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Sabbath Devotional :: The Beings I Love Are Creatures
This week’s devotional comes from Kate Holbrook, a beloved historian of Latter-day Saint women who passed away last week. It is a sermon she gave when she was moving away from Boston to Utah. I love her reminder that the fallenness of the world, our imperfection and fragility, are not only cause for sorrow, but also occasions for grace. “Our fragility is not a reason for us to despise each other, but it is the reason we must love each other, forgive each other, cling to each other. In this world of injustice, inadequacy and impermanence, I testify that Jesus lives, that He heals us, that He visits us in…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Be Still
I live by a lake. Like many bodies of water, its appearance is connected to the weather. On a sunny day, the lake is deep turquoise blue and very stunning. On cloudy days, it is faded blue or gray. And when it’s stormy, the movement of the lake makes it difficult to determine its color. As I drove home one winter day, I noticed the reflection — or image — of the nearby hills in the still water. I thought that it seems we only see the image of the hills when the water is especially still. Two scriptures immediately came to mind: “Be still, and know that I am…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Protection in Christ
Lately it feels like everything in my life is on fire. Simultaneously. Not a small brush fire here or there that needs a bit of quick attention and management, but frightening conflagrations that threaten to consume and destroy. There is a lot of fight and flight and not enough peace and quiet. And for me it means that feeling tired and unsettled is the default. In my more objective moments, I realize that some of this is just a feature of my personal phase of life, but there is also something else at play. So many others seem to feel the same, as if we are all being pushed to…
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Sabbath Devotional :: More Than One Story and Our Part In It
This weekend we honor and commemorate Pioneer Day in our church and for some, in our state. And for many, this commemoration can be much more complex than we sometimes make it. Pioneer Day seems to predominately celebrate those in the mid-1800s who migrated westward from the eastern United States or Europe to Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, and other states. We honor those who often saved and sold nearly everything they had to follow a prophet’s call to come build Zion and then to come west by handcart or wagon. Recently, the church has made great effort to acknowledge other types of pioneers — the pioneers of today who still…
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Sabbath Devotional :: On Patriotism
Ten years ago, my husband got a job teaching music in the Bronx. We packed up our four kids and took the scenic route from our home in Utah to New York state, where I had never been. As we followed the GPS, we drove into upstate New York from Pennsylvania, and I was awestruck by the beauty. I was also surprised by the emotion I felt. I felt as if I were coming home, to the place where I belong. I felt the spirit very strongly telling me that I was on sacred ground. Well, that made sense. Upstate New York is where Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Beautiful Things That Do Not Transform Us
Many of us recently read the story where the Israelites build a golden calf. Moses is up on the mountain talking with God and receiving God’s words for the people, and the Israelites are at the bottom of the mountain waiting for him to come back down. Or rather, they are sick and tired of waiting for him to come back: “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, ‘Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’” (NIV,…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Remember
Alma delivered a stirring sermon to the people of Zarahemla, consisting of dozens of questions: Have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? Can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? If ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now? (Alma 5) The questions have a single purpose that is summarized in verse 33. “Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Efforts in Peacemaking
The principles that anchor my own efforts and the work all of us do at MWEG are the Six Principles of Peacemaking, each so important and insightful that we probably aren’t supposed to have a favorite one. But over the last few years I’ve developed a love for the Third Principle: “Peacemaking demands great tolerance for people and none for injustice.” Having grown up in a family full of strong-willed relatives, I didn’t always have a “great tolerance for people,” and so I feel drawn to this idea because it has not been one of my strengths. But as I have become more involved in MWEG’s peacemaking efforts and through my…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Holy Time
There are lots of commandments I don’t especially enjoy, but I have been an enthusiastic Sabbath keeper for most of my adult life. In college, I enjoyed sanctifying my laziness by declaring that I wouldn’t do homework on Sundays, and I loved explaining (while wearing a black turtleneck, of course!) that I was being radically countercultural by refusing to participate in the capitalist economy for one day each week. When my children were small, Sunday sanctified my generally inept housekeeping and let me feel virtuous about putting them in front of a churchy video and taking a nap. But it was reading a sermon by the Jewish poet Maxine Silverman…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Musical Sighs, the Mercy of God, and Collective Redemption
Note: I gave this as a talk on Easter Sunday, but as I was working on it, I was also thinking about my MWEG sisters, so it was written for you as well. I made a few minor adjustments to turn it into a devotional, but it is mostly as I gave it two weeks ago in Omaha, Nebraska. Almost 300 years ago, on Good Friday 1727, in the town of Leipzig, Germany, there was a premiere performance of one of the greatest pieces of music ever written: “The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Evangelist Matthew.” The composer was Johann Sebastian Bach, a man whom we revere…
