O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.

-thus Jacob, 2 Nephi 9:29.  That scripture wasn’t even mentioned in the lesson manual, but its what everyone wanted to talk about.  That says a lot about where we are at these days.

They generalized it to include the rich and the famous and generally everyone who has high status in worldly terms.

The conclusion of the discussion was that the problem with the learned and the clever and the successful wasn’t that they  had too much learning or smarts or success for their own good.  It was that they had too little.

(more…)

We sang that song about the iron rod at church on Sunday.  “The iron rod is the word of God!  Twill safely guide us through.”

But there are actually two different symbols for the word of God in Lehi’s dream. (more…)

Santa Claus is fatherly but old.  Appropriate.  Because Christmas has a family sweetness about it, but it also is fleeting.

Much of the images of Christmas are either cozy and domestic–inside, by the fire, the family gathered around the tree–or aerial, like the song above.  Soaring through the air.  Great open spaces covered in snow under a vast and starlit night.  That is also appropriate.  I have noticed that at moments of great family closeness, everyone else seems a million miles away.

Tap.

Tap tap.

Tap.

Tappity tap tap.

(more…)

This is the story that came to my mind.

The hero is one of us. An American in our world. Probably a teenager or young adult.

Something happens, and he is called out of our world into a land of villages. It is a real world, but it is also something like a game. He is a Level 1 Hero with stats. He gets little notifications and can see popups giving basic information about the people he meets.

He starts doing small favors for the villagers, fights animal pests, and grows in level. He unlocks achievements and new skills. He becomes more capable and faces larger and larger threats. The villagers cooperate with him and eventually he even acquires the ability to recruit them as militia and watchmen. But it bothers him that so much depends on him. Granted, he is a Hero and they are Villagers, but they aren’t just props in a game, they are real people, and it bothers him that they are so oddly unconcerned about their own safety. So willing to just leave it to him.

But one Christmas Eve he is out in the lonely moonlit snow on patrol. And he looks down from the slope he’s on, and through the firs he can see one of his villages, windows lit, the people spilling out into the streets singing and rejoicing together, the little church, post out over fires cooking good things, and he feels that it is all worth it. He feels their happiness, and he wants them just they way they are.

Achievement unlocked: love.

(more…)

There is a piquant contrast between the little infant Jesus of his first coming and the all-conquering Christ of his Second Coming at the head of his legions of angels.

But the contrast is only apparent. The title Prince of Peace is not an oxymoron.

Peace is what comes through victory.

Only the complete and utter victor can offer true peace. You can know His power when you know His peace.

That night, that peaceful night, when he was born . . . it was peaceful because the Romans had pacified the area. It was peaceful because Mary had fought the fight of childbirth and had won. It was peaceful because the angelic hosts were swarming, a devil couldn’t so much as have sneezed.

Christmas is one of the merriest sadnesses that I know.

There is a real Christmas out there, but our actual Christmases never quite reach it.  There is a film between us and that perfect transcendence.  Only in memory can we see how golden the day was.  But even at the time, we are close, so close, and no one wants the day to end.  Last night we sat around, looking at  the tree, talking just a little.  We were going over the events of the day as if it were already golden memory.

We have a picture of Betsey hanging on the tree.

Most of our loved ones were far away this Christmas.  I remember Christmases as a child, when my grandparents were still alive.  “Through the years we all will be together . . . ”  Yes, very true.  But not factual.  Why can it be so sad to be so happy?  Why can it be so happy to be so sad?

The 12 Days of Christmas, after Christmas, are a way of slowly coming back up into the regular January air, lest you do it too quickly.  Most of you who take down the tree the day after, its no wonder you get the bends.

And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God.

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

Christ’s  mortality is the hook on which all our intimacy with him, all his understanding, all his succor, hangs.

A tremendous weight to be born by one little baby.

He bears it easily.  He draws one breath, then another.

Is it any wonder the heavens burst with light?  Is it any wonder the angels make a tumult?

Merry Christmas!

Now and then you get to witness a miracle.

I live in a small rural ward.  We aren’t a singing bunch.  Still, we have a few regulars and in years past I’ve had fun singing with them in a Christmas choir.

This year, nothing was announced.  So around Thanksgiving I said, ‘Bishop, is anybody doing a choir this year?’  “Sure,’ he says, ‘would you mind putting one together.  IN FACT, do the whole Christmas program for that Sunday.’

I have never run a choir before nor had any sort of vocal training.  Also, time was pretty short. (more…)

Remember the reason

for the season

a reason you can’t forget

To get gifts beyond reason

his gifts that are legion

without limit or merit or let.

Some reflections on Paul:

Paganism, or the Law, condemned weakness and praised strength.

The False Christ of Sin praises weakness and condemns strength.

The True Christ makes weak things strong.

The old virtue takes our nature as a given and commands us to do the best we can with it.

The vice tells us to deny our awareness that we are broken and pretend that our crookedness is straight.

The new virtue makes us something better than we are.

The stern  men of old say Know Your Place

The mocking devil says You are OK Just the Way You Are

Our Christ says Become as Gods and Angels

Once a King set out to build a cathedral.  A famous old architect oversaw the construction of a grand edifice of arches and domes in a sound baroque style.  In a master stroke, the architect found a source of very light stone that would weather well for the main construction, but a nearly black stone with a different texture for accents and structural elements.  Even when the building was going up, any one could see how spectacular and lovely the final result would be.

The King and the architect consulted together and employed the most skilled craftsmen to build.

When the work was nearly finished, the king and the architect were taking a tour and noticed one lone gargoyle sticking out sideways from the dome, in a pink stone.

(more…)

Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.

-thus the Lord, D&C 22:1.

I don’t fully grasp this verse.  For one, there is the intriguing hint that old covenants may have had some lingering validity despite their apostasies.  The way the Jewish high priest gets treated in the gospels and Acts.

Even more, what about the reference to a new covenant, which is also an everlasting covenant that has already been around.  “This brand new car isn’t a billion years old.  Its older than that.”  Continuity is a theme around here.  I suppose that sometimes continuity requires ending a failed effort and starting over again back at the basics.  One might say that continual repentance is the true principle of continuity.

It’s a story that has been told many time before.  Page 1 is a peasant boy living an ordinary life; he and his friend are away from supervision hewing wood and drawing water and being comically boyish.  Imagine that this book is copiously illustrated, so on the facing page there is a warm, funny line drawing of two boys hanging upside down from branches trying to wrestle.

Page 2, they come back to their village to see it in ruins.  There had been a sudden raid by evil creatures out of legend destroying and burning.  Horribly, they also kidnapped.  The drawing is a view from behind the boy as he stands looking at the shattered hamlet.  The drawing is smudgy and chaotic.

Page 3, he discovers his parents are dead and his younger sister was kidnapped.  Here we have a picture of a young girl with her head turned to look back to us–she is distressed and sad–while a dark and inhuman arm pulls her into a brooding forest.  This drawing is detailed.

Page 4, he runs off into the local woods to boyishly grieve.  The drawing is him alone, dejected, and crying.

Page 5, he makes a vow by a spring to get his sister back and a supernatural experience ensues.  Some holy presence in the spring witnesses his vow and rises up to bless him and prophesy of his destiny.  The drawing is the boy in awe at the angelic being rising above him.

Page 6, he heads back to the village, but it is now night.  He hears noises and grapples with his own terror.  This scene is played comically.  The threat is no threat at all.  The drawing is a little boy with a stick clutched in his hand, marching truculently and grimly towards a skunk.

Page 7 onward, he is back helping the village.  We meet other friends and neighbors and we learn some of the lore of who the evil raiders may have been, what it portends, and our first hints about the meaning of the boy’s prophecy at the spring.  The drawings are scenes of ordinary life; they are calm and hopeful.

Page 38 onward, the boy’s first quest, something minor to help the hamlet.  Perhaps he and a companion or two (including his friend from page 1) are sent to plead with a Lord  for help for the hamlet.  There is the comedy of him and his bumbling companions being fish out of water, the touching simplicity of an overmatched lad still determined to do his mission–and succeeding!–and the warm personal relationships between him and his companions.  One of the pictures  shows the reception scene at the Lord’s hall.  The Lord and his court are shown very straight and graceful like a pre-Raphaelite painting while the boy and his companions are drawn more in a Norman Rockwell or Peter-Breughel peasant key.

Page 54 onward, on their way back they have an encounter with danger.  It is small but real, and requires them to fight.  Afterwards they have a second encounter with the supernatural beings of Light.  The boy receives more direction and his companions are recruited to help him.  They discover there is a rising Dark Lord who cannot be defeated by ordinary means.  A final drawing in this segment is the three of them kneeling humbly.

Page 75 onward, he decides he has to leave to discover a source of power that will help him fight the Dark.  He and his companions leave for good this time.  The drawing of the village farewell is touching.

They have major and minor adventurers.  He acquires an animal companion, a very comic older friend, probably not exactly human, he grows in skill and power.  There are long segments where he is being closely hunted by the Dark and must flee and lurk and hide.  He wins fights.  He meets with the King.  There is an unexpected treachery.  There is also a peril that he only escapes through the brave sacrifice of a friend and he weeps.  He discovers that his own nature can betray him, that he himself has bad flaws that holds him back, and he has to face his own fears and weaknesses.  He discovers more about the Light, what it is, and why it relies on him and others like him. The peril grows and becomes suffocatingly menacing.  The hero’s plan fails and he is badly defeated and wounded.

All copiously illustrated.

But when all seems lost, some weak and helpless friend gives him unexpected aid and the prophecy is fulfilled in a surprising way.  The boy’s own weaknesses and unsophistication turn out to be his greatest strengths, and the ruthlessness and malice that gave the Dark Lord his power turn out to be the Dark Lord’s downfall.  In a dramatic confrontation, the boy and the Light defeats the Dark.

The Light chooses and honors him in front of all the people.  The drawing shows the boy now become a young man, full of strength and nobility.

But what comes after that? (more…)

BYU Admissions Office, 2023

No one noticed the mistake until the phone calls started coming in.

“How did my daughter, a student body president with a 4.8 GPA and a 36 ACT, not get in? There must be some mistake!”

Now, of course every year there are “there must be some mistake” calls, but those usually involve a delusional parent or a panicked email from a bishop asking them to please disregard his ecclesiastical endorsement. But the sheer volume of calls told them that this time there really was a mixup.

This was the first year that they had hired an outside contractor to handle the high volume of admission/rejection letters, a contract they shared with BYU-Idaho. After a couple of tense hours of investigation, they discovered that the girls whom BYU had intended to admit were sent rejection letters, but were also sent acceptance letters to BYU-I. Meanwhile the girls who were supposed to get rejection letters from BYU and acceptance letters to BYU-I got the reverse. The boys’ letters were unaffected. (more…)