What Did the Angel Say?
ON the sweetness of Mormon life–Primary Program Edition.
My fave-whit part of da Book uh Mormon is when da angel come and say STOP MAKING BAD CHOICES
I like the stories of Captain Moroni and the Brother of . . . mumble. Shy. Blush. Leaves.
I like that Nephi asked Heavenly Father what is that? What is that? What is that?
Nephi was told to build a boat, he didn’t build half, he just had to cut.
Little blondie in pink with a bob. Smirks, surveys the congregation, smirks, steps down. Never utters a word.
A very self-possessed little girl with long platinum blonde hair comes out with a violin. She has extremely erect posture. The Primary sings and she plays the violin. It’s a back and forth. They are shouting in staccato and she is playing sweetly. The effect is interesting. TREE. OF. LIFE–lilting violin–AT. THE. TREE–lilting violin.
The tree of life was not a cottonwood.
The rod of iron is bright so you can get somewhere in the dark.
He saw the Great and Spacious Building from the other side.
Abinadi was a prophet who talked to people.
His gods chased Ow-ma away.
Ammon’s brother Ammon.
During the next musical number, a little girl whose head partly peeks out above the piano starts waving vigorously.
So they made an oath never to kill themselves — wait, wait, wait.
Sol
September 16, 2024
I’m jumping in for no good reason except to give a thumbs up to this category (Sweetness of Mormon Life), of which this post is a paragon. Quoting below from an email I sent to G years ago, it was in part the “sweetness of mormon life” that helped me reconsider my kneejerk sentiment circa 2012 as I was discovering Mormon thought: that even if Joseph Smith’s theology was true, surely I could never join this group of crackpots.
Here’s the quote:
“But years ago when I first discovered your blog through [Bruce Charlton] I was not in our church or in any church. I had spent most of my adult life as an viciously eloquent anti-christian purveyor of scientism. It was through having read BGC’s blog for years, listened to his changing views as he became first a Christian and then a Theoretical Mormon, that I began thinking about Christianity again, and all because the theology introduced by Joseph Smith so neatly solved all of the logical impossibilities I had rejected from the mainstream Christianity of my childhood.
So it was BGC who brought me into the theoretical consideration of Mormon life.
But on the cultural front, I remember being smitten with the “sweetness of Mormon life” phrase. I can’t say at this point whether it was any particular post under that tag that started it, but I began having this kind of “could it be possible???” Q&A track in my head. Could it be possible that Mormon life was anything except a grind of rugrats and church and abnegation? The mere invocation of “sweetness” seemed to slap the question down.
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End quote.
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Having now five young rugrats of my own, a hefty church calling, and (thankfully) gainful employment, I can attest that it will become a grind if you allow it. But as our stake president just exhorted me in our last meeting, we are challenged to find joy in our callings. And through Christ, I can also attest that that joy can be found, and the joy of the calling, the gainful employment, the 5 rugrats, and the marriage for eternity is ours for the taking as well.
Thanks again for the reminder.
G.
September 16, 2024
Sol,
I remember that very well. Very, very well. You don’t know it, but that comment of yours was one of the two highest ‘pay’ moments that have kept me finding the joy in the grind of running a blog.
Sol
September 16, 2024
G, I’m glad the comment stuck. There are so many little acts like that in our lives — small to the point of invisibility — but acts that we have chosen to make in a conscious effort to be part of The Good. If men will open their hearts, God will pluck those acts out of their obscurity and seeming insignificance to make them part of something grand.
In your case, it’s the act of writing from the heart to capture a vignette of something beautiful.
I have another example. As I was recovering from my years of rejection of God and starting to think about Mormon theology, my thoughts often went back to a good friend in high school who was in the church. We didn’t talk about religion much or at all. But we were boys, and when several of us found a dirty magazine stashed in a field, we all goggled at it as if we’d found the secrets of the universe (looong time ago, that). But the second time we revisited the field, my friend said he was walking away. And he did. The others of us didn’t. How could we? We had no reason to.
Years later, as a middle-aged adult with young kids, contemplating that act, several things come to mind.
(a) It did nothing for me in the moment. I did not investigate the church. I did not change my ways.
(b) However, it did stick with me. It was so unthinkable for a teenage boy.
(c) As an adult it helped add a small weight to the “investigate the church” side of the scale. Why would I not investigate an institution that could give such power to a teenage boy?
(d) I’m sure my friend did not appreciate the significance of that event at the time, except perhaps to himself. Who would know that someone would remember it decades later?
It’s related to faith. Our powers are often invisible. That does not mean they’re not there.