-
Sabbath Devotional :: Alma and Amulek — Joining Together to Make a Difference
After serving as the chief law-giver and judge of the people for nine years, Alma the Younger became increasingly distraught with what he observed among his people. People were growing prouder and vainer, focusing more on “riches and upon the vain things of the world,” becoming “scornful, one towards another,” and persecuting those who believed differently. There were “great contentions among the people” as well as “envyings, and strife, and malice” — and this division, this conflict, this hate existed not only outside of the church but inside it as well, festering like a cancer among people who had outwardly professed to have adopted the doctrine of Christ. The “wickedness…
-
Sabbath Devotional :: Hang On
Hang on. It’s what you say to someone when you don’t want them to give up. “Hang on, I’m coming to help!” is a common thing women say, particularly to family members, or the related “Hang in there, it will be ok!” as we hug a friend when she is facing a situation that is particularly challenging. I’d better get this out in the open from the start: I am not a rock climber. I have never aspired to be although I harbor a definite admiration for those who love this challenging activity. What a rush it must be to scale solid rock and sheer cliffs and impossible overhangs using…
-
Sabbath Devotional :: Shared Breath
Today I am grateful for the many diverse voices that unite under the MWEG banner. I recorded this (below) in my journal after a meaningful experience with the high school choir I conducted a couple of years ago, but it applies equally to the transformative force of multiple voices joining as one for any just and good cause. There is power in shared breath. SHARED BREATH A single breathcan make thirty voices rise,building walls of soundthat swell upward from floor to ceiling,growing in intensity,then lapsing backward,gently,into the ground. Air circulates.Pulses relax.Eyes close. In.Out.In.Out. Thirty separate systemsof veins and valves and ventriclesare boundand free,arteries interlocking beneath the soil —a blood-and-breath defenseagainst…
-
Sabbath Devotional :: Harness the Power of Creation
“If there is anything lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things” (Articles of Faith). I’ve been thinking lately about the two driving forces in the world: the creative force and the destructive force. (We all know which eternal power represents which.) I conduct the choirs at a Title 1 (low-income) school, and many of my students are subjected daily to destructive forces at home and within their communities. They have parents that tear them down, peers that tear them down — a whole world, in fact, that seems bent on breaking instead of building them. It has been remarkable, then, to watch these students join…
