Too much to ask?

From time to time, as I struggle through a little something or other, I think ever so briefly to myself, “This is one of those times when it would be nice to have a companion.” Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m fairly accustomed to doing everything on my own, and I’d love the opportunity to do an awful lot of things for someone else. I’m intensely mindful of one of those constant teachings from President Hinckley: “If every husband and every wife would constantly do whatever might be possible to ensure the comfort and happiness of his or her companion, there would be very little, if any, divorce” (Ensign, Nov. 2004, 84). I’ve already experienced a very negative relationship which was so lopsided in the giving that when the giver (namely, me) finally lapsed, however briefly, into resentment, that spelled the rapid demise of the entire unstable thing! Hence #7 on my Dating Bill of Rights, from which I quote a portion: “In far too many cases I end up bending over backward too long, though I hesitate to surrender this way of thinking for fear that it would make me uncharitable. I begin to notice much sooner, however, when someone is taking without giving.”

Surely I wouldn’t be so brazen as to say such needy thoughts spring to mind nearly every time I attempt to prepare a meal for myself! ;-) (I suppose the true effort goes into getting it down and keeping it down.) In cases like that, how much easier to learn it yourself, and then have something to offer another, right? But, yes, how can I deny that sometimes the little things call this to mind even more than the big reasons that I successfully keep at bay? For instance, it sure would be nice to have someone color coordinate my socks. I still can hardly tell the difference between black and dark blue, and my suspicions are high that I’m inept at other matching as well. I also wish I had help almost every time I run two loads of laundry in a time pinch, and have to tote it all between Lehi (my place) and Provo (my place of choice). (Yeah, I live in two places in order to just barely meet my social needs. What of it?) It really is funny watching me try to fold things that are longer than I am tall and lug around huge laundry bags that thump my ankles. Or staring at all the furniture I have to move for a mop job.

More shockingly, what about a simple rub once in a blue moon? No, I’m not soliciting that from anyone. The other week apparently I somehow let it drop in casual phone conversation with my mother that I hadn’t had a genuine rub in a very long time. (I almost conned a back rub out of my little nephews once, but their attention span’s too short.) Then this Monday I ended up taking time off work in anticipation of my parents arriving in town on a brief visit. I was a tad sick and achy, so I fell asleep on my sofa. I faintly heard my father calling at me to wake up, and then my mother hushing him and saying, “This is how you do it.” She proceeded to rub my feet. Yet one more in a vast multitude of reasons my heart overflows with gratitude toward my dear mother.

One prayer attributed to Elder James E. Talmage exhibits the universality—and correctness, at least in part—of these desires:

Lord, Thou knowest that I have very few acquaintances among the young women of Zion, and Thou hast full knowledge of them all. Guide me to her who is meant to be my help-meet in life. (John R. Talmage, The Talmage Story: Life of James E. Talmage—Educator, Scientist, Apostle [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1972], 68)

Now if you’ll please bear with an unusual unveiling of my own feelings, little changed over the course of six years, I promise it’ll all prove relevant to my points. From my journal entry, August 20, 2002:

I’m not seen as one of the guys in the fullest sense of the word—and I’m also not fooled by [some] people’s lame attempts to say that’s because they respect me so much above most people. If such be true, it is better to be loved than respected! A member of the bishopric for my Budge Hall ward once hugged me and said he’d always had a kind of special love for me. That apparently only extends so far in various spheres, since I stood by him at a reunion as he told someone else they should date his daughter, since she’d asked him if there were any good men in his ward. . . .

A couple of months ago I thought to myself that I was “friends with all, but close to none,” which proves strikingly similar to something President Hinckley wrote in his recent book about being friendly to all but cautious of personal association. . . .

I’m not obligated . . . to take the first person or first few people who demonstrate interest. . . . I will want to be with someone and she will want to be with me. Certainly not too much to ask! . . . But I return to my now-prudent stance. It is insufficient for me to find girls I’d like to be with, and hope. The obstacles are insurmountable. I only pray that God will send me some to choose from, and He’s fully aware of whom I could feel drawn to.

The quotation from President Hinckley?

Everybody wants friends. Everybody needs friends. No one wishes to be without them. But never lose sight of the fact that it is your friends who will lead you along the paths that you will follow. While you should be friendly with all people, select with great care those whom you wish to have close to you. They will be your safeguards in situations where you may vacillate between choices, and you in turn may save them. . . .

There they are, nine Be’s which, if observed, will bring handsome dividends to any young man or woman. . . . They will bring you friends of your own kind. They will protect you from associations that would pull you down and deflect you from your course. (Way to Be! [New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2002], 48, 123)

In curious ways, my abnormal height (or lack thereof) has stripped me of the initiative that is ordinarily the man’s in dating. Once, when someone challenged me to start sitting beside girls who were alone in church meetings, I startled them by countering that I’d thought about it, but it was a nicer favor for me not to put them in that awkward position. He raised his eyebrows at this, but perhaps my dear readers will believe me when I say that I could fill volumes on how I’ve activated the fight or flight response in women socially.

Anyway, along different lines, there may be a girl upset with me right now because I haven’t seized hold of her advances. I sought objectively to give her the chance that I seldom get, and have learned all that I needed to. Laughably, I recollect a girl in a long-ago ward who certainly treated me coldly for doing nothing at all other than a nicer version of what’s playing out all the time. I look on almost dispassionately, capable of saying from a deep, dark well of experience that we all get our turn(s) at rejection. I have this very odd hankering to be able to say something akin to (and pardon the blasphemy, as it’s being wrested from context), “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:16). And naturally I’d like fairly rapid reciprocation. :-) Once I asked a girl out and she queried, presumably in a complimentary fashion—and I do know more about our prior and subsequent interaction than you do—why I’d chosen her out of all the girls. I came home and wrote, “Because I wanted to, that’s why!”

For more spiritual thoughts on seeking companions, here’s a source which I gather from my garbled notes may also be contained in Robert K. McIntosh, How Do You Know When You're Really in Love? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 2000], 30-31:

Many years ago while serving as a full-time missionary, I had the privilege of meeting Elder Bruce R. McConkie. He was a new General Authority and had come to tour our mission. My companion and I were assigned to drive him from Missoula to Butte, Montana. As we talked along the way, one of us asked him, “How can we know whom we should marry?” To our surprise, his response was quick and certain.

He asked us to turn to the 88th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, 40th verse, which reads: “For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.”

We showed some consternation. Elder McConkie explained to us that if we were men who loved the truth, we would be attracted to others who loved the truth. If we were men of virtue, we would attract others who were virtuous. If we loved light and justice and mercy, we would be attracted to a person who loved these qualities. He then said, “If you are men who love truth and virtue, go and find a young lady with these attributes, and then proceed to fall in love.” (L. Aldin Porter, CES Young Adult Fireside, 13 Sep 1998)

I narrowly escaped having as mother-in-law someone who did not value truth and virtue, indeed, was also impossibly unfair. She sat down with her daughter to have a long talk about what she assumed she wouldn’t have if she happened to have the misfortune of marrying me. That reminds me—um, only by slight comparison—of the battle waged against the future Elder Mark E. Petersen for other largely irrelevant circumstances over which he had no control, who was forced to wait out on the porch for his date (Peggy Petersen Barton, Mark E. Petersen: A Biography [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1985], 62). Much, much later, his mother-in-law “often, while speaking of him, . . . would say that although he was an apostle, he definitely had some improvements to make . . .” (Ibid., 93).

By contrast, I often reflect with delight on Elder McConkie’s courtship. Very early on, his future father-in-law, President Joseph Fielding Smith, became one of his greatest advocates. Amelia’s parents were favorably impressed when Bruce departed early on Saturday in order to be properly prepared for the Sabbath the following day. These days sometimes I wonder if there aren’t many Joseph Fielding Smiths around to approve, or Amelias either, for that matter. For one instance, my strong views on the Sabbath, intended for my own life and benefit, have alienated me and even drawn some abuse in one ward. They’ve theoretically lost me opportunities now in yet another, simply because I choose to reallocate frivolous socializing time from Sunday to any other day, when for some reason the Sabbath has become the day most used to advantage to further flirtatious interests (and I don’t mean in the “proper courtship” manner referred to by the Brethren). I can follow edifying conversation and videos, but not frolicking. Somehow declining on Sunday is often viewed as an affront, worthy of ostracization the remainder of the week.

I try not to sorrow over the cost of this and many other things, but the apparent scarcity of opportunity within my desires. Even if subject to pain and death, at the heights of discipleship one should only sorrow for the sins of the world (see 3 Nephi 28:9). In furtherance of developing the appropriate friendship theme:

I want to acknowledge to the brethren and sisters that my obedience to the laws of the Church has never been a drawback to me in my life; and I want to testify, upon the other hand, that it has been a strength and a power to me, and I have never lost a friend that was worthy of being a friend, from living as near as I could to the requirements of the gospel. (Reed Smoot, CR, Oct. 1916, 39)

To enhance its pertinence:

Remember, my young brethren and sisters, you will never have an occasion to be embarrassed—among people of character, people who count, real men and women—because you live according to the standards, the teachings, and ideals of the Church. (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 461)

Setting aside all that trivial talk in the very beginning, what’s number one on my list of things it would be nice to have? A confidante. When I say this, I mean someone capable of caring, cheering, contributing, correcting. And I don’t hold any minor definition of capability there. Is it too much to ask for such that arises naturally from an equal participant in a shared future, shared aspirations—someone hoping to give no less than I also wish to give for the kingdom of God? I’m reminded of a returned missionary I asked out on the strength of a tearful testimony that she’d do anything for the gospel; I was content to let the date die its usual fate, and quit trying to put myself forward, when she managed to offhandedly disclose within thirty minutes that she had absolutely no testimony of visiting teaching.

As it is, the thoughts running through my head reverberate like thunder, but I can seldom release more than about 25% of them. Also...can I be taken care of? Just a little? Every now and then, on a little selfish whim? But nobody get any ideas that I’m vulnerable! You’ll not be seeing my soft side!! ;-) To make this more poignant, I’m listening to Richard Marx’s “Hold on to the Nights.”

And one good yardstick as to whether a person might be the right one for you is this: in her presence, do you think your noblest thoughts, do you aspire to your finest deeds, do you wish you were better than you are? (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 546)

I’m playing(?) for keeps here, as with everything else I undertake! I have to confess that at various times the dating scene has managed to make me feel petty, sad, upset, jealous, demeaned, daydreamy, even condescending or bored myself, in the presence of women. But that’s not the right idea. All my noblest thoughts and finest deeds have been on my own, which is definitely not to say I’m all that fine and noble...just that I have yet to experience inspiration from an earth-based source. ;-) (At one time in my life I was pressing forward in spite of, and not because of, someone.) Is that too much to ask for? My faith and confidence in the Lord lead me to exclaim, “No. It isn’t!”

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28)

Evidently nearly the whole of the American nation! During these troubled financial times, I perceive a clear lesson in consequences. What’s more, I believe things will only be worse for longer if we don’t let tribulation do her work (see Romans 5:3, and think about the gimme attitude of this generation). I’m not altogether laissez faire about government, but there are many reasons that their assumption of so much of the financial sector would simply be perilous.

For one, that might be considered something of an enabling/facilitating gesture, whereby the same people and habits that got us into this mess may repeat their futile, self-serving measures—only the next time around, our economy will be even more fragile. It’s like the levees around New Orleans; my brother-in-law, an engineer, saw them long before the disaster struck, and he could have told anyone then that they were in terrible condition. Yet the corruption of local government prevented anything from being done, what with the way they divert money. Even so with our national economy; we certainly shouldn’t restore things just the way they were, even if we could. (What went on behind those downed levees was also an interesting glimpse into the depths of depravity in human nature. By the way, you needn’t tell me how many spiritual lessons could derive from strengthening retaining walls and the like.) This is a fine time for the reeducation of our people in fundamental principles of living and, sadly, experience may be the best teacher.

In thinking of homes and teetering fund structures, I’m reminded of a story that helps to illustrate how we got where we are (in many respects). The question isn’t so much who’s footing what bill as to mourn lost opportunities and think seriously about where we went wrong.

A story is told about a young builder who had just gone into business for himself. A wealthy friend of his father came to him and said: “To get you started right, I am going to have you build a house for me. Here are the plans. Don’t skimp on anything. I want the very finest materials used and flawless workmanship. Forget the cost. Just send me the bills.”

The young builder became obsessed with the desire to enrich himself through this generous and unrestricted offer. Instead of employing top-grade labor and buying the finest materials, he shortchanged his benefactor in every way possible. Finally, the last secondhand nail was driven into the last flimsy wall, and the builder handed over the keys and bills, totaling over a hundred thousand dollars, to his father's old friend. That gentleman wrote a check in full for the structure and then handed the keys back to the builder. “The home you have just built, my boy, is my present to you,” he said with a pleasant smile. “May you live in it in great happiness!” (Joseph B. Wirthlin, Finding Peace in Our Lives [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1995], 209-210; also in Ensign, May 1982)

Again, like knowledge, responsibilities must sometimes be acquired slowly. Among other things, this increases our appreciation for it, our deserving of it, and our understanding of each constituent truth.

It is not wisdom that we should have all knowledge at once presented before us; but that we should have a little at a time; then we can comprehend it. (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 268)

Sometimes we must recoil in frustration repeatedly, returning each time determined to learn and to DO what it takes to master something. The Mediator does not deprive us of such growth, but has ordained—indeed, we might say, established—the path which must be followed on fixed principles. I often reflect that this is one of those areas in which mercy simply cannot rob justice, for we must do, and we must do with real effort, if we are ever to become. (Such as a popular story among the Brethren, linked here.)

In the most straightforward spiritual terms:

No thing worth while is obtained in this life without sacrificing, without putting forth effort. The evil one thrusts things upon us but God asks us to reach out and get that which he offers. “Teach self-denial,” says Walter Scott, “and make it pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.” (David O. McKay, CR, Oct. 1929, 12)

Financial publications hint left and right that the American standard of living should have fallen years ago, but has been kept up through grossly inflated measures, including poor extension of credit. Clearly the market is simply assuming its actual values. Perhaps the time has arrived for us to take the pinch, to cinch the belt; I’m personally willing to take the hit so far as I have some assets in the market, in preference to weakening our country monetarily for the next round, which will hit back even harder in collapse. I’d rather lose some money now with our country righted on a natural foundation, than see our currency become totally meaningless down the road. As it is now, we are merely a contender in the global market, not the same force to be reckoned with that we once were. (Have you seen our GDP in historical comparisons lately? If that’s not a warning sign of the beginning of a “fall from grace”...)

I’m thinking of a medieval bishop who had some mixed-up priorities. His was also the fast life, refusing to “settle” for the more mundane existence of peaceful contentment.

. . . this aristocratic young tearaway (he is described as arrogant, headstrong, insolent, greedy, and none too bright) had seen military service with the papal mercenaries against Milan in the war of 1369, with the result that the pope appointed him bishop of Norwich the following year, 1370, at the age of twenty-six. . . . He was sentenced to lose the profits from his expedition and was deprived of the temporalities—that is, the income—of his see. . . . Richard II himself appears to have offered Despenser the prospect of quick re-employment if he would learn his lesson and become an obedient royal servant. . . . For the remaining twenty years of his life he enjoyed himself and his reputation as the martial bishop (episcopus martialis), fortifying his manor houses, hunting Lollards, quarrelling vigorously with his cathedral chapter and the East Anglian towns, and making a collection of metrical romances and prophecies. He was, on the whole, a happy bishop, and when he died, in 1406, he was still repeating his favourite text: “The earth is the Lord’s...”, and I want it. (Michael Wilks, Wyclif: Political Ideas and Practice, ed. Anne Hudson [Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2000], 258, 270)

Yes, the earth is the Lord’s. This calls to mind a subtopic I never got around to mentioning in very pertinent connection with a lesson on Section 76 this Sunday: the law of the harvest. We must remember who is really the Lord of the vineyard (in so many senses we are the crop, and it’s up in the air whether we’re the cream of the crop), and on what terms He employs His servants. The parable of the talents teaches us of His appearance of hardness to the wicked (Matt. 25:24; compare the whole with 1 Nephi 16:1-2), reaping where He has not sowed, and reminds us that in this field of the world—where the harvest is great and the laborers few—we are expected to sow, and yet all that we sow is in the end but a gift from above. Then there’s the matter of reaping, which can be a fearful matter (see Galatians 6:7-9; Mosiah 7:30; D&C 86:5-6, with Jacob 5:65). Alma 9:28, 41:12-15, and 2 Corinthians 9:6 correlate nicely to doctrines on the resurrection, leading to this relevant point (from a highly relevant article), from the October 2003 Ensign:

Faithfulness, even to what we feel are the hard doctrines, is a quality the Savior encouraged in His disciples. However, Jesus also wanted them to understand that pleasing the master was more than just a work ethic. He taught them that it was also a matter of the heart and their relationship with their heavenly Master. . . .

We are indebted to God for our very lives. When we keep His commandments, which is our duty to do, He immediately blesses us. We are therefore continually indebted and unprofitable to Him. Without grace, our valiance alone cannot save us.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has written regarding this parable:

“God’s generosity [or grace] toward us is not to be expressed by the dilution of the demands of duty that He lays upon us. Where much is given, much is expected—not the other way around. Nor is divine generosity to be expressed by a lessening of God’s standards concerning what is to be done. Rather, when much is given and much is done by the disciple, then God’s generosity is overwhelming!

“When we have given and done our all, we will one day receive ‘all that [our] Father hath’ (D&C 84:38). Therein lies God’s generosity. When we do our duty, He is bound—and gladly bound.”

It is high time for us as a nation to inculcate forgotten virtues, to replace the demand of entitlement with the supplication of humility, to remember that we are all beggars before God lest, or even if, He should compel us to be beggars on earth. Strident voices are calling at present for allocated money to be earmarked for distribution to taxpayers. I fail to see much distinction between Wall Street and Main Street...both sought to become the thoroughfare of Easy Street.

I would do nothing to encourage further growth of our welfare state: right now, the only thing that is owed anyone would be explanations and apologies, not more handouts or bailouts. Many need to learn that redistribution of taxed funds is either theft or a paltry substitute for keeping it in their pockets in the first place. Or is it—and I don’t say this as a privileged yuppie—merely the desire for those who pay the least taxes to enrich themselves at others’ expense? For the widow to cast in her mite and then lay claim to the whole pot, as though the blessings are here upon the earth? Those who eagerly insist on their inheritance early (something like the prodigal son) have their reward here in this life, indeed, and a shortage of treasure in heaven (see Matthew 6:20, of course, and D&C 6:33, 59:23).

I wish I weren’t too tired to actually fill in the scriptural framework here. But I must make an end. Some of the saddest, but truest, contemporary commentary:

Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!

Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands!

But blessed are the poor who are pure in heart, whose hearts are broken, and whose spirits are contrite, for they shall see the kingdom of God coming in power and great glory unto their deliverance; for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs.

For behold, the Lord shall come, and his recompense shall be with him, and he shall reward every man, and the poor shall rejoice;

And their generations shall inherit the earth from generation to generation, forever and ever. (D&C 56:16-20)

“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36; see Mosiah 4:30 and 1 Nephi 10:20)

Something happened yesterday that determined, once and for all, that this entry would come into being. I’d been debating about composing something of a, shall we say, lighter nature. In hindsight, I might regret it. :-)

1. Eastern exposure
I’d come back from church to this hotel room in Baltimore and was sort of between changing out of my Sunday apparel. I leaned over to check my e-mail on this laptop and—voila—heard somebody speaking from within my doorway. I peeped this little, “Oh, my!” and dove between the table and television stand. I could hardly believe it when the maid continued conversing with me, standing completely inside my room. (It had never occurred to me that well after 4:00 in the afternoon on Sunday, I needed to put out the “do not disturb” sign.) So there I was, down to my skivvies, feeling like I was in some kind of crisis negotiation, peeking my head around and calling out responses. Eventually she went away with the promise to return in 15 minutes. Needless to say, I cleared out of there.

That reminds me of a (totally clean) joke, which you will kindly access by clicking on this link.

2. Oops...let me see YOUR scriptures
On Thursday, I came across something that set my mind in motion for preparing a new blog entry. 1 Peter 3:15 is supposed to say:

Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

Imagine my surprise when I read the version printed (obviously in error) in Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s Meek and Lowly, p. 83 (emphasis added):

Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and rear.

That’s one irreverent way of presenting the gospel!!!! At least there’s some sort of basis for shaking off the dust of feet. ;-)

So in this shocking departure from my norm, I’ll share other fondly humorous memories. For instance, I once reviewed a manuscript which mentioned eternal covenants formulated in our “premoral” existence. I’ve witnessed an elders quorum instructor who said he'd hoped “to get away from the scriptures and just open it up for discussion.” And I've long believed that Abinadi was the world's worst "secret" agent (see Mosiah 12:1 and think about how he announces his presence), though certainly among the best public agents.

I’m reminded also of the 1631 Bible misprint which resulted in one of the Ten Commandments urging its readers, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” (My sister remarked that U.S. President Clinton must have taken his oath of office on that one. Ironically, his verse selection was Galatians 6:8: “For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”)

Many years ago I sent out this thought for my daily quote:

bibliomancy.

This is the name given to the practice of opening the Bible and reading a passage at random. Some people do this when they are looking for guidance in life. It is a foolish way to use the Bible. (After all, a person considering suicide might open to the passage that says, “Judas went away and hanged himself.”) (J. Stephen Lang, 1,001 Things You Always Wanted to Know About the Bible but Never Thought to Ask [Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1999], 369)

Consider George Q. Cannon, CD, 2:205 if taken out of context like this: “The only cause for fear we have is of there being a lack of beets.”

3. Life, seriously
In the past month I’ve been chided gently, almost unconsciously, by three different people for seeming too somber. My initial response is to beg others to believe that this is a mistaken appearance, one that I will try to improve upon. Yet I must confess that I find life a serious thing, something to treat earnestly. Here is but one scriptural charge that doesn’t leave much room for careless “me” time:

Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore. (Moses 5:8)

Honest belief in this mandate will materially affect how, why, what, when, and where we are amused, not that it’ll preclude laughter altogether, by any means. I think of Hugh B. Brown’s sobering message:

A great deal of the Christian religion of the world touches the lives of men at distressingly few points. We believe, with [Elton] Trueblood, that that religion is most potent and most effective which touches the lives of men redemptively at most points, which affects the lives of men, how they live and love and work and die. Religion should be a vital part of everything we think and do. (“Search For God,” BYU Speeches of the Year, 13 Nov 1956, 6)

This gospel is an intimate thing. It is not some distant concept. It is applicable in our lives. It can change our very natures. (Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Nov. 2003, 103)

One could spend much time in contemplation of the nature of sacrifice being discussed, but Lecture Six of the Lectures on Faith clearly points to an ongoing system of sacrifice, and not one gigantic acquiescent moment of a future day (though that too may come). The following excerpt is strung together from an online Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Didn’t I say I’m out of town, and unfortunately have no access to my books? I’m confined to what I can find on the Internet, remember, or happen to have already typed into my database.

It is essential for any person to have an actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing is according to the will of God to enable him to have that confidence in God without which no person can obtain eternal life. 4. Such was and always will be the situation of the Saints of God. Unless they have an actual knowledge that the course they are pursuing is according to the will of God, they will grow weary in their minds and faint. 7. Let us here observe that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation. For from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things. It is through this sacrifice, and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life. And it is through the medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God. 12. But those who have not made this sacrifice to God do not know that the course which they pursue is well pleasing in his sight. For whatever may be their belief or their opinion, it is a matter of doubt and uncertainty in their mind; and where doubt and uncertainty are, there faith is not, nor can it be. For doubt and faith do not exist in the same person at the same time. So persons whose minds are under doubts and fears cannot have unshaken confidence, and where unshaken confidence is not, there faith is weak. And where faith is weak, the persons will not be able to contend against all the opposition, tribulations, and afflictions which they will have to encounter in order to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus. But they will grow weary in their minds, and the adversary will have power over them and destroy them.

Still another passage with direct bearing on sanctification:

. . . cast away your idle thoughts and your excess of laughter far from you. (D&C 88:69)

Thankfully, the even stricter verse 121 has been elaborated upon by Joseph Fielding Smith: “We should not get the idea from this scripture that the Lord is displeased with us when we laugh, when we have merriment, if it is on the right occasions. He has said, however, that in our solemn assemblies such things as light-mindedness, laughter and merriment are out of order.” However, such conditions don’t seem to obtain for that warning in verse 69.

None of this discounts all the counsel for glad hearts and joyful countenances, and so forth. In fact, if anyone were to utilize these thoughts to teach a gospel of bad news, I’d try to knock them down a peg for misquoting me!!! Enjoyment and obedience, far from being mutually exclusive, are prime partners. What I’m speaking against are the frequent abuses whereby the wrong sorts of practices are held up as “joy.” I have witnessed and experienced plenty of lesser activities that really don’t contribute much to the “big picture.” There is a happiness and humor in life unique to attentive gospel living. Excess of laughter may well mean that the joy of the Saints sometimes fills to the brim and runs over, and it just needs some skimming off at the level to curb it. Some of the Brethren have commented that bridling our passions is indicative that we ought to have passions. With the appropriate scripture search on the Church website, I find that James 5:16-17, Acts 14:15, and Alma 38:12 are in line with this discussion.

It’s my general observation, on the other hand, that an excess of irreverence (or, really, any at all) seems to run at cross purposes with other doctrine. I’ll quote from the same Elder Maxwell book, since I have it on hand: “Some [disobedience] stems from casualness when seriousness is warranted” (59). These offenders you will sometimes find hiding behind the cover that “we must be able to laugh at ourselves”; if only they would mock themselves and not the Church! Ours is becoming a society wherein nothing is sacred and little is even normal. We are growing accustomed to telestial standards. (Take, for example, the television series Dexter—and prepare to be astounded by its warm reception.)

4. “Work out your own salvation with . . .” laughter???? (No, that’s not it.)
I have every intention of returning to some comic relief—and perhaps “relief” is most appropriate when referring to a change in my writing—but I have to warm up to it first. One prominent member (never an ordained general authority) tried to say that the more we understand the vastness of the next life, the less we can take seriously in this one. I would contend almost the exact opposite, since this world is merely the preparation ground for what is to come. Almost everything of passing value can be downplayed in favor of mature perspective. To snag something else I once wrote, almost quoting myself out of context:

A lack of full understanding about the Atonement, even among members of the Church, has allowed the intrusion of numerous misunderstandings, on both extremes of a works/grace spectrum. I might add that the official Church posture comes across to other faiths as leaning toward the works end. We cannot ignore the bulk of scriptural evidence that men will be judged according to their works. If our goal were only the telestial kingdom, our anxieties concerning works could cease. Rather than engaging in controversy over every point, many of our leaders find ready reference in a simply stated article of our faith: “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” While we have occasionally misrepresented ourselves to the outside world through an astonishing absence of grateful expressions to our dearest Lord and Savior, truly indispensable to our salvation, we cannot fall into a traditional Christian trap that talking about Christ will more or less substitute for following Him. Brigham Young understood this when he quipped that if the Saints “sing and pray about doing right without doing it, . . . they will sing and pray themselves into hell, shouting hallelujah.”

Just recently I found where someone has done the tremendous service of summarizing that “works” statistic for us, not that this would stand on its own had it not been fully elaborated in the corpus of doctrine:

The New Testament records 541 New Testament scriptural statements by over sixteen different biblical personalities that pertain directly or indirectly to the way salvation is achieved. The preponderance of evidence is clearly in favor of statements that indicate that man will be held accountable and judged on the basis of his works, deeds, acts, fruits, obedience, and so forth. Of the 541 New Testament scriptural statements 418 (or 77%) are supportive of works as a criterion in final judgment. (Michael D. Adair, full citation and a couple of supporting sources provided in Matthew B. Brown, All Things Restored: Evidences and Witnesses of the Restoration [American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc., 2006], 120)

Now that’s a decidedly unPollyanna-like statistic! (On a side note, I’ve run across another church’s antagonistically compiled list of differences between our church and historical Christianity. Little do they realize that each summary statement of their own stance doesn’t resemble the practicing creed of anyone I’ve ever met, nor is it half so “historical” as they think, if they’d just dig deeper than the sixteenth century. Argue as you may about what’s become encrusted onto Christianity over the years, its historicity sort of depends upon what Christ originally instituted.)

To quote Maxwell yet again (64), “the truly meek individual combines realism and love.” Evidently, from other parts of the book, he shares my love for the concept “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), my basis for “optimistic realism.” Since I’m so lazy, I’ll spare myself the trouble of rewording some thoughts and simply copy in part of an Easter message it was my privilege to prepare and deliver in 2006. It would be a little too distracting to reproduce the footnotes at this time.

Joseph Smith remarked, “The doctrines of the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment are necessary to preach among the first principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Thus the urgent need for what Elder Holland called a “sobering” impact of the doctrine of restoration, as taught in the Book of Mormon. Restoration, which “more fully condemneth the sinner, and justifieth him not at all,” demonstrates, as Elder Holland continued, “that no one should fallaciously assume that the restorative powers of the Resurrection could restore one ‘from sin to happiness.’” We are taught almost relentlessly that in the last day that which was filthy shall still be filthy, and this is not an exception to the cleansing role of the Atonement, which is intended for use before our Redeemer acts as our Judge.

It is an antichrist leap in judgment to assume that because all men (sons of perdition included) are redeemed unto immortality, therefore “all men should have eternal life.” But it is a similar antichrist sentiment to wish contrary to that expressed by Samuel the Lamanite, who did not discriminate against his listeners: “And may God grant, in his great fulness, that men might be brought unto repentance and good works, that they might be restored unto grace for grace, according to their works. And I would that all men might be saved. But we read that in the great and last day there are some who shall be cast out, yea, who shall be cast off from the presence of the Lord.” Remember, we do not make the Lord’s decisions for Him; our task is merely to set forth the requirements contained in His teachings and permit agency to do its sifting work. However, there is nothing against strong encouragement that our fellowmen should do and declare what is right. We believe sufficiently in agency, or free will, if you will, that we never lapse into predestination paralysis. That is why we are reviewing concept and consequence. It goes almost without saying that what Latter-day Saints know about the different kingdoms of glory informs all of our actions. The call to repentance is by way of command unto those of us who ought to know better, and invitation unto others.

President Wilford Woodruff stated, “I marvel very much at the little interest manifested by the inhabitants of the earth generally in their future state. There is not a person here today but what is going to live on the other side of the veil as long as his Creator—to the endless ages of eternity, and the eternal destiny of every individual depends upon the manner in which the few short years of life in the flesh are spent.” Afterward, men “must be judged of their works, yea, even the works which were done by the temporal body in their days of probation.” We have to render an account of our stewardship over these bodies. The notion that “if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God” has been thoroughly discredited in scripture.

President McKay counseled, “There is no salvation without work. I do not mean, now, redemption from death—Christ has done that; He has given us all that we need to get by way of salvation. The doctrine of work does not rob Him of any of His glory. ‘By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God.’ But aside from that, the individual growth and advancement, the individual knowledge, the advancement in God’s truth, depends upon the doing of God's will.” Don’t quarrel about “merits.” So far as that term is concerned, they belong only to the Savior, but we are nonetheless going to answer to Him for our talents and our labor during “this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity.” We rob God (and ourselves) by holding back, not by pressing forward!

But to return to the funnies about all this....

5. Now I’m stepping in it!
Just one of many clever Christian quotations that one will find in many forms: “A lot of church members who are singing ‘Standing on the Promises’ are just sitting on the premises.”

Only a couple of months ago I was listening to yet another rendition, in a talk, of the “Footprints in the Sand” poem, which is theoretically meant to convey a sense of reliance upon the Savior. It was appropriately put in its place on one website, which also alluded (via Elder Holland) to a John Taylor expression. I know it occurs in Gospel Kingdom, but since I don’t have it with me, I’ll just quote the original (JD, 1:27; see also 20:119), which does a fine job of highlighting the philosophies of man which still regularly creep into church members’ repertoire:

Speaking of philosophy, I must tell another little story, for I was almost buried up in it while I was in Paris. I was walking about one day in the Jardin des Plantes—a splendid garden. There they had a sort of exceedingly light cake; it was so thin and light that you could blow it away, and you could eat all day of it, and never be satisfied. Somebody asked me what the name of that was. I said, I don't know the proper name, but in the absence of one, I can give it a name—I will call it philosophy, or fried froth, which you like. It is so light you can blow it away, eat it all day, and at night be as far from being satisfied as when you began.

At any rate, in order to endure listening to the poem again, I mentally reviewed a comical opposing piece that is almost as extreme in the other direction. Soon I was struggling to suppress a smile or outright laughter at my thoughts! (This in spite of the fact that, for some unknowable reason, my scripted role in that singles ward—even when I presented evidence to the contrary—was that of impassive solitaire. The key may be to recognize that I’m good-natured and good-humored, even if I don’t see things like the rest of them.) I appreciated this rollicking contradiction when I first read it on “Dave’s Daily Chuckle” for June 4, 2001:

Butt Prints In The Sand
One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.
But then some stranger prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, “What have we here?”
Those prints are large and round and neat,
“But Lord, they are too big for feet.”
“My child,” He said in somber tones,
“For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait.”
“You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know.
So, I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt.”
“Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand.”

Anyone looking for great literature—reverential doctrine and comeback, rolled into one—should read Elder Orson F. Whitney’s reply to Invictus (found here or here). It would also serve to right the boat-rocking I’ve undoubtedly created here.

6. How dare I say all is well in Zion, when the Lord pronounces an emphatic wo against those who state it? (Besides, all isn’t well.... See, for instance, Amos 6:1, Jeremiah 6:10-26 and 23:13-40, Helaman 13:26-30, Zephaniah 1:12, 2 Nephi 28:19-31, even Moroni 9:21-22, etc., etc., etc.)
There is a humongous body of humor in Church literature not lost on those who value preaching “without fear or favor.” The lesson is simple: service with a smile, but first things first.

I’ll start with an “apocryphal” account about President Joseph Fielding Smith. One website reports the following from page 285 of Truman G. Madsen’s Presidents of the Church:

President Smith’s temperament was sometimes misunderstood. People thought of him as austere and severe. According to one story he went to a stake conference in Wyoming where he bore down hard on their need to repent. He ended by saying, “Brothers and sisters, if you do not repent, few of you will be saved in the life to come.” He had barely reached home when letters began coming from that stake saying, “This man didn’t inspire us at all. He condemned us. He was harsh. We would like something to be done about this.”

So he was assigned to go back to the stake and speak again. He went back—and repeated his words from before. He then said, “Brothers and sisters, the last time I was here, I said unless you repented there would be few of you saved. I have changed my mind—none of you will be.”

This reminds me of the same problem rephrased by one not of our faith:

When the new preacher moved into town, one of the first people he met said, “I certainly hope that you're not one of these narrow-minded ministers who think that only the members of their congregation are going to heaven.”

“I’m even more narrow-minded than that,” replied the preacher. “I'm pretty sure that some of the members of my congregation aren’t going to make it.” (Msgr. Arthur Tonne, quoted in Cal and Rose Samra, More Holy Humor [Carmel, New York: Guideposts, 1997], 15) (see 2 Nephi 33:12 for a more upbeat take on the theme)

An interrelated theme that I don’t have time to develop is summed up by President Lorenzo Snow:

There is this privilege that every Latter-day Saint should seek to enjoy, to know positively that his work is accepted of God. I am afraid Latter-day Saints are not much better and perhaps they are worse than other people if they do not have this knowledge and seek to do right. (CR, Apr. 1898, 13)

President Joseph Fielding Smith told on himself with another such tale, but all I can quote at present is another’s account:

After one sermon, a man came up to him and said, “That is the first discourse on the Word of Wisdom that I ever liked.” President Smith modestly inquired, “Haven’t you heard other talks on the Word of Wisdom?” “Yes,” came the reply, “but this is the first one I ever enjoyed . . . you see, I am keeping the Word of Wisdom now.” (Joseph F. McConkie, True and Faithful: The Life Story of Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971], 78-79)

Here’s a parting laugh about the difficulties of our day, with an implied thought about leaders who don’t have to ask what the public think of God’s word!!!

A zealous, newly ordained minister was assigned to a small, rural parish. In his first sermon he condemned horse racing, and the sermon went over poorly. A deacon cautioned: “You should never preach against horse racing because this whole area is known for its fine horses. Many members of this congregation make their living off horses.”

The next week the new pastor came down hard on the evils of smoking. Again his sermon fell flat. Many of his members grew tobacco.

On the third Sunday the preacher condemned whiskey drinking, only to discover that there was a big distillery less than five miles from the church.

The perplexed preacher called a board meeting and cried out: “What can I preach about?”

The answer came immediately from a woman in back: “Preach against them evil cannibals. There ain’t one of them within two thousand miles of here.” (Dennis R. Fakes, quoted in Cal and Rose Samra, Holy Humor: A Book of Inspirational Wit and Cartoons [Carmel, New York: Guideposts, 1996], 97-98)

A healthy dose of “Sunday will come” thoughts (exploring Mosiah 3:19 "the hard way")

Hurrah for finishing my month-long “systematic analysis of operations” at work!

I’m also rejoicing over more good news. I’d have scanned two images side by side if I could find the first... In late 2005 I obtained a signed note off a prescription pad that I was diagnosed with celiac sprue. Now I have a letter in July 2008 stating that biopsy results came back normal (after flooding my system with the “allergen”). Going about three years without pizza, cereal, or even normal sacrament bread would make you somewhat uptight, too. ;-) Anyway, I’m more than willing to give God the credit, especially since He’s had free access to my innards, and no one in the medical profession has touched them.

The doctor can no more twit the bearer of the priesthood that the sick one would have recovered without the administration than the one administering can twit the doctor on the same point. They stand on equal ground, so far as human knowledge goes. The priesthood does not always heal—God in his wisdom does not permit the healing to be done—neither does the doctor always heal. An overruling Providence governs both. (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., “Man--God's Greatest Miracle” [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1968], 29)

1. Food for thought
In summarizing the past month, I return to a little bit more of the sobering, though I’ve actually categorized myself as an “optimistic realist.” Somehow these troubled times for our world provoke such commentary from me, particularly in open social discourse. I suppose I hope that defending values “at all times and in all things, and in all places” (“even unto death”) can make a difference. One can accentuate the positive among their immediate circle, but openly assault the negative for mankind’s sake. I’ve occasionally thought that continually reiterating one’s own mortality and everyone else’s goodness when giving talks, lessons, and the like can be a waste of valuable time that could be spent driving to the very means of reforming humanity, not that those aren’t things that could be reasonably stated. If others didn’t seem to be emphasizing that part, then I imagine I’d want to stand up and say it.

Elder Oaks shared a daunting insight: “A call for repentance that is clear enough and loud enough to encourage reformation for the lax can produce paralyzing discouragement for the conscientious. This is a common problem. We address a diverse audience each time we speak, and we are never free from the reality that a doctrinal underdose for some is an overdose for others.”

Much as I might enjoy feasting on the word, and be in total agreement with Alma and the Prophet Joseph Smith about delicious doctrine, it’s critical to be sensitive to the dietary needs of others until “the perfect day,” when the perfect remedy has been fully applied to all of our delicate systems. Nevertheless, those who obsessively cite passages in favor of milk before meat seemingly fail to set essential goals. To quote myself, actually somewhat reluctantly:

Ah, yes, when Paul realized the people of Corinth could not yet handle meat, he attributed it to their carnality: “envying, and strife, and divisions” (1 Cor. 3:3), as if to say had they been mature he would be teaching meat. “Awake...” (1 Cor. 15:34). He may well have said to them, “Grow up!” (1 Cor. 13:11; 14:20; Heb. 5:13-14).

And to quote a vastly superior source:

I have little patience with persons who say, “Oh, nobody is perfect,” the implication being: “so why try?” Of course no one is wholly perfect, but we find some who are a long way up the ladder. (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 165)

Have you ever encountered individuals who exercise little quality control over the worldly sources they listen to, yet bristle when one comes bearing spiritual truths, and suddenly insist upon perfection—generally as defined by themselves—in the speaker before they will heed one word? Not until Christ reigns in person will we enjoy such a privilege. Might they not be uncomfortable under such government? (See Mormon 9:1-6, along with the strong, oft-repeated scriptural counsel that one must receive Christ’s servants—pointing most specifically to the Brethren—in order to receive Him.) I’m reminded of Elder Melvin J. Ballard’s comical(?) remarks:

Some folks get the notion that the problems of life will at once clear up and they will know that this is the Gospel of Christ when they die. I have heard people say they believe when they die they will see Peter and that he will clear it all up. I said, “You never will see Peter until you accept the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, at the hands of the elders of the Church, living or dead.” . . . Living or dead, they shall not hear it from anyone else. (Melvin J. Ballard, “Three Degrees of Glory,” 22 Sep 1922, 17; see his comments in CR, Jun. 1919, 71-72; D&C 138:29-32)

I’ll follow this with two “secular” sources, not troubling myself to dig out myriads of Church quotations. Due to incidental events in my life, my main means of verifying them fully verbatim from my library and providing precise references (something I insist upon doing in print) is unavailable for a few weeks. I have a natural aversion to paraphrasing, except very carefully, where pure doctrine is concerned—and this too is sustained by some more quotes. ;-) For brush strokes to the picture that the Gospel requires progressive movement along the strait and narrow (see, for instance, 2 Nephi 31:19-21):

It may be very attractive to preach to men, and say, “You men are very good and very self-sacrificing, and we take pleasure in revealing your goodness to you. Now, since you are so good, you will probably be interested in Christianity, especially in the life of Jesus, which we believe is good enough even for you.” But that preaching is useless; it is useless to call the righteous to repentance. (J. Gresham Machen, in Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir [Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1977], 302)

Or what medical man, anxious to heal a sick person, would prescribe in accordance with the patient’s whims, and not according to the requisite medicine? But that the Lord came as the physician of the sick, He does Himself declare, saying, “They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” [Luke 5:31-32]. How then shall the sick be strengthened, or how shall sinners come to repentance? Is it by persevering in the very same courses? or, on the contrary, is it by undergoing a great change and reversal of their former mode of living, by which they have brought upon themselves no slight amount of sickness, and many sins? (Irenaeus, quoted in L. Russ Bush, Classical Readings in Christian Apologetics [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Academie Books, 1983], 79)

2. Current events are scary
This week I experienced the coincidence of a current event that lends unfortunate color to my dream—previously shared on this blog—about the pledge of allegiance, not that I’m elevating the dream above “fried liver and onions” status (see THBL, 417; Charles W. Penrose, CR, Oct. 1922, 26; TSWK, 455; Gerald N. Lund, Hearing the Voice of the Lord, 39f.n.), insofar as dreams are best understood as a strong expression of my own emotions.

Apparently the matter of standing at attention for the pledge of allegiance is being seriously revisited. In this case, it’s not hard to guess the logical outcome given current developments carried into the next generation. I’m also not oblivious to controversy on BYU campus about this very issue.

Judicial ruling to force respect in this particular fashion would be of worse than dubious virtue, so we are simply left to bemoan the unraveling societal fabric, as fewer and fewer support the fundamentals. (My junior high and high school conveniently lapsed on conducting the pledge.) Incidentally, I more ardently DO favor legislation to oppose flag-burning and have written about it at length. Before you spar with me, just be aware that I can bring President Packer and others directly to bear on the debate. ;-)

3. Dark before the dawn
In the month of July I received the single worst news of my life. (Much, much worse than the one those who know me might be thinking of.) Since there’s nothing to be done for the news, I may as well count my blessings that it didn’t involve sin, so I still have family, health, and GOSPEL. (See D&C 98:11-15.) In fact, I’ve still got life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Truly, the Lord is the only one with the real power to give and to take away.

To foreshadow what I thought would be the latter part of this entry, but which is now deferred to another day, I employ humor:

The meteorologist on my television was giving the weekend forecast. “On Sunday there may be showers, but if the front pushes through early, we might awaken to a gorgeous sunrise,” he predicted.

A reporter called out from the news desk, “When will you know for sure what the weather will be like on Sunday?”

The weatherman replied, “Monday morning.” (Mary C. Ardis, Reader's Digest, Apr. 1997, 93)

We Christians await a yet future, glorious Sonrise “with healing in his wings.” In the meantime: stormy weather, for the end is not yet!!!

4. Moving on
So last month I had to make another difficult decision only partially related to the aforementioned bad news. Shall I just say that by now I ought to know a one-sided relationship when I’m in one? This one lasted almost exactly as long as the “other” one. (This belongs to my Dating Bill of Rights #7, although in this context I’m referring to a somewhat broader social contract...no, not even marriage!) I detest when my longsuffering eventually begins to peter out into uncharitable thoughts. By virtue of my deliberate redeployment, I nonetheless don’t intend to have taken the easy way out of strengthening that weakness of mine.

It was time to move on, all the same. The movie Regarding Henry captures that feeling: “Well, I had enough. So I said when.”

This much I know: I needed to proceed from the known to the unknown, for the known was only marginally acceptable for future planning. It seemed like a terrible—but necessary—risk. I not infrequently object to uses to which the doctrine of agency is put in arguing just such things, as though we should live haphazardly instead of viewing agency as the right to choose the right (which is clearly defined, at that)...but the truest grasp of this particular principle and practice has often been recounted by President Packer:

We once had a major decision to make. When our prayers left us uncertain, I went to see Elder Harold B. Lee. He counseled us to proceed. Sensing that I was still very unsettled, he said, “The problem with you is you want to see the end from the beginning.” Then he quoted this verse from the Book of Mormon, “Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6).

He added, “You must learn to walk a few steps ahead into the darkness, and then the light will turn on and go before you.”

When this principle was abused by someone with faulty doctrinal agendas, I responded in part, “He quotes the taking ‘a few steps . . . into the darkness’ theme, but it appears he ventured out in the wrong direction.”

5. Dreaming about feelings
While a geographical move was in order this month, it being “needful for me to obtain another place of residence,” much as I will miss some whom I leave behind, I also had to deliberately situate myself differently socially. In reflecting upon interpersonal relationships, I’m reminded of the adage, “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference” (Elie Wiesel, A Jew Today [New York: Random House, 1978], 183).

Someone has said the opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is apathy. And I say to you brethren, the most dangerous thing that can happen between you and your wife or between me and my wife is apathy—not hate, but for them to feel that we are not interested in their affairs, that we are not expressing our love and showing our affection in countless ways. (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 241)

Some of my feelings that were running high remind me of another dream, May 22, 1999:

They were all very much ignoring me; the part that saddened me most is that it didn’t seem outright intentional. It was more like I simply escaped their notice. . . . They seemed like little children. . . . They still had no idea of the calamities that would soon befall all of them. I was feeling even more out of place than ever before.

As I was sitting by the door a man stepped in briefly and told me I didn’t have much time left. I nodded and looked back at the crowd of blissfully happy students. No longer caring about social restrictions, I began whistling the tune to “Praise to the Man.” I ignored their stares and frowns. Mom came to the door and told me it was time to go. I stood up and, without so much as a backward glance, walked out of there.

I was in a large city and saw three people pursuing a dangerous man. I waited at a corner to join the chase . . . . Just as they were approaching, the man pulled out what could best be described as a colorful grenade. Immediately everyone stopped following him and crowds gathered to the grenade. They had no idea that it would destroy them, and were ignoring my calls of warning.

So I ran after him alone. . . .

I think of this sobering reminder, fit for the affairs of this day: “To get salvation we must not only do some things, but everything which God has commanded. . . . The object with me is to obey and teach others to obey God in just what He tells us to do. It mattereth not whether the principle is popular or unpopular, I will always maintain a true principle, even if I stand alone in it” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 161).

One real-life application for the vivid dream is discovered in a pamphlet that Hugh B. Brown issued as part of his charge over servicemen during World War II:

There is a cunning, wily enemy whose whole business is to prepare booby traps and lure men into them. He not only teaches the fool to say in his heart, “There is no God,” but he beguiles him into thinking that evil is desirable and inevitable. Sin is the devil’s booby trap, and no amount of bravado will change the sinner’s status. . . .

Do not allow either desire for the bait, nor curiosity to know the mechanism, to lure you into any of his deadly traps, which often are cunningly camouflaged to deceive the unwary. And do not be deceived if what you have been taught to recognize as such a trap does not seem to spring at the first contact. Many of them are time bombs, but there are no duds in the armory of sin.

Some men are led to think that because the punishment is not immediate, the danger of sin has been exaggerated or avoided. We may be sure that all the devil’s booby traps will explode eventually with deadly and undiscriminating effect. (quoted in Paul H. Kelly, Lin H. Johnson, Courage in a Season of War: Latter-day Saints Experience World War II [n.p., 2002], 534-535)

6. Thinking about feelings
This time of life presents an unusual opportunity for me to reflect, coming to know myself and my many weaknesses (and certainly strengths, too, but nobody needs to hear about that). My mother, who has a degree in psychology, likes to study behaviors and ponder how some people got so strange. I imagine I’ve given her endless amusement! One day I came across a journal entry she’d made when I was very little. She referred to a psychological term: transference.

Evidently when I was wheeled into the operating room I asked my doctor why the light insisted on hurting me so much. It took him a moment or two to realize that I was quite seriously blaming every hurtful act on the surgical lamp. I knew that the doctor loved me, so there was no chance I’d let myself get upset with him—speak of the benevolent physician who paradoxically causes pain to cure us of our afflictions! That gentle man made sure that he cuffed the lamp about where I could see it, and then I was satisfied. He treated patients from all over the world, and one day, during a post-operative physical therapy checkup, he confided that of everyone, I was the one he knew he could always push to any limit and I wouldn’t cry.

Perhaps some crying is a manifestation of surprise, indignation, out-and-out rebellion, seeking compensation, or maybe just hoping for reassurances, and our relationship of trust simply didn’t admit such a possibility. When it comes to my relationship with God, like de Tocqueville, “I had rather mistrust my own capacity than his justice.” (The reader is referred to the popular C.S. Lewis quote about (spiritual) home improvement that “hurts abominably.”) For some ideas to bounce against your brain about justice and mercy performing their procedures on us:

An incident occurred during our son’s early childhood that illustrated for me this profound love of the heavenly Father. Ryan had a terrible ear infection when he was three years old that kept him (and us) awake most of the night. Shirley bundled up the toddler the next morning and took him to see the pediatrician. . . .

Shirley did the best she could. She put Ryan on the examining table and attempted to hold him down. But he would have none of it. When the doctor inserted the pick-like instrument in his ear, the child broke loose and screamed to high heaven. The pediatrician then became angry at Shirley and told her if she couldn't follow instructions she’d have to go get her husband. I was in the neighborhood and quickly came to the examining room. After hearing what was needed, I swallowed hard and wrapped my 200-pound, 6-foot-2-inch frame around the toddler. It was one of the toughest moments in my career as a parent.

What made it so emotional was the horizontal mirror that Ryan was facing on the back side of the examining table. This made it possible for him to look directly at me as he screamed for mercy. I really believe I was in greater agony in that moment than my terrified little boy. It was too much. I turned him loose—and got a beefed-up version of the same bawling-out that Shirley had received a few minutes earlier. Finally, however, the grouchy pediatrician and I finished the task.

I reflected later on what I was feeling when Ryan was going through so much suffering. What hurt me was the look on his face. Though he was screaming and couldn’t speak, he was “talking” to me with those big blue eyes. He was saying, “Daddy! Why are you doing this to me? I thought you loved me. I never thought you would do anything like this! How could you . . . ? Please, please! Stop hurting me!”

It was impossible to explain to Ryan that his suffering was necessary for his own good, that I was trying to help him, that it was love that required me to hold him on the table. How could I tell him of my compassion in that moment? I would gladly have taken his place on the table, if possible. But in his immature mind, I was a traitor who had callously abandoned him. (James Dobson, When God Doesn't Make Sense [Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1993], 60-62)

At any rate, I overcame my early childhood propensity for shifting the blame by becoming almost surgical in my examination of cause and effect in mortality. Sin is the cause of human suffering, and ignorance is its traveling companion. (Now, I’m not saying that another’s sin can’t cause you a great deal of pain.) Many an atheist or confused believer who gets tangled up in causality, laying false theological groundwork on the basis of what they have decided God should or should not allow, cannot see that the abundant life exists in sheer spite of what we normally term suffering. We spend too much time trying to fix the wrong things, denying, repressing, transferring. It helps so much more to simply set our sights on the proper course: “look to God and live.” Of a truth, “every world problem may be solved by obedience to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals, 5).

7. Anticlimactic thoughts/feelings for my dreams
In this winnowing internal process, I came to a start not long ago upon realizing my soft spot for certain childlike characteristics, to the point of seeking them in potential dates. Unfortunately, this has left me prone to winding up instead with childISH people. As for identifying their brand of incompatibility with me, I don’t know that “transference” would be the term for it so much as “rubber conscience,” but it’s unbelievable the characters I’ve willingly consorted with.

For starters, the first girl that I ever took a bold relationship step with, having sort of, you know, spent a lot of time with her, at her frequent invitation.... (And I still believe in taking a direct approach when you’re prepared to hear the answer.) Of course it’s difficult to know what to tell people, but is this not a curious response? “I feel bad that I like you as a friend and you don’t feel the same way.” Where do you find the guilty party therein, regardless of the fact that she mentioned experiencing negative emotions? I much prefer, “I don’t feel the same way,” or, “You’re a good friend. I doubt you’d be a good partner.”

Then there’s the last girl that I ever took a bold relationship step with, to my lasting regret. While throwing turmoil into nearly every corner of my life, she offered this: “No decision have I made more completely, than I want my future to be yours as well.” She was true to her word on this. Can you detect the early warning sign of one will being imposed upon another? Whose is it? Maybe in the future I should look for a little more discussion about my future, or a synergistic “our future.” For some inexplicable reason, I believed her when at the critical DTR juncture she solemnly took my hands and told me, “I’m yours.” There were at least six cases of unfaithfulness after that, but I was caught up in the fact that she’d pledged her troth. Difficult as it may be to believe of my personality, that was a time when forgiveness was pressed into the extreme of permissiveness.

Forgiving others . . . does not necessarily mean that we would endorse or approve of the behavior or transgression. In fact, there are many actions and attitudes that deserve clear condemnation. But even in these we must completely forgive the offender: “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). (Cecil O. Samuelson, Jr., Ensign, Feb. 2003, 50)

I liked the statement put out by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—pertaining more specifically to spousal abuse—that said “forgiveness ‘is not permission to repeat the abuse’” (The Washington Post, cited in The Daily Herald, Saturday, November 30, 2002, C5).

I suppose these were remnants of my childhood unwillingness to admit that someone was hurting me, such that my mother has said loud and clear, “Kris, you were a doormat.” My father said, “Every time you gave her rope, she hung herself with it.” My brother-in-law said early on that if my sister had done just a few of those things in dating, he’d have been through. My sister—well, she knew the moment she first laid eyes on her that I wasn’t being treated well. In a rare lucid moment I basically begged her to either change her ways or let me go, when I told her that (as journal-written) "I'd known many types of pain in my life, and I was convinced that this past month has been filled with unnecessary pain."

This quote cuts kind of close to the heart of the matter:

This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Since most of us have this tendency to a greater or lesser degree, most of us are mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree, lacking complete mental health. (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth [New York: A Touchstone Book, 1978], 17)

I’m embarrassed about my avoidant behavior, determined to never again be so mentally unsound. (Though many relationship counselors, in one form or another, discuss the irony that we must make some of the most important decisions of our lives at a time when our brains may not be functioning normally.) “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

I don’t think I expressed myself very clearly in a recent discussion with a friend. I owe him two playful quotes that came to mind but went unuttered, about the cheer, color, and vibrance that women bring into men’s lives:

You know all women are good, or ought to be. They were made for angelic beings, and I would be glad to see them act more angelic in their behaviour. You were made more angelic, and a little weaker than man. Man is made of rougher material, to open the way, cut down bushes, and kill the snakes, that women may walk along through life, and not soil and tear their skirts. (Heber C. Kimball, JD, 2:154)

About seventy of these anchorites live together in this building, where everything around exhibits an aspect of gloom and misery, as might be expected where nature is interrupted by the exclusion of the cheering, enlivening and happy influence of women. (Lorenzo Snow, February 26, 1873 letter from Jerusalem, in Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, 537-538)

There’s that indomitable spirit of mine, willing to put my future in the Lord’s hands and continue to trust in those things which He has ordained! (Hm, I’m thinking the definition of indomitable works very poorly in a sentence about submission to the Lord’s will.)

Measuring priorities

Tonight my mind burns with this thought, from President Uchtdorf:

Are we diligent in living the commandments of God, without running beyond our strength? Or are we just leisurely strolling along? Are we using our time, talents, and means wisely? Are we focused on the things which matter most? Are we following the inspired counsel of the prophets? . . .

In 1999 the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles lovingly stated: “We counsel parents and children to give highest priority to family prayer, family home evening, gospel study and instruction, and wholesome family activities. However worthy and appropriate other demands or activities may be, they must not be permitted to displace the divinely appointed duties that only parents and families can adequately perform.” (Ensign, July 2008, 7)

And with that I’ve already departed from my original goal when sitting down, which was to gather a few scattered thoughts and convey them with a down-home frankness. I’d thought to borrow a page from Elder McConkie’s book, as related by his wife:

“Well, we had fun,” she continued. “Everything that he had to say to me wasn’t prefaced by something from one of the standard works or anything like that. Some people seem to think that’s what my life must have been, just a constant diet [of scripture]. He was perfectly normal. It was fun—there was never a dull moment really, because...this ready wit of his was always there.” “He was a real character with those he knew well. With others he was very proper.” (Dennis B. Horne, Bruce R. McConkie: Highlights from his Life and Teachings [Roy, UT: Eborn Books, 2000], 44)

There’s just one of many differences between us: he was normal. ;-) Speaking of differences, I hesitate to share one thing, but so as not to disrupt my eccentric thought processes, and intending an entirely tangential connection, I forge ahead. In the spirit of desiring humility and giving genuine credit to God, I take the counsel of various prophets ever since Joseph Smith: if I utter anything worthwhile to mankind, it was God’s good pleasure and mercy to me. On October 22, 2002, in my journal, I cited part of what I considered a “disturbing e-mail” to my ward regarding a recent address of mine (for no sacrament meeting was ever convened to even so much as partially celebrate a mere mortal): "A member of the Stake R.S. presidency said, 'If you closed your eyes and listened, that could have been any one of the prophets!'"

It must have been an adequate usage of source/Source material shining through and not myself. After absorbing the initial shock of all this, I pondered, “Wait a minute! Why do you have to close your eyes?” Then I immediately thought, “Well, if we’re going to have a compare and contrast session involving me and the prophets, I ought to be grateful they kept the observation superficial, even—perhaps especially—if it is about that same old thing over which I have no control: my outward appearance.”

Gregory is supposed to have been a very small man. There is an apocryphal story that he once visited Gregory the Great in Rome, knelt in obeisance before him and, as he rose, saw the Pope eyeing him quizzically, whereupon he is supposed to have said: ‘It is God that hath made us, and not we ourselves.’ [Psalm 100, 3, the Jubilate Deo. This story was first put about by Odo de Cluny, in his tenth-century Vita Sancti Gregorii, 24.] (Lewis Thorpe, trans., Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks [New York: Penguin Books, 1974], 13)

I’m now compelled to turn aside and comment that other things commonly accepted in today’s world as equally bestowed by God simply are not, such as homosexuality or any pathological tendency to crime and sin. I leave it to Church literature to discuss that better than I can at the moment. Elder Talmage had good thoughts on the matter, and I will only quote one: “Far above the natural operation of heredity, which at most is tendency not compulsion, stands eternal and unchanging justice, which assures to every soul his deserts” (LEJ, 20:441).

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. (James 1:13-14; this is particularly meaningful with 1 Corinthians 10:13, when we understand Who is “the way”; still other scriptures aptly describe participation in this process of choosing the good part)

“Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” (Matthew 6:27). It’s about as unlikely by means of prayer, also! But God doesn’t ask us to change our stature or race; it is our hearts that must change, and can through desire, effort, and abundant heavenly grace. Perhaps my father thought me more insecure than I was (about height rather than heart) when in my youth he gave me a framed page from the 1611 King James Bible, which contained 1 Samuel 16:7. God gave me a perfect contentment with His designs for my life at about age four or five, though I won’t lie to you: there have been times when other people’s insecurities about my “situation” have started to make me uncomfortable. I was admittedly too snippy when I responded to some pressures about locating similarly short people to date: “I’m short. I got over it. So should you.” Might I not be even more after someone’s mind than most people? (Sadly, I have in the past also resented any implication that my unique approach to life is solely a product of heredity—in this case, a spontaneous mutation—or environment.) And that’s just a problem I’ll have to work on! I have to say, though, the chip on my shoulder is not what people would expect. ;-)

At any rate, in this respect I sort of play into being one of those “comfortable in their own skin, . . . an attribute Warren Buffett [said] was greatly undervalued in human beings” (Fortune, July 7, 2008, 8). Buffett may be smart and successful, but he’s still no prophet (plenty o' profit)! I might also conjecture that any significant exposure to market forces, especially right now, could easily lead to the outcry that “the devil is in it!”

I also wanted to make a minor defense of Elder Bruce R. McConkie. In encountering, throughout the Church, individuals who totally reject him, I’ve noticed a few patterns. The foremost is that such rejection is usually a “smokescreen”—a common description in Christian apologetics—whereby they harp on the small percentage of things he was mistaken on in order to evade the 98+% that he was completely correct about. He was among the first to admit when he was wrong, too. His aspirations to be “right” weren’t so much self-promoting as a fundamental quest for ultimate truth. His detractors are also so angry about something...again, something they accuse him of. The vultures go at it all the more vigorously for the fact that he’s not here to defend himself.

You will seldom, if ever, hear me quote from or so much as consult his Mormon Doctrine—sadly, because that rapidly undercuts one’s credibility with many audiences (just as curriculum is forced for a number of reasons to quote from early editions of the Deseret News, which is merely a circuitous way of quoting the source text constituting the Journal of Discourses, yet in all of this I perceive the important message for members to study and understand first things first). I think of William James’ statement, “There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.”

A major question to raise when considering doctrine is how it fits into the whole. Surprisingly, on that path liberals are more “narrow-minded” than conservatives. The latter are much more rarely surprised by a Conference address than the former, and certainly less prone to the urge to run home and post reasons on their blog why they are the exception to counsel or, worse still, in sweeping terms why counsel shouldn’t be measured against doctrine if it’s uncomfortable (see Henry B. Eyring, Ensign, June 2008, 6). On a lesser note than “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11:29), I sometimes think, “Would God that we had a more discerning people!” One prominent liberal trend is nailed by this characterization:

In the teaching of Christ, however, love, supreme though it is, is not something that resists being shaped by law. “Abide in my love,” He exhorts His followers, but immediately adds, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (John 15:9-10); this corresponds with the admonition, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). It is plain that to say this is not the same thing as saying, “If you keep my commandments to love, you will love” (which would be an otiose tautology), for Christ speaks of the keeping of His commandments (plural), and there are many precise ethical commandments of His recorded in the Gospels, a number of which we have already noticed. Nor is the statement “God is love” a reversible statement. Herbert Waddams has rightly reproached those who wish “to change the phrase ‘God is love’ into ‘love is God’ and to twist its meaning into a statement that human love, whatever form it may take, is as good as God, and that is all we need to consider.” Waddams deplores this as “another of the many forms of idolatry which sets up in the place which God alone ought to occupy some human standard or image to replace him.” (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Christian Ethics in Secular Society [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1983], 50-51)

As for the issues currently raging regarding homosexuality, I have even seen members taken in by such deception, arguing for what only seems most important from a warped vantage point. Burning, misguided lust is not an expression of love in a homosexual union or in a heterosexual one night stand. Furthermore, in the catalog of sins, there’s the hope that no one will “be seduced by evil spirits, or doctrines of devils, or the commandments of men; for some are of men, and others of devils” (D&C 46:7; see 1 Timothy 4:1). The Church enters the political arena over this hotly contested affair precisely because it is all the more dangerous, belonging not to mortal confusion but demonic inspiration. Nor could we very accurately say we love our brothers and sisters if we do nothing to halt their headlong course to destruction.

I have the most supreme and absolute contempt for men who are guilty of proclaiming that virtue should not be maintained; that there is no sin in sexual intercourse [the remainder of doctrine showing in what sense]. It is the doctrine of devils. It is an inspiration from the devil himself, and the men who defend things of this kind are instruments in his hands to try to destroy virtue and to wipe from the earth liberty and right, and all that is of real genuine worth to humanity. (Heber J. Grant, CR, Apr. 1927, 175)

On the matter of measuring doctrine by its compatibility with other revealed points, I wish to emphatically declare that, from my perspective, Mormon Doctrine passes multiple tests. The average member has absolutely no conception how corroborated Elder McConkie’s points are elsewhere. Therefore, I utilize all those other sources, mourning the reaction to the direct approach of his apostolic ministry. Once, while I was speaking on God’s omniscience, a rather “intellectual” quorum member asked—fingers making quotation mark gestures—what made Elder McConkie an “authority.” Instead of speaking my full mind, “Perhaps that would have been the Lord’s anointing when he became a special witness?”, I fell back on the principle of answering the questions that should have been asked. It was just such a time when I simply quoted from many others, leaving him to see that Elder McConkie was not a lone witness after all. One of my childhood friends was fortuitously present and bore testimony toward the end.

I suppose I was supposed to talk about “measuring priorities.” This entire departure is out of sync with my ambitions along those lines. As I have a lesson to prepare, my usual rule should apply—and always does, for talks—of displacing virtually all extracurricular activities with the most studious and prayerful preparations. But if I were free to pursue leisure activities this week, there’s a pile of books I’d like to read: as usual, those checked out from the library take precedence over those I could always take from my own shelves. Particularly in light of my oddities and unfortunate predispositions, were I free of that special Sunday stewardship, I’d feel obligated to prioritize some sort of socializing above these minor personal improvement tasks.

This topic was first spawned by my encountering an Elder Ballard quote: “Our people have lost far too much money by trusting their assets to others. In my judgment, we will never have balance in our lives unless our finances are securely under control” (utilized in Ensign, July 2008, 76). That reminded me of the term “opportunity cost.” That led, only too naturally, to thoughts about weightier matters of the law and all that. (Life itself, though costly, is a meager opportunity cost in comparison to what we are told scripturally to give it up for.) Earlier today I had to weigh circumstances when stomach troubles struck at work. Determining that they were on the wrong side for appendicitis, I decided it would be best—like usual—to disregard the pains and remain at my post. Then, when I got home, I had to decide that in view of extreme fatigue all day, it would be better to attempt a nap than distracted temple attendance. Failing utterly to fall asleep, I decided I’d better do something worthwhile.

Suddenly that seems largely irrelevant in the midst of all the serious musings.... Let us speak of a precious snap judgment calmly made under fire....

“Oh, beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life!” (Hymns, 338)

Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives . . . (Alma 56:47)

Turning to the weeklong preparation as well for July 4th, here is a sobering passage about a recipient of the Medal of Honor. Considering that there’s no discernible publisher to contact for permission, that this was for the most part drawn directly from another source, and that this officially constitutes my encouragement to read the original, I trust this won’t be a copyright violation. From Paul H. Kelly and Lin H. Johnson, Courage in a Season of War: Latter-day Saints Experience World War II [U.S.A., 2002], 469-472:

Nathan Van Noy Jr., was born at Grace, Idaho, and raised in nearby Preston.

The following account of his heroism was published in YANK Magazine: The Army Weekly, dated 31 December 1943, written by Pvt. John McLeod, YANK staff correspondent:

NEW GUINEA–The kid was tow-headed, red-cheeked and 19 years old. He joined his outfit as a replacement before it went into its first action.

The fellows in his outfit didn’t pay much attention to him. They hardly knew his name, called him Whitey or Junior. They called him Junior because he looked even younger than he was, because he didn’t have much to say. When he did say something he did so without using the Army’s stock phrases of profanity.

“We kind of figured him as a mama’s boy,” a sergeant in his outfit recalled. “Just goes to show you how wrong you can be.”

Junior soon showed that whatever else he was, he was a good soldier.

During his first action he shot down a low-level enemy bomber, which came over Red Beach, near Lae, trying to strafe the beach and barges.

At Scarlet Beach, beyond Finschafen, he didn’t have too much luck in his shooting, and he received five shrapnel wounds in his wrist, side and back.

The medics tried to evacuate Junior to a base hospital, but Junior said no. He could get along all right and his outfit was short of good .50-caliber men. It needed him. Again, the medics tried to ship Junior off when he came to them with ulcers in both ears. Junior said no. He went to the aid station for treatment three times a day, but he stayed on his job, digging defense positions, taking his turn by the big Browning machine gun.

The Scarlet Beach defenses needed men.

On the night the Japanese counterattack came, Junior was sound asleep in his hammock, perhaps dreaming that he was no longer a private in the Army, but just plain Nathan Van Noy Jr., playing football with his high school team back at Preston, Idaho, or working in a tow garage after school hours.

Junior was so tired that he slept through all the rain that poured down on his hammock top that night. After the rain stopped shortly before dawn, however, Junior was awakened by whispers in the bush near him.

Sgt. John Fuina of Brooklyn, in charge of the American beach detachment, was restless, and so was T-5 Raymond J. Koch of Wabasha, Minnesota. They got up together to take a stretch. It was an hour and a half before dawn and still black as midnight.

Gazing out to sea, the two saw three smudges on the skyline. Holding their breaths and clutching each other’s arms, they waited. The smudges gradually took more distinct shape as they moved slowly and noiselessly toward shore. They had the decidedly peaked prows of Japanese landing barges.

They were only 300 to 400 hundred yards away.

Sgt. Fuina yelled an alarm and ran toward his .37mm antitank gun to fire an alert. Cpl. Koch ran from hammock to hammock and tent to tent waking the American and Australian gun crews.

Pvt. Van Noy didn’t need any waking. At Sgt. Fuina’s first yell, he tumbled out of his hammock and dived into his machine-gun pit. His loader, Cpl. Stephen Popa of Detroit, was right after him.

Sgt. Fuina didn’t waste any time. He fired one armor-piercing and two HE shells at the nearest barge. An Aussie two-pounder gun joined him. Together they sank the barge, and they could see soldiers clambering out of it, first trying to reach the other barges and then swimming toward the far bank of the Song River.

The other two barges landed right in front of Pvt. Van Noy’s .50-caliber position. They beached just fifteen yards away. The barge ramps slowly began to fall. Troops started throwing out grenades by the handful. Pvt. Van Noy held his fire.

When the ramps were all the way down, when the Japanese blew their bugles and began to charge, Pvt. Van Noy pressed his finger on the trigger and cut loose. The first to fall were two Japanese officers trying to scorch Van Noy out of his position with flame throwers.

The remaining troops fell on their faces and continued throwing grenades and firing.

Aussie Bren gunners some yards behind Van Noy’s pit began shouting to him to “Get . . . out of there, you . . . fool.” Seeing the grenades burst all about the pit, Sgt. Fuina yelled, too, ordering him to get out of his exposed position.

Pvt. Van Noy’s loader, Cpl. Popa, crawled from the pit with a shattered leg trailing behind him. He thought Van Noy would follow.

But Pvt. Van Noy changed ammunition belts and kept on firing.

Sgt. Fuina saw a grenade land squarely in the pit. Van Noy’s stream of tracers continued to rake up and down the water’s edge, where by this time the Japanese were frantically trying to dig into the sand.

Then there were other flashes, and Van Noy’s gun ceased firing.

Until dawn the firing crackled around the beached barges. Aussie gunners fired clip after clip from their Bren and Owen guns. Sgt. Fuina loaded his .37 and raked over every square foot of the beach and barges. Pfc. Philip Edwards of Mokane, Missouri, helped out from a far flank with his .50 and knocked out a Japanese .50, which had been firing spasmodically from one of the barges.

When the sun rose out of the Bismark Sea, a skirmish line of infantrymen moved down to the beach to mop up the remnants. There weren’t any remnants to mop. Junior’s Browning had accounted for at least half of the forty who landed. Aussie gunners and Sgt. Fuina’s .37 did the rest. The twenty who swam from the first barge had been disposed of in short order by Australian Owen gunners and a Papuan infantry patrol.

It was a sad lot of victorious soldiers who finally went over to Pvt. Van Noy’s weapon pit. Pvt. Van Noy was the only Allied soldier killed in the action. The first grenade in the pit had torn off his left leg. It took a rifle bullet between his eyes to stop him. Even then, the men wondered if he hadn’t continued to fire after death. Every bullet in his gun had been fired.

All of his American buddies and the twenty Australians who fought with Junior Van Noy agreed with Sgt. Fuina, when he looked down at the dead soldier’s body and said:

“That kid had more guts than all the rest of the Army put together.”

That seems to about size it up.


Nathan Van Noy Jr. is buried in the Grace Cemetery, Grace, Idaho. Later the United States rechristened a ship after Nathan.

Now, I’d actually appreciate considerate and thoughtful comments as to whether, from this portrayal, it’s possible that the assault could have been repulsed almost as handily had Van Noy pulled back when ordered to do so, or whether his “defiance” of the concerned order actually saved the day. There is something strategically to be said—even in cost-effective terms, to sound callous and calculating—for maintaining heavy fire longer than anticipated during a direct onslaught. According to an alternate version, differing in some details, his finger was still on the trigger. So, what might have been his motives and his options? What say you?

To enlarge it—I wouldn’t say reduce—to spiritual terms, how can this be applied in terms of doctrinal defense? If there is no middle ground with the gospel, doesn’t any form of relaxation or surrender mean being driven from the high ground to a lesser position?

At times, when I envision the spiritual conflict over this world in the end times, and as discussion turns into intense debate, I can’t help but see it in a similar light to this account. It’s more a feature of thoroughness and firmness in belief that prompts this quirk of mine, but I try not to waste my time with a negligible fusillade. I’d like to succeed at laying down an immediate heavy artillery defense, hoping to blow the attackers out of the water. :-) The crackle of small arms fire should be the last thing anyone would hear, as I was unfortunately overcome. (Yes, I’m peculiar in my choice of heroes and heroics.) May we all hold the Lord’s line against every incursion. Curiously, this theme haunts my thoughts and dreams.

I am grateful to be an American and a Latter-day Saint. What a fortunate blessing! I hope never to forget the price paid for both privileges, and what may be required to maintain them against all future opposition.