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Sabbath Devotional :: Four Pledges for the New Year
“Four pledges for the new year: I will listen, I will learn, I will labor, I will love. As we fulfill these pledges, we can have the guidance of our Heavenly Father and in our own lives experience true joy.” — Thomas S. Monson At the beginning of each year, this quote comes up in my Facebook memories. It inspires me. Those four pledges seem so simple. And they are. But they are also deeply meaningful ways for me to progress. Every year I commit to getting a little better than I was before. I will listen. I will listen to others, especially my own family members. I will listen…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Discipleship
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit St Martin’s, the oldest continuously operating Christian church in the English speaking world. It is a few miles from Canterbury Cathedral, which is different from St Martin’s in almost every conceivable way. The Cathedral is a magnificent example of architectural achievement, was a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of years, and has been the site of some pretty significant power struggles. St Martin’s is none of those things. It is little, simple and straightforward. The small part in the back was built and established by the Romans in the late 400’s. But when the Romans left Britain, so did Christianity…
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Sabbath Devotional :: The Time Being
Well, that’s that. As I write this, my parents are coordinating taking down the Christmas tree tomorrow. We will pack the decorations (at least, the ones my child didn’t break) in their boxes and carry them back to the attic to collect dust for the next eleven months. The leftovers will be reworked into lunches for at least the next week. My sister has returned to London. On Tuesday, we’ll fly home, and I’ll spend what’s left of the week madly typing a dissertation essay. And then we’re fully and truly back to real life, when everything is once again governed by the 8 AM and shoveling the driveway and…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Peace on Earth, Good Will to Women . . . Part 2
Our MWEG Proclaim Peace podcast this year has focused, from two dozen different angles, on the concept of finding and making peace personally and globally. For the devotional last week and today, I’m going to present the collected wisdom from this year’s interviews on two questions. This week: how do you find peace? We have many different answers (some edited for brevity/clarity), and I invite you to add your own at the end. What are one or two ways or places that you find peace? Personally, where do you find peace? What do you do? Where do you go? 1 Emma Addams: The easiest answer for me is at the piano,…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Women . . . Part 1
At this season of wishing for peace on earth, perhaps the word seems overused (and the goal elusive). Yet our own MWEG Proclaim Peace podcast this year has focused, from two dozen different angles, on the concept of finding and making peace, personally and globally. They’ve only begun to mine the topic with so many inspiring guests. For the devotional this week and next, I’m going to present the collected wisdom from this year’s interviews on two questions: How do you define peace? And how do you personally find peace? It is remarkable to read through these varied and insightful responses, and recall the broader context of the podcast conversations…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Christmas Season
During the Christmas season, I usually reread the different gospels’ accounts of the Savior’s birth in the New Testament, but this week I have been thinking about and rereading the accounts of the Book of Mormon regarding the Savior’s birth and His coming. The Book of Mormon account is quite different in nature, and I think there is some really beautiful metaphorical meaning held embedded it. In Helaman 13-15, Samuel the Lamanite prophesies to the Nephites. He foretells the celestial signs that will signal the Savior’s birth. He also shares some amazing promises of the Savior’s atonement. His message is generally not well-received by the people, who threaten his life…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Tension and Peacemaking
Philippe Petit is a real-life French highwire artist who I first read about in Colum McCann’s stunning novel Apeirogon. In 1987, Petit performed an act he called “Walking the Harp/A Reach for Peace.” In honor of the Festival of Jerusalem, Petit and his crew stretched a 300-meter-long highwire at an incline across the Hinnom Valley, which lies on the line between East Jerusalem and West, the Arab and Jewish quarters of the city. Dressed in a white costume resembling that of a court jester, Petit slid his white-slippered feet out onto the wire to begin his ascent. Crowds of onlookers watched in awe and cheered as Petit glided through the air, accomplishing the…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Repairing the Breach
As I contemplated what I could write that would sufficiently meet the moment we are in, my mind returned to a Sabbath devotional I wrote almost three years ago. I reread it and felt it was relevant. “. . . and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.” (Isaiah 58:12) The word “breach” means a hole or gap in a fortress, usually caused by an attacking army. The stakes of Zion are “for a defense, and for a refuge from the storm” (D&C 115:6). In other words, Zion is a fortress. Our wards and stakes should be refuges and defenses against that…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Living Life in the Middle of Things
I was talking with a friend who observed that it is coded into the generic structuring of LDS talks to speak after the resolution. It goes like this: there’s some sort of tension/conflict/struggle/adversity which leads our questing speaker to a journey for answers/insight/victory, then the epiphany and a resolution. It’s a nice arc, a complete emotional experience, so it makes sense as a structure for a talk or story. But it isn’t actually very reflective of reality. Because in reality, most of us are sitting in the middle of things most of the time. We don’t know how the game will end, which ball will drop, what shape this journey…
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Sabbath Devotional :: One Decision at a Time
In early October, I found myself driving my family through the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Georgia. We live in Alabama, and our stake had been tasked with running a “command center” for hurricane relief in Valdosta. As we drove towards the church building, I wove through massive piles of downed trees that had been cut and moved off the roads. I drove over dozens of downed power lines. Seeing the devastation firsthand, knowing it was exponentially worse in other areas, and having just heard that another deadly hurricane was forming, I thought about the account in the Book of Mormon of the destruction at Christ’s death, and the prophecies…
