The gift of the Holy Ghost

"The gift of the Holy Ghost . . . quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections, and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates, and matures all the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings, and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness, and charity. It develops beauty of person, form, and features. It tends to health, vigor, animation, and social feeling. It invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being."

Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology and a Voice of Warning, p.61.

Bringing Humanity to the Gospel

In April 1932, apostle Stephen L Richards gave a conference address titled “Bringing Humanity to the Gospel.”

“I fear dictatorial dogmatism, rigidity of procedure and intolerance even more than I fear cigarettes, cards and other devices the adversary may use to nullify faith and kill religion... Fanaticism and bigotry have been the deadly enemies of true religion in the long past. … They have garbed it in black and then in white, when in truth it is neither black nor white, any more than life is black or white, for religion is life abundant, glowing life, with all its shades, colors and hues, as the children of men reflect in the patterns of their lives the radiance of the Holy Spirit in varying degrees.”

Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost

from the Introduction to First Principles and Ordinances by Samuel M. Brown

"The principles and ordinances of the fourth article of faith are familiar to most traditional Christians. Among Latter-day Saints, though, these concepts have dramatically expanded meanings.  I believe that the first principles and ordinances are much more about relationships--among humans and between humans and [the Father, Son and Holy Ghost]--than is generally recognized  I feel that particularly in the last fifty years, many of us Latter-day Saints have tended toward traditionally American views on faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.  These traditional American Protestant views have emphasized individuals over their relationships.  Faith, repentance, baptism and confirmation have sometimes been about an individual making her often lonely way toward God.  In this book I describe an approach to the first principles and ordinances of the  gospel that acknowledges the relationships that stand at the core of the gospel and the meaning of life...For each principle, emphasizing relationships transforms a familiar concept.  As markers of relationships, the elements of the fourth article of faith point toward the temple and the grand story of connection that the temple contains.  Put another way, the revelation of temple ordinances was built line upon line, precept upon precept, from the very simplest of our doctrines--the first principles and ordinances of the fourth article of faith."

I'm interested.

FDR’s second inaugural address, 1937

Some quotes from that address that seem particularly pertinent to us now and in the coming years:

“To hold to progress today, however, is...difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.”

“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays.”

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

“Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the people receive true information of all that government does.

“If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that these conditions of effective government shall be created and maintained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of injustice and, therefore, strong among the nations in its example of the will to peace.”

You can find the full address at the web site below.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5105/

Reading "Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood", by George MacDonald

“I am now getting old—faster and faster. I cannot help my gray hairs, nor the wrinkles that gather so slowly yet ruthlessly; no, nor the quaver that will come in my voice, not the sense of being feeble in the knees, even when I walk only across the floor of my study. But I have not got used to age yet. I do not FEEL one atom older than I did at three-and-twenty. Nay, to tell all the truth, I feel a good deal younger.—For then I only felt that a man had to take up his cross; whereas now I feel that a man has to follow Him; and that makes an unspeakable difference.”



“I love a parson, sir. And I'll tell you for why, sir. He's got a good telescope, and he gits to the masthead, and he looks out. And he sings out, 'Land ahead!' or 'Breakers ahead!' and gives directions accordin'. Only I can't always make out what he says. But when he shuts up his spyglass, and comes down the riggin', and talks to us like one man to another, then I don't know what I should do without the parson....

“I resolved to try all I could to be the same man in the pulpit that I was out of it. Some may be inclined to say that I had better have formed the resolution to be the same man out of the pulpit that I was in it. But the one will go quite right with the other. Out of the pulpit I would be the same man I was in it—seeing and feeling the realities of the unseen; and in the pulpit I would be the same man I was out of it—taking facts as they are, and dealing with things as they show themselves in the world.”

Sometimes a spoken paragraph or two leaps out at you and you always remember it.

There have been a few times when someone has said something in a General Conference address and it has stayed with me for the rest of my life.  Something I needed to know and remember.  Here are two of them.  Nearly two decades old in my brain and my brain cells continue to bring them up into my consciousness on occasion.

“The adversary will attempt to thwart your mission, and you will face spiritual and physical danger. But if you will focus on the assignments [that the Lord has given you], if you will heed [His] voice, and if you will refuse to reduce mortality to a sight-seeing or a shopping trip, you will return safely home...

“The adversary is delighted when we act like sightseers... or shoppers...preoccupied with the vain things of this world that suffocate our spirits. Satan baits us with perishable pleasures and preoccupations—our bank accounts, our wardrobes, even our waistlines—for he knows that where our treasure is, there will our hearts be also (see Matt. 6:21). Unfortunately, it is easy to let the blinding glare of the adversary’s enticements distract us from the light of Christ.”

Sheri Dew, “We are Women of God”, October 1999

“Measure whatever anyone else asks you to do, whether it be from your family, loved ones, your cultural heritage, or traditions you have inherited—measure everything against the teachings of the Savior. Where you find a variance from those teachings, set that matter aside and do not pursue it. It will not bring you happiness” 

Howard W. Hunter “Counsel to Students and Faculty,” Church College of New Zealand, 12 Nov. 1990), quoted by Richard G. Scott in “Removing Barriers to Happiness”. April 1998

I suspect that those struck me because I, personally, either needed them then and/or needed them later.  Either way, they have been very helpful counsel to me over the years, and I am glad that they were said in my hearing.