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Sabbath Devotional :: And Above All Things, Charity
True confession: I don’t love reading the scriptures. Well, I don’t love reading them all the time. I don’t read them all the time. I know I should, but I don’t. I have struggled my entire life being a daily scripture reader. I have always had dreams of being a great scriptorian (and an Olympic gymnast), but I am not. I struggle to establish any good, daily habit (unless you count snacking on chocolate chips, because I do that every day). When it comes to the scriptures, I struggle to understand what I am reading, especially when it’s written in King James-era English. I struggle when I see what I…
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Sabbath Devotional :: “More Love”
There is a lot of talk lately about polarization and tribalism. The danger of fracture and schism feels immediate and frightening. Yeats’ oft-cited lines ricochet in my head almost daily. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” But it turns out that Yeats’ poem, published in 1920, was voicing a timeless sentiment. Another of my favorite poems, John Donne’s Anatomy of the World voiced a similar lament in 1619: And new philosophy calls all in doubt,The element of fire is quite put out,The sun is lost, and th’earth, and no man’s witCan well direct him where to look for it.And freely men confess that this world’s spent,When in the planets…
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Sabbath Devotional :: “Don’t let Perfect be the Enemy of Good” and Unwritten Stories
“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” It’s not exactly what Voltaire said, but it is how it’s known in common parlance. What don’t we do because we think we need to do it perfectly? What don’t we do because we think it won’t be enough, won’t matter, won’t make a big enough difference, won’t be important enough? What don’t we do because we think somebody else could do it better? What don’t we do because somebody may criticize us, or shake their heads, or rebuke us? What good things aren’t we doing? I fight this fight more often than I’d like to admit. I’m not satisfied unless I…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Faith to Move Mountains
In President Nelson’s last conference talk, he said: “My dear brothers and sisters, my call to you this Easter morning is to start today to increase your faith. Through your faith, Jesus Christ will increase your ability to move the mountains in your life, even though your personal challenges may loom as large as Mount Everest. “Your mountains may be loneliness, doubt, illness, or other personal problems. Your mountains will vary, and yet the answer to each of your challenges is to increase your faith. That takes work. Lazy learners and lax disciples will always struggle to muster even a particle of faith. “To do anything well requires effort. Becoming…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Encountering my Brother at Crazy Horse Memorial
Sometimes to really see someone or something, we must look and see again in a repeating cycle until the real messages God intends for us finally penetrate into our hearts and minds. Just last week, during my return trip from the lakes of Nisswa, Minnesota back to Provo, Utah, I experienced a serendipitous moment of inspiration despite my strong desire to “just get back home” as quickly as possible. As we took our final glance up at the impressive gray faces of four US presidents carved into Mt. Rushmore, two of my kids continued to bicker while my mother gently suggested that we make just one more stop in the…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Some Anxious Thoughts about Juneteenth
I was thrilled to hear President Nelson mention Juneteenth in announcing the Church’s first small steps towards real partnership with the NAACP. I’m so glad that it will be a national holiday, a belated and partial acknowledgment of the horrors visited on our Black sisters and brothers for generations, a moment for those whose freedom was so late in coming to celebrate and be celebrated. I learned about Juneteenth embarrassingly late in life. And, truthfully, I think embarrassed is how I still mostly feel; the privileged ignorance of much of my life makes me ashamed. I don’t feel entitled to participate fully, or at least I don’t know how to…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Being Unmoored and the Lost Sheep
I have always loved anchors — the symbolism and the idea of being anchored to something. Of having something that will keep us secure despite all the winds and tempests. But lately, the word “unmoored” has been echoing in my head more and more. Unmoored means “not or no longer attached to the mooring.” A mooring is the chains or other material that keeps a boat securely fastened to the dock. (And that’s the extent of my very rudimentary shipping knowledge.) But in many ways, “unmoored” is a perfect word for the feeling I, too, often feel creeping in. And I see it reflected in those around me. We know…
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Are You Aware? Eyes That See
This is part II in our “Internalizing Empathy” Awareness Wednesday series. Christ described our eyes as the lamp of the body. How we see our world determines how we live, the path we choose, and how we spend our time. Empathy is developed through the lens we use to see those around us. A few years ago, one of our sons, Marshall, was diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. He would suffer in pain for several years, only to die young from his incurable condition. It was difficult to watch his struggles. It was not an obvious disability, and some thoughtless comments by others reminded me of the man born blind…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones
There are stories beneath our feet. Some are marvelous. Some are horrifying. Many are a mix of both. Here is what happens when we learn to unearth and examine them all. Walking the tree-lined streets of Bad Homburg, a suburb north of Frankfurt where my family and I have lived for many years, I sense daily the reverberations of stories beneath my feet. This happens in part by way of “Stolpersteine” (literally “stumbling stones”), the brass-covered, engraved blocks of cement cut the same size as surrounding cobblestones in between which these special markers are placed. Their location is significant: They point to the last residence of former locals who were…
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Are You Aware? A Work in Translation
This is part IV in our “The Latin Experience in the States” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. Earlier this month, I was in line at a food truck. In front of me was a young woman, about 15 years old, with her parents. As they stepped forward to order, I heard the young woman translate the menu for her parents from English to Spanish. In Spanish, she explained the menu choices and then proceeded to order for them. Watching as she helped her parents order food flooded me with memories of my own childhood. From an early age of 11 or 12, I did much…
