Confidently contemplating contemporary concerns

It was finally a beautiful day outside yesterday! I availed myself of the opportunity for some reading time out in the sunshine. The breeze was not chilly; the sunlight was not sickly. A few of the first bold butterflies fluttered about, and I could hear birds chirping happily nearby: nature’s music was exactly what I’ve been craving. Some neighbors exchanged amiable greetings. The grass was even green—I didn’t care to scale the fence to see whether the other side could surpass it.

Saturday night was not so peaceful. That failure is coupled with an enjoyable event on Monday evening, so I stand at one win, one loss for the week. For some silly reason I thought an activity held up at the planetarium would be educational. Instead, I finally made it home four hours later to record details about “the next generation of psychedelic noisemaking,” complete with “pulsating fractal images and other bizarre, druglike shapes.” Not one thing about astronomy. Just “rock on demand.” The seats literally rocked. We were warned to simply close our eyes against the laser light show if we got dizzy or whatnot, but the pulses pierced my eyelids. It was small comfort as I told myself this was scarcely different from any number of church dances. ;-) “I probably ought to be embarrassed at how long it took me to flee, in light of my recent usage of President Benson’s scathing denunciation of such things in dances.” I recall this dialog from a question and answer session on August 25, 1954:

Bro. ___: In your talk you said that the Holy Spirit would not accompany us in a place of evil. I wonder if a person should inadvertantly [sic] fall into such a place of evil if the Holy Spirit would be there to help him get out.

Pres. [Joseph Fielding] Smith: Yes. I’m talking about the fellow who deliberately goes into that place. If he is forced into it, the spirit wouldn’t leave him. It would be there to protect him. There wouldn’t be any reason in the doctrine that if a man is forced to go in to some place, where otherwise he wouldn’t go, that the spirit has to stay outside until they get through with him. It wouldn’t be consistent.

I’ll try to give this insane generation every benefit of the doubt, but I’d like to see any ward member successfully debate with me that that room didn’t jam all communications from the Holy Ghost, except perhaps for the man or woman who didn’t welcome the commotion.

Because I was dependent on my ride home, I lingered in the outside area to actually learn some fascinating things from the exhibits. After they got out, I overheard some talk about “it’s a Saturday night and I have nothing to do.” Heaven help me! This brings to mind a wry statement about the danger of such mentalities: “Once upon a time a very learned Christian king invited our community to take part in a theological disputation. The poor man was bored. And whenever kings or nations get bored, it means trouble for the Jews; we’ve often been boredom’s best remedy—also the cheapest. We still are. They call that practical theology” (Moshe, in Elie Wiesel, A Beggar in Jerusalem [New York: Random House, 1970], 49-50).

I don’t mean this in denigration, but I reserve the right to waste my own time. Sometimes I do indeed waste it, but when others waste it...well, that’s a very human reaction of mine. What’s more, I have a veritable lifetime of constructive personal projects, so it’s hard for me to imagine having no idea what to do with myself. They all voted together to go to a restaurant, and I had no option but to go along for the ride. I raised no fuss about it, anyway. Thanks to my celiac condition, this is generally—when an unknown food joint is sprung upon me—an awkward affair wherein I can’t eat anything. “There were a few shining moments of interaction with others, but that hardly seemed worth the heavy price I paid this evening.”

Oh, well. As for the matter of such events as that, the fact that I don’t feel like I belong is in one sense the most compelling argument for why I came to this day and time. (Christian discipleship brings with it an automatic hope for a better world...see Hebrews 11:13-16, 35-40, JST; Ether 12:3-4; D&C 25:10.) I’ve got steady enough reassurances that there’s no accident in my present placement. I often point fondly to Francis L. Patton’s defense of his defense last century against the Zeitgeist: “I do not think that it [the theology of Princeton Seminary] is even moribund, but I wish to say that, if it should die and be buried, and in the centuries to come, the theological paleontologist should dig it up and pay attention to it, he will be constrained to say that it at least belonged to the order of vertebrates.” By this I have absolutely NO reference to so-called fundamentalism. I just sometimes feel like my spirit belongs to a different set of circumstances than it’s confronted with daily, trying more along the lines of Nephi’s righteous lament:

Oh, that I could have had my days in the days when my father Nephi first came out of the land of Jerusalem, that I could have joyed with him in the promised land; then were his people easy to be entreated, firm to keep the commandments of God, and slow to be led to do iniquity; and they were quick to hearken unto the words of the Lord—

Yea, if my days could have been in those days, then would my soul have had joy in the righteousness of my brethren.

But behold, I am consigned that these are my days, and that my soul shall be filled with sorrow because of this the wickedness of my brethren. (Helaman 7:7-9; see Alma 29:1-7 and Philippians 4:11-13)

This is shortly followed by Samuel’s description concerning the Satanic counterfeit, which is truly so prevalent in our day:

And now when ye talk, ye say: If our days had been in the days of our fathers of old, we would not have slain the prophets; we would not have stoned them, and cast them out.

Behold ye are worse than they; for as the Lord liveth, if a prophet come among you and declareth unto you the word of the Lord, which testifieth of your sins and iniquities, ye are angry with him, and cast him out and seek all manner of ways to destroy him; yea, you will say that he is a false prophet, and that he is a sinner, and of the devil, because he testifieth that your deeds are evil

But behold, if a man shall come among you and shall say: Do this, and there is no iniquity; do that and ye shall not suffer; yea, he will say: Walk after the pride of your own hearts; yea, walk after the pride of your eyes, and do whatsoever your heart desireth—and if a man shall come among you and say this, ye will receive him, and say that he is a prophet. (Helaman 13:25-27)

Yeats is often quoted in the context of the end times:

The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. . . . And everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.

I had that in mind when I bookmarked a Colombian hostage’s indictment of society: “But it’s not the physical pain that wounds us, not the chains that we wear around our necks that torment us, nor the incessant ailments that afflict us. It’s the mental agony caused by the irrationality of all this. It’s the anger produced by the perversity of the bad and the indifference of the good.”

Which also pulls up a memory from the depths: that of my favorite recitation in college, 50 lines from Michael Wigglesworth’s massive “Day of Doom” (which I chose). (Back then they knew how to write, and Biblically, too!) One passage:

Wallowing in all kind of sin,
vile wretches lay secure:
The best of men had scarcely then
their Lamps kept in good ure.
Virgins unwise, who through disguise
amongst the best were number’d,
Had closed their eyes; yea, and the wise
through sloth and frailty slumber’d.

So in discussing “the best” I mean no disrespect to the best of other faiths, particularly insofar as I am a firm believer in the opt-in/opt-out system described by the Savior (Matthew 8:11-12, and I don’t have time to go into the clarifications regarding acceptance and rejection of “the covenant” by all peoples), and I mean no assumed inclusion of myself in that category. But discuss I shall! Understanding that “nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit when they think they have the Spirit of God” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 205), I must say that false religion depends upon the “testimony” of one or a few, imposed upon the credulity of others, while true religion’s effects are reproducible in the testimony of thousands, millions, even billions or trillions. In this preface to a few dogmatic remarks, I happily include another of my favorite quotations:

Is it true that dogmatism “means assertiveness without knowledge?” How do you know that the assertiveness is without knowledge? When the eleven disciples asserted that Christ appeared to them in the upper room after his resurrection, and they thrust their hands in the wounds in his side and his hands, was it assertion without knowledge? Their statement is dogmatic, and justly so. True religion is dogmatic. All truth is dogmatic. . . . The prophets were dogmatic, and when they received revelation, had visions and visitations from heavenly personages, they knew it, they were not deceived, and their assertions were dogmatic, righteously so. There are members of the Church by the hundreds of thousands today, who can speak with knowledge, and dogmatically and truthfully say, they know that God lives, that Jesus Christ is their Redeemer, that he was resurrected from the dead and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been revealed from heaven and once more given unto men. They speak dogmatically, they cannot speak any other way. They have the testimony of the truth from the most positive source from which eternal knowledge can come. They have not closed their minds against further truth. They are not asserting these things without knowing full well that they are true. They are not bigots, but their religion is fixed because it is given them by divine revelation. Joseph Smith was dogmatic in relating his visitation of the Father and the Son . . . .

There is no truth that can be known more positively than the truth revealed through the Holy Ghost. Moroni knew perfectly well that his promise which is recorded in the 10th chapter of the Book of Moroni, would be fulfilled, and there are many thousands who can testify to this truth.

The knowledge revealed to the humble believer in Jesus Christ, who has been baptized and confirmed by the laying on of hands surpasses knowledge in the weight of its conviction beyond that of any other source. For that reason the Lord gave the following commandment:

[Matt. 12:31-32.] (Joseph Fielding Smith, Man, His Origin and Destiny [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1954], 54-55, 57)

Even new age sentimentalism can connect somewhat on this point, particularly if we understand that not all righteousness is self-righteous, nor is all assertion agency-depriving, nor is all dogmatism incorrect:

There is clearly a lot of dirty bath water surrounding the reality of God. Holy wars. Inquisitions. Animal sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Superstition. Stultification. Dogmatism. Ignorance. Hypocrisy. Self-righteousness. Rigidity. Cruelty. Book-burning. Witch-burning. Inhibition. Fear. Conformity. Morbid guilt. Insanity. The list is almost endless. But is all this what God has done to humans or what humans have done to God? It is abundantly evident that belief in God is often destructively dogmatic. Is the problem, then, that humans tend to believe in God, or is the problem that humans tend to be dogmatic? Anyone who has known a died-in-the-wool atheist will know that such an individual can be as dogmatic about unbelief as any believer can be about belief. Is it belief in God we need to get rid of, or is it dogmatism?

Another reason that scientists are so prone to throw the baby out with the bath water is that science itself . . . is a religion. The neophyte scientist, recently come or converted to the world view of science, can be every bit as fanatical as a Christian crusader or a soldier of Allah. This is particularly the case when we have come to science from a culture and home in which belief in God is firmly associated with ignorance, superstition, rigidity and hypocrisy. Then we have emotional as well as intellectual motives to smash the idols of primitive faith. A mark of maturity in scientists, however, is their awareness that science may be as subject to dogmatism as any other religion. (M. Scott Peck, The Road less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth [New York: A Touchstone Book, 1978], 222-223)

I really enjoy one Christian’s answer to the “Hollywood” depictions of religion:

“Look at all the religious nuts in mental asylums. It’s their religion that put them there.” Those who feel this way have succumbed to the “common-factor fallacy” pointed out by Anthony Standen. He tells of a man who got drunk each Monday on whiskey and soda water; on Tuesday he got drunk on brandy and soda water; and on Wednesday on gin and soda water. What caused his drunkenness? Obviously the common factor, soda water!

For many, the Church is thought of as the last stop on the train before being institutionalized. A careful scrutiny of a truly disoriented person, however, would reveal imbalance and unreality in other areas as well as in his religious life. (Paul E. Little, Know Why You Believe [Wheaton, Illinois: Scripture Press Publications, Inc., 1968], 176)

May I humbly submit to the reader—having primarily in mind fellow Latter-day Saints, to whom the prophets are “by way of command” rather than “by way of invitation” (Alma 5:62)—that my every stance, especially one published to the world via this medium, is carefully considered? By “considered,” I’m using the most convenient summary for an elaborate process, that by right ought to largely take place in a spiritual realm. In ever so many instances, my own efforts at clear vision are supplemented and magnified at least hundredfold by borrowing the lenses of prophets, seers, and revelators. (I don’t give the readers the benefit of sharing instances in my life where my mistaken idea has been corrected in such a manner!) I am also not laying claim to the weight and authority attributable to such sources, nor am I claiming the same relative weight belongs to all personal opinions expressed; I attempt to give clues when an opinion is written out more hastily than others. Nothing on these pages is of absolute, final quotability without my consent. ;-) That being said, I proceed....

I know that many members, what with continued prejudice in the world, misapplication, and misrepresentation, would be startled to hear my view that too many of us are coming to resemble the world. In continued keeping with “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26), some day soon I may write a tongue-in-cheek segment on “How to remain unpopular well into the 21st century.” Pray never forget that my conception of unpopularity in no way involves deliberately repugnant action. We want the world’s curiosity to remain kindled about Him whose light we should bear high, and in this process there will be animosity aplenty drawn upon us: “think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you” (1 Peter 4:12), “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).

Now, if you will stop sending out these . . . Elders, testifying that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, that we have apostles and prophets inspired of God, that we enjoy revelation, that the signs follow the believer, that the sick are healed by the laying on of hands, that we have divine authority from God, then you will be popular. Are your [sic] prepared to do it? If you will stop going into these temples and receiving your endowments and being married for time and all eternity, that will help a little. . . . If you want to be popular, stop doing the things that I have mentioned and deny their truth. But if you want to stay with this Church, be true to your covenants. (J. Golden Kimball, CR, Apr. 1903, 32)

Now for the unpleasant part, undertaken only by walking the line already laid down by others. I’ve been misunderstood in the past and may be again in the future, but my only desire is for others to follow the surest guidelines to Christ. My finger solely points to the beckoning call of His prophets. Don’t pause to in any way think of me as a stopping point.

“Likewise it is necessary, in this matter, to seek out the cause of your malady and then to apply contrary remedies to it. Otherwise, whatever one may do about it, will but be like beautiful plasters which, even whilst covering the wound on the outside, will nourish rather than heal it on the inside” (Sebastian Castellio, Advice to a Desolate France [1562], reprint ed. Marius F. Valkhoff [Shepherdstown, West Virginia: Patmos Press, 1975], 2). “This searching of our own souls and admitting what we see, is sometimes painful, but its effects are healing and wholesome. Probing a wound is sometimes more beneficial than applying an ointment” (Hugh B. Brown, in Messages of Inspiration: Selected Addresses of the General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1957], 244-245). See Jacob 2:7-11. We (yes, I’m quite frankly included in the usage of “we”) don’t want to become “past feeling” by permitting spiritual apathy to fester away.

Ignorance lands in the arena that frustrated President Joseph Fielding Smith to no end, as he stated in his introduction to Answers to Gospel Questions: “If the members of the Church would search their scriptures more intensely in the spirit of humility and prayer, disputations would cease among us. It seems to be a difficult thing to eliminate from the minds of some of our brethren cherished notions that are contrary to the revealed word.” At times discussions arise in our classrooms that are an embarrassment to our knowledge of doctrine. Sunday School is not occasion to take a survey to determine doctrine, but an opportunity to hear everyone’s personalistic contribution leading toward the same, inspired truths. (I have neither time nor patience to stop and address the guffawing that any liberal reader will undergo upon reading that one.) I’ve long been impressed by the availability of answers for essentially every question that arises in life, if one is willing to pay the price in gospel study.

I know of one situation where a leader was given every necessary piece of evidence of a teacher’s straying and did nothing, content to remain in a sort of stupor, persuaded that the occasional excesses of emotion among class members were manifestations of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost will take what it can and run with it, but we must remember that it can really only bear witness to truth, and prospers best in the maximum accumulation thereof. Contrariwise, just this past week I was acquainted with a different leader who received an anonymous letter—normally a sign of someone lacking the courage to back up their claims—that he said confirmed his concerns about a teacher’s weaknesses. Within two days he had sacked the old teacher and at least spoken with the intended new one. I was rather more heartened by that rapid action.

I have heard of cases where, intending helpfulness, someone soothed an investigator’s concerns by unknowingly denying an aspect of our beliefs instead of explaining them in the full light of revelation. In summary, I don’t want the alleged role of “spiritual policeman,” and I wouldn’t be any good at it. I’m just concerned that more people aren’t concerned about our lack of concern concerning important concerns.

I will start with an issue only mildly problematic. (I’m not replicating my double-sided handiest reference on this topic.) If one will recall my recent discussion about picking your battles, you’ll quickly realize that this is apparently not a very essential one to be waged. However, in quoting President Heber J. Grant, I’m establishing how he bridges many prophetic thoughts (those before him and, assuredly, those after him); in his practicality, he had a fine way of summing up, in paraphrase, “I don’t go into fantastic doctrinal gymnastics, but I will tell you this: why have you forgotten what we believe?”

By the way, I hear that card playing is becoming very, very popular, and that the Church must be in favor of card-playing, because the Church authorities never say anything against it. From the time I was a child and read the Juvenile Instructor, published for the benefit of the people, I have read nothing except condemnation of card-playing and the wasting of your time in doing something that brings no good, bodily, intellectually, or in any way, and sometimes leads your children to become gamblers, because they become expert card-players. The Church as a Church requests its members not to play cards. I hope you understand me, and I want you to know that I am speaking for the Church when I ask the people to let cards alone. (Gospel Standards, 42)

If you wish to follow the “lazy man’s” pursuit by typing in LDS magazine search terms on this one, give up now. Most published statements are pre-1971 (though we do get Presidents Kimball and Benson on board). If one thinks about it, though, that still covers the majority of Church history. There is no clearly indicated rescission or successful argument that the inherent nature of the game has substantially altered in its impact on society. (Again, I repeat, I am not one to revert prior to one prophet’s decision ending a practice from a previous administration.) In fact, we are coming full circle in going on the offensive once more against gambling. One of the greatest catalysts for our members slipping into the wrong side of this issue, as noted above, is familiarity with cards and such gaming, OR, one might say, unfamiliarity with warnings.

There’s no other construction one can put on the statements of the prophets about it—unanimous in nature—than that cards (at least of the face or gambling-style variety) are not good. I think of President McKay’s elaboration on another vice: “Well, it is sufficient for me to know that God has said, ‘Wine, strong drink, is not good for man;’ and I wish that all Israel would accept that divine statement, and prove in their lives to the whole world that they accept this as a revelation from God” (CR, Apr. 1911, 62).

To quote President Grant (and please note the date of 1923 on this one--I've read just about all of that period Church literature, and the Brethren clearly warned against debt and speculation long before the Depression) again in this little exercise:

I believe that nearly all of the hardships of a majority of the people would disappear if they were willing to forego the habit of wearing silk stockings, so to speak, and get back to the ordinary manner of dressing in a rather quiet, unassuming way; stay away from about nine-tenths of the picture shows that they attend; return to the ways of thrift and economy that I have heard preached from this stand from the days of President Brigham Young until today. (GS, 113; see Alma 1:27)

Continuity is still more easily demonstrated on this one. This doctrine falls under many names, most notably “provident living,” but a sure, true, and time-tested doctrine it is, to the chagrin of many. (Don’t worry—I won’t pull out the specific thoughts on bankruptcy that discuss the blight upon our people there.) More than a decade ago my good mother, ever quick to discern the spirit behind the activities of mankind, was chuckling about the phenomenon called by some critics “trophy homes.” This puts me in mind of a secular commentary thereupon:

Americans not only love to buy homes, we love to buy stuff to put in those homes. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the size of the average house has increased nearly 40 percent, even though the average family size has decreased. Guess what we’re using all that extra space for ... (Sarah Young Fisher and Susan Shelly, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance in Your 20s and 30s, 3rd ed. [New York, New York: Alpha Books, 2005], 282)

One good man in my ward put it all together quite neatly last week. He has driven by home after home affected by the bursting of the subprime bubble, and linked it directly to failure to obey the prophets’ counsel. (My sympathies to all, and even more so those who may have been innocently affected. See Mosiah 4:16-23, and the well-balanced D&C 56:16-17) In furtherance of the doctrine of simplicity, I’ll share President Kimball’s quote, which to me is additional testimony of the unchanging warning of prophets:

All my life from childhood I have heard the Brethren saying, ‘get out of debt and stay out of debt.’ I was employed for some years in the banks and I saw the terrible situation that many people were in because they had ignored that important counsel. (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball, 115)

I remember when President Hinckley gave an address regarding the lean kine. People reacted somewhat sensationally to it, not very mindful of the fact that he’d spoken on it before. A similar situation was once outlined:

A full generation or more ago I was associated with the welfare responsibility here in Salt Lake Valley and Welfare Square. It came to our attention that on an occasion President McKay was reported to have said something in the temple. We never could verify whether this ever did happen or not, but the rumor of it went across the church like wildfire. President McKay supposedly was in the temple one day and he asked the people in a certain room how many had a full year's supply of food. Getting whatever response there was, he was reported to have said, "For the rest of you, it's too late." Well, I doubt that that experience or incident ever happened, but the report that it may have happened moved across the Church with frightening velocity and got to the point where people everywhere were really anxious about getting their food supply. They missed the point in the report that he said it was already too late and they went out and started to buy food as fast as they could. We had reports of stores in smaller communities that were completely bought out. They were sometimes buying unwisely, and as we lived with that little experience for a time, my brother and I, who worked together, analyzed it in our minds and we said, "Well, we doubt that President McKay would function that way. As a prophet of the Lord, when he has a message to give he doesn't send it out by rumor. He sends it out according to the channels of authority in the priesthood. As a matter of fact, we've heard that message for 25 years that the people of this church should go out and supply themselves with a year's supply of food." And so we said, "We don't need to pay any attention to that rumor." And then he and I went out and bought more food. (William Grant Bangerter, 20 Feb 1981, 3-4)

At any rate, I’m holding the Church’s “All Is Safely Gathered In” pamphlet reiterating President Hinckley’s admonition “I urge you . . . to look to the condition of your finances.” The First Presidency has a very wise and succinct statement printed in it, including: “We encourage you wherever you may live in the world to prepare for adversity by looking to the condition of your finances. We urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from this bondage. Save a little money regularly to gradually build a financial reserve.”

President Monson has not changed the drumbeat one whit. We’ve laughed with him when he remarked upon the reversal whereby too many of us have a year’s supply of debt and no food storage. Did that laughter produce changes in accordance with such prophetic priorities?

I read regularly now that our society blithely assumes credit card debt. More than half of us routinely carry a balance from one month to another, something so unthinkable to my family that I didn’t believe the reports for several months. May I offer my testimony that freedom from debt is freedom from one form of bondage? I find myself more free to offer charity to others because of my carefulness the remainder of the time. I can be generous on causes of my own timing and choosing because of discipline at other times. For others, paying down debt is the insistent first whenever any free money comes their way. The causes I enjoy contributing to would be irresponsible for them to participate in. A classic First Presidency statement (Grant/Ivins/Clark), timely in its reprint, states:

We wish the presidencies of the stakes and the bishops of the wards to urge, earnestly and always upon the people, the paramount necessity of living righteously; of avoiding extravagance; of cultivating habits of thrift, economy, and industry; of living strictly within their incomes; and of laying aside something, however small the amount may be, for the times of greater stress that may come to us. By no other course will our people place themselves in that position of helpful usefulness to the world which the Lord intends we shall take.

How useful it is to distinguish clearly between needs and wants! This is made all the easier when decisions are made “considering the end of your salvation” (D&C 46:7). I’m probably easily entertained, but the more people make fun of my paint-peeling car hood, the more determined I am never to change it. Why expend the money for a cosmetic job when, as I say, it ensures that no shallow girl will ever want to ride in my vehicle? “The fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 7:31). These people have no idea how much I put away for retirement, what my credit score is. As with my other physical exterior, they’ve made a few quick assumptions. Having in mind the additional necessity of knowing, as Professor Barlow at BYU often said, that he is “a man of God with a job,” and other responsible attributes, I appreciate this counsel to the ladies:

Another word of the Lord to me is that, it is the duty of these young men here in the land of Zion to take the daughters of Zion to wife, and prepare tabernacles for the spirits of men, which are the children of our Father in heaven. They are waiting for tabernacles, they are ordained to come here, and they ought to be born in the land of Zion instead of Babylon. This is the duty of the young men in Zion; and when the daughters of Zion are asked by the young men to join with them in marriage, instead of asking—“Has this man a fine brick house, a span of fine horses and a fine carriage?” they should ask—“Is he a man of God? Has he the Spirit of God with him? Is he a Latter-day Saint? Does he pray? Has he got the Spirit upon him to qualify him to build up the kingdom?” If he has that, never mind the carriage and brick house, take hold and unite yourselves together according to the law of God. (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, 271)

Now I will go attend to my herein-unaddressed failings.