So many things only make sense when you consider the time factor.
Elder Bednar’s talk on Saturday is an example. He illuminated what humility truly is for us mortals.
He said that humility is awareness that you can fail. Which is different from demeaning yourself.
(All thoughts after this are my own, Elder Bednar bears no fault for them.)
General Conference Retrospective
Elder Holland quoted G.K. Chesterton on gratitude.
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
— thus G. K. Chesterton
General Conference Retrospective
In a wonderful talk about the temple, Elder Andersen told about a young man testifying to the Heber City Planning Commission about the proposed new temple. “I am hoping to be married in this temple,” he said. It moved me.
General Conference Retrospective
Elder Soares refers to being home-centered, church-supported, and temple-bound. Catchy phrase. Let’s consider it a little.
The temple is a heavenly ascent rite that culminates in being welcomed to heaven and then taking your place as king and queen in doing his work. So temple-bound ultimately means ‘heaven-bound.’
Home-centered, church-supported, heaven-bound.
Temple-bound also means marriage-bound and therefore making-a-home bound, and there we come full circle.
All impressions idiosyncratic or your money back.
Guaranteed to be too ill-written to have been generated by ChatGPT
I noticed some interesting teaching in passing about the afterlife.
After a period in which the disobedient suffer for their sins, which suffering prepares them for what is to follow, all will be resurrected and proceed to the Final Judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In a word, purgatory. I had never heard this before. Spirit prison is a place of suffering? Check. But I hadn’t put it together that the suffering is preparatory
During Sister Wright and Brother Daines’ talk I wrote “these are very ‘feminine’ themes.” Comfort, relief, acceptance, etc.
At one time I believed that churches including occasionally ours were too feminine in their approach and focus, driving men away. So ‘feminine’ themes gave me allergies. Now, whatever the truth of that particular sociological observation, I have realized that femininity is one of the foundational truths of the world. There should be a complete and moving ‘feminine’ version of the gospel that will appeal to women but also to men, because it is tapping something deep and godly. There should likewise be a complete and moving ‘masculine’ version of the gospel about duty and honor and glory and triumph that will appeal to men, but also to women. And approaches that are both, and approaches that cut orthogonally. The eternities cannot be fully contained in one mortal package.
The problem, if there is a problem, is not too much feminized gospel. It is too little masculinized gospel.
(“To serve in this Church is to stand in the river of God’s love for his children” – wow)
What a great time. As President Monson might have said, hearts were touched, inspirations were jotted down, apples were canned.
Having General Conference every 3 months might take away the specialness, but I’m willing to try the experiment.
who presided? If they announced who was presiding, I missed it.
I decided to do something a little different this time. Instead of looking over my notes, I am going to just list what struck me from memory. (If you want to do the same, jot down what you can before you read further).
I also am going to record my impressions.
Hopefully Elder Ballard will not frown if I say that I am thankful for the conference, my personal experience was the best I have had in years, and thankful for you. For me this was like the conferences of old, the most spiritual its been for me since President Nelson’s legendary talk about the 8 keys to revelatoin.
Professor Hugh Nibley once noted that the kingdom of God cannot endure if it indulges even the smallest sin: “The slightest taint of corruption means that the other world would be neither incorruptible nor eternal. The tiniest flaw in a building, institution, code, or character will inevitably prove fatal in the long run of eternity.”
(from Elder Christofferson)
It follows, conversely, if an incident does not prove fatal in the long run of eternity, it was not a sin.
Some wonder why God would punish people. The answer is that it’s a kind of celestial engineering. Sin making you unfit for eternity isn’t a consequence. Its the definition of sin. That’s what it is. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be sin.
I want to be careful because I am going to say something a tiny bit shocking. It is true but not in every sense. It is that sins you repent of are not even sins at all, anymore, because once you repent of them they won’t stop you from pursuing your course.
It’s as if doing something wicked in mortality isn’t yet sin. It’s Schrodinger’s sin. Whether it was sin or not remains to be determined by whether you repent of it later.
(Dusting off the Archives)
Authenticity is integrity with the element of time irrationally and wickedly stripped off. It is trying to be true to yourself right now, without regard to being true to who you were and especially to who you will be. The honest seed sprouts and flowers. The authentic seed falls on stony ground and stays a seed, then a withered caricature of a seed, then a husk. Authenticity is death.
In Mormon terms, where damnation means the cessation of progress, authenticity is damnation.
My daughter did something neat this conference. She wrote down all the things she laughed at and all the good stories.
There were some good stories and some deeply moving ones, like Sister Aburto and Elder Palmer’s experiences with their siblings dying.
I wasn’t trying to write any type of note in particular, but as usual I seem to have gone for memorable phrases and pithy aphorisms
Say what you hear.
Among other things, I am looking for insight on how to be more than I am and how to lead my family to greatness in time and eternity.
I also hope to spend some time at the foot of the cross with some of the speakers, this being Easter weekend.
I recently read a talk by President Hinckley from what doesn’t seem like so long ago. But I guess it is now. The talk is Our Solemn Responsibilities.
For me the talk was like a switching yard. It started a number of different trains of thoughts. (more…)
President Hinckley said that marriage was beautiful (giving his due to its difficulties) and then had this to say about divorce
Some of you within the sound of my voice could recount family sorrows in your own experience. But among the greatest of tragedies, and I think the most common, is divorce. It has become as a great scourge. The most recent issue of the World Almanac says that in the United States during the twelve months ending with March 1990, an estimated 2,423,000 couples married. During this same period, an estimated 1,177,000 couples divorced. (See The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1991, New York: World Almanac, 1990, p. 834.)
This means that in the United States almost one divorce occurred for every two marriages.
Those are only figures written on the pages of a book. But behind them lies more of betrayal, more of sorrow, more of neglect and poverty and struggle than the human mind can imagine.
We live and have lived in a country that is free for many practical purposes. The downside is that to date the greatest persecutions inflicted upon us as a people have been inflicted by ourselves. True, we live in a society that encourages and facilitates divorce. But no one made us do it.
I sometimes wish we excommunicated for more divorces, though that would not cure the ugliness that led to the divorce in the first place.