meant to be, so far. I seem to have acquired more potential phobias than skills in the duration. But I’ve done what I’ve done with real and pure intent, like that explained in my journal in August 2002: "The reason I worry so much is that something either affects my eternal salvation or it doesn’t concern me at all."

6. Personal Dedication
The sheer strength of the answer came in direct response to a certain volume of willingness. I have so far to go, so much to learn and do, but I want to fulfill to the utmost whatever Heavenly Father intended for my life here on earth. May not one whit fall undone. Even if it is the hardest road, I implored, that is how I want to serve His children. What I want, though it be twenty years distant, is the woman who will best help me to be that kind of servant. In saying this, I am not preaching the false "soulmate" doctrine, but I asked for not the second best, third best, or any manner of settling; I want the best spouse for me, to inspire me into accomplishing that, and God bless her soul for it.

Stake Conference this weekend both spurred me on to revisit how dating would apply in my life, and to derive comfort from the president’s admonition that we not let anyone make the choice for us of who to marry in the temple. Like I’ve said, the girl herself shouldn’t make that choice (been there, done that), her bishop shouldn’t (by implying that my valid concerns were too exacting of standards), and others shouldn’t (even by their antagonism, for the more her parents disliked me, the more determined I was to show that I’m capable of anything—what’s left to prove in life, after you’ve asked an "enemy" for their daughter’s hand?). This is why I’m especially grateful to have a witness of the Spirit to buttress my arguments against what others invariably tell me to do. The absence of such guidance led to a gradual decline in my judgment, a preparatory deconditioning.

A roommate once quite seriously lectured me about learning what my place and league were and not bothering to look outside of it. I also recall whispering to another roommate, concerning one of the choicest young women in the ward, "Did I just hear her take the Lord’s name in vain?" He actually called out, "Kris is too good for the girls!" in a mocking tone. I say this not to suggest I am without other vices, but to show that it is fully possible to do and plausible that it’s important to me: I have also gone 30 years without ever cursing. I was literally pained to hear that girl’s lips pronounce what they did. I wasn’t pronouncing return judgment upon her in my taking seriously what the Lord takes seriously, "for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Still another roommate stared blankly at me when I brushed off a suggested prospect as far too brazen and confused for me. He echoed, "But she’s short." I assure you, I have a very unusual personality, even among short people. Whether she comes that way or not is practically irrelevant to the real considerations. The Lord respects our wishes in ways that nobody else can, and there’s no better partner to have in tracking down an ideal companion.

Once more, as in my October 25, 2008 entry, I adopt Elder Talmage’s bachelorhood prayer: "Lord, Thou knowest that I have very few acquaintances among the young women of Zion, and Thou hast full knowledge of them all. Guide me to her who is meant to be my help-meet in life." The burning, absolutely confident reassurance bestowed upon me was that no one can choose her for me. He knows who she is and what we are each doing at this very moment. I can drive myself insane trying to force His hand, as I have through a defunct dating system, or I can rise to the measure of the quotations heretofore offered, hitting Satan’s kingdom hard for the sake of my fellow man, trusting that she’s not going to be hung up over my height when she meets me...that she won’t make a game out of the most important choice here in mortality after that of our spiritual loyalties, nor will she toy with my badly mauled feelings.

I find myself mentally replaying some contemporary lyrics, strangely enough. Of dubious application would be Bytheway’s ditty: "The wrong one/Is the right one/To lead you/To the best one" (What I Wish I’d Known When I was Single, 82). At any rate, I respectfully quit the field of this "fruitless experience . . . midway between undergoing a continuous root canal operation and an ongoing tedious job interview" (Kristen M. Oaks, A Single Voice, 82), refusing to any longer "dally along in a fruitless, frustrating, and frivolous dating game" (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, 603). If ever I ride in again, it will either be purely as an exercise in relaxed amusement or in my full might, certainly not at the condescending sufferance of others. I won’t merely set my sights on what seems like it might possibly be pleasant, if only I could get close enough. I don’t ask brethren to accompany me in my symbolic departure—indeed, I discourage that.

Don’t fear for me. It is in the Lord’s hands, and this act might be termed assuming my place among the children of men without apology. I’ve certainly come of age! I have more important things to attend to in my life now than these paltry concerns that have consumed so much anxiety for so many years, though I’ll always welcome a partner to share my life’s journey: not to make me controller of her destiny, but to make our mutual interest easier for the both of us.

The stern warning, then, is that there are some fundamental things she must be very serious about, one of them being my dignity (you know, at the outset) and the others essentially being the gospel. By this, I do mean compatibility in gospel living, not like my ex’s response to my final feeble effort to break off engagement in saying that I didn’t think we were on the same page spiritually: "I want the same things you do." (Whether in time or eternity, I hope that some day she realizes that she did everything in her power, including a powerful dose of self-deception, to make me marry her.) Very few Latter-day Saints would say otherwise if confronted with the issue, but how honest are they with themselves? I ask, "In reading my blog, oozing with fearsomely vigorous individuality, do you truly get the sense you want all the same things I do?" There’s nothing excessive or needlessly exclusive about the only expectations I have in seeking a companion.

Profiles in Courage: Charles LaPierre

2009-09-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been told that a certain set of ancestors would provide quite a story. The wealth of new material I’ve unearthed, most within just the past three weeks, in spite of complete lack of acquaintance with French, only heightens that feeling. In my eagerness to share this inspiring account—or that portion which I’ve been able to painstakingly assemble—I nonetheless make no literary pretensions, and I know this is compiled disastrously. (The sources named at the end are only those readily at hand.) I will, however, claim the literary license to rove freely among some extended relations and simply expect the reader to keep up. All linkage is provided for the reward of the patient.

The primary Protestant protagonist remains enigmatic. Charles LaPierre, the son of Jean Pierre and Philis Remesie, received baptism March 17 or 19, 1655 in LaSalle, Gard (region of Languedoc), France. (Click here for a view of the pleasant hamlet, and here to see a bridge he would have used.) If I’m not mistaken in my interpretation, the register indicates that he was born on the 20th of February. His name often fluctuated (even on the same record) in earlier years between Payre, Peyre, Pieyre, Pierre, and eventually LaPierre. By the late 1670s, he quite consistently signed his name to that effect, with a lovely, literate flourish.

He owned additional property at St. Hippolyte, presumably the Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort approximately four miles south. (One obscure reference, during the troubled times in which we shall soon be immersed, mentions the danger from soldiers at a fort in the latter place, while reciting LaPierre’s cordial hospitality to fellow fugitives.) A cursory inspection of that town’s early baptisms only verifies the insular nature of the times, adducing no compelling reason to believe there was a branch of Pierres there—I did, however, spot a Remesie.

Charles LaPierre married Jeanne Roque on January 20, 1680 in LaSalle, according to the rites of the Reformed church (which is to say, Protestant). This shoemaker and his bride welcomed their first child (and my direct ancestor), Jean, into this world on February 6, 1681. (Contrary to the proliferation of erroneous statements that it was on the 2nd.) The little boy was presented by "Jean Lapierre, grandfather," and "Marguerite Guionne," his maternal grandmother. Another little boy, Charles, joined the family in late 1682. From all indications, the latter did not survive into adulthood.

LaPierre’s political antipathies can be traced back to a petition from the city of Le Vigan (roughly 8.5 miles west in a southerly bearing line from LaSalle) to the Marquis of Montanegre. Signed on July 24, 1684, regrettably only by surname, no fewer than three LaPierres affixed their signature. This protested the practice of "dragonnading," or dispersing the king’s troops—dragoons—throughout the countryside of suspect Huguenot regions, which generally made life miserable, oftentimes in appalling fashion. In this case, the citizens cited the difficulty of paying for the subsistence of these troops, running above 100,000 livres since October. One co-signer, the schoolmaster [Francois] Vivens (or Vivent) would become very (in)famous indeed, and a close companion to LaPierre. Keep in mind that this was not a safe activity! One 72-year-old pastor, Isaac Homel, the first in an ever-growing number, was broken on the wheel for not showing contrition after voicing such disapproval. Years later, his daughter recalled how he continued to sing and preach as this was carried out.

At this point, I introduce the brilliantly tragic figure, at this time already actively at work, who within a few years became another companion to LaPierre’s future sufferings: Claude Brousson.
This lawyer, ultimately excluded from his practice by steadily tightening strictures on Protestants, orated so skillfully that he maintained his place in a hostile Catholic environment long after others had been debarred. When the worsening climate forced a choice, he utilized his talents on behalf of the Protestant/Huguenot cause. He later became a most prolific writer and revered preacher, sending his message all the way to the king.

Judgment Day struck on October 18, 1685, with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The new decree’s harsh terms forbade all levels of society from practicing the Protestant religion "in any place or private house, under any pretext whatever," encouraged baptism and Catholic training of children, and placed all Huguenots under the predicament of illegality of immigration. The king surely felt that the desired outcome of conversion was the only option remaining. Only ministers had leave to depart the kingdom, and that within two weeks.

An unexpected lack of compliance evoked harsh measures against the most recalcitrant regions, foremost among which was Languedoc, amid the Cevennes mountains. I do not know what the date of "general submission" of the town of LaSalle was, but thereafter three names, which will prove of interest in this study, appear on the official list of "fugitives" who had left behind property upon the calamitous announcement, also amounting to some of the highest figures: Pierre Durand, Jean Roque, and Jean La Pierre shoemaker. Guillaume Guion, another wealthy fugitive, is probably related, but this remains unconfirmed. (That Charles’ father, brother, and son all bear the name Jean leads to considerable confusion; some scholars entertained passingly the possibility of two preachers, Jean and Charles. This Jean was in all likelihood one of the signers of the Le Vigan document. This is simplified considerably if we realize that the youngest Jean was far too young, and the brother Jean is accounted for by an entry in 1654: "died, Jean son of Jean la pierre, shoemaker." Given the peculiarities of naming patterns, it’s not altogether impossible that Charles’ full name was Jean Charles LaPierre.) Durand, "regent and sexton to LaSalle," had owned "the most beautiful" property, and this was converted into barracks. When Sainte-Croix de Caderle was assaulted, Martha, the widow of Antoine Roques (uncle to Charles’ wife), also went into the countryside. She was 74 years old at the time, and would spend many years there with her daughter, Marguerite.

Secret meetings continued, scarcely abated, on an organized basis called "The Desert." At one night-time gathering, in January 1686, there were nearly 400 people from LaSalle and surrounding locales assembled for sermon and sacrament. A lamp hung from a nearby apple tree. Pierre Durand opened and closed the meeting with prayers, and here we see the fiery, young Vivent deliver a sermon, warning those who partook that they must not thereafter take Mass. (Residents often had to endure the indignity of accepting Catholic communion wafers offered at the point of dragoons’ bayonets, even before the Revocation.) Jean Roques, son of the aforementioned Antoine, and cousin to Charles’ wife, was a predicant, or lay preacher, on this occasion acting as one of two guides and bodyguards for Vivent. When Vivent asked him to help administer the sacrament, Roques first laid his gun down on the table. In conformity with such proceedings, Roques publicly declared before Vivent that he would "live and die a Protestant." None who had gone back on their religion were permitted to take at this time, though one cried for the privilege.

Soon, Jean’s brother, Henri, a carder (one who works with wool), was among four people arrested in the vicinity of their hometown of Caderle. Some sources mistake him for a son of Jean Roque and Marguerite Guion, hence brother to Charles’ wife, Jeanne. One of them does just credit in attributing to that family having "suffered so greatly for their faith." His age does not preclude this finding, though I have yet to locate him in that family unit. The remainder of the accounts securely place him as a cousin. Regardless, he is closely related.) Because he had attended an illegal assembly on February 26, 1686, he was condemned to the galleys for three years. He died in a hospital by late December, but did so "persevering." No Catholic last rites for a Roque! Sadly, one source which offers physical descriptions has all the fields garbled. Inasmuch as "Huguenot convicts represented less than 5 percent of the total number . . . [and] the monarchy had plenty of convicts to man its galley ships . . . galley sentences for religion’s sake were . . . ‘selective repression,’" intended for "particularly harsh and uncommon punishment." The same date that sentence was passed on Henri, April 3, 1686, it was ordered that the home of his brother, Jean Roques, whom they did not have in custody, should be razed. It appears that this Jean had accompanied Vivent again to a March 10 meeting in a valley between Peyrolles and Valmy.

Our reference point returns to Charles’ wife, Jeanne Roque. As resistance in Languedoc persisted into late 1686, there was a call for 300 of the most obstinate to be deported to the Caribbean islands. (Yes, the conditions were punishment in those days.) Preparations were made for intake at Aigues-Mortes. During that year, 58-year-old merchant Jean Roque, this one Jeanne’s father, of Frechaussel at LaSalle, was committed to the Tower of Constance in Aigues-Mortes. Common prisoners were placed in worse conditions toward the bottom. He died soon afterward.

In his history of that accursed tower, Bost refers to two sisters whose "fate was especially moving." One, Louise Guion, was the wife of the Pierre Durand whom I’ve already discussed. He had attempted to leave the kingdom with his wife and two daughters. They were arrested at Dijon, and on March 10, 1687, he was first condemned to the galleys. On account of his being too old to row, he was simply deported to the French colonies, where he died in 1690. Mrs. Durand spent time at the Tower of Constance and was then moved to the Queen’s Tower at Montpellier, where she was placed in solitary confinement. During a violent fever, she relented, saying she would do anything to get out. Similarly, her daughters followed her lead in recanting before a priest.

The other sister, Marguerite Guion, was widow of the elder Jean Roque. She was confined in the Tower of Constance with children Jacques, Jean, Jeanne (noted to be wife of Charles LaPierre, who had become a preacher), Isabeau, and Marthe. 15-year-old Jacques perished. Jean, however, succumbed to the trials and renounced his religion. He would be the only survivor in an "annihilated" family, fleeing to Switzerland the next year with the remaining Durands. A source which pleasingly praises the martyrs’ crowns earned by Jean the father and Jacques, and so forth, states the younger Jean’s first place of refuge as Brandenburg, a reasonable destination on account of the Edict of Potsdam, but this source is not entirely accurate in every particular, as it claims Jean refused abjuration. A more reliable record places some of them in Magdeburg. On November 8, 1691, Jeanne Durand, daughter "of the late Pierre Durand, bourgeois de La Salle, and Louise Guion," married Pastor Charles Flavard of Anduze, son of "Etienne Flavard, bourgeois d’Anduze, and the late Marguerite Vallette." One distraught mother brought up that she’d been under the impression he was going to marry her daughter.

Since Marguerite Guion Roque and her three daughters remained firm in their contrary opinion, they were marked for deportation. This was reserved expressly for "the more obstinate," those who were "potential leaders" and "hopelessly impervious to conversion." Fewer than 430 Huguenots were transported in this manner in the years 1687 and 1688. There is a surprising amount of detail available about the final voyage of the Notre-Dame de Bonne Esperance. The prisoners were put aboard, separated into men’s and women’s cabins, on March 8, 1687, but did not disembark from Marseilles for Martinique until the 12th. Cramped conditions were so bad that during storms, those who couldn’t move would be covered with water, and there were other indescribable inconveniences. 17-year-old Marthe died from an illness that was devastating the ship at this time. "Horrific" living conditions on transport ships caused an average death rate of 25 percent. Still, victims of the African slave trade could complain of worse.

The ship struck a rock and foundered during the night between May 18 and 19, 1687. No one could find the key to the women’s quarters and it took too long to break the door down with axes. Water had been pouring in from all sides. Seeing this, the women had prepared to die by singing psalms, praying, embracing each other, and commending themselves to God. Very few left this watery tomb. The eyewitness, Etienne Serres, who heard a description of the widow of Roque of La Salle’s final moments, only named four women who were saved from the shipwreck. In recounting these events, he said those who drowned were all women who made the trip voluntarily and could never be forced against their conscience, even unto death. While Serres was floating on a plank awaiting rescue, the ship’s most Catholically eminent chaplain called out for his conversion, considering that they were both so near death. He replied, "Can you really think I want to forget God in the time that I must prepare myself to go to him? How can you believe I want to make a faux pas when I’m going to finish my course?" etc. The chaplain begged him to say no more.

Back on the mainland, Jean Roques, their cousin and a bodyguard/preacher, was now in league with an old soldier, also a lay preacher, from LaSalle named Jean Manoel. Without explanation, it is said that Manoel also knew LaPierre. The tough old man was arrested first and already interrogated before they finally caught Roques in a secret vault at Jean Bourdarier’s home at St. Croix on June 19, 1687, which was entered through the stables. This, too, was ordered razed. Roques was imprisoned at Nimes. At the time of arrest, he had a fragment of a self-composed sermon and copies of some religious literature on him. When confronted during interrogation with his declaration of living and dying a Protestant, "he persisted in that sentiment."

Manoel and Roques were hanged at Nimes on the same day, June 26. One of the executioners slapped Manoel (who went first) twenty times. None present, including Jesuits, made a move to halt this abuse. Manoel ascended the platform with composure. He prayed for those who killed him, urging the judges and other prosecutors "to no longer make war with God." It is said, in the best translation I can manage myself, that "Jean Roques died with the same consistency. At the time that he perished, faithful to the faith of his childhood, one of his brothers was in the galleys and his wife, two small children, his mother, and one of his sisters wandered around LaSalle, in the woods." The 30-year-old martyr "kept his oath."

What of Roques’ confiscated effects? He had informed his persecutors that he intended to send one as a letter to Montpellier and Nimes. In one, initially referring to the error and idolatry around them, he recalled the suffering "of those [who] at the expense of their property and their lives, make every effort . . . to move those who, unfortunately, by timidity and cowardice have horribly abandoned the doctrine of God and the prophets and apostles." Bost made a point of reminding the reader of his wandering family members, and that his home was gone. Roques continued, with apparent allusion to Hebrews 11:36-38, "we suffer every day so faithfully, some in prison, the others in the galleys, the others as exiles, . . . in the mountains, in caves, holes in the ground, in the remotest places . . . [because of] men[‘s] rage. . . . I can join this number, with my family scattered. . . . There is no cruelty exercised against us, . . . . [of which the] people in this place are not guilty, and especially those who exercise justice and police . . . . [who] persecute so cruelly in making war against Jesus Christ. . . . We . . . pray to God to have mercy and give them true repentance . . . ."

Bost pleasantly observes of the sermon, "a warning of a peasant of the Cevennes to the urban plain," that we may "savor his naivete and childlike confidence." What I can gather from the text:

My dear brothers and sisters, it is with regret that I . . . see our misfortune, and when I consider the greatness of our calling[?] and perseverance . . . , I can not help but sigh, seeing the threats that God makes against . . . sins, . . . because God says there is no peace for the wicked it must necessarily [follow] or [else repent]. . . . God does not want the death of the sinner, but his life. The good God punishes us not to lose us, but to save us. . . . It is time that you convert, and why will you die o house of Israel? Today . . . [change?] your hearts, lest God swear in his wrath that you will not enter into his rest. . . . [Consider?], you ungrateful people, after God had reformed the Church by . . . love and His omnipotence, and it has cost so much blood and . . . for the happy Reformation . . . you have cowardly abandoned. . . . [This] is the example of a wise physician who probes the wound to the bottom and does not flatter, so that the remedies make greater impression. I wish you would know that you are in poor condition, [which] you [may] lift quickly by living holy repentance, since God threatens . . . to throw in . . . conviction all those who are found mated with Babylon . . . .

The Abbe Rouquette, who interrogated Roques, evidently concluded that his soul was "religiously empty" or some such thing, all the more difficult to believe, Bost adds, when picturing the captive singing verses from a rendition of Psalm 25 which he was carrying, to a melody that he loved:

Dieu seul est la droite voie
Et nous conduit par la main;
Au pecheur qui se fourvoie
Il montre le droit chemin.
Pour le servir il fait choix
Des humbles dans leur misere;
Il fait connaitre ses lois
A tous les coeurs debonnaires.
O Dieu, garantis ma vie
Contre tant de conjures
J’espere, malgre l’envie
De voir mes jours assures.
Que ma seule integrite
Soit ma garde et ma defense;
D’Israel, par ta bonte,
Fais moi voir la delivrance!

All the while, LaPierre’s friend Vivent was proving worse than a nuisance to Monsieur Baville, the intendant of Languedoc, who had put out bounty notices already by 1686. In spite of a short, slim, and knock-kneed (from a childhood injury) appearance, his reputation as a "guerilla fighter" grew impressively. He insisted on guards over his assemblies. A spy passed along the word that this man had "the heart of a lion." Throughout the summer of 1686, he had many scrapes and escapes. After some prisoners were taken from one of his meetings, he counterattacked with 30 companions, ingeniously tricking the foe into believing he had cannon when he only had tree trunks, and freed his friends.

So eager was Baville for this to cease that he cut a deal with Vivent. In return for safe passage abroad for himself and 270 others, they would stop all efforts at resistance. One may well wonder at Vivent’s "naively" supplying a list of names and basic identification, which Baville would later put to good use. Only three down from Vivent, who headed the list, was Charles Lapierre, shoemaker of Lasalle, 30 years old. The king’s men made annotations in the margin, and it didn’t escape their notice that he was a predicant, or that the last name in the first group was the widow of the hanged Jean Roques.

At Baville’s insistence, the 270 were broken into three parties. Things went terribly wrong as the first group of about 45 departed. Instead of being directed the short way to Geneva, they were sent across the border toward Spain in August 1687. This was in the hopes of dispersal and other difficulties attendant to such hostile terrain/population. One writer attributes their collective escape to Vivent’s energies. Thus LaPierre was spirited out of the country that had severed his wife’s entire family from him. A small second group also managed to get out. However, with full duplicity, Baville closed his trap on the remaining 203. These victims, including Vivent’s wife and brother, were shipped to the West Indies.

Baville had what he wanted. "Lower Languedoc and the Cevennes were empty of preachers that had . . . risen against soldiers or missionaries of the king," culminating in the exile of many predicants, including Vivent and Lapierre. The unhappy Vivent spent his time in Amsterdam recalling the broken agreement, understandably a bit peeved. He was certainly not idle. He took up with "the Huguenot firebrand," Pastor Pierre Jurieu. At some point, he arranged with William of Orange, future king of England (Glorious Revolution of 1688), to serve as a secret agent to stir up rebellion in the French homeland. LaPierre met with Jurieu and then went on to Berlin.

At this crossroads, Charles LaPierre now had complete freedom of choice. His son—probably the only surviving family member—was scarcely 8 years old. Would he despair listlessly, even with a child to raise, or would he rise to the measure of the truth for which his beloved companion died? What sort of man did Jeanne Roque—whose life and death argue for one of the only good reasons I’ve ever heard for a mother to voluntarily absent herself from the home—marry? Baville’s wanted posters in 1687 described him as "of small size, blond and flat hair, round face and quite white, a little pockmarked, small, grey eyes, rather large and broad nose, and dirty teeth." Okay, you try maintaining dental hygiene as a seventeenth-century Frenchman, especially one without a home for two years. That aside, he obviously wouldn’t win any beauty contests, though the physical descriptions were almost universally unflattering, for the eyes of the beholders were very jaded. However, Brousson himself described LaPierre as leading "a pure and holy life, full of zeal and courage, and well versed in the divine scriptures."

Evidently LaPierre, of his own volition, expressed a desire to Minister Gautier in Berlin that he should return to France and preach. Walter approved of this zeal. LaPierre spontaneously passed back into Holland in 1689, where Jurieu also persuaded him to follow this prompting. Brousson had independently begun urging those who could teach to re-enter the embattled country and rekindle the dying light. In July 1689, eight or nine pastors or predicants (basically, pseudo-pastors, as they had no formal training) were poised at the border between Switzerland and France, prepared to face certain death. They divided into companionships, LaPierre taking a man named Serein with him from Geneva. Brousson and Vivent were among them. (Click here for a convenient, only slightly overwrought, English version of the immediately preceding events.) These unusual missionary efforts were to be conducted in guerilla-like fashion, dividing and regrouping whenever possible or necessary. They did not expect to stay off the radar; their only hope was to perform good labors quickly and disappear even faster.

It was only a matter of weeks before the lieutenant-general of the king’s armies in Languedoc had issued a large award for Vivent, dead or alive, with smaller individual sums for seven colleagues (omitting Brousson, but including LaPierre). He accused Vivent of reneging on the kingdom’s goodness in pardoning him and assisting him out of the country. Anyone who helped these disrupters of the public peace would be treated as accomplices and see the destruction of their home. One "illegal assembly" of Cevennolese at Hospitalet in September 1689 heard sermons first from Vivent and Lapierre, and then Brousson. Throughout the evening, the numbers grew to nearly a hundred, largely composed of men with contraband weapons. Vivent and all his companions were noted to have about a dozen rifles and some pistols.

LaPierre’s whereabouts are understandably difficult to track during these years; otherwise, Baville would have bagged him. During that trial of fire, one after another of the companions was seized and executed horribly. One prisoner, put to the question, named La Pierre among five preachers, the others having fled or been killed. When asked how they survived, he replied it was in God’s hands. When asked again who gave them bread and meat, he said, "those whose hearts God has touched."

LaPierre wintered with a few near Saint-Andre de Valborgue while Vivent went into a northern, Catholic region. At another time, he passed back through Vigan in company with Quest and La Porte. More placards were posted, promising rewards for the capture of any preachers. Throughout 1690 and 1691, they continued to deliver sermons, baptize, and give the sacrament. Brousson laid his hands on LaPierre at Uzes in 1690, in his belief conferring jealously guarded authority (he had twice acquired from the theological elite in exile) which placed one somewhere above "predicant" status. LaPierre "worked" the entire plain of Saint Felix, where he encountered a new companion (Etienne Bon), who went by the name of La Victoire. They moved on to Valestaliere, where LaPierre apparently fell ill. Upon his recovery, sharing a desire to preach "to the valley where he was born," they held one of the larger meetings (in October 1691) at Monoblet near LaSalle. Listeners came from Lasalle, Monoblet, Colognac, Dufort, and Saint-Hippolyte, enjoying a sermon from Vivent, another from Lapierre, and then the sacrament. Vivent’s "troop" joined up with Laporte’s and Lapierre’s (he was at the head of Villemejeanne, La Victoire, and La Rose, alias for Mr. Julien) on the night of November 7 for a cave meeting; LaPierre and Laporte departed on foot. They later reconvened, with new fugitives, in the woods of Saint Felix.

A round of new arrests hit LaSalle. Seemingly frightened at the statistics they were uncovering, in what had been believed a relatively pacified province, efforts were redoubled. LaPierre took a man from the Monoblet audience, by the name of Villeneuve, and led eighteen men to the rescue of prisoners along the road between LaSalle and Saint-Hippolyte.

Initial stunning blows against the entrenched persecutors would see rapid and steady reversals in 1692. LaPierre remained in the vicinity of Nimes. In late November 1691, Guillaume Fraissinet of Caderle had been arrested with his wife, Jeanne Roques, another sister of the Jean who had been hanged. His wife, trapped in LaSalle, had been able to escape (corresponding with LaPierre’s rescue operation?), but was recaptured a month later. The Fraissinets were imprisoned at Saint-Hippolyte, along with the newly taken widow of Antoine Roques, referred to much earlier. Madame Roques was now 80 years old and had wandered since 1686. Her longtime companion, daughter Marguerite, had rather sharply remarked that she would abandon her if she changed religion. Marguerite was separately arrested at Bussas in August 1691 and taken to the castle at Sommieres.

At any rate, the year 1692 opens with proceedings against the venerable old widow Roques. "Intractably," she refused to become a Catholic or in any way be taught that it was a change for good with religion, adding that her son Jean (the hanged one) had served as an example for the whole family. (I quote the philosopher Boethius: "I have never been moved from justice to injustice by anything.") She also remained steadfast, she said, for her daughter’s sake. That February, Vivent was shot and killed after troops surprised him at his hideout. Increasing desperation had led to assassination attempts, implicating several of Vivent’s companions, who distanced themselves somewhat thereafter from his "violence." LaPierre was strongly accused by Baville, in partnership with two others, for the death of a Captain Bres. (On account of additional deaths of two bishops, he’d increased the price on Brousson and several others, including LaPierre, as "murderers and assassins." Very similar accusations were leveled at Joseph Smith and the Missouri Saints. It often takes one to think someone else is one! As President Taylor observed, many measure others by the foulness of their own hearts.) This was not helped by LaPierre’s cold reaction that "a persecutor of the church should not be spared." One man who was associated with Vivent at his death later made reference to the sword and pistol which LaPierre owned. Oh, what I’d give for the copy one captive had of a sermon written by LaPierre, or his weaponry!

Somehow, weighing the lives already lost and that it was an uneven war of extirpation involving faith, families, and freedom, I think a lot of my own compunctions disappear in the balance. What would the moral imperative be if you stood midway or two thirds of the way down a line of people with their cheek turned in one direction, and witnessed every single one of them before you shot in turn? Is there responsibility toward those who come after you, if you are in a position to take any sort of action? Believe it or not, this is why I have cheered the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, wherein no more than a thousand starved, under-equipped, largely untrained resisters held off at least twice their number in special German units for nearly a month. Taking a stand, even in the face of impossible odds, is in and of itself a way under the heavens to combat evil and rid your garments of that generation’s sins. Anyway, complacency is not a word often tossed in the direction of my family members.

LaPierre and La Jeunesse continued to minister to many around Nimes into 1693. Brousson was at Uzes, and LaPierre eventually approached that city in his labors. One weaver of Uzes was condemned who had guided LaPierre. Our good man Charles was now named in every recitation of a dwindling list of preachers. Apparently around this time he was drawn ever more closely to Brousson. The small band of brave men dwelt together in love. Another preacher taken by Baville refused to inform on those still at liberty, saying that nothing could move him to harm his brothers. It was somewhat anomalous when Quest hinted in earlier correspondence to Lapierre that the latter had absconded with one of his prized manuscripts. Lapierre’s response is his only preserved letter. In poorly translated part:

Mr. and honored brother, Having received [your letter] and seen by the reproaches you made of me without being informed of the things [of which] you accuse me, I beg you believe that I am not a man guilty of that [with which] you accuse me. . . . I should knock down [a tendency to claim?] all the qualities of perfection, which I love more than my own life because I am not a man to deny the truth. . . . I assure you with sincerity that I never took a book in Noguier. . . . God forbid that I make profit of damage to my brother. . . . I assure you that I have particular esteem for you, knowing your zeal and piety; and the care you take for the edification of our brothers greatly increases the love I have for you. . . . I beg [you to consult?] with our brother Francois [Vivent] [over] the manner that I have [toward] you. . . . I want to have the honor to see you, for me to justify my fidelity. Having written in haste I do not [cover] everything as I could wish. . . . Please, believe me one of your servants, without reservation, [and] make sure that I have the honor to see you. . . . C. Lapierre

In September 1694, he taught at Aigremont. He then administered the sacrament and delivered some sermons at a general synod held in Montpellier around Christmas. Only two of the remaining preachers failed to attend this secret meeting with at least 150 attendees. A few months later, he had momentarily withdrawn into the mountains of Castrais. We know that in 1695 he was at Graissessac, producing a "harvest" that David Gazan (code name La Jeunesse) subsequently took up. That October, he preached in the woods of Roc de Brezes, near Laucane, before about 200 people. A witness described him as blinking when he spoke, of medium stature, and with chestnut-colored hair, perhaps 45 years old. His text: "The Lord will extend His arm to save His people, and the people will give shouts of joy."

Moving to Bas-Languedoc from Bedarieux, he left an indelible impression on Marc Triol of Graissessac, who later recounted the passage of "that certain Monsieur Lapierre" in 1732. His audience must have included many who had forsaken their faith under pressure. "He touched many, representing why they had abandoned the Lord, which produced many tears." Bost then incites my curiosity, "We know already, from Baron Fontarèches, with what power Lapierre stirred hearts." The authorities caught up with Henri Pourtal in 1696, and there is only one known meeting subsequently that year, near Saint-Laurent d’Aigouze a few days before Christmas. The preacher and the crowd were not dispersed by a downpour, and it was LaPierre, returned to Haut-Languedoc. (Actually, not much deterred these diligent folk. One 18-year-old described a separate meeting held by Brousson, interrupted by the king’s men, as the sounded warning left too little time. Although Brousson and many others made good their escape, the boy’s father was killed, his brother was shot in the chest, and his sister was escorted to the Tower of Constance. "Nonetheless, two weeks later, he and his mother attended yet another nearby assembly.") LaPierre was lodging with a certain Martin, and remained in the area, near Castres, into 1697 with Gazan.

They were known to preach in June and July at Les Fargues and the Combelegarde of Metairie. On August 10, at Roc des Peiroulets in the woods of Montagnol, Lapierre taught from Isaiah 53:11-12, dressed in gray homespun. This time his age was estimated at 40. Some women gave him six shirts of Rouen fabric. He was spotted again during the night between September 25 and 26, labeled as "Mr. Lapierre, Lasalle," preaching in Galibert’s barn at Calmon on the plain of Mazamet. 87 people "who had not abjured," were allowed to take communion. After another assembly at Saint-Amans Villemagne at the end of December, Lapierre returned to Bas-Languedoc while Gazan made his way to Switzerland, where he was by early February 1698.

1698 was the fateful year. Brousson did not see LaPierre and drew the conclusion that he, too, had left the country. Bost paints the mournful scene: "Between les Causses and the Sea, we have seen so many preachers come and go, there only remained Roman, Lapierre, Olivier, and Brousson." An informant by the name of Quesnot, speaking of his acquaintances in the mountains, says that Lapierre "often changes place, and has almost no home." (This kind of helps one understand Matt. 8:20 more fully, in conjunction with 10:16-42.) There is one more interesting twist, which reveals the manner of young Jean LaPierre’s upbringing: "He has a son he is training to be a minister, he is sent first to one place, sometimes another." He accurately places the boy’s age around 16 to 17.

On November 4, 1698, Claude Brousson, the real mind behind the resistance, was strangled to death on the wheel. No one denied the brave manner of his death, and Utt closes that chapter with striking words from Baville’s correspondence regarding the undying courage of those he pursued so relentlessly: "If the God that these people serve is the same one that we adore, we risk being very disappointed some day." In his final days, Brousson had only rattled off the names of companions who’d already been immolated. Gazan and Lapierre’s names alone came up, purely because he believed they were out of the country already. In fact, three remained alive in the country: Lapierre, Olivier, and Roman.

Not long afterward, LaPierre finally left France for good. Shortly after his departure, an irrepressible nation of Cevennes peasantry rose up in the War of the Camisards. With their mobility, innovation, and adaptability, they fought the king’s forces to a standstill for years. They still excite the admiration of special operations studies today, in their inurement to extreme conditions and facility for reducing enemy forces which vastly outnumbered and outgunned them.

By November 1701, entitled to retirement from the scene of action, LaPierre was established as a minister in London, England, at the French Chapel of Spring Gardens, known as the Little Savoye. At that date, he married another refugee, with whom he had two more children. Their boy later crossed the English Channel before marrying; one of his direct male descendants was in the resistance movement during the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, and spent time in a concentration camp.

In 1718, Charles was an old pensioner, still lecturer at the Little Savoy(e). The record says that he was "with Mr. Brousson when broken on the wheel." Bost ponders whether that merely means still in the preaching service or he descended to Montpellier "to witness the death of his master and illustrious friend." LaPierre was succeeded in his post, one conjectures posthumously, in 1722. Yet the wily, untraceable old fighter could just as easily have joined his younger son in continental Europe. Maybe he still traipses the earth, refusing to die!

Denouement
On August 8, 1701, Jean LaPierre had entered Trinity College in Dublin, paying his own expenses and receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1706. He soon received a license from the Archbishop of Dublin to serve as schoolmaster in the city. On February 23, 1707, the Bishop of London ordained him a priest. There are many ironies to his life, not the least of which was his taking Anglican orders, a delicate subject for most Huguenot histories. Still another is expressed in April 1719 in another country, when, after some French Catholics left Mobile in Louisiana territory for South Carolina, LaPierre exulted that he’d witnessed the conversion of "Roman Catholicks" with "publick abjuration of Popery." Here was a taste of their own medicine, indeed, for the British colonies, excepting Maryland, wouldn’t allow Catholicism to take root.

On February 17, 1708, Jean and his wife Susanne traveled to the Little Savoy from their parish of St. James, Westminster, to have Charles and his second wife serve as sponsors for his firstborn, named Jeanne, presumably for Jean’s martyred mother. Only one week later, he departed for foreign shores. 20 pounds were paid by the British government for ministerial passage. Four months later, Jean, his blind wife, and "their little girl" arrived in an impoverished state. Hirsch provides plenty of pitiful pathos about what it was like to forge into the frontier with a full, French family:

A letter of his, dated January 1, 1725-6, leaves no misgiving about the grim shadows that lay across his way, even on that New Year’s day. There is reference to his family, who "are a great charge" to him, for there are "five small children." There is no lament recorded in those words, they are merely a matter-of-fact statement. But there was a wife as well, "who had lost her eyesight before their departure from England." Does not one’s fancy naturally linger in that household, where a mother gropes her way amid the manifold duties of her home, or sits helplessly among the cares, with the full weight of her own handicap and of the family’s poverty pressing down upon her.

He immediately assumed care of the St. Denis parish in South Carolina. For years he would operate here, and within "other vacant English parishes at convenient intervals." (He was pastor at Charleston’s French Church in partnership with Boisseau and L’Escot in 1712-1713, and possibly alone in 1728 just before his move to Cape Fear, or New Hanover, in North Carolina.) It was in this Orange Quarter of South Carolina that his second daughter, Martha (undoubtedly named after his young martyred aunt Marthe Roque), was born. She is both my 6th great-grandmother and 7th great-grandmother.

It is curious that an early acquaintance commented that "his English is not only accurate but adept in the use of colloquialisms, so one would guess that he left his native land fairly early in life," as the governor of North Carolina commented of his sadly spent condition in the 1750s that it was largely "by reason of his foreign Dialect and his age." St. Denis was created as a distinct parish "for a time ‘till ye present inhabitants or their children attain the English tongue.’" In a 1733 letter, one of several (of which this is a different example), LaPierre himself informs us that his instructions from Bishop Compton of London were to serve "until the death of the old settlers who did not understand the English Tongue." He became an assistant to Rev. Has(s)ell in the neighboring parish of St. Thomas, in his own words, "hoping of the two nations to make but one and the same people."

Van Ruymbeke introduces us to LaPierre’s first days in America, utilizing a contemporary resident’s letters in the first description:

Apparently they were not disappointed by their minister’s sermons, which "surpassed their hopes," as LaPierre revealed himself to be "a good theologian," expounding on biblical texts "methodically and in a charming manner with his expressions, his voice, and hands" so that "the entire assembly was extremely edified." Within a few weeks LaPierre had won "the heart and affection of his church," and his parishioners were so eager "to bring him what is necessary to life [that soon] he was agreeably overwhelmed with an abundance of goods." In no time LaPierre was "admired by the English as much as by the French" and was heralded as "the most skilful preacher in the French language who ever came to this land of Caroline." This reputation is supported by Thomas Hasell, pastor at St. Thomas and formerly a fellow student of LaPierre’s at "l’academie de Dublin," who remembered him as "the most recommendable of all the students for his good behaviour having never been censured."
The honeymoon period of LaPierre’s ministry, however, did not last long and was the prelude to more than a decade of bitter conflict.

In a nutshell, LaPierre was ever and anon stuck with the conformist, Calvinist desires of his parishioners and very exacting, sometimes sharply contradictory, orders from the Church of England under whose sovereignty he now served. He faced the severe loneliness of never pleasing anyone, almost fitting and to be anticipated once one commences to compromise. His personal inclinations were still toward Calvinist practices in private. Prior to ordination, he had served wholly French churches. The Anglican representative in America, in a confusing letter, first stated that LaPierre had not been "well satisfied" with criticism that he must enforce strict Anglicanism but that he "has been just to his Engagements ever since." Then Commissary Johnston proceeded to lay the difficulties at his feet again, as due to a "warm & indiscreet temper," and lastly, only subtly, defended him as "plagu’d by those headstrong fools" in his parish.

Van Ruymbeke sympathized: "Clearly, the quickest way out of the crisis would have been for Johnston to support LaPierre openly while reprimanding him in private. Instead, by blaming the French minister and siding with his factious flock, the commissary not only further undermined LaPierre’s legitimacy among them but also, somewhat ironically, considerably weakened the local Anglican establishment in the eyes of its Huguenot opponents. . . . The French ministers, assigned to newly and imperfectly conformed Huguenot-Anglican parishes, were often caught between (no pun on LaPierre’s surname intended) a rock and a hard place." In dealing with many intransigent people, some with rather wild notions, LaPierre had to combat a rise in millenarian beliefs. To correct one misconception regarding the day of the Sabbath, "LaPierre, ‘having in [Carolina] no Book upon this Subject,’ composed a pamphlet entitled The Vindication of ye Christian Sabbath. This document has not survived and it is not known whether anyone ever read it, but it obviously had no influence whatsoever on the course of events."

The next time a commissary, this one by the name of Garden, denounced LaPierre, it was for actually pleasing his constituents. Upon receiving a scurrilous, threatening letter, John felt that his hand was forced, when he otherwise "would have made . . . all reasonable satisfaction in a meeting of ye clergy as our former custom was, without any need troubling [His] Lordship," so he wrote the Bishop of London, embedding the nasty correspondence from Garden. This embarrassment was an odd echo of a letter that his father had once written. Not surprisingly, LaPierre seized upon the opportunity to move north, where he eventually served as chaplain to the North Carolina General Assembly at New Bern, also officiating in Christ Church there. His daughter, Martha, married Benjamin Fordham, Sr., an officer therein, who served as sergeant at arms. This Benjamin was also a soldier during the French and Indian War. Their son, Benjamin, Jr., served in the American Revolution (on the colonists’ side, naturally). From him, the bloodline divides three ways before converging again.

By some remarkable happenstance, this family married into the Swinson line for three successive generations, each one being too distantly related to be aware of the consanguinity. (The Swinsons, who arrived in Virginia around 1675, probably from Lincolnshire, are warlike as far back as I can trace them. They never "shun the fight.") The first descendant of these fighters and martyrs to enter the direct patrilineal family became a widow to one of the five out of six Swinson boys who died, between Vicksburg and Gettysburg, in the Civil War; the last became mother to five Swinson boys who fought through World War II and the Korean conflict. While the next generation married the most refined woman I think the Swinsons have ever seen, whose father was the apogee of moral character, she actually brought an infusion of some truly fighting Scotch-Irish, as well as the Hardy line through which we’re related to General Douglas MacArthur. Last and certainly not least, my mother is descended from a vast body of Austro-Germans who freely confessed their Lutheran faith to accept exile from the archdiocese of Salzburg in 1731, as well as another Huguenot line which left France during the years of declining rights presaging the Revocation (following the associated links—which improperly confound the authorship of a pamphlet, however—shows their connection to yet another Huguenot family of long standing in the British Isles). And this is merely to cite prominent examples.

I can’t refrain from inserting hymnal accompaniment from my dear familial German refugees, as a companion piece to Roques’:

Ein Pilgrim bin ich auch nunmehr, muss reisen fremde Strassen,
drum bitt ich dich, mein Gott und Herr, du wollst mich nicht verlassen.
Ach steh mir bei, du starker Gott, dir hab ich mich ergeben,
verlass mich nicht in meiner Not, wanńs kosten soll mein Leben.
Den Glauben hab ich frei bekennt, des darf ich mich nicht schämen.
Ob man mich einen Ketzer nennt und tut miŕs Leben nehmen.

I’m beginning to see why I often hear the echoes of all the plaintively religious cries of forebears from many climes—also why there’s a near-perpetual martial drumbeat in my mind. I believe I better comprehend my appreciation for men of David W. Patten’s stature. I’m informed still further why the Terminator franchise’s scenery (even if largely off limits on account of prior movies’ ratings) speaks to me on so many levels. Charles LaPierre lived a lot like John Connor. I’m very selective in my emulation, and I have found many new, amazing friends beyond of late. Even friends (here) have informed me that my religiosity is practically "militant." This mortal experience is, to my mind, little more nor less than continuing to wage the war that Satan already brought against his brethren. "He maketh war with the saints of God, and encompasseth them round about" (D&C 76:29). There is no room for compromise, and repentance is our only hope of resistance.

Elder Ballard said, "We must be just as dedicated, effective, and determined in our efforts to live the gospel as [Satan] is in his efforts to destroy it—and us" (Ensign, May 1999, 86). That is a matter of building our store of confrontational tactics and outmaneuvering strategy. President Young remarked that "Christ will never cease the warfare, until he destroys death and him that hath the power of it" (JD, 4:31), and has reminded us that "the men and women, who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day" (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, 294).

There’s a reason I’ve thought of "valiant in the testimony of Jesus" as demanding no reinforcements other than the knowledge that one has zealously sought to be on His side. A valiant individual will hold the line, though they stand alone in it! How can we effectively tell Satan to get behind us (see Matt. 16:23) when we cannot boldly, nobly, and independently withstand "the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work" (D&C 10:5), when we fear man more than God, that is, "savourest not the things of God, but those that be of men" (Matt. 16:23, again)?

Nor can I bear, in physical terms, to see oppression of the innocent. With me it is decidedly not Nemo me lacessit impune, but something rather more like (?) Nemo lacessit alius impune.

What I’m learning about Charles LaPierre is the personification of many strong emotions I’ve been unable to satisfactorily explain my entire life. I don’t want to disappoint those who have gone before in facing that which lies ahead. In a positive assertion of the matter, I feel that I have a remarkable, unexpected, additional source of strength from those who successfully bore their battle, Christ having already won the only one about which there could ever have been any true difficulty.

SOME WORKS CONSULTED
Bond, Bradley G., ed. French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005. pp. 89-90

Bost, Charles. Les Martyrs d’Aigues-Mortes. Paris: Editions de la Cause, 1922.

Bost, Charles. Les Predicants des Cevennes et du Bas-Languedoc, 1684-1700. 2 vols. Paris: Libraire ancienne Honore Champion, Editeur, 1912.

Bulletin Historique et litteraire, Vol. 49, Societe de l’histoire du protestantisme francais. Paris: 1900. p. 636

Cahiers du Centre de Genealogie Protestante, Paris, 1984, vol. 3., no. 6, 316, 326-327.

Claude Jamier: Forcat, Deporte & Naufrage, http://generoyer.free.fr/H-ClaudeJAMIER.htm

Fothergill, Gerald. A List of Emigrant Ministers to America, 1690-1811. London: Elliot Stock, 1904, 40.

Gaultier, Francoise. Histoire Apologetique, ou Defense des Libertez des Eglises Reformees de France. Amsterdam, 1688. p. 149

Hirsch, Arthur H. The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

LaSalle, France, Reformed Church parish registers, 1561-1685, Salt Lake Family History Library microfilms 0687553-4

Lenoir County Historical Association. The Heritage of Lenoir County. Winston-Salem: Hunter Publishing Company, 1981.

"Letters from North and South Carolina to England regarding the conditions of the Church of England, 1712-1781." Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1960. Salt Lake Family History Library microfilm 0239273

Minet, William and Susan Minet. Registres des Eglises de la Savoye de Spring Gardens et des Grecs, 1684-1900. London: The Huguenot Society of London, 1912.

Onslow County Historical Society. The Heritage of Onslow County. Winston-Salem: Hunter Publishing Company, 1983.

Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, 1:325-327; 2:306-307; 8:23; 19:171, 183.

Tollen, Henri. Geschichte der Französischen Colonie von Magdeburg. Halle: Verlag von Max Niemeyer, 1887. p. 363

Transactions of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina, No. 85. Charleston, SC, 1980. pp. 56-58

Utt, Walter C. and Brian E. Strayer. The Bellicose Dove: Claude Brousson and Protestant Resistance to Louis XIV, 1647-1698. Brighton, U.K.: Sussex Academic Press, 2003.

Van Ruymbeke, Bertrand. From New Babylon to New Eden: The Huguenots and Their Migration to Colonial South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006.

Wood, Lillian Fordham. "The Reverend John LaPierre." The Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, vol. XL, no. 4.

Of missed opportunities and determined disposition

2009-08-02T15:29:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wondered how your life would have gone if you’d hooked up with someone in whom you were once interested? Don’t. What if heaven allowed you to follow such a path and only extricate yourself most painfully later, if at all? “All things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things” (2 Ne. 2:24; see Eph. 1:11). I just read where President Packer stated that those who wait for marriage may depend upon God’s just judgments, “mercy without limit, . . . power to compensate” (Mine Errand from the Lord, 265) in a situation that, even if lasting a lifetime, is nonetheless temporary (Ibid., 266). What he doesn’t say is that sometimes our temporarily prolonged singleness may even be a form of protection and an as-yet-unexplained manifestation of such mercy.

I, therefore, try to never have regrets. All of us might have acted/reacted differently over the course of our lives. If, however, we were keeping the commandments and situated where we did the best we knew how, I’m still confident that the Lord would have arranged companionship where He saw fit. Indeed, I’m inclined to believe that two very well suited individuals would almost find it impossible to stay away from each other if both were similarly devoted to the Lord. Hence, as one whose life has been largely bereft of the man’s prerogative to advance, I tend not to press the issue.

A recent plea of my heart came entirely unbidden, and I startled myself with the wisdom and honesty in it: “I need someone who’s making the same choices I am.” As I’ve stated many times in many forms, most of who I am today is the result of what I chose to do (even if not always entirely voluntarily) while others were doing something else. Never mind how peculiarly I turned out; this has proven a blessing in the ways that matter, even if it is all the more disadvantageous in seeking a partner.

I’m reminded of the last dance I ever attended, about which I blogged on April 6, 2008. Among my other reasons for explaining how I can’t help but be alienated, I pointed to one piece of Church guidance (Ensign, Dec. 2002, 51, at the end) that is, to me, sufficient cause—even if it stood alone—for questioning the majority of our cultural leanings. I confessed to my tendency to not join in the main activity, but in that blog I didn’t quote another portion of my journal entry: “So it is that out of several stakes, not a single lady had so much as passing interest in entering MY world, which admittedly stuck out like a sore thumb. . . . I’m left to ponder that my type must not be enduring such spectacles. . . . The final goal was met when a group of ward members walked up and realized where I had been. Whether for good or ill, in their opinion, they know that it’s being like others—and not altogether being WITH others—to which I am indifferent. They proved for the second occasion in these three weeks that they’re content to turn their backs on me and let me go off alone into a cold night.”

Also at that dance inside a church building: “I wandered around, only to find one cluster of youth playing cards. I suppressed saying, ‘Face cards in the church? I never thought I’d see the day.’ I talked briefly with a man who was wrapping up clerk affairs in an office.” In an April 28, 2008 blog, I also touched on my reasons for feeling as I do about face cards. (Again, a stance summarized in, yet anything but confined to, President Kimball’s expression in the October 1974 General Conference: “We hope faithful Latter-day Saints will not use the playing cards which are used for gambling, either with or without the gambling.”)

In all my years of young single adult involvement, virtually no one remotely in my age group has ever thought to ask me why I behave the way I do with regard to issues such as this. It concerns me that they may be overly reliant on the first second-hand source to which they could refer the question, rather than benefitting from years of study in the gospel. Certainly attunement to the Spirit is more likely to open one's heart. By and large, they don’t seem so concerned about learning every possible truth.

Rather than deciding it's fear of the correctness of my position, or blatant wicked assumption about my motives, I’ve preferred to think they’re simply uncaring about my viewpoint. Whether or not someone agrees with how I approach life, I think all would agree that I ought to be with a like-minded companion. I should add that there are plenty of negotiable categories and millions of things on which I have no opinion, and would likely submit to her opinion. This says nothing about the principle I've confided to others, that I wish I could find someone who understands well enough both where I'm coming from and where she's coming from, that I could actually trust her disagreement. I readily admit the possibility of my being wrong, but telling me that I'm weird or that "nobody does that" is no kind of rebuttal at all. It often speaks poorly for the populace.

I imparted counsel to one roommate that one shouldn't disclose too fully what they seek in a companion, for then a relationship may succumb to the temptation to pretend to be exactly that, or force a rushed "conversion" to a personality type that is not really them. Nobody decent wants a robot or a fake. Furthermore, not all of my differences from society are ethically grounded. To understand that would also require more vulnerable exposition than anyone has time for; just imagine a kid who got a C+ in 6th grade P.E. because he couldn't serve the volleyball over the net, or spent Junior Prom very sorrowfully at home in a body cast, and that's the smallest possible glimpse. All the same, it's useful additional training in seeking only the things of a better world. I like the idea of a companion who shares my bewilderment at desires to accommodate oneself to the world, but might amaze me with her abilities to administer to the world's spiritual needs. (Make me sweat to keep up, and strive to the utmost to feel like I come close to deserving her.)

One of the saddest feelings in all the world is that there's no one within sight whom you'd like to get to know better, yet it is almost invariable that acquaintance brings disappointment, for dating purposes, at any rate. I’m not giving up hope on those entirely uncontrolled incidents whereby people cross into one’s life. At the same time, I have to let go of any what-ifs pertaining to those that transpired in the past. I think of the other week, when I attempted to leave a ward date. On my way out of the Wilkinson Center ballroom area, I passed a table at which a dark-haired girl sat reading, with a striking mannerism about her. She looked up with the most pleasant smile; I would have loved to talk to her, but I thought that I had no idea how to strike up a conversation and I owed my roommate a ride home anyway. It also somehow didn’t seem appropriate right after leaving another “date” behind.

The Marriott Center offers good opportunity for an assemblage of choice people from all over the world. Shortly after I moved back into a Provo ward, I attended a regional conference there. I went amply early with a couple of church books and studied for something like an hour. After the conference had ended, a girl came up and introduced herself to me. She wanted to inform me how “impressed” she was by my demeanor. Perhaps it was my only recently escaping socially injurious circumstances, or her getting ready for a mission (to include that age factor), or inexperience generally, but I failed to request her number during that respectful conversation. This too I forced myself to shrug off, except for writing in my journal, “Sorry, Joanna from Arkansas.”

Omitting a number of similar encounters, I jump back many years to a time when I was paying the price for knowledge. As I’ve described it, it was clearly not a season for dating success. I felt that the Lord did not intend it at that time, and so I heeded the next call, spending marathon hours in the BYU library, studying Church publications. At times—like during the major dance events—I mentally, or sometimes literally, dropped to my knees with loneliness (knowing nothing at the time of how futile that was), only to rise again in quest of eternal things which are not only stored away for the resurrection, but have already served me (and others) in this life. Once I ignored my bleary-eyed late-night fatigue to push toward library closing time. A girl plopped down in the chair beside me to engage in very friendly conversation. She said, “I have this theory that redheads were more valiant in the pre-existence.” See what President Monson says about them. ;-) I don’t know exactly how to explain this, but I think I had difficulty shifting gears to allow for the fact that someone was deliberately talking to me. I pulled off a sociable nature, but I certainly didn’t extend myself and acquire the necessary gumption to investigate a potential relationship.

It’s not my intention to recount every such instance. I’ve also restricted it to those most applicable and within a dating audience. Older people approach me everywhere I go, with some of the oddest statements. It’s enough to know opportunities have arisen in the past and may well occur in the future. I’ll try to overcome my inherent weaknesses so that I’ll be ready and willing to do whatever it takes. I have no regrets!!!

A society of insane sympathies

2009-07-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, I had this nagging concern that the Ocean’s movies—besides being drenched with gambling culture—encouraged us to root for criminals. With the release of previews for Public Enemies (it’s R, anyway, folks), I’m thinking, “You can’t tell me they’re not giving Depp a very ‘cool’ image there as John Dillinger.” Then something clicked:

There is a deplorable tendency among the people of this nation to sympathize with murderers, bank defaulters, evil adventurers, and a hundred other classes of criminals who are at large or who have been arrested or convicted for breaking the law. Such a tendency is not alone manifest among the people of the various states and territories of our nation, it is also apparent among the Latter-day Saints. This sympathy for criminals is entirely abnormal, and has a tendency to lower and destroy the moral sentiment of any people who indulge in it. For a Latter-day Saint to sympathize either with crime or with criminals, is a burning shame, and it is high time that the teachers of the community should stem such tendency and inculcate a sentiment that would make it extremely abhorrent to commit crime. Young men may please God by thinking right, by acting right, by shunning, as they would destruction, not only every crime, but the spirit either to see or sympathize with the criminal, or to hear or read the details of his damnable acts. It is an old saying, that we are what we think; then, to be a good Latter-day Saint it is necessary to think pure thoughts, to imbibe pure ideas, and to let the mind dwell continually upon the noble things, and the good deeds, and the exalted thoughts of life, discarding all sympathy or interest for crime and criminals, and all thought of evil. The man or woman who will resort to the court room, who will visit criminals with flowers, who will read and constantly discuss every detail of crime, should be condemned, frowned upon, and their actions should be made detestable in the eyes of the pure in heart. When a murderer is condemned, he should be detested, dropped, and forgotten; and so also should criminals of other classes who sin grievously against law and the commandments of God. (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, 374-375)

President Smith also noted, “I wish . . . to say a word to guard the people from unwise sympathies. While we may have a great deal of love for our fellow beings, and especially for those who have been favored of the Lord in times past, we should exercise that love wisely. . . . It is impossible for me to sympathize with those who do wrong” (CD, 5:212).

As cheerful as the ever-widening spread of the balm of sympathy sounds, there are two flies in the ointment. First, there are few moral concepts as slippery as sympathy. At best, it substitutes indiscriminate niceness for goodness in human affairs. (Niceness is nice, but even a thief can be polite.) At worst, it embraces indiscrimination itself, and erases all boundaries between human beings and every other living thing. In trying to treat every living thing as part of one moral whole, it ends up inverting the entire moral order and the natural order along with it. The outcome is the animal rights activist who, overflowing with sympathy for the chimpanzee, destroys medical research clinics. (Benjamin Wiker, 10 Books That Screwed up the World and 5 Others That Didn't Help [Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2008], 94)

A few years after President Smith, Elder Reed Smoot also commented on this disease:

There are other things, it seems to me, that are sapping the life, at least the spiritual life, of the people of the world, and our communities are affected, somewhat, with the same evil. I have reference to the maudlin, half insane sympathy for the murderer, the unnatural, and the wicked, the desire for sensationalism, the mad rush for pleasure, the desire to become one of the idle rich, or a determination to join the idle poor. I simply have to refer you to a case which has filled the magazines and the press not only in this country but all over the world, and, as far as I can estimate, if the space had been charged for by the daily papers of this country as they charge the business men for the space for advertising, it would amount to a hundred million dollars, or more. I have reference to the Thaw case. Who was Harry Thaw? A man reared in the lap of luxury, a debauchee, a murderer escaping the gallows on the plea of insanity, a man reared in a home where all the luxuries of wealth were given him, but devoid of everything that makes man what God intended him to be. Wasn’t it a spectacle to deplore to see the crowds following him from place to place, from jail to the auto, while he was in Canada; ovation after ovation was given him; women presented him with flowers on every possible occasion, and young girls not out of their teens, stood at the jail begging “Harry” to come to the bars that they might see him. Oh God, have mercy on such deluded people. I remember one case here in Utah when a murderer, sentenced to die, was sent flowers by some of the women of our state. Thank the Lord there were but a few so foolish. I take it that such action can only be indulged in by a person having a diseased mind. There is surely something wrong with them. I do know that there isn’t a spark of the Spirit of God in them. (CR, Oct. 1913, 94-95)

How can we account for this madness? Robert H. Bork wrote, “A violent man in prison will not shoot you, rape you, or crack your skull. There is no reason to be sentimental about a person who commits even one violent or serious crime. Violence is not inflicted through negligence or inadvertence. If the man who was sentenced to ten years served ten years, at least seventy-two people would be spared death, rape, or other serious injury” (Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline [New York, New York: ReganBooks, 1996], 165). One political commentator, whose name and affiliation will go unmentioned (I myself finding him a tad overbearing) gives credit to the conservative camp’s retained values in an accurate assessment: “The justice system today is crawling with ‘experts’ eager to exonerate the most heinous criminals on the grounds that they’re ‘genetically predisposed’ to murder, rape, take drugs, or otherwise endanger the welfare of others; the media fills its airwaves with liberal advocates eager to sympathize with murderers on death row, instead of the families of the innocent victims.”

All too frequently . . . the abolitionist's concern seems to be for the murderer rather than for the murderer's victims. And here it is a consideration of the utmost importance that the death penalty is an absolutely effective deterrent against the perpetration of more murders by the same person. . . . Van den Haag is forced to conclude that advocates of the abolition of the death penalty "think the lives of convicted murderers . . . are more worth preserving than the lives of an indefinite number of innocent victims." He perceives that such persons are not interested in deterrence so much as they are obsessed with the campaign for the abolition of capital punishment.

[quoted:] The intransigence of these committed humanitarians is puzzling as well as inhumane. Passionate ideological commitments have been known to have such effects. These otherwise kind and occasionally reasonable persons do not want to see murderers executed ever--however many innocent lives can be saved thereby. Fiat injustitia, pereat humanitas. [Van den Haag, "Collapse," p. 403.]]

Without the death penalty the unique and inviolable character of the human person is in effect denied, murder is reduced to the level of lesser crimes, and the life of man becomes cheap. (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Christian Ethics in Secular Society [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1983], 120-121)

This growing trend of enduring, pitying, embracing, and then turning on those who wish to remain innocent of wrongdoing is both insulting and harmful, as one Holocaust survivor wrote:

This mimesis, this identification or imitation, or exchange of roles between oppressor and victim, has provoked much discussion. True and invented, disturbing and banal, acute and stupid things have been said: it is not virgin terrain; on the contrary it is a badly plowed field, trampled and torn up. The film director Liliana Cavani, who was asked to express briefly the meaning of a beautiful and false film of hers, declared: “We are all victims or murderers, and we accept these roles voluntarily. Only Sade and Dostoevsky have really understood this.” . . .

I do not know, and it does not much interest me to know, whether in my depths there lurks a murderer, but I do know that I was a guiltless victim and I was not a murderer. I know that the murderers existed, not only in Germany, and still exist, retired or on active duty, and that to confuse them with their victims is a moral disease or an aesthetic affectation or a sinister sign of complicity; above all, it is precious service rendered (intentionally or not) to the negators of truth. (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal [New York: Random House, Inc., 1988], 48-49).

Statements from depraved artists like Cavani help bring our entire social structure nigher the abyss of association. (As an aside, notice how beloved Michael Jackson was, even when people can relatively freely admit to his abnormalities . . . all because he was successful, rich, and famous.) As for this queer idea of supporting murderers—the very premise behind secret combinations—present ever since Cain first gloried in his wickedness (Moses 5:31), allow me to say that very few actions could put you any farther from the presence of God. Yet even in Christianity there is confusion about one’s unenviable state in relation to grace upon committing the misdeed.

There are those who profess Christianity, who believe that even the murderer who has imbrued his hands in the blood of his innocent victim may, by saying the words, “I believe in Jesus Christ,” be ushered into the presence of the Redeemer of mankind. This is false doctrine and I am thankful that this people are not deceived by such teachings, but that on the contrary we are placed in a condition to know how we may obtain the blessing of Celestial glory, and not be disappointed. (George Albert Smith, CR, Oct. 1923, 71)

Lorenzo Snow said, “It is a noticeable feature in those who cherish a spirit of apostacy from the light of the Gospel, that they adopt the doctrine of Universalism and think none too wicked for a complete and unconditional salvation” (in Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow [rep. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1999; orig. Salt Lake City: Deseret News Company, Printers, 1884], 31). One can see this original apostasy resulting in the broader apostasy: “As to Redemption, Marcion taught a Gospel of love only. He represented the character of the Supreme God as one of pure benevolence—entirely without justice, a characteristic reserved to his second God. Irenaeus and Tertullian easily refuted this idea, explaining that the true God must possess both the attributes of goodness and justice, or cease to be God. . . . Marcion could not see this principle, nor comprehend the benefits of adversity upon Man. So he taught a gospel of universal love and forgiveness not unlike that taught in some Evangelical churches today” (Richard R. Hopkins, How Greek Philosophy Corrupted the Christian Concept of God [Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers & Distributors, Inc., 1998], 166-167).

We dare not leave out the love of God and we dare not leave out the doctrine of Hell. Both are certainly true. Therefore they must be capable of reconciliation. The reconciliation must not come in ignoring Hell or believing in a kindly, good-natured God who does not judge severely about moral character and who only cares that His child should stop crying and be happy. We are having too much of this sentimentalism nowadays. It is a miserable misconception of that awful holiness which is “of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” It would never explain the need of Christ dying on the cross to put away sin.

Whatever reconciliation we find here or hereafter it must have at bottom God's unutterable hatred of sin but also God's unutterable love and pain over every sinful soul which He has made. (J. Paterson-Smyth, The Gospel of the Hereafter [New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1910], 188)

A vicious sentimentalism is poisoning the wells. It is in the universities and colleges, the churches, the entertainment industry generally -- movies, television, newspapers, magazines, popular songs—in the wells from which we get our spiritual drink, from which our whole cultural life is irrigated. . . . Sentimentalism is not just a weakness, and is certainly not a virtue—it is confused with mercy—but a crime; and vicious sentimentalism is ordinary sentimentalism raised up in place of principle. . . .

It is not really capital punishment that bothers sentimentalists, though they use it as the cutting edge of their argument. They object to punishment itself; and that is because they deny the existence of justice; and that is because they deny that man is free, that man is responsible for his acts. (John Senior, The Death of Christian Culture [New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1978], 107-108, 110)

Those who constantly invoke the sentiment of “who are we to judge?” should consider the anarchy that would ensue if we adhered to this sentiment in, say, our courtrooms. Should judges judge? What would happen if those sitting on a jury decided to be “nonjudgmental” about rapists and sexual harassers, embezzlers and tax cheats? Without being “judgmental,” Americans would never have put an end to slavery, outlawed child labor, emancipated women, or ushered in the civil rights movement. Nor would we have prevailed against Nazism and Soviet communism, or known how to explain our opposition.

How do we judge a wrong—any wrong whatsoever—when we have gutted the principle of judgment itself? What arguments can be made after we have strip-mined all the arguments of their force, their power, their ability to inspire public outrage? We all know that there are times when we will have to judge others, when it is both right and necessary to judge others. If we do not confront the soft relativism that is now disguised as a virtue, we will find ourselves morally and intellectually disarmed. (William J. Bennett, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals [New York, New York: The Free Press, 1998], 121).

Paul indicated that love without dissimulation will “abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good” (Romans 12:9; see Alma 13:12, 2 Nephi 4:31, Amos 5:15). Charity itself assuredly does not extend its suffering long to movie screenings depicting every species of wickedness, for it “rejoiceth not in iniquity” (Moroni 7:45), and it certainly will not deprive man of his accountability or others of freedom from sin and all its practitioners.

Remnants of pre-apostate Christianity, with which I’ve been acquainting myself further this past year, testify to this: “We consider the looking on at a murder to be nigh to murder itself and forbid ourselves such spectacles” (Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians, trans. Joseph Hugh Crehan [New York, New York: Newman Press, 1955], 76). “Who would fail to be horrified to see at the chariot races the frenzied brawling of the mob, to see at the gladiatorial contests a school in murder? At the theatre, too, this raving madness is undiminished, and the display of indecencies is greater; at one time an actor of farce may describe or represent acts of adultery, at another an effeminate pantomime may stimulate lust by simulating it—he even dishonors your gods by investing them with lovers' sighs, discords, and debauchery; he even induces your tears by feigning suffering with senseless gestures and signs. We can only conclude that murder is what you demand in fact and what you weep at in fiction” (Octavius, the Christian, in Marcus Minucius Felix, The Octavius, trans. G. W. Clarke [New York, New York: Newman Press, 1974], 122-123).

The Roman theater was borrowed from the Greeks, and the favorite dramatic themes were crime, adultery and immorality. . . . Lactantius wrote, “I am inclined to think that the corrupting influence of the stage is even worse [than that of the arena]. The subjects of comedies are the deflowering of virgins or the loves of prostitutes. . . . Similarly, the tragedies parade before the eyes [of the audience] the murder of parents and acts of incest committed by wicked kings. . . . Is the art of the mimes any better? They teach adultery by acting it out. How do we expect our young people to respond when they see that these things are practiced without shame and that everyone eagerly watches.”

Tertullian added, “The father who carefully protects and guards his virgin daughter's ears from every polluting word takes her to the theater himself, exposing her to all its vile language and attitudes.” He asked rhetorically, “How can it be right to look at the things that are wrong to do? How can those things which defile a man when they go out of his mouth not defile him when going in through his eyes and ears?” (Matt. 15:17-20) (David W. Bercot, Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up: A New Look at Today's Evangelical Church in the Light of Early Christianity [Henderson, Texas: Scroll Publishing Co., 1989], 39-40).

As for sentiments in relation to lesser (yet grievous) sins than murder, I really squirmed at the sheer volume of inserted grotesqueness in Transformers 2. One individual informed me how uncomfortable they’d felt watching that with their parent present. (One may hope that wasn’t the only reason.) It has also dawned on me that perhaps we have slid so far because in many cases parents themselves are not embarrassed by it, or by having their children see it. I have largely cited material which was not LDS for four reasons: (1) I am not currently with my books; (2) to expose our nation’s recent accelerated apostasy in the arts from a heritage they are denying by their own actions; (3) to keep this shorter than it’d otherwise be; and (4) I'd like to go eat now!

Well, I never . . .

2009-05-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

This blog has been the occasion of offense. A while back, I accepted the friendship of someone through my Goodreads program. A few days ago, I noticed that one of their friends had the kind of qualities I liked in a reading buddy—so I attempted to add him. With extreme rapidity, as I perceive from Google Analytics, someone from that man’s city accessed my blog and spent half an hour or so perusing. Just like that, the first friend severed our Goodreads connection, as though the new contact point--who declined friendship--urged her to flee the weirdo. (Around that time, someone from her location bounced in and out of this blog.) And, no, my knowledge of these circumstances does not in itself make me weird; I multitask fairly quickly, and I’ve always been rather scrupulous about details.

Does my personality appear that toxic or strange? I’m terribly sorry. This doesn’t convey the thousandth part of what I think and feel, nor is the tip of the iceberg always what it seems. Truly, much of who I am has come to personify gritty determination, but scarcely a soul realizes the grace and necessity driving me to it. Indeed, this whole while I am sensing the innate demand that I have a much, much, MUCH thicker skin. Also, avoid the subject as I may, certain rough edges perhaps prove that it is “not good for man to be alone,” as I’d welcome the right sort of softening, feminine acquaintance into my life. Yet one must realize that the last woman I had close spent most of her time making demands or clamping her hand over my mouth lest I should ever say a word in public defense of truth and virtue. I in no way think that she represents the fairer, gentler, better sex, but experience has certainly put me on my guard. While I’m not who I could be, I know I didn’t want to be—should not have been—what she had in mind. Certain experiences are sufficient to remind one in perpetuity that it is better to live out one’s days single than go into spirit-stultifying captivity.

That I often write about somber matters is not an object of dispute. I view my responsibility with public discourse as largely a vehicle toward societal improvement. That I cannot warm people with my smile via electronic text is a major hindrance and alarmingly alters the reception of any message. I have before felt, and do now feel, that someone would be nearly impossibly hard-pressed to find individuals (certainly of credible reputation) who have had unpleasant personal encounters with me. I recall how some people seriously believed Joseph Fielding Smith must beat his children at home, simply because he was very intense with his message. It is also small part of my personality to supply the filler that evidently some desire: reminders that my having great role models does not mean I equate myself to them, and that my describing high gospel expectations does not mean I think I am without fault or authorized to impose them. I nearly always operate on the assumption that people realize I’m mortal, and that I have so much on my mind and tongue, as it is, that I can’t pause to restate the obvious. (It’s a bonus that when people see how absurdly short I am, and how obviously inoffensive, they realize quickly that it’s alright to suppress possible initial misunderstanding.) And if I say something weird, it’s possible I didn’t phrase it right, or that my perspective is really just that different. I love the Lord, I love His gospel, I love the human family. Need I say more?

On a lighter note, since I readily acknowledge among my weaknesses that this blog chronicles my heartache and/or my harshness much more readily than my blessings and gratitude. . . . Provo life has been among the greatest experiences of my life, every time I’ve managed to be here. Here, if I stand at the sidelines of a physical activity that my mortal frame cannot perform, there is no constant confusion at my “aloofness,” total misunderstanding that I might that desperately crave human company—instead, these good people welcome me in, converse lovingly, and extend alternate friendship activities freely. (Speaking in the aggregate, though it's an enormous aggregate in Provo.) I need only poke my head in almost any doorway at the Bountiful Court and I will hear a genuine chorus of welcoming voices calling my name and inviting me in. Not one odd feature of my demeanor and mindset over about six months has deterred them from the perfect bond of charity. I count myself fortunate to have acquired so many fast friends in such a small space of time and condensed geographical location. I also count the unreal distance and communication barriers (in addition to incorrect virtual familiarity) created by the Internet as all the more dangerous. So, hmph!!! :-)

“Shall we not go on in so great a cause?”

2009-03-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

I have no excuse for failing in the tasks apportioned to me (by our Father in heaven, that is). I’ll start the topic rolling with a theme drawn from Elder Featherstone, buttressed by the context in which he told it: “No matter how valid, an excuse never changes performance” (Commitment [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982], 39). Someone once told me that this quote meant nothing at all—I think they didn’t like the implications, intended more to motivate preparation and persistence (and probably honesty) than to condemn the anticipated falling short. Who is not challenged by God’s answer to Joseph Smith’s suffering? This is a superlative example, something I can always hold up at times when other rationales fail, inasmuch as it’s not entirely an explanation, but it should be a consolation, or at the very least a confirmation in the right. Like the Job account, it is almost “confrontational.”

The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?

Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever. (D&C 122:8-9)

Aside from the suffering undergone by our perfect Exemplar and Savior, to the end that we might be “left without excuse,” inasmuch as he will save “as many as” act in accordance with faith in Him (see John 1:11-12, with D&C 45:8-9), I think of the undaunted perseverance of another group. To that end, I quote one of my favorite lines: “We have been called to pass through trials many times, and I do not think we should complain, because if we had no trials we should hardly feel at home in the other world in the company of the Prophets and Apostles who were sawn asunder, crucified, etc., for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ” (Wilford Woodruff, JD, 23:328). Elder Maxwell helps to make this contemporary:

Actually, brothers and sisters, Jesus is already victorious in the greatest battle anyway: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33; emphasis added). . . .

Ironically, as the restored Church comes “out of obscurity,” what seem to be stern challenges will actually disclose further the distinctiveness of the Church (D&C 1:30). Nevertheless, matching our behavior more closely with our beliefs will bring relentless reminders about the ongoing duties of discipleship. . . .

With scriptures to anchor and reassure us, we, too, can “look unto God . . . and he will console [us] in [our] afflictions” (Jacob 3:1; emphasis added).

We, too, can be “supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, . . . he will still deliver [us]” (see Alma 36:3, 27; emphasis added).

For the Lord has said: “I will be in your midst” (D&C 49:27). “I will lead you along” (D&C 78:18). . . .

Whether in tranquil or turbulent times, our best source of comfort is the Comforter. . . .

Regarding trials, including of our faith and patience, there are no exemptions—only variations (see Mosiah 23:21). . . . The faithful will not be totally immune from the events on this planet. Thus the courageous attitudes of imperiled Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego are worthy of emulation. They knew that God could rescue them. “But if not,” they vowed, they would still serve God anyway (see Daniel 3:16-18). Similarly, keeping the unfashionable but imperative first and seventh commandments can reflect the courage which three young women displayed anciently; they said no with their lives (see Abraham 1:11).

Therefore, we can be troubled on every side, but nothing can really separate us from the love of Christ (see 2 Corinthians 4:8; Romans 8:35-39); worldly anxieties are not part of being “anxiously engaged” (D&C 58:27). Even so, as Peter urged, we can and should cast our cares upon the Lord, because He surely cares for us! (see 1 Peter 5:7). . . .

Unless we are filled with resolve, what will we say to the heroes and heroines of Martin’s Cove and the Sweetwater? That “we admire you, but we are reluctant to wade through our own rivers of chilling adversity”?

Brothers and sisters, by divine appointment, “these are [our] days” (Helaman 7:9), since “all things must come to pass in their time” (D&C 64:32). Moreover, though we live in a failing world, we have not been sent here to fail. (Ensign, Nov. 2002, 16-17)

In many times and ways, President Hinckley taught that we did not come to this world to fail. Something upon which I almost dwell overmuch is that in taking up the cross (Matt. 10:38-39 and 16:24, JST, and especially the daily nature of JST Luke 9:23-25) and denying ourselves all ungodliness and the things of this world, we find joy (2 Nephi 9:18). Furthermore, there's nothing startling about trials specifically and abundantly arising from adherence to God's ways (see 1 Peter 4:12-14). This subject is set off finely by Thomas a Kempis, in one of my favorite books:

Which of the saints in the world hath been without the cross and tribulation? . . .

The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and dost thou seek for thyself rest and joy? Thou art wrong, thou art wrong, if thou seekest aught but to suffer tribulations, for this whole mortal life is full of miseries, and set round with crosses. And the higher a man hath advanced in the spirit, the heavier crosses he will often find, because the sorrow of his banishment increaseth with the strength of his love. (The Imitation of Christ, trans. Rev. William Benham [New York: P F Collier & Son Company, 1909], 264-265)

The only part which might lack doctrinal strength is in the word “seekest,” and perhaps its sole presumption of misery. I always was a sober child in some respects—but a hilarious one in others—and I think this is often misunderstood. To this day, I continually throw my hands up in frustration when trying to describe my worldview to one of my roommates; I think the problem is that we’re operating from different definitions of peace and joy, or he at least thinks I really don’t understand what it is. Christ does not give peace as the world gives it, therefore I do not expect tranquility and ease, though the difficult spiritual path bestows peace in ways one might easily call “unspeakable and full of glory,” or indescribable. I honestly don’t find peace and joy in many of the singles social scenes that he thinks might enliven my life. ;-) Nor do I altogether avoid them in an insane, imbalanced fashion. Even Confucius grasped the necessity of the hardened mindset:

If a man remembers what is right at the sight of profit, is ready to lay down his life in the face of danger, and does not forget sentiments he has repeated all his life even when he has been in straitened circumstances for a long time, he may be said to be a complete man. (Analects, XIV.12)

What gives me unworldly pause to no end is the curious blend of the martial and the spiritual in my heritage, and to a great extent in my own personality. Is this truly a paradox, or perhaps well suited to many times and circumstances? To clarify the previous paragraph, President Benson put it so very well: “We need not solicit persecution, but neither should we remain silent in the presence of overwhelming evils, for this makes cowards of men. We should not go out of the path of duty to pick up a cross there is no need to bear, but neither should we sidestep a cross that clearly lies within the path of duty.” What sane man would rejoice in persecution for persecution’s sake? On the other hand, what God-fearing man would NOT rejoice (Acts 5:29, 41) in persecution “for righteousness’ sake” (Matt. 5:10)? This unsolicited societal rejection comes, as President Woodruff promised, not because one has sought persecution but because one has sought the gospel lifestyle, because “no man can live the celestial law without bringing upon his head persecution” (JD, 22:209).

We have been exhorted in various ways to reflect on the fact that the eyes of all generations that have gone before are upon those of this present age. Apart even from the examples of the apostles and saints of old, I think often of yet another group. How can I find any situation too difficult, when my own kindred have passed through such an ordeal before? My Huguenot ancestors, upon whom I fondly reflect, were martyrs in the truest sense of the word. This is verified by the fact that the only family member (of those captured) who recanted got to go home and did not die with the remainder. President Spencer W. Kimball explains:

Into the pattern of martyrdom comes the voluntary phase. In every instance the martyr could have saved his life by renouncing his program. . . .

Joseph Smith did not want to die. He had so much to live for, with his family, his friends, with his interest in the expanding kingdom, and he was still a young man, but though he hoped and prayed that the cup could pass, he knew it was inevitable. . . .

But martyrs do not die. They live on and on. (TSWK, 180-181)

It’s ironic that I admired the Christian martyrs years before learning of my descent from some. I have also increasingly learned that I did not overestimate my family’s commitment to principle in the past when referring to Swinsons as perpetual “minute men.” This past week I’ve examined more closely the efforts of distant cousins to expand knowledge of my father’s lineage. Their work verifies that Swinsons serve the United States out of all proportion to their numbers. (One researcher has a great picture, and attitude, that you can access by clicking here.)

I already knew that records placed William Swinson at White Plains with Washington’s army, and that he reenlisted for a lengthy period. What I did not know was that he died “while in service,” and, more importantly, information provided in a deposition placed him squarely in continuous service throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey beginning at least as early as 1777. I cannot assert his presence in 1776, thanks to a peculiarity of the record-keeping and an innate sense of personal forbearance. Another sworn statement shows that William was in charge of provisions.

The point is that he served many years until his death, firmly establishing the Swinson tradition of being career military men. My cousins’ probing in the British Public Records Office turned up a document showing that he was among 534 North Carolina militiamen paroled on March 15, 1781, following the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. (His regular term of service had expired, but he did not stop fighting.) My direct ancestor, Richard Swinson III, who served modestly and briefly in North Carolina during the Revolution, later inherited his brother’s bounty land for war service. Hence one might say that, like so many others, William died although he had “received not the promise” (Hebrews 11:39), as the promise was not what held him to his performance!

I would consider myself blessed if in very deed my life were at the “disposal” of my coreligionists and countrymen, if in any way I could assist anyone in pursuit of the ultimate aims of life, God qualifying me for such. What’s more, I’m not exclusive in my friendship, but no one can expect to seriously date me who rebukes, stifles, or otherwise fails to appreciate this intensity. ;-) (Speaking in the direction of seeking those virtues we deem most valuable.) Our family zeal has not been diluted yet, and I won’t be the one to do it! I hold these beliefs firmly and independently, and not just by virtue of birth. Still, remember what President Hinckley said about not being a weak link in the chain....

Checking in

2009-03-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

I feel to apologize to anyone who has ever experienced the doorstep scene of dating with me. Don’t worry—it was at least twice as awkward for me. At no time is my height driven home to me more forcibly than at that particular moment, which has often been the reason I dread the end of a date! Anyway, one can imagine that I’m very reserved. A handshake would be a sign of respect, not that the absence of one is a sign of disrespect. Dates are subject to such a wide variety of unpredictable circumstance.

Lately I’ve been trying to describe to myself how I feel about efforts to focus. It goes something like this: I have no past but that which enriches and instructs, no present but sorrowing for the sins of the world and the acts to which this moves me, and no future but the duty to which my heart longs to be faithful.

This was truly terse, no?

This warfare we call DATING: one big soapbox for one little guy

2009-02-03T12:34:00.000-08:00

For several months, I’ve enjoyed living in the BYU culture again. In the final analysis, as I was able to share with someone there, this is the best, brightest, and kindest aggregate I can find anywhere, even if somewhat young. For that very reason, I hope that the following observations about the single life will not sound—against their actual origin—scornful, derisive, upset, or bitter...you know, the usual host of expected emotions. This would not be so much on my mind were I not amused and saddened at witnessing the familiar social patterns.

This is not to say that I was ever any good at old style dating, either, but I’m astonished at the rapidity of its passing. What a difference just the last decade has made! With increasing frequency, I learn from young women that they have only been on a handful of dates in their lives, and far too many have never been on any at all. Just as one is prepared to berate all the men for dereliction of duty, we hear discouraging tales from their side of mind-bogglingly strange behaviors in the better half (a quite literal image in my apartment complex). Family life and their mothers’ examples in no way prepared the poor men to interpret these quixotic quirks, the majority of which, I’m sorry to say, would contravene the avowed goal of marriage—I’m not just saying marriage to undesired suitors, but marriage EVER.

I follow several cynical blogs where each side tries to counsel the other. One of the major problems? They’re trying to prop up a system that even prophets are now informing us has seen its demise (see, for instance, Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, June 2006, 10-16), certainly not to be replaced by anything better. It would seem to me that most of its worst features have been preserved and nearly everything else has fallen out.

Good people everywhere are retreating, reminiscent of the oft-quoted Yeats line: “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” To whom do they leave the embattled expanse? Well, I see a lot of predatory figures (mostly male), contributing to a growing volume of horrible dating stories. These cretins strike over and over again. Still others are yet in the field because they are playful at heart, but this too often contributes little to the benefit of the race. In escaping all injury themselves, they dance in every direction but toward the target. This tends to be injurious to others who appreciate the gravity of the situation. As with any field of human endeavor, there’s a group of incompetent nincompoops. I also discern a body of courageous souls, determined to do what’s right and necessary. If I honestly believed that the outcome of dating depended upon courage and/or persistence alone, you would see me fighting my way through until life’s end, heedless of all past trauma (and in keeping with President Hunter’s rather direct counsel on that matter of holding dismay, based on past experience, in abeyance). I seriously like to think I’m not afraid to face anything needful, but this particular topic certainly evokes unpleasant feelings within me.

Dating as it is presently constituted more nearly resembles a battlefield of uncertain dimensions, filled with smoke, tumult, and violent, pervasive, deadly mortar fire. Another difficulty is that the objective is indeterminate through the confusion. We think we know where this could lead, but experience teaches us that “success” (i.e., marriage?) may apparently be obtained with at least equal facility through any number of alternative approaches, all of which nonetheless hinge on that elusive principle of timing. There is simply no good intelligence on the enemy’s strength and position, and linking up with our ally is the challenge of the situation. Knowing this, to advance carelessly would blight any commander’s record, but to remain paralyzed with fear will never do. I definitely would not advocate “hanging out” in the midst of this barrage. I’ve been woefully misunderstood if anything I say here is construed as cause for retreat. I don’t really believe in retreat, though I do recommend that one save their desperate actions for such time as their backs truly are against the wall. I believe very little even in feigned retreats, in most cases, as those all too easily become the very rout you were pretending to have.

Additionally, I don’t claim love is a battlefield. Dating is a battlefield, where one finds little of love, respect, or even of “friendship,” much-used though the phrase might be. When you do discover those qualities, you’re probably sensing victory. At one time, my father offered warning counsel that “love shouldn’t feel like that.” Love should only hurt for the other person . . . not from them—at least not often, and not for long, if they are at all serious about being with you in the eternities. In this arena, we’ve seen some heavy casualties as a result of misidentification of friend and foe.“Friendly fire” is also a complete oxymoron, yet hopefully of shorter duration. Knowing when to hold your fire is among the most valuable of skills.

I affirm most daringly from my “wizened” (read “old and cantankerous”) perspective that the essential assumption of risk for progression can hardly be applied to advancing indelicately into that fray. My mother, who knows me best and in this regard knows what’s best for me personally, has applied the humorous definition of insanity to my leading a headlong charge into that swirling void: “insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.” War is not a game, and neither is collecting wounds in the fervent hope that acquisition of enough of them will somehow eventually confer access to the companionship we desire. Believe me, I know. We create ourselves, not others. The most maddening part of this process is that we must instinctively/adaptively know what we are looking for without prejudicially predetermining exactly what we are looking for. May I make some rather forward observations from the forward observation post? I would not say a word to deter one from this fight, but it’d be nice to see people go out better prepared for victory (or loss) with valor.

First, we must learn how to look. We as members often talk about looking deeper into the soul when dating, but continue to do little to develop that ability. I love to quote Bytheway on this because he certainly tapped into this need before the groundswell became apparent:

When a teenage girl looks across the dance floor and squeals with delight, "Oh, he’s so gorgeous!" that’s definitely a feeling, but it’s not real love. On the big screen, when eyes meet across a crowded room and the music swells, that’s a feeling too. But on such an occasion, you don’t hear the actors say, "Wow, suddenly I’m filled with cleanliness, progress, sacrifice, and selflessness." Real love is, "I’ll take the baby for a while; you go take a nap." Real love is, "I’ll be out with the car, can I get you anything?" Real love is, "Wow, I guess it was something you ate. . . . I’ll clean it off the carpet; you go lie down." They don’t show that part in the movies. (John Bytheway, What I Wish I'd Known When I Was Single [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1999], 114-115)

Perhaps I should back up and discuss how to be, which will enact the change in perspective noted above. Rather than stopping short with satisfaction upon asking, “Are they Mormon?”, perhaps we should strive to know what kind of Mormon they are. (What’s more, we should be at least as scrutinizing with ourselves continually.) Among other things, charity “rejoiceth in the truth” (Moroni 7:45), or the knowledge of things “as they really are, and . . . as they really will be” (Jacob 4:13; see D&C 93:24). That is one reason why, as President Hinckley said, “The girl you marry will take a terrible chance on you.” To continue:

Now is the time to prepare for that most important day of your lives when you take unto yourself a wife and companion equal with you before the Lord. . . .

The girl you marry can expect you to come to the marriage altar absolutely clean. She can expect you to be a young man of virtue in thought and word and deed. . . .

The girl you marry is worthy of a husband whose life has not been tainted by this ugly and corrosive material [pornography]. . . .

She will wish to be married to someone who loves her, who trusts her, who walks beside her, who is her very best friend and companion. She will wish to be married to someone who encourages her in her Church activity and in community activities which will help her to develop her talents and make a greater contribution to society. She will want to be married to someone who has a sense of service to others, who is disposed to contribute to the Church and to other good causes. She will wish to be married to someone who loves the Lord and seeks to do His will. . . .

And so, my dear young men, you may not think seriously about it now. But the time will come when you will fall in love. It will occupy all of your thoughts and be the stuff of which your dreams are made. Make yourself worthy of the loveliest girl in all the world. Keep yourself worthy through all the days of your life. . . . There can be so much of happiness if there is an effort to please and an overwhelming desire to make comfortable and happy one’s companion.” (Ensign, May 1998, 49-51)

In the face of worsening statistics, such that I understand as many as half of the young men (at BYU) are afflicted with the plague of pornography, my bishop advised the young women that they had the right to ask searching questions when getting more serious with the men. I’d in no way deny those who struggle their own dating opportunities (once the Atonement cleanses their lives), but it sure is a shame to see so many problems arising from their involvement in the dating scene while many worthy men are sidelined. I’ve seen one sad little Facebook group, “BYU Boys Aren’t Quite What I Hoped For.” This is crowded with girls who aren’t quite what we hoped for, either. When it comes to dating . . . well, seldom have I seen such an unbridgeable gap between expectation and action. Are the ladies asking the right questions (e.g., President Woodruff’s recommended “Is he a man of God?”) before committing their hearts? Do we all constantly reappraise in that sort of light? In one of his classic talks, Elder Bednar placed the urgent need for discernment in this very context, describing beautifully how everyone can benefit from its protection.

One of the most helpful restorations to scripture is the JST for Matthew 7:1-2. Elder Oaks has commented at length on its application to intermediate judgment calls we must constantly make in life. Our own Master of Life and Salvation, of whom it was said in prediction that “there is no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2) does not judge “after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears” (Isaiah 11:3) but with superior spiritual vision. I have actually had others in the past discredit the possibility of my receiving insight into someone’s soul by proximal contact, when the scriptures are replete with examples of God protecting people by just such a method. The consistency of people discounting my goals in this respect very nearly overturned my track in life, when they overrode my internal reactions by insisting that I ought to be interested in someone. Now not even a girl herself can convince me to like her contrary to my own sentiments. Or dissuade me from liking her! ;-)

I sometimes wonder—since you know it’s going on—how many times girls have entertained future church leaders unawares. By this, I generically mean the strength of the Church in coming days, though extending it to the upper echelons really enlarges that food for thought. Think about it; are the ranks of the general authorities filled with elitist intellectuals or vacuous-minded pretty boys? Can you imagine President Monson’s wife saying that she wanted him to ask her out because he was so “ripped”? Or that he had a bit of a bad boy wild side in him? No. He was an authentic nice guy who did what the Lord expected of him. What’s more, he was what she was looking for, and vice versa. In so many cases, though, I see people dismissed for implausible reasons, if one were simply to view people the way God sees them. I doubt the fact that a guy sings too loudly, or laughs oddly, or that a girl has extra pounds, etc. is of any significance to He who reigns in the heavens. Several years ago, one of the kinder guys I've met had a hopeless crush on the roommate of a girl I was dating. It was ever so painful to watch her send him packing, essentially because he had a hand tremor.

One World War II veteran, and Medal of Honor recipient, expresses a portion of what I'm relating about character going ignored because of the flesh. Ralph Neppel was the only survivor in his machine gun emplacement after taking a direct tank hit which threw him 10 yards. With one leg missing and the other reduced to a stump, he dragged himself painfully the entire distance back to his gun to wipe out the infantry support for that tank. He tells people, "Everybody's handicapped in some way. In some of us it just shows more." Who, if granted the insight which sets aside outward appearance, would prefer a date in serious need of cleansing of the inward vessel over someone who has the intestinal fortitude to defend their faith and family against any onslaught?

I introduce the example of Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s courtship, which contains sweet elements concerning interaction and expectation that I personally have seldom witnessed in the past decade, as our world becomes ever more fixated on the perishable things. Keep in mind that throughout his earlier school days, Elder Maxwell also suffered from disfiguring acne and the social stigma from raising pigs.

It was not an unpleasant surprise the day Neal called her to ask for a date. The only problem was that "he talked so fast." His approach on the phone somehow "made her feel she was number fifteen on a list of girls he’d been calling." In her version, she turned him down "just for spunk." Looking back, Colleen and Neal have somewhat different perspectives on this event. She remembers she "was impressed that he seemed to have so much charisma. People were looking to him for answers and just had a great regard for him." Then Neal adds, "So much charisma [that] she turned me down when I first asked her for a date." Fortunately for both, he called again, and this time she said yes.

It didn’t take them long to overcome slight differences in their backgrounds. . . .

Even so, Colleen found herself increasingly drawn to him. She found him "really cute and interesting," even if he did lack just a little social polish. He didn’t care for dancing and didn’t like small talk, both of which were more important to other people than they were to her. He “was so knowledgeable and such a good speaker, even though he did talk fast. But if you could listen fast you could learn a lot.” As Neal came to know her better, he was impressed with her maturity, her sensitivity to other people, and the depth of her spiritual convictions. He began feeling a “spiritual impetus that this was a young woman out of the ordinary.” . . .

Meanwhile, at the Maxwell house, Emma remembered, "Our first introduction to Colleen was when you came home one night and said, I've got to see more of that girl. She has some thinking under her hood.' It was your habit to sit on the side of our bed when you came home from a date and tell us about it. There was never anyone who compared to Colleen." . . .

Colleen gasped as she realized the depth of Neal's commitment to the Church [when he responded, as a married man, for the second time to a call for missionaries]. Then her thoughts reverted to her pioneer heritage. She thought again about those women "who stayed home" in the Church's early days "when their men went off for years" as missionaries. Her commitment was equal to theirs--and to Neal's. But still she was relieved when their bishop explained that the request was for men who had not yet served missions.

Neal also came soon to see how right he was about that thinking going on beneath Colleen's "hood." "I knew I was not dealing with an eighteen-year-old co-ed who was so anxious to please me that I'd have my way when I shouldn't," he said. "We hadn't been married long before I knew I had a kind of Gibraltar--someone who would be tough and strong in the storms of life." . . .

Neal also found that Colleen had reading interests different from his own. His preferences were strong enough that he wasn't sure why anyone would read Anne Morrow Lindbergh or Mother Teresa if one could read military history or political biography. Then, taking Colleen's subtle hints, he began to read some of what she enjoyed. Soon Neal discovered a whole new genre of valuable literature, such as Lindbergh's Gifts from the Sea, which became the source of a quotation he liked so much he later had it framed and placed on the wall of his busy office: "My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds." . . .

He also found that, in his writing and speaking, Colleen could be a gentle but very constructive critic. Once in his early years as commissioner of education, he was trying hard to use a series of rhetorical devices to develop the theme of a written speech. He asked a colleague at work to read through the draft and offer suggestions. The friend thought his stylistic tools were calling too much attention to themselves. As the friend groped for a polite way to say what he was thinking, Neal sensed the concern and said, "It's too cute, isn't it? That's what Colleen thinks." The friend sighed and said, "She's right." Neal completely reworked the draft.

Over the years, Neal's respect for Colleen has just kept growing, along every front. (Bruce R. Hafen, A Disciple's Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2002], 186-191)

Now, to return to a few of the unpleasant realities of present day and present circumstances. It’s my assumption that even dispensation heads might have difficulty finding dates in the current climate. Joseph Smith might not pass the demanding “career test” or, worse still, the popularity test. Emma’s parents didn’t even approve of him, and the community certainly didn’t. Two other great men might not stand up to the initial conversational requirements of rapid-fire ward mingling. Enoch replied to God, “[I] am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech” (Moses 6:31). Is it possible that the man who “led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled . . .” (Moses 7:13), and on whose account “all men were offended” (Moses 6:37) might have earlier flinched a great deal at the battle of dating? Moses also (after someone of no inconsiderable strength, as demonstrated in JST Exodus 4:24-26, had seen fit to marry him) pled that he was “slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” (Exodus 4:10), which many commentators have taken to mean that he stuttered. This might have helped him become “very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3), another virtue not terribly prized on the competitive scene. I’m also reminded of Mormon’s concern about his awkwardness in writing (a reversal of the brother of Jared’s ability, verifying that our weaknesses come in all shapes and sizes) in Ether 12:25-26.

Sometimes, when I feel the atmosphere of a room change, with girls and guys eying each other for forthcoming conversation, I’m reminded of school days where I know I won’t be chosen for the basketball team. I can usually make myself laugh by picturing that they’re stocking their side with the tallest, but what if they suddenly learned instead that the near future contains a limbo competition? Just the other night I dreamed that I was being herded away from the others by Gestapo agents. I awakened with the perfect insight that “dating is Darwinian.” And Darwinian runs in opposition in every way to God, who creates things spiritually before temporally. Imagine if we dealt with people in such terms! I shocked my roommates once by proclaiming, truthfully, as we might about anyone, that “if I have no spiritual identity, I’m not fit to live.” When the inane question is posed, “Why aren’t you married?” I can say, “In the past, because of gross character mismatch; at present, because I’m short,” which is to say that in 2007 I was thrown back onto the field where innate qualities are overlooked in favor of the irrelevant.

As for meekness, it almost seems as though a certain amount of arrogant braggadocio is demanded by the dating superstructure. I was horribly offended once upon a time when a class on friendshipping methods more or less posited that only extraverts and “players” can find companions. What this world needs is not more men whose voice is always and loudly heard, but men whose voices will always be heard on the side of what’s right. (Had the class only asserted that men are still required to take the initiative, I would not have faulted it.) Why do girls—and I don’t know whether the guys do it in return—come up with seemingly insurmountable obstacles in order to justify themselves when ruling someone out? Do they not realize that men should not be everlastingly, boastingly lassoing the moon? Given a shred of hope as to WHY we ought to do something, then you will see some performance. Any gentleman awaits proper invitation.

Recently one of my roommates remarked that he could tell I would cross the Sahara for a certain girl. At the time, I had an acute injury to the posterior region, so I told them that I would slide on my rump the whole way too, IF ONLY I had her specific request to do so. We can ill afford to expend all our energies trying to please everyone on matters of passing importance in the big picture, though. I don’t believe in competing; in reality, in at least some areas there is simply no competition, but if the girl feels the need to scientifically or otherwise unreasonably compare and contrast, I refuse to submit to such a procedure—yet another reason that I don’t infringe when a girl of exceeding interest is strangely absorbed in another man, to the exclusion of varying possibilities. I will repeat this thought again, as it’s essentially the crux of my entire argument: we need God’s perspective on “dating,” and we will perish if trapped in tunnel vision.

I prepare to close by utilizing a quotation I shared with others on Sunday, followed by two more that seem appropriately linked.

Brother Truman Madsen shared the story of how Elder LeGrand Richards proposed to his wife: Shortly after returning from his first mission, "He was walking along with her, and everything was well between them, when he said, 'Ina, there is someone who will always come before you.' She gasped. She cried out, and she ran. When LeGrand caught up with her, he stopped her and said: 'Wait, wait, you don't understand. On my mission there were times when the Lord was so close that I felt I could almost reach out and touch Him. He has to be the foundation of our lives; but, Ina, if you want to be second, I want to marry you.'" (Robert K. McIntosh, How Do You Know When You're Really in Love? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 2000], 61)

Seek women of faith, women of pure lives; and then be sure, be very sure that you are in love with the women you espouse and hope to marry. I would not say to love them with all your heart and soul, because that belongs to God. That duty is to him alone. But be sure you love the young woman sincerely and truly, and be sure that she is a good woman. (Rudger Clawson, CR, Oct. 1930, 79)

As we love God more than anything else, we find that things inimical to His character become unappealing to us. We do not wish to break the commandments; we strive to keep them. We do not lust after what is forbidden; we shun all evil. Even the desire for fashion and fad is replaced with a simple yearning to be neat and comely. That which we love determines that which we become. . . .

When I married my dear wife, I knew I would always be number two in her life. This is because she loves God more than she loves me. Over the years my understanding and appreciation for the paramount importance of this “first and great commandment” has deepened. You see, because she loves God more than anything else, she is able to love me more than everything else. How grateful I am that the keeping of this commandment helped her overlook some pretty major deficiencies. (Keith B. McMullin, in Brigham Young University 2003-2004 Speeches [Provo, UT: BYU Publications & Graphics, 2004], 120-121)

In many instances, these times call for unconventional warfare. Some of my dated journalistic thoughts from 2003 about the terrain: “I can be an intensely active member without subjecting myself to competitions the very rules of which torment me. Not all that is religious is social, and by all means not all that is social is religious. . . . I play more by the LIMITS it [dating society] has set, though, than any particular RULES.” Again, pray do not think me hypocritical and inquire, “How’s that working for you?” ;-) I still won’t adopt lesser methods. General Ulysses S. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant was NOT noted for avoiding peril and losses, but he DID know where and when to commit troops, gaining the advantage where others did not so much as perceive an opportunity. (Is the bolded word too subtle for dating application?) He, as a great general, knew to hit fast and hard in the time and place of one’s own choosing. Opposing forces must not dictate the terms to us; we must act and not merely be acted upon. (I realize that this portion is largely directed to the men, but women have their own peculiar gifts for deflecting, accepting, withholding, and insinuating in ways nigh unto action. It is also the actions off the field that set the stage for successful execution on it.)

We cannot afford a charge like that in the (heavily edited) Last Samurai, where men rode to their deaths knowing full well that their old code would be cut to ribbons by the up-to-date, cold, and calculating weaponry. If I thought occasion called for it, then I'd be the first to say saddle up and let’s go! We must practically assess our foe at every opportunity, while refusing to descend to its level. Let us call upon our Supreme Commander, the Lord of Hosts, for strength beyond strength of arms. Let us not be softened up or driven back. We need hardy men to reconnoiter the place, as well as more women of resolve to secure and beautify the other parts of the zone, assisting men in recognizing an area worth striking out for in spite of all hazards. Men are not the foe and women are not the foe, though we have occasionally been pitted against each other by the enemy of our souls. When in unison, they are a force to be reckoned with. “Neither man nor woman can rise to the highest possible destiny, alone; righteous men and women constitute the Church of Christ. There is no sex-war among the Latter-day Saints” (John A. Widtsoe, MS, 94:136; see Doctrines of Salvation, 3:142-143).

Who is on the Lord’s side?

Too much to ask?

2008-10-25T17:46:00.000-07:00

From time to time, as I struggle through a little something or other, I think ever so briefly to myself, “This is one of those times when it would be nice to have a companion.” Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m fairly accustomed to doing everything on my own, and I’d love the opportunity to do an awful lot of things for someone else. I’m intensely mindful of one of those constant teachings from President Hinckley: “If every husband and every wife would constantly do whatever might be possible to ensure the comfort and happiness of his or her companion, there would be very little, if any, divorce” (Ensign, Nov. 2004, 84). I’ve already experienced a very negative relationship which was so lopsided in the giving that when the giver (namely, me) finally lapsed, however briefly, into resentment, that spelled the rapid demise of the entire unstable thing! Hence #7 on my Dating Bill of Rights, from which I quote a portion: “In far too many cases I end up bending over backward too long, though I hesitate to surrender this way of thinking for fear that it would make me uncharitable. I begin to notice much sooner, however, when someone is taking without giving.”

Surely I wouldn’t be so brazen as to say such needy thoughts spring to mind nearly every time I attempt to prepare a meal for myself! ;-) (I suppose the true effort goes into getting it down and keeping it down.) In cases like that, how much easier to learn it yourself, and then have something to offer another, right? But, yes, how can I deny that sometimes the little things call this to mind even more than the big reasons that I successfully keep at bay? For instance, it sure would be nice to have someone color coordinate my socks. I still can hardly tell the difference between black and dark blue, and my suspicions are high that I’m inept at other matching as well. I also wish I had help almost every time I run two loads of laundry in a time pinch, and have to tote it all between Lehi (my place) and Provo (my place of choice). (Yeah, I live in two places in order to just barely meet my social needs. What of it?) It really is funny watching me try to fold things that are longer than I am tall and lug around huge laundry bags that thump my ankles. Or staring at all the furniture I have to move for a mop job.

More shockingly, what about a simple rub once in a blue moon? No, I’m not soliciting that from anyone. The other week apparently I somehow let it drop in casual phone conversation with my mother that I hadn’t had a genuine rub in a very long time. (I almost conned a back rub out of my little nephews once, but their attention span’s too short.) Then this Monday I ended up taking time off work in anticipation of my parents arriving in town on a brief visit. I was a tad sick and achy, so I fell asleep on my sofa. I faintly heard my father calling at me to wake up, and then my mother hushing him and saying, “This is how you do it.” She proceeded to rub my feet. Yet one more in a vast multitude of reasons my heart overflows with gratitude toward my dear mother.

One prayer attributed to Elder James E. Talmage exhibits the universality—and correctness, at least in part—of these desires:

Lord, Thou knowest that I have very few acquaintances among the young women of Zion, and Thou hast full knowledge of them all. Guide me to her who is meant to be my help-meet in life. (John R. Talmage, The Talmage Story: Life of James E. Talmage—Educator, Scientist, Apostle [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1972], 68)

Now if you’ll please bear with an unusual unveiling of my own feelings, little changed over the course of six years, I promise it’ll all prove relevant to my points. From my journal entry, August 20, 2002:

I’m not seen as one of the guys in the fullest sense of the word—and I’m also not fooled by [some] people’s lame attempts to say that’s because they respect me so much above most people. If such be true, it is better to be loved than respected! A member of the bishopric for my Budge Hall ward once hugged me and said he’d always had a kind of special love for me. That apparently only extends so far in various spheres, since I stood by him at a reunion as he told someone else they should date his daughter, since she’d asked him if there were any good men in his ward. . . .

A couple of months ago I thought to myself that I was “friends with all, but close to none,” which proves strikingly similar to something President Hinckley wrote in his recent book about being friendly to all but cautious of personal association. . . .

I’m not obligated . . . to take the first person or first few people who demonstrate interest. . . . I will want to be with someone and she will want to be with me. Certainly not too much to ask! . . . But I return to my now-prudent stance. It is insufficient for me to find girls I’d like to be with, and hope. The obstacles are insurmountable. I only pray that God will send me some to choose from, and He’s fully aware of whom I could feel drawn to.

The quotation from President Hinckley?

Everybody wants friends. Everybody needs friends. No one wishes to be without them. But never lose sight of the fact that it is your friends who will lead you along the paths that you will follow. While you should be friendly with all people, select with great care those whom you wish to have close to you. They will be your safeguards in situations where you may vacillate between choices, and you in turn may save them. . . .

There they are, nine Be’s which, if observed, will bring handsome dividends to any young man or woman. . . . They will bring you friends of your own kind. They will protect you from associations that would pull you down and deflect you from your course. (Way to Be! [New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2002], 48, 123)

In curious ways, my abnormal height (or lack thereof) has stripped me of the initiative that is ordinarily the man’s in dating. Once, when someone challenged me to start sitting beside girls who were alone in church meetings, I startled them by countering that I’d thought about it, but it was a nicer favor for me not to put them in that awkward position. He raised his eyebrows at this, but perhaps my dear readers will believe me when I say that I could fill volumes on how I’ve activated the fight or flight response in women socially.

Anyway, along different lines, there may be a girl upset with me right now because I haven’t seized hold of her advances. I sought objectively to give her the chance that I seldom get, and have learned all that I needed to. Laughably, I recollect a girl in a long-ago ward who certainly treated me coldly for doing nothing at all other than a nicer version of what’s playing out all the time. I look on almost dispassionately, capable of saying from a deep, dark well of experience that we all get our turn(s) at rejection. I have this very odd hankering to be able to say something akin to (and pardon the blasphemy, as it’s being wrested from context), “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:16). And naturally I’d like fairly rapid reciprocation. :-) Once I asked a girl out and she queried, presumably in a complimentary fashion—and I do know more about our prior and subsequent interaction than you do—why I’d chosen her out of all the girls. I came home and wrote, “Because I wanted to, that’s why!”

For more spiritual thoughts on seeking companions, here’s a source which I gather from my garbled notes may also be contained in Robert K. McIntosh, How Do You Know When You're Really in Love? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 2000], 30-31:

Many years ago while serving as a full-time missionary, I had the privilege of meeting Elder Bruce R. McConkie. He was a new General Authority and had come to tour our mission. My companion and I were assigned to drive him from Missoula to Butte, Montana. As we talked along the way, one of us asked him, “How can we know whom we should marry?” To our surprise, his response was quick and certain.

He asked us to turn to the 88th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, 40th verse, which reads: “For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.”

We showed some consternation. Elder McConkie explained to us that if we were men who loved the truth, we would be attracted to others who loved the truth. If we were men of virtue, we would attract others who were virtuous. If we loved light and justice and mercy, we would be attracted to a person who loved these qualities. He then said, “If you are men who love truth and virtue, go and find a young lady with these attributes, and then proceed to fall in love.” (L. Aldin Porter, CES Young Adult Fireside, 13 Sep 1998)

I narrowly escaped having as mother-in-law someone who did not value truth and virtue, indeed, was also impossibly unfair. She sat down with her daughter to have a long talk about what she assumed she wouldn’t have if she happened to have the misfortune of marrying me. That reminds me—um, only by slight comparison—of the battle waged against the future Elder Mark E. Petersen for other largely irrelevant circumstances over which he had no control, who was forced to wait out on the porch for his date (Peggy Petersen Barton, Mark E. Petersen: A Biography [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1985], 62). Much, much later, his mother-in-law “often, while speaking of him, . . . would say that although he was an apostle, he definitely had some improvements to make . . .” (Ibid., 93).

By contrast, I often reflect with delight on Elder McConkie’s courtship. Very early on, his future father-in-law, President Joseph Fielding Smith, became one of his greatest advocates. Amelia’s parents were favorably impressed when Bruce departed early on Saturday in order to be properly prepared for the Sabbath the following day. These days sometimes I wonder if there aren’t many Joseph Fielding Smiths around to approve, or Amelias either, for that matter. For one instance, my strong views on the Sabbath, intended for my own life and benefit, have alienated me and even drawn some abuse in one ward. They’ve theoretically lost me opportunities now in yet another, simply because I choose to reallocate frivolous socializing time from Sunday to any other day, when for some reason the Sabbath has become the day most used to advantage to further flirtatious interests (and I don’t mean in the “proper courtship” manner referred to by the Brethren). I can follow edifying conversation and videos, but not frolicking. Somehow declining on Sunday is often viewed as an affront, worthy of ostracization the remainder of the week.

I try not to sorrow over the cost of this and many other things, but the apparent scarcity of opportunity within my desires. Even if subject to pain and death, at the heights of discipleship one should only sorrow for the sins of the world (see 3 Nephi 28:9). In furtherance of developing the appropriate friendship theme:

I want to acknowledge to the brethren and sisters that my obedience to the laws of the Church has never been a drawback to me in my life; and I want to testify, upon the other hand, that it has been a strength and a power to me, and I have never lost a friend that was worthy of being a friend, from living as near as I could to the requirements of the gospel. (Reed Smoot, CR, Oct. 1916, 39)

To enhance its pertinence:

Remember, my young brethren and sisters, you will never have an occasion to be embarrassed—among people of character, people who count, real men and women—because you live according to the standards, the teachings, and ideals of the Church. (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 461)

Setting aside all that trivial talk in the very beginning, what’s number one on my list of things it would be nice to have? A confidante. When I say this, I mean someone capable of caring, cheering, contributing, correcting. And I don’t hold any minor definition of capability there. Is it too much to ask for such that arises naturally from an equal participant in a shared future, shared aspirations—someone hoping to give no less than I also wish to give for the kingdom of God? I’m reminded of a returned missionary I asked out on the strength of a tearful testimony that she’d do anything for the gospel; I was content to let the date die its usual fate, and quit trying to put myself forward, when she managed to offhandedly disclose within thirty minutes that she had absolutely no testimony of visiting teaching.

As it is, the thoughts running through my head reverberate like thunder, but I can seldom release more than about 25% of them. Also...can I be taken care of? Just a little? Every now and then, on a little selfish whim? But nobody get any ideas that I’m vulnerable! You’ll not be seeing my soft side!! ;-) To make this more poignant, I’m listening to Richard Marx’s “Hold on to the Nights.”

And one good yardstick as to whether a person might be the right one for you is this: in her presence, do you think your noblest thoughts, do you aspire to your finest deeds, do you wish you were better than you are? (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 546)

I’m playing(?) for keeps here, as with everything else I undertake! I have to confess that at various times the dating scene has managed to make me feel petty, sad, upset, jealous, demeaned, daydreamy, even condescending or bored myself, in the presence of women. But that’s not the right idea. All my noblest thoughts and finest deeds have been on my own, which is definitely not to say I’m all that fine and noble...just that I have yet to experience inspiration from an earth-based source. ;-) (At one time in my life I was pressing forward in spite of, and not because of, someone.) Is that too much to ask for? My faith and confidence in the Lord lead me to exclaim, “No. It isn’t!”

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28)

2008-09-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

Evidently nearly the whole of the American nation! During these troubled financial times, I perceive a clear lesson in consequences. What’s more, I believe things will only be worse for longer if we don’t let tribulation do her work (see Romans 5:3, and think about the gimme attitude of this generation). I’m not altogether laissez faire about government, but there are many reasons that their assumption of so much of the financial sector would simply be perilous.

For one, that might be considered something of an enabling/facilitating gesture, whereby the same people and habits that got us into this mess may repeat their futile, self-serving measures—only the next time around, our economy will be even more fragile. It’s like the levees around New Orleans; my brother-in-law, an engineer, saw them long before the disaster struck, and he could have told anyone then that they were in terrible condition. Yet the corruption of local government prevented anything from being done, what with the way they divert money. Even so with our national economy; we certainly shouldn’t restore things just the way they were, even if we could. (What went on behind those downed levees was also an interesting glimpse into the depths of depravity in human nature. By the way, you needn’t tell me how many spiritual lessons could derive from strengthening retaining walls and the like.) This is a fine time for the reeducation of our people in fundamental principles of living and, sadly, experience may be the best teacher.

In thinking of homes and teetering fund structures, I’m reminded of a story that helps to illustrate how we got where we are (in many respects). The question isn’t so much who’s footing what bill as to mourn lost opportunities and think seriously about where we went wrong.

A story is told about a young builder who had just gone into business for himself. A wealthy friend of his father came to him and said: “To get you started right, I am going to have you build a house for me. Here are the plans. Don’t skimp on anything. I want the very finest materials used and flawless workmanship. Forget the cost. Just send me the bills.”

The young builder became obsessed with the desire to enrich himself through this generous and unrestricted offer. Instead of employing top-grade labor and buying the finest materials, he shortchanged his benefactor in every way possible. Finally, the last secondhand nail was driven into the last flimsy wall, and the builder handed over the keys and bills, totaling over a hundred thousand dollars, to his father's old friend. That gentleman wrote a check in full for the structure and then handed the keys back to the builder. “The home you have just built, my boy, is my present to you,” he said with a pleasant smile. “May you live in it in great happiness!” (Joseph B. Wirthlin, Finding Peace in Our Lives [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1995], 209-210; also in Ensign, May 1982)

Again, like knowledge, responsibilities must sometimes be acquired slowly. Among other things, this increases our appreciation for it, our deserving of it, and our understanding of each constituent truth.

It is not wisdom that we should have all knowledge at once presented before us; but that we should have a little at a time; then we can comprehend it. (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 268)

Sometimes we must recoil in frustration repeatedly, returning each time determined to learn and to DO what it takes to master something. The Mediator does not deprive us of such growth, but has ordained—indeed, we might say, established—the path which must be followed on fixed principles. I often reflect that this is one of those areas in which mercy simply cannot rob justice, for we must do, and we must do with real effort, if we are ever to become. (Such as a popular story among the Brethren, linked here.)

In the most straightforward spiritual terms:

No thing worth while is obtained in this life without sacrificing, without putting forth effort. The evil one thrusts things upon us but God asks us to reach out and get that which he offers. “Teach self-denial,” says Walter Scott, “and make it pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.” (David O. McKay, CR, Oct. 1929, 12)

Financial publications hint left and right that the American standard of living should have fallen years ago, but has been kept up through grossly inflated measures, including poor extension of credit. Clearly the market is simply assuming its actual values. Perhaps the time has arrived for us to take the pinch, to cinch the belt; I’m personally willing to take the hit so far as I have some assets in the market, in preference to weakening our country monetarily for the next round, which will hit back even harder in collapse. I’d rather lose some money now with our country righted on a natural foundation, than see our currency become totally meaningless down the road. As it is now, we are merely a contender in the global market, not the same force to be reckoned with that we once were. (Have you seen our GDP in historical comparisons lately? If that’s not a warning sign of the beginning of a “fall from grace”...)

I’m thinking of a medieval bishop who had some mixed-up priorities. His was also the fast life, refusing to “settle” for the more mundane existence of peaceful contentment.

. . . this aristocratic young tearaway (he is described as arrogant, headstrong, insolent, greedy, and none too bright) had seen military service with the papal mercenaries against Milan in the war of 1369, with the result that the pope appointed him bishop of Norwich the following year, 1370, at the age of twenty-six. . . . He was sentenced to lose the profits from his expedition and was deprived of the temporalities—that is, the income—of his see. . . . Richard II himself appears to have offered Despenser the prospect of quick re-employment if he would learn his lesson and become an obedient royal servant. . . . For the remaining twenty years of his life he enjoyed himself and his reputation as the martial bishop (episcopus martialis), fortifying his manor houses, hunting Lollards, quarrelling vigorously with his cathedral chapter and the East Anglian towns, and making a collection of metrical romances and prophecies. He was, on the whole, a happy bishop, and when he died, in 1406, he was still repeating his favourite text: “The earth is the Lord’s...”, and I want it. (Michael Wilks, Wyclif: Political Ideas and Practice, ed. Anne Hudson [Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2000], 258, 270)

Yes, the earth is the Lord’s. This calls to mind a subtopic I never got around to mentioning in very pertinent connection with a lesson on Section 76 this Sunday: the law of the harvest. We must remember who is really the Lord of the vineyard (in so many senses we are the crop, and it’s up in the air whether we’re the cream of the crop), and on what terms He employs His servants. The parable of the talents teaches us of His appearance of hardness to the wicked (Matt. 25:24; compare the whole with 1 Nephi 16:1-2), reaping where He has not sowed, and reminds us that in this field of the world—where the harvest is great and the laborers few—we are expected to sow, and yet all that we sow is in the end but a gift from above. Then there’s the matter of reaping, which can be a fearful matter (see Galatians 6:7-9; Mosiah 7:30; D&C 86:5-6, with Jacob 5:65). Alma 9:28, 41:12-15, and 2 Corinthians 9:6 correlate nicely to doctrines on the resurrection, leading to this relevant point (from a highly relevant article), from the October 2003 Ensign:

Faithfulness, even to what we feel are the hard doctrines, is a quality the Savior encouraged in His disciples. However, Jesus also wanted them to understand that pleasing the master was more than just a work ethic. He taught them that it was also a matter of the heart and their relationship with their heavenly Master. . . .

We are indebted to God for our very lives. When we keep His commandments, which is our duty to do, He immediately blesses us. We are therefore continually indebted and unprofitable to Him. Without grace, our valiance alone cannot save us.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has written regarding this parable:

“God’s generosity [or grace] toward us is not to be expressed by the dilution of the demands of duty that He lays upon us. Where much is given, much is expected—not the other way around. Nor is divine generosity to be expressed by a lessening of God’s standards concerning what is to be done. Rather, when much is given and much is done by the disciple, then God’s generosity is overwhelming!

“When we have given and done our all, we will one day receive ‘all that [our] Father hath’ (D&C 84:38). Therein lies God’s generosity. When we do our duty, He is bound—and gladly bound.”

It is high time for us as a nation to inculcate forgotten virtues, to replace the demand of entitlement with the supplication of humility, to remember that we are all beggars before God lest, or even if, He should compel us to be beggars on earth. Strident voices are calling at present for allocated money to be earmarked for distribution to taxpayers. I fail to see much distinction between Wall Street and Main Street...both sought to become the thoroughfare of Easy Street.

I would do nothing to encourage further growth of our welfare state: right now, the only thing that is owed anyone would be explanations and apologies, not more handouts or bailouts. Many need to learn that redistribution of taxed funds is either theft or a paltry substitute for keeping it in their pockets in the first place. Or is it—and I don’t say this as a privileged yuppie—merely the desire for those who pay the least taxes to enrich themselves at others’ expense? For the widow to cast in her mite and then lay claim to the whole pot, as though the blessings are here upon the earth? Those who eagerly insist on their inheritance early (something like the prodigal son) have their reward here in this life, indeed, and a shortage of treasure in heaven (see Matthew 6:20, of course, and D&C 6:33, 59:23).

I wish I weren’t too tired to actually fill in the scriptural framework here. But I must make an end. Some of the saddest, but truest, contemporary commentary:

Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!

Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands!

But blessed are the poor who are pure in heart, whose hearts are broken, and whose spirits are contrite, for they shall see the kingdom of God coming in power and great glory unto their deliverance; for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs.

For behold, the Lord shall come, and his recompense shall be with him, and he shall reward every man, and the poor shall rejoice;

And their generations shall inherit the earth from generation to generation, forever and ever. (D&C 56:16-20)

“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36; see Mosiah 4:30 and 1 Nephi 10:20)

2008-08-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

Something happened yesterday that determined, once and for all, that this entry would come into being. I’d been debating about composing something of a, shall we say, lighter nature. In hindsight, I might regret it. :-)

1. Eastern exposure
I’d come back from church to this hotel room in Baltimore and was sort of between changing out of my Sunday apparel. I leaned over to check my e-mail on this laptop and—voila—heard somebody speaking from within my doorway. I peeped this little, “Oh, my!” and dove between the table and television stand. I could hardly believe it when the maid continued conversing with me, standing completely inside my room. (It had never occurred to me that well after 4:00 in the afternoon on Sunday, I needed to put out the “do not disturb” sign.) So there I was, down to my skivvies, feeling like I was in some kind of crisis negotiation, peeking my head around and calling out responses. Eventually she went away with the promise to return in 15 minutes. Needless to say, I cleared out of there.

That reminds me of a (totally clean) joke, which you will kindly access by clicking on this link.

2. Oops...let me see YOUR scriptures
On Thursday, I came across something that set my mind in motion for preparing a new blog entry. 1 Peter 3:15 is supposed to say:

Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

Imagine my surprise when I read the version printed (obviously in error) in Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s Meek and Lowly, p. 83 (emphasis added):

Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and rear.

That’s one irreverent way of presenting the gospel!!!! At least there’s some sort of basis for shaking off the dust of feet. ;-)

So in this shocking departure from my norm, I’ll share other fondly humorous memories. For instance, I once reviewed a manuscript which mentioned eternal covenants formulated in our “premoral” existence. I’ve witnessed an elders quorum instructor who said he'd hoped “to get away from the scriptures and just open it up for discussion.” And I've long believed that Abinadi was the world's worst "secret" agent (see Mosiah 12:1 and think about how he announces his presence), though certainly among the best public agents.

I’m reminded also of the 1631 Bible misprint which resulted in one of the Ten Commandments urging its readers, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” (My sister remarked that U.S. President Clinton must have taken his oath of office on that one. Ironically, his verse selection was Galatians 6:8: “For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”)

Many years ago I sent out this thought for my daily quote:

bibliomancy.

This is the name given to the practice of opening the Bible and reading a passage at random. Some people do this when they are looking for guidance in life. It is a foolish way to use the Bible. (After all, a person considering suicide might open to the passage that says, “Judas went away and hanged himself.”) (J. Stephen Lang, 1,001 Things You Always Wanted to Know About the Bible but Never Thought to Ask [Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1999], 369)

Consider George Q. Cannon, CD, 2:205 if taken out of context like this: “The only cause for fear we have is of there being a lack of beets.”

3. Life, seriously
In the past month I’ve been chided gently, almost unconsciously, by three different people for seeming too somber. My initial response is to beg others to believe that this is a mistaken appearance, one that I will try to improve upon. Yet I must confess that I find life a serious thing, something to treat earnestly. Here is but one scriptural charge that doesn’t leave much room for careless “me” time:

Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore. (Moses 5:8)

Honest belief in this mandate will materially affect how, why, what, when, and where we are amused, not that it’ll preclude laughter altogether, by any means. I think of Hugh B. Brown’s sobering message:

A great deal of the Christian religion of the world touches the lives of men at distressingly few points. We believe, with [Elton] Trueblood, that that religion is most potent and most effective which touches the lives of men redemptively at most points, which affects the lives of men, how they live and love and work and die. Religion should be a vital part of everything we think and do. (“Search For God,” BYU Speeches of the Year, 13 Nov 1956, 6)

This gospel is an intimate thing. It is not some distant concept. It is applicable in our lives. It can change our very natures. (Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Nov. 2003, 103)

One could spend much time in contemplation of the nature of sacrifice being discussed, but Lecture Six of the Lectures on Faith clearly points to an ongoing system of sacrifice, and not one gigantic acquiescent moment of a future day (though that too may come). The following excerpt is strung together from an online Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Didn’t I say I’m out of town, and unfortunately have no access to my books? I’m confined to what I can find on the Internet, remember, or happen to have already typed into my database.

It is essential for any person to have an actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing is according to the will of God to enable him to have that confidence in God without which no person can obtain eternal life. 4. Such was and always will be the situation of the Saints of God. Unless they have an actual knowledge that the course they are pursuing is according to the will of God, they will grow weary in their minds and faint. 7. Let us here observe that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation. For from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things. It is through this sacrifice, and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life. And it is through the medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God. 12. But those who have not made this sacrifice to God do not know that the course which they pursue is well pleasing in his sight. For whatever may be their belief or their opinion, it is a matter of doubt and uncertainty in their mind; and where doubt and uncertainty are, there faith is not, nor can it be. For doubt and faith do not exist in the same person at the same time. So persons whose minds are under doubts and fears cannot have unshaken confidence, and where unshaken confidence is not, there faith is weak. And where faith is weak, the persons will not be able to contend against all the opposition, tribulations, and afflictions which they will have to encounter in order to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus. But they will grow weary in their minds, and the adversary will have power over them and destroy them.

Still another passage with direct bearing on sanctification:

. . . cast away your idle thoughts and your excess of laughter far from you. (D&C 88:69)

Thankfully, the even stricter verse 121 has been elaborated upon by Joseph Fielding Smith: “We should not get the idea from this scripture that the Lord is displeased with us when we laugh, when we have merriment, if it is on the right occasions. He has said, however, that in our solemn assemblies such things as light-mindedness, laughter and merriment are out of order.” However, such conditions don’t seem to obtain for that warning in verse 69.

None of this discounts all the counsel for glad hearts and joyful countenances, and so forth. In fact, if anyone were to utilize these thoughts to teach a gospel of bad news, I’d try to knock them down a peg for misquoting me!!! Enjoyment and obedience, far from being mutually exclusive, are prime partners. What I’m speaking against are the frequent abuses whereby the wrong sorts of practices are held up as “joy.” I have witnessed and experienced plenty of lesser activities that really don’t contribute much to the “big picture.” There is a happiness and humor in life unique to attentive gospel living. Excess of laughter may well mean that the joy of the Saints sometimes fills to the brim and runs over, and it just needs some skimming off at the level to curb it. Some of the Brethren have commented that bridling our passions is indicative that we ought to have passions. With the appropriate scripture search on the Church website, I find that James 5:16-17, Acts 14:15, and Alma 38:12 are in line with this discussion.

It’s my general observation, on the other hand, that an excess of irreverence (or, really, any at all) seems to run at cross purposes with other doctrine. I’ll quote from the same Elder Maxwell book, since I have it on hand: “Some [disobedience] stems from casualness when seriousness is warranted” (59). These offenders you will sometimes find hiding behind the cover that “we must be able to laugh at ourselves”; if only they would mock themselves and not the Church! Ours is becoming a society wherein nothing is sacred and little is even normal. We are growing accustomed to telestial standards. (Take, for example, the television series Dexter—and prepare to be astounded by its warm reception.)

4. “Work out your own salvation with . . .” laughter???? (No, that’s not it.)
I have every intention of returning to some comic relief—and perhaps “relief” is most appropriate when referring to a change in my writing—but I have to warm up to it first. One prominent member (never an ordained general authority) tried to say that the more we understand the vastness of the next life, the less we can take seriously in this one. I would contend almost the exact opposite, since this world is merely the preparation ground for what is to come. Almost everything of passing value can be downplayed in favor of mature perspective. To snag something else I once wrote, almost quoting myself out of context:

A lack of full understanding about the Atonement, even among members of the Church, has allowed the intrusion of numerous misunderstandings, on both extremes of a works/grace spectrum. I might add that the official Church posture comes across to other faiths as leaning toward the works end. We cannot ignore the bulk of scriptural evidence that men will be judged according to their works. If our goal were only the telestial kingdom, our anxieties concerning works could cease. Rather than engaging in controversy over every point, many of our leaders find ready reference in a simply stated article of our faith: “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” While we have occasionally misrepresented ourselves to the outside world through an astonishing absence of grateful expressions to our dearest Lord and Savior, truly indispensable to our salvation, we cannot fall into a traditional Christian trap that talking about Christ will more or less substitute for following Him. Brigham Young understood this when he quipped that if the Saints “sing and pray about doing right without doing it, . . . they will sing and pray themselves into hell, shouting hallelujah.”

Just recently I found where someone has done the tremendous service of summarizing that “works” statistic for us, not that this would stand on its own had it not been fully elaborated in the corpus of doctrine:

The New Testament records 541 New Testament scriptural statements by over sixteen different biblical personalities that pertain directly or indirectly to the way salvation is achieved. The preponderance of evidence is clearly in favor of statements that indicate that man will be held accountable and judged on the basis of his works, deeds, acts, fruits, obedience, and so forth. Of the 541 New Testament scriptural statements 418 (or 77%) are supportive of works as a criterion in final judgment. (Michael D. Adair, full citation and a couple of supporting sources provided in Matthew B. Brown, All Things Restored: Evidences and Witnesses of the Restoration [American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc., 2006], 120)

Now that’s a decidedly unPollyanna-like statistic! (On a side note, I’ve run across another church’s antagonistically compiled list of differences between our church and historical Christianity. Little do they realize that each summary statement of their own stance doesn’t resemble the practicing creed of anyone I’ve ever met, nor is it half so “historical” as they think, if they’d just dig deeper than the sixteenth century. Argue as you may about what’s become encrusted onto Christianity over the years, its historicity sort of depends upon what Christ originally instituted.)

To quote Maxwell yet again (64), “the truly meek individual combines realism and love.” Evidently, from other parts of the book, he shares my love for the concept “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), my basis for “optimistic realism.” Since I’m so lazy, I’ll spare myself the trouble of rewording some thoughts and simply copy in part of an Easter message it was my privilege to prepare and deliver in 2006. It would be a little too distracting to reproduce the footnotes at this time.

Joseph Smith remarked, “The doctrines of the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment are necessary to preach among the first principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Thus the urgent need for what Elder Holland called a “sobering” impact of the doctrine of restoration, as taught in the Book of Mormon. Restoration, which “more fully condemneth the sinner, and justifieth him not at all,” demonstrates, as Elder Holland continued, “that no one should fallaciously assume that the restorative powers of the Resurrection could restore one ‘from sin to happiness.’” We are taught almost relentlessly that in the last day that which was filthy shall still be filthy, and this is not an exception to the cleansing role of the Atonement, which is intended for use before our Redeemer acts as our Judge.

It is an antichrist leap in judgment to assume that because all men (sons of perdition included) are redeemed unto immortality, therefore “all men should have eternal life.” But it is a similar antichrist sentiment to wish contrary to that expressed by Samuel the Lamanite, who did not discriminate against his listeners: “And may God grant, in his great fulness, that men might be brought unto repentance and good works, that they might be restored unto grace for grace, according to their works. And I would that all men might be saved. But we read that in the great and last day there are some who shall be cast out, yea, who shall be cast off from the presence of the Lord.” Remember, we do not make the Lord’s decisions for Him; our task is merely to set forth the requirements contained in His teachings and permit agency to do its sifting work. However, there is nothing against strong encouragement that our fellowmen should do and declare what is right. We believe sufficiently in agency, or free will, if you will, that we never lapse into predestination paralysis. That is why we are reviewing concept and consequence. It goes almost without saying that what Latter-day Saints know about the different kingdoms of glory informs all of our actions. The call to repentance is by way of command unto those of us who ought to know better, and invitation unto others.

President Wilford Woodruff stated, “I marvel very much at the little interest manifested by the inhabitants of the earth generally in their future state. There is not a person here today but what is going to live on the other side of the veil as long as his Creator—to the endless ages of eternity, and the eternal destiny of every individual depends upon the manner in which the few short years of life in the flesh are spent.” Afterward, men “must be judged of their works, yea, even the works which were done by the temporal body in their days of probation.” We have to render an account of our stewardship over these bodies. The notion that “if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God” has been thoroughly discredited in scripture.

President McKay counseled, “There is no salvation without work. I do not mean, now, redemption from death—Christ has done that; He has given us all that we need to get by way of salvation. The doctrine of work does not rob Him of any of His glory. ‘By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God.’ But aside from that, the individual growth and advancement, the individual knowledge, the advancement in God’s truth, depends upon the doing of God's will.” Don’t quarrel about “merits.” So far as that term is concerned, they belong only to the Savior, but we are nonetheless going to answer to Him for our talents and our labor during “this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity.” We rob God (and ourselves) by holding back, not by pressing forward!

But to return to the funnies about all this....

5. Now I’m stepping in it!
Just one of many clever Christian quotations that one will find in many forms: “A lot of church members who are singing ‘Standing on the Promises’ are just sitting on the premises.”

Only a couple of months ago I was listening to yet another rendition, in a talk, of the “Footprints in the Sand” poem, which is theoretically meant to convey a sense of reliance upon the Savior. It was appropriately put in its place on one website, which also alluded (via Elder Holland) to a John Taylor expression. I know it occurs in Gospel Kingdom, but since I don’t have it with me, I’ll just quote the original (JD, 1:27; see also 20:119), which does a fine job of highlighting the philosophies of man which still regularly creep into church members’ repertoire:

Speaking of philosophy, I must tell another little story, for I was almost buried up in it while I was in Paris. I was walking about one day in the Jardin des Plantes—a splendid garden. There they had a sort of exceedingly light cake; it was so thin and light that you could blow it away, and you could eat all day of it, and never be satisfied. Somebody asked me what the name of that was. I said, I don't know the proper name, but in the absence of one, I can give it a name—I will call it philosophy, or fried froth, which you like. It is so light you can blow it away, eat it all day, and at night be as far from being satisfied as when you began.

At any rate, in order to endure listening to the poem again, I mentally reviewed a comical opposing piece that is almost as extreme in the other direction. Soon I was struggling to suppress a smile or outright laughter at my thoughts! (This in spite of the fact that, for some unknowable reason, my scripted role in that singles ward—even when I presented evidence to the contrary—was that of impassive solitaire. The key may be to recognize that I’m good-natured and good-humored, even if I don’t see things like the rest of them.) I appreciated this rollicking contradiction when I first read it on “Dave’s Daily Chuckle” for June 4, 2001:

Butt Prints In The Sand
One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.
But then some stranger prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, “What have we here?”
Those prints are large and round and neat,
“But Lord, they are too big for feet.”
“My child,” He said in somber tones,
“For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait.”
“You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know.
So, I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt.”
“Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand.”

Anyone looking for great literature—reverential doctrine and comeback, rolled into one—should read Elder Orson F. Whitney’s reply to Invictus (found here or here). It would also serve to right the boat-rocking I’ve undoubtedly created here.

6. How dare I say all is well in Zion, when the Lord pronounces an emphatic wo against those who state it? (Besides, all isn’t well.... See, for instance, Amos 6:1, Jeremiah 6:10-26 and 23:13-40, Helaman 13:26-30, Zephaniah 1:12, 2 Nephi 28:19-31, even Moroni 9:21-22, etc., etc., etc.)
There is a humongous body of humor in Church literature not lost on those who value preaching “without fear or favor.” The lesson is simple: service with a smile, but first things first.

I’ll start with an “apocryphal” account about President Joseph Fielding Smith. One website reports the following from page 285 of Truman G. Madsen’s Presidents of the Church:

President Smith’s temperament was sometimes misunderstood. People thought of him as austere and severe. According to one story he went to a stake conference in Wyoming where he bore down hard on their need to repent. He ended by saying, “Brothers and sisters, if you do not repent, few of you will be saved in the life to come.” He had barely reached home when letters began coming from that stake saying, “This man didn’t inspire us at all. He condemned us. He was harsh. We would like something to be done about this.”

So he was assigned to go back to the stake and speak again. He went back—and repeated his words from before. He then said, “Brothers and sisters, the last time I was here, I said unless you repented there would be few of you saved. I have changed my mind—none of you will be.”

This reminds me of the same problem rephrased by one not of our faith:

When the new preacher moved into town, one of the first people he met said, “I certainly hope that you're not one of these narrow-minded ministers who think that only the members of their congregation are going to heaven.”

“I’m even more narrow-minded than that,” replied the preacher. “I'm pretty sure that some of the members of my congregation aren’t going to make it.” (Msgr. Arthur Tonne, quoted in Cal and Rose Samra, More Holy Humor [Carmel, New York: Guideposts, 1997], 15) (see 2 Nephi 33:12 for a more upbeat take on the theme)

An interrelated theme that I don’t have time to develop is summed up by President Lorenzo Snow:

There is this privilege that every Latter-day Saint should seek to enjoy, to know positively that his work is accepted of God. I am afraid Latter-day Saints are not much better and perhaps they are worse than other people if they do not have this knowledge and seek to do right. (CR, Apr. 1898, 13)

President Joseph Fielding Smith told on himself with another such tale, but all I can quote at present is another’s account:

After one sermon, a man came up to him and said, “That is the first discourse on the Word of Wisdom that I ever liked.” President Smith modestly inquired, “Haven’t you heard other talks on the Word of Wisdom?” “Yes,” came the reply, “but this is the first one I ever enjoyed . . . you see, I am keeping the Word of Wisdom now.” (Joseph F. McConkie, True and Faithful: The Life Story of Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971], 78-79)

Here’s a parting laugh about the difficulties of our day, with an implied thought about leaders who don’t have to ask what the public think of God’s word!!!

A zealous, newly ordained minister was assigned to a small, rural parish. In his first sermon he condemned horse racing, and the sermon went over poorly. A deacon cautioned: “You should never preach against horse racing because this whole area is known for its fine horses. Many members of this congregation make their living off horses.”

The next week the new pastor came down hard on the evils of smoking. Again his sermon fell flat. Many of his members grew tobacco.

On the third Sunday the preacher condemned whiskey drinking, only to discover that there was a big distillery less than five miles from the church.

The perplexed preacher called a board meeting and cried out: “What can I preach about?”

The answer came immediately from a woman in back: “Preach against them evil cannibals. There ain’t one of them within two thousand miles of here.” (Dennis R. Fakes, quoted in Cal and Rose Samra, Holy Humor: A Book of Inspirational Wit and Cartoons [Carmel, New York: Guideposts, 1996], 97-98)