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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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The Power (and Covenant) of Community
Do you ever get words stuck in your head? Or notice a specific word or concept popping up over and over? These last few weeks, “community” keeps working its way into my thoughts. Being physically separated or isolated from our communities right now, not able to “meet together oft” (3 Nephi 18:22), has made me think a lot about the importance and power of community. A few weeks ago, I watched Just Mercy and noticed how this theme weaves its way through the storylines. For the inmates who are physically cut off from the outside world and for their families and friends and neighbors trying to band together against the injustices…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Concentric Circles and Self-Care
“… and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death…” (Mosiah 18: 8-9). These are the covenants we make when we are baptized as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They can seem overwhelming, especially in this…
