The Importance of Advocates - Jason K (By Common Consent)
The Scream
3 weeks ago
(I) talk of Christ . . . and (I) write according to (my understanding), that (my) children (and friends) may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins. (2 Nephi 25:26)
There were some kinds of challenges that President Kimball had that were very, very difficult and it came to a point of sometimes weighing church membership in the balance and he had to make the decision. And it was on the basis of his decision that the first presidency of the Church would act at the time, because this was when he was an apostle.
President Kimball under those circumstances would say that sometimes lives are so complex, conditions are so incredibly confused, guilt and responsibility are so diffused in so many ways that it is very, very difficult and it is not a clear cut issue of right and of wrong. And he said that frequently with some of these more difficult problems he would pray mightily unto the Lord and ask for His guidance and direction and sometimes would not receive a clear cut answer as to the direction that he should proceed and that when that would happen, he would stop and ask himself the question:
“What is the loving thing to do?”
And he said, "Some day I know that I will stand before the judgment bar of God, and some of the decisions I made will have been wrong. I will have erred. I will have made a mistake that maybe the decision should have been another way."
And the Savior will ask me:
“Why did you make that decision? That was not the correct decision.’"
And I will say with the integrity of my heart:
"Lord, I did that because at the time I wasn’t sure what was the direction that I should go and so I made what I thought was the loving decision.”
I am confident that God will look down upon me on those occasions and forgive me of my error."
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (verse 11)
When my wife and I got married, we agreed that I would make all the important decisions and she would make all the unimportant ones - since she already had made the most important decision in my life by agreeing to marry me.
28 years later, can you believe there hasn't been a single important decision since then?
The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.
Yes, the title is correct – and it should be, if “not too much” means “an intellectualism which brings the person to obsessiveness or extreme pride and inflexibility”. There is a huge difference between “intelligence” (especially as our canon defines it) and “intellectualism”.
I like the D&C clarification of “or in other words, light and truth”. That gets missed in many conversations about what it means to be intelligent within the framework of the Restoration – and it defines the heart of the tension between being intelligent and being an intellectual, as those terms are used most often by the top-level leaders of the LDS Church. Intelligence becomes about clarity and real understanding, not the accumulation of information alone. Thus, my father who hated formal education and rejoiced when he escaped high school can be more intelligent than many of the students with whom I studied at Harvard who could recite all of the information they had read in classes and debate with anyone but who had no clue what it all meant and had no clarity and real understanding of the subjects they had studied and the people around them.
I think the Church, as an entity, encourages the type of intelligence described in the D&C – but, since it is comprised of individuals, that ideal gets emphasized, watered down or even rejected at each level moving throughout the organization. Thus, it’s difficult to make a generalized statement about “The Church” as a whole that is intelligent in nature without including a level of ambiguity that recognizes the tension of competing extremes and the widely varying mid-points most of us actually live.
"That's not how I interpret that scriptural passage, so you must be relying on the philosophies of men."
"Regardless of these natural responsibilities we inherit due strictly to biology and culture, the ideal marriage is one where such distinctions are erased - where each partner shares the other's responsibilities to some degree and acts as an equal partner with the other overall."
I remember when my youngest turned 8, and we began to talk about baptism. We asked him when he would like to be baptized (his birthday is in May), and he said:
“I think . . . . . . November.”
We were a little curious as to what significance that had, but when asked he replied with a cheery smile:
“I want to live a little first.”
I linked previously to a post by Jacob on By Common Consent entitled "Men, Sex and Modesty". I came across an exchange I had in that thread with another commenter and felt like I should copy it as a separate post.
The other person said:
I responded:
The other person then accused me of being snarky, to which I replied (edited to combine three comments into one comprehensive comment):
I personally believe Jesus was married and that he had a romantic, intimate and sexual life that he "laid down for his friends" when he became a minister and went on a mission, so to speak. I might be wrong about that, since there simply is no way to know for certain, but I believe he experienced all we experience, in some way, and I believe that means he experienced our greatest joys as well as our greatest sorrows and sins.
Looking back on the last 32 years of my life, since I met my wife, and the last 28 years, since we were married, I choose to believe he experienced my greatest joy - that of being married to a woman whom I love with all my heart and soul. I don't believe his life could be "perfect" (complete, whole, fully developed) without that experience.