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Sabbath Devotional :: Room in my Heart
In December 2016, two months after I began volunteering for Refugee Services of Texas, I saw an opening for a position teaching English to recently arrived refugees. I hadn’t worked outside the home in years, but felt teaching was part of God’s path for me. I never could have imagined how interacting with such an incredible group of people would change me. Making room in my heart for those who suffer unimaginable burdens has made a lasting impact on me, and I am forever grateful. A few days before class began, I received a list containing all my students’ names, ages, marital statuses, levels of education and countries of origin.…
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Immigration Information :: An Asylum Law Update
The Supreme Court recently allowed the Trump administration to prevent most Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the United States. Current threats to U.S. asylum law are complicated, but we feel compelled to make every effort to understand the issues. Because of the complexity of the matter, even this summary is lengthy. I strongly encourage everyone to read — in full — each source referenced here. Every link included in this summary provides more information and detail. Supreme Court Ruling in Barr v. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, issued Sept. 11, 2019 BACKGROUND: Asylum Law United States codified asylum law is that, “in general, any alien who is physically present…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Turning to the Hymns for Peace
I spent the last few years as a primary teacher. In addition to interacting with the sweet and adorable sunbeams, the calling meant that I spent a lot of my Sunday worship singing at church. While the children’s songs were often in so high a register that I could only squeak out a few of the notes, the messages of the songs and the enthusiastic singing of beautiful truths by my little primary friends provided profound and enduring lessons in the truths of the gospel. I felt so grateful that these little brothers and sisters were learning the pure truths of the gospel – that we are children of Heavenly…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Praying the Beatitudes
I have been using a scripture study practice called lectio divina to ponder the Beatitudes. (I learned about this practice from the podcast, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.) Recently, I studied Jesus’s saying, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” First I read the verse. Then I read it again, slowly, listening for the meaning that the Spirit might wish to impart to me. Then I reflected on the meaning that came to mind. I felt prompted to work for a better understanding of the phrase “pure in heart.” After consulting the concordance, I found that another way to understand “pure in heart” is “clear in…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Life is Life is Life
My daughter Eve and I found a tiny bird egg while digging underneath a Blue Spruce this week. She carefully rolled the white egg over in her small grubby hands, tenderly inspecting each minuscule speckle. Then looking to me for answers. She asked, “Where mommy-daddy bird go?” I could tell she was deeply troubled why the egg was all alone. I explained that the egg must have fallen from the nest and that the family must be somewhere high in the trees. She proceeded to line up the pine cones she had been playing with. Biggest cone became “daddy pine cone” with the slightly smaller pine cone as “mommy pine…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Following the Divine, Higher Law
In the time that I have spent advocating for more compassionate immigration reform, one counter- argument I have heard members of the Church use repeatedly is that our shared religious beliefs require a commitment to obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. As a student of both the law and the gospel, I see great wisdom in the 12th Article of Faith, but I have always been troubled by the implication that any ethical or moral failure — of an individual or society — is automatically excused or justified by strict adherence to the law. The argument is often used as a trump card of sorts to squelch thoughtful and nuanced…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Zion
I have a confession to make. I haven’t always been a fan of the notion of Zion. When I was younger, I thought Zion meant that we all had to be the same. You know, same heart, same mind. And I couldn’t bear the thought of all that sameness. I was, of course, mistaken. We don’t have to look beyond the natural world to recognize how much God values — delights in, even — diversity. As the Jesuit priest and poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote: Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Great, Spacious, Empty and Airborne
Recently, on an early spring evening, I found myself in the back of a van, craning my neck toward the dusty window to catch a final glimpse of a sprawling, hilly, mottled landscape. As the van spluttered and climbed the winding dirt road out of Cox’s Bazaar, the largest refugee camp in the world sheltering well over one million Rohingya, I glimpsed what our Bangladeshi humanitarian aid worker friends called the Tree of Hope. It stood alone on a knoll, a boney silhouette stretching its knobby arms over this hopeless panorama, this landscape of utter despair. REPURPOSING LEHI’S DREAM Lehi’s dream with its Tree of Life hovered close. (If you…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Grace
Growing up LDS in the mid-seventies and eighties, I don’t remember hearing much about grace at church. One of my first memories of learning about grace was when, as a sophomore in high school, I attended a Baptist service with a friend. The band (a band!), complete with bass guitar and drums, sang of grace like the rockstar doctrine it is. At the time, the spiritual concept of grace sounded about as foreign to me as the “ch-chch-ch, chch-ch, chch-ch — ting” of sticks against cymbals in church. It stands to reason that, for a time, the Church neglected grace. The concept of unconditional love and forgiveness seemed almost too…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Creation, Destruction, and Redemption
I was still reeling and in deep despair over the loss of a dear friend who had just been killed in a tragic car accident when I saw the news that Notre-Dame Cathedral was burning. The thought of more than 850 years of history, all of the meticulous efforts of thousands of unnamed builders and artisans, not to mention the 300+ years it took to grow the trees used as lumber for the original construction, all going up in flames sort of broke something in me. For a few weeks now, I have felt absolutely undone over the fundamental unfairness that it is so terribly, exhaustingly difficult to create and…
