CS Lewis described being subject to the temptation of the “inner ring.”  Not being in academic circles that isn’t a temptation for me very often.

But there is a temptation I run into from time to time, and its the temptation to get away with something.  You might think I’m describing the temptation to do some sin, facilitated by being able to get away with it.  But that is not what I’m describing.  There have been times when I did something I had no real desire to do just because I was in a position where I could get away with something and I wanted to get away with something.    I’m not saying any great or malignant sin, but things like laziness or gluttony, done without any real pleasure just for the temptation of getting away with something.

The only real antidote I have found is to actually desire something.  So instead of ‘getting away with it’ it doesn’t even occur to me that I could get away with something, because I have real goals.  This is the difference between actual power and pretend power.

They say in the last days that every secret will be shouted from the rooftops.  This is not just a warning to the ‘get away with it’ men, but a blessing to the rest of us.  All the good you do will be made known.

My stock of incandescent lightbulbs outlasted the Biden administration.

Sunday School yesterday was easily one of the top 5 spiritual Gospel Doctrine classes I have ever been in and about all we did was read Joseph Smith History verses 10-26.

I have found that the Holy Ghost is very present and the veil is thin.

A Navajo sister broke down part way through reading one of the verses about persecution and after that it was a struggle not to sob.

I dreamed I was walking down a covered walkway.  On the one side was an older house from the 60s.  On the other side was a cinderblock building with cheap doors in it, like a storage unit where someone had cheaped out and used interior doors.  I opened one of them.  the doorway was full, top to bottom, with soil.  I scraped at the soil and it fell off, revealing that it was just an inch layer of dirt held in place by floor to ceiling chicken wire.  But the rooms behind the other doors were not like that, they were just dirt.

I dreamed that there was a mid-century bungalow style house on the side of a hill, one story high on the upward slope and two-stories high on the downward.  The downward slope had a balcony on the second story.  I and a brown-haired young woman and a mild old man with a trim and mostly grey beard were standing on a balcony looking up at the stars in the deep twilight.  We were looking because something peculiar had happened.  The stars had white names and degrees listed next to them in the sky.  One was labeled “Kishkumen’s star.”  On the upslope side of the house some neighbors pulled in to our driveway in their station wagon.  They were coming to see if we had an explanation for the phenomenon, seeing as we three were all LDS.

There’s something Faulkner says that I always associate with Shelby Foote, who I heard it from first.

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory.

I wish I could find a clip of Foote reciting it.  There’s a tight analogy here with the social justice left.  Many of them are quite well meaning.  Their problem is (the well-meaning ones) that they are lost in the past.  For them, its always 1965 and they are marching in Selma and this time, this time, we’ll achieve perfect justice.

That shouldn’t be our attitude towards the Doctrine and Covenants.  If you really let yourself–and you should–you can feel that sense of magic.  A time and place where the heavens opened, where God spoke, where Jehovah stood in the air and thundered, and revelations poured down like dew from heaven.  But you shouldn’t stop there.  If you don’t long for Nauvoo or the plains or the early Valley you are kinda broken as a Saint.  But if you stop there, you are stagnant as a Saint.  You have to move on to living your own age of miracles.  If the heavens are quieter with you than they were with Joseph, don’t descend into an elegiac mood.  Prepare yourself. This is the calm before the storm.

At one point in the New Testament, Peter tries to give the Savior a pep talk, telling him he didn’t need to die on the cross. Perhaps he just didn’t want Jesus to be so pessimistic. The Good Shepherd replied with,

23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
24 ¶ Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Matt 16:22-26

Now, why am I posting this? I was angry when I last posted about Brandon Sanderson and his apostacy. Stages of Grief, perhaps. If the pattern of LDS artists who make it big holds, he will dwindle into obscurity and become a footnote. But I should be less contentious… while still speaking the truth boldly.

But this has given me much to ponder. One person pointed out, it may be he has a child who is struggling with this. There are many members who throw their beliefs and covenants away at the first sign of LGBTQ+ struggle or questioning in their children.

This is a level of Niceness that is Abhorrent Sin. As CS Lewis said, The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men.
In coming days, we are going to need both charity and faith guiding hardness. If we are this soft and weak, we will merely be puppets for any man or devil to manipulate. So easy to manipulate. We can not be a light to the world, if we are shaken by every wind. We need to be kind like the Savior and CS Lewis, not the World.

One of the talks in the most recent General Conference, talked about flying a kite. A child wished to see the kite fly higher, so he suggested they cut the string. But the Father saw the folly in that, because it was only that string that held it up. Our difficulties are not our enemies.

I remember a story from Conference not long ago, about a man who drove into the mountains to get firewood, but his truck got stuck in the snow. Since he was already there, he cut wood and loaded his truck. Then he tried again to drive in the snow, and was successful. The weight of the truck made him able to get through the snow he could not have otherwise. We do ourselves and others a grave disservice if we deny others their struggles and weights.

Abraham could not have become the Father of the Faithful, without first sacrificing Isaac. That seems a bit paradoxical, but it is no less true. Nor could Jesus have sat down next to the Father, without first undergoing Gethsemane and Golgotha. Our desire to follow Jesus must also include bearing our crosses, and not stealing them from others. It is taking the Atonement away from people. They need the power of the Savior in their lives.

The Savior said he can make our burdens light. Do we believe in Jesus? Do we believe Jesus? It is easy to believe Him when nothing is on the line. When things are difficult, is when the rubber meets the road, and we learn what we really think.

Of course, we should comfort the afflicted, but we dare not deny them the Cross they so desperately need. There are some who are too nice and too comforting, to where they will deny all crosses, to make things easier. They are damned souls who do such things. Utah in particular, is especially vulnerable to this kind of apostacy.

In the climax of one of Sanderson’s Stormlight books, Dalinar (a repentant Warlord) is offered to have all his pain and guilt taken away by a demigod Odium (Divine hatred, without context or restraint). Dalinar replies with a defiant shout, “You can not have my pain!”.

May we all understand this, and bear our crosses, and not take them from others.

I am currently reading Brandon Sanderson’s most recent tome, Wind and Truth, the final book in the first five book arc of his massive Stormlight Archive. This book is nearly as long as the Old Testament. That is not hyperbole, nor a complaint. 491,000 words vs the Old Testament KJV 609,425 words. Probably the last Sanderson book I will ever read. There were some issues like lame dialogue and bloat, but that isn’t my concern here.

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A drum corps was providing the rhythm for a great military review, led by two drum majors, one snazzily dressed in pearl gray and the other in ivory.

All went well until one drummer started doing his own beat.  Some of the marchers got off.

The major in pearl gray signaled for louder beats.  Surely this would drown out the errant drummer.  But the errant drummer continued to play in the pauses between the beats.  The chaos continued.  The drum major in pearl gray shrugged and asked his colleague if he had any ideas.

The drum major in ivory signaled for creativity and improvisation.  By varying the patterns within the basic structure of the marching rhythm, the drum corps would not only keep the marchers going but also provide an attractive experience that the out of sync drummer would want to enjoy, thus luring him back into rhythm.  It didn’t work.  The out of sync drummer simply played louder so it could still be heard that he was doing his own thing.

But then the first drum major signaled for louder beats and the second signaled for continued improvisation on the basic rhythm, and this combination ended the sound of the different drummer, whether because he rejoined the group or because he could no longer be heard, and the review went on.

The Clan Chief’s piper played badly out of tune.  The Clan Chief, who had the Benefits of an Education, was not worried.  ‘I’ll just get in more pipers,” he said.  “Lots more pipers.  Given that being out of tune almost certainly varies in statistically standard ways, if I get enough pipers the average will be in tune.”

It didn’t work.

Holiday time is often family travel time.  We were shuffling bedrolls from the cartop carrier to a sibling’s guest room, or from a sibling’s guest room back to the car top carrier, I forget which, with a spectacular view of distant mountains, when I realized that finding beauty and joy in these ordinary moments is of the essence.  Because even extraordinary things mostly just consider of ordinary moments organized and directed toward some great end.  The ordinary moments never end.

As we approach the end of the Christmas season, it is worth considering that the biggest holiday of the year is the one celebrating a birth, something that happens everywhere everyday, and not the one celebrating the Resurrection, a much less common event.  I expect that the Resurrection holiday will become a much bigger feast when the event it celebrates has become less out of the ordinary.

There was a young lord, rich, handsome, happy, admired, well-liked, and with a number of good friends much like himself.  Perhaps because of all these blessings, out of the lightness of his heart instead of walking in to a grand reception he leaped over the threshold.  The other young lords took it up.  It was quite the fashion of their set.

But one of the young lords grumbled to another.  “It’s an arbitrary fashion,” he said.  “We only do it because he who leapt first is the apple of every eye.  There are a thousand different ways we could express our gaiety and show we belong to our group.  We could, I don’t know, whistle after meals!  It’s all arbitrary!”

“Then whistle after meals,” said the other young lord he was talking to.  “But wouldn’t that be just as arbitrary?”

“Pfft,” said the first lord.  Then sighed.  Then laughed.  Then leaped.

At a dance, the ladies were chatting.

I’m here, one said, to attract a man.

That is a good reason, her partner in conversation said, but I’m afraid I am here just because I love to dance, and her eyes shone when she said it.

That’s very nice, the other said, but in her mind the lady wondered, how will she ever attract a man with an attitude like that.

The lady needn’t have worried. She attracted a man.

The first step in charting where you are going is knowing where you are and have been.

I think it would be very helpful for all of our LDS friends if they took a few minutes to reflect on

1.  What  they learned from reading the Book of Mormon this year
2. What, if anything, helped their study to be more valuable?

It would also be very helpful if you were willing to share some of your reflections.

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Two boys set out at dawn on a hike into the woods.

They can around a hill and discovered a small stream-fed lake they had never seen before.  Mist was rising from the lake, the sun rose, and then gliding silently into their view they saw swans.

The one boy was awestruck.

The other complained, “where are they going?  There is nothing in this lake.  This is pointless.  Why aren’t they all in a line?  Why aren’t they forming a pattern?”