Sheep and Goats in a Pandemic

May 13, 2020 by

Sheep and goats in corrals. The Field Museum Library. No know copyright restrictions.

Yesterday my family and I took a bike ride to downtown Chicago. (Under Illinois’s stay-at-home order, biking for outdoor activity is an essential activity.)

It was stunning, in this usually-vibrant city, how empty the streets were. We passed a handful of people out for exercise, air, or to walk their dogs. The buses we passed, which should have been full to overflowing at rush hour, held a driver and one or two other people. The storefront businesses were dark, as billboards and electronic signs at bus stops reminded Chicagoans to stay home to avoid spreading Covid-19.

It occurred to me on that ride how hard it is to be truly Christian during a pandemic like this one. Not hard because our hearts are in the wrong place—I believe that everybody who’s sacrificing to protect the health and lives of their communities is being deeply Christian—but because being truly Christian requires physical communion. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Anciently Revealed, Current Events, Religion Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Temporal Urgency of Faith

April 4, 2020 by

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Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Introductory Note:  Several years ago during General Conference I started journaling the messages my soul most longed to hear.  I posted one of those last Conference.  I’m doing so again now.  This requires a suspension of disbelief:  it contains a mix of true and aspirational content, and is written as if I had been asked to speak during General Conference.  I do not purport to actually have any authority to speak on behalf of the Church. 

Faith without works is dead.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to cast our spiritual burdens upon the Lord, rely on the grace of his Atonement, and put our faith in him during adversity.  But the Gospel also preaches that our spiritual health is intertwined with the physical welfare of our neighbors.  Pure religion looks not just to eternity but to now.

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them:  ‘Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled’; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.  (James 2:14-17)

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Current Events, Doctrine & Policy, Economics, General Conference, Health & Medicine, Mormon, Religion, Theology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Psychology of the Good Samaritan

January 9, 2018 by

O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8).

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While attending a legal ethics seminar last Saturday, I surprisingly had the most spiritual moment of my year.  A speaker there relayed the story of From Jerusalem to Jericho, an (apparently famous, but I had never heard of it) psychology study from 1973.  (A more readable journalistic summary is here.)  The authors specialized in research regarding what conditions prompt bystanders to help ailing strangers, rather than to ignore them.

The set-up was simple. At Princeton Theological Seminary, 40 theology students were assigned to prepare lectures as part of a final exam.  The exam occurred in a tight time frame: in 15-minute increments, instructors told individual students they needed to either leisurely wend their way across campus, or rush across campus, in order to make it to the building where their graded lecture would be recorded.  Half of the students were specifically assigned to speak on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

But the lecture wasn’t the real test.  The real test was that as they darted across campus, each student would encounter a sick and distressed man, lying in their path. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Doctrine & Policy, Mormon, Scriptures, Theology, Theology, Doctrine & Policy Tagged With: , , , ,

LDS Hurricane Relief

September 10, 2017 by

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September 1992. Hurricane Andrew hit Florida. I was a little girl in Sarasota. I remember the tense days as the Weather Channel blared, my mom charted the Hurricane’s course by hand, the city boarded up windows, and we prepared to evacuate. We knew the Category 5 Hurricane was headed straight to Florida, but we didn’t know quite where.

Andrew’s wrath ultimately missed my city (Sarasota) — but struck a few hours Southeast, just south of Miami. Once the storm passed, my dad loaded up a station wagon with power tools and a generator from his construction job. (“Everyone always forgets, after a disaster, that there will be no power outlets to recharge their tools,” he said.) My mom coordinated supply and distribution of water, milk and diapers. And then a convoy of adults from my stake decamped to Miami to provide relief. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Current Events, Mormon Tagged With: ,

If she asks for tacos, give a salad?

August 8, 2017 by

“Ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.  Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent…For behold, are we not all beggars?”  (Mosiah 4 16:19)

Lived Christianity is … difficult.  In a multitude of everyday encounters, I either genuinely don’t know, or my natural instinct is not to follow, how Christ would act.

I’ve dubbed these my moral “dilemmas of the day.”

Take yesterday.  The poor often congregate near where I work.  My office is in a gentrifying area — upscale cafes serving business professionals are popping up next to downtrodden public housing and shelters.  Nearly every day, someone asks me for help.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Religion Tagged With: ,

Airing My Dirty Laundry

July 22, 2017 by

[B]y love serve one another.  For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”  Galatians 5:12-13

Our Sacrament Meeting theme last week was on service.  The Primary President spoke about how her summer enrichment with her kids has been setting a goal to serve others every day.  She spoke about how opportunities appeared as they sought them, describing with amusement the giggles of her children as they concocted a plan to stealthily pay for the car behind them in a fast food drive-through.

The high counselor then related an old Clay Christensen story, where Clay had discovered one summer day that an elderly woman in his ward had an ancient iron fridge in her basement filled with rotting food.  So Clay, as a good home teacher, took it upon himself to dispose of the fridge – and invited a neighbor to help.  As they’re dying in the heat, halfway up the stairs, the neighbor asks, “Clay, could you tell me a little bit about the Mormon Church?” And Clay said, “Don, frankly, this is the Mormon Church, right here.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Relief Society Tagged With:

Celebrating Dr. King

January 18, 2016 by

 

martin-luther-king“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Two years ago, as part of the Mormon Lectionary Project, John offered us a remembrance of and a powerful sermon on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.[fn1]

Today is, again, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And, while I can’t add to what John said, or make it more powerful, I can offer this quick reflection:  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Holiday, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , ,

As a Little Child

November 15, 2015 by

Elijah (age 4) is one of the blog’s younger friends. He likes Star Wars, superheroes, and Thelonious Monk. He gave this talk in Primary today. We share it with his (and his parents’) permission.

When we serve others, we serve God. Serving other people means being nice to them. When people are sad or lonely, I can be their friend. I can be silly to help them be happy. When they fall down and are bleeding, I can get them a band-aid. I can give people hugs when they need them, or I can share my stufties* to help them feel better. If someone is being left out, I can ask them to play with me. We should love others. That is part of God. Jesus would help people who are left out or alone. That is important! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

*stuffed animals

Filed Under: Primary Tagged With: , , , ,

At the Feet of Christ

September 30, 2015 by

We’re glad to feature another guest post by Ashley Mae Hoiland. See her first post here.

When I was in high school, I was compelled by internal forces to spend a good amount of time celebrating birthdays of people I hardly knew. I spent many nights baking cookies, painting small cards with notes and putting together assortments of birthday packages from treasures I found in my room. Like my mom, I remember dates and people very well, and I was astute in garnering birthday knowledge from kids across the social spectrum.

The only problem was that I would often get too shy to actually deliver the gifts in person, so I also spent a lot of time devising plans to leave the goods on desks before class, strung up to lockers and given through another friend. I was dogged in my efforts, despite the uncomfortable position it often put me in. A lot of these kids I didn’t know well: many of them were the social hang-ups, the kids who did not climb the rungs of high school sociality with ease. For some reason I still cannot fully explain, I felt responsible for helping them to know that someone was celebrating their birthday.

I laugh when I tell these stories now, but partly, I am entirely intent on returning to this place of intuition—this place where I did not question the absurdity of what the spirit compelled me to do, and because I didn’t question, my life was replete was quiet moments of connection and joy that would have otherwise not have happened. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Anciently Revealed, Mormon Tagged With: , , , ,

Living Theology: Lowell L. Bennion

February 21, 2015 by

Where to start with Lowell Bennion, a man whose virtues almost defy enumeration? Best, perhaps, to follow his own example and cut to “the weightier matters.” [1] Although he was a theologian, teaching thousands of students in his decades as director of the Salt Lake City Institute that religion should involve the mind and the spirit (a message distilled into his classic book Religion and the Pursuit of Truth), Bennion’s greatest theological impact came from how he lived his life, inspired by these favorite words from Micah: “what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon Lectionary Project Tagged With: , , ,

Establishing the Relief Society, Establishing the Church

September 15, 2011 by


In 1995 Leah and Kharine were baptized in Moscow, Russia. Leah was from the Republic of Georgia and Kharine was from rural Armenia. Each sister returned home to her native country soon after her baptism. Leah was the first and only Georgian member; Kharine, the first in her region. Leah and Kharine’s stories aren’t that unusual to other stories from around the globe. Because I am most familiar with Russia and Eurasia, for the sake of this discussion my examples will continue to be from that region of the world.

Though the church did have a presence in Armenia, Kharine did not read the dialect of Armenian excerpts of the Book of Mormon had been translated into, and could not easily maintain contact with members in Yerevan because of distance once she returned home. The church did not (and still does not to my knowledge) have an established presence in Georgia.

As membership grow in different regions of the globe, Area Presidencies formally organize the members into a Group—kind of the pre-cursor to a Branch. It is my understanding that this entails the presence of men as priesthood holders so there can be a designated ‘Group Leader’. However new converts are most often women. Sisters living far from the organized church are isolated, and often feel lonely and less important in the church. They may not be sure of their place in the church. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon Tagged With: , ,

A Chieko Okazaki Sharing Time Lesson

July 4, 2010 by


Continuing with the theme of how awesome I am at my callings, I thought I would share one of the more successful Sharing Time lessons I’ve done in my current calling in the Primary presidency.

The theme for Sharing Time was “Family members have important responsibilities” (last year’s program). I was to do a week on mommies’ responsibilities, a week on daddies’ responsibilities, and a week on kids’ responsibilities to the family. Sis. Okazaki gave a great talk about the Japanese word kigatsuku, which means being aware of one’s surroundings and doing good without being asked, which fits perfectly with kids’ responsibilities in the family.
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Filed Under: Children, Family, Mormon, Women Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,