[baldzach]

Actually we’re missing part of the quote… the line that Rugen says just before the above-quoted: “Get some rest. After all, if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.”

I think I need some rest.

[baldzach]

Orson wrote:

I don’t know if this makes sense but it is what I have for now. This is where the rubber of the 11th article of faith meets the road.

Amen to that. I wish we as a church culture really did abide by that AofF. Peace, brother.

[baldzach]

mackay11 wrote:

Found Elder Callister’s article (p.44):

http://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/ensign-march-2014/2014-03-00-ensign-eng.pdf

I tried to read the article with an open mind:

Quote:

So it is with God our Father—He needs to speak only once on the issue of morality, and that one declaration trumps all the opinions of the lower courts, whether uttered by psycholo­gists, counselors, politicians, friends, par­ents, or would­be moralists of the day.

I bet there are hundreds of thousands of men of African descent that are grateful this isn’t actually true.

Also, from the article:

Quote:

Some would have us believe that the Church’s stand against same gender physical relationships is a temporary policy and not an eternal doctrine. Such a belief would be at odds with the scriptures, with the words of modern prophets, and with the plan of salvation

Again, I bet there are hundreds of thousands of men of African descent that are grateful that what was “at odds with the scriptures, with the words of modern prophets, and with the plan of salvation” is no longer the case.

Just my $0.02.

[baldzach]

mercyngrace wrote:

mackay11,

My thinking is that if we lived as we ought, we wouldn’t need a program to look after one another.

I usually tell a story to illustrate the point. My sister-in-law had three little girls when her fourth was born with down’s syndrome. There was no forewarning of the abnormality and she found out when the nurse laid the baby in her arms. It was a shock that began a period of constant adversity. Unlike her other children, this newborn would not sleep. She had trouble feeding. She cried almost round the clock for the entire first year. One morning, as my sister-in-law sat in her pajamas crying because she had reached her wit’s end, the phone rang. A sweet voice on the other end said, your name came to me when I prayed today. How can I help you? And help she did. She swooped in and gave my sister-in-law a much needed reprieve. No formal calling necessary.

And one from my own life. Our family was going through a soul-crushing period of adversity. I was home with our children. My husband was away. I was at my breaking point. It was Monday evening and I was skyping my sister. Feeling utterly alone and abandoned by God, my feelings spilled out as I tearfully wrote “I give up. I don’t think God even knows my address anymore.” I signed off to go downstairs and make dinner for the children. As I exited Skype the doorbell rang. It was my bishop. “I had a feeling as I was leaving work that I needed to stop by tonight. Is that okay? My family is out of town. Can I have FHE with you? I brought ice cream.” He held out the carton and I smiled wryly at God’s impeccable sense of timing. He didn’t just know my address, He knew my broken heart. This good brother had a calling but that’s not how he ended up at my door. This was the most humble, genuinely charitable, and concerned bishop I’ve ever known.

I wish I were half as inspired. I need a program, like a crutch, to keep me upright and moving forward. But I hope I never make the mistake of confusing the hobbling I do aided by a poor prosthetic with running full speed with two good legs to be the Lord’s hand and feet in this world. Our programs are so much less than our potential.

This is EXACTLY how I feel about Home Teaching. In one ward, I had a home teacher who was (and still is) one of my best friends. He is someone I would actually call at 3 a.m. if I needed a blessing. In 15 years of married life in the church (that is, on my own, not at parents, not in Single’s Ward, etc) that has never happened before or since. When a HT is there to “check the box”, even if with good intentions, the home teach-ee can feel it, and it doesn’t do anyone any good, other than the EQP who gets to report a better number.

[baldzach]

Heber13 wrote:

What I like about Curtis’ approach is that he acknowledges there are some parts of their talks he doesn’t agree with, and he can dismiss it and still focus on and find the parts of their talks that are really uplifting to him.

Its important to acknowledge that, I believe.

Its what I strive to do as well. I have more work to be better at it. Sometimes I tune out and use the smartphone as my preacher.

This is all any of us can do. I would even daresay that most/many “TBMs” do this as well. When it’s your neighbor/friend/fellow imperfect being giving a SM talk, it’s hard to take it as “gospel truth” (a term I’m growing to love the irony of, btw). When you apply Pres. Uchtdorf’s “church leaders make mistakes” axiom to General Conference talks, you can’t really accept everything therein as “gospel truth” either. We all have to take the uplifting and leave the depressing, especially for those that want to “stayLDS”.

[baldzach]

Orson wrote:

baldzach wrote:

I find that trying to put Him into my box of reasoning is very arrogant of me, somehow implying that I know how He should be treating me better than He does. …we will look back and it will make sense. We will see why we had to travel portions of the past alone without His help or His tangible presence. We will see how we were able to grow and stretch and change in those times, and how it actually worked for our good.

I do agree with that.

……

I feel a need however to clarify the personal experience that I referred to: When the topic IS faith, and the question is “do You exist?” at a critical moment in your life when a wise and loving God would surely know that a specific circumstance, event, sign, response or answer, however you want to word it — would result in the destruction of the prior view or hope of God; it then becomes virtually impossible to hold up the weight of that collapsing view by the force of your individual will alone. At some point, somewhere, you either find a trace of the evidence that you need …or you are left completely in the dark. I realize many members cannot even grasp the idea of complete darkness, because it is foreign to their experience.

…..

I will endlessly strive for the point that “God is in the reality” but I simply can’t go back to seeing God as the most loving being imaginable that is also capable of selective intervention; rewarding at times the undeserving while denying the pure and needy. That concept of God does not merit worship. My experience leaves me with the view that God cannot personally reach us with his own hand while we are on earth – much the way a parent cannot aid a child that is away, but we can sometimes “feel” the connection even though we are on our own. I believe in revelation and inspiration, as imperfect as our human translation may be.

Your latter paragraph above is what I meant by “trying to put Him into my box of reasoning is very arrogant of me, somehow implying that I know how He should be treating me better than He does.” At least, that’s how I have felt when making those same types of arguments. The “A just, all-knowing God wouldn’t ever (do, allow, permit, cause to happen, etc…)” argument is, to me, saying that I know better than the “just, all-knowing God” and I know what he should do or not do, etc. better than he does. I also hold the belief that he knows me and my circumstances even better than I do, and sees things ahead and behind and within me that I don’t see.

Anyway, that’s how I get through the day. YMMV.

[baldzach]

Don’t know if this will be helpful or not, but it’s my $0.02…

I believe in a God that is aware and loving, etc., and I believe that I don’t understand His ways or reasons. I find that trying to put Him into my box of reasoning is very arrogant of me, somehow implying that I know how He should be treating me better than He does. I believe that one day, in the next life, if you will — or maybe even one day in this one — we will look back and it will make sense. We will see why we had to travel portions of the past alone without His help or His tangible presence. We will see how we were able to grow and stretch and change in those times, and how it actually worked for our good.

Using some of our favorite LDS stories (historical or not), Jesus was abandoned by His Father exactly at his moment of greatest need. Joseph Smith cried out for the presence of God while in Liberty Jail, asking “How long wilt thou suffer…” The fact that in your experience He seems to have left you to figure some things out on your own may just indicate that you are on the verge of a watershed moment in your spiritual journey, if you just see it through a little. Remember, Jesus also let Peter begin to sink before He rescued him.

Don’t know if this helps, but this is what helps me get through times like you’re describing. God bless.

[baldzach]

Just a thought:

If the lion is going to lay with the lamb, then it’s probably not inconceivable that the mosquito shall lay with the human and shall eat straw like the ox…. Maybe? No? Reaching?

[baldzach]

I loved this post. I could have written it. He states exactly what my issues are now, and I love the parting comment:

Quote:

Isn’t it interesting that today’s challenge to our faith is coming directly from the church?

[baldzach]

This discussion begs the question:

What of the visitation (or vision?) of Christ at the Kirtland Temple in D&C 110? Actual visit, vision, neither, both?

[baldzach]

cwald wrote:

I pretty well disagree with every part of this article.

I think, if carried to far, all of these are valid reasons to leave your church.

I pretty much agree. On the other hand, it is nice to see that the attitudes of church leaders towards the activity level of their congregations isn’t an LDS-specific phenomenon.

[baldzach]

pentium3 wrote:

Iwhen we love Christ, we want to follow his example and we will naturally be more charitable, forgiving etc..

This! This! A thousand times, this!

We had ward conference today, and our SP said “We need to be obedient so the Atonement can work in our lives” or something to that effect. I had to bite my tongue! People, if you are obedient, you don’t NEED the Atonement to work in your life! The doctor came for the sick, the whole need no physician. Too many people, I think, are of the opinion that because they come to church, obey the WoW, pay tithing, etc., they’re “whole”. “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” not “If ye keep my commandments, then I know you love me.” Love Him first, and obedience (to Him, but that’s another can of worms entirely) will follow!

[baldzach]

I have a hard time interpreting any of this as “you’re a moral coward if you support SSM”… I just don’t see it.

[baldzach]

cwald wrote:

Actually, his entire talk was was about SSA and gay marriage, and the sacredness of marriage, and his message was that if you support SSM than you are bowing to the pressures of the world and are a moral coward. And that the church doctrine and position will never change because they are not moral cowards like I am.

IMO.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

The only time the words “moral coward” were used is in the paragraph and context I noticed above. A lot of people however are reading into it exactly what you mentioned. I’ve read the talk, and objectively, that is not what is being said.

Link to the full text of the talk:

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/no-other-gods?lang=eng” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/no-other-gods?lang=eng

[baldzach]

Ring ceremonies (in addition to, or after a temple wedding) are discouraged? That must be new(-ish).

In 2002, when my sister got married in the temple, her husband’s non-LDS (or inactive, not sure which) family obviously couldn’t participate in the sealing inside the temple, but they had a ring ceremony just before the reception that was presided over by the same man who sealed them, my uncle — a GA, then in the 70 Presidency, now a Q12.

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