Sorry.
But here's the thing: every time I leave the bathroom light on long enough for Jacob to see it before I can scurry and try to turn it off, I owe him a substantive blog post. He says when he reads my writing, he loves me more. Right now I owe him seven blog posts.
And so, here is the first of many entries wherein I will actually write about the thoughts and problems and mental struggles that betoken my every day living. The following is the transcript of a talk I gave in my ward (that's Mormon for when a lay member presents a sermon to their congregation) a couple weeks ago.
The problem now is that if I start writing about things that I really really care about, then I'll be vulnerable to people who are smarter and meaner than me . But oh well. It's time, you know?
I've included a couple pictures from our stay in Florence, because it is the most inspirational place I've ever been.
Come From Where it May
Sacrament Meeting Talk 6/23/13
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| Jacob reading at the Accademia |
I have always been a bit of a
bookworm. Long before I could read I would insist that “I turn!” the pages when
my parents read me stories, and I remember distinctly volunteering my four year
old self to “read” picture books to my friends. (I’d beextremely interested now to hear
the captions I came up with for the pictures then)
So, over the years many works of literature have become so precious to me, as to be something like scripture. From many wonderful books have I read, re-read, re-read, filled the margins with scribbled notes, cross-referenced, and memorized quotes to adopt as personal mantras. In works of every genre I’ve learned much of what I know about sin, repentance, redemption, salvation, charity, and the greatest extremes of evil and of human and divine kindness.
So, over the years many works of literature have become so precious to me, as to be something like scripture. From many wonderful books have I read, re-read, re-read, filled the margins with scribbled notes, cross-referenced, and memorized quotes to adopt as personal mantras. In works of every genre I’ve learned much of what I know about sin, repentance, redemption, salvation, charity, and the greatest extremes of evil and of human and divine kindness.
As I grew older I discovered the other arts; visual,
performing, vocal, instrumental. There was a whole beautiful world of Godly
language to hear and to learn to speak! Every day of my arts-filled childhood
contained many sermons. So for me, the divide between what was scripture, what
officially belonged to the True and Living Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints and what was merely inspirational never seemed incredibly
material.
When I became a teenager, though, that time when you start to
realize that you pretty much know everything, before you go to college and
discover that you don’t know anything- -I
started to notice that in many of my meetings, lessons, and activities, Gospel
truths were usually expressed in very specific
language, namely King James English. Very few of the Hymns in the hymn book
were actually sung and my favorite authors and poets were usually only quoted
in General Conference. As a young girl I began my personal journey, the one we
are all continually on because we’re
alive, to gain a testimony of what living the restored gospel meant for me and
in what languages I accessed its truths.
Now, when we speak of “The Restored Gospel”—of what that
phrase really means, it’s difficult to pinpoint what is gospel and what is
merely good.
As Joseph Fielding Smith said,“… There is a great fund of knowledge in the
possession of men,” ,“that will not save them in the kingdom of
God. What they have got to learn are the fundamental things of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.” [1]
Many of us audibly breathe a sigh of relief here. Phew,
good. “I only need to learn the fundamentals, because the rest is extraneous. I
want to be saved in the Kingdom of God“. Reassuring, right? All those novels I
consumed as a child were childish things that it’s now time to put away.
I’ve met many people over the years who take this kind of
council to fuel their pronouncement that “the only books I read are the
scriptures,” or “I only listen to the MoTab and EFY CDS”.
And yet, we embrace as an article of our faith (the
thirteenth one to be exact) “ If there is anything hvirtuous, ilovely, or of good report or
praiseworthy, we seek after these things”.
SEEK is an extremely active
verb. It connotes much more than merely absorbing gospel truths through osmosis
as we sit in church. In fact, the act of seeking is often very uncomfortable.
If something is right in front of you, you can’t seek for it. You can look for
it maybe. But seeking implies that it
may be far away, or out of reach, soul-stretching or mind-blowing. After you
find what you’re seeking, you’ll be different. And that’s uncomfortable.
Seeking is a process, a journey, never immediately ended. Maybe you’re not even sure what it is you’re
seeking for, and that requires faith.
So in saying that we seek
after anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy are we saying
that, as Latter-day Saints, we commit to actively living an uncomfortable life
of scraping, stretching, seeking and making ourselves vulnerable and
uncomfortable? Yeah, I think so.
Our prophets seers and
revelators of the restored gospel take this idea even further:
Brigham Young said, It is our duty and calling, as
ministers of the same salvation and Gospel, to gather every item of truth and
reject every error. Whether a truth be found with…the Universalists, or the
Church of Rome, or the Methodists, the Church of England, the Presbyterians,
the Baptists, the Quakers, the Shakers, or any other of the various and
numerous different sects and parties, all of whom have more or less truth, it
is the business of the Elders of this Church…[and I would add members of this church] to gather up all the truths
in the world pertaining to life and salvation, to the Gospel we preach, … to
the sciences, and to philosophy, wherever it may be found in every nation,
kindred, tongue, and people and bring it to Zion.[2]
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| A highlight of my life at Badia Fiorentina |
Joseph Smith said: “One of the grand fundamental
principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from where it may.”[3]
And the Lord says, in Doctrine and Covenants 88:118, “Seek ye out of the best
books words of wisdom.”
So here we are, with not only council but a duty and calling to SEEK for truth, well, basically everywhere. Something of
a daunting task.
So how do we possibly sift through all the good and bad
teachings of the world in books and religions and find the valuable ones that
have a rightful and useful place in our understanding of the restored gospel?
How do we determine which ones are the best books and which are merely a waste
of our time—or worse, detrimental to our spiritual education? How do we avoid
the pitfalls of embracing unrighteous philosophies of men mingled with
scripture?
As Elder B.H. Roberts of the Seventy famously said, “While the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established for the instruction of men;
and it is one of God’s instrumentalities for making known the truth yet he is
not limited to that institution for such purposes, neither in time nor place.
God raises up wise men and prophets here and there among all the children of
men, of their own tongue and nationality, speaking to them through means that
they can comprehend. … All the great teachers are servants of God; among all
nations and in all ages”
All the great teachers are servants of
God? How do we distinguish between the good, the great, and the bad? With this
kind of council, how do we possibly prioritize our spiritual education??
The answer lies in the topic of this sacrament meeting,
which is beautiful in its simplicity: PROPHETS TEACH US TO LIVE THE RESTORED GOSPEL.
Prophets teach us. With so many beautiful,
useful truths in religions of the world that we have a duty to seek after and
embrace, the Restored Gospel is singular in the fact that we have living,
breathing, teaching prophets. Indeed, our Gospel is true and living, meaning it
is changing and growing, just like a living human being—like we are. We believe
in continuing revelation that is given us through prophets and through the Holy
Ghost directly from our Father to us. That’s pretty cool.
I keep on my computer, so it’s always within view, a sticky
note that serves as a gentle caution in my insatiable drive to seek after
knowledge and beauty. It’s Second Timothy 3:7: Ever learning, never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
As we follow our duty to seek and learn and embrace and
discover, we always come back to the beautiful, grounding fundamentals of the
gospel, as President Smith reminded us. In making our central study that we
base everything else around the words of prophets, both ancient and modern, we
will be able to recognize the other truths we are seeking for when we come
across them. We’ll recognize godly language elsewhere because we’ll know it so
well from the scriptures, from prophets, and from speaking to God ourselves
through prayer.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie (1915–85) put it well when speaking
to members and nonmembers alike during an area conference in Tahiti: “Keep all
the truth and all the good that you have. Do not abandon any sound or proper
principle. Do not forsake any standard of the past which is good, righteous,
and true. Every truth found in every church in all the world we believe. But we
also say this to all men—Come and take the added light and truth that God has
restored in our day. The more truth we have, the greater is our joy here and
now; the more truth we receive, the greater is our reward in eternity.” [4]
I have a personal testimony of the limitless beauties and
truths that exist for us to discover in churches, mosques, synagogues, ashrams, libraries, concert halls, museums, movie theaters, and in all the limitless languages of divinity in the
world around us. I know that we’ll have a more complete appreciation of the
restored gospel if we better come to know and understand all of God’s children and recognize the light of Christ that
pervades and infuses all of His creation.
I love this Gospel with my whole soul and I come to love it
more the more I study, seek, and embrace truth, “come from where it may.”
[2] Journal of Discourses 7:283
[3] Sermon
of Joseph Smith, 9 July 1843 (Sunday Morning), in Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W.
Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of
the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, UT: BYU Religious
Studies Center, 1980), p. 229
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