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Sabbath Devotional :: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
July Fourth, at its best heart, should be a reminder to us all of the importance of liberty, equity, justice, and fairness for all. We have never achieved that type of society, but at its best roots and with some necessary pruning, July Fourth can and should be a day where we celebrate the change makers, dreamers, and advocates (past and present) who are working to help our societies fully realize and embody these ideals. I believe the best spirit of July Fourth is to lean into creating a better society for everybody, a society where everybody can fully show up and be treated with dignity. If we expand and modernize one line of…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Nature as Love
Every night before bed, my youngest kids ask me to sing “The Nature Song,” by which they mean “My Heavenly Father Loves Me.” I sing it mindlessly, tired after a long day of juggling all the things and with my attention already turned to what needs to be done by the next morning. My kids find comfort in being reminded of something I usually take for granted: that the world we live in is the literal manifestation of love. That beauty is the literal manifestation of love. Whenever I hear the song of a bird Or look at the blue, blue sky, Whenever I feel the rain on my face…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Bridging to Christ
Recently I was talking with a group of young people who are struggling to find any personal relevance in religion. All of them grew up in homes where their parents were believers and active members of the Church, and almost all of them have continued to be engaged with religious activities. For now, they are still showing up, but they just aren’t feeling connected, inspired or engaged. These are such good people, thinking deeply about what it looks like to live a life of meaning, and yet they are wrestling and weary. At the moment I mostly listened, but ever since, that conversation has been taking up a fair amount…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Remembering My Grandpas
I have two grandpas, which is not unusual. My Grandpa Christensen, who was born in 1918, lived about twenty minutes away from my childhood home. We saw him often. He and Grandma were over for every birthday and special event. They would also drop by our house, or we would go to their place several times a month. We never had especially long visits because Grandpa would get “nervous,” but the visits were frequent. Grandpa called us every morning before school. We’d pass the phone around to quickly say hello to him in between grabbing a piece of toast and teasing our bangs into a frenzy. Grandpa loved numbers. He…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Peacemaking Means Elevating, Not Shrinking
I recently gave a lesson on President Nelson’s talk on peacemaking. When I distilled the talk down to its heart, this is what I came up with: The invitation to become a peacemaker is an invitation for us to elevate ourselves, not an invitation to shrink ourselves. It’s an invitation to act courageously and boldly in creating a world where everybody is valued, where unity and justice abound, and love permeates everything and every heart. Being a peacemaker does not require us to hide ourselves or diminish ourselves in any way. Passivity is not a requirement to be a peacemaker, and bold action, when rooted in love, is not the…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Voiced Admiration
It’s a little nerdy to have a favorite gospel, but I do: I’ve been a huge fan of the book of Luke for a long time. Among the writers of the gospels, Luke is the renaissance man, he’s educated and artsy. His writing mentions women more than any other and his book is beautifully constructed to incorporate songs and praise rich in theology. Especially acclaimed is the song found in Luke 1:46-55. This famous passage is called the “Magnificat.” It is spoken from the viewpoint of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who says, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise
For Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness; her borders must be enlarged; her stakes must be strengthened; yea, verily I say unto you, Zion must arise and put on her beautiful garments. (Doctrine and Covenants 82:14) Back when I was formally studying things, I studied art history. This meant that for many years of my life (and for many years thereafter) I spent hours of every week looking at truly beautiful objects. The period and place of my focus meant that many of those beautiful things had originally been created as objects of devotion. As a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Twinned
I loved the emphasis on Palm Sunday and Holy Week in General Conference this year. Easter is too much to take in on a single Sunday! In most liturgical calendars, the anticipation of the resurrection begins many weeks before Easter (at the start of Lent) and the celebration of Easter continues until Pentecost, so this Sunday is the Third Sunday of Easter. The stories of Jesus’s appearances to his friends after the resurrection are some of my very favorites. Mary in the garden, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and Doubting Thomas. It is perhaps unsurprising that the slightly hard-hearted child of a physicist should be a bit of a skeptic,…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Suffer the Children
My brother and I served missions at the same time, even overlapping our MTC stay. I served in Australia: a wealthy country with established peace and safety. Jacob served in a different part of the world where he was exposed to extreme poverty and to regular violence. One of his first letters home included this little description titled “Kids.” It hurts me. Every time I see one searching through the garbage, it hurts me. I walk through town and they greet me in English — children no more than nine. They want to talk to me, touch me, a mzungu. “Pesa?” they ask, only knowing that I represent a wealth…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Easter Devotional
As I listened to Conference, one of the talks that resonated with me the most was Elder Juan Uceda’s. (The Lord Jesus Christ Teaches Us to Minister) In his talk, he referenced the parables in Luke 15 of the lost sheep, silver, and the prodigal son. He said: It appears that the Lord is teaching one unique lesson with three stories—stories that present different numbers: 100 sheep, 10 coins, and 2 sons. The key number in each of these stories, however, is the number one. And a lesson we might take from that number is that you might be an undershepherd for [many people], but you always, always minister to them, care for…
