Two Elaines

This the first of my posts Giving Thanks for People in my Past.

Thought I'd hit both Elaines in a single post. First things first: I have never known an Elaine who wasn't a beautiful person. It's one of the reasons my oldest is named Elaine. The other two reasons are:

1. My aunt Elaine.

My mother's older sister Elaine was a small fiery creature. I've heard hilarious stories about her temper. But that's not what I remember about her. I remember her kindness and her love of Jesus.

My mom was a very young mother, seventeen when I was born, and she received a lot of help from family while she finished high school and then as she was working. Elaine was my second mom when I was small and I adored her.

One of my earliest memories is of waking up with the stomach flu while I was at her house. I remember her calm patience. I remember her gently washing the vomit out of my hair and reassuring me again and again that it was going to be okay and that she wasn't mad about the mess I'd made. I remember her making me feel like the most gifted person in the world when I got my cousin to burp. I remember her not laughing her tail off when I sprayed Lysol in my eye wondering what it would feel like. I remember hours and hours of fun with her and her babies.

She worked with the kids at my church too. I remember her singing with me about Jesus. I have a very distinct memory of a call and response song asking why I loved Jesus (because he first loved me). I knew he first loved me because she told me he did. That is no small gift.

When I was five, she died from liver disease, the same liver disease that had plagued her the entire time she was doing all those wonderful things with me. I've never stopped missing her. I'm certain that, had she lived, I would have had a more complicated relationship with her, as my conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints flipped out the rest of my Southern Baptist family. Perhaps I wouldn't have found her fiery temper so amusing if it was aimed at me, but as it was, I just had a loving aunt who was there for me whenever I needed her. 

2. An Elaine I hardly knew who gave me one of the most generous gifts I've ever known. 

This Elaine was someone who knew me when I first joined the church. She and her husband decided that I ought to go to BYU and so they paid for my tuition for both years I attended. (One of those years was after a significant stock market crash which hit them hard and they still helped me.) All that they asked is that I pay it forward when I got a chance. After my mission, I transferred to a local college. Since my family had moved out of my hometown, I wasn't in the same ward anymore. I lost touch with her. But I didn't forget. And I'm still working on that pay it forward thing.

The Gospel According to V

My V interprets her lessons at church in such a lively way. A little tweak here, a little extrapolation there and viola, a tale worth telling!

Take this recent exchange:

Mom, do you know what the gift of tongues is?

What?

It's when Jesus gives us a tongue! Do you know why he gives us a tongue?

Uh...

So we can talk to him. Before he gave us a tongue, he couldn't understand us because we couldn't make our words right.

Um...

The mutilated lesson from the week before:

Look, Mom! Look! Here's a glove. See how it's DEAD! It doesn't move because its really dead. But look, Mom! If I put my hand in it, the glove is ALIVE. Because my hand is alive. Do you know why Jesus made my glove alive? So that [she places a penny upon her gloved hand and moves it forward a few inches]...so that it can pay tithing! Isn't that great, Mom?

Uh...yes, babe. That's great.

And last but not least, here's my all-time favorite V-ism, from a couple years back.

Do you have any questions about Jesus, V?

Just one. How did Jesus get us all here to Earth?

Well...daddies and mo--

I know! He gave us a ride on a spaceship! He had a cart that he drives on little wire connected to earth and the moon and the planet God lives on. So he made us on his planet and then he carried us without life and as he put us on Earth he made us alive--with his magic.

Well...um...hm. Actually I'm really sure about Heavenly Father letting daddies and mommies make babies.

With s*x?

Yes, when a daddy and a mo--

Then Jesus brings us to Earth in the cart. Right?!

I love you, sweetie.

I love you too, Mom.

Rejoice, He Lives Again and So Shall We!

[Hat tip tp Motherboard]

Easter

Testimony as a Process

Never, never, never begin your talk with a definition; it's boring and makes people zone out. I read this very recently from a very reliable source, several sources actually. But this isn't actually a talk. It's a buffed up, rearranged, blog version of my talk. Did they say never, never, never begin your post with a definition? Nope. So let's start with a definition. Elder Dallin H. Oaks in General Conference April 2008 gave an excellent one:

A testimony of the gospel is a personal witness borne to our souls by the Holy Ghost that certain facts of eternal significance are true and that we know them to be true. Such facts include the nature of the Godhead and our relationship to its three members, the effectiveness of the Atonement, and the reality of the Restoration.

I frequently hear testimonies being compared to plants (seeds, fruit, etc) or to children. Both need nurturing, but just as no two plants, no two children, develop identically, or even have the same needs, the process each person goes through to gain a testimony is unique.

In October 2008, Elder Carlos Gadoys shared an experience he had in Sunday school while he was visiting as a member of the quorum of the seventy. The teacher asked class members to share significant experiences that they had as they formed their testimonies. As everybody related their experiences, he got the feeling that she was expecting him to share his experience. (I must admit that if a Seventy came to my classroom I'd expect the same.) And so he searched his memory banks and searched and searched and was unable to come up with any major experience that had led to the development of his testimony. That was not his conversion experience. Later that day during Sacrament Meeting he gave his more sedately acquired testimony of the truth of the gospel and of the restoration, and of the reality of God, of our Savior. He adds "Sometimes we think that to have a testimony of the Church, we need some great, powerful experience, or a single event which would erase any doubts that we have received an answer or a confirmation."

Do we need to see an angel, feel a huge fire in our bosom, or be knocked to the ground in order to know for sure that God is real, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith was a prophet? It happens to some people, but those one-time memorable experiences are relatively rare, perhaps not even that useful. Elder Gadoy states that a huge spiritual experience doesn’t necessarily result in faith, pointing to Laman and Lemuel in the Book of Mormon as prime examples. They saw an angel, but the moment the angel was out of their sight the excuses began. No lasting faith resulted from their big experience.

Contrast Alma the younger. He was born a member and was taught by the gospel clearly by his parents and at church (or whatever worked for church for them at that time) and then chose not to follow it and in fact chose to fight against it. His father, as we all know, prayed and prayed for his son to have an undeniable experience, and Alma did receive a memorable angelic visit.

“And as I said unto you, as [Alma and the sons of Mosiah] were going about rebelling against God, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto them; and he descended as it were in a cloud; and he spake as it were with a voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood; And so great was their astonishment, that they fell to the earth” Mosiah 27: 11-12

The angel then delivered his message: Stop trying to destroy the church. It’s God's church. Don't mess with it. It’s not that different from the vision that Laman and Lemuel saw. The difference is the choice Alma made afterward. He believed, but not just because of the angel and not just magically out of the blue. He sought the truth.

As he preached among the Nephites, he explained the process he used to learn if his beliefs were true. In Alma 5: 45-47 we read,

Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?

How does he know? How does he have a testimony? He's about to tell us.

Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.

Fasting and prayer. Those were the tools he used, not just briefly, but many days. The product of using those tools? Spiritual knowledge revealed through the Holy Ghost.

The Book of Mormon doesn't just leave Alma's experiences at that. He dedicated his life to helping people gain testimony. In addition to teaching the Nephites, Alma also went on a mission to the apostate Zoramites. One of the most extended plant analogies we have comes from this portion of his ministry.  He’s teaching people who are not likely to get an angelic visitation (like most of humanity) yet he affirms that they can know with a surety. How? Let's go find out. His sermon is recorded in Alma 32:26-272. 

Now, as I said concerning faith—that it was not a perfect knowledge—even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge. [Notice we cannot know immediately with perfect knowledge.] But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words. (Alma 32: 26-27)

He moves into his analogy.

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed...

Let's pretend. You have two peas, one out of a seed packet, the other from a can of peas. You plant those seeds. One of them is a good seed, very likely to grow. Not by itself, true. Still the other seed is guaranteed not to grow. There are seeds that WON’T grow no matter how well we care for them, seeds that are dead, seeds that aren’t true seeds. OK, back to Alma.

...if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge.

Not a perfect knowledge of everything, not yet.  We must care for the plant our seed brought forth so that we can have fruit, a perfect knowledge of truth, leading to eternal life. 

I have some personal experience in plant care. I love to garden. When it’s cool I’m good with planting and weeding and so forth, but then when it's hot I don’t always get out there and water because...well...it’s hot out there. As a result my plants tend to do the shrivel thing. Not good, but not the poor seeds' fault. Interestingly, my son J has a different method. He plants and weeds, but also waters. It is amazing how much more fruit he got out of his garden than I got out of mine last year. 

So it is with a testimony. As we continue to care for the knowledge we have and seek more knowledge, it grows. It's not instantaneous. We don’t plant our seeds one day and have a nice bowl of split pea soup on our table the next. It doesn’t go that way. There’s a lot of nurturing that happens. It’s a process.

I asked friends for their thoughts on a testimony. Let me share a truly beautiful thought from one friend. She hadn't always done the textbook things that are "required" for a testimony and she has felt guilty, that perhaps she didn’t even deserve a real testimony. Then she had an insight.

Simply when I live any part of the gospel in any way, shape, or form. I feel good and I feel love. That is my testimony. That the gospel of Christ and his love for us is the way. No matter on what scale (small or large) I live the gospel, I will always feel and know that.

She listed for some things that have contributed to her testimony. She said that when she reads  the Ensign she gets answers to her questions. When she prays she feels God’s love. When she reads the scriptures she feels the truth. When she goes to church and takes the sacrament she feels better. Little seeds developing into plants, finally bearing precious fruit.

As I studied the scriptures, conference talks and spoke to people about testimony, it became clear to me that the path to testimony is as individual as the human soul. The way that I received my knowledge and testimony is unlikely to be the way others receive theirs. Heavenly Father speaks to us through the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost speaks to our spirits in many, many ways.

In Galatians 5:22 where Paul (who , by the way, had his own angel experience and then continued to live righteously) was writing to the Galatians and was talking about the fruit of the Spirit, a list of feelings we can feel when the Spirit is present. (Look, fruit! That whole plant analogy again.)

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love [When we pray we feel Heavenly Father’s love, love for each other.], joy [How many of us when we finally understood something that God has been trying to tell us through the scriptures or a talk have felt joy or been in the temple and have been filled with that peace and joy? Oh look peace that’s next!] peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance."

I would add the words of the Lord as recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 46: 13-14. "To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world. To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful." Not everyone will see an angel, not everyone needs to. Burning in the bosom, peace and absolute surety, they aren't for everyone. Sometimes we just believe what someone else has seen. 

My experience hasn't been much like Alma's or Paul's, probably not even much like yours. And that's OK, better than OK; it's what I need. God loves me and communicates to me in a way I can understand.  God loves you too; He will reveal truth to you so that you can understand. Yes,"in his own time and in his own way, and according to his own will", but rest assured that God will teach you the things you seek to know in the language of your soul. This I know.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The Virgin Mary

Mary's Virginity. Every Christmas season I hear the allegation that Latter-day Saints believe our Father in Heaven had sexual intercourse with Mary. Does the idea make your skin crawl? It should! It is an ugly lie about God, the father of us all.

If it were just rabid anti-Mormons spewing their contagion, I'd just roll my eyes and ignore them. However, early last month my daughter's seminary teacher gave his opinion in support of the hideous blasphemy. I'm not holding it against him. He isn't the only misinformed Mormon I've run into. Several friends and a mission companion also have gotten all hung up on the "begotten in the flesh" phrase.

I've heard it too many times. "We just don't know. It does say 'in the flesh.'" We do too know! The scriptures testify again and again Mary was a virgin.

Our confusion and reliance on worldly knowledge isn't surprising. Even Mary herself asked how such a thing was possible seeing as she "knew not a man." She knew how conception normally worked. The Angel didn't give her a technical explanation; he simply told her, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:26-38 )

Not surprisingly, Joseph initially believed that Mary had conceived her child the usual way. An angel reassured him that Mary was a virgin, faithful to both Joseph and to the Lord. "The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." The scriptures then confirm that after their wedding "knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS." (Mathew 1:18-25)

Yes, Mormons do believe that Jesus is literally the only begotten in the flesh. We believe that our Savior was the only child ever born whose X chromosome came from a mortal mother, Mary, and whose Y chromosome came from our immortal Heavenly Father. What a glorious heritage, one that enabled him to atone for our sins and to overcome death for all of us!

Yet . . . there’s still that “in the flesh.” We all learned early in life that sexual intercourse is the way Mr. Y. Sperm usually gets to Ms. X. Egg. The only way? Of course not. Virgins can conceive today through in vitro fertilization or through artificial insemination. Our omnipotent, omniscient Heavenly Father has known the beautiful intricacies of creation from the beginning; He certainly understood reproductive technology at the time of conception.

Mary was a virgin, because she had never known anyone. She was a virgin at Jesus' conception. She was a virgin at Jesus' birth. She fulfilled Isiah's prophecy: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14, emphasis added)

After seeing Mary in a vision, the prophet Nephi describes her. "I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white. . . most beautiful and fair above all other virgins." An angel then explains the significance of Nephi's vision, "Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh." Nephi continues to describe his vision, "I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of time the angel spake unto me, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms." (1 Nephi 11:13-20) Notice that Nephi still uses the term virgin to describe Mary holding her firstborn.

Alma also testified of Christ's virgin mother and of his miraculous birth. "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." (Alma 7:10)

The doctrine is clear. Very few honest seekers of truth remain confused after reading the scriptures, praying and reading the church's very clear statements on the subject. Mary was a virgin. We do not need to squelch our oogie feelings when someone teaches that our Heavenly Father committed incest. The confusion, the I-just-don't-know feeling--all those disconcerting feelings are there to testify to us that we are hearing false doctrine.

Let's not wander into indecent speculation but instead teach the truth. A virgin did indeed conceive and bring forth the son of God, Jesus Christ. Through his atonement, made possible through his divine lineage, we can return to our Father in Heaven pure and clean. The truth is joyous.

Not an official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

[I'm leaving comments on, but shall swiftly and emphatically delete any crude comments. Please keep your disagreement reverent. ]

Resolution Redux

Due to some freakish self-defeating mental condition, I am much less likely to accomplish something if I make an official goal. The only New Year's resolution I have ever kept is 2006's: I will not kill anyone. (That was back when I was on the school board and TRUST me only the fear of God and my New Year's Resolution kept a couple of people alive.) By golly, I did not kill (or maim or even threaten) a single person all year long.

So here are the 2008 New Year's attempts (and results).

1. Get the playroom clean. (Define "clean.")
2. Oft speak kind words to the munchkins and the wizard. (Define "oft." Define "kind.")
3. Blog less. (January 1st I was reading By Common Consent, Mormon Mommy Wars, and Feminist Mormon Housewives daily, commenting and following the links found therein. September 22nd. I am following approximately twenty blogs and comment regularly on all of them. AND I started my own little mish-mash blog, my own little bloggy playground. [I am not addicted! I can stop any time I want. I just don't want.] I spend about two hours a day playing. More if I'm looking for a picture of a pirate kitty.)

So that's how the New Year's resolutions are going.

So how about my fake gastric bypass? DOA. Oink, oink. Got some seriously unattractive gluttony going on here.

To add the final flourish to my goal-making humiliation, I have the following to report:

******CAUTION, RELIGION ALERT. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK******

How's about that not talking about it plan? Not going so well. I've been reading everything I can find on the subject, chatting with sympathetic friends, and pretending not to be listening to all of the exhortations being dished up at church. I've been wandering around, irritated at this blatant politicizing in my place of worship, looking forward to November 4th (oh SO looking forward to November 4th) when the whole stupid issue will be laid to rest!

AND THEN?!? Why, the Living God decided to have a little chat, of course. Not a face to face chat. More like a heart to heart. I will spare you the details, but the gist of it is that I have been asked by God to obey. To humble myself, to trust him and to volunteer to make phone calls. Oh and since my objections were made in such a public forum, He thought it would be a good idea to use that same forum to mention my acquiesce to His will.

What is interesting about all this is that I have not been asked to change my mind. I still don't think that the world will end if gay marriage is legal. I still don't think that homosexuality is any more of a sin than any other kind of unchasity. I still think church is a rotten place to talk about Proposition Anything or Candidate XY and his running mate XX. However, I am going to be making phone calls on behalf of the Yes on 8 campaign. Because God asked me to. Because He created me. Because He knows best. Even when I disagree.

(p.s. Yeah, I'm still having the Toblerone give-away.)
(p.p.s. I just achieved my unspoken, unofficial goal of writing a post with the word redux in the title.)

Life is Pain...Anyone Who Says Differently is Selling Something

In the eighties, my sister, my mother and I, separated by hundreds of miles, had a bonding ritual. Each week we would watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation" then call each other to have a little trekkie chat. My sister and I were completely unified in our mockery of Counselor Deanna Troi, an empath, a really irritating empath. She'd stand on the bridge, stare out into space and look pained. "I sense confusion [pain/sorrow/negative emotion
du jour]" We were fairly certain that a good laxative would take care of poor Deanna's constant suffering.

Recently, I've felt a bit like the well-intentioned, but infinitely mockable Deanna as I stare into the vast Internet and feel the suffering. I wander around peeking into the lives of amazing people, their marriages, children, jobs. Their tragedies. It hurts and a laxative has given no relief. The pain is spiritual: the death of a loved one, the loss of faith, mental illness, disability, unemployment, poverty, pregnancy complications, the sorrows of real people I have come to love.

I promised when I was baptized that I was willing to mourn with those who mourn, to comfort those who stand in need of comfort. When a local friend has a miscarriage, I can hold her, cry with her, bring her a casserole and some helpful herbs. When an Internet friend suffers a miscarriage, all I can do is cry and pray that someone will hold her, bring her a casserole, and maybe some helpful herbs.

Perhaps there is some wisdom in the concept of not becoming emotionally involved with strangers, but as I ponder the Savior taking upon himself all of the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain of the world, I have a have a hard time believing that emotional distance is how we become more Christ-like. So I pray and occasionally send a poem. It's really all I can do which is, I guess, better than what Deanna, the hand-wringer, would do.

Life is pain. The joy that the scriptures talks about is not smiling through the death of a child, or humming happily as someone relearns how to walk. It is an eternal joy that comes when Jesus who vicariously suffered for us, who knows and loves us, removes the pain, brings peace to the troubled, heals the scars, and makes us whole again.