It is good for us to be here

I'm sorry for the lack of an entry last Sunday and I apologize that this entry will be rather brief as well.  I was on my spring break and was spending a wonderful evening making crepes for my family with my beautiful girlfriend Julianne.  I was blessed to be able to spend 9 wonderful days in Utah with Julianne and with my family.

Because BYU does not have a spring break, this was my first spring break since my senior year of high school in 1999.  So, needless to say, it was long overdue and much enjoyed.  In addition to the benefits of having some time off from school, it was wonderful to be able to spend a few days at home.  As much as I dislike being away from my family and friends, there is nothing quite like the feeling of coming home to remind me how truly blessed I am.  In my time at home, everyone went out of their way to make sure I had a wonderful break.

Julianne took time away from her work to be able to spend time with me.  My brother and brother-in-law invited me to go skiing with them (which was a true sacrifice on their part because it was my first time ever skiing; meaning that they were compelled to spend half the day helping me get back up every ten seconds after I had fallen).  My parents provided me with a family car and several wonderful dinners.  And so on.  I can truly say that I was the recipient of a tremendous amount of love and attention during this past week, for which I am tremendously grateful.  Like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, I felt like saying, "it is good for [me] to be here" (Matthew 17:4).

Needless to say, it was extremely hard to come back to Texas today.  I have never enjoyed going far from family and friends--even for just a few days.  I enjoy the comfort and support that comes from being close to those that I love.  But unfortunately life does not always work that way.  As wonderful as was Peter's experience with the Lord and other holy beings upon the Mount of Transfiguration, they had to "[come] down from the mountain" (Matthew 17:9) because there was a work yet to be done and there were souls yet to be saved.  And so it was for me.  As much as I would love for my semester to already be over so that I could keep spending time with Julianne and my family, it was time to return to school and the rest of my semester.  (Thanks to the new calendar that Julianne gave me, I know that I only have 47 more days before I will be home for the summer).

I'm grateful for the short break I had and for all of the amazing things that others did for me during that week.  I am truly blessed!

Thy Mind O Man Must Stretch!

"The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo

I have to apologize, but this will be something of an abbreviated post (and all of those reading now smile with satisfactory approval :)).  It seems that graduate school is going to force me to earn my spring break before I get to go to Utah for a week on Friday.  I must confess that sometimes I am not as excited as I ought to be about the wonderful educational opportunities I have been given.  Somehow the pressures of papers to be written and presentations to be prepared co-mingled with the threat of appearing foolish and unprepared during seminar lectures seem to obscure the fact that the opportunity to learn is a rich blessing that very few are blessed to enjoy.  Hopefully I'm not the only person who doesn't always enjoy being stretched by my responsibilities at work, school, church, and home.

But even though the stretching process can often prove to be stressful and, at times, even discouraging, the opportunity to stretch and be stretched is one of the great blessings of this life and part of the reason that we came here.  As any athlete will attest, although it is often unenjoyable, stretching is essential to athletic success.  And so it is in every other field where we seek to accomplish anything of real value.

The Prophet Joseph laid our eternal goal out before us in these words:  "If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or possess the principles which God possesses, for if we are not drawing towards God in principle, we are going from Him and drawing towards the devil....Is not God Good?  Then you be good; if He is faithful, then you be faithful.  Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, and seek for every good thing" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 216-17).  In the midst of that sermon to the sisters of the Relief Society, Joseph alluded to the weightiness of this challenge.  He said, "Search your hearts, and see if you are like God.  I have searched mine, and feel to repent of all my sins" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 216).  Without question, the challenge of becoming like our Father in Heaven is a goal that will require more than a small amount of stretching (some of it very painful stretching), a fact that the Prophet clearly understood.

I am convinced that learning and education are an integral part of our efforts to become like our Father, and this means stretching.  Imprisoned in Liberty Jail, the Prophet Joseph wrote an impassioned plea for just this kind of soul stretching learning and personal growth.  To the saints in Illinois, he wrote, "The things of God are of deep import, and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out.  Thy mind O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity--thou must commune with God" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 137).

Perhaps in these moments of stretching mental exertion, we can see more clearly the truth that such experiences prepare us to do the work of the Lord and ultimately to go where He is.  Challenging as these moments may be, they are precisely what we came here for.  Further, as we reach out with all our capacity, we will realize like Michelangelo's Adam that God has been fervently and anxiously reaching out toward us also, expanding our meager efforts to reach heaven by the might of His hands and the power of His eternal love.

Brett

Beauty for Ashes

The events of this past week at BYU have raised a lot of questions about the history of the Church, and the mistakes that anyone who studies Church history will inevitably run across.  In case you didn't hear about it, a BYU religion professor (whom I know to be a very good man) made some rather unfortunate and offensive remarks about the possible reasons for the priesthood ban.  The event set the Mormon history community, BYU, and probably a few other places on fire, prompting two very important statements from the Church on the matter (found here and here).

My purpose in writing this isn't to delve into the question of the ban or its historical interpretations.  I don't know enough about the history of the ban nor the circumstances that brought it about to make any qualified statements on it.  So I will just let those two statements speak for themselves.  But I believe there is a lesson that flows out of this incident that has been, is, or will be of value to each of us at some point in our lives.  It is the important message that God is able to make something positive out of our often foolish mistakes.  The two Church statements which were issued in the aftermath of this problem are beautifully written reminders to people both inside and outside of the Church that God loves all of His children of all races and is "a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6).

As a student of Church history and as a consummately imperfect soul, I have come to realize that the Lord is consistently making something good out of our mistakes, giving us, as it were, "beauty for ashes" (Isaiah 61:3).  I discovered a classic example of this when I was working for the Education in Zion Exhibit at BYU.  While working there, I had the opportunity to study an obscure Church program known as the Religion Class Program.  The Religion Classes lasted from 1890 to 1929, and had the purpose of providing weekday religious instruction to Latter-day Saint youth who were unable to attend one of the Church's private academies.  In many regards, the idea for this program was ingenious.  In fact, it is the idea upon which the whole system of seminaries and institutes currently rests.  The classes were an important reminder that it is not enough for us to just receive a secular education.  We must likewise be instructed in the principles of light and truth that flow from the mouths of Prophets and Apostles.

The only problem with the Religion Class Program was that it was a dismal failure.  The practice of holding religious classes in the public school buildings (often taught by the regular school teachers) did not create a warm relationship with the non-Mormon community in Utah.  In fact, the Religion Classes were even discussed in the famed Reed Smoot Senate Confirmation Hearings in Washington D.C.  That this function of the classes would create controversy was expected and even predicted before the Church Board of Education established the program.  But what was not expected was the fact that the Religion Classes met with opposition from Stake Presidents, Bishops, and the leaders of the other Church auxiliaries.  These Church leaders saw the program as "a superfluous burden" that unnecessarily duplicated the work of the Primary and other programs.  Hence, during the first twenty years of the Religion Class program's existence, the general authorities made repeated efforts to encourage wards and stakes to support the Religion Classes in their wards and stakes.  In 1929, Church leaders finally decided to eliminate the program by combining it with the Primary Program.

Given this history, one might assume that the Religion Class Program had been a complete and utter failure.  But I see it differently.  In 1911 and 1912 as Joseph F. Merrill--later a member of the Council of the Twelve--began to lay the foundations of the Church's seminary program, he organized a program that avoided almost all of the issues that had plagued the Religion Classes.  I do not have any concrete evidence that Brother Merrill had examined the faults of the Religion Classes, but I am thoroughly convinced that he used this struggling program as a model upon which to build a stronger and more effective program for the education of the LDS youth who could not attend private Church schools.

This year will mark the 100th year of the founding of the first seminary at Granite High School in September of 1912.  In the past 100 years, millions of Latter-day Saints have had their testimonies fortified and their faith built by the program that Brother Merrill built.  It was a revelatory program in every sense of the word.  But I am convinced that even as we celebrate and acknowledge the inspiration and guidance that led to that program, we ought to be grateful that the Lord had allowed an earlier program to experience some hardships and struggles for Brother Merrill to see and then work to correct.  These words of the Lord to the Prophet Joseph remain eternally true: "Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.  For after much tribulation come the blessings" (D&C 58:3-4).  I am grateful for a Father in Heaven who allows us to gain experience not only by success, but occasionally by failure.  And I am grateful for a Savior whose merciful atonement and redemptive power can and does indeed give unto us "beauty for ashes."

Brett